Spider’s web of systems to cover whole cities
Broadband originally referred to the backbone telecommunications infrastructure owned by operators, but the marketing sector adopted the term, now used to describe any technology that provides connectivity between the subscriber and the backbone network, otherwise referred to as the last mile, says Andy Bauer, chief technology officer at Business Connection.
This includes mobile data connectivity, ADSL, leased lines, fibre cable to home or business premises and wireless services such as iBurst, MyWireless and WiFi when used in a wide area network, such as hotspots.
Broadband communication provides the foundation for triple play – users’ access to voice, data and video over the same communication pipeline.
The maximum broadband speed available in SA is 4mbps compared with 10mbps in the UK, 10 mbps in the US, 40mbps in South Korea and 100 megabits in Japan. Then there is ultrawideband – short-range, high-speed technologies that include Bluetooth. These originally allowed devices to exchange data wireless over distances up to 10m at speeds of up to 10mbps, Brauer says.
He says a recently introduced antenna that plugs into a laptop increases Bluetooth’s range to as far as 10km at speeds of up to 200mbps.
“In theory, this means a user can synchronise data between his mobile device and laptop from 10km away.”
There will eventually be convergence between the various wireless and mobile broadband and ultrawideband technologies, Brauer says.
It will happen through orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) technology, which is already being used in Bluetooth, WiMAX and 3G/HSDPA, Brauer says.
“The latest 802.11n version of the WiFi standard is also using some of the same technologies as WiMAX.” Similarly, the mobile data communication technology HSDPA will move to HSOPA (high-speed orthogonal packet access.)
Convergence will allow users to connect to different broadband services in exactly the same way with a single device at a lower cost.
The main protagonist behind the drive for technology convergence is the Federal Communication Commission (FCC), which controls allocation of radio frequency spectrum globally, Brauer says. “There is only so much spectrum to go around.”
Brauer says in future the combination of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing and cognitive radio technology will allow wireless and mobile services to run across multiple spectrum frequencies, resulting in more efficient use of the limited spectrum available and more users will be able to connect without causing congestion. “We can expect to see this technology by 2010 or 2011.”
When this happens, regulations will be needed to ensure that this capability is not abused and that certain frequencies are reserved for specific use, such as emergency services, he says.
One of the problems with wireless communication is that service providers do not always keep to their allocated spectrum, and this causes interference especially with frequncies close together.
Then there are the spectrums that get overcrowded because they do not require a license, like the 2.4 gigahertz frequency, used by technologies such as Bluetooth, microwave ovens and WiFi, amoung others.
WiFi technology was originally used in wireless local area networks and more recently moved to wireless hotspots, Brauer says.
When there are so many hotspots that they overlap, it forms a mesh or metropolitan network that could cover an entire city or even longer distances connecting one province to another like a spider’s web.
Brauer says within the next five years the introduction of cognitive radio will allow different communication technologies such as HSDPA, WiMAX, iBurst and Bluetooth, to operate within the same mesh.
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