"Human Beings trade health and security with convenience"
December 2005: WLAN Market Overview
Worldwide LAN equipment revenue grew to $735.6 million in the third quarter 2005, and is expected to reach $4.2 billion by 2008.
WLAN switch revenue jumped 18% to $95.1 million and is forecast to reach $746.5 million in 2008.
Source: Infonetics Research.
Public WLAN
Wireless LANs have begun to spread into the public arena as well.
These public area access locations, are called "hotspots"
Sept. 2004: Goldman Sachs estimates there are currently 100M Wi-Fi users worldwide.
Wi-Fi use grew 70% in 2003. In-Stat/MDR estimates 95% of laptops sold in 2005 will have
built-in Wi-Fi capability.
- iPass
The Virtual Network Operator - Pointshot Wireless
- Defacto Wireless
- Boingo
- inter-touch
In Shanghai at Hotel Intercontinental in Feb 2004, I was charged 4RMB per minute (about 40 eurocents per minute) for broadband consumption in the room. - ST Wireless Broadband
In Hong Kong at Novotel in Feb 2004, I had to buy pre-paid ST cards. 3 Hours of prepaid WLAN access cost forty Hong Kong dollars. - alvarion
- Picopoint
- Mobilstar
- Monzoon
- Karlnet
- Intersil
- Globalzone WLAN
- NYC wireless
Live television to Wi-Fi-enabled devices in public hot-spots
- OnAir Entertainment
Personal entertainment service designed for Wi-Fi Hot Spots > OnAir Entertainment delivers live television to Wi-Fi-enabled lap-tops and PDAs in public hot spots, including airports, train sta-tions, hotels, convention centers, trains, and planes. The company has developed a media server for hot spots that lets users watch live satellite or cable television and video-on-demand (VOD) content with full personal video recorder functionality, and download music, movies, and games.
May 2005: Top Ten Unwired Places in the United States:
1. Seattle, Washington
2. San Francisco-San Jose-Oakland, California
3. Austin, Texas
4. Portland, Oregon-Vancouver, Washington
5. Toledo, Ohio
6. Atlanta, Georgia
7. Denver, Colorado
8. Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina
9. Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota
10. Orange County, California
802.11x
By 2005, despite the recession and lower corporate budgets for information technology, some 90 percent of all professionals and telecommuters expect to use high-speed wireless data, two-thirds of all corporations expect to make critical enterprise applications available wirelessly.
Wi-Fi North America
The number of frequent Wi-Fi users in North America is expected to grow
from 4.2 million in 2003 to over 31 million in 2007. The astounding demand
for Wi-Fi has helped fuel over $1 billion (U.S.) in new wireless hardware
sales for 2002. That number is expected to double in 2003 and grow to more
than $3 billion by the end of 2004.
The number of Wi-Fi hot spots (points where users can connect to the Internet
without wires) is exploding. Many companies are creating them to attract
tech savvy consumers to their facilities. For example, Starbucks (Nasdaq:SBUX)
already has 2,000 hot spots and McDonalds (NYSE:MCD) should have 300 by the
end of the year. The number of commercial hot spots will jump from an estimated
9,700 this year to nearly 50,000 by 2006.
Aug 5, 2003:
SBC Communications Inc. (NYSE:SBC), the No. 2 U.S. local telephone company,
unveiled a plan to deploy more than 20,000
hot spots in hotels, airports, convention centers and other venues frequented
by business customers in its 13-state territory by the end of 2006.
Wi-Fi Standards 802.11x
- 802.11
Original WLAN system based on DSSS modulation in the 2.4 GHz ISM band, running at 1 or 2 Mb/s.
- 802.11a
OFDM modulation in the 5 GHz band, running at 6, 9, 12, 18, 24, 36, 48 or 54 Mb/s.
- 802.11b
DSSS/CCK modulation in the 2.4 GHz band, running at 1, 2, 5.5 or 11 Mb/s.
- 802.11e
Quality of Service (QoS) extension, using FEC (Forward Error Correction), useful for multimedia applications. Still in draft state.
- 802.11g
Mix of DSSS, CCK and OFDM modulations in the 2.4 GHz band, combination of .11a and .11b packets in a single band.
:. Wireless-G
:. IBM on 802.11g
- 802.11h
Transmit Power Control and Dynamic Frequency Selection extensions, necessary to be compliant with European regulations. Still in draft state.
- 802.11i
Security enhancement extension, using the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm defined by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to replace DES. Still in draft state.
- 802.15
The IEEE 802.15 Working Group develops Personal Area Network (PAN) consensus standards for short distance wireless networks.
The IEEE P802.15.3 High Rate (HR) Task Group (TG3) for Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPANs) is chartered to draft and publish a new standard for high-rate (20Mbit/s or greater) WPANs. Besides a high data rate, the new standard will provide for low power, low cost solutions addressing the needs of portable consumer digital imaging and multimedia applications.
- 802.20
On 11 December 2002, the IEEE Standards Board approved the establishment of IEEE 802.20, the Mobile Broadband Wireless Access (MBWA) Working Group.
The mission of IEEE 802.20 is to develop the specification for an efficient packet based air interface that is optimized for the transport of IP based services. The goal is to enable worldwide deployment of affordable, ubiquitous, always-on and interoperable multi-vendor mobile broadband wireless access networks that meet the needs of business and residential end user markets.
Contributions to IEEE 802.20 Session 3: 21 -24 July 2003
Broadband Speed Testing
Short Range Wireless Technologies
June 2004: Electronics makers are pushing two short-range wireless technologies, Bluetooth and Ultra Wideband. Ultra Wideband is a year away from launch and, unlike Bluetooth, can transfer vast amounts of data between devices, which is needed to stream video from a DVD player or transfer pictures from a digital camera to a computer. The devices have to be a few meters apart, which means it will not compete with Wi-Fi, which covers a 100 meter radius. Bluetooth is an energy-efficient replacement of wire connections for modest amounts of information. It is used between cell phones and peripherals such as microphones, for hands-free calling in cars and to control industrial equipment, among other connections.
Bluetooth
Bluetooth enables easy synchronization of mobile devices with PC applications, data exchange and m-commerce applications within a radios of 10 meters (best case up to 100 meters). Hardware that complies with the Bluetooth wireless specification ensures communication compatibility worldwide (adopted by component and device manufacturers). It has the potential of becoming the standard for short-range, peer-to-peer and home networking of devices and appliances.
- Operates in the 2.4 GHz Industrial-Scientific-Medical (ISM)
(unlicensed !) band. Packet switched. Low cost.
- 10m range: 1mW transmission power
- 100m range: 100mW transmission power (long-range Bluetooth) - non line-of-sight transmission through walls and briefcases
- bandwidth 1-2 megabits/second
- built-in security, 128-bit key
- every Bluetooth chip has a unique ID number
- connections are established automatically, yet must be authorized one-by-one by the user (bonding)
- supports up to 8 devices in a piconet (two or more Bluetooth units sharing a channel)
- easy integration of TCP/IP for networking
- Bluetooth
Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) official homepage - Bluetooth
The European Bluetooth Web page - Connectblue
Bluetooth Solution Provider
NFC
- Near Field Communications (NFC). It is backed by Sony, Nokia and Philips, while Visa is keen to use it for secure wireless payment systems. Holding two devices a few centimeters from each other allows NFC chips to connect and automatically execute all the procedures that consumers find so hard to do, such as pairing Bluetooth devices, initiating payment protocols between a phone and a shop till or adding a new product to a home network.
ZigBee
- Zigbee
ZigBee is a standards-based technology that addresses the unique needs of most remote monitoring and control and sensory network applications. ZigBee is about low cost, low power solutions that will enable broad-based deployment of wireless networks that are able to run for years on standard batteries for typical monitoring application. ZigBee provides the network, security and application profiles layers for the IEEE 802.15.4 global standard for reliable, low-power, wireless data communications. June 2004: The ZigBee technology, backed by Motorola, Honeywell, Samsung Electronics, ABB, Invensys and Mitsubishi Electric, will also be used in lighting and energy systems in new buildings in two to three years.
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