Many Areas, Many Standards

1
Many Areas, Many Standards

• DAB digital audio broadcasting (digital radio)
• Bluetooth wireless PAN Personal Area
  Networking
• Wi-Fi wireless LAN
• Wi-Max wireless MAN
• GSM 2.5G mobile phone system using GPRS
• UMTS 3G successor to GSM using W-CDMA

2
DAB digital audio broadcasting

• Also known as Eureka 147 (EU-funded research
  project number 147)
• DAB radio aims to provide high-quality audio with
  multimedia (usually text and image) subchannels
• In reality, most DAB stations are broadcast at
  relatively low bit-rates with compromised quality
• The UK has the world's most developed DAB
  infrastructure 2006, 2007 by far, but mostly in
  London

3
DAB, the new standard

• DAB has been around for a long time (late 1980's)
• DAB is new (November 2006) and much improved
• DAB compression is about 4 times as efficient as
  DAB
• We can have more stations or higher quality (or a
  bit of both)
• But DAB is not compatible with current DAB
  recievers
• Countries that waited will go straight to DAB

4
Bluetooth

• Named after king Harald "Bluetooth" Gormson
  (935-986) of Denmark and Norway
• It is a specification for wireless personal area
  networks or PANs
• Bluetooth is a short-range digital radio
  networking protocol used to connect devices (e.g.
  PCs, phones, laptops, printers, cameras)
• It uses a globally unlicensed short-range radio
  frequency

5
Bluetooth

• Developed and licensed by the Bluetooth Special
  Interest Group (currently at version 2.0 in 2007)
• It is meant to be secure and reliable, replacing
  tangles of wires on desktops and in cars
• It is designed for low power consumption
• Range depends on power use 1, 10 or 100 metres
• Uses low-cost transceiver microchips in each
  device
• Voice and data up to 3.0Mbps

6
Wi-Fi wireless LAN technology

• Wi-Fi is a network-cable replacement technology
  (compare with Bluetooth)
• Wi-Fi network areas are called hotspots
• Originally intended for laptop PCs and areas
  where cables were impossible (gardens, listed
  buildings)
• Now used in many consumer items (VoIP phones,
  games consoles)
• Used in the Nintendo DS and Wii, Sony's
  PlayStation Portable and PlayStation 3

7
Wi-Fi wireless LAN pros and cons

• Cheap and easy to use
• World standard, widely available
• Chipsets and standards getting better with time
• Inconsistent frequency usage across world
• Power-hungry chipsets bad for portable devices
• Basic security easy to crack, newer security
  layers much better

8
WiMax Wireless MAN

• WiMax is a wireless Metropolitan area network,
  in other words a wide-area network (c.f. Wi-Fi, a
  LAN)
• It supports speeds of up to 70Mbps in ideal
  conditions
• Reliably provides 10Mbps at 10Km range
• It's a DSL cable replacement technology
• Works best with line-of-sight connections

9
Mobile phones GSM, UMTS

• GSM (Global System for Mobiles) uses
  GPRS(General Packet Radio System) for voice
  data
• GSM is a 2.5G system with over 2 billion users
  worldwide, in over 200 countries
• GSM is limited to about 14Kbps (theoretical max
  of 140Kbps)
• UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecoms System) usually
  uses W-CDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple
  Access) for multimedia data
• UMTS is a 3G system with limited but growing
  support
• UMTS has a maximum throughput of about 14Mbps but
  is usually limited to 384Kbps

10
Summary

• We have seen a few different areas of technology
• Consumer radio changing from analogue to digital
  and expanding to multimedia data capabilities
• Wireless communication systems at different
  scales, each serving different purposes
• Mobile phones changing from analogue to 1G, 2G,
  2.5G and 3G, gaining speed and multimedia
  capabilities
• Some phones have GSM, UMTS, Wi-Fi and DAB!
• The key word is convergence

11
Links and reading

• Bluetooth - wireless personal area
  networkinghttp//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth
  
• Wi-Fi wireless local area networkinghttp//en.
  wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi
• WiMAX / WirelessMANhttp//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
  WiMAX
• Global System for Mobile Communicationshttp//en
  .wikipedia.org/wiki/GSM
• Universal Mobile Telecommunications
  Systemhttp//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UMTS

12
Links and reading

• World DMB world-wide digital broadcasting
  NGOhttp//www.worlddab.org/technology.php
• Digital Audio Broadcasting (unstable
  page)http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_audio_
  broadcasting
• Digital Radiohttp//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digita
  l_radio
• Radioscape a digital radio solutions
  providerhttp//www.radioscape.com/
• Images http//www.pocketpcmag.com/_archives/Jun06
  /images/Jun06_p13_1.jpg, http//upload.wikimedia.o
  rg/wikipedia/en/6/6f/Bluetooth.PNG,
  http//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/81/Wi-F
  i_logo.png, http//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/
  en/0/08/Wmx_forum_color_logo2.png