The content on this page and other DCITA document archive pages is provided to assist research and may contain references to activities or policies that have no current application. See the full archive disclaimer.
Radio muscles in on traditional copper networks
Global telecommunications is entering the most powerfully disruptive period in its history, and Moore's Law has finally evolved from the computer industry to the telecommunications sector, according to a US-based telecommunications executive.
Vern Fotheringham, president and chief executive officer of the Seattle-based APAPTIX, a developer and manufacturer of broadband wireless access equipment, was in Australia recently to review the roll-out of Australia's first next-generation wireless broadband network in the border city of Albury-Wodonga.
‘Already we are seeing mass migration from circuit to packet networks, with software defined solutions and applications challenging discrete hardware platforms,' Fotheringham said.
‘Users are demanding control over their devices and services and we are entering a stage where they can choose a carrier to suit their needs on any given day or part of a day.'
Moore's Law comes from the co-founder of Intel, Gordon Moore, who observed in 1965 that the number of transistors per square inch on integrated circuits had doubled every year since the integrated circuit was invented. Moore predicted this trend would continue for the foreseeable future. In subsequent years data density has doubled approximately every 18 months, and this is the current definition of Moore's Law. Most experts, including Moore, expect Moore's Law to hold for at least another two decades.
‘We are seeing network electronics costing less than civil works, where once the hardware and site acquisition, construction and legal and permit costs were about equal,' Fotheringham said.
‘As recently as three to five years ago the major telecommunications manufacturers were closing multi-million dollar deals selling big circuit switched central offices. Now, all the iron is heading for the bone yard. Packet switching, at greatly reduced capital expenditure costs, is really driving a revolution.'
Fotheringham believes that this is ultimately caused by the convergence of computing and telecommunications. He points out that the power of the microprocessor by consistently increasing in power and performance, while reducing in cost, has led to many innovations in software.
‘We are now at a time in history where computational powers are being applied to solve all types of missions which would have historically been solved through hardware,' Mr Fotheringam said.
‘In the radio space, ADAPTIX is an early leader in the area of software defined radio (SDR) but, although we are an innovator in that space, five years from now that will not be novel. Software defined radios, on the infrastructure side, are clearly going to become the norm.'
ADAPTIX develops and manufactures IEEE 802.16 wireless equipment for point-to-multipoint broadband delivery using its unique OFDMA/TDD ‘fast switching' broadband technique. ADAPTIX has developed a software defined base station and DSP based customer terminals to deliver voice, data and video applications over the ‘last mile', and that supplement, extend or replace wire line infrastructure.
The company's products address an emerging market known as broadband wireless access (BWA). BWA is gaining increasing attention in the broader telecommunications marketplace as a newly viable, carrier class ‘broadband' delivery platform. Current user terminal speeds range from 256/64 kbit/s to 2560/1088 kbit/s with the industry's lowest latency and highest spectrum efficiency. Broadband access, voiceover internet protocol and VPNs have been tested successfully on the first ADAPTIX system installed in Albury in October 2004.
Fotheringham said we are moving from an era of POTS (plain old telephone services) to PANS (pretty amazing new stuff) where tremendous innovation is enabled as users and carriers gain control over every aspect of voice, data and video communications. This is an era where packets of data can be grouped, sorted, redistributed, combined into multimedia formats and authenticated or denied access in real time.
For more information on wireless communication visit Phone Vision Australia at www.phonevision.com.au