Wilan: 2.5G, 3G Enhancement
While you guys fight it out here I thought I'd
drop in and let you know why some people in the
industry are intertested in Wilan. Their technology
is seen as a likely enhancement to 2.5G and possibly
3G systems (not in the ahndset market but access points)
etc.
Here is an excerp from a study that is getting sone serious
attention especially recently:
" It is reasonable to expect that an 8-PSK-based
modulation can deliver about 5 Mb/s (higher with a diffrent modulation scheme) in peak rate
packet data access as well as increase throughput. The
WOFDM technology discussed here can provide high peak
rates with robust performance that is not achievable in second
or third generation technologies. Combining a high-speed OFDM
downlink with a 3G wireless system such as EDGE appears
to be attractive, providing an asymmetrical access arrange-ment,
requiring new spectrum only for downlinks, and lever-aging
the convergence of IS-136 and GSM with GPRS/EDGE.
CONCLUSIONS
The rapid growth of wireless voice subscribers and the Inter-net,
and the increasing use of portable computing devices sug-gest
that wireless Internet access will grow to be a major part
of telecommunications. Today, the number of wireless data
subscribers is small, with the most formidable obstacle to user
acceptance being the performance limitations of existing ser-vices
and products, including link performance (data rate,
latency, and quality), network performance (access, coverage,
spectrum efficiency, and quality of service), and price. Early
wireless packet data access technologies providing about 10
kb/s transmission rates over wide areas are expected to evolve
or be replaced by technologies providing 40–144 kb/s peak
data rates with IS- 136+, IS-95+, and GPRS technologies. In
the 2001–2003 time frame, the introduction of EDGE and
WCDMA technologies will provide access rates up to about
384 kb/s. WOFDM is expected to support peak bit rates of 2–5
Mb/s in large-cell environments and up to 10 Mb/s in microcel-lular
environments for downlinks. Combining WOFDM with
EDGE will provide an attractive approach for future packet
wireless access based on uplink techniques that are friendly to
the limitations of a terminal’s RF amplifier and limited battery
power; providing a downlink capability with peak rates up to 5
Mb/s; and providing an evolutionary path for the convergence
of IS-136 and GSM based on GPRS/EDGE. "
Where as in the past I used to think that Wi-LAN and WOFDM
had no associatio with 3G at all, that has changed somewhat
recently due to the nature of the 3G roll outs worldwide.
regards
ed.