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Wi-Lan's core patent is 528222 for OFDM (Orhogonal Frequency Division Muliplexing). It expires in 2012.

Wi-Lan is using this to sue users of 802.11 and Wi-Max.

They also acquired several patents from other companies, notably Ensemble for stuff relating to implementing a MAC layer for Wi-Max. "Inovative" ideas such as using a MAC co-processor. There's about 20 of those.

You can find a list of Wi-Lan's patents here:
http://www.wi-lan.com/patents/patents-issued.aspx

These days they are in the business of buying moldy old patents that companies can't be bothered with enforcing and trying take make money off of them.

Wi-LAN claims in their press release that While we prefer to resolve patent infringement through business discussions, we have consistently maintained that litigation was always a possibility when negotiations do not result in a license within a reasonable time. So, at least allegedly, they have been attempting to get this matter resolved through licensing. And since they've been around for 15 years, it seems perhaps not fair to label them as patent trolls.

So I ask you, Slashdotter, imagine this situation. You invent an incremental technological breakthrough, and you patent it. Let's say it involves some esoteric use of carbon nanotubes. Unfortunately, at the moment nobody is manufacturing nanotubes in the quality or consistency that you would need. Basically you have to wait for other tech to mature before your invention can take off.

A few years pass and finally, nanotech is up to the level where your invention could be profitable. You start to ask around to see if other companies are interested in licensing your patent. No takers. Another year passes, and to your shock, products from major companies start to appear on the market that utilize your exact invention. Again you try to work out a license and they all laugh in your face. "Go ahead, try to take us to court. We'll bury you," some legal intern snickers after one heated telephone exchange. Finally, one "patent holding" company offers to buy your invention. Not for much, but for much more than you would otherwise get for it, namely, zero.

Now who's the bad guy in the above scenario? The poor inventor, who couldn't afford to invent all of the other enabling technologies to produce his patent on his own? The patent holding company, who is building up a portfolio from other frustrated inventors? Or the big corporations, who think they're immune from having to pay for intellectual property they expropriate? Or maybe you really think all patents are bad, and if you invent something, your only option is to either give it away for nothing or to try to keep it a trade secret?

My point is: don't be so quick to slavishly kiss up to the corporate overlords and put down every instance of patent litigation. The big corps must be loving the fact that the supposedly free-thinking tech-savvy intellectuals of the world are all lined up in their corner.

According to the article, one of the parties they are suing are D-Link. Wi-LANs litigation page refers to the case as "Wi-LAN Inc. v. D-LINK et al action".

I may be wrong here, but the the image on Wi-LANs patents page looks to me like a D-Link ADSL unit.
Isn't that kind of rubbing it in ...

According to the article, one of the parties they are suing are D-Link. Wi-LANs litigation page refers to the case as "Wi-LAN Inc. v. D-LINK et al action".

I may be wrong here, but the the image on Wi-LANs patents page looks to me like a D-Link ADSL unit.
Isn't that kind of rubbing it in ...

According to the article, one of the parties they are suing are D-Link. Wi-LANs litigation page refers to the case as "Wi-LAN Inc. v. D-LINK et al action".

I may be wrong here, but the the image on Wi-LANs patents page looks to me like a D-Link ADSL unit.
Isn't that kind of rubbing it in ...

For those that are curious, a list of the patents Wi-LAN holds is here:

http://www.wi-lan.com/patents/patents-issued.aspx

I work for one of the companies named in their lawsuits. Out of curiosity I checked out wi-lan's home page.

They have a link to "Litigation" dead center in their page top nav bar. It's good to know they take it seriously :/

I work for one of the companies named in their lawsuits. Out of curiosity I checked out wi-lan's home page.

They have a link to "Litigation" dead center in their page top nav bar. It's good to know they take it seriously :/

Mr Dada posts his little "I have a dream" post every chance he can. The problem as you all have demonstrated is that it fails several litmus tests. Assholes is only one of the problems his scheme has to overcome. Economics is the other.

"This is not true, actually. First of all, transmitters sending more than a minimal signal are costly -- a 50,000 watt transmitter on one frequency would costs thousands a day in power. To broadcast over a wide range of frequencies would cost millions."

He can't even get this right. While there may be a given cost for a given power, all frequencies aren't equal. Two as already pointed out, one doesn't need lots of power to get a message (or even noise) across.

"Secondly, I promote the idea of freq-hopping software radios that utilize technology designed to avoid interference. In my own neighborhood there are about 20 WiFi access points I can see, and I still get great wireless networking at my home. We're sharing bandwidth here, and while there may be some problems, the situation is getting better in an minimally regulated spectrum. Open up the entire spectrum the FCC monopolizes and you'll see much less interference, not more."

Technofaith is cute especially when the faithful has no understanding of the physics behind it. One and two can be taken care of by mass marketing. Three however is just plain physics, and gets worse as more people are added. Oh and did I mention, all frequencies aren't equal (neither are antennas).

"Thirdly, I believe in the power of the market -- the current need to design better freq-hopping transceivers is not very high due to the regulations out there. Over time, though, I believe we'll see more deregulation of various frequencies as the need for more wireless transmissions goes up. I can only hope it happens sooner rather than later."

Well setting aside his "faith" in the market, his argument about the need not being very high because of regulations is false. The need isn't being driven by regulation but by the same force that has always driven development. Economics.

"Look at all the wasted bandwidth right now. We have digital and analog TV, digital and analog radio, cell phones, FRS, and dozens of other "regulated" bandwidths. This is all data -- and digital data is more efficient -- so why not work to slowly deregulate more and more bandwidth so more and more people can take advantage of it?"

Digital faith rears it's head. digital isn't always the best solution to a problem. Plus as I'm certain some of you have witnessed. Analog degrades gracefully. Digital can use FEC, but FEC isn't a "free of cost" solution and takes away from the message.

"Do we NEED analog and digital TV frequencies anymore? Cable and satellite have replaced MOST people's needs for broadcast media, yet BitTorrent is starting to hurt the old media companies, too. Why not use it all for whatever data the user and the sender both need?"

The faithful are often noted for living in their own little world. One cable or satellitle isn't always a solution for everybody. The reasons range from can't get, all the way to can't afford (the same issues Mr Dada's solution will have to face). Two MOST don't have (or can get) broadband (you know...that thing that powers every slashdot business model).

In short DaDa is long on hyperbole, and short on reality.

What would Canada really be losing if it couldn't buy Cisco technology? Canadians can just as easily buy a switch or router from Juniper, Nortel, or D-Link (instead of Linksys, which Cisco bought). Do you forget (or neglect, or not know) that Nortel is a *Canadian* company and a leader in optical, wireless, and VoIP technology? And Wi-LAN was a leader in OFDM networking long before wireless LANs became so popular.

What would Canada really be losing if it couldn't buy Cisco technology? Canadians can just as easily buy a switch or router from Juniper, Nortel, or D-Link (instead of Linksys, which Cisco bought). Do you forget (or neglect, or not know) that Nortel is a *Canadian* company and a leader in optical, wireless, and VoIP technology? And Wi-LAN was a leader in OFDM networking long before wireless LANs became so popular.

Ok so the idea is that you want to own your own hardware. you want it wireless and you want it as a big mesh network.

Have you thought of
Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing?

whitepaper here

It's supposed to be great at handling multipath. and it's the foundation of the G4 mobile phones. There is talk of incorporating it into an 802.11 Wlan standard.

so don't worry about the doomsayers. there are smart people out there trying to make the world a better place.

________________________________________
The Spiders are Coming. Next episode: June 13, 2003

Wi-Lan isn't Wi-Fi (802.11b)- wi-lan is W-OFDM, wireless t1/e1- and they have a great technology for the reception of HDTV so that you don't get the silly black blocks that disrupt signal,-- but instead, the FCC chose to back 8-VSB, an inferior technology.

The greater question is, why is the FCC deciding this? They didn't decide which cell phone technology was going to reign, only which frequencies we'd use.

Sources? http://www.wi-lan.com

commentary: If we were to follow the 'lead' from the ATSC then this is what the future would look like. The Americans are still in denial about the Brazilian (and other) DTT test results (denying the basic facts that a single carrier system can never work for wireless DTT) and have carried out their own tests arriving at their own conclusions using incorrectly configured DVB-T equipment. The sooner the US drops its single carrier 8-VSB based standard in favour of an OFDM solution the better for all concerned. A report summarising why DTV is not happening in the US (example of flawed thinking: DTV does not necessarily mean HDTV). Unfortunately, DVB and ISDB have (so far) been unable to agree on a common OFDM way forward even though both standards are nearly exactly the same (ISDB improved the DVB-T standard with the addition of extra time interleaving, band segmentation and the option for 4k carriers). However, due to the wide acceptance of DVB-T and its myriad other supporting standards it is unlikely that ISDB compliant equipment will ever be deployed outside of Japan.

Take-up of Digital TV in the UK has been the most successful in the world in percentage terms (the US is not far behind); but can it continue to grow at the same pace? ITVdigital, the DTT service provider in the UK, launched with an early (2k carrier) release of DVB-T and had been reasonably successful (although I am sure some would disagree?) with over 1.2 million subscribers up to the end of 2001. Unfortunately, due to a combination of factors ITVdigital are in danger of closing down and are currently in administration. The BBC in their annual R&D review for 2000-2001 (Digital Television Distribution section) list some of the issues associated with DTT in the UK and give an interesting insight into how improvements can be achieved. Thanks to the wealth of experience gained in the UK other European DTT service providers will be able to provide a more advanced and improved service to their customers. Get the insider views on the UK DTT experience from the following newsgroup: uk.tech.digital-tv;

I will repeat myself.
900MHz does *not* require line of sight.
My company has been deploying 900Mhz Wi-Lan Hopper radios for a year now in NON-line of site situations. We are getting 1M of throughput. They work like a champ.

My company (an ISP and CLEC) has been using Wi-Lan for about a year to provide fixed wireless (both point to point and multipoint) internet service to the masses outside the normal wireline broadband ranges. We have been mostly happy with their products.

The coalition that will be deploying the network includes a large amount of wireless deployment as well. Being a large rural province, there is no possible way that $300 million would cover fibre deployment to every government office and school.

My guess is that they will run fibre to each town, probably in conjunction with the local power company (dark fibre), and use wireless to link all the offices to a central POP.

http://www.wi-lan.com/news/press156.html& amp; lt;/A>

Read the list again: Epson Stylus Color 900G FireWire printer, Epson Expression 1600 and Umax PowerLook 1100 FireWire scanners. There are also FireWire CD-R/RW drives, an ORB drive, analog-to-digital video converters, synthesizers, mixers, VCRs, HDTVs, network storage, DAT, DVD-RAM, DVD changer, video editors, camcorders, and data analyzers. RePlayTV even uses FireWire.

Philips recently demoed a wireless FireWire network, fast enough for real-time audio- and video-streaming at 46-Mbit/sec at distances far exceeding 10 meters (BlueTooth maxes at 1-Mbit/s, HomeRF at 1.6 Mbit/s, and IEEE 802.11 at 11-Mbit/s). Check out Wi-LAN, the self-proclaimed future of high-speed wireless, for more info.

Here's another list of FireWire products.

No, FireWire is not for regular modems. But USB does not work for Cable and DSL modems, either. FireWire could substitute for the Ethernet port in broadband application. USB cannot.