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Germans Reach 360 Mbps in Mobile Network Tests
povvell writes "German telecomms giant Siemens has managed to hit speeds of an astonishing 360 Mbps in field tests in the centre of Munich using 'orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) and the so-called multi-hop technology'. This is not the only demonstration of OFDM producing super fast wireless speeds, as other companies are also working on variants of the technology. It surely can't be long now before we're all streaming the latest blockbuster movies to our laptops on the commuter train home?"
Distribute full length David Hasselhoff movies in mere seconds! Fear!
360mbps seems like alot for wireless, considering the mess 108mbps (by using 2 different spectrums) created, what would a multiple dynamic frequency wireless setup leave us...what happens when you have 50+ different networks together?
Not long at all. And about ten minutes after that, the two RIAA agents will enter the carriage with an alsatian, escort you off the train at the next station and you will never be heard from again.
Okay, let's get some raw movie stats. Assume plain RGB pixmap flipping at 24 frames per sec, movie size. That's 720x480, three bytes per pixel.
That's about 1 Megabyte a second, or 8 Megabit. Add another 256 Kilobits/sec for audio (Mp3, Vorbis, or AAC, anyone?) and that's 10 Megabit and change.
Isn't Divx compression good?
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
Didn't Tesla predict infinite bandwidth in the wireless spectrum by combining frequencies in certain combinations? ..
--- We need more Ron Paul!
Okay, but how does that work - is that 360Mbps per cell, or per connection per cell? Big difference there if it has to be split up for each user on a cell.
:)
Oh, and if you're gonna dream, forget about the laptop - watch the movie on some LCD glasses or something.
Certain statements in this release, other than statements of historical fact, may include forward-looking information that involves various risks and uncertainties. These may include, without limitation, statements based on current expectations involving a number of risks and uncertainties related to all aspects of the wireless communications industry.
. . . you can be pretty confident that you are reading a press release. This was written by the company that owns the equipment used in the test. This is essentially an advertisement.
http://www.busyweather.com/
That's a double sided DVD in 3 minutes.
I'm sorry, but if the DVD takes longer to download than it takes the microwave to heat a HotPocket, I'm still going to be annoyed.
SO why am I still paying $30 dollars for a lucky-if-I-can-get-300kbps-all-the-time-connection
and calling it broadband ?
..And the people bowed and prayed, To the neon gods they made.
It is relatively easy to do 360Mbps given the whole radio spectrum to play with. It's a lot harder when it is necessary to coexist with all other users or a limited bandwidth is available.
The article doesn't give such information so Siemen's acheivement may be impressive, or then again it may not.
It'll be harder to realize any type of high speed wireless that is affordable here in the US. We'll have to see what WiMax eventually does.
So I'm gonna shoot all my Blockbusters in Black and White for an even faster download.
Anyone seen my jagged little pill?
Didn't Tesla predict infinite bandwidth in the wireless spectrum by combining frequencies in certain combinations? ..
Isn't the range of frequencies available for combination itself the bandwidth?
Wider band of frequencies => sharper pulses can be formed by fourier synthesis => more 1s and 0s transmitted in a given time-frame?
> It surely can't be long now before we're all streaming the latest blockbuster movies to our laptops on the commuter train home?"
Well, except for the Americans, who will get it 15 years after everybody else does, but claim they invented it.
Because your cable company still has to pay off the bonds it issued in the 80s to put the cable in the ground in the first place.
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
Now i can find a nice wireless hotspot and download faster then ever before. Who needs to pay to use dial up when wireless is faster and "free".
Since almost all servers are not connected to better than 100Mbps (I haven't been on that side of the eq since 1998 so I'm making assumptions, 'scuze me if I'm wrong) , network congestion, etc, I never see the full bandwidth of my 4Mbps line used on one task. 360Mbps might make for an impressive show of ability, but that has limitations at other bottle necks.
The only immediate application I can think of for is setting up temporary offices where you don't want the expense of cabling, but even then you quickly fill the RF bandwidth.
Bacardi + slashdot = negative karma.
I'm moving to Munich, Germany!
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
"It surely can't be long now before we're all streaming the latest blockbuster movies to our laptops on the commuter train home?"
Why would you leave the house in the first place?
Welcome to 2002.
"It surely can't be long now before we're all streaming the latest blockbuster movies to our laptops on the commuter train home?"
Actually, you'll be doing it in your flying car.
It surely can't be long now before we're all streaming the latest blockbuster movies to our laptops on the commuter train home?"
Especially in the US it can take quite a while to deplay. Since this likely will end up with service providers, you surely don't expect that they would offer the maximum bandwidth for short change do you? Likely, it would be metered or used for last mile, since interconnecting landline circuits would be a lot slower.
It surely can't be long now before we're all streaming the latest blockbuster movies to our laptops on the commuter train home?
Not those of us living in the US. Surely you don't expect this technology to come to America any time soon. We are always the last to get the really cool stuff.
Technoli
Anyone who knows care to explain the difference between OFDM and CDMA? They sound very similar to me.
I remember Cisco offering a product six or seven years ago that did vectored orthogonal frequency division multiplexing. It could do 45mbps non-line of sight as point-to-point or as a unidirectional 28 channel T1'looking setup al la Cisco 2600 WIC Cards. I wonder how this is different.
MORGEN DIE WELT!!!!!!!
crowd rises in unison, tosses old telco equipment on raging fire...
"In the train" sounds good for 360Mbps, because each metal container will hold about 200 people max, which is at least about 1.8Mbps each. For Munich's 1.5M people, that's about 240bps, using a single hotspot. Such a system is better deployed by the city itself, for its mobile services. That doesn't feed bandwidth directly to the citizens, but rather to teams of people, like a fire engine with a WiFi gateway for WLAN.
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make install -not war
"It surely can't be long now before we're all streaming the latest blockbuster movies to our laptops on the commuter train home?""
Gee I can't imagine why people see slashdotters as hypocrites? A new technology comes out and the FIRST thing we want to do with it is download movies. Can't you guys think of anything else that doesn't involve the supposed object of your hate?
Two authorities:
...)
1) Heinlein's "Waldo"
2) What happens when many different frequencies exist in the same medium at the same time? You get localized extreme energy spikes. It took, oh, 200 years for this to be understood as actually happening on the ocean, although the math was clear that it would be expected.
For ubiquitous wireless signals? Oh, probably no worse than upping the background level of energetic cosmic rays by a few orders of magnitude, and it wouldn't be provable harm so no economic cost involved to the industry should it happen.
Same as with shipbuilding -- math said the waves would be there; but nobody on a really big ship ever came back reporting a really big wave, for many years, so they kept building them.
(And losing them steadily
Worth considering.
Viz: http://www.ifremer.fr/metocean/conferences/wk.htm
"We are always the last to get the really cool stuff."
We got Al Gore before everyone else.
And a bit more rigorously worked out here, for two slightly different waves interacting. Imagine more than two... http://www.ams.org/new-in-math/roguewaves.pdf/
Doubtful, if the current trends in American markets keep up, it would be a decade easy before we get to this point. If you don't belive me, just look at this link it's more profitable for a company to offer slower service, not upgrade, and charge by the Kilobyte, rather then broadband us.
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Thats faster then the speed on most American Cable Internet / DSL connections. America has horrible technology when it comes to internet connectivity. I want my European 100Mbps lan connection.
http://shit.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/29/2 333252
Of course. Even the all-you-can-eat places are counting on their being limits. Whomever told the geek community that there are no limits lied to us.
If geeks really want what they want? Then they're going to have to show the powers that be that it's in there own interest to give the geeks what they want.
So far all that has been shown is how the technology can be abused, to the powers that be's detriment.
"You scratch my back, I'll claw your eyes out."
Completely off the planet, but I wonder if the 'big bang' was just a rogue wave?
EVDO won't be the last big speed-hop from them for awhile. I'm pretty certain that within the next ~5 years they'll muscle LG and Moto into making handsets and NICs based on some new tech and declare CDMA 1X/EVDO dead. Then the 1 - 2 years of "conveinient customer upgrades" mayhem will ensue and even newer service plans with more loopholes and pratfalls that the U.S. taxcodes will also ensue. I work for them and have seen it all before.
One thing is for certain. "Cellular" as we know it will go away soon and both voice and all other datas will become one, at least from the technical overview. Actually, that's already happened from the network standpoint in some cases. Look at the VOIP techs used for PTT (annoying walkie-talkie like services like Nextel) by Sprint, VZW and soon Cingular/Tmo. However, as long as a distinction between voice usage and other data services can be made in the Joe Common Customer mind then there will be endless, confusing and overpriced plans to give these things to the customer. Nevermind the little man behind the curtain, just worship and obey the great wizard!
Something else to mention on that note, as sysadminery becomes more advanced (well, when they start to get a clue...) these wireless cariers will be better suited to restricting unpaid services. Gone will be the days of unlimited 1x (and soon EVDO data) on Sprint's network by signing up for a particular plan and purchasing a $20 data cable.
My apology for getting a bit off-topic there but that is my forecast of high-speed wireless data in the U.S. based on current business practices. The wireless cariers have found their new cash cow and it involves we customers chasing a carrot on a stick. It's far too late to vote with our feet IMHO. That is unless Tmobile keeps up their great service. But that's just how I see things.
This article seems to imply that OFDM (used in 802.11a and 802.11g) is somehow a "new" technology. It isn't. It turns out to be quite hard to find the oldest use of OFDM, because it appears to have been used in military systems which were classified long before it became publicly known. However, the oldest published document I know of is a patent for orthogonal frequency multiplexing, filed in 1966 (granted in 1970) by Robert W. Chang of Bell Labs. I don't remember the patent number off the top of my head. :-)
The real change to get enormous data rate with increased spectral efficiency (which you'll really need...) over a useful range is MIMO (multiple input multiple output) which uses spatial diversity to effectively create many spatially diverse (mostly) independent communication channels simultaneously on the same frequency channel.
Methods combining OFDM and MIMO make up all of the front running proposals for the future 802.11n standard currently in the works.
Well, Claude Shannon showed that, with a perfect modulation and error correction scheme, you could only push so much data over a given communications media, with a given amount of bandwidth and SNR. If you want more, you have to either
Since background noise is not controllable, they would have to be doing one of the first two (effectively increasing radio pollution), or overcoming inefficiencies in a previous modulation scheme.
Anyone know how close the various 802.11 standards are to the shannon limit?
-jim
"Since background noise is not controllable"
Controllable no. Maybe biology has the answer though. Especially when you consider communications that use ultralow everything.
Chaos theory could help in using noise instead of fighting it.
...but how is power consumption looking for long-range wireless transmissions on the user end? Is it going to drain laptop batteries in a heartbeat? I know there'a a large power difference between Bluetooth and Wifi, how big is the jump to the new long-range wireless plans?
You had neither the first satellite in orbit nor the first man in space, nor did you create the first modern rocket.
You did not discover Fission neither did you understand the theory behind it.
Oh, and you didn't invent computers.
Now, you sure are proud of being the first nation creating the Nuclear Bomb and USING it.
Move Sig. For great justice.
Did anyone else read that as "ornithological frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)" at first, or is it just me?
The Ezine Directory
Last night, as I sat in bed, I channel hopped and ended up watching BBC 3 on my bedroom TV which receives it's signal through a small set top antenna. In fact that TV can pick up over seventy TV and Radio channels through that antenna.
Why? Because DVB-T, the terrestrial form of the DVB digital television standard uses OFDM to ensure signal reliability. There are roughly eight TV channels per multiplex at PAL resolution which is quite a bandwidth. So how is this new?
"It surely can't be long now before we're all streaming the latest blockbuster movies to our laptops on the commuter train home?" If you have ever used a german train you wouldn't have made this comment. Although there are relieable and fast, a mobile connection is the last thing you can hope for. It feels a bit like no longer being in germany once you entered a train. So no matter what connection speed, expect gaps from 5 sec to 15 min in your movie... wait than a David Hasselhoff movie can even be fun...
"People who are willing to sacrifice essential freedoms for security deserve neither freedom nor security."
B F
the story never changes, only the numbers. Actually, the number don't even change, just the units of measurement.
or else!
Okay, you're still off with 300kbps?
Here, where you can dl a DVD within ~3mins while filling up your car and pay or waiting for the bus, the standart is abouts 768kbps and will soon be upgraded - by most companies think - to a full 1024kbps...
Mobile net is all very good, but will this actually be affordable by the average person? Most households are fine with paying a monthly fee in the region of around 10 - 25 quid for either unlimited adsl or old dial-up but mobile phone companies seem to think that they have to rip us off or else they don't get to eat! GPRS is still charged in cave-man prices, If anyone is prepaired to offer a proper mobile internet service, flat-rate at the same monthly fee as adsl then i reckon most people would drop their home connections and switch to this - even if it was only 256k/s!
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Erm. The press release claims that 360 Mbps is "around one hundred times faster than the fastest DSL connection available today." In Sweden you can get 8 Mbps ADSL connections, and 26 Mbps VDSL. Or is there some sort of special maths going on here that I'm missing?
I still feel scared by Kat and its two-way movement front leds...
Your head a splode
Maybe because you live in the US where the telecommunications companies maintain an imposing presence in Washington DC.
MIMO Systems == Multiple Input Multiple Output Systems
http://www.signal.uu.se/Research/rdiversity.html
"So then why are you carrying around that long ethernet cable?"
"It doesn't go to the laptop, it goes to the transmitter -- It's only got a 6 inch range.
(something like that actually happened at one computer lab where I worked.. They tried getting a cordless phone to use in the lab, but all of the computers generated so much interference that it only had a 3 foot range, so we ended upsing a regular phone with a 40 foot extension cord)
In this case, I realize it's probably better than that, but it twigged a memory.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Orange in the UK did this ages ago. Admittedly it took 36,000 phones connected in parallel, but hey our GPRS system is up there with the rest of the world guys.
I thought these guys were all out of work. I guess like everyone else, they turned to IT for an alternate career.
http://www.teslatheband.com/home.aspx
There are roughly eight TV channels per multiplex at PAL resolution which is quite a bandwidth. So how is this new?
Does your TV Stream 8 TV channels back to the stations?
Do you Gentoo!?