Siemens Continues OFDM Push

Khoo writes "German telecommunications gear maker Siemens is backing a new kind of broadband wireless technology that will compete with Wi-Fi and 3G cellular services." As we covered recently, speed tests have been up to 360 Mbps and one of the latest rumours is that they will use it in conjunction with VoIP servers. That's unconfirmed, but particularly for new phone deployments, laying no wire would be nice. And Yes, Virginia - ITMJ is part of OSTG, like Slashdot.

Comments

To Clarify:

[Enigma_Man]

ITMJ, part of OSTG reports about OFDM to use VoIP?

Good...

-Jesse

Re:To Clarify:

[Anonymous Coward]

This article is an example that acronyms do not support understanding. OFDM is "orthogonal freqency division multiplexing". In other words, it's a kind of modulation. It does not compete with Wi-fi. 802.11g uses OFDM too.

Re:To Clarify:

[maxwell demon]

ROTFL. BTW, did you RTFA? IMHO you should. YMMV. HAND.
SCNR :-)

Like...

[wongn]

Is new technology for wireless broadband transfer necessary? The 802.11 Wi-Fi standard is still being continually improved, and I can't think of any applications in which either 3G or Wi-Fi aren't the most ideal data transfer... things.

Re:Like...

[Anonymous Coward]

The new 802.11 standards actually use OFDM already.

VoIP for Mobiles is overkill

[Gopal.V]

Of course GSM was digital, YTF couldn't they route those 52 byte voice packets over UDP or something ?. Maybe aggregate them into 1500 byte blocks and push over ethernet or the equivalent with ATM ?.

VoIP works , but I don't see the point for mobiles to run a full IP stack. (oh, yeah I work on a phone with an IP stack and it drains the battery like HELL when in packet services mode).

Re:VoIP for Mobiles is overkill

[gl4ss]

that's exactly the point many people forget when they're hyping up voip for mobiles, that the for _mobile_ use networks already have been tuned for transferring voice as cheaply and well as possible.

(that is, if it really gets cheap enough to build wide coverage other networks they would still have the upper hand- now, they might change gradually into providing general data services rather than clearly seperated voice functionality, but that ain't gonna happen anytime soon totally)

so the ONLY reason to use VOIP over mobile networks would be artificially stupidly twisted pricing structure.

Re:VoIP for Mobiles is overkill

[garcia]

that's exactly the point many people forget when they're hyping up voip for mobiles, that the for _mobile_ use networks already have been tuned for transferring voice as cheaply and well as possible.

For whatever reason I was thinking that the phone would allow you to switch VoIP networks at will. That way, if you were away from home, you could be doing your thing via your provider's network. Then when you got home you could be calling out on your own VoIP solution (whatever that may be).

Re:VoIP for Mobiles is overkill

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that people are looking to VOIP for mobiles shows that mobile phone services are way too expensive. If a technology that consists of adding another layer of overhead can capture people's imaginations, then you know that something's wrong. We're now in the odd situation that raw data over "some network" is often cheaper than when you use the same bandwidth for the original purpose of the same network.

VoIP over mobile phone networks is the natural child of data over mobile phone networks and serves mostly as a straw competitor to the voice functionality of these networks, hopefully bringing prices down.

Re:VoIP for Mobiles is overkill

[edge_crumbler]

Actually it makes a lot of sense to use VoIP on a mobile if the mobile is dual-mode WiFi and GSM. Why put WiFi on a mobile? Well from a VoIP point of view, WiFi, although it has small cells can actually fill in gaps that GSM doesn't cover very well, especially in-building coverage at 1900MHz (US) either at home or the office. This would essentially extend the carrier's network for free (for them). Although there a lot of technical hurdles to overcome IMO, it looks like Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) is coming to a phone near you.

Re:VoIP for Mobiles is overkill

[Tschepsit]

Actually, it becomes much easier for the network to implement new features if the phone is IP-based. It means that the radio access network can be blissfully ignorant as it passes the packets to the application server. Upgrade the application server, and you've got a new feature without even touching the access network (unless it requires a new QoS level).

The problem with integrating new technologies ...

[adzoox]

without adding the old ones too is very confusing and frustrating to users.

Very few Seimens phones I have seen have bluetooth.

Bluetooth has become the MAIN function I use my Sony Ericcson T616 for now - even above and beyond talking on the phone.

I can control my iTunes, PowerPoint, RadioShark, ElGato TV, DVD, and just about any other program. What's even better is I can search for songs and view the song detail right on the phone + control the mouse on screen.

Also with 802.11g which is backwards compatible with b - users will have to have this new standard to even operate - so lines or no lines - it's still confined.

Distance?

[grunt107]

One thing seemilngly always omitted in these 'speed' stories is distance. While a 3x speed increase over 11n - which is 2x better than 11g - is impressive, if the basic assumption that the speeds correlate over the same distance is incorrect, the speed is not all that great. It would take multiple repeater modules to make up for the shortage, limiting its usefulness.

OFDM information

[Mstrgeek]

More onformation on OFDM this site has great information and links plus a forum based on OFDM

http://www.wave-report.com/tutorials/OFDM.htm

What Google Groups is saying about the topic

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=OFDM&hl=en&lr=&s a=N&tab=wg

TROLL ALERT - DO NOT CLICK LINK

[dreamchaser]

Trust me on this one, kids.

3G + VoIP = regular cell phone?

[Gothmolly]

So I can buy a $$$$ device which supports 3G, and run a VoIP app on it so that I can ... talk, wirelessly, to anyone in the world? Wow... what an excellent invention!!!

Re:3G + VoIP = regular cell phone?

[Talez]

Yes. Instead of using up your included minutes or paying extortionate international tarrifs you can route it through a VoIP provider and pay cents per minute for a call to Uzbekistan.

Re:3G + VoIP = regular cell phone?

[Gothmolly]

So I can call Uzbekistan more cheaply, all the while paying extortionate data transfer costs? How do I sign up?

Re:3G + VoIP = regular cell phone?

[Talez]

The idea is you have a carrier that can provide a mobile data cap. Like T-Mobile in the US or Vodafone and 3 over here in Australia.

Not quite as fast as advertised... for now

[Ingolfke]

From the CNET article... "[Flash-OFDM] offers connection rates of 1.5 megabits per second." So the 360Mbps is in the lab, and is not likely to be out of the lab and into your pants (these are cell phones) for several more years. 1.5 Mbps isn't too bad for now though.

Slashdot... news and commentary on par with CBS.

WTFOFDMLOL

[wankledot]

I don't see why OFDM is getting treated like some new tech holy grail. 802.11a and g both use it, and have for a very long time.

360Mbps.....

[maokh]

http://www.siemens-mobile.com/repository/676/67657 /MULTIHOP1_72dpi.jpg .....with 10 meter range, using 500MHz of spectrum. How is this technology practical? Good luck getting licenses in any industrialized nation!

giving GSM a bad name

[Anonymous Coward]

Look who's pushing GSM, Cellular One, AT&T, and Verizon. Yuck.

You can barely make a voice connection on them and the unexpected billing charges will double your bill, and they want to sell picture phones? They're smoking dope.

They press never criticizes its big advertisers, maybe the AARP will kick up a fuss.

Why mark that as a troll?

[Andy Dodd]

I agree. OFDM isn't some sort of holy grail. It doesn't do anything that somehow invalidate's Shannon's Law for channel capacity, and it is quite possible to come within 0.5 dB of Shannon capacity with other modulation schemes. It's nothing special, just another method for modulation that happens to have certain benefits in some situations. (Examples include higher multipath immunity.) The European DVB-T (Terrestrial Digital Video Broadcast) standard uses OFDM and it's been around for a while (at least five years I think.) As the parent said, 802.11a and g use OFDM also.

OFDM is not a magic bullet. It's also not new.

Yes, Siemens' 360 Mbps number is impressive, but to achieve that performance, they either used some very interesting tricks (OFDM not being the key here, possibly a MIMO multiple-antenna system, a technology that is still under heavy research.), or made tradeoffs (high bandwidth or high SNR requirements) that will make the system useless for real-world deployment.

This is the technology Nextel is testing

[FlyerFanNC]

More at nextelbroadband.com. It's currently only available in the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill/RTP, NC area. Too bad I live in Florida now.

Well hmm... sun, warm weather and hurricanes *or* cold, snow, ice and Nextel broadband. I think I'll stay.

Re:This is the technology Nextel is testing

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude since when does North Carolina have cold, snow or ice? According to weather.com they barely hit freezing with their lows in winter, much less their highs in winter. Move to Wisconsin and you'll learn about cold, snow and ice.

Cell phone broadband

[Kumorigoe]

While the appeal of high-speed internet access over a phone is nifty to consider, exactly how much could you get out of it with those tiny screens?

end of the world

[Anonymous Coward]

Every corporation is pushing his own thing. Microsoft is pushing this, IBM pushing that, Sun pushing other. and now Siemens. This is the end of the world.

Better colours

[Anonymous Coward]

http://shit.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/11/1 156210