WHY USE WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY FOR THE INTERNET?
An Overview of Wireless Networking
Today many personal computers are connected with phone lines or local area networks (LAN) to gain access to the Internet. Individuals are able to access and share data, applications, services and download information via the Internet. Most of these individuals use their computers in a fixed location where using wires is not possible or not easily done. Wireless can connect your computer system to the Internet or to a network you may already have seamlessly. When most people use the Internet for the first few times they are overwhelmed by the information they find. After a time of using the Internet, it becomes inherant of the problems that may occur while trying to get online or while you are online. Problems like: not connecting; getting bumped off; slowed down to a crawl, or maybe you don't have 3 hours to download a file you need now. This is where using our Wireless technology can and will make using the Internet or connecting to your work system from home fun or at least more possible than before. However, a growing number of applications require mobility and simultaneous access to a network. Until recently, if an application required information from a central database, it had to be connected to a wired network. Wireless LAN enables mobile computers to be in constant contact with servers and each other. Healthcare, warehousing, and transportation and now the Internet are examples of some of the areas which can and do utilize wireless technology. Below is a basic demonstration of how wireless Ethernet LAN works in a peer-to-peer network environment.
Karuna Uppal, a senior analyst with the Yankee Group forecasts that by 2003, about 10 million households will have some type of network. The Yankee Group also estimates 12.6 million U.S. homes will have high-speed Net connections in 2003, compared to 1.4 million U.S. homes with broadband in 1999. Uppal expects that by 2003 the 802.11B wireless standard will beat the slower HomeRF spec. Now, HomeRF is cheaper and supports some voice functions, but business use of 802.11B equipment will push down its price, she adds. Also, look for growing use of Bluetooth, a low-power and short-range radio link technology aimed at portable and handheld devices.
Fast Forward:
Future Internet With millions of new users going online, how will the
Internet keep up? By building ultrafast digital backbones and deploying lightning-quick
technologies to handle the crush.
by Angela Navarrete, PC World Magazine
The Internet's about to crash. Sure, you've heard that dire prediction before, and it didn't come true. But over the next three years, the Net could face a critical shortage of bandwidth. It all begins with millions of new users flocking to the Net. According to Forrester Research, the number of online accounts in the United States alone will grow from the current 28.7 million to 77.6 million in 2002. A significant number of those accounts--Forrester says 16 million--will access the Net over cable or DSL connections that are potentially up to 50 times faster than today's 56-kbps modems. At the same time, many people will use the Internet for videoconferencing, telephony, telecommuting, and online gaming--applications that not only are ravenous for raw bandwidth but demand a level of reliability the present Internet can't provide.
All of which means that three years from now the Net will have to carry way more data than it does today, and do so more reliably. This looming bandwidth crisis has the folks who run the Internet in a tizzy, from local mom-and-pop ISPs to established international telecom giants like Sprint. Players at every level of the Net are frantically scrambling to make the network, from the home desktop to the local ISP to the backbones that tie it all together, faster and more versatile. That costs money, and many of today's ISPs could be priced out of the game. Which is why three years from now, your Internet connection could be faster, your monthly Internet bills higher, and your choice of service providers more limited.
The Last Mile
So what do you need all the bandwidth for? Ask ISPs, telephone companies, and other Internet players, and they'll describe a typical night at home, circa 2002:
Pop's in the living room, videoconferencing via laptop with his broker; while the two of them discuss the latest Internet IPO, he's simultaneously browsing the company's 3D-graphics laden Web page. Mom's telecommuting in the den, using her company's virtual private network and virtual Centrex. Upstairs, junior's playing Quake XXII online, complete with real-time audio heckling. And everyone else on their block is doing the same thing at the same time.
You can't very well do any of that today, largely because of the bottleneck between you and your ISP--the so-called last mile. While business users have a variety of broadband options, including T1 lines and other dedicated, high-speed connections, home users aren't so lucky: They're limited by the modem sitting ontheir desk. Not many home users have switched to ISDN (300,000 in the United States, according to Forrester), and at 56 kbps, today's modems are going about as fast as today's phone lines will let them.
The Next Stretch
Wireless access providers plan to traverse the last mile sing wireless radio frequencies instead of congested copper lines. Voice or data would be transmitted from a dish on your roof the size of a dinner plate to a central office, which would then transmit the information to your ISP. Designed primarily for urban areas, this arrangement could be a lot cheaper than digging up the streets to lay fiber, and it would let businesses take full advantage of Net connection speeds of up to 622 mbps.
Benefits of Wireless
Below is a basic demonstration of how wireless Ethernet LAN works in a peer-to-peer network environment:
Wireless Ethernet LAN
Clients communicate over wireless Ethernet LAN with Server The computers in the picture above must all be in range of each other to maintain the wireless connection. However, most computers require greater range and flexibility since servers are often located on a wired Ethernet LAN somewhere else in the facility or at another site on an enterprise network. (Below) The Access Point solves this problem by connecting wireless clients to an Ethernet LAN.
Wireless LAN / WAN
Access Points connect wireless clients to Ethernet An access point will usually provide up to a 10 mile radius of coverage, with the use of external high gain antennas. Numerous access points will allow wireless clients to roam and function in all the necessary areas. Roaming occurs seamlessly and transparently to the wireless client.
Roaming
Just A Few Features of Our Wireless Technology
Ease of Installation - Wireless products are easily integrated into any existing Ethernet environment. Just plug and play! Any station with an Ethernet interface can be instantaneously provided with a wireless connection to the LAN. No hardware changes are required and no additional drivers or setup software is needed when standalone units are used. Systems not on a LAN that just want to surf the internet, will have a N.I.C. or "Network Interface Card" installed into their existing system.
Data Rates - Our wireless system will operate at high rates of up to 1.54Mbps over the air and down to a guaranteed minimum of 128k. The system monitors the quality of the radio medium and dynamically adapts the transmission rate accordingly. Rate decisions are taken on a per station basis, based on station's capabilities and radio link quality to that specific station.
Mobility and Roaming - Mobile devices can move from one cell to another with no interruption in network services, thanks to the fast and seamless roaming feature of the system. The innovative fast roaming mechanism guarantees uninterrupted network connectivity even when stations move from one cell to another at speeds of up to 70 mph.
Radio Technology - The wireless technology we use is a Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS) technology at 2.4 GHz. No license is required for the operation of the radio links. The effective use of advanced technologies assures reliable and robust wireless connectivity, overcoming the adverse effects of interference and multi path fading and allowing co-existence with other wireless systems in the same geographical area.
Antenna Diversity - We have 2 types of products that either have two integrated antennas or connectors to attach external antennas. The product dynamically selects the antenna providing a higher quality signal, for improved performance. For greater distances, models with external antennas will be supplied & amplification is available.
Form Factor - The SA-PC has the dimensions of a standard PCMCIA card and has a built-in antenna. All the rest of the products are extremely compact, about the size of a computer mouse, that can be wall mounted or set on your desk top.