Dale’s Web Log

To some, the ability to track the movements of family members using cell phones equates to a violation of privacy. Others – particularly parents, who already are tapping the new technology to keep tabs on their kids – view it as a convenient way to ensure their children’s safety in an increasingly ominous world.

Regardless of who’s right or wrong, one thing is certain: In the not-too-distant future, Location Based Services, or LBS, will become as ubiquitous as cell phones are today. And the new technology is expected to change the way we do business, interact with each other and navigate through our daily lives.

“Location Based Services are the new face of the wireless Internet,” says T. John Kim, a professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Illinois.

Kim, along with U. of I. postdoctoral fellow Sung-Gheel Jang, developed the protocol for the international standard for Geographic Information Systems, described by the U. of I. professor as “the backbone” of LBS. Earlier this year, the standard created by Kim and Jang was adopted and published by the International Organization for Standardization as ISO 19134.

Kim said LBS, introduced on cell phones in Korea and Japan, and just becoming available in the U.S., function through a combination of GIS; information, positioning, and Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) technologies; and the Internet.

“LBS combine hardware devices, wireless communication networks, geographic information and software applications that provide location-related guidance for customers,” Kim said. “It differs from mobile position determination systems such as Global Positioning Systems (GPS) in that Location Based Services provide much broader, application-oriented location services.”

While cars or hand-held electronic devices equipped with GPS may be useful when trying to get from one place to another, LBS go beyond providing routes and directions, functioning much the same way as a hotel concierge.

“For instance,” Kim said, “if it’s my wife’s birthday, and on my way home from the office I need to pick up a birthday cake and a dozen roses, I would want to know not only where is the nearest bakery and floral shop, but where is the cheapest – or the right – place to find these things that I want.”

The technology can be adapted for a wide range of other functions, he said, ranging from relaying locations of people requiring emergency assistance to first responders to providing alerts about traffic congestion.

Kim said the “proactive” decision by the research and standards communities and consumer-products manufacturers to come together and establish an industry standard for LBS before the market is flooded with devices offering concierge services is somewhat unusual, but highly practical.

“It’s about trying to save a tremendous amount of money,” he said.

“Usually when something is coming into the market – take for instance the Beta/VHS video formats – there’s a lot of duplication and waste for consumers.” In this case, “there’s a huge market coming in, so there was agreement that we’d better get started ahead of time.

“My goal is to provide efficient service at the least cost.”

To date, Kim said, 29 nations have endorsed the new ISO standard for adoption.

SOURCE: University of Illinois

Nortel Networks Ltd. sees an opportunity to steal market share from router manufacturers through its provider backbone transport (PBT) business. Philippe Morin, president of Nortel’s Metro Ethernet Networks business, also said Nortel expects to announce a 40Gbps PBT product by the end of the year, during an investor conference call today hosted by Prudential Equity Group LLC analyst Inder Singh.

Nortel was an early supporter of PBT, a controversial technology designed to bring carrier-grade transport features at an Ethernet price point. But a number of equipment suppliers have recently joined the market, as carriers begin to look more closely at PBT.

The technology got a huge boost when BT Group plc announced it would be used in the carrier’s 21CN next-generation network project, a contract that Nortel and Siemens AG won. Outlining his company’s view of the PBT market and the opportunity in it, Morin touted Nortel’s first-mover advantage in the market, due to its early focus on PBT and its BT 21CN win.

The BT win was “a huge vote of confidence,” which has led to a number of trials and interest in Nortel’s PBT solution. “Since January [when the BT win was announced], we’ve been on a lot of planes and in a lot of meetings” with potential customers, Morin said.

Now Nortel believes it can win share in the Ethernet transport space and elsewhere in the telecom equipment market. Believing that in next-generation networks carrier Ethernet and optical technologies will continue to move together, Morin says this will provide an opportunity for Nortel to grab market share from traditional router manufacturers.

But he said that despite the company’s early success, it is continuing to enhance its PBT portfolio. As part of this initiative, Nortel is working on a 40Gbps PBT solution, which Morin said he expects to be launched by the end of the year.

The company is also participating in the standards process and working with other vendors in the PBT space on interoperability. Admitting that PBT is still in early stages of standardization, Morin said that the process is moving quickly but will probably take 18 months to two years to run its course.

Even so, customers don’t appear to be daunted by lack of standardization. “Customers like BT are comfortable with where [PBT] is now,” Morin said. “BT is not waiting for standards to get approved.”

Morin says Nortel is collaborating with PBT players to build ecosystems of vendors and suppliers, and to improve operability among them. He said that with many PBT vendors, Nortel is not competing head to head, but working together to offer end-to-end solutions to customers.

The real competition in metro transport, he says, isn’t coming from other PBT vendors, but from Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) and VPLS (virtual private LAN service) competitors. While Nortel will work to create interoperability with MPLS, Morin believes that PBT offers advantages in metro networks, where “we don’t believe MPLS can scale.”

Despite the BT win and current trials with Tier 1 carriers, Morin believes in the short term that most North American PBT buying decisions will come from Tier 2 companies. Nortel is also targeting MSOs for PBT-based business services and wireless providers looking to extend wireless backhaul networks.

“We’re very happy with market movement and takeup,” Morin says. “We’re happy with the level of [customer] engagements.”

— Ryan Lawler, Reporter, Light Reading

While the Federal Communications Commission moves ahead with planning for the upcoming 700MHz spectrum auction, the White Space Coalition has submitted a second prototype white space wireless broadband device to the FCC for testing. White space devices could use the so-called white space in the current analog television spectrum (2MHz to 698MHz) to deliver wireless broadband service. Former FCC chief engineer Edmond Thomas (and current technology policy advisor for the law firm of Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis, which is representing the Coalition) told Ars that he believes white space broadband could deliver download speeds of up to 80Mbps, which would make it extremely competitive with fiber-to-the-premises solutions like Verizon’s FiOS networks.

The newest white space prototype is manufactured by Philips Electronics of North America and consists of a TV tuner, a digital processing board, and a PC which provides the UI, control, and signal processing. It’s proof-of-concept hardware intended to demonstrate that it’s possible to sense the presence of TV signals and transmit wireless IP data in a way that does not interfere with TV. According to an FCC filing seen by Ars Technica, the new prototype is capable of picking up analog and digital television signals as well as wireless microphone signals (which operate in the same part of the spectrum). It works similarly to the Microsoft-manufactured spectrum sensing device submitted earlier this year. Microsoft also submitted a transmission device to the FCC for testing which will be used to show that white space broadband transmissions won’t interfere with TV signals.

There are a few screenshots in the FCC submission. It’s quite simple: the user selects a type of signal to scan for, and the application shows the results. If the sensing module picks up television transmission on a particular channel, then that part of the spectrum will not be used for white spaces broadband in that particular area.

The goal of the White Space Coalition is simple: take advantage of unused television spectrum to provide wireless broadband. Although analog television transmissions will cease in February 2009, digital TV signals will continue to use the spectrum between 54MHz and 698MHz. That is a highly desirable chunk of spectrum because the signals can easily pass through walls and other solid objects, giving them a much greater reach than WiFi or even WiMAX, both of which operate in higher frequency bands.

Television broadcasters have vigorously opposed the usage of the white spaces, citing fears that wireless broadband will interfere with TV signals. The current round of FCC testing is designed to ensure that the prototype white space broadband devices don’t cause any interference problems at all. “Like the personal/portable prototype devices previously submitted by Microsoft on the Coalition’s behalf, the Philips prototype is designed to demonstrate that operating parameters set forth by the Coalition… will provide incumbent licensees in the television bands with the interference protection to which they are entitled,” reads the FCC filing.

The White Space Coalition is comprised of Dell, EarthLink, Google, HP, Intel, Microsoft, and Philips Electronics. The FCC should conclude its testing of the white space broadband prototypes in July and the first rules governing the use of the spectrum by wireless broadband devices should be released in October 2007. Once that happens, the IEEE will likely begin the work of standardizing the tech. If all goes as planned, white space broadband service could begin in the US as soon as February 2009.

Cisco Systems Inc. is now looking at the prospects of several of its networking divisions introducing WiMax products, according to industry sources, reversing a sometimes combative stance on the emerging wireless technology from the company.

“The wireless, cable, and Linksys groups are all looking at WiMax,” a source tells Unstrung. “These have different motivations and different products.”

Cisco will face the eternal conundrum that it always faces when entering a new wireless market, the source adds: “The question will be, do these internal groups do the work… or who will they buy?”

Another source, however, says at least some of the development is internal and the company is already working on WiMax. This could result in additional WiMax capabilities for its municipal networking offerings.

In the past, WiMAX Forum member Cisco has pooh-poohed the technology’s chances of success as a wide-area wireless access technology. Most notably, when CTO Charlie Giancarlo said the business case for WiMax was “not compelling” in November 2004. The firm has softened its stance a little since then but still has a white paper on its site explaining why it won’t build WiMax base stations.

The company’s official stance on WiMax is still fairly muted. “Cisco always looks at different wireless technologies,” allows Ben Gibson, director of mobility solutions marketing at the firm, but he adds: “WiMax is certainly not nearly as far along in the market as wireless LAN.”

Cisco, however, would by no means be the only major networking company to change its position on WiMax as the market evolves. Just recently, Qualcomm Inc. bought into mobile WiMax, while Ericsson AB decided to get out of the market and concentrate on cellular 4G updates.

Certainly there is more support for WiMax from mobile operators and other service providers now than there was in 2004 or 2005 — when Cisco first got sniffy on WiMax. In the U.S. alone, Clearwire LLC and Sprint Nextel Corp. are working on multi-billion dollar WiMax rollouts through 2008 and beyond.

— Dan Jones, Site Editor, Unstrung