Netgear have released a new wireless access points with claimed speeds of up to 240Mb/s, beating that of wired networks of 100Mb/s (though modern Ethernet wired networks can now go up to 1000Mb/s or 1Gb/s and faster).
Actual speeds are likely to be much less, especially as more devices are added to the network as each to a degree will compete for bandwidth. However 100Mb/s speeds are potentially achievable, which is suitable for streaming music and video around the house (even High Definition/HD TV).
In order to achieve these high speeds, ALL the devices in the (wireless) network must use the RangeMax 240 system, though it will interoperate with older RangeMax and 802.11b/g systems.
Speed gains using clever encoding
The RangeMax kit uses an underlying technology known as MIMO (Multiple-Input Multiple-Output) which uses many aerials on the base station to “steer” the beams to the particular client. Each beam can use different frequencies. This allows data resilience and as different frequencies will travel differently through walls etc, this means the system works better than straight 802.11b/g systems. Using multiple beams means more bandwidth (each beam can handle X amount of data, so two beams mean 2X data), however as multiple frequencies are used, there’s actually a greater increase (each frequency also can transmit a certain amount of data). This all gets very complicated, but is known as Spatial Multiplexing and adaptive channel expansion. RangeMax also uses adaptive channel selection to avoid channels (frequencies) that are being used by other systems.
Though these clever encoding techniques do offer big advantages in terms of throughput and resilience they are also totally proprietary to Netgear, so won’t work with other manufacturers kit (unless in standard WiFi mode, which won’t give major speed enhancements).
The IEEE (the body that sets the 802.11 standards) are working on the next phase of standards which will incorporate MIMO and other techniques, but they are not due for a while and it will take manufacturers a while longer to then make systems that conform to those new specs. There are no guarantees that any kit now will be upgradeable to those new standards.
Buying now may give instant gratification but there’s a good chance that Netgear will be your only choice of equipment in the future.
The BBC needs to move fast to create suitable partnerships to be able to ride the new wave of ‘TV on the go’. That’s my conclusion after attending a recent IIC event last week (that’s the International Institute Of Communications to you). There I can reveal I was drawn into what felt very much like a mobile content ‘love fest’.
Much has been made of what have been reported as poor results at BskyB (Profits announced on Friday 4 Nov 05 saw a pre-tax rise of 13.6% to £200m), intense competition is given as the cause of the lower than hoped for growth in subscribers.
Most would consider a UK satellite rival needs to be positioned to use the same satellites as Sky services that’s Eurobird and Astra 2. If you move away from their orbital positions, you’re going to have to duplicate a whole load of services across two platforms with the expense that will entail.
The other group that would be interested are the ‘churn’ which are now reported by Sky as around 11%. These are subscribers who are leaving their Bskyb packages – but they’re really already on the Sky Freesat as unless someone comes and takes away their Set- top-box and mini-dish. They’ll get many of the FTA (Free To Air) services like ITV3 that aren’t available on analogue terrestrial and, for a small charge, can obtain a viewing card that will allow them to view those encrypted services like Channel 5, Channel 4, ITV1 and ITV2.
Despite so much current talk from the UK Telco’s and Sky on the magic that will provide an on demand broadcast TV proposition in the UK, tangible evidence of a working model beyond KiT in Hull and Homechoice is pretty sparse.
Despite the somewhat limited selection of programmes, which I’m told is largely down to copyright issues, it seems a positive move for a public sector broadcaster actually providing a service and solving the ‘problem’ of letting you see a programme you forgot to record or you later discover is worth viewing.
The BBC is thinking beyond the present Windows-only solution. Speaking recently in London the BBC’s Project Director for iMP Ben Lavender reinforced the BBC philosophy of platform agnosticism and spoke of the desire to work on Apple and Linux solutions when DRM issues can be satisfactorily dealt with.
Vodafone UK and British Sky Broadcasting (Sky) have announced an agreement to launch Sky Mobile TV, the UK’s first commercially available mobile TV service available on a wide range of handsets, as we 
The deal looks set to turbo-boost adoption of entertainment and information services to mobile phones, with users able to enjoy TV programmes on the move with access to live breaking news and sports reports from Sky News and Sky Sports News.
The Sky Mobile TV pack will be provided free of charge (subject to Vodafone customer fair usage policy) until the end of January 2006, with customers being charged £5.00 (~$8.90, €7.38) per month for each of the Sky Mobile TV packs subscribed to thereafter,
Additional mobile channels are likely to sign up to the Sky Mobile TV service over the coming months.
Today Nokia announced CoolZone, a Bluetooth-based distribution system that lets mobile phone users locally browse, pay for and download content on their mobiles while they are in shops supporting it.
As the user of the service needs the user to download an application to use the service, we can imagine little hacking groups are already forming plans to hang around near these shops offering their own ‘applications’ with similar names to unsuspecting, or inexperience users.
BSkyB’s Director of Product Management, Gerry O’Sullivan couldn’t help sounding smug as he took centre stage at The Connected Home conference in London today.
While Microsoft’s Cynthia Crossley and Telewest’s Mark Horley nodded collaboratively to Merlin Kister of Intel’s assertion that “We mustn’t be close minded and pick a winner. It’s important for all players to work together,” O’Sullivan looked disinterested.
“There’s zero tolerance (among our customers) for that sort of unreliability and pain…we can only roll out products that you switch on and they work.”
Horley mentioned that Telewest was launching its own 160GB PVR in early 2006, with the WHOLE disc available for recording “as we already offer video on demand”.
After several years of battling with the clunky interface and weird quirks of our museum-ready OnDigital digital terrestrial television box, we decided it was time to replace it with something a little more contemporary.
For the princely sum of just £35 (~$62, €52), the Wharfedale offers a digi box with a 7 day electronic programme guide (EPG), digital text, digital interactive services, DVB subtitles, auto scan and setup and 2 SCART sockets.
Onscreen menus
Picture quality
The futuristic vision of a connected home with content moving seamlessly from our TV to our PC and on to our mobile device is still a long way off, according to key speakers at The Connected Home conference in London today.
It took Dimitri Van Kets (pictured left), from Belgian telco, Belgacom, to voice what many were thinking by announcing that the networked home was “little more than a mass of standards” and “too confusing” for the average consumer. Unless the service providers get together and educate customers, he said, true home connectivity was never going to happen.
Paul Szucs of Sony said that service providers should “try not to lose the plot with content protection”, adding that “consumers simply want their devices to work together and share content.”
BT is planning to turbo-boost broadband connectivity by quadrupling basic connectivity speeds to 8mbps nationwide and giving the service a snappy name, “ADSL Broadband Max”.
The 8mbps service will see BT reaching the theoretical top ADSL speeds it announced when the broadband service first launched in 2000.
With the industry rapidly consolidating, BT is coming under increasing pressure from newly merged uber-telecos like Telewest/NTL and Sky/Easynet, with the former already offering speeds of more than 8mbps for no extra charge on existing broadband subscriptions.
Elsewhere, BT has started trialling optical fibre broadband services in Wales, connecting business to ultra-high-bandwidth services using strands of blown fibre run along using existing telegraph poles.