Communications Engineer
Volume 2, Issue 3, June 2004
Volume 2, Issue 3
June 2004
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- Source: Communications Engineer, Volume 2, Issue 3, page: 2 –2
- DOI: 10.1049/ce:20040310
- Type: Article
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- Source: Communications Engineer, Volume 2, Issue 3, p. 4 –6
- DOI: 10.1049/ce:20040311
- Type: Article
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- Author(s): C. Dziadul
- Source: Communications Engineer, Volume 2, Issue 3, page: 7 –7
- DOI: 10.1049/ce:20040312
- Type: Article
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Europe's digital terrestrial television projects move into even more uncharted territory. - Author(s): M. Pereira
- Source: Communications Engineer, Volume 2, Issue 3, page: 8 –8
- DOI: 10.1049/ce:20040313
- Type: Article
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What would be the real implications of TD-SCDMA being adopted by the world's largest mobile phone market? - Source: Communications Engineer, Volume 2, Issue 3, page: 9 –9
- DOI: 10.1049/ce:20040314
- Type: Article
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- Author(s): C. Forrester
- Source: Communications Engineer, Volume 2, Issue 3, p. 10 –12
- DOI: 10.1049/ce:20040301
- Type: Article
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Inmarsat's ambitious project for a satellite-based broadband mobile solution is making slow but steady progress. London-based Inmarsat has promised a broadband global area network (BGAN) service, planned for mid-2005. In many respects, this Inmarsat service is already in place today, operating through leased capacity on the giant Thuraya satellite, which serves 99 countries including the whole of the Middle East, all of Europe and much of Northern Africa and the rest of the near-East. This so-called "regional BGAN" system is itself quite spectacular; but nothing like as sophisticated as Inmarsat's all-singing, all-dancing BGAN service, designed to supply satellite-based broadband access to users almost anywhere on the planet, at affordable rates and speeds comparable to GPRS. - Author(s): J.P. Conti
- Source: Communications Engineer, Volume 2, Issue 3, p. 14 –17
- DOI: 10.1049/ce:20040302
- Type: Article
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A study has been carried out to find out how the voice quality offered by four cellular networks in the USA compared both to each other and to the traditionally high standards attained by the local telephone companies (PSTNs). There was a measurable difference in quality among the different operators, particularly in the downlink section (traffic moving from the PSTN to the wireless user). The second clear finding is that the downlink consistently outperforms the uplink in all networks. This should not come as a major surprise considering that the party regularly paying the operator's bill at the end of each month is the wireless user and not those at the other end of the line. The question of how much worse voice quality really is in the cellular world compared to that of the incumbents also received a resounding answer: a full listening quality MOS (mean opinion score) point when the average overall performance for the four networks is considered (3.3 MOS versus the accepted 4.3 MOS level shown by typical PSTNs). Another interesting discovery was that a mobile phone indicating good signal reception will not necessarily translate into increased voice quality. - Author(s): A. Newbold
- Source: Communications Engineer, Volume 2, Issue 3, p. 18 –21
- DOI: 10.1049/ce:20040303
- Type: Article
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A new breed of construction materials with the ability to manage RF signals is set to rock the foundations of the building industry. People at work today are demanding a communications infrastructure that is both universally accessible - therefore including mobility - and secure. But meeting both of these requirements simultaneously can present a considerable challenge. Currently, mobile communication networks and systems are designed on the basis of detailed analysis of RF coverage and capacity requirements. Security and privacy issues can be addressed through good design, but 'eavesdropping' remains a real vulnerability. An emerging technology named FSS (frequency selective surface) is increasingly being proposed as an answer to the deployment of secure wireless systems for indoor environments, taking advantage of innovative techniques in building design and the use of attenuating materials. The signals for indoor systems are attenuated, while those for wider networks are not. - Author(s): S. Androulidakis ; D. Kagklis ; S. Skenter
- Source: Communications Engineer, Volume 2, Issue 3, p. 22 –27
- DOI: 10.1049/ce:20040304
- Type: Article
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The growing number of applications based on IP network infrastructure has introduced the need for greater symmetry in broadband connectivity. Following the rapid success of ADSL deployments around the world, a new flavour of the standard, ADSL2, is promising more than double upstream rates and backward compatibility with existing customer premise equipment (CPE). Based on a series of measurements performed on a real-life testbed network, it is possible to get a valuable insight into the performance and interoperability capabilities of ADSL2 technology. The evaluation of the results indicates that the migration towards an ADSL2 infrastructure can be both economically viable and technologically efficient, even without upgrading existing CPEs. This offers the provider a cost-effective solution to address growing customer needs while keeping in pace with the advancing technology. - Author(s): S. Harris
- Source: Communications Engineer, Volume 2, Issue 3, p. 28 –29
- DOI: 10.1049/ce:20040305
- Type: Article
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Operators' continuous pressure on low cost is turning cellular masts into commoditised, highly modular products. The emergence of third generation (3G) mobile telecoms systems is shaking up the traditional mobile industry. Most obvious to consumers is the the rise in services beyond voice, which their operators are eager to offer them. However, in the background, the whole industry is shifting and the companies that make and supply infrastructure equipment are being forced to go along with the change. The industry has risen to the challenge with two initiatives instigated by two groups of vendors -OBSAI (Open Basestation Architecture Initiative) and CPRI (Common Public Radio Interface). - Author(s): T. Ahonen
- Source: Communications Engineer, Volume 2, Issue 3, p. 30 –33
- DOI: 10.1049/ce:20040306
- Type: Article
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The wireless industry has been searching for 'the' killer application ever since the idea of 3G was proposed. Could it be video calls? Or is it email? How about multimedia messaging? Or perhaps the 3G killer application is a sort of cocktail, a suite or selection of services? The article discusses some of the services which are being introduced around the world. - Author(s): K. Raja ; W.J. Buchanan ; J. Munoz
- Source: Communications Engineer, Volume 2, Issue 3, p. 34 –39
- DOI: 10.1049/ce:20040307
- Type: Article
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New services, which bank on cellular networks being able to determine handset position accurately, are said to be the next holy grail for mobile operators. The article describes the main technical flavours and their prospects. There are various practical techniques used to determine the location of a mobile phone. The main ones are: cell identify (cell-ID); enhanced cell ID (e-cell ID); angle-of-arrival (AOA); time-of-arrival (TOA) and time-difference-of-arrival (TDOA); enhanced observed time difference (E-OTD); assisted Global Positioning System (A-GPS); signal strength; hybrid techniques. In order to compare expected theoretical results with real-world performance, we set up a series of field trials based on one of these location finding techniques. Experiments were conducted in both urban and rural environments. The experiment measured the level of accuracy provided by cell-ID with an exclusive GSM parameter (timing advance, or TA), using triangulation. - Author(s): C. Falcon
- Source: Communications Engineer, Volume 2, Issue 3, p. 40 –43
- DOI: 10.1049/ce:20040308
- Type: Article
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The growing use of radio communications to monitor medical conditions is making life easier for patients and their carers. Wireless systems enabled by low-power radio technology are delivering mobility, higher levels of patient care and relative comfort inside and outside the medical facility environment. Both 'on-the-skin' and implantable medical electronic devices are benefiting from transceivers that use the latest mixed-signal ASIC technology to provide desired rates of data transfer over short ranges. Electronics used in medical environments - especially implanted devices - need to have a low-power consumption and high reliability design. Low-power radio devices that use ASICs are already starting to be specified in applications such as cardiac pacemakers, blood glucose monitoring and body temperature sensing. There are two protocols that relate to devices of this type. The first is known as medical implant communications services (MICS). It applies to implantable technologies that need to communicate with the outside world periodically, or when there is a deviation from specified parameters. The second is wireless medical telemetry service (WMTS), which deals with non-implanted (on-the-skin) patient monitoring systems that communicate on a far more regular, timed basis with a suitably equipped remote location, such as a nursing station. Present designs and the future of such systems are discussed. - Source: Communications Engineer, Volume 2, Issue 3, p. 44 –45
- DOI: 10.1049/ce:20040309
- Type: Article
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Hardly has 3G, in the form of wideband-CDMA, left the starting blocks than new enhancements are being added. In fact, the 3GSM 2004 Congress held in Cannes in February was filled with talk of HSDPA (high-speed downlink packet access) and how it will transform the infant 3G services. It is expected that this new technology will allow 3G to compete more successfully with some of the other high-speed data systems that are now widely available. With W-CDMA offering peak data rates up to 2 Mbit/s, 3G needs to have some means of capturing the data market. HSDPA will do just that, enabling 3G to make a real impact on the market and allowing the new technology to offer higher data speeds while providing an improved quality of service (QoS). In this way, it even has the potential to rival and overtake services offered today by terrestrial broadband providers. A further advantage of HSDPA is that users can download packet data while simultaneously conducting a voice call. HSDPA is a packet-based data service used within the W-CDMA downlink. It allows data transmission speeds of up to 10 Mbit/s, and with further stages of its implementation planned for the future it will be possible to attain rates of up to 20 Mbit/s. All of this can be implemented using the standard W-CDMA bandwidth of 5 MHz. - Source: Communications Engineer, Volume 2, Issue 3, p. 46 –47
- DOI: 10.1049/ce:20040315
- Type: Article
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- Source: Communications Engineer, Volume 2, Issue 3, page: 48 –48
- DOI: 10.1049/ce:20040316
- Type: Article
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Editor's letter
News
DTT: the search goes on
China's 3G conundrum
High-tech factory
And it BGAN to happen [broadband global area network]
Avoiding the downhill [cellular voice quality]
Designing buildings for the wireless age [FSS]
ADSL2: a sequel better than the original?
We mast do something about it [base station design]
3G killer apps everywhere
We know where you are [cellular location tracking]
Low-power transceivers get patients mobile
What exactly is HSDPA?
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