Articles by Patrick Hindle

Our international editor, Richard Mumford, attended Mobile World Congress last week. According to the official figures, the organisers claim more than 47,000 visitors (including delegates, exhibitors, contractors and media) from 189 countries attended the four-day conference and exhibition at the Fira de Barcelona from 16 to 19 February, which compares with 55,000 visitors in 2008. The number of exhibiting companies remained the same at 1,300. The event has a longstanding reputation for being a dynamic showcase for the mobile industry, a hotspot for innovation and a springboard for new technologies, but was that still the case at a time when...

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers ( IEEE ) has approved RuBee ®, a long-wavelength, packet-based, magnetic transceiver protocol, as a new international standard designated IEEE 1902.1. RuBee overcomes many of the problems seen with RFID and other wireless asset visibility solutions in harsh environments through its ability to work on steel and in liquids. RuBee tags and antennas are volumetric in harsh environments, not line-of-sight as is typically the case with other wireless technologies (and bar codes). RuBee tags work over a range of 1 to 50 feet depending on antenna configuration, and can be powered by a...

You will get to digest fully what was on the menu at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week in my Wrap-up article that will be posted when the show comes to a close. For now though I can give you a tapas selection of the technology that has been whetting the appetites of the attendees this week. To start, building on the past few years LTE is the key technology being discussed and although opinions vary as to the timescale for deployment it is a focus of activity and investment. The buzz though surrounds 4G TD-...

Speed, speed and more speed -that is what I want. Verizon has answered this demand by announcing it will begin testing 4G wireless service using LTE this year and launch it in at least 25 to 30 markets in the U.S. in 2010. This is based on their roll-out of EV-DO, assuming they will get to about the same level in the first year of deploying LTE . Verizon will continue to build out the 4G wireless network and expects to blanket the continental U.S. and Hawaii with the new wireless network by 2015. The new network will use...

So what's hot this year at Mobile World Congress. It seems a little subdued because of the projections for handsets to decline by about 10% this year but there is always the next big thing coming down the road in technology. There seems to be a fair amount of green technology - mostly solar powered devices, etc. Android has picked up some support from a few applications providers and RFID /payment technologies are taking hold in handsets. WiMAX was hot last year but this is the year of LTE (even as WiMAX is actually rolling out some implementations). With...

Strategy Analytics said the predict that consumer WiMAX subscriptions in the developing countries of Asia will grow from a few thousand now to almost 27 million by 2013. Their research predicts that the strongest growth will come outside the major cities of Asia. Subscriptions in villages and small towns are forecast to grow at almost 300% per year, three times the rate of major cities. Government policies aimed at closing the rural-urban “digital divide” are one reason for this rapid growth, but historic lack of broadband alternatives is at least as strong a factor. “Big cities are the obvious place...

CTIA WIRELESS 2009 is the largest and most comprehensive US trade show in the wireless industry so it should be a prime trade show for RF/microwave professionals and companies. But many of the smaller RF/microwave component and test companies have left the show because it became so large, expensive and consumer oriented. However, we should take advantage of this situation and attend/exhibit because most of the large OEMs who are our biggest customers are there along with their customers, the consumers and service providers. What better opportunity than to meet with your customers and their customers at the same...

It was recently announced that Google is teaming up with several technology companies, including Comsearch , Dell, HP, Microsoft, Motorola and Neustar , to form a new coalition called the White Spaces Database Group , which will provide and compile into a database technical specifications for devices that will use white space spectrum . White spaces are unused slivers of spectrum in the 700 MHz band that sit between broadcast TV channels. Google and others successfully lobbied the FCC last year to open up that spectrum for unlicensed use so that new wireless devices could access that spectrum. In its...

Four Toronto college students from The Humber College have accomplished a technological feat by making contact with the International Space Station last week using a radio system they designed and built themselves. It was a scheduled event so they did not just call them out of the blue. The project got off the ground about a year ago as the students looked for a way to apply knowledge gained from their radio communication courses. The first message got no response, but a second attempt reached astronaut Sandra Magnus . They had a 10-minute window to talk to her, during which...

While I did not attend CES 2009, one of the hot emerging products was wireless charging. Powermat was there showing off its family of charging mats (using inductive coupling) for mobile devices like cell phones, PDAs , etc. They are very efficient (like 93%) so charging is relatively fast and they should be available soon (maybe Q2 this year). These mats would would cost about $100 so they are reasonably priced for a first to market, high tech product. Fulton is taking a different approach with their wireless charging technology dubbed eCoupled . They are working with large consumer product...