The Future of Wireless

New technical and regulatory developments could impact the field of municipal wireless.

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), Australia's national science agency, has reportedly achieved wireless transmission speeds of 6 Gbps. That's enough capacity for many simultaneous streams of DVD quality video or an entire DVD in less than one second.

A wireless connection with that speed challenges the usefulness of fiber-optic cables in some instances, including in a congested urban area or across forbidding terrain.

"I don't think it undermines the case for putting in fiber loops now, but it certainly makes [fiber to the home] seem risky," said Becca Vargo Daggett, research associate at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, who recently published a report arguing for municipal investment in broadband networks.


Connect the Dots
CSIRO officials say they're working toward doubling their 6 Gbps wireless transmission speeds in the next two years. They are currently seeking partners for product development, said Y. Jay Guo, research director at the CSIRO Wireless Technologies Laboratory. Though the demonstration was "point to point," connecting one device to another, Guo said his lab can easily link point to multipoint with the new technology.

GigaBeam already has a multigigabit fixed wireless link on the market. The company's Wi-Fiber offers point-to-point speeds of 1 Gbps to 2.7 Gbps full duplex in both directions. Lou Slaughter, GigaBeam's chairman, CEO and co-founder, expects to have a product transmitting full duplex at 12 Gbps by the time the CSIRO's technology hits the marketplace.

Wi-Fiber, however, has a hefty price tag -- starting at approximately $45,000 per link, though purchasers of multiple links reportedly can negotiate a discount. But in the past year, GigaBeam has announced multiple orders, including some from the Department of Defense and MABCO, a wireless broadband provider based in Amman, Jordan. Donald Trump is also using GigaBeam's links to connect his International Hotel to some of his residential buildings in Manhattan, N.Y. Still, the company's stock price has plummeted over the past year, losing more than half of its value in six months.

These multigigabit wireless connections are still in their infancy. The CSIRO and GigaBeam use the "millimeter wave" of the electromagnetic spectrum, which the FCC only opened up to commercial use in February 2005.

GigaBeam boasts of having led the charge to change with the regulatory regime for these bands of 71GHz to 76 GHz, 81 GHz to 86 GHz, and 92 GHz to 95 GHz, which now requires obtaining a nonexclusive nationwide license from the FCC, and then registering individual links with one of three independent database managers. Links receive first-in-time interference protection.

The benefit of wireless connections at these bands is their low absorption by air and water, making them highly reliable over a distance of one or two miles, and fairly reliable up to five miles, depending on weather conditions.

Even with GigaBeam's head start, the CSIRO's work is not to be taken lightly. The organization is pursuing patent infringement cases against makers of devices using the 802.11a and 802.11g protocols. The protocols have become a common Wi-Fi standard, and the enforcement of the CSIRO's claim could disrupt the burgeoning marketplace for wireless devices or at least impact the bottom line for those companies profiting from it.


White Open Spaces
In May 2005, Intel, Dell, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Netgear tried to pre-empt the CSIRO's claims by asking the Ninth Circuit U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to invalidate the patent. Intel sells chips using 802.11a and 802.11g. Dell and HP sell Wi-Fi-enabled laptops while Netgear sells access points and router cards. Microsoft's new Zune MP3 player uses 802.11g.

Recent court developments suggest the CSIRO is on a path toward successfully enforcing its claim. In December 2006, the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco granted the CSIRO's request