Wireless Events in Atlanta

The Muniwireless Conference in Atlanta

A plethora of events in Atlanta during March signaled a resurgence in the high-tech economy. Many of the conferences touched on related aspects of Windows CE/Windows Mobile. Among the events were the Muniwireless 2006 Conference and The Future of Barcoding and RFID Conference.

Muniwireless 2006

The Muniwireless Conference is the creation of Esme Vos, an intellectual property lawyer who has put her legal practice on hold to focus on delivering valuable and timely information about municipal wireless networks. She founded a portal for news and information about citywide wireless broadband projects around the world. To quote the "about" blip, "Muniwireless.com has become the resource for city officials and IT directors, systems integrators, wireless ISPs, vendors, community wireless advocates, journalists, legislators and policy makers. In addition to running Muniwireless and speaking at conferences, Esme writes research reports and delivers consulting services to cities and companies in the wireless industry."

The folks from Microcast Communications (http://www.microcast.biz) provided conference coordination and facilitation.

Day 1's pre-conference had two simultaneous sessions. Cisco hosted application-related projects in one and Motorola covered the development and deployment of public safety-related projects in the other. I found the public safety related talks quite informative. There also was hardware on display such as robust video IP cameras, as well as some hefty access points to demonstrate the transmission of voice and video.

Several government officials presented both the financial and political aspects of the municipal efforts, and the different steps that must be taken and the hurdles that must be surmounted in order to make them happen.

For technical coverage I found the 4.9 GHz discussions to be very useful. Rick Rotondo from Motorola gave an excellent talk on 4.9 GHz. After 9/11 the FCC in their generous wisdom decided to dedicate the 4.9 GHz band for fixed and mobile wireless services for state and local use during emergencies. "Wi-Fi" (802.11) is a LOS (Line of Sight) technology that does not perform well when the device is moving or accelerating (802.11 loses effectiveness when traveling at speeds over 40 mph). The 4.9 GHz networks work well in the 70-90 mph range. Note that 4.9 GHz is still sensitive to LOS issues, but not quite as much as 802.11. Utilizing a mesh topology helps to reduce LOS issues as well.

4.9 GHz covers multiple channels and can be utilized in a spread of 10 channels at 1 MHz or 8 channels at 5 MHz. This makes a total of 18 channels compared to the 11 of 802.11b/g. The power range goes from 5 mW to a peak output of 2 Watts. (FCC 90.1215). This flexibility allows both close/low power and far/high power configurations. See below for the FCC power regulations. 4.9 GHz is a licensed frequency, but it is one that can be applied for on-line via the Web in a relatively quick manner. Since it is dedicated for public safety it will not be over-utilized.

Mesh Networks

Five years ago at least one venture company acquired the patent rights for mesh technologies from the military and started creating products. Currently mesh networks are being deployed and utilized as accepted and standard solutions. Mesh technology works by having every device operate in ad-hoc mode as well as performing as a router. The philosophy is to create self forming networks which support the dynamic addition and attrition of nodes. Having multiple hops increases range and reduces the transmission power required.

Day 1 also included a vendor showroom with the various hardware and software solutions by companies such as Airpath, Airspan, Alvarion, Cisco, EarthLink, FireTide, Leapfrog, Lok, Microcast, Motorola, NeoReach, Nortel, SkyPilot, RF Connect, Tropos, and WAZMetro.