The secret to interoperability for networked applications is a layered network. Is this a surprise to anyone? If it is, then you are probably a wireless communications engineer from the ‘old school’.

This is one of those truths that seems so simple and straightforward that it is surprising to find a practicing engineer that doesn’t understand it – but they do exist. There has been a lot of press over the last year or so about emergency services radios that don’t talk to each other, which means that police can’t talk to firemen and neither can call directly for ambulances. This is particularly true when large forces are imported to deal with disasters like fires or tornados, as has been painfully evident time after time this year.

An article in EE Times today talked about a company that actually did something about it. These guys put a network layer on top of some radio communications protocols – a trick that is hardly all that difficult – and used it to tie together emergency services personnel. They are in the process of productizing it, which should make it more palatable to technology-challenged managers of those systems.

I have run into this before. I consulted to a major power company and advised them to replace their proprietary network with a standardized one built on standard components that routed between WAN networks and local Wifi or Bluetooth links. The IT manager flatly declared that such a product as this router did not exist. I offered to make him one out of any laptop in the room and a couple of PCMCIA cards, but he suddenly had to leave for another meeting.

We in the high-tech field sometimes forget that there is a real world out there that really doesn’t understand what is possible. We can sit back and chuckle over their naiveté or we can go out there and productize it so that they see what is possible. The former can be a lot of fun, but the latter is the way to make money.

Larry Mittag

Christmas shopping is now in full swing and, as expected, digital TV sets are very much in evidence. My own anecdotal evidence says that this will be a favorite gift, since the wives of two friends of mine have each asked me for advice on getting big-screens for their husbands. This would bode well for the suppliers that reportedly have brought a lot of manufacturing capacity online recently, threatening to flood the market with large LCD and plasma panels.

Unlike most people, when I think digital TV I think RF spectrum. The shift to DTV brings along with it the promise of reallocation of some prime spectral real estate. The most interesting model for use of that territory is summed up in the phrase “cognitive radio�, the progress of which was detailed in an article in EE Times by Patrick Mannion. The concept of adaptive, opportunistic use of available spectrum makes so much sense and at the same time is such a departure from the past that it has entrepreneurs and established players excited – although in very different contexts of the word.

As the article states the established spectrum license holders have the right to make sure that their use will not be threatened, but they do not have the right to camp on that prime spectrum and use it as inefficiently as they have in the past. We have the possibility to move from the assumption of limited spectrum to one of wide availability. This opportunity is simply too good for any number of applications to allow it to be blocked by yesterday’s applications.

Larry Mittag

There has been a push in some quarters towards setting standards for Software-Defined Radio (SDR) based on a standard hardware architecture that can support a variety of software to support different RF communications techniques. The SDR Forum has long been a primary proponent of these standards, but the realization of systems built on these standards has been long in coming. The military has actively pushed the standards for a number of new radio system acquisitions, but the commercial world has to a large extent ignored the concept.

This may be changing. An EE Times report from the Software Defined Radio conference described commercial implementations of cellular base stations based on SDR technology. These base stations would be able to adapt to frequencies and protocols even after they are deployed. This is a long way from the ideal SDR implementation, which would be able to load wireless protocol software arbitrarily and practically immediately, but it is a step in the right direction. The cost savings for carriers would be significant, which would certainly be good PR for the SDR concept.

The biggest problems are on the software side, though. The later pages of the article talk about the Software Communications Architecture, which defines the APIs to be used for SDR. This standard has had a number of problems, including the 3.0 version being considered to be beyond the capabilities of the DSP and FPGA front ends to implement.

The best thing for SDR might just be if control of the standard were taken out of military hands and given to the SDR Forum. This would at least separate it from some of the politics that currently impedes its progress.

Larry Mittag

Bill Gates says the world is changing (again), so we had all better be ready. A report from Deloitte says that convergence is upon us, this time for real. EE Times reports that the number of “big� IPTV networks is expected to grow eightfold over the next four years (isn’t it fun to forecast growth multiples of small numbers?).

These breathless announcements are very reminiscent of the late 90’s, so much so that it is very tempting to mark them up to bubble nostalgia. One difference is that there really is communications bandwidth to support the claims, as opposed to the earlier time when companies were writing checks that their networks couldn’t cash.

It is certainly technically possible for each of these things to come to pass. Google is already building the network-centric applications that Microsoft is describing. Devices that can fulfill multiple duties can certainly be built. IPTV can exist even on today’s networks by trickling shows down to big hard drives rather than by streaming in real time, which killed earlier attempts along these lines.

The real question is whether people will buy this stuff. The advertising model that Microsoft describes depends on people accepting intrusions. The last time I tried to watch TV live (rather than through my DVR) I didn’t make it through the first massive commercial break. Converged devices will suffer from overcomplication unless they can build a single use paradigm on top of the multiple technologies. The perils of IPTV are summed up in the fact that there was an article in the Wall Street Journal entitled “How to Watch TV� that described how these technologies will work.

The enemy of all of these things is use complexity. Make them easy enough to use and people will try them. Make the learning curve too steep and they will go right back in the trash pile.

Larry Mittag

There is a battle going on over control of the spectrum allocated for broadcast of HDTV. The FCC has drawn a line in the sand as to when the switchover will take place – It may yet prove to be a dotted line, but at least it is a line – and the industry is preparing for the wholesale spectrum switch that will result.

One key question is what will happen in unused spectrum in a particular area. There are huge swaths of so-called white spectrum that has been allocated to particular channels but not used in particular vicinities. The technology exists today to build devices that can sniff the airwaves and adjust to use spectrum that is unused, whether that spectrum is licensed or not. These “smart� or “cognitive� radio devices could fill in these gaps quite effectively, and the FCC has released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to allow unlicensed devices to use this spectrum as long as they adhere to a set of rules that should prevent interference with licensed use of the spectrum.

This could be a huge advance for unlicensed communications like the 802.11 family, Bluetooth, or any number of other protocols. To date they have had to inhabit the tag-ends of the spectrum, but if these rules come to be there could be an explosion of creative applications with real range and throughput capabilities.

Predictably, the broadcasters are attempting to block this usage. One could speculate on their motives, but the bottom line is that they have thrown up a number of objections based on how much these usages would interfere with their licensed operation.

A group of three major heavyweights have come out with a paper that effectively addresses these objections, as reported in EE Times. This paper is not only technically interesting, but it is also a tutorial on how Powell’s FCC (He is the one that originated this attitude before he left) is taking on the established commercial interests. We can only hope that there is enough backbone still left at the FCC to follow through with initiatives like this.

Larry Mittag

A recent Wall Street Journal (print version) article described the pain that the telcos are going through due to the onset of VoIP services that are turning voice communications into a fixed-price commodity. Interestingly enough, the most vulnerable companies are the cellular carriers, since they don’t yet have a real foothold in the data communications space. The general consensus is that in a very short time voice will simply become another form of data on the Internet.

They are fighting back, though. The article described their efforts and potential plans to block data traffic from applications such as Skype through packet inspection technologies. The excuse for doing this is that such applications use too much bandwidth, which can prevent their customers from reading their email. This argument is so self-serving and transparent that it doesn’t even deserve consideration, but it is the case they are making to the FCC. The heroes in the article were the cable companies, who cautiously defended the right of their customers to run these applications.

Their caution is very telling. The next ox in line to get gored is cable television as network-based video content delivery systems come on line. These are not the lame postage-stamp streaming feeds, but instead download content to user hard drives that handle the decode chores under local control.

In the late 90’s there were predictions of tremendous upheavals in the content creation and delivery systems, and that is exactly what is gradually unfolding around us. The Internet revolution is far from over.

Larry Mittag

The year 1984 came and went without realization of the Big Brother nightmares of the novel, but that doesn’t mean that the warnings of that book aren’t still a concern. The saving grace has always been that the government isn’t very good at the level of integration necessary to closely track the movements of its citizens. Coupled with that has been the rejection of various technologies that were too good at figuring out where we are at any time. That may be changing, though. We have accepted tracking devices in the form of cell phones.

A recent AP story reported by cnn.com describes a system being installed by the state of Missouri that tracks traffic flow by following cell phone signals. They are working with a particular cellular carrier (possibly Cingular) that is providing them access to the information, and they promise that they are not tracking or accessing individual numbers. If they decide to change their minds, I’m sure they will only track the bad guys. Well, maybe speeders as well (for their own protection, of course). Hey, if they tracked everyone then they could detect someone broken down alongside the road as well…

My point is that this is a slippery slope. Yes, I know that they can already track location at least to the cell site even without this setup. They can also tap cell phones from central locations. Right now they at least need a court order to do so, however. Will such protections be put in place on this system?

Larry Mittag

It sounds like progress is finally being made in the latest WLAN standard. A fairly confusing article in EE Times talked about an agreement that seems to short-circuit another agreement that apparently was disagreeable to some members of the committee. I certainly hope so, because personally I have refused to buy any of the ‘pre-n’ products that have shown up on the market. I figure that if any of these things start selling well it will only encourage those who are trying to stonewall the new standard.

This article follows a fairly pointed editorial from Craig Mathias on the subject last week. He stretched a bit on his ‘bear-in-the-woods’ analogy, though. These guys are not trying to keep from being eaten, they are trying to get to the honey pot themselves and ace the others out as long as possible.

While these guys are screwing around the current standard is becoming more and more entrenched. It may turn out that by the time they finally put out a new standard a lot fewer people will be interested in it.

Larry Mittag

I remarked in a recent post on the fact that LEDs are appearing in a number of applications such as traffic lights and automotive signal lights. This was interesting enough, but it turns out that there are possibilities for communications using those same devices. Specifically, a traffic light and headlights could communicate via pulses invisible to human eyes to better manage traffic at intersections. The same communications could allow network access between a reading light and a laptop computer, although it would seem that shadows would be a problem there.

Research on these and other possibilities are being researched at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and was reported in a recent AP report on CNN.

Granted, some of the applications seem a bit contrived. I can see a few applications for communications systems that are stopped by walls, but it seems likely that these would be the exception rather than the rule. The automotive applications seem like the ones that make the most sense. They obviously are dependent on some significant infrastructure investment, but I can see them working. What do you think?

Larry Mittag

Radio technology has come a long way in the last few years. The hardware-based radios of the past are quickly being converted into sophisticated programmable systems that can even adapt to the prevailing RF environment to take advantage of unused spectrum. Several recent articles cover some of the aspects of creating these programmable radio sets.

The first of these lays the groundwork as to what Software-Defined Radio (SDR) is all about. The SDR forum has a quite extensive amount of information that is more detailed, but this article is a good start for those who are interested.

There is also a report on the NSA validation of a Harris-designed SDR set. This is no mean feat, since any flexibility in communications implies potential security weaknesses. The fact that the NSA is willing to bless any SDR at all is a combination of the robustness of the implementation and the will of the U.S. military to get the NSA to even consider this new technology. Trust me, getting them to even consider validating anything as radical as SDR is a major accomplishment.

The final article is a very interesting note on the use of game theory to assure convergence in these dynamic networks when they take the step into adaptive behavior. This is one of those problems that seems simple until you start considering the obscure corner cases. Use of game theory is an intriguing method for analyzing the solution space.

This technology has been primarily promoted by the military, but there are also serious possibilities in a number of commercial systems. This is another step in the maturation of radio technology and the creation of truly robust wireless communications.

Larry Mittag

It’s always fun when a project you worked on gets unveiled to the world. A few years ago I consulted to Wynn Resorts regarding the new resort they were building. The CIO for Wynn’s operation was one of the sharpest I had (or have) ever met, and the infrastructure she was envisioning was extremely impressive. We worked with them on the wireless infrastructure, mostly in terms of fine-tuning access point placement and some brainstorming on where technology was going. In the process we got a fascinating look into the operations of a Vegas casino.

Now the rest of the world can see what they have built, and it is just as impressive in reality now as it was in concept then. A report in Wired provides more detail on the technical infrastructure than most stories will and is a good read. Even years ago CIO Karen Bozich knew that VOIP was going to be a winner, that HDTV was real, and that packet switched Ethernet was the backbone delivery vehicle to bet on.

Congratulations, Karen. I hope Mr. Wynn realizes how well you did your job.

Larry Mittag

The latest round of spectrum allocations from the FCC seems to have an air of unreality about it. For example, what is the point of allocating space at 60 GHz for wireless LAN applications? Isn’t it obvious that the prime real estate is much closer to the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands that are currently in use?

Well, maybe not. A recent advance from IBM brings RF chips into the realm of commercial possibility that can handle those frequencies. These are not high-end, expensive chips, either. These are chips that can be produced in commercial quantities at consumer price points. Rather than silicon, these are based around silicon germanium and can handle frequencies well above 100 GHz, according to the EE Times article.

Granted, these are support chips, not CPUs. Maybe you could build a 100 GHz CPU out of SiGe, but there is no way you could build a memory subsystem to keep up with it. These chips will enable radar systems for automobiles and build networks with short enough wavelengths to communicate with nanotechnological devices that were described in another EE Times article as one of five deep R&D projects that must succeed. Other projects in the list will tie these devices even tighter into a global computer network that will handle projects we can only dream about now.

Maybe innovation and basic R&D isn’t in quite as bad a shape as we thought…

Larry Mittag

The battle between the cellular carriers and the WLAN providers over municipal wireless networks is continuing. A recent report in The Oregonian lays out the current status, including the legislative efforts happening behind the scenes. Intel is coming out as a major proponent of municipal networks and they are being very matter-of-fact about their motivation. They expect to sell a lot of WIMAX gear if these networks are popular, and if city governments are interested in setting them up they certainly don’t want to discourage that interest.

Ultimately the issue goes beyond just city governments. WIMAX is a real threat to the cellular carriers no matter who deploys it. The carriers have a tight web of patents that makes theirs a very closed club, and WIMAX threatens their very existence. If they can strangle this baby in the crib they will do so any way they can. Look out for an attempt to tie up any spectrum that can be used for WIMAX as the next phase of this conflict.

What is at stake for embedded systems is open access to ubiquitous wireless connectivity. Cellular networks are notoriously difficult to access by non-sanctioned devices, and the costs for setting up access can far outstrip the cost of the device itself. We once tried to get a developer’s kit from Qualcomm for CDMA. Our call asking for information was returned by a lawyer threatening us with a patent infringement lawsuit. We foolishly expected that Qualcomm would want devices using their networks, but we weren’t in the club.

Larry Mittag

The race is on to distribute the next generation of wireless systems. This one is going to be much more interesting than the last, where carriers were frantically waving their hands to explain why the promises they were making weren’t anywhere close to happening. This time the race is between cities, which Qualcomm founder Irwin Jacobs thinks are unfair competition, the carriers, which are still trying to swallow their monstrous debt loads, and manufacturers like Motorola or Cisco (or even both of them together), which are playing the arms dealer role and selling to all sides at once.

The role Jacobs is playing is a familiar one, much the same way that he ran interference to avoid having the U.S. standardize on the same GSM standard that was adopted in Europe and practically everywhere else in the world. His goal is to raise enough controversy to allow time for the carriers (Qualcomm’s customers) to get their house in order. The last time I heard him speak here in San Diego he said that Wifi had had a small window to become important, but that it had missed it. It looks like maybe that window at least blew back open, and it may just have broken through completely.

The argument that tax dollars are inappropriate for creating wireless networks is pure baloney. The fact is that it is ridiculously cheap for cities to build these networks, they use them to enhance their services anyway, and the upkeep is practically nonexistent. You can practically measure the ROI with a stopwatch instead of a calendar. I can think of much worse things for cities to spend tax dollars on - and they do!

Larry Mittag

I am not normally a fan of legislation that "protects" us from new technology, but I had to think hard about a recent article posted on CNet. The article discusses supposedly hasty laws to control privacy issues around RFID. The thrust of the article is that such laws are knee-jerk reactions to technology drafted by Luddite legislators.

These issues were in the news recently with the Federal attempt to insert RFID tags into US passports, but they have been around for a while. With tags in the products we buy someone will be able to snoop and find out what brand of jeans we are wearing and what cereal we are eating for breakfast, or something like that. Some people get excited about things like that.

On the other hand, I have seen marketing types salivating over what they could do with technology like RFID. I consulted with one of the major Las Vegas resort outfits where a consultant was full of interesting ideas. For example, a couple walks up to the hotel restaurant. The RFID tag in the guy's player card ID's him to the maitre'd, who welcomes them by name. "Good evening, Mr. Smith. Would you and your wife like the same table you had last time?" Very cool, except maybe last time he was with a different Mrs. Smith...

New technology does have to be examined through the lens of common sense. Stores do collect more information about us then I am comfortable with, but poorly thought out laws against useful technologies like RFID don't really help.

Larry Mittag

The number of announcements of wireless deployments for everything from municipal networks to industrial applications to home networking is beginning to make for crowded airspace these days. A tour through any neighborhood with a halfway-decent wardriving setup tells you two things. First, there are a lot of home wireless networks set up. Second, they are not using the channel space very well.

I found this out firsthand when I recently had to reconfigure the base stations in my house to use channels that did not collide with my neighbors. I was finally forced to give up and set up an 802.11a base station. I had planned for such a day and made sure that both my wife's laptop and mine had 802.11a/b/g capability.

Expansion space for ISM networking such as 802.11 is going to be even more important as multimedia wireless networks become popular. There are plans to expand the allocations, as described in a recent EE Times article, but for now I think it will begin to force more people into the 5 GHz space. Theoretically the MIMO technology in 802.11n will also help by directing signal intelligently, but we shall see...

Larry Mittag

As mobile devices increasingly add wireless communications to their repertoire the power consumption of the protocols becomes a factor. Bluetooth and Zigbee are fairly good at controlling power use, but they are short-range and fairly low speed. Wifi and WiMax give much better range, but the power use grows significantly, as it can do with the 3G cellular technologies.

A new technology promises to change that. xMax says they work with existing wireless communications and makes them much more energy-efficient. If it works out, this could be a major boom for mobile devices.

Larry Mittag

The question anymore isn't whether or not to wireless, the question is which wireless to do. The much-awaited 802.11n standard is winding it's way through the acceptance process, clearing the political barriers as well as the technical ones, while UWB is finally being accepted by governments outside of the U.S.

This is just one sign of the movement of computing from the deskbound PC to mobile platforms in any number of forms and the slow but massive wave of ubiquitous computing. Wireless communications is a nice thing to have if you are using a laptop, but it is a critical piece of infrastructure for any number of embedded systems. It's getting to be hard to pick up a newspaper without seeing something else that is being built in terms of city infrastructure, consumer devices, or industrial applications that involves communicating smart devices that take advantage of a sea of connectivity.

Larry Mittag

Wireless data networks are continuing their march to ubiquity. A recent article in the Houston Chronicle detailed how the city is studying parking meters that communicate through a municipal Wifi network. Once the infrastructure for this is in place then not only will the city administrate the meters remotely, but they may also open up this Wifi network for public Internet access.

This is exactly the kind of public-utility network that gives carriers like Verizon absolute fits. The initial cost estimate for the project was $1M, but that has since dropped to one fourth of that. There are still open questions as to whether or not the city will charge for access, and it is not a done deal that the network will be opened up at all, but the economics of it are practically a no-brainer. Once the network is in place over a wide area then a flood of dedicated systems can join into it.

The most interesting thing about this article is the information about the lobbying efforts taking place at the local, state, and national levels. The carriers are trying very hard to outlaw efforts like this to turn Internet access into a public utility, but it sounds like they are not having much success.

An even more ambitious network is being built in West Hollywood. This one is anticipated to be built around mesh networking designs, which should self-scale up to handle increased traffic.Perhaps laptop-toting drivers stuck in L.A. traffic can look for parking spaces available in Houston...


Larry Mittag

Wireless communications is continuing its relentless march toward ubiquity. The latest addition to this trend is the progress of the Wireless USB specification, as described in an EE Times article (USB untangles the ties that bind). In this article, Rick Merritt brings us up to date on the status of this UWB-based technology and hints at the types of applications that might benefit from it next year.

This is a new technology that will, I believe, find a very ready market. Cords are one of those irritants that we can all do without, especially the single-purpose 'special' cords that always get lost because we use them so infrequently. Moreover, wireless USB would be a major boon to system designers, since connector space is almost always a significant design consideration. In practically any embedded system, wireless connectors that don’t need external exposure and can easily support one-to-many communications architectures are a truly meaningful feature.

There is some meat to recent nanotechnology announcements. An article in EE Times describes switching systems built around nanotubes that can route signals at 10 GHz or higher. They specifically highlight wireless comm, but this applies to all high-end switching applications.

Again, this is not a new paradigm. This is not a bad thing - We had our fill of those in the late 90's. The capability to do something as mundane as switching better and faster is important, especially for as esoteric as nanotech.

Wide-area data communications is a very strange field. The logical way to develop such an industry would be to first figure out a way to send data and then refine and specialize that process to particular applications. That may be the right way, but the reality of telecommunications has followed a very different path.

The crux of the difference is synchronous versus asynchronous communications, or more exactly what the communications looks like in the time domain. Voice traffic on a telephone must at some point be time-synchronized, otherwise "Watson, come here - I need you!" becomes "XKD*FE@#%!". This synchronization is critical to human communications, but much less important to most computer-to-computer communications.

This fundamental fact has divided telecommunications into two camps that use the same language but speak from two different points of view. This discussion is still going on, based on an EE Times Article on the resurgence of Time-Domain based network protocols in the telecom networks.

Is there a lot of interest in this? I can provide more material and some pointers if people are interested. (I also added the link, which I couldn't find on the site earlier).

Larry Mittag

I sat on a panel back in 1998 that was discussing fat versus thin clients for mobile devices. Thin was the vogue at the time, with WAP getting ready to take over the world. I was pretty much alone in pointing out that the weak point was the communications link, which at the time was (to put it politely) not ready for prime time.

Now I see the argument being raised yet again in Craig Mathias' latest column. His take is that thin clients will reduce client complexity (true) and take advantage of unlimited connectivity (huh?). The oddest point he made was that Web Services would be used simply to personalize the communications. This misses the point that Web Services is the backend technology that makes full applications on embedded devices a winning proposition.

Web Services is simply a set of conventions that allow data to be placed in context. This allows applications to parse data based on tags that are meaningful rather than descriptive of the presentation appearance for the data. This allows information to flow between applications in a structured way. The result is mobile applications that can use the information on the Internet.

Do embedded designers understand this? Are embedded systems being designed to use Web Services effectively?

Larry Mittag

A report in the Wall Street Journal this morning detailed the latest round of obstructionism from the telcos regarding Wifi rollouts sponsored by local governments. Their arguments basically complain about unfair competition and waste of taxpayer resources, both of which are absolute crap. Let's look at each of these.
Unfair Competition - Telcos used to be a monopoly, and then they got broken up. These days they are very close to being a monopoly again, except for the fact that they haven't quite cemented government regulation of the market yet. The barrier to entry has been the expense of the network, especially the last mile. These networks drive that cost to practically nothing. This is bad news for the existing business. That's a shame - live with it. This is capitalism. You fall behind, you get eaten.
Waste of Taxpayer resources - Most municipal governments are getting into this business initially to meet their internal requirements. They are finding that the networks cost a small fraction of the upfont costs and practically nothing to run. This argument smacks of the FUD that Ma Bell used to spread about the terrors of unregulated access to their networks. The reality is that communications is something you buy at a store, take home, and spend an hour or so setting up. This is not magic anymore.
Larry Mittag

Much is made of Moore's Law, which deals with advances in semiconductor density, but we seem to be moving into a more complex world now where the relevance of it is diminished. No one cares that much how fast you are running if all you are doing is laps around an isolated island. Increasingly computing is defined more by cooperative systems that distribute information than by gate counts.

There is evidence of this all around us. Broadband access is finally becoming the default for Internet access in the home, and that access is driving new applications like VoIP and IPTV. Corporate computing is being redefined by virtualization, which uses networks to distribute computing power more effectively. These and other applications depend heavily on fast networks, which are getting faster with every iteration. This year alone should see the introduction of 802.11n and 10 Gbit Ethernet.

In a very real way the network is indeed the computer, as Sun's PR department has reminded us over and over. this represents a real opportunity for embedded systems to play a larger role in the computing infrastructure, since this world works more on machine-to-machine communications than computers that have a face (i.e. a user interface). Embedded systems can become the sensors at the edges of this new computer, as well as the distributed resources of the device itself. Could this be the dawning of the all-dominant supercomputer that has been the staple of science fiction?

Larry Mittag

There is a lot of hand-wringing going on about last-mile communications and how the U.S. is falling behind. Case in point, an article in EE Times comparing U.S. access to that in Japan and a few other relatively small countries. The article details the 100 Mbps technologies being rolled out in Japan and South Korea and beats the drum that the U.S. is falling behind. There is a grain of truth to the argument, but I believe the next real advance will be wireless access rather than wired. WiMAX will neatly sidestep the massive logistics involved in digging up the streets yet again to wire the last mile to the home and business. Incremental improvements can then be made by upgrading the transmitters and receivers without having to string atoms in between them. Yes, we will fall behind a bit while making this generational leap, but the result will be mobile access and a much more robust infrastructure.

Larry Mittag