Information Policy

European Researchers Work on Advanced Videoconferencing

Poor image and sound quality are among the top complaints expressed by videoconferencing users, particularly people who use low-cost, low-bandwidth consumer-oriented systems. But a research project currently underway in Europe is exploring powerful compression tools and related technologies in an effort to make home videoconferencing a better and more useful communications tool.

The European Union-funded “Together Anywhere, Together Anytime” (TA2) project aims to bring high-quality, near-virtual reality videoconferencing to homes via the Internet. Thirteen partners from seven countries have taken on the task of developing new technologies and concepts for simplifying and improving Internet group communication, such as by creating a platform that allows participants in scattered geographic locations to appear to be sitting around the same table.

TA2 partners feel that the project is destined to play an important role in an increasingly mobile world where people are routinely moving to different cities and countries for study- or work-related reasons. Many of these individuals, the partners believe, would appreciate a consumer-oriented videoconferencing system that would allow users to interact with each other realistically, enjoying activities such as board games or viewing snapshots and home videos with family and friends.

According to the project’s organizers, TA2 experiences will be characterized by their naturalness, including clear, relaxed voice communication and intelligent video features. One of the venture’s research partners is the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits (IIS) in Erlangen, Germany. Fraunhofer researchers are working to ensure that home videoconferencing systems will have a listenable and consistent sound quality. To this end, they have developed the Audio Communication Engine, software consisting of reciprocally tuned components that are designed to improve the sound quality and clarity of videoconferences.

Fraunhofer researchers say the key component for providing excellent sound in a consumer videoconferencing environment is the MPEG Enhanced Low Delay AAC audio codec. The software is designed to ensure low-delay high-quality sound output even at low bit-rates. The codec’s echo control also eliminates troublesome echoes, freeing users from having to wear a headset and enabling them to freely move around a room. Sophisticated signal processing enhances microphone signals as well as multi-channel speaker output. The Fraunhofer scientists say they have already turned their attention to real world implementation by designing versions of their Audio Communication Engine tailored for integration into TV sets, set-top boxes and home audio systems.

TA2 is a part of the European Research Program 7, which receives funding from the European Commission. TA2 research is scheduled to conclude in January 2012.

https://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/37111?7649

Laser Breakthrough Promises Faster Optical Telecom

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, claim to have reached a new milestone in laser physics by creating the world's smallest semiconductor laser, a device that’s capable of generating visible light in a space smaller than a single protein molecule. The achievement, the researchers say, will enable the development of optics-based telecommunications many times faster than current technology, as well as optical computing in which light replaces electronic circuitry with a corresponding leap in speed and processing power.

The team was not only able to successfully squeeze light into a remarkably tight space, but found a novel way to keep the light energy from dissipating as it moves along. "This work shatters traditional notions of laser limits," says Xiang Zhang, a professor of mechanical engineering and director of UC Berkeley's Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center. The research team recently published a study on their discovery.

While it is traditionally accepted that an electromagnetic wave--including laser light--can’t be focused beyond the size of half its wavelength, research teams around the world have found a way to compress light down to dozens of nanometers by binding it to the electrons that oscillate collectively at the surface of metals. This interaction between light and oscillating electrons is known as “surface plasmon resonance.”

Scientists have been racing to construct surface plasmon lasers that can sustain and utilize these tiny optical excitations. However, the resistance inherent in metals causes surface plasmons to dissipate almost immediately after being generated, posing a critical challenge to achieving the buildup of the electromagnetic field necessary for lasing.

Zhang and his research team took a novel approach to stem the loss of light energy by pairing a cadmium sulfide nanowire--1,000 times thinner than a human hair--with a silver surface separated by an insulating gap of only 5 nanometers, the size of a single protein molecule. In this structure, the gap region stores light within an area 20 times smaller than its wavelength. Because light energy is largely stored in this tiny non-metallic gap, loss is significantly diminished. With the loss finally under control through this unique "hybrid" design, the researchers could then work on amplifying the light.

"When you are working at such small scales, you do not have much space to play around with," says Rupert Oulton, the research associate in Zhang's lab who first theorized this approach last year and the study's co-lead author. "In our design, the nanowire acts as both a confinement mechanism and an amplifier,” Oulton says. “It's pulling double duty."

"What is particularly exciting about the plasmonic lasers we demonstrated ... is that they are solid-state and fully compatible with semiconductor manufacturing, so they can be electrically pumped and fully integrated at chip-scale," said Volker Sorger, a Ph.D. student in Zhang's lab and the study’s co-lead author.

https://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/37076?7649

UTL Launches Solar-Powered Mobile Handset

Uganda Telecommunications Ltd (UTL)—the fixed-line incumbent, which operates the Mango GSM network—has announced in a press release that it has launched Uganda’s first solar-powered mobile phone. Branded as “Kasana”, the handset costs 75,000 Ugandan shillings (US$ 38.4) and is reportedly capable of 12 hours of talk time for one hour of exposure to the sun. Moreover, the phone would remain fully charged if it is continues to be exposed to the sun.

This follows Kenyan operator Safaricom's launch of a solar-charged mobile handset, branded "Simu ya Solar", which sells for 2,999 Kenyan shillings. In a statement, UTL said that the Ugandan regulator puts mobile telephony penetration at only 30%, more than 80% of whom live in rural areas, with just 10% with access to electricity grid power. This means that people without ready access to electricity would have to walk long distances to charge their handsets at the nearest power outlet, often at a trading centre that is miles away.

https://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/37059?7649

Faster Wireless Standard Making Mark in Home Networking

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Home network users are continuing to migrate to newer and faster home networking connectivity technologies, including Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11n and alternative wire technologies, such as coax, powerline and phone wiring. In 2008, 10/100 Ethernet was still the leading technology in use with home networks worldwide. However, 802.11x networks will outnumber 10/100 Ethernet by the end of 2009, reports In-Stat. In addition, many Wi-Fi users have transitioned (or are transitioning) from 802.11b to the more robust 802.11g, and some have begun to upgrade from 802.11g to draft 802.11n-compatible products.

“Another notable trend is that the use of home networks for more than just Internet sharing among North American users increased from 41.8% in 2008 to 49.7% in 2009,” says Joyce Putscher, In-Stat analyst. “But most consumers have not yet bridged the chasm between the PC and consumer electronics (CE) worlds by adding CE devices to their networks.”

Recent research by In-Stat found the following:

* Worldwide installed home networks will surpass 300 million households in 2011.

* Home networks with Gigabit Ethernet will more than quadruple through 2013 to nearly 90 million households worldwide.

* Asia/Pacific will lead in Wi-Fi home network penetration by 2012.

* Europe leads in networked households with alternative wire technologies, both currently and throughout the forecast period.

https://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/37027?7649

Saving more lives on Europe's roads: mobile phone operators sign up for eCall roll-out

Today, eCall, Europe's in-car automatic emergency call system, received the full backing of Europe's mobile phone industry. Representatives of the industry's GSM Association underlined their commitment to this life-saving technology by signing the EU's Memorandum of Understanding to implement eCall across Europe. eCall automatically dials 112, Europe's single emergency number , when a car has a serious accident and sends its location to the nearest emergency service – even when passengers do not know or cannot say where they are. Rolling out eCall requires close cooperation between public authorities, car companies and mobile phone operators and could save up to 2,500 lives each year in the EU when fully deployed and reduce the severity of injuries by 10 to 15%.

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/09/1290&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

Looking Forward to Voice, LTE Faces Technological Quandary

The industry has yet to come to a consensus on voice over LTE technology, with IMS, VoLGA and CS fallback vying for top spot.

LTE is noted for its speed, simplicity and elegance. It can support stunning data rates and has the potential to revolutionize telecommunications with a host of innovative, high-bandwidth applications.

But for all of the promise inherent in its blazing speeds, LTE still has to figure out how to handle the industry’s cash cow: voice. In its current form, LTE cannot support SMS and voice services based on circuit-switch technology.

“There are concerns regarding how to deliver voice and SMS over LTE [because] voice is the primary source of sales accounting for an average of about 75 percent of wireless services revenue,” says ABI Research analyst Nadine Manjaro.

LTE is designed as an IP-only technology and is not designed to carry voice. It has to use an overlaid voice solution, and despite the technology’s rapidly approaching worldwide deployments, the industry has yet to settle on a single voice-over-LTE technology.

An ideal solution will create a standard for voice over LTE that will be implemented by the vast majority of operators, thereby ensuring roaming and service continuity across networks, Manjaro says. “One common solution is needed to fit all LTE operators.”

The main problem is discovering what that solution will be.

https://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/36995?7649

Electronic medicine, without borders?

Disease knows no borders and now researchers in Europe and the Mediterranean shoreline are using electronic infrastructures (e-Infrastructures) to coordinate and cooperate internationally.

Disease knows no borders. With migration, mixing populations and globalisation, genetic disorders, too, spread and blend easily. In each country where particular diseases emerge, national authorities deploy resources to track, treat and research common diseases.

This is helpful, and often very successful, but tends to duplicate efforts internationally many times over. Moreover, researchers working in one country may not be in touch with those in another, where their knowledge could be invaluable.

European and Mediterranean specialists working on the ITHANET project have increased coordination of their efforts and pooled their knowledge using e-Infrastructures, like different communication tools, databases, grids and web portals. This type of knowledge sharing is fertile ground for enriching the internet, but still remains one of the least explored and developed functions.

http://cordis.europa.eu/ictresults/index.cfm?section=news&tpl=article&ID=90819

Voice Web: The Next Mobile Revolution

Voice communication and its associated revenues are clearly on the decline due to the rise of smartphones and mobile applications. More time today is spent texting, e-mailing and Web surfing from phones rather than using them to talk. And above all, subscriber loyalty has all but disappeared: People will now switch carriers at the drop of a hat in order to get an iPhone or Palm Pre, and care more about the apps on their device than to which carrier they pay their bill.

All this poses a problem for traditional wireless providers. The mobile paradigm is changing, and carriers are being locked out of its fastest growing segment. Are telcos doomed to become “just the plumbing”?

Not if they embrace the idea of a “Voice Web” service, which can allow callers to access the Web with one spoken word, as well as enable Web applications, social networks, or IM to send users a message during a call. These speech-enabled Web services would empower voice calls with the same dynamic, interactive experience of texting but now utilizing the most intuitive interface of all, the human voice.

Bringing Flexibility to Voice

One reason for the reduction in voice calls is that the increased flexibility of texting makes it more fun and productive in comparison. But what if that same flexibility could be brought to plain old person-to-person voice?

The growth of cloud-based applications and open APIs is enabling the swift development of compelling new mashups like Voice Web, and creating a desire to constantly be connected to the Web, including while on a phone call. It may seem cliché, but the possibilities for the service are truly endless. You can imagine, say, telling a friend about your latest favorite song and sharing it right away on the phone by instantly invoking your iTunes account. Setting up appointments and checking Web calendars using only voice would be a revolution. Checking movie times and locations while mulling over choices with a friend on the phone? A no-brainer. And how about GPS? What if directions to a destination could be whispered into a headset while driving to the location? It certainly sounds safer than looking back and forth at a tiny Web browser.

https://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/36815?7649

Solar, Wind Power Enable ‘Green’ Cell Base Station Market; For Operators, it Pays to be Green

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- In the last few years, the number of worldwide cellular base stations has exploded from the hundreds of thousands to the many millions, creating greenhouse gases and pollution from the power required to run them, reports In-Stat. Base stations on an electric grid aren’t the real problem, but as cellular spreads to billions of people in emerging countries, off-grid base stations, which are usually powered by diesel generators running 24/7, proliferate.

“While diesel pollution is an environmental issue, what bothers operators the most is the cost of powering and securing the generators,” says Allen Nogee, In-Stat analyst. “Diesel fuel has to be trucked to remote sites, and theft of diesel fuel and equipment can cost operators millions of dollars. The solution is for operators to at least partially power remote base stations with wind turbines, solar panels, or both. This is truly a case where it pays to be green.”

Recent research by In-Stat found the following:

* By 2014, over 230,000 cellular base stations in developing countries will be solar-powered or wind-powered.

* The number of off-grid base stations is growing at 30% per year.

* Off-grid base stations are primarily located in Africa, South Asia (including India), South America, Latin America, and the Caribbean.

This research is part of In-Stat’s Cellular Infrastructure service, which provides comprehensive analysis of the components and equipment for wireless broadband and communication technologies, including the market trends and network technologies, such as micro, pico, and femtocells.Recent In-Stat research, Green Base Stations: Renewable Energy Becomes a Reality in Cellular Infrastructurecovers the market for cellular base station technology in the developing world.

https://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/36792?7649

Utilities explore wireless backhaul for meter makeovers

Like many utilities, APS is using wireless backhaul to power its statewide advanced meter infrastructure rollout

Amongst a host of necessary new decisions, utilities beginning to roll out advanced meter infrastructure (AMI) must choose from building their own network, partnering with a telco for use of theirs or working with a middleman that does the network aggregation for them. In most cases, it comes down to a technology choice of whether fixed wireless, fiber, leased line or cellular data makes the most sense to power their future smart grids.

The once-standoffish Federal Communications Commission is even getting involved in the smart-grid infrastructure debate. It recently appointed former venture capitalist Nick Sinai as Energy and Environmental Director, charged with the task of examining how broadband and communications infrastructure and policies can support national energy and environment goals, particularly the smart grid. What Sinai and the FCC decides will determine the regulations for utility companies using wireless spectrum and broadband access technology as well as determine what broadband’s role will ultimately be in smart grids.

https://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/100/36750