…it is all around us and why you should care!!
The needs for the world to be always connected can only become a reality by using the airwaves to connect our devices and ourselves.
We see today the proliferation of hand held devices and wearable items, if you consider also the connectivity of sensors and meters, or of the way we stay connected on the move – then the only method of being ‘online’ is through a wireless connection.
Now we have been using wireless communications for ever – even semaphore, smoke signals, flashing lights – didn’t we all play with the mirror and the beam of light when we were kids? – though usually to drive the cat mad rather than to convey information. Well when you consider them they are all without wires or wireless communication technologies.
However what is wireless communications nowadays and how is it delivered, what options are there and what are they used for. In this latest short blog I will introduce the many variants of wireless technologies in use today.
The variety and confusion of what is all around us is demonstrated by how the multitude of wireless technologies cover the airwaves – it’s a busy ‘empty’ space out there.
I wont attempt to detail all the options that there are, but outline the more commonly used from the short distance low data rate technologies to the high speed long distance ones.
You will be familiar with some of these and less so with others….
We all have Bluetooth on our smartphones, headphones, games consoles, in our cars and on our tv’s – it is a defined communications standard designed to connect devices together over short distances. For instance your headset to phone, music center to speakers, it is low power and bandwidth of around 3Mbps.
You will see more devices and items becoming Bluetooth enabled from bottles to clothes, sports balls to shoes embedding the technology into everyday items is already occurring.
LoRa or Long Range Radio and Zigbee is found in wireless sensor networks, operating with speeds of around 200kps and over short ranges. The types of devices using Zigbee are alarm sensors, light controls, heating controls – Zigbee and similarly Z-Wave are often found in the home – monitoring and controlling your systems at home.
These low speed short distance (sub 20m) wireless types are collectively called Personal Area Networks (PAN) this identifies and groups them when you compare them to …
Wifi or Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) is the most common form of wireless communication and we use Wifi to connect to the internet and beyond every day – this is what you connect through when you turn Wifi on your computer or smartphone, it is what coffee shops and high street shops provide ‘free’ for you to connect through – it is much higher speed than the PAN networks with speeds upto 1Gbps and in the near future many times higher, with ranges 50-100m.
All the wireless technologies mentioned so far operate in what is called unlicensed radio bands (unlike the licenced frequencies used by Mobile Phone Operators who have bought their right to exclusively use certain frequencies) – therefore can be operated in by anyone and any device that use these radio frequencies. What that means is that the radio space where Bluetooth, Zigbee, Z-wave and Wifi work in can be very very busy with all these types of wireless trying to use the same space and often causing interference with one another as they do.
Additionally there is the licensed bands that the Mobile Phone companies use – 3G 4G.
3G and 4G are what your smartphones and mobile phones use, the ‘G’ stands for Generation and although not mentioned here there were 1G and 2G, but 3G and 4G are what you will have on your smartphones today. 3G offers speeds of around 2Mbps and 4G 100Mbps and higher. The mobile operators provide the mobile phone cellular network for the 3G and 4G services that you use today.
We will continue to see the airwaves around us being inundated with wireless technologies to support the ever growing need in demand for communications. This demand will continue to rise through more and more devices and applications.
With the numerous types of wireless there is a growing need to simplify how these are supported and provided for – the most efficient way is to combine many of them into the same networking devices such as the Cisco Wireless Access points that can provide Bluetooth, Wifi and 3G/4G in one.
The recent launch of the Hyperlocation module (Halo) for the Cisco 3700 AP provides the Bluetooth radio within a solution that provides location tracking down to 1meter in accuracy. Couple this to the capability to deliver 3G mobile coverage (and 4G in the future) and you have a truly comprehensive wireless communication solution.
When you look at how to connect many of the sensor networks for instance LoRa, Zigbee and deliver these with Wifi and 3G then the Cisco Industrial Router IR910 provides a all in one box solution.
Cisco delivers end to end solutions for the wireless world we live in – have a look, you might just find a ‘Halo’ above your head !!!
Authors
