https://urgentcomm.com/wp-content/themes/ucm_child/assets/images/logo/footer-new-logo.png
  • Home
  • News
  • Multimedia
    • Back
    • Multimedia
    • Video
    • Podcasts
    • Galleries
  • Commentary
    • Back
    • Commentary
    • Urgent Matters
    • View From The Top
    • All Things IWCE
    • Legal Matters
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Resources
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
    • Reprints & Reuse
  • IWCE
    • Back
    • IWCE
    • Conference
    • Special Events
    • Exhibitor Listings
    • Premier Partners
    • Floor Plan
    • Exhibiting Information
    • Register for IWCE
  • About Us
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Terms of Service
    • Privacy Statement
    • Cookies Policy
  • Related Sites
    • Back
    • American City & County
    • IWCE
    • Light Reading
    • IOT World Today
    • Mission Critical Technologies
    • Microwave/RF
    • T&D World
    • TU-Auto
  • In the field
    • Back
    • In the field
    • Broadband Push-to-X
    • Internet of Things
    • Project 25
    • Public-Safety Broadband/FirstNet
    • Virtual/Augmented Reality
    • Land Mobile Radio
    • Long Term Evolution (LTE)
    • Applications
    • Drones/Robots
    • IoT/Smart X
    • Software
    • Subscriber Devices
    • Video
  • Call Center/Command
    • Back
    • Call Center/Command
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • NG911
    • Alerting Systems
    • Analytics
    • Dispatch/Call-taking
    • Incident Command/Situational Awareness
    • Tracking, Monitoring & Control
  • Network Tech
    • Back
    • Network Tech
    • Interoperability
    • LMR 100
    • LMR 200
    • Backhaul
    • Deployables
    • Power
    • Tower & Site
    • Wireless Networks
    • Coverage/Interference
    • Security
    • System Design
    • System Installation
    • System Operation
    • Test & Measurement
  • Operations
    • Back
    • Operations
    • Critical Infrastructure
    • Enterprise
    • Federal Government/Military
    • Public Safety
    • State & Local Government
    • Training
  • Regulations
    • Back
    • Regulations
    • Narrowbanding
    • T-Band
    • Rebanding
    • TV White Spaces
    • None
    • Funding
    • Policy
    • Regional Coordination
    • Standards
  • Organizations
    • Back
    • Organizations
    • AASHTO
    • APCO
    • DHS
    • DMR Association
    • ETA
    • EWA
    • FCC
    • IWCE
    • NASEMSO
    • NATE
    • NXDN Forum
    • NENA
    • NIST/PSCR
    • NPSTC
    • NTIA/FirstNet
    • P25 TIG
    • TETRA + CCA
    • UTC
Urgent Communications
  • NEWSLETTER
  • Home
  • News
  • Multimedia
    • Back
    • Video
    • Podcasts
    • Omdia Crit Comms Circle Podcast
    • Galleries
    • IWCE’s Video Showcase
  • Commentary
    • Back
    • All Things IWCE
    • Urgent Matters
    • View From The Top
    • Legal Matters
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
    • Reprints & Reuse
    • UC eZines
    • Sponsored content
  • IWCE
    • Back
    • Conference
    • Why Attend
    • Exhibitor Listing
    • Floor Plan
    • Exhibiting Information
    • Join the Event Mailing List
  • About Us
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Terms of Service
    • Privacy Statement
    • Cookies Policy
  • Related Sites
    • Back
    • American City & County
    • IWCE
    • Light Reading
    • IOT World Today
    • TU-Auto
  • newsletter
  • In the field
    • Back
    • Internet of Things
    • Broadband Push-to-X
    • Project 25
    • Public-Safety Broadband/FirstNet
    • Virtual/Augmented Reality
    • Land Mobile Radio
    • Long Term Evolution (LTE)
    • Applications
    • Drones/Robots
    • IoT/Smart X
    • Software
    • Subscriber Devices
    • Video
  • Call Center/Command
    • Back
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • NG911
    • Alerting Systems
    • Analytics
    • Dispatch/Call-taking
    • Incident Command/Situational Awareness
    • Tracking, Monitoring & Control
  • Network Tech
    • Back
    • Cybersecurity
    • Interoperability
    • LMR 100
    • LMR 200
    • Backhaul
    • Deployables
    • Power
    • Tower & Site
    • Wireless Networks
    • Coverage/Interference
    • Security
    • System Design
    • System Installation
    • System Operation
    • Test & Measurement
  • Operations
    • Back
    • Critical Infrastructure
    • Enterprise
    • Federal Government/Military
    • Public Safety
    • State & Local Government
    • Training
  • Regulations
    • Back
    • Narrowbanding
    • T-Band
    • Rebanding
    • TV White Spaces
    • None
    • Funding
    • Policy
    • Regional Coordination
    • Standards
  • Organizations
    • Back
    • AASHTO
    • APCO
    • DHS
    • DMR Association
    • ETA
    • EWA
    • FCC
    • IWCE
    • NASEMSO
    • NATE
    • NXDN Forum
    • NENA
    • NIST/PSCR
    • NPSTC
    • NTIA/FirstNet
    • P25 TIG
    • TETRA + CCA
    • UTC
acc.com

Call Center/Command


4.9 GHz market begins to mature

4.9 GHz market begins to mature

The 4.9 GHz band is experiencing a rapid increase in available products since it was approved by the FCC for public-safety data applications, but the
  • Written by Urgent Communications Administrator
  • 1st July 2006

The 4.9 GHz band is experiencing a rapid increase in available products since it was approved by the FCC for public-safety data applications, but the promise of better alternatives during the next couple of years has some experts urging emergency-response entities to use caution before purchasing first-generation systems.

To date, most of the activity in the 4.9 GHz band has involved using 802.11 technology — something public-safety representatives envisioned when they lobbied the FCC to establish a mask that would let first responder groups leverage affordable gear available in commercial markets. However, few entities actually are using 4.9 GHz frequencies to deliver data to mobile client devices, opting to use the spectrum for backhaul purposes and choosing 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi clients to make the final connection.

“There’s a lot of interest in it and a lot of discussion about it, but in terms of actual deployments and tests, we don’t see a great deal [of 4.9 GHz access activity],” said Mark Ferguson, director of marketing for Padcom.

In a typical mobile scenario, a 4.9 GHz connection is used to link a public-safety vehicle and the entity’s network, while a 2.4 GHz local area network around the vehicle is used to transmit data from the vehicle to an officer’s client device. The 4.9 GHz spectrum also is being used increasingly to backhaul data from fixed points — such as a surveillance camera site — to headquarters.

To this end, Motorola recently announced the WDE1000, a standards-based Wi-Fi card that supports connections over both 2.4 GHz and 4.9 GHz networks (see story on page 62), as well as a low-cost infrastructure solution known as HotZone Duo that operates in both bands.

Although the WDE1000 will work better than most Wi-Fi cards in a mobile environment, the standards-based solution does not work as well as the company’s proprietary mesh-enabled architecture (MEA) technology, which is optimized for high-speed mobility, said Rick Rotondo, director of marketing for Motorola’s mesh networks product group.

Indeed, the 802.11 standard was created for indoor use, so it was not designed for outdoor applications or to support mobility, said Martin Suter, Cohda Wireless’ CEO. The fact that these 802.11 limitations exist is a “dirty little secret” in the broadband wireless arena, particularly with respect to deployments sponsored by municipalities, he said.

Cohda has developed a solution that uses iterative processing to achieve 6 dB to 8 dB gain in receiver sensitivity at each node in the network to enhance range, often reducing the number of nodes needed per square mile by 50% in lower capital and operating costs, Suter said. In addition, the Cohda solution — expected to be available during the third quarter of this year — also addresses typical 802.11 problem areas such as multipath and mobility, he said.

Without such an option, public-safety communications officials wanting to deploy a 4.9 GHz network are faced with a dilemma, Suter said.

“Do I go proprietary today and compromise on the data rates — MEA data rates are sub-1 Mb/s — to get mobility? Or, do I pick a standard-based solution at the expense of mobility?” Suter said. “What we’re saying is that you no longer have to make that compromise.”

Meanwhile, things are heating up outside the 802.11 arena in the 4.9 GHz band. During IWCE 2006 in May, M/A-COM launched VIDAmax, a WiMAX-based 4.9 GHz solution that features data throughputs of 4 Mb/s to 19 Mb/s, said Gregory Henderson, M/A-COM’s manager for broadband technology.

By using WiMAX, VIDAmax can guarantee quality of service (QOS) from the base station of an 802.11-based system — even for those using the 802.11e QOS standard.

“It helps the quality of service, but all 802.11e does is give priority to trying to get the channel,” Henderson said. “It’s still not a guarantee of quality of service.”

WiMAX-based systems at 4.9 GHz very well may be the first to deliver truly mobile access devices that are affordable, as commercial wireless carrier Yozan is conducting a trial in Japan in the, said Matt Pope, vice president of wireless broadband products for WiMAX RF chipmaker Sierra Monolithics.

“We think that’s going to be a very good trial for how 4.9 GHz works,” Pope said. “It’s also going to generate enough volume from a device point of view that the U.S. market is going to be able to leverage some of that 4.9 GHz technology back at a reasonable cost point. We think that’s an exciting value proposition for the public-safety market, which has lower volumes and has to have a commercial [driver].”

Such access products at 4.9 GHz are expected to be introduced early next year, Pope said.

In addition, Alvarion announced a firmware upgrade to its orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)-based BreezeAccess VL packages at 2.4 GHz and 4.9 GHz that lets a wireless operator prioritize voice or video packets in the network to provide QOS assurances (see story on page 64). With the new firmware, BreezeAccess VL can support 260 voice-over-IP (VoIP) calls simultaneously while supporting 8 Mb/s data throughput in each sector, said Patrick Leary, Alvarion assistant vice president of marketing.

“In the beginning, we did a lot of extensive testing on both the video and voice side because the data we were seeing in the lab was so high that we frankly weren’t sure we could believe it until we put it out into the field,” Leary said. “When we put it out into the field and saw that these results were holding up in real commercial situations, it blew our engineers away.”

With so many advances on the horizon at 4.9 GHz and even more promising possibilities that could be available in the 700 MHz band in a few years, public-safety entities should carefully consider their long-term data plans before deciding to make 4.9 GHz deployments using existing 802.11 solutions, said Edmond Vea, CEO of ClosedNetworks, which consults with many municipalities.

Supporting a widespread deployment of an 802.11 network can look particularly attractive to a community that has a vendor offering to build it without any capital expenditure from the government entity, but such a buildout may not be in the community’s best interest long term, Vea said.

“If you’re deploying a system today at 4.9 GHz — particularly for mobility — it’s already obsolete,” Vea said during a session at IWCE 2006.

Among other things, networks with a plethora of nodes likely will have significant network-management issues, and the standards-based architecture leaves them more susceptible to security breaches than existing proprietary networks, Vea said. However, he did say deployment of 4.9 GHz networks today can make sense, particularly where long-range point-to-point links are involved.

Steve Devine, patrol frequency coordinator for the Missouri State Highway Patrol, also said targeted 4.9 GHz deployments can have long-term usefulness if planned properly to take advantage of future technologies. “The systems can be opportunistic and be basically instructed to do the best thing for them at any given time,” Devine said at IWCE 2006. “So when they go under an underpass where there is a 4.9 GHz access point, they can download a whole bunch of files, which they may not be able to do where there is [future] fringe coverage at 700 MHz, where the capacity is less.”

For those entities that already have deployed an 802.11 network that is overwhelmed by the traffic demands or does not meet mobility requirements, help may be on the way. Building automation vendor Kiyon has developed software designed to enhance switching efficiencies so even older 802.11 wide area networks can offer QOS in voice and video applications, said Michael Nova, Kiyon founder and CEO.

“Standard 802.11 [switching] is at 150 to 200 milliseconds — that’s why VoIP over wireless is so bad.” Nova said. “We take it down to 1 millisecond. That gives you a lot better throughput in terms of broadband, better quality in terms of jitter and latency for voice and video across multiple hops, and it also increases security because you’re moving things around so fast.”

With such a rapid switching scheme, Kiyon is able to push packets through multiple channels, using time slots to maximize data throughput and reassembling the packets fast enough that no latency in voice or video is detectable by humans, Nova said. Kiyon’s switching software can be embedded on any radio — it has been tested in 802.11 and ultrawideband environments — and can breathe new life into a struggling mesh network by ensuring quality data throughput even after 10 or 20 hops, Nova said (see graphic on page 28).

Already commercially available in the building automation industry, Kiyon’s multichannel routers will be in beta trial within a couple of months, Nova said.

Tags: Call Center/Command content Tower & Site Wireless Networks

Most Recent


  • 4.9 GHz market begins to mature
    Newscan: Japanese carrier outage lasts multiple days
    Web Roundup Items from other news organizations KDDI network ‘almost restored’ as Japan assesses outage’s full impact Up to 39.15 million KDDI mobile lines affected during nationwide disruption Vendor outage affects state unemployment, job-seeking sites Supreme Court deals blow to net-neutrality fans How many satellites are too many? TSA implements ‘surge team’ to allow pipeline […]
  • Criminals use deepfake videos to interview for remote work
    Security experts are on the alert for the next evolution of social engineering in business settings: deepfake employment interviews. The latest trend offers a glimpse into the future arsenal of criminals who use convincing, faked personae against business users to steal data and commit fraud. The concern comes following a new advisory this week from the […]
  • Tesla recalls 59,000 vehicles over emergency-call software glitch
    A software glitch has prompted Germany’s automotive regulator to call for the recall of more than 59,000 Teslas. The country’s Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt (KBA) agency published a notice on its website notifying Model Y and Model 3 owners of a bug with the Emergency Call (eCall) safety system on the vehicles. Tesla describes eCall as a “call system that automatically contacts […]
  • Report: Reforming emergency dispatch won't be easy, but it's necessary
    Over the last several years, reforming law enforcement has been a primary topic of discussion in communities across the nation. Discourse has mostly centered around the challenges agencies face in addressing the complex needs of those in mental health crisis, and the disparity of experience among community members depending on their race. But in this […]

Leave a comment Cancel reply

To leave a comment login with your Urgent Comms account:

Log in with your Urgent Comms account

Or alternatively provide your name, email address below:

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Content

  • 4.9 GHz market begins to mature
    Newscan: Feds recover millions from pipeline ransom hackers, hint at U.S. Internet tactic
  • Cyber is the new Cold War, and AI is the arms race
  • Private wireless networks in the US start going public
  • Microsoft patches 6 zero-day vulnerabilities under active attack

Commentary


LTE and liability: Why the fire service must move forward with digital incident command

  • 2
6th May 2022

Partnership and collaboration must be the foundation for emergency communications

18th April 2022

FirstNet success means no hypothetical ‘shots’ need to be fired, Swenson says

22nd February 2022
view all

Events


UC Ezines


IWCE 2019 Wrap Up

13th May 2019
view all

Twitter


UrgentComm

Newscan: Japanese carrier outage lasts multiple days dlvr.it/STS9JJ

6th July 2022
UrgentComm

Criminals use deepfake videos to interview for remote work dlvr.it/STRjZM

6th July 2022
UrgentComm

Tesla recalls 59,000 vehicles over emergency-call software glitch dlvr.it/STRcgT

6th July 2022
UrgentComm

Report: Reforming emergency dispatch won’t be easy, but it’s necessary dlvr.it/STRYNP

6th July 2022
UrgentComm

FCC clears SpaceX to connect Starlink to boats, planes, other moving vehicles dlvr.it/STRXGB

6th July 2022
UrgentComm

Judge orders Hytera to make large royalty payment this month to Motorola Solutions dlvr.it/STRRQc

6th July 2022
UrgentComm

Sesame Solar leverages mobile solar, hydrogen to power efforts beyond the grid dlvr.it/ST8m3K

1st July 2022
UrgentComm

Newscan: On front lines, communications breakdowns prove costly for Ukraine dlvr.it/ST7fnC

30th June 2022

Newsletter

Sign up for UrgentComm’s newsletters to receive regular news and information updates about Communications and Technology.

Expert Commentary

Learn from experts about the latest technology in automation, machine-learning, big data and cybersecurity.

Business Media

Find the latest videos and media from the market leaders.

Media Kit and Advertising

Want to reach our digital and print audiences? Learn more here.

DISCOVER MORE FROM INFORMA TECH

  • American City & County
  • IWCE
  • Light Reading
  • IOT World Today
  • Mission Critical Technologies
  • Microwave/RF
  • T&D World
  • TU-Auto

WORKING WITH US

  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Events
  • Careers

FOLLOW Urgent Comms ON SOCIAL

  • Privacy
  • CCPA: “Do Not Sell My Data”
  • Cookies Policy
  • Terms
Copyright © 2022 Informa PLC. Informa PLC is registered in England and Wales with company number 8860726 whose registered and Head office is 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG.
This website uses cookies, including third party ones, to allow for analysis of how people use our website in order to improve your experience and our services. By continuing to use our website, you agree to the use of such cookies. Click here for more information on our Cookie Policy and Privacy Policy.
X