WE HAVE BEEN FED MANY EXCITING scenarios that wireless can deliver. Everyday objects in our lives--in fact, any object that can be embedded with a chip--are now being considered to be included in a huge, evergrowing networked world, which all of course, connect without wires. Your desktop will download your travel itinerary to your PDA, which will then beep your mobile phone when it is time to travel. When you reach the airport, your wired-up PDA will check you in. It will also send a signal to your bank that you have traveled and to debit your account for the ticket price. This, of course, is the future, a clean, unconfused break from the chaos in the market today.

Today, mobile service providers in Europe are still licking wounds from the punishing bids for 3G, a platform that still hasn’t seen any clear definition, yet has propelled companies to fight for their space.

Today, disgruntled mobile phone consumers in the U.S switch from service to service, in the vain hope that one of the services would actually provide decent connection and stable reception.

Today, India is waiting with bated breath to see what this turmoil is going to throw up, that could possibly bring it the next wave.

Wireless, wireless, wireless...

In this issue of siliconindia, we look at where this currently “hot” industry of wireless is going. As Gaurav Garg (see “Mobile Wireless,” p.18) says, there is a technology “soup,” where nothing talks to nothing else. Bluetooth, CDMA, 802.11a, GPRS, GSM, BREW...the market is seeing ever-evolving new standards and applications, which is adding to the confusion.

A good primer to this feature would be to examine what these names are, what they do, and their limitations.

There are three distinct areas of networking: the Personal Area Network (PAN), the Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN), and the Cellular (Wireless WAN), each of which has its limitations.

In the Personal Area Network, we have Bluetooth in action. Much maligned, and possibly written off as a non-starter, this technology of small footprint is definitely still in the reckoning. Bluetooth finds tremendous use in connecting devices within the personal areas-- for e.g., when your PDA could connect up to the printer in your office and command a print-out. Low cost and device-driven, Bluetooth is to be widely used in the European markets, as more laws about “car-calls” are passed, making it more difficult to make calls while driving. These devices work over distances of a few feet, say, within an office, or between rooms. When the network grows to larger than these personal spaces, the WLAN kicks in with the 802.11 series of standards. The protocols for these standards differ, and so does the application. The WLAN will be good for seamless connection within about a 1,000 ft.

The Wireless WAN is the current interest, where the footprint extends over thousands of feet. Despite the apparent confusion, it is surprisingly clear that each of these standards will have specific use and will need to coexist. Unless there is going to be a new one which will function in all three levels.

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