Learning from the Past:“Wired City” to Wireless Society

Mischa Schwartz

Charles Batchelor Professor Emeritus

of Electrical Engineering

Columbia University

New York, NY 10027

Moving toward a Wireless

Society?

People on the move- WiFi big success

Multimedia; social networking latest app

Cellphones/Smartphones worldwide

Future wireless plans- high bit rates,

enhanced mobility

Wideband Mobile Competitors

• LTE (Long-Term Evolution)

Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP)

high thruput, low latency

Ex: Downlink, 100 Mps; Uplink, 50 Mbps

adopted by Verizon, ATT Mobile

• WiMAX mobile, IEEE 802.16e

Theme: How did we get here?

Connecting Past with Present

Outline of Talk

Wireless Proposals: Applications and

Requirements- Wireless Society?

“Wired City”, early 1970s:

Applications and Requirements

Videotex, expts, mid-1970s to mid-1980s

Wireless Research, mid-1990s:

Applications and Requirements

Current: wideband wireless, LTE, WiMax

Competition or Complementary?

Wireless Proposals

Applications: Multimedia!

High quality video/pictures

Broadcast/Multicast capability

(Video, Download newspapers,…)

Social networking, Network games,

(plus, of course!, Voice, Data,…)

Amazing growth, wireless terminals

Wireless Society?

Requirements

Seamless communication, heterogeneous nets

High bit-rate transmission:

100-200 Mbps, high mobility (350 km/hr),

1 Gbps (!), low mobility

Desired QoS, end-to-end:

Reduced latency, packet dropping, jitter…

More services at lower cost

“Wired City” Concept-

Early- to Mid-1970s

Two-Way Cable TV

Telephone

Video Telephone

Cable TV

By 1970- Significant impact

Studies undertaken, problems and

possibilities

USA examples:

Sloan Commission on Cable Communic.

Report, 1971

Paul Baran, Inst. for the Future, 1970,

Delphi study, future of telephone industry

Sloan Report-

On the Cable

Mostly about cable TV:

“Choice [by citizens] is still possible”

Stress on public services

But, Appendix A, two-way services:

schools, conferences, e-mail, voting…

Baran paper, Jan.’75,

IEEE Trans.Comm.

Market Forecast, 30 home electronic services

↓ Education

From home: work, meetings, banking

Info. access: electronic newspaper, legal,

library, weather,…

Shopping facilitation: cashless, catalogs,

consumers’ advisory

Note: least potential: plays/movies, mass mail!

Experiments and Proposals,

“Wired City”

• Improved education delivery

• Simplified shopping and banking

• Telemedicine, health care delivery

• Work at home

• Citizen-government interaction

Possible Benefits

• Education and culture to more people

• More leisure time

• Improved medical care

• Reduced commuter time

• Better informed

Concerns Expressed

• Effect, life styles: more stay at home?

Less people-people interaction?

Population dispersal?

• Effect on job market/labor skills

• Questions of privacy

• Communications “overload”?

Increased stress, anxiety?

Videotex, mid-1970s

to mid-1980s

• UK: BPO, BBC first, concepts, late 1960s

Services, mid-1970s- CEPT, Prestel

Canada, Dept. Communication, late 1970s,

Telidon (TV and telephone)

France, Minitel, directory service, 1980

1984- free terminals, by mid-1990s:

many services available

Two-Way Cable TV Systems

USA, pilot systems, early 1970s

E.K.Smith, Pilot Two-Way CATV Systems.

IEEE Trans. Comm., Jan. 1975

Warner Cable, QUBE, Columbus, OH

Introduced 1977; ½ million homes, 1983

Cox Cable, INDAX, San Diego, 1981

Ex: El Segundo Theta-Com SRS

• Operated by Theta-Cable/Teleprompter

• Developed by Theta-Com/ Hughes Aircraft

• Started, Jan. ’72; 30 home terminals

• Simulated 10,000 terminals

Early-Mid ’90s: Beginning of

Wireless Age

Second-Generation Digital Systems

North America and elsewhere:

IS-136, 1991; IS-95, 1993

Europe and elsewhere: GSM, 1992

Japan: PDC, 1993

Next Generation?

Wireless Research, mid-1990s

(IEEE Personal Comm. 6/95)

All-Packet-Switched (But ATM cells)

Multi-media Traffic

Heterogeneous Networks:

Lower-BW Cellular, Higher-BW WLANs,

Multihop Wireless Nets

Cellular hierarchy: Macro-, Micro-, Pico-

Multimedia Applications

Teleconferencing

Design Team, Distributed Work

Environment

Electronic Newspaper

Mixed-Media Database Search

Nomadic Computing

Application Requirements/

Environment

Varying BW, QoS Requirements

Terminals, Different Capabilities

Multicast Often Required

Wireless Access + Wired Core Network

Heterogeneous Networks

Yet- “Seamless Communication End-to-End”

Electronic Newspaper Example

To the home, business, during commute

Transmit text, image, video

Current news, background inform.

(multiple databases consulted)

Electronic tablet/ Notebook computer

Pressure-sensitive buttons

Network Management/ Control

Issues Raised

Multi-media traffic, heterogeneous nets:

How to maintain desired QoS end-to-end?

Dynamic BW control- how, where?

Hierarchical/layered coding?

Specialized network node/switch?

Flow control, non-real-time traffic

Admission/handoff control

Now Return to Present

• Cellphones/Smartphones ubiquitous

• iPad, Tablet computer-use fast-growing

• Lightweight Laptops

• Wi-Fi systems predominate

• Data/Video transmission all Internet based

Cellular Carriers look to

Broadband Systems

4G(3.xG?) Cellular, 3GPP, IEEE 802.16e

LTE vs .IEEE 802.16e/WiMAX

Competition or Complementary?

4G Cellular Proposals

Both 3GPP, WiMAX stress layers 1, 2

improvements:

new high data-rate, low latency access

new transmission schemes, OFDM-based

dynamic bandwidth sharing

multi-antenna use: MIMO (MIMO-OFDM)

cognitive/software-defined radio

4G Cellular Proposals, cont

All-IP networking

Advanced mobility management:

handoff, location,…

Interworking with other nets:

4G, 802.11 WLANs, …

“Seamless communications, QoS end-to-end”

Concerns again expressed

• Overuse of texting?

• Psychological side effects?

• “ „Friends‟ Without a Personal Touch”

(NY Times book review, 2/22/11)

But- Political impacts dramatic!

Facebook, Twitter change tide

Middle East!

Technology in the Future

Multiple, heterogeneous wireless nets,

all handling multimedia traffic?

Will the Internet be mobile?

“seamless communications end-to-end” –

a reality?

Wireless Society?

Wait and See!

(Your guess is as good as mine!)