IBurst
Encyclopedia
iBurst is a wireless broadband technology originally developed by ArrayComm
ArrayComm
ArrayComm is a wireless communications software company founded in San Jose, California, California, in Silicon Valley. Co-founded in 1992 by Martin Cooper, a pioneer of the wireless industry. The company is wholly owned by Ygomi LLC, under principal investor T. Russell Shields...

. It optimizes the use of its bandwidth with the help of smart antennas. Kyocera
Kyocera
is a multinational manufacturer based in Kyoto, Japan. It was founded as in 1959 by Kazuo Inamori and renamed in 1982. The company has diversified its founding technology in ceramic materials through internal development as well as strategic mergers and acquisitions...

  is the manufacturer of iBurst devices.

Description

iBurst is a mobile broadband wireless access system that was first developed by ArrayComm, and announced with partner Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....

 in April 2000.
It was adopted as the High Capacity – Spatial Division Multiple Access (HC-SDMA) radio interface standard (ATIS-0700004-2005) by the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions
Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions
The Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions is a standards organization that develops technical and operational standards for the telecommunication industry. ATIS is headquartered in Washington, D.C....

 (ATIS).
The standard was prepared by ATIS’ Wireless Technology and Systems Committee’s Wireless Wideband Internet Access subcommittee and accepted as an American National Standard in 2005.

HC-SDMA was announced as considered by ISO TC204 WG16 for the continuous communications standards architecture, known as Communications, Air-interface, Long and Medium range
Communications, Air-interface, Long and Medium range
Communications access for land mobiles is an initiative by the ISO TC 204/Working Group 16 to define a set of wireless communication protocols and air interfaces for a variety of communication scenarios spanning multiple modes of communications and multiple methods of transmissions in Intelligent...

 (CALM), which ISO is developing for intelligent transport systems (ITS). ITS may include applications for public safety
Public Safety
Public safety involves the prevention of and protection from events that could endanger the safety of the general public from significant danger, injury/harm, or damage, such as crimes or disasters .-See also:* By nation...

, network congestion
Network congestion
In data networking and queueing theory, network congestion occurs when a link or node is carrying so much data that its quality of service deteriorates. Typical effects include queueing delay, packet loss or the blocking of new connections...

 management during traffic incidents, automatic toll booths, and more. An official liaison was established between WTSC and ISO TC204 WG16 for this in 2005.

The HC-SDMA interface provides wide-area broadband wireless data-connectivity for fixed, portable and mobile computing devices and appliances. The protocol is designed to be implemented with smart antenna
Smart antenna
Smart antennas are antenna arrays with smart signal processing algorithms used to identify spatial signal signature such as the direction of arrival of the signal, and use it to calculate beamforming vectors, to track and locate the antenna beam on the mobile/target...

 array techniques (called MIMO
MIMO
In radio, multiple-input and multiple-output, or MIMO , is the use of multiple antennas at both the transmitter and receiver to improve communication performance. It is one of several forms of smart antenna technology...

 for multiple-input multiple-output) to substantially improve the radio frequency
Radio frequency
Radio frequency is a rate of oscillation in the range of about 3 kHz to 300 GHz, which corresponds to the frequency of radio waves, and the alternating currents which carry radio signals...

 (RF) coverage, capacity and performance for the system.
In January 2006, the IEEE 802.20
IEEE 802.20
IEEE 802.20 or Mobile Broadband Wireless Access was a specification by the standard association of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers for mobile wireless Internet access networks...

 Mobile Broadband Wireless Access Working Group adopted a technology proposal that included the use of the HC-SDMA standard for the 625kHz Multi-Carrier time division duplex (TDD) mode of the standard. One Canadian vendor operates at 1.8 GHz.

Technology

The HC-SDMA interface operates on a similar premise as cellular phones, with hand-offs between HC-SDMA cells repeatedly providing the user with a seamless wireless Internet access
Internet access
Many technologies and service plans for Internet access allow customers to connect to the Internet.Consumer use first became popular through dial-up connections in the 20th century....

 even when moving at the speed of a car or train.

The protocol:
  • specifies base station and client device RF characteristics, including output power levels, transmit frequencies and timing error, pulse shaping
    Pulse shaping
    In digital telecommunication, pulse shaping is the process of changing the waveform of transmitted pulses. Its purpose is to make the transmitted signal better suited to the communication channel by limiting the effective bandwidth of the transmission. By filtering the transmitted pulses this way,...

    , in-band and out-of band spurious emissions, receiver sensitivity and selectivity;
  • defines associated frame structures for the various burst types including standard uplink and downlink traffic, paging and broadcast burst types;
  • specifies the modulation, forward error correction, interleaving and scrambling for various burst types;
  • describes the various logical channels (broadcast, paging, random access, configuration and traffic channels) and their roles in establishing communication over the radio link; and
  • specifies procedures for error recovery and retry.

The protocol also supports Layer 3
Network Layer
The network layer is layer 3 of the seven-layer OSI model of computer networking.The network layer is responsible for packet forwarding including routing through intermediate routers, whereas the data link layer is responsible for media access control, flow control and error checking.The network...

 (L3) mechanisms for creating and controlling logical connections (sessions) between client device and base including registration, stream start, power control, handover, link adaptation, and stream closure, as well as L3 mechanisms for client device authentication and secure transmission
Secure transmission
In computer science, Secure Transmission refers to the transfer of data such as confidential or proprietary information over a secure channel. Many secure transmission methods require a type of encryption. The most common email encryption is called PKI...

 on the data links.
Currently deployed iBurst systems allow connectivity up to 2 Mbit/s for each subscriber equipment. Apparently there will be future firmware upgrade possibilities to increase these speeds up to 5 Mbit/s, consistent with HC-SDMA protocol.

Commercial use

Various options are already commercially available using:
  • Desktop modem with USB and Ethernet ports (with external power supply)
  • Portable USB modem (using USB power supply)
  • Laptop modem (PC card
    PC card
    In computing, PC Card is the form factor of a peripheral interface designed for laptop computers. The PC Card standard was defined and developed by the Personal Computer Memory Card International Association which itself was created by a number of computer industry companies in the United States...

    )
  • Wireless Residential Gateway
  • Mobile Broadband Router


iBurst was commercially available in twelve countries in 2011 including Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan , officially the Republic of Azerbaijan is the largest country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to...

, Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...

, and USA.
iBurst (Pty) Ltd started operation in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

 in 2005.
iBurst Africa International provided the service in Ghana
Ghana
Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...

 in 2007, and then later in Mozambique
Mozambique
Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique , is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest...

, Democratic Republic of the Congo
Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a state located in Central Africa. It is the second largest country in Africa by area and the eleventh largest in the world...

 and Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...

.
MoBif Wireless Broadband Sdn Bhd, started service in Malaysia in 2007, changing its name to iZZinet. The provider ceased operations in March 2011.
T3 Wireless, a subsidiary of Pacific Internet
Pacific Internet
Pacific Internet was headquartered in Singapore and was the largest telco-independent Internet Communications Service Provider in the Asia Pacific region with direct presence in Singapore, Hong Kong, Philippines, Australia, India, Thailand and Malaysia...

, offered iBurst in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. BigAir
BigAir
BigAir is a telecommunications company in Australia listed on the Australian Stock Exchange .BigAir manages one of the largest metropolitan fixed wireless networks in Australia which provides coverage across the seven major metropolitan areas including Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Gold Coast,...

acquired the customers in 2006,
and shut down iBurst service in 2009.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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