NEW YORK-Convergent communications are getting closer to reality with development of gateways to distribute content among various stationary and mobile devices and interoperability technology that permits seamless roaming between fixed and mobile networks, speakers at the December Internet World conference said.
“Centralized media servers tied to cable networks will allow swapping of content among fixed and mobile devices. These home gateways will connect people to information that’s not desktop (computer) oriented, to their Palms, wireless phones, refrigerators and televisions,” said Ken Morse, chief technology officer of PowerTV Inc., which counts AOL Time Warner among its clients.
“Next-generation set-top cable boxes that include 802.11b for home wireless networks are just being shipped now. Microsoft (Corp.) is trying to build a $600 gateway because anywhere there is a middleman there is a threat to Microsoft. Someone else also will be the software providers.”
Morse said the “fundamental inhibitor” to widespread dissemination of multimedia gateways today is the unmet need “to communicate securely between devices.” To solve this critical problem, it will be necessary to develop and deploy a “portable and mobile digital rights system” that takes advantage of intelligence vested in both networks and devices, he added.
The onslaught of options made possible by this multimedia convergence is another component that must be managed in a way that is user friendly in order to facilitate widespread consumer adoption, said Bill McLean, president of U.S. operations for Parthus Technologies.
“There are enormous amounts of choices being given to consumers. For each service, people are building guides, but at a certain point, we will need a meta-search engine,” he said.
For multimedia convergence to deliver mobile commerce, entertainment and targeted information services alerts, what is needed is “a broadband network that is screaming fast, hundreds of kilobits per second, a browser that interacts with TCP/IP, all content on the Internet, and an inexpensive broadcast/multicast system that transcends the wireless/wireline boundary,” said Alan Kuritsky, vice president of marketing for Flarion Technologies.
TCP/IP, or Transmission Control/Internet Protocol, is a networking protocol that provides communication across interconnected networks.
In late November, Flarion completed a successful demonstration of a seamless handoff between an 802.11b wireless local area network and a mobile wide area network. The test employed off-the-shelf network hardware along with Flarion’s flash-OFDM PC modem cards for the wireless communicators and its RadioRouter base stations for the air interface. In the demonstration, people working on laptop and handheld computers on the LAN continued to use these devices in an uninterrupted fashion while in a car that drove between two intersecting macular cell sites at speeds reaching those typical on highways.
“This breakthrough addresses two key goals which are critical to the emergence of the mobile data market: mobility and WAN-to-LAN interoperability,” said Ray Dolan, president and chief executive officer, when Flarion announced the demonstration Dec.18.
“Working together with licensed operators around the world, we can now look forward to the day when broadband access to the Internet can be presumed regardless of time and place.”
