NEW YORK-Tokyo-based Mitsubishi Materials Corp. has established offices here to prepare for a 2001 commercial launch of its SWIFTcomm data platform, which it believes is a low-cost challenger to third-generation wireless services.
SWIFTcomm, which stands for Smart Wireless Internet Field Teamwork Communications, will permit error-free data transmission of up to 20 megabits per second, the company said. Even when users are traveling at speeds of up to 100 miles per hour, MMC’s trademarked @irPointer, a pocket-sized modem, will allow handheld and notebook computers to secure high-speed Internet connections.
“It works at autobahn speeds. We tested it in Oklahoma City,” said Tsugio Yoshida, the Tokyo-based general manager of international business for MMC’s Mobile Business Strategy Division.
To demonstrate SWIFTcomm’s capabilities in densely populated areas, Mitsubishi has deployed a trial network in New York, which has more tall buildings closer together than does Tokyo, he said.
The SWIFTcomm system, which is entirely based on Internet Protocol, will cost carriers close to nothing per transmitted bit. This will permit them to offer the kind of flat-rate pricing that American consumers have become accustomed to in using the wireline Internet, said Yu Makiuchi, a consultant to MMC’s Mobile Business Strategy Division.
The SWIFTcomm architecture, capable of using frequencies between 400 MHz and 5 GHz, is based on three primary technologies developed by Mitsubishi Materials developed.
The Internet Packet Multiple Access, IMPA, “allows single-paired data channels to serve multiple @irpointers rapidly for real-time connectivity,” the company said.
Khiva software provides connectivity through a variety of transmission zones. Amp.R provides a smooth handoff for routing packets of data in areas where more than one base station provides overlapping coverage.
Yoshida also noted that the @irpointer wireless modem does not require an outside antenna. The wideband, high gain smart antennas MMC has developed may be the first available in the size of a petri dish, he added.
Mitsubishi Materials estimates that deployment of its first offering, a narrowband system for telematics and short message service, could cover 95 percent of the United States with 20,000 cell sites at a cost of $500 million, Makiuchi said.
“This is completely independent of CDMA, which will be a 3G base technology,” said Michio Matsuoka, the New York-based manager of the SWIFTcomm Project.
“CDMA needs too complicated an architecture and relies on very strict power control of the base stations. That means base station costs could be very high.”
Mitsubishi Materials sees a variety of players as potential customers for SWIFTcomm, including hardware manufacturers, content providers, automobile makers and cellular and other wireless carriers.
The company has begun marketing the narrowband version of system to potential customers, but it does not expect it to be commercially available until the third quarter of next year. A target date of 2003 has been set for commercial availability of the first wideband version.
