Beyond the high-end home theater speaker systems, paper shredders, advanced sewing machines and electrical adapters, the Consumer Electronics Show 2005 last week was, at least in part, about taking networks to the next level. CES is a gigantic laboratory of 2,400 vendors trying to figure out what you can do with a world of digitized information.
LAS VEGAS – Beyond the high-end home theater speaker systems, paper shredders, advanced sewing machines and electrical adapters, the Consumer Electronics Show 2005 last week was, at least in part, about taking networks to the next level. CES is a gigantic laboratory of 2,400 vendors trying to figure out what you can do with a world of digitized information.
The keynote speech by Microsoft Chief Software Architect Bill Gates unintentionally revealed a theme familiar to network executives: Experiments don’t always work. In a mock episode of “Late Night with Conan O’Brien,” Gates talked about his vision of a “digital life style.” Interviewed by O’Brien, Gates said Microsoft can enable that lifestyle with products available today, such as Windows XP Media Center Edition, Portable Media Centers, MSN online services and the Xbox game console.
But minutes later, a Windows XP Media Center Edition PC repeatedly failed while showing a slide show of digital photos of O’Brien and Gates out for a night on the town.
But that didn’t stop other CES vendors from demonstrating an array of network and client technologies.
Future nets
Some of the most advanced wireless network technologies were on display, including multiple input multiple output (MIMO) and ultrawideband (UWB). MIMO is the basis of the next IEEE WLAN standard, 802.11n, which will have a minimum throughput of more than 100M bit/sec. UWB will appear later this year in products that create a wireless USB connection among a plethora of devices such as PCs, flat plasma screens and media servers.
Samsung Electronics and Athena Semiconductor demonstrated the effects of their just-announced jointly developed MIMO product: a single integrated circuit that incorporates three transceivers. The demonstration transmitted two high-definition TV streams and one standard-definition videostream over a link that maintained a consistent throughput of more than 50M bit/sec.
Cisco’s Linksys announced a wireless 802.11g router and client PC card based on Airgo’s MIMO chipset. The chipset package uses two radios, three antennas and Airgo’s algorithms to boost 802.11g range by up to three times, and throughput by up to eight times.
A conventional 802.11g access point has a data rate of 54M bit/sec but useable throughput in the range of 18M to 24M bit/sec. It reaches about 300 feet, although throughput drops as distance increases.
Nearly two dozen companies showcased the rapidly evolving UWB wireless technology. UWB transmits data at very low power, at an optimal range of about 12 feet, with throughput of about 400M bit/sec. One of the first uses likely will be to replace USB cables with a UWB wireless connection between PCs and peripheral devices. Another use is a wireless version of the FireWire 1394 standard, which defines a method for high-speed streaming video applications.
The Multiband OFDM Alliance – which includes chip makers, software developers and a pack of name-brand consumer electronics vendors – is promoting one version of UWB. Members say they expect products out by year-end, initially for wireless USB. Freescale Semiconductor, a Motorola spinoff, is promoting a rival UWB version. The two groups are fighting it out in the IEEE 802.15.3a task group, but both plan to go ahead with products whether or not the IEEE standard advances.
Start-up Video54 Technologies unveiled a wireless beam-steering technology, dubbed BeamFlex, that uses software and multiple antenna arrays to direct standard 802.11 wireless LAN (WLAN) signals around radio interference and physical barriers.
The company, headed by Selina Lo, former marketing executive at Alteon WebSystems and Nortel, says that BeamFlex creates a threefold boost in WLAN throughput and range. The technology is intended to optimize WLAN signals for streaming video. WLAN vendor Netgear is building BeamFlex into its RangeMax line of WLAN products.
Such devices will accelerate the demand for vast numbers of IP addresses. A CES panel on IPv6, which is designed to break the current Internet addressing logjam, said this next-generation scheme will make it much easier to configure devices automatically, make every IP device addressable and forge secure peer-to-peer connections that promise to finally break the back of spammers.
Panelists acknowledged that U.S. adoption of IPv6 is slow but expect it to begin picking up speed this year, partly as the result of Microsoft’s plan to introduce IPv6 as a native element in the Longhorn release of Windows XP, in 2006 for clients and 2007 for servers, and partly as the result of the Department of Defense’s decision last year to mandate the use of IPv6 in its IT purchases. Microsoft is using IPv6 in 12 buildings on its Redmond, Wash., campus, says Ted Tanner, architectural specialist with the company’s Strategic Relations and Policy Group.
Panasonic is scheduled this year to introduce additional products, besides its current crop of digital cameras and home gateways, that will support IPv6 as an option, using the current release of Windows XP. And that’s just the beginning, says Alexander Ramia, senior group manager with Panasonic Technologies. He sketched a vision of Panasonic appliances installed in a home and accessible via a network connection and IPv6 addresses.
A new breed of service providers, for Internet-based VoIP phone service, was out in force. Level 3 Communications, a wholesaler of VoIP services to RBOCs, cable companies and others, announced it can now offer E911 services to about 60 million U.S. households.
The new capability means service providers now can identify automatically a 911 caller’s address and pass that data to police, firefighters or EMTs. Previously, a VoIP provider could provide only a caller’s phone number.
“Our partners can now replace the land line” with VoIP, says Cynthia Carpenter, vice president of marketing for Level 3’s consumer voice services.
“VoIP will be the phone line,” she says.
VoIP providers such as BroadVoice fielded questions from attendees. “Can I listen to my e-mail messages?” one user asked. “What happens if someone sends me a fax?”
Anyone with a broadband connection can use the BroadVoice service, said Leslie Berry, vice president of customer care. A phone adapter lets customers use touch-tone phones to make and receive calls via a DSL router or cable modem, through the BroadVoice IP servers.
The company recently introduced an 802.11-based wireless IP phone, which lets subscribers make BroadVoice calls over any open WLAN network.
The IDG News Service contributed to this story.
