Seattle Communications (COM-19) Society Chapter
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Sponsors:
Communications Society (COM-19)
Topic: Next-Generation Broadband Networks
Speaker:
Dr. Benny Bing, Georgia Institute of Technology
Date/Time:
Tuesday, October 14, 6:00-8:30 pm
COM-19 chapter meeting and pizza social: 6:00 - 7:00 pm
Seminar: 7:00-8:00 pmLocation:
EEB 125
Electrical Engineering Building
University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98105
This seminar is open to all IEEE members. Those wishing to join IEEE are also invited.Abstract:
Broadband wireless access is viewed by many telephone and cable operators as a "disruptive" technology and rightly so. The broadcast nature of wireless transmission offers ubiquity and immediate access for both fixed and mobile users, clearly a vital element of quadruple play services involving voice, video, data, and mobility. Unlike wired access (copper, coax, fiber), a large portion of the deployment costs is incurred only when a subscriber signs up for service. The first part of the talk will provide a comparative assessment of the standards and technologies underpinning emerging broadband wireless access solutions. Wireless LAN applications have blossomed tremendously over the last few years. What started out as cable replacement for static desktops in indoor networks has been extended to fully mobile broadband applications involving moving vehicles, high-speed trains, and even airplanes. Wi-Fi data rates have also continued to increase from 2 to 54 Mbit/s with the current 802.11n draft topping 600 Mbit/s. This development may eventually render wired Ethernet redundant in the enterprise network. An increasing number of municipal governments around the world and virtually every major city in the U.S. are financing the deployment of Wi-Fi mesh networks with the overall aim of providing ubiquitous Internet access and enhanced public services. In addition, cheap phone calls using Wi-Fi voice over IP may become one of the biggest benefits of a citywide municipal network. This has led some technologists to predict that eventually we are more likely to see meshed Wi-Fi cells that are linked together into one network rather than the widespread use of high-powered WAN handsets cramming many bits into expensive and narrow slices of radio spectrum. The second part of the talk focuses on emerging Wi-Fi technologies. Streaming live and on-demand video content over the Internet, and in telecommunications and broadcast networks, is becoming prevalent. In addition to broadband service providers (e.g., cable, DSL, satellite, 3G, WiMax) that employ a plethora of video-transport technologies such as IP-TV, switched digital video (SDV), video on demand (VoD), mobile TV, and peer-to-peer streaming, Web content providers have increasingly large volumes of video on their sites, and are making it more discoverable, helping drive usage and ad revenue. Service providers have also started to focus on video content and end-user quality of experience (QoE) to complement network-based QoS monitoring in order to meet rising customer expectations. The last part of the talk will focus on the optimization of video transmission for emerging access networks.
Speaker Biography:
Dr. Benny Bing is a research faculty member with the School of ECE at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He has published over 60 technical papers and 10 books. In early 2000, his book on wireless LANs was adopted by Cisco Systems to launch Cisco's first wireless product, the Aironet Wi-Fi product. He was subsequently invited by Qualcomm and the Office of Information Technology to conduct customized Wi-Fi courses. He is an editor for the IEEE Wireless Communications Magazine. He has guest edited for the IEEE Communications Magazine (2 issues) and the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas on Communications. In October 2003, he was invited by the National Science Foundation to participate in a workshop on Residential Broadband.
Presentation slides are available here.
