Japanese researchers have either maintained or slighlty surpassed a 3 Gbit per second wireless link at 542 GHz, clearing the path to the endless appetite for more wireless text messaging and voice data.
The research could lead to Super Wi-Fi soon, and if the proof-of-concept technology built by the Tokyo Institute of Technology can be commoditised then, it would provide a useful point-to-point link, but also one that could struggle to penetrate non-conducting materials.
Whether or not femtocells will be needed in some applications still isn't clear at this point, but lower frequencies tend to have better range and can pass through almost anything, which is why wireless technologies started at the lower end.
But once we filled the low end with analog radio and then TV, we ended up with mobile telephony at 900 MHz, and by the time 3G came along, it got pushed to 2.1 GHz despite the many hurdles that band has by trying to push through building walls and even our own atmosphere.
Commercial fixed links, and wireless spectrum licences, run up to about 80 GHz. To be sure, some wireless carriers have opened up a few frequencies above those bands, pegging out some wireless spectrum above 100 GHz for unlicensed utilization should anyone take an interest in using it.
But it's the cost of signal generating and detection equipment that is preventing exploitation of the upper end of the radio spectrum rather than any practical issues with the waves themselves.
For example, it's the production of radio signals up to 300 GHz that makes body-scanners so expensive. Perv-scan technology uses millimetre waves running up to 300 GHz, which penetrate clothing, but not skin, to reveal concealed bombs, as long as they're not strapped to one's side, but making and detecting radio waves at such frequencies calls for more expensive technology.
In mid-2011, Korean semiconductor ROHM managed to sustain a 1.5 Gb per second connection at 300 GHz using a technique similar to the Japanese reseach team.
ROHM continues working on the technology, and is promising 30 Gb per second links within a few years, which should work fine through our atmosphere and penetrate even concrete walls as long as they're not made of conductive material.
For example, in the United Kingdom, the frequency plan tops out at 275 GHz, and the last couple of hundred GHz is allocated in huge chunks to satellite communications and research projects as the cost of the technology discourages any other applications.
Overall, 300 GHz radio has a wavelength of just one millimeter, while 3,000 GHz (three terahertz) is a tenth that and the range is known as the 'T-Ray' spectrum.
The top end of that is pushing against and into infrared wavelenght, which stretches up to 400 THz and then we're into visible light and even 'talking' lasers...
To be sure, that will be the absolute limit, but we're still far away from even getting close to that. The Japanese development, and the ROHM project which proceeded it, are useful steps to exploiting what politicians like to call a limited natural resource when they're auctioning it off.
Research such as this clearly demonstrates just how much wireless spectrum there is yet to be filled without having to recalibrate our television sets or give up our wireless devices.
In other mobile news
A new study performed by Juniper Research reveals that wireless carriers could lose about 27 percent of their annual revenues, or close to $300 billion to a combination of fraud and billing errors in less than four years from now.
But Juniper is quick to point out that through the implementation of revenue assurance and fraud management solutions, network operators will still be able to substantially cut down on the scale of potential global revenue loss by more than $250 billion by 2016.
The report, ‘Mobile Revenue Assurance & Fraud Management: Business Strategies & Forecasts 2012 to 2016,’ found that as the level of billable events has increased – operator-billed revenues totalled more than $900 billion last year – networks have in turn experienced an upsurge in leakage across the revenue cycle from sales to network configuration, rating, and billing.
The report notes that while such leakages are often the result of system error – ranging from incorrect billing to chargeable call records not being transmitted to the billing system for rating and charging – networks are also experiencing a sharp rise in fraudulent activity.
According to the report, revenue leakage levels are currently highest in the Africa and Middle East, where there are particularly high rates of interconnect bypass fraud under which fraudsters avoid paying call termination fees and SIM cloning.
But according to report co-author Dr Windsor Holden, the introduction of a more formalised risk management approach could still significantly alleviate these issues. ‘By consolidating and automating its operational processes, the MNO can establish 360 degree visibility of the complete revenue chain in order to detect hidden losses or fraudulent activity rapidly. What is required is a combination of real time analytics and proactive business intelligence.’
Other key findings from the report include, given that both revenue assurance and fraud management utilize the same data, mobile operators can and should deploy a single technology platform that enables both sets of operations.
There's also a lack of cross-departmental collaboration and information-sharing still remains a hurdle in reducing revenue leakage.
The ‘Assured Revenue’ whitepaper is available to download from the Juniper website together with further details of the full report.
In other mobile news
As most observers in the wireless industry had expected and predicted, all talks with LightSquared's creditors have failed and now the company has officially filed for bankruptcy protection late yesterday.
This doesn't come as any surprise, since the company's options for appeasing its creditors were running out. LightSquared's lenders say the struggling company has been in default on its debt since its $9 billion partnership with Sprint dissolved in March.
