Now suppose that your phone wants to connect with this pCell network. It would simply send out an access request as it normally does. And all of the “dumb” antennas in your vicinity—let’s say there are 10 of them—would pick up those signals and relay them to the data center.
That’s where things get interesting. Say, for example, you play a YouTube video. The pCell data center would request the video from Google’s servers, and then stream it to your phone through those 10 antennas. But here’s the key innovation: No one antenna would send the complete stream or even part of the stream. Instead, the data center would use the positions of the antennas and the channel characteristics of the system, such as multipath and fading, to calculate 10 unique waveforms, each transmitted by a different antenna. Although illegible when they leave the antennas, these waveforms would add up to the desired signal at your phone, exploiting interference rather than trying to avoid it.
And as you move about, and as other devices connect to and drop off the network, the data center would continuously recalculate new waveforms so that each device receives the correct aggregate signal. “There’s no handoffs and one has to take turns,” Perlman says. “You could literally light up a whole city using all the same spectrum.”
If pCell technology does take off in the next few years, it will likely be because it’s compatible with 4G LTE phones. It does this by simulating LTE base stations in software. The data center would use these virtual radios to inform its waveform calculations, essentially tricking an LTE phone into believing it’s connected to a physical base station. “Your phone thinks its the only phone in the cell and is sitting right next to the tower,” Perlman says. The same technique could also work for other wireless standards, such as 3G and Wi-Fi, he says.
So will operators adopt pCell? It’s unlikely that LTE carriers would replace their networks any time soon, even if Artemis’s technology proves to be the “seed change” Perelman believes it is. But its compatibility with LTE changes the game. For instance, operators could deploy pCell antennas in congested hot spots such as airports, sports stadiums, and city centers—places where they’re already investing in new infrastructure. Users could roam seamlessly between the two networks without having to buy new phones or switch service plans.
Artemis says it plans to license pCell to wireless carriers and Internet service providers. The company is now beginning large-scale trials in San Francisco and expects the technology will be ready for commercial rollouts by the end of 2014. It will be fascinating to see how its ambitions pan out.
more:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/telecom/wireless/5g-service-on-your-4g-phone
Comments
Prolly costs 5k at a minimum.
but the question is. If one buys an Atremis station, can it serve as a fast tool for FPV, with low ping etc.?
This video illustrates one of the things I absolutely hate about these kinds of presentations. I can stream 1080p at a wide variety of datarates - just because the output is 1080p doesn't mean anything. Same with 4k TV, just because the TV has 4x the pixels, doesn't mean the encoded file in always going to be 4x the size. I can encode a SD stream that's larger than an HD stream.
Forget these bogus 'real world' demos, just show me how many raw bytes are being transferred to each device - that's actual valuable information.
There is no free lunch and you can't violate the laws of physics. So what this tech tries to do is simply to optimize, via radio some kind of radio wave optimizations, the usage of the available bandwidth (avoiding interferences and avoiding to split the available bandwidth between users), thus certainly not creating more bandwidth.
What they forget to say, following the principle "there is no free lunch", is that if you provide full bandwidth to every user (versus splitting the available bandwidth between users in a current 3G/4G network), you pay the price by an increase in total consumed/emitted power (signal level x full bandwidth) => higher running costs, more CO2, more microwave cancers in perspective. Even not mentioning mobile operators will need to (again) install complete new pCell networks and heavy datacenters (this system requires servers to do all of the waveform calculations real time and individually for every device!!). I doubt current network operators will move to a new major $ investment while the preceeding LTE/3G/4G has not yet returned fully on their investments (and God knows how money rules this world).
I haven't read the official post and I also don't claim to be an expert.
The answer to your last question is yes however it looks like the phone doesn't have to do any compilation of the signal. They are looking at using the natural constructive and destructive interference of waves moving through a volume. All the phone towers in the area analyse the outgoing signal strength from your handset and triangulate your location and LoS obstructions. Then they all broadcast the same incoming waveform (and the same data) but all subtly modulated so that where they all overlap at your location they add up to the correct signal.
I think the benefit they mentioned in this system is that they can mix in multiple signals for people at different locations and only people standing in particular spots will receive a given signal. I guess instead of having to clear the deck so you can squirt out the data someone requested and then clear that before the next message, this is more like laying a blanket out over the city and the towers calculate how they all have to edit the broadcast so the waves at your location add to the signal you want to see.
Seems like lots of calculations though, working out how you are moving, what other signals they have to compensate for, how those people are moving and all the waveform addition and multiplication as well. Sounds cool though, someone let me know if I have it round the wrong way though. As I said I am no expert.
Can someone further explain this to me?
Now I admit, I am not super familiar with computing or wireless networking. Everything about this video seems to be contradicting to my current knowledge....
How can you possibly send more data than the specific bandwith allows?
Are they talking about a cell receiving multiple frequencies carrying information, and then essentially compiling the data from these separate radio bands all together to allow proper streaming?
I'm ready