for the

INCISOR
TM

worldwide wireless
warrior

Video enabled Issue 168 April 2012

WHITE SPACE SPECIAL FOCUS #3

THIS ISSUE WHAT FUTURE FOR WHITE SPACE?
OFCOM ISSUES CALL TO ARMS TO US & EU REGULATORS
NEUL – ANOTHER CSR?
PLUS: OPENING UP TO OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE

www.incisor.tv
2 www.incisor.tv

a mountain to climb
A major chunk of this month’s issue is given over to Incisor’s third review of developments in the TV white space spectrum.
I make no apologies for this, as I feel as if we are standing on the threshold of something very big indeed.
Happily, most of the time when I feel like this, it turns out to be the case. I felt like this about Bluetooth, and that was, well, rather
successful. I’ll admit that I sometimes get it wrong, too. I was terribly excited about Anoto’s revolutionary, mind-changing digital
pen and paper technology. That one didn’t do quite so well, though I still feel today that the potential was there.
Back to white space. The organisations that are putting their weight behind white space, do, though, have a massive challenge
ahead of them. That challenge is no less than to create a completely new, global wireless network. One that will form the
backbone of the buzzphrase of today – the Internet of Things.
With any nascent technology, there is typically a core group of utterly committed individuals for whom success is massively
important. These people then tend to gather around them big corporations that don’t want to be left out. The resources and
global clout of the big guys combine with the clever IP, the hard work and sheer tenacity of the ideas guys.
In the white space ecosystem, British company Neul is the driving force, and, by some quirk of fate, two of the founders of Neul
are ex-CSR founders. And most people reading this magazine will know that CSR was a very successful company in the very
successful Bluetooth market.
Neul has pulled together major global companies to work with in the creation of the Weightless Special Interest Group, the
alliance that will corral, manage and co-ordinate all wanting to become part of the white space phenomenon.
This, Incisor’s third white space special, provides the best possible insight into developments in this new industry. I hope you are
as interested and excited as I am.
Vince Holton
Publisher & editor-in-chief, Incisor / IncisorTV

INCISOR.TV FOCUS THIS MONTH CONTENTS EDITORIAL CONTACTS

Click on the images below to download WHITE SPACE SPECIAL ISSUE: INCISOR IS PRODUCED/DISTRIBUTED BY:
the two previous Incisor white space Click I.T. Limited
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special issues. WHAT FUTURE FOR WHITE Hampshire Gate, Langley, Rake
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SPACE? Tel: +44 (0)1730 895614
Fraser Edwards of Cambridge Consultants
asks crucial questions CONTACT DETAILS:
Publisher/Editor-in-chief:
OFCOM ISSUES CALL TO Vince Holton · vholton@incisor.tv
Telephone: +44 (0)1730 895614
ARMS TO US & EU Sales & Business Development:
REGULATORS All enquiries – sales@incisor.tv
Ed Richards, Ofcom’s CEO, makes a Telephone: +44 1730 895614
strident and challenging speech Contributing writers:
Rebecca Russell, Manek Dubash,
Dean Anthony Gratton
NEUL – ANOTHER CSR? Paul Rasmussen, Mads Oelholm.
Vince Holton talks to CSR founder Glenn
FOLLOW INCISOR Views expressed within are those of the Incisor
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UL examines the implications of using open
Click here source software for Bluetooth qualification

NFC: A GENTLE EVOLUTION © Copyright Click I.T. Ltd 2012

He was there at the outset, and Dean

Click here Gratton wants to know if this is NFC’s time?
3 www.incisor.tv
Is the Android platform
delaying the Bluetooth
Smart Train?
Two thirds of the 821 million smartphones
shipped in 2013 will include Bluetooth
Smart Ready (Bluetooth 4.0), according to
IMS Research’ new report - The World
Market for Bluetooth. This forecast was
backed up at the recent Mobile World
Congress when three announcements of
new Bluetooth Smart Ready (sensor type)
devices were made. This is great news for
device manufacturers looking to connect
to phones with a low energy technology,
but, IMS suggests, things are not quite
ready just yet.
Product announcements from the show,
which joined Apple’s iPhone 4S, Motorola’s
Droid Razr, and NECs Next Media PP N-
01D as smartphones including Bluetooth
Smart Ready, were LG’s Optimus 4X HD,
HTC’s One Series, as well as the Padfone
from ASUS. This is positive news, says
IMS, for the manufacturers of devices from
sports and fitness products, headsets,
proximity sensors and watches, who have
been waiting for smartphones to connect
to their low energy devices, and thereby
remove the frequent battery replacement
or charging requirements that currently
exist.
However, not all that glitters is gold. Alex
West, connectivity research director at IMS
told Incisor: “Whilst Apple’s iOS provides
native support for Bluetooth 4.0, and
Microsoft has announced that it will also
support this for the upcoming Windows
Phone 8 platform, the Android 4.0 platform
(Ice Cream Sandwich) from Google
doesn’t.”
So, what’s the problem?
Without support from the platforms,
phones will still be able to connect with
each other via Bluetooth, the problem will
come when trying to connect to Bluetooth
Smart enabled sensor devices; not so
good for the device manufacturers. West
continued: “Until a platform update is
provided, manufacturers will have to
choose between holding off on releasing
products until Google provides an
upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich (or
worse– wait until the release of Android
5.0), or developing products just for the
iOS and Windows platforms, or relying on
support from individual phone
manufacturers.”
Will this delay from Google hold back the
development of Bluetooth Smart enabled
devices? Not significantly in the short
term, suggested West, with more phones
being released that can support these
products. However, with the exception of
the iPhone 4S, all smartphones currently
including Bluetooth Smart Ready are
using the Android platform, so significant
delays in its support of Bluetooth 4.0
could cause some device manufacturers
to think twice.
Nordic squeezes
proprietary and
Bluetooth radios into
hearing aid
Nordic Semiconductor’s proprietary
2.4GHz wireless technology is being
employed by Danish hearing solutions
company, GN ReSound, in its ReSound
Alera hearing aid product, which enables
users to wirelessly stream audio from
common consumer electronics (CE)
devices such as TVs and smartphones
(the latter via a chest-worn Bluetooth
wireless technology microphone clip)
direct to their hearing aid(s) over a range
of up to 20 meters.
In operation, the end user connects their
TV or other CE device to a small audio
news
streamer box equipped with a Nordic
nRF24L01+ 2.4GHz transceiver. This then
pairs with a second nRF24L01+ located
in the ReSound Alera hearing aid.
When the user wishes to watch TV they
push a button on the back of their
hearing aid or use an optional remote
control to select the device's designated
wireless channel (typically between 1 and
3) to immediately stream wireless audio
in stereo direct from the TV to their
hearing aid.
Thomas Olsgaard, VP of Hardware
Platforms at GN ReSound told Incisor
that the job wasn’t without its challenges:
"It was extremely challenging to achieve
this ease of end-user functionality, along
with medical-grade (99.99%) field
reliability and real-time audio
performance in a hearing aid as small as
an adult finger nail weighing as much as
a paper clip."
The entire ReSound Alera product range
is built around a miniature 2.0cm (length)
x 1.5cm (height) x 0.6cm (thick) product
form factor that has to embed an even
smaller 1.4cm x 0.6cm x 0.4cm electronic
module housing an antenna without
groundplane (due to lack of space),
Bluetooth radio, a proprietary Nordic
2.4GHz radio, plus an external
microcontroller to perform the advanced
audio signal processing (background
noise cancellation and 'surround' sound
processing).
Olsgaard continued: "But all of this
functionality needed to run for several
days from a replaceable ZincAir battery
that is a fuel coin cell that can store
around 3x more energy than a standard
coin cell. This meant that the proprietary
radio needed the lowest possible power
consumption to enable the product to
average 1.5mA in operation and peak at
4mA when streaming.
4 www.incisor.tv
Twisted waves boost
radio, Wi-Fi, TV capacity
Professor Bo Thide of Swedish Institute of
Space Physics and a team of colleagues in
Italy hope to boost the information-carrying
capacity of radio waves by exploiting an
entirely new physical mechanism to fit more
capacity onto the same bandwidth.
The technique exploits what is called the
"orbital angular momentum" of the waves -
imparting them with a "twist". Varying this
twist permits many data streams to fit in the
frequency spread currently used for just one.
The parts of the electromagnetic spectrum
that are used for all three are split up in
roughly the same way, with a spread of
frequencies allotted to each channel. Each
one contains a certain, limited amount of
information-carrying capacity: its bandwidth.
The key lies in the distinction between the
orbital and spin angular momentum of
electromagnetic waves.
The "particles" of light known as photons can
carry both types; the spin angular momentum
of photons is better known through the idea
of polarisation, which some sunglasses and
3-D glasses exploit. Just as the "signals" for
the left and right eye in 3-D glasses can be
encoded on light with two different
polarisations, extra signals can be set up with
different amounts of orbital angular
momentum.
Prof Thide and his colleagues recently carried
out an experiment in Venice, sending a signal
442m from San Giorgio Island to the Palazzo
Ducale in St Mark's square.
In the simplest case, putting a twist on the
waves is as easy as putting a twist into the
dish that sends the signal. The team split one
side of a standard satellite-type dish and
separated the two resulting edges. In this
way, different points around the
circumference of the beam have a different
amount of "head start" relative to other points
- if one could freeze and visualise the beam,
it would look like a corkscrew.
Prof Thide and his colleagues are already in
discussions with industry to develop a system
that can transmit many more than two bands
of different orbital angular momentum. The
results could change just how much
information and speed can be squeezed out
of the crowded electromagnetic spectrum,
applied to radio and television as well as Wi-
Fi and perhaps even mobile phones
New standards drive the
auto connectivity market
New protocols such as MirrorLink from the
Connected Car Consortium will help
automotive manufacturers like Mercedes and
Toyota follow Ford in introducing technology
which allows the smartphone to become a
hub, enabling mobile internet, smartphone
app and content access across the range of
vehicles that they sell, according to a new
report from Juniper Research.
“Integrating the smartphone into consumer
cars represents a new route for the mobile
Internet and infotainment to enter the
vehicle,” report author Anthony Cox told
Incisor. Cox listed other findings from the
report, including:
• Commercial telematics are seeing sustained
take-up, driven by the promise of increasing
driver efficiency and managing costs.
• Regulatory initiatives such as the eCall
driver safety project and Brazil’s regulation
245 governing stolen vehicles will boost
telematics take-up in some geographical
regions.
• Though several insurance companies are
trialling the technology, insurance
telematics remains in its infancy with most
widespread commercial roll-outs not
happening until at least 2014.
In the commercial telematics market, Cox told
us that Juniper has observed an increasing
news
level of sophistication as fleet managers use
telematics to increase fleet efficiency, comply
with regulations and monitor driver behaviour.
Antenna design offers
multi-band performance
Ploughshare Innovations, which licenses
intellectual property developed by the UK's
Defence Science and Technology Laboratory,
has come up with a low cost antenna design
offering what it describes as ‘efficient
performance’ across multiple frequency
bands. With a bill of materials (BOM) cost
that is expected to be under 10 cents in
volume, Ploughshare is predicting that the
new component can replace several
antennas.
The new design concept was created to
eliminate the proliferation of antennas on
military equipment, and is now being offered
for licensing and further development to suit
commercial applications. Ploughshare
expects the new intellectual property to be of
interest to antenna manufacturers, radio
equipment OEMs, designers supporting
wireless chipsets with reference designs, and
design consultants in the RF marketplace.
Ploughshare’s Toby Proctor told Incisor: "The
burgeoning demand for wireless
communications has led to an array of
standards for different applications, and
considerable market pull to combine multiple
protocols into one device. This novel antenna
provides new flexibility for OEMs working in
these market segments."
Ploughshare's wideband antenna is a
cylindrical 'top hat' shape employing a
capacitive coupling structure to provide good
radio frequency (RF) performance
characteristics across multiple bands.
Ploughshare has also produced a design
prototype for a second version of the antenna
that is capable of operating across an even
wider range of frequencies - such as 100
MHz to 6 GHz..
5 www.incisor.tv
Applying sensor and
wireless technology to
patient-focused design
According to Asthma UK, an estimated 75%
of hospital admissions for asthma are
avoidable and as many as 90% of deaths
from asthma are preventable. Studies show
that, on average, three out of every four
asthma sufferers fail to use their inhaler
correctly and, while training can improve
technique, it is mainly performed through
observation and is generally ineffective.
With this in mind, Cambridge Consultants
developed the T-Haler concept, a training
device. Interactive software, linked to a
wireless training inhaler, monitors how a
patient uses their device and provides real-
time feedback via an interactive video
‘game’. T-Haler provides visual feedback to
the user on their performance and the areas
that need improvement. Cambridge
Consultants told Incisor that these tools
could help the estimated 235 million asthma
sufferers worldwide to get the most from
their inhaler, and potentially reduce the
millions spent annually on asthma-related
emergency room admissions.
More than 50 healthy participants, aged 18-
60, took part in a recent study conducted by
Cambridge Consultants to test the efficacy
of T-Haler. Before using the training system,
the average success rate of the group in
using an inhaler correctly was in the low
20% range – in line with numerous other
studies carried out. The participants had no
prior experience with asthma or inhalers and
were given no human instruction beyond
being handed the T-Haler and told to begin.
Kate Farrell, of Cambridge Consultants
described that happened: “Without any
human direction beyond the word ‘go’,
participants went from around a 20%
success rate without training to a success
rate of more than 60% after only three
minutes with the T-Haler device.”
Nordic Smart Remote
gains freespace
pointing firmware
Nordic Semiconductor demonstrated a
freespace pointing firmware upgrade for its
existing nRFready 2.4GHz RF Smart Remote
reference design at ESC 2012 (a Design
West Summit), which took place during
March.
The upgrade supports one-handed
freespace point and click control - similar to
that of a regular PC wireless mouse but
without the need for a flat surface - of the
latest Internet-enabled and Web 2.0-enabled
TVs and set-top boxes (STBs).
Nordic’s reference design includes all the
necessary hardware for freespace pointing
and clicking control built-in via an on-board
6-axis motion sensing solution from Nordic‘s
partner Invensense, and an ultra low power
accelerometer from STMicroelectronics (in
addition to a multi-touch enabled TouchPad
from Synaptics and miniaturized QWERTY
keyboard).
Thomas Embla Bonnerud, director of
product management at Nordic told Incisor:
"With the growing popularity of Internet-
enabled TVs and set-top boxes we are
seeing an explosion in demand for advanced
remote controls based on ultra low power
radio solutions. And freespace pointing is a
particularly natural and intuitive way to
navigate and browse all types of modern
digital content and services - including
audio, video, gaming, web browsing, social
media, and online shopping - as it offers
familiar mouse-like PC control without the
need for a flat surface."
news
New president and
chairman of the board
for Frontline
Long-time friends of Incisor, Frontline Test
Equipment, has promoted David Bean, former
Director of Sales and Marketing, to President.
Frontline’s claim is that it is the world’s
leading provider of Bluetooth protocol
analysis technology, citing the statistic that
84 out of the Fortune 100 companies use
Frontline. Bean replaces Eric Kaplan, founder
and former President of the company as Eric
transitions into his new role as Chairman of
the Board.
David Bean has been with Frontline for 9
years, joining in June of 2003, and has been
a familiar figure at many, many Bluetooth
events. During these years he has worked
closely with every aspect of the company.
Eric Kaplan, talking to Incisor about the future
of Frontline with David Bean at the helm, said,
“Frontline is in great hands. We have fantastic
people and outstanding products. David has
always had a passion for customer
satisfaction and has demonstrated his ability
to lead and share his commitment,
enthusiasm, and vision with our employees.”
Meanwhile, David Bean, upbeat about his
new role told us, “It is an exciting time to be
at Frontline. We just closed out a monumental
2011 which included three new products, all
of which helped propel us to a record
breaking revenue year. Our Bluetooth
interoperability testing (IOT) service with its
massive 1500 device library is taking off and
we have more innovative products scheduled
to be released in 2012.
In 2010, Bean
co-operated with
Incisor.TV in the
making of this
movie –
Bluetooth
Interoperability
Testing.
6 www.incisor.tv

Opening up to open
source software
Open source software is being integrated into an
increasing number of products. But what are some of the
James O’Reilly, UL. implications of using it for Bluetooth® qualification?
By James O’Reilly
Senior Operations Engineer Bluetooth, UL

Licensed software can be expensive, but

it’s straightforward in many cases. You pay
a fee. The code cannot be modified,
reverse engineered or redistributed
without specific authorization from the
developer. Often it has already been
qualified by the developer and because
much of the code is locked and has to be
used as intended, it doesn’t need
qualifying again and again with each new
product.

These days, however, many manufacturers

are moving to open source software mainly
because with no licence fees to pay it offers
a much cheaper option. But with open source
software the source code is public, enabling
anyone to copy, modify and redistribute it at
will. The same software can therefore be
used by multiple devices yet be implemented
differently in each one.
So despite widespread belief to the contrary,
open source software is not already qualified.
Any manufacturer who integrates it into a
product takes responsibility for ensuring the
component or device meets relevant industry
requirements. In short, open source software
needs to be qualified for each new use and
integration.
The Bluetooth Qualification Process
So what are the technical implications of
using open source software when it comes to
qualifying Bluetooth products? Well, first of
all it might help to understand that the
Bluetooth Qualification Process (BQP) lists
Bluetooth products in three main categories.
The first category comprises Bluetooth
Components, which are used by
manufacturers to build complete end
products. The second main listing category is
made up of Bluetooth Subsystems, which are
combined with other Bluetooth Subsystems
to create a single end product. For example,
a PC with an open source stack installed with
Bluetooth technology, together with a USB
dongle. Finally, complete Bluetooth solutions
are listed as Bluetooth End Products.
So how does using open source software
work in practice?
Take an example where you use a fully tested
chipset listed as a component covering RF, BB,
LM and HCI, and combine it with an open
source host stack covering HCI, GAP, SDP,
L2CAP, SPP, RFCOMM.
Or let’s say you use a fully tested module listed
as a controller sub-system covering RF, BB, LM
and HCI, and combine it with an open source
host sub-system covering HCI, GAP, SDP,
L2CAP, SPP, and RFCOMM.
In both cases, the open source host stack
needs to be qualified. If it is identical to a
qualified open source stack used by another
manufacturer and they give you permission to
reference it, you may be able to re-use the
qualification. This will generally not be the case,
however, especially when we bear in mind one
of the great advantages of open source: that it
can be tailored to suit a specific usage.
Because the stack is open source, the usual
requirement will be to perform full protocol
testing and list the stack as either a component
or a sub-system, depending on your particular
needs.
Summary
Historically the status of Bluetooth qualification
has not been an influencing factor in the
selection of a device operating software. As
popularity of open source software increases,
however, this is expected to become an ever
more prominent factor.
About UL
UL is a premier global safety science company with
more than 100 years of experience. Employing
nearly 9,000 professionals in 46 countries, UL is
evolving the future of safety with five distinct
business units – Product Safety, Environment, Life &
Health, Verification and Knowledge Services – to
meet the expanding needs of customers and the
global public.
With a commitment to keep at the forefront of
Bluetooth qualification, UL offers the complete
technology suite. With a range of testing and
advisory services, UL can help you gain approval for
your products under the Bluetooth Qualification
Programme and in addition, can also assist for each
of your chosen country/regional markets.
Important note: This article is designed for general
information purposes only and is not intended to
convey legal or other professional advice. UL does
not provide legal advice regarding licensing or using
open source software.
7 white space radio – special feature section

TV white space spectrum

comes of age?
Incisor review part 3

Since Incisor’s last white space spectrum review in September 2011,

things have been happening fast.
We’ve seen the formation of a new industry association – the Weightless
Special Interest Group – which will manage development of technology,
standard and its commercialisation, and as the picture of the Neul and
Carlson branded customer terminal shows, not only are there now real
products, but they are available to buy.
Appropriate, then, that Incisor should feature white space again.
Activity levels in the white space sector mean that this, our third white
space feature, is bigger and more comprehensive than the two before.
If you want to view them, and the Incisor.TV movies that were made
at the time, use the links on page 2 of this issue. Now read on ➔
8 white space radio – special feature section
Fraser Edwards,
Cambridge Consultants.
In recent years there has been a popular
belief that the release of the whitespace
spectrum, after the digital dividend, would
herald the start of a new wave of wireless
innovation. However, the recent WRC 12
agenda has now poured some very cold
water on this vision. The proposal that
Europe should, at sometime this decade, go
through a second digital dividend, taking yet
another 100MHz from the spectrum
currently allocated for terrestrial
broadcasting, would severely threaten the
future existence of whitespace in Europe.
This call for a second dividend was backed
up recently by France’s industry minister
Eric Besson who stated that he wanted a
second digital dividend to open up more
spectrum for mobile services. Whitespace is
What future for
whitespace?
By Fraser Edwards, Senior Radio Consultant,
Cambridge Consultants
a nascent technology so one could say that
we will not miss what we have never had,
however this situation also threatens the
very existence of the established Program
Making and Special Event (PMSE) operation.
For this reason, we might find the
whitespace and PMSE camps fighting the
same battles; strange bedfellows indeed.
The first digital dividend has almost run its
course. The old analogue TV frequencies were
re-planned and this created the opportunity to
re-farm spectrum for 4G mobile broadband
services. All very laudable and logical with the
rising demand for mobile services. The band
790MHz to 862MHz has been cleared and, over
the last 2 to 3 years in the UK and mainland
Europe, we have retuned our television sets to
deal with the new frequencies and more
efficient usage of the spectrum. Following this
the auctions for the 790MHz to 862MHz have
now taken place in many countries and have
raised large sums of money for the respective
exchequers. In Germany the 60MHz of
spectrum in the 800MHz band raised €3.6
billion, vastly more than that of the other
available spectrum – the 190MHz available in
the 2.6GHz band, which raised only €344M.
Similarly in France the 800MHz spectrum – very
valuable spectrum indeed - raised €2.6 billion
and for the 2.6GHz band a mere €936M.
Now, imagine the value of a second tranche of
digital dividend, this time not just a 60MHz
chunk but 96MHz of prime spectrum covering
694MHz to 790MHz – what would be the value ➔
9 white space radio – special feature section
of this? Coupling this to the fact that re-farming
the 694 to 790MHz band would allow
harmonization with other ITU regions, with a
price tag that will run to many billions of Euros
in auction fees, one has to ask whether
governments will ever sanction the free use of
such a resource. Indeed will they even allow
the DTV broadcasters to continue to use the
spectrum at all? A second digital dividend
would of course be problematic. It might not
even be possible in the UK where the first
dividend needed a huge re-planning effort by
Arqiva to achieve a sensible solution. And what
of the consumer? In many West European
countries terrestrial delivery is the main TV
delivery system. If the squeeze is going to be
put on TV services then what chance for
whitespace or PMSE?
There are some hints that LTE may use the
whitespace bands by whatever manner is
available. Huawei announced some time ago
that they would soon have an LTE device that
used whitespace rather than the licensed LTE
bands. More recently at Mobile World
Congress, Interdigital demonstrated LTE being
routed over whitespace allowing operators (of
course with suitable handsets) to offload LTE
traffic onto the alterative spectrum. It is not
then an illogical step to suggest a second
dividend should take place to create more
room for 4G.
Snippets
Intel: Throw out your laptop –
Ultrabooks rule
Industry momentum continues to scale in the
Ultrabook category with, according to Intel,
26 different models now available for
purchase in various markets around the
world. While the category is a mere 9 months
old, manufacturers (OEMs) worldwide are
Smart CE unit shipments to pass 92
million in 2016
The relentless march toward digital media
technology has driven the evolution of
consumer electronics from specialized
electronic devices to multipurpose, networked
Mobile moves from push to pull
A recent report from Juniper Research found
that mobile phone banking is gaining
considerable traction, thanks to the
exploitation of advanced functionalities such
as banks bundling MBPP (Mobile Bill
Presentment and Payment) services within
their overall mobile banking platform and
additional momentum from easy-to-use
smartphone apps.
Maybe this all sounds a bit gloomy, but it’s
not. We should remember that while a second
dividend would represent a significant threat
to whitespace technology, this is not yet a
done deal. Whitespace if successful would be
the first example of a large scale
implementation of cognitive radio, an
approach that many believe to be a key
mechanism through which future spectrum will
be managed, even that used by mobile
operators. The need to adapt in real time to
the use of the spectrum is by no means
restricted to whitespace applications as
understood today and, as previously
described, there are many other bands and
applications where the use of cognitive
techniques would be advantageous. This is an
area where Cambridge Consultants, with one
of the largest independent wireless
development teams in the world, is continuing
its own research to stay at the cutting edge of
wireless technology.
To quote the recent presentation of the
Business Weekly ‘Cambridge Greats’ Award
to Cambridge Consultants :
“Without Cambridge Consultants arguably
there would be no Cambridge Technology
Cluster. It has been both mother and father
of invention since 1960. But it doesn’t stand
still…”
adding more and more devices to their line-
ups, such as the Dell XPS, HP Spectre and
Toshiba Portege. In addition to the twenty-
six on sale already, 10 more systems have
been announced by the likes of Fujitsu,
Gigabyte, Lenovo and Acer among many
others, with more than 75 designs in the
pipeline for 2012.
computing devices. The advent of “smart CE
devices” is having a profound effect on the
digital multimedia home. New NPD In-Stat
research forecasts that smart CE device unit
shipments will surpass 92 million in 2016.
Additionally, those users that do make bill
payments are expected to continue
conducting transactions actively and
aggressively as they become more
accustomed to usage. As consumers
engage in increasingly mobile lifestyles,
approximately 80% of total mobile banking
customers will pay their bills via a mobile
device by 2016.
Cambridge
Consultants Blogs
Why are we blogging? We believe that
the technology market is much better
when it is highly connected, and social
media is a fantastic tool that instantly
connects people who face similar
challenges, irrespective of whether they
are budding entrepreneurs running their
first high growth start up company or a
captain of industry in charge of a global
bluechip company. So, if you’d like to
add to the debates, please feel free to
comment on any of our blogs. It would
be great to hear from you.
Patrick Pordage
Marketing
Communications
Director
Cambridge Consultants.
Corporate Blog
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10 white space radio – special feature section

Ofcom issues call

to arms to EU, US
regulators
A major conference entitled “Towards an EU policy for dynamic spectrum
access” (EC-speak for white space) took place in Brussels on the 7th March.
It was marked by unusually senior attendance from a number of players
including the FCC in the US and in particular UK regulator Ofcom . The
speech below, made by Ofcom CEO, Ed Richards, was described by the
chairman as a “call to arms”. For expert analysis of the implications of
Richards’ speech, click on the Incisor.TV movie screen below to watch
‘Ofcom speaks out for white space: Weightless SIG responds’ .

Dynamic spectrum access has been
discussed, debated and researched for the
last two decades, from software radio, to
cognitive radio, to geolocation. In the
past, technological constraints have held
back the development of this approach.
That is no longer the case. The constraints
are now essentially of regulation and
policy. In other words, the introduction of
dynamic spectrum access now lies in our
hands. On its own this would be a
compelling enough reason to move ahead.
But the impetus is greater still.
At the same time as the technological
constraints have fallen away, the need for
much more efficient spectrum use has
intensified sharply as the demand for more
wireless data has boomed. Taken
together, the grounds for moving the vision
of dynamic spectrum access from
academia to implementation are now very
powerful. And the case for swift action is
strong. The lead time involved in what
would be an important shift in policy are
not short – even if we started today,
consumers will not feel the very significant
potential benefits for some time. But the
emerging and intensifying demand for
wireless data is such, I believe, that we do
not enjoy the luxury of a more gradual
approach.
thinking creatively about our current
spectrum management approaches.
Regulators and policy-makers now have
to establish a clear shift towards dynamic
spectrum access, promoting the huge
potential for innovation to which markets
can respond.
In moving toward implementation, we
need a timely definition of an appropriate
regulatory framework and industry
standards to ensure we enable innovative
new access to our spectrum in a way
that safeguards other uses.
The vision – why it is important,
and why it hasn’t taken hold
As I’ve already mentioned, the idea of
more dynamic access is not new. Myriad
conferences, papers, academic research,
and EU framework projects over the last
two decades demonstrate a consensus
in favour of exploiting proven and new
technology to deliver more efficient use
from our finite and increasingly
contended spectrum resource.
Why then, should we consider this to be
so important now? If you have made it
through today without a graph showing
exponential demand for mobile data,
then I would be very surprised. These
forecasts have become almost a cliché,
but like many clichés they convey an
important truth. Although the variation in
forecasts is wide, the demand for mobile
data is increasing rapidly and is set to
increase much further over the next
decade.

I want to suggest to you today that we

now need a common and co-ordinated
approach to this increasingly vital area,
starting with TV white space devices but
ultimately looking to establish dynamic
spectrum access much more widely. As
we do, I will argue that we need to be
decisive and even bold, which means Or, to watch on YouTube, click here or watch at the Weightless SIG site ➔
11
Research commissioned by Ofcom
shows that even if the release of current
spectrum such as 2.6GHz and 800 MHz,
and the release of much of the promised
government public sector spectrum
holdings all go ahead as planned, even
the most conservative forecast for
demand will outstrip supply. As we
move to more efficient standards such as
LTE, we may find ways to address this
mismatch, if only partially. There will still
be a real spectrum crunch and European
consumers as a whole will lose out
unless we find new ways to meet
demand.
Benefits and safeguards
Why, then, does dynamic access offer
such an important potential solution? A
key consideration is one of flexibility,
especially for international harmonisation
of spectrum bands.
This is often a major hurdle. It takes a
long time for allocations through WRCs.
Devices don’t get made until this process
is complete and there is regulatory
certainty. Dynamic spectrum access
offers a long-term solution to this by
making it viable to develop devices
capable of covering much broader bands
for operation in different national
markets. At the same time, the use of
white spaces allows more spectrum to
be used and in a more flexible manner.
By using white space database
technologies, different countries can
choose to allow low-power access to
different bands of spectrum. In the UK,
for instance, we are considering allowing
access over 500-800MHz, while
Germany may choose 500-600MHz.
Databases can cope with this variation.
In turn, this also means that different
policies can be adopted by national
regulators to protect spectrum
allocations defined by national public
policies. The UK, for example, will
protect DTT and PMSE use. Others may
have differing positions. These can be
accommodated and can vary through
time, using databases.
Another important benefit is that it
enables license exemption to be
considered with greater confidence.
Regulators are inhibited from exemption
as it makes later reclamation and band
clearance difficult. This means that
licence exemption may not go ahead
even when there are clear benefits to
doing so. With white space databases
that is less of a one-way bet.
The model we are pushing in the UK is
for the regulator to control the white
space device transmit power. If harmful
interference occurs we can turn down
the power. This approach means we
avoid disruption to existing users. And as
white space radio – special feature section
Ofcom CEO Ed Richards pushed strongly for
regulator support for white space radio
receivers improve over the years, so will
confidence in the technology.
Rationale for moving ahead with TV
white spaces
With substantial benefits and with
comprehensive safeguards against
interference, it makes sense to push
ahead. Enabling access to the TV
whitespaces in the UK is where we want
to start. In the short term, we think this
could produce some very exciting
innovations, while also making use of
prime spectrum that would otherwise lay
fallow.
Prime examples of services include:
• rural broadband, where the enhanced
radio propagation at UHF allows cost-
effective provision of wireless internet
to remote areas.
• machine-to-machine communications,
where data can be collected wirelessly
from sensors; for example, for
automatic reading of gas, water or
electricity meters.
• in-home Wi-Fi type networks, where
good radio propagation through walls
at UHF frequencies is again helpful.
And there is significant interest from
industry, such as Microsoft, Sky and BT.
As important in its own terms as this is,
we also see TV white spaces as an
important stepping stone in realising the
much bigger, long-term benefits of this
technology, by:
• Unambiguously establishing its viability
• Demonstrating the possibilities of
improved spectrum use and a more
flexible spectrum map
• Setting out an enabling regulatory
regime
• And developing robust standards
By enabling TV white space devices in
the UK we aim to show the potential of
the technology. To fully realise the
benefits of dynamic spectrum access,
however, we need collective European
commitment to support it further.
Without this, it will be difficult to gain the
necessary economies of scale for the
production of white space devices.
What should we do?
Moving forward in this way will not be
easy. As regulators, we are used to, and
even perhaps comfortable with, an
international framework that in lots of
ways works well, but which can never be
accused of being speedy or responsive.
Secondly, we are still overwhelmingly
operating in an environment in which
spectrum is traditionally parcelled up,
allocated, licensed – and in some
circumstances, not heavily used.
Because of the patchwork way in which
rights have been assigned, we do not
have the option of throwing away the
spectrum map and starting again with a
clean sheet of paper. We need to work
with what we’ve got and develop new
ways to maximise spectrum use and the
benefits that use brings.
Since its inception, Ofcom has adopted a
strategy of enabling market forces and
liberalisation to address this issue. But
spectrum is not a perfect market, and
there is a need for parallel strategies to
drive innovation and free up more use.
For example, we need low barriers to
entry for innovation. The best example is
the unprecedented success of Wi-Fi. It is
zero cost, unlicensed spectrum, rather
than a conventional market mechanism,
but it now carries most of the world’s
mobile data.
Conclusion
We need to look at solutions like dynamic
spectrum access alongside the use of
market mechanisms.
The US has so far led the way in enabling
access to TV white spaces. Different
European countries have different
constraints in their TV bands, but that
should not stop us from catching up and
even overtaking developments in the US.
Over the past two years we have been
working with other national regulators in
CEPT to develop the right regulatory
requirements for database-assisted
access to TV white spaces. It is
important for CEPT to focus on issues
relating to the “interfaces” between
databases and devices, rather than
details of how databases are
implemented. ➔
12
As I’ve mentioned already, one of the
strengths here is that different member
states can implement the databases to
suit their national circumstances. We are
greatly encouraged by the European
Commission’s stance and activities over
the past few months in issuing a
mandate for ETSI to create European
harmonised standards for cognitive and
software-defined radios. We are
particularly encouraged that the EC
mandate includes work specifically
related to database-assisted access to
TV white spaces.
Parallel to that, we are working with
stakeholders to ensure that appropriate
regulatory requirements are incorporated
into the future harmonised standards.
Enabling TV white spaces is a stepping
stone to potentially enabling access to
white spaces in other bands and to
further dynamic spectrum access
methods, including database-assisted
spectrum access, cognitive sensing,
dynamic licensed & exempt. In this,
protecting against harmful interference is
still critical. Particularly at this time where
this technology is relatively new and
networks and devices are not yet widely
deployed. But, at this stage it is also
critical that we get the technology out
there and have a controlled launch of
these devices.
Technology in this area, as in other areas,
is moving forwards at a fast pace. But
we should also be confident in the
groundwork that has been established.
The science is clear; the technology is in
many areas already there and continues
to improve quickly. So there is a
significant opportunity here that we need
to grasp. The technology for more
dynamic spectrum access has come of
white space radio – special feature section
age without being exploited fully. At the
same time, consumer demand for
services has exposed the limitations of
the current arrangements.
It is time to make progress on these
issues. It is now up to regulators and
policy makers to provide the means to
unleash the innovative potential of
dynamic spectrum access and, in doing
so, play an important part in tackling the
spectrum crunch
Link to this speech at Ofcom
Snippets
Smartphone accessories
get smarter
Smartphones will drive $20 billion in
aftermarket accessory revenues in
2012, accounting for more than half of
the $36 billion that all aftermarket
handset accessories will produce,
according to ABI Research. By 2017,
predicts ABI, smartphone accessories
will grow to $38 billion in revenues,
while feature phone accessory revenues
decline to $12 billion. “The increasing
penetration of smartphones is driving a
more ubiquitous digital consumer who
expects the data capabilities of the
smartphone to be available in any
device with which the smartphone
interacts,” Michael Morgan, senior
analyst, mobile devices told Incisor.
Proximity mobile payment
transactions to approach 9.9
Billion in 2016
The mobile payments market is
incredibly diverse, suggests NPD In-
Stat. There is no single model that’s
been adopted by the entire market, but
rather a variety of models depending on
the type of mobile payment and the
player involved. In the proximity
payment space—those payments made
at a retailer via NFC or barcode
scanning—trials are transitioning to
commercial launches, and support for
these solutions continues to build.
While infrastructure is weak, both on
the retailer side and on the consumer
device side, new NPD In-Stat research
forecasts that proximity mobile payment
transactions will approach 9.9 billion in
2016, up from 1.1 billion in 2012, nearly
a ten-fold increase.
13
Neul - another CSR?
Or more.....?
Vince Holton talks to Glenn Collinson, Board Member
Glenn Collinson, Neul. and Chairman of the Strategy Committee, Neul.
Long-term Incisor readers will know
Glenn Collinson as a co founder of CSR.
This company, initially known as
Cambridge Silicon Radio, was spun out
of Cambridge Consultants in June 1999,
and was first mentioned in Incisor’s
sixth ever issue, which was published in
May 1999. From 2000 to the end of
2009, CSR was one of Incisor’s lead
sponsors and our two businesses
flourished, riding the Bluetooth wave.
Collinson, who signed-off the Incisor
sponsorship deal, and whose name first
appeared in Incisor in December ’99,
helped manage CSR’s growth from a
start up in 1998 to a predominant
position in the Bluetooth semiconductor
market, and ultimately to its listing as a
public company in 2004. He retired from
the Board of CSR in 2007.
Today, Collinson is one of the co-founders
of Neul, the Cambridge, UK-based
company that has taken the lead in
developing wireless network technology to
enable the use of TV 'white space'
spectrum. Neul’s products are the first and,
so far as we’re aware, the only radios that
fully meet the FCC white space radio
specification.
As part of this month’s white space review,
I met with Glenn Collinson. Yes, we talked
about the old days for a while, but then we
re-gained focus and discussed the way
forward for Collinson, Neul and the role of
connectivity within the ‘Internet of things’
(IoT).
VH: Neul’s goal is to deliver a global
wireless network. This is a huge ambition
and challenge. What makes you think you
can do it?
GC: Yes it is a huge ambition and
challenge. But the opportunity to connect
up to 50 billion ‘things’ to the internet has
been well identified and discussed by
many people. It’s also clear to most of
those people that such an ‘Internet of
Things’ (IoT) must be wireless. So when
you conceive of a breakthrough that will
allow the obvious problems associated
with any of today’s wireless technologies
for the Internet of Things to be overcome –
white space radio – special feature section
through the ability to scale to 100,000’s of
simultaneous connections per cellular
node; and the ability to connect terminals
with a 10 year battery life whilst keeping
within a form factor and cost that most of
those ‘Things’ will need – then we feel
that justifies our ambition to meet that
opportunity.
VH: You have gone into this new venture
with a number of former CSR colleagues,
including technical guru James Collier.
Was developing a business around white
space radio spectrum a shared idea, or
did one of you lead the other in?
GC: James conceived of the
technological breakthroughs after he left
his executive position at CSR. The
obvious momentum behind TV white
space de-regulation seemed to me to
provide the optimum moment to invest in
this because it now gives Neul the
freedom to innovate quickly to prove the
IoT technologies without having to wait
for big licensed spectrum partners to
come on board during the early phase of
the new company.
VH: Is there room for a new
communications technology?
GC: We think so! It’s now 30 years since
the architecture of cellular networks was
conceived. And almost 20 years since the
first planning for 3G began. Although 4G
has made the change to a full packet data
paradigm, it’s still inevitably focussed on
addressing the needs of personal mobile
broadband. Most people will expect low
latencies and fast service when they are
able to connect. Machines are
fundamentally different. A network serving
them can schedule all the traffic for the
greater benefit of the whole, maintaining
the quality of service that is needed in
each application, whilst allowing much
lower instantaneous bandwidth from each
terminal. So the data transmissions from
the terminals themselves can be
‘smoothed out in time’ to fit this new
paradigm, thus unlocking the potential of
much smaller, lower cost and longer life
wireless terminal electronics.
VH: In your presentation at the launch of
the Weightless Special Interest Group, of
which Neul is a founder and can be seen
to be a leading partner, you described
Weightless as not 3G or 4G, but 0G.
What did you mean by that?
GC: Zero G in that its ‘lighter than air’.
Well at least very ‘light and easy’ in the
way Weightless devices can connect to
the new network; in the way that
embedded developers can develop the
hardware and software needed to
integrate Weightless chips within all the
‘Things’; and in the very small form
factors of the embedded Weightless
radios themselves because of the single
chip implementation and the use of small
batteries.
VH: A fundamental aspect of your story
is that the TV white space spectrum will
remain license free? Can you be sure of
this?
GC: Well it’s not quite in the category of
Death and Taxes. However, the recently
adopted legislation in the US Congress -
Payroll Tax Cut Law signed by President
Barack Obama on February 22 and
public statements by Ed Richards, Chief
Executive of UK regulator Ofcom, at the
Dynamic Spectrum Access Forum on
March 7 re-iterate the view that
enlightened regulation in those two
countries is leading the way. We believe
that many other countries will likely
follow this lead because TVs in almost
every country in the world work in the
same UHF band, so, once the
technology is proven, the usual radio
planning problem of adapting to each
regime is avoided – the radio band
‘international homologation’ was done
back in the 30s, 40s and 50s! Unlicensed
access to secondary users really does
appear to be the way to harvest this
prime spectrum for the greater good of
everybody. In principle this approach can
also be used to make better use of
scarce spectrum in any wireless band –
not only the TV band – something that
Neul’s customers also see as a longer
term underpinning of the technology
approach we are using, as they continue ➔
14
to strive to make the most use of their
valuable spectrum assets.
VH: You are promising low cost and low
battery life as centric to your proposition.
But how low cost, and how long will
batteries last?
GC: For example a Weightless module
can communicate sensor readings over a
5-10km range every hour or so and run
off a AA battery for 5-10 years. The chip
enabling that will cost less than $2 in
high volume
VH: What is your most important, first
target application? Smart metering?
Local wireless broadband? Or what?
GC: Actually we are agnostic. All of those
things could turn out to be lead
applications but our focus is to establish
real wireless networks with real networks
of developers using them so that
companies innovating in this new
wireless ecosystem can identify those IoT
applications that unlock the potential
first. Our prototype NeulNET IoT wireless
networks are already up and running and
we will follow this with NeulNET
developer networks in San Jose and
selected locations in Asia.
VH: Do you already have customers for
Neul’s NeulNet base station and terminal
devices?
GC: Yes we have already shipped
NeulNET to several IoT customers in
Europe, Asia and North America
VH: I’m aware that you are now attending
industry events with partner companies -
e.g. the recent event in the USA with
Carlson. What are the messages that you
are promoting, and what products?
GC: With Carlson we are working to
alleviate the increasingly painful gap
between ever stronger broadband
provision in urban areas and the weak, or
even totally absent, broadband provision
in many sub-urban and rural areas. The
RuralConnect Base Stations and
Subscriber Terminals manufactured by
Carlson feature designs based on Neul
hardware and software that have been
adapted by Carlson to be perfect for the
USA consumer. We are very pleased to
be working closely with Carlson, which
has a long track record, and Neul will
look to expand on this partnership model
during the uptake of Weightless across all
of the applications in IoT.
VH: As you move forward, where does
Neul stop, and Weightless begin?
white space radio – special feature section
GC: We see Weightless as the key VH: Your roadmap calls for Weightless
enabler to kick-start this new IoT technology to be implemented over
ecosystem. As such, Neul has seeded different spectrum bands. TV white space
the Weightless Special Interest Group is the first, but where do you go next?
with the v0.6 of the standard, its system
architects are key contributors to the GC: UHF bands, including the soon to be
active working groups and Neul has auctioned 800MHz band and the ring
established the Intellectual Property (IP) fenced 600MHz band, are obvious first
regime where all SIG members agree to candidates for Weightless’ expansion.
FRANDZ (Fair, Reasonable, Non – However, as I said before, it is not only in
Discriminatory and Zero Royalty) access the UHF TV band where actively used
to the essential IP within the standard spectrum is often interspersed with
itself as it pertains to the critical, fallow ‘white spaces’. We believe
universal air interface. These Weightless will be a very useful additional
investments will allow Neul and others tool for existing owners of 900MHz, L-
in the Weightless SIG to establish band and Microwave licences to enable
valuable businesses at all levels of the them to fully ‘sweat their spectrum
ecosystem - from wireless transceiver assets’.
and medium access controllers, right up
to cloud–hosted applications and
services. VH: Finally, you are currently pushing
NeulNET terminal devices, and
presumably there will be future product
VH: How important to Neul and to developments. Is Neul a product
Weightless is regulatory support from company, a nascent network operator, or
legislators? an ideas and licensing company?
GC: Clearly the first commercial GC: Neul is currently selling its base
implementations of Weightless will be in stations and reference terminals today for
the TV white space bands, so it is TV White space testing. Later this year
important that the regulators follow our NeulTRINO terminal and Cloudbase
through on their public commitments to base station, second generation
press ahead with the legislation allowing hardware and software will form the
licence exempt access. However, as I backbone of the developer networks I
said earlier, the techniques adopted in referred to earlier. Longer term I expect
Weightless are perfectly applicable to that Neul’s cloud hosted packet
the utilisation of under used spectrum in scheduling and routing, network OMC
any wireless band, and are the key and Network Security implementations
enabler to kick start this new IoT will be increasingly valuable additions
ecosystem. into the growing Weightless IoT
ecosystem.
VH: As you have established the
Weightless Special Interest Group, how www.neul.com
easy has it been to engage supporters?
GC: We are pleased with the progress
that Weightless has made to date. We
have over 50 companies already
contributing to the effort. We are
confident that Neul’s investment to
establish Weightless developer networks
in other Geographies will allow
Weightless to further accelerate.
VH: You are encouraging broad
spectrum membership for the
Weightless SIG. What sectors do you
expect to members to come from –
initially, and in the longer term?
GC: Today we are seeing that
Weightless is attracting interest and
membership from across a wide range
of players from many semiconductor
companies and embedded system
houses, test equipment providers and
network hardware & software providers
and, increasingly we think in the future,
to physical network operators and value
added applications service providers.
15 white space radio – special feature section

Exploring white space

Richard Walker, Head of Wireless at TTP looks at the
progress being made in white space spectrum and its
potential applications

It is no accident that some of the

biggest names in the telecoms and
broadcast industries are focusing
attention on white space. The
Cambridge White Spaces trials alone
have involved unprecedented
collaboration among the likes of the
BBC, BSkyB, BT, Microsoft, Neul,
Nokia, Samsung, TTP and Virgin Media.

The reason is simply that by 2020, it is

conservatively anticipated there will be 50
billion connected devices worldwide.
Demand for streaming video is predicted
to multiply by over twenty fold in the next
five years and 24 hours of You Tube video
is already uploaded every 60 seconds. In
short, demand is starting to outpace
technology and spectrum availability.

Modern wireless systems such as LTE and

Wi-Fi use modulation and transmission
schemes that are reaching the limits of
what is theoretically possible for a given
amount of bandwidth. The catalyst for
interest in white space in the UK has
come from Ofcom, which has proposed a
workable framework for licence-exempt
access to the TV white space spectrum.

While useable and prime radio frequency

spectrum is a scarce resource, many
licensed legacy systems have exclusive
access to large chunks of this spectrum
that is not being used efficiently. White
space spectrum is available globally and
some of the most abundant and valuable
white space comes from geographic co-
channel planning of terrestrial broadcast
television. In the UK each television
channel uses 8MHz of spectrum while in
the US it is 6MHz; but in both cases the
empty channels in any given location
soon add up to large swathes of prime
spectrum that could be put to good use.
Some of this spectrum in the UK is used
in the program making and special events
industry (PMSE) for low power wireless
microphones on a licensed basis; but this
is only a fraction of the available
spectrum.
A majority of worldwide TV transmissions
occur at a natural sweet spot – where the
bandwidth to carry large amounts of
information is combined with good
propagation characteristics. If harnessed,
the innovative applications that could
make use of this spectrum are endless
and include connecting rural
communities to the internet; new
augmented reality applications for
emergency services; machine to machine
communications including smart
metering and healthcare; longer range
Wi-Fi and smart city communications.
There is a clear relationship between the
availability of unlicensed spectrum and
fast paced innovation in wireless
technology. Despite the unlicensed
nature of the spectrum used by Wi-Fi,
which is prone to interference from other
users and technologies, Wi-Fi carries the
dominant proportion of data transmitted
wirelessly and uses some of the most
advanced transmission schemes
available. However, the spectrum at
2.4GHz has relatively poor propagation
characteristics when compared to TV
spectrum at the same power levels.
However, one of the major technical
challenges is to ensure that white space
devices can’t interfere with primary users
such as TV receivers. This means using
sophisticated cognitive radio techniques
including the deployment of Internet-
based geographic databases. These
show white spaces in a defined
geographic location and provide essential
transmission parameter limits such as
power level. Such databases are initially
populated using computer modelling by
knowing the location of the primary user
transmission sites, geographic terrain,
propagation characteristics and general
receiver characteristics of primary users.
This data will change dynamically so
white space devices must regularly check
back. In the future, sophisticated
feedback and learning mechanisms could
be built in, to fine tune by asking white
space devices to report which channel(s)
they have chosen, for which application
and the sensed signal levels of
surrounding white space channels.
As a Cambridge White Spaces
Consortium member, TTP has been ➔
16
working on these technologies, primarily
focused on rural broadband and
innovative applications for emergency
services and machine to machine. In
partnership with Neul, TTP has a 5.5km
broadband link in rural Cambridgeshire
and is on track to achieve over 8Mbps
using a single TV channel. An impressive
achievement considering that wired
ADSL broadband struggles to achieve
2Mbps at a 4km range.
We anticipate that it would be possible to
achieve speeds of over 20Mbps per TV
channel from Melbourn to the nearby
village of Orwell, using radios further
optimised for rural broadband
connectivity.
The goal for rural broadband is to cost-
effectively serve the unconnected and
poorly connected with over 2Mbps. An
estimated 600,000 plus premises in the
UK are poorly served by wired ADSL and
could be efficiently connected using
cheap hardware operating in unlicensed
TV white space.
The key technical challenges are now
being solved and the big challenge for
governments and society is to change the
way we manage and use spectrum on a
Stranded in white space
All white space “master” devices need
to periodically consult a white space
database in order to gain access to the
spectrum. At present it is far from clear
how many databases there might be or
what commercial models they will
operate under. As a result, there is
potential for problems.
The worst case would be a world where
every white space device needed to pay
for access to a white space database and
this payment was part of the initial device
purchase. In such a world you might buy,
let’s say, a white space home router from
company X and the purchase cost included
access to the database also provided by X.
Some years later X goes out of business
and turns off their database. No other
database provider is inclined to provide
service to these devices. Suddenly they
could be without database access and as
a result would cease to work.
There are many ways this outcome could
be avoided. Perhaps a database provider
white space radio – special feature section
global basis. The white space wave
started in the US and has moved west,
led by announcements made by the FCC
in 2010 that already allows the use of
white space devices. The FCC requires
providers to simply complete a 45 day
trial before going into service. Canada
has also started a consultation process to
develop a policy and technical framework
for the use of applications in the TV
broadcasting bands below 698 MHz.
In the UK, Ofcom is at the forefront of
white space innovation by freeing up TV
spectrum as part of the Digital Dividend.
Ofcom is working to make white space
devices licence exempt and to allow
multiple third-party organisations to
provide white space databases. But the
rest of Europe needs to get on the white
space wave. While countries such as
Finland and Sweden are already involved
in studies and trials, it will be important
that the more regulated European
telecom heavyweights such as Germany
and France embrace white space
opportunities. Ofcom and other bodies
are working hard to promote a unified
approach in Europe.
Heading further afield, to Africa and Asia,
countries such as South Korea,
By William Webb, CEO, Weightless SIG
might provide a
service for free and
agree to take over
X’s database. Or
alternatively, a FAQ
on X’s website
could direct users
to contact
company Y who,
William Webb, CEO, for a fee, might
Weightless SIG.
take over the
database provision. There are some
technicalities around how the device
knows this deal has been done and to
switch its database requests to Y, but
these might be resolved either through
open standards for finding databases,
such as those being developed by the
IETF, or through some software download
to the device were it capable of accepting
it (and had a separate, non-white space
communications channel to receive it!).
Happily this issue does not occur for
white space applications that are
network-based such as Weightless or
Singapore and China are looking closely
at the use of unlicensed white space
spectrum. Singapore for example,
published a framework document for
trials to explore the various spectrum
environments and regimes that white
space technology could operate in.
The challenge is to convince licence
holders and regulators to provide access
to spectrum on an unlicensed basis. The
results of the Cambridge Consortium
Trials are being presented at the end of
April and Ofcom expects that white space
technology could be launched in the UK
as early as 2013. Whilst the goal of true
cognitive radio is likely to take a little
longer, these significant steps play an
important part in dealing with the growing
demand for instant access to data.
www.ttp.com
rural broadband. In this case, it is the
Weightless network that obtains white
space access on behalf of its base
stations. The terminals, for example smart
meters, are classified as “slave” devices
and do not need to consult a database.
Instead, the base station effectively does it
on their behalf. If the white space database
that the network is using goes out of
business then the network owner can
simply contract with a different provider or
if all else fails, provide database
functionality themselves (it is actually
relatively easy to do).
This is another argument as to why white
space access tends to favour applications
running over networks rather than ad-hoc
or peer-to-peer solutions.
Read William Webb’s blogs at the
Weightless SIG web site.
17 whitespace radio – special feature section

INCISOR.TV WHITE SPACE

VIDEO REPORTS
Incisor.TV is rapidly building a collection of web video material dedicated
to developments in the TV white space spectrum. View all current movies
here, and a sequence will also build at the Weightless Special Interest
Group web site – www.weightless.org.

Incisor.TV records the launch event for

the Weightless Special Interest Group.

Analysing strident remarks from Ofcom

CEO Ed Richards, Weightless SIG CEO
William Webb points interested parties
in the right direction.

Fraser Edwards explains how white

space is more than just a solution for
bandwidth crunch, and looks specifically
at applications in the telehealth market.

Neul is the first company to launch real,

live white space products. Luke D’Arcy
positions Neul in the white space market,
and provides an overview of developments
including the establishment of a white
space standard, and the Weightless
Special Interest Group.
18
First commercial white
space radio system
for WISPs?
While Incisor was preparing this white
space-focused issue, Carlson and Neul
announced that they had launched
RuralConnect, claiming that this was
the first commercially available radio
networking system to deliver the full
promise of TV white space broadband
to WISPs (Wireless Internet Service
Providers). The launch of RuralConnect
followed the announcement of a global
partnership in October 2011, and the
two companies goal is to bring
affordable broadband to millions around
the world.
The Neul and Carlson system will give
users up to 16 Mbps of bandwidth for
each available vacant TV channel and the
ability to make long range, non-line-of-
sight links. Designed specifically for the
needs of wireless Internet service
providers (WISPs), RuralConnect has been
priced to make it immediately
commercially viable.
Thanks to the extension of the Payroll Tax
Bill, passed in February 2012, white space
radio is now fully available in the US,
opening up a host of opportunities and
new markets that are currently difficult to
serve without expensive licensed spectrum
or extensive infrastructure. This has
apparently piqued the interest of many
investors and venture capitalists looking to
tap in to the unlimited possibilities of this
emerging technology.
RuralConnect technology uses ‘white
spaces,’ (or unused portions of UHF
spectrum), for digital communication. Due
to its outstanding propagation
characteristics, UHF signals can travel
through walls and other obstacles: Line of
sight isn’t needed to the subscriber’s
home.
However, life is never simple, and it’s not
enough just to be able to send a signal a
“RuralConnect marks a major milestone in the realization of white space technologies, which have been in development for a while.
The outstanding propagation characteristics of white space signals means that operators can serve customers they cannot reach
with existing wireless technology. The capacity available allows pioneering WISPs to offer all customers faster plans that beat ADSL
based competition. And this is possible without investing in new tower sites, spectrum licenses or high priced network equipment,
boosting profitable growth.”
whitespace radio – special feature section
long way. On long-range links
reflections from buildings and terrain
cause signals to travel via many different
routes from the transmitter to the
receiver. These multipath signals interfere
can with each other, potential causing
unreliable, slow connections.
RuralConnect uses SCFDE technology to
cancel the effect of multipath, and this
allows reliable long range connections,
whatever the terrain.
As a result, WISPs using the new system
can offer superior coverage over wide
areas with limited base-station sites. It
also enables the transfer of more data at
higher data rates, driving additional
revenue with minimal additional
investment. Depending on the area, up to
20 channels are available, increasing the
amount of non-line-of-sight capable
spectrum available by a factor of 10.
Incisor understands that Carlson is
concurrently launching a line of
omnidirectional and sectoral, high-gain,
base-station antennas designed
specifically for TV white-space
broadband.
“We are well-positioned to make the
most of the TV white space opportunity,”
said Jim Carlson, CEO of Carlson. “We
have the regulatory experience, tactical
partnerships, and pre-emptive
technology to successfully deliver this
market-disruptive product. RuralConnect
is a proprietary combination of Carlson’s
hardware and Neul’s software, resulting
in an affordable, high-performance
system that is attracting the attention of
investors globally.”
Carlson and Neul showed the new
product at ISPAmerica which took place
in Florida, USA, during March. Sales of
the RuralConnect are being managed in
the U.S. by Carlson and shared
internationally with Neul.
Carlson told Incisor that samples and
development kits are available now, with
volume shipments of the new system to
start as soon as Q2, 2012.
Luke D’Arcy, VP of Marketing, Neul
19
Exploring the boundaries
of wearable technology
Bjorn Eskofier. “Wearing a chest belt during sports
like handball is hardly realistic!”
Wireless communication is an intrinsic
element of most wearable technology
products, a topic that Incisor has
touched upon previously. Björn Eskofier
is Head of the Digital Sports and
Sportronics Group at the Pattern
Recognition Lab of the Friedrich-
Alexander University Erlangen-
Nuremberg. He is also Assistant
Professor for Computer Science in
Sports (endowed professorship of
adidas AG). He has dedicated his
research to a number of Wearable
Technologies topics.
JM: On what wearable topics are you
currently working?
BE: On the technology side we are
working on the integration of sensors into
clothing and communication protocols:
comparison and implementation, sensor
data transmission: safety and security,
intelligent sensor nodes, algorithms for
sensor data fusion and embedded
classification, user interface: smartphones
and tablets for instant feedback. On the
applications side: we are encouraging
activity and movement (i.e. through social
networks), team sports (i.e. soccer,
basketball, golf): Recognition and
Johanna Mischke interviews Björn Eskofier
evaluation of movement patterns; activity
and performance analysis; analysis of
physiological and biomechanical data,
clinically relevant studies: gait changes in
Parkinson patients; rehabilitation of stroke
patients and monitoring general activities
within the home environment.
JM: What parameters do you use to
evaluate and prepare the data from your
sport analysis systems? Are those mostly
general parameters or will future sport
analysis systems be using more specific
metrics for different types of sports?
BE: I think that in future, many of the
relatively general parameters will need to
be improved considerably to suit the
specific requirements of different sports.
We can already record a great deal of
information, but now we have to focus on
tailoring our approach to meet the specific
needs of each sport. For example, heart
rate is often relevant, but wearing a chest
belt during sports like handball is hardly
realistic.
We need new, innovative measuring
techniques. Let’s look at another example:
sensors for capturing running speed often
www.incisor.tv
work well while jogging. In sports such as
soccer, though, special changes have to
be made to the algorithms used because
the assumptions taken into account for
jogging are, of course, invalid.
JM: Is there a common data standard or a
platform for the use of sport analysis
sensors from different manufacturers? Is
there currently any cooperation for the joint
use of sport analysis data or do you
envisage this happening in the future?
BE: Not to my knowledge. I only know the
established isolated applications. From my
experience in the sporting goods industry, I
think that common standards are still some
way off. Manufacturers are currently
pursuing a closed policy as they prefer to
keep their ideas close to their chest before
launching a new product.
These isolated applications are thus still
pretty much short-term, but behind the
scenes there is already evidence of a slight
trend towards cooperation and
standardization.
JM: Will professional athletes be equipped
with sensors during training and ➔
20
competitions in the future? Do you think
that implants could be used in the
sports context? When will these
professional technologies emerge from
the research lab?
BE: As regards training, increasing
numbers of coaches and individual
athletes are becoming more and more
convinced of the benefits of such
supporting systems. Competition
regulations have, of course, to be borne
in mind (i.e. according to the DFB/IFA, the
use of sensors is still not allowed during
matches) but the added value for athletes
will be the crucial factor in the end.
As for implants, I remain rather sceptical
but it is difficult to predict what the future
holds.
The last question is a tricky one. I think
this will be dictated by market conditions
for each technology and governed by
price, functionality and comfort. Such
innovations would only be included at
grassroots level if prices were low and
comfort optimal. Naturally, every day we
work hard to bring new technologies
closer to market launch. Where there’s a
will, there’s a way!
JM: The sports market is a keen
advocate of Wearable Technologies’
products and a lot of products were well
prepared for market launch in the past -
I’m thinking of pulse and distance
monitoring and helmet cameras. What
developments are currently in the
pipeline? What about the large-scale
launch of Wearable Technologies in the
medical sector?
BE: I’m sure that we will see a lot of
integrated sensors and embedded
electronics for motion and physiological
monitoring in the future but they must, of
course, be as unobtrusive as possible.
I also think that there will be an increase
in the use of actuators for fitting
equipment to athletes, as in the case of
adidas_1 a few years ago.
I think that Wearable Technologies will
most likely enter the medical market.
There is already a lot going on in the
research community right now. We have,
for instance, joined forces with industrial
and medical partners to work on a
Wearable Technologies’ system for the
early recognition and therapeutic support
of sufferers of Parkinson’s disease.
JM: And what is your favourite Wearable
Technologies product?
BE: My Smartphone and, of course, the
Adidas miCoach system!
Johanna Mischke first interviewed Björn
Eskofier on behalf of Wearable
Technologies (www.wearable-
technologies.com ), an international
platform for networking that serves as a
hub for market-ready products and
components. Wearable Technologies can
be divided into four main technology
categories: materials, sensors,
communication and energy
www.incisor.tv
INCISOR TV
Video presentations
When it comes to assessing what is really
going on in the market, there is no substitute
for seeing products in action and hearing
100% accurate information from the people at
the sharp end. Incisor TV provides that insight.
Click on the links below to watch recent
Incisor TV presentations
Incisor.TV Ultra Low Power Roundtable
CES 2012 – Best Bluetooth of CES
4iiii Innovations shows ANT-based sports and
fitness solution
New industry SIG – Weightless for white space
Neul whitespace launch event
Bluetooth SIG All Hands, Mike Foley keynote
Bluetooth SIG AHM,
Bluetooth Ecosystem teams
Bluetooth SIG AHM, Board of Directors panel
IncisorTV at CES 2011 – Bluetooth Best of CES
IncisorTV at CES 2011 – Day 2
IncisorTV at CES 2011 – Day 1
Rococo discusses LocalSocial
Bluetooth High Speed Technology
Frontline – Interoperability testing
Bluetooth SIG BETS programme
Frontline – BPA500 protocol analyser
Aftermarket Bluetooth versus Factory fit
Who needs stress? Says Jabra
EnOcean Alliance –
energy harvesting technology
Aftermarket Bluetooth versus factory fit
Bluetooth 2010 All Hands Meeting
Anoto - 10 years of digital pen and paper
BiteBack Sweden
CES 2010 Daily Show report – Day 1
CES 2010 Daily Show report – Day 1
CES 2010 Daily Show report – Day 1
BiteBack Asia
BiteBack USA
BitBack UK
IncisorTV commercial for CSR/SiRF merger
DECT Forum and CAT-iq in 2009
Bluetooth SIG – Best of CES 2009
WiMedia Alliance – UWB in 2009
Incisor showreel
WiMedia special - UWB - a high performance
solution / part 1
WiMedia special - UWB - a high performance
solution / part 2
WiMedia special - WiMedia and Bluetooth
WiMedia special - Updating the
WiMedia roadmap
WiMedia - The future for UWB
Bluetooth low energy wireless technology
IncisorTV commercial for CSR – BlueCore7
21
Yet again, I’m revisiting the NFC
potential to better understand where
we’ll ultimately see this modest and,
dare I say, humblest of wireless
technologies finally deserve to bestow
a new found freedom to an eager
consumer-base that has, albeit
hesitantly, become accustomed to the
varying and volatile wireless
technology landscape.
We’ve been here before
The potential of NFC offers a new kind of
freedom, as an easy-pairing enabler of
other popular technologies such as
Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, as well as delivering
a host of touch- or swipe-centric
scenarios where a consumer can choose
to collect information from advertorial
posters and miscellaneous advertising
material. In October 2011’s column, I
even conjectured that NFC may help with
social media branding for the retail
industry, where consumers can tweet
about, ‘like’ (Facebook) or even Google+
products that they’re happy with and not
so happy with. Potentially, consumers
can resurrect that former notion of brand
loyalty, something that has waned in
today’s competitive market. But, for now,
the industry pundits are all digitising their
respective moolah into the electronic
wallet basket such as that seen by the
wavering Google Wallet offering.
Although, having said that, the US
telecommunications operator Sprint is
planning to launch ten new handsets with
Google Wallet this year! As I mentioned
in February’s issue, NFC has to overcome
some consumer psychological issues
before conquering this market sector. I
guess, some may feel out of control, but
surely the same can be said for a Visa
card? You can never be sure if your
information was used appropriately and
for what it was intended. But, I’m
confident that NFC can find its feet
elsewhere in the market, with a huge and
comprehensive application-base, as I
have been discussing exhaustively over
the last few years! Alas, we need the
support of these same pundits who need
to view NFC as more than an evolutionary
NFC: A Gentle
Evolution
by Dean Anthony Gratton
step towards replacing the beloved
leather wallet.
Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be…
I’m sure I have ranted and mentioned this
before, but I was working back in 2004
with NFC technology for a Dutch
company based in Leuven, Belgium. I
was involved in the technical and
marketing committees – becoming very
proactive and vocal in an attempt to steer
the direction of the technology. I felt it
was so important to ensure the baby
steps were carefully walked. I mean, I
witnessed first-hand the evolution of
Bluetooth, as far back as 1999, so I just
wanted to ensure that NFC avoided
treading a similar path.
I’m just a little surprised, amazed and
thoroughly disappointed that I’m only
witnessing the emergence of the
technology in 2012! I mean, NFC hasn’t
hit the headlines or stopped the press
despite shipments of NFC-enabled
handsets topping 30 million in 2011 (Berg
Insight). Without wishing to sound
cynical, I guess that NFC will hit the
headlines when something goes wrong –
such is human nature these days.
Build it, they will come
Now, I’ll take a moment here to blow my
own trumpet. I’m clearing my throat and
posturing slightly: I recall mentioning
some time ago that Apple will follow
Figure 1: The alleged
new generation Apple
iPhone 5 clearly
displaying the NFC N-
Mark (top-left).
www.incisor.tv
Google’s lead and, if I’m not mistaken, is
it me or do I see the NFC N-Mark on the
patent image (see Figure 1)?
The patent was reportedly submitted by
Apple early this year and subsequently
reported by various tech-channels. It
apparently shows the new iPhone 5
offering from the consumer-friendly giant
(with its new 4.6-inch screen). Other use
cases have also been patented – you can
patent software ‘methods’ or ‘processes’
in the US, but not in Europe.
It seems numerous patents surrounding
the electronic wallet or iWallet, as Apple
has allegedly coined it, have been
submitted depicting several user
scenarios. So, Apple has been acquiring
patents to shape its view on how NFC
should manifest itself into the real-world,
or at least the world as Apple sees it. The
Google Wallet has been wavering slightly
in terms of popularity and use, but I guess
with Apple steering the ship, then
consumers may decide “it’s okay” to
forego the traditional wallet in favour of
the electronic variant. I would also
intimate that the supportive infrastructure
for NFC will increasingly become wide-
spread and perhaps commonplace, as
this will ultimately ensure NFC’s future
success.
Slowly, but surely
Let’s not forget that you can only make
relatively small purchases with an
electronic wallet, typically no more than
£10 or so. And, as for losing your phone,
well the same can be said about your
wallet – I think it’s a good old fashioned
case of ‘six-of-one and half-a-dozen of
the other’. After all, credit cards can be
stopped and reissued and if you lose your
mobile phone, it can be tracked, located
and blocked – I love technology when it
works!
I suppose, in the large picture
perspective, it’s the first step in the right
direction to see NFC integrated into
handsets – for some budding
technologies it’s an enormous milestone,
something which technology companies
regularly struggle with when convincing ➔
22
handset manufacturers. I am confident
that, once consumers overcome their
psychological shortcomings and begin to
understand yet another three-letter
acronym, then other use cases should
follow. I dare say, I may start seeing many
of those fanciful ideas that were bounced
around as far back as 2004, trickle into
everyday use. I sincerely hope so.
Until next time...
I’m not sure at this moment about what’s
on my agenda for next time. Anyhow, I
had to regretfully scale back some projects
as, alas, I have taken on too much. So, in
the short- to medium-term I’ll be popping
Contactless card users
exposed to fraud
UK TV news network Channel 4 News
has been stirring trouble for the
contactless payment industry. A
Channel 4 spokesperson told Incisor
that it had discovered that Barclays
customers using contactless bank cards
could have their card data stolen
without even knowing about it. An
investigation has revealed that readers
now being built in as standard to
mobile phones can be adapted to
access data from these cards. Working
with a mobile phone security company,
Channel 4 News managed to take data
with just a swipe, and then use that data
to purchase multiple goods online. In
real life, says Channel 4, it would be
possible to gain access to this data
merely by nudging someone's wallet,
through clothes in a crowded public
space.
As Incisor readers will know, these new
contactless credit and debit cards contain
an NFC chip, and when the card is held
next to a reader a payment is made
without need of a pin, and 13 million
Barclays customers currently use them.
But Channel 4 News commented that its
research shows that this ease of use will
work for pickpocketers too.
The Channel 4 newshounds asked a
mobile phone security company to
research how the technology could be
used. Thomas Cannon of ViaForensics,
working for Channel 4 News said, "All I
did was I tapped my phone over the wallet
and, using the wireless reader on the
phone, I was able to lift out the details
from a card, that includes the long card
up at Incisor on a bi-monthly basis while
I finalise the Cambridge University book,
tackle the new Bluetooth book and
illustrate the wife’s new book – eeesh!
Plus, I have some other writing
commitments that have made their guest
appearances at the beginning of 2012.
I’m not complaining, honestly!
So, this is where Dr G signs off until next
time.
About the Author
Dr Dean Anthony Gratton is a bestselling
author and columnist, and has worked
extensively within the wireless
telecommunications R&D industry. He
was an Editor of the Specification of the
number, the expiry date and the name.
None of it was encrypted, it was simply a
case of the details coming out through
the air". Channel 4 News was only able to
access the details of Barclays issued Visa
cards. Other banks and systems weren't
accessible. The UK Card Association
says that guidelines state that the card
holder's name should not be transmitted.
When asked to comment, Visa and
Barclays apparently said that it was
perfectly ok for people to access all your
card details in this way without your
permission. Barclays spokesperson said,
"The security of our customers’ money
and personal details is a top priority at
Barclays so we are understandably
concerned about these transactions. We
are compliant with scheme rules for
contactless and our fraud guarantee
refunds any fraudulent losses to
customers in full. The only information
which can be obtained from a chip is the
same as that which is printed on the front
of the card – this does not include secure
information such as PIN or signature
(CVV) code.
“The details obtained should not be
sufficient to undertake any fraudulent
activity but we do depend on retailers
upholding the same high standards of
security when verifying payment details.
To be clear, this is not an issue with
contactless but with the checks
undertaken for ‘card not present’
payments by some retailers. As a matter
of urgency we are now engaging with
retailers to ensure they are undertaking
adequate and robust checks. We remain
www.incisor.tv
Bluetooth System: Profiles, v1.1,
participated in defining the initial
Bluetooth Personal Area Networking
profiles, and was active in the Near Field
Communication technology and
marketing committees. His wireless
research work has been patented.
You can contact Dean at
incisor@deangratton.com and follow him
on Twitter (@grattonboy). Dean is an
influential social media persona and was
listed in the 50 “Top Dogs” of Twitter
(bullsandbeavers.com). You can also
read more about his work at
deangratton.com.
committed to contactless and firmly
believe that it continues to be a safe and
viable payment system.”
But the fun didn’t stop there. Channel 4
News created a new user on Amazon's
website, with a different name and billing
and delivery address to the card they
scanned, and were able to order and
receive products purchased without any
link to the cardholder. Unlike some online
retailers, Amazon doesn't require the
three digit security code on the back of
the card, making it very easy to use for
this sort of crime.
The UK Government Department for
Business, Innovation and Skills has called
for urgent action: "Channel 4 News'
investigation has revealed serious security
flaws in the payment procedures of some
of the contactless card operators. There
are standards in place which are designed
to prevent this and all operators should
comply with them. We call on the card
issuers to act quickly to address this
issue and to cancel and replace cards if
necessary. We are contacting the
Payments Council, UK Cards and
Barclays to get more details on the extent
of the problem and to understand what
urgent action is being taken to address it.
We have always emphasised the
importance of data security in initiatives
such as Midata, and this contactless
payment facility clearly has some serious
weakness in this regard."
Just when we thought things were
starting to flow more easily for the
contactless payment industry.....
23
low energy wireless news
75% of US electric
meters will be Smart
Meters by 2016
The smart grid is an enormous worldwide
effort to modernize our electrical grid. The
global scale alone makes this a colossal
task. Complicating this effort is the
incredible variety of electrical systems
throughout the world, and the vast maze
of utilities managing them. In the USA
alone, there are more than 3,000 separate
utilities, local governments, and private
companies operating America’s electrical
grid. Despite this, research carried out by
NPD In-Stat forecasts that by 2016, over
75% of all US electric meters will be
converted to smart meters.
“Over the next five years, and for decades
thereafter, the world will be deploying the
smart grid,” Allen Nogee, research
director told Incisor. “Initially, most of this
will be smart meters, but once those are
out, client devices, software, and home
automation equipment may all benefit as
consumers and utilities make use of the
information that smart meters provide.
While utilities will be big beneficiaries
from the smart grid movement,
consumers will benefit as well, with more
choices in rate plans and a much better
understanding of the link between their
electricity usage and their costs.”
NPD In-Stat forecasts that worldwide
smart meter revenue will surpass US$12
billion in 2016, and that while ZigBee
leads in smart meter home area network
technology, powerline and wireless lead in
smart meter backhaul. China is predicted
to deploy 280 million smart meters by
2016. Nogee added that in the USA, the
number of smart meters deployed per
year will decline after peaking in 2011,
when stimulus money prompted utilities
to update their meters, but worldwide,
smart meter deployment will continue to
grow.
NXP and S&C
Electric Company
enhance security of
Smart Grid
NXP Semiconductors and smart grid
company S&C Electric Company have
announced a program to develop and
incorporate integrated circuits that will
provide enhanced security for products
used in smart grid applications. The two
companies claim that their circuit designs
will advance cyber security measures by
incorporating secure authentication,
reducing the risk of unauthorized access
to smart grid equipment.
NXP Semiconductors has already been
playing in the security IC solution market.
Its A-series security IC provides
component authentication and encrypted
communication between intelligent
distribution grid devices, permitting the
grid to be managed at enhanced levels of
security and reliability. The A-series is
built on NXP’s SmartMX technology to
protect the secret key from physical and
logical attacks. This technology, which is
used in identification cards, passports,
banking smart cards, and other high-
security applications, uses Public Key
Infrastructure (PKI) algorithms for safe
key management. As a primary feature,
the secret key never leaves the A-series
security IC and is not part of the host
software.
Rohit Khera, cyber security architect at
S&C Electric Company told Incisor: "S&C
is taking an important step by working
with NXP to advance the industry’s
communications and control systems to
protect against possible tampering and
provide enhanced assurance for the
protection of authentication tokens in
field equipment.”
www.incisor.tv
Z-Wave.Me presents Z-
Way controller software
The networked home was one of the hot
topics at this year's CeBIT. One Z-Wave
alliance member - Z-Wave.Me – set out to
show just how easy it is to set up, organise
and operate home control devices. The prime
focus at the stand was the demonstration of
the Z-Way controller software, which a user
can operate from a local control unit (PC,
laptop, iPad, etc.) or online.
The software can be used to manage
complete Z-Wave networks, control actuators
and read sensor data. In addition, Z-Way
allows the user to set up so-called action
sequences that can be triggered by events.
This means that, for example, the blinds could
open, the windows tilted to ventilate the
house and the lights switched on in the
bedroom, hallway or bathroom at a pre-set
time in the morning. The sequences can be
activated from the actual devices or by using
programmable scripts in Python.
An internal database that lists all current
devices is available, allowing configuration of
the existing Z-Wave devices. Z-Wave.Me told
Incisor that new devices are added all the
time in order to keep the list up-to-date. For
greater clarity, the software displays all the
entered Z-Wave devices in the form of a table
or a floor plan of the building or apartment.
Z-Way is available both as a local and an
online version. The local version is integrated
into the Z-Box, which has interfaces to the Z-
Wave wireless network and an Ethernet
interface to the Internet or local IP network.
The online version is called Z-Cloud. As an
introduction to home control using Z-
Wave.me, starter kits for lighting control,
heating, security and surveillance are
available. In addition to the specific
components, such as radio-controlled radiator
thermostats, dimmers or motion detectors,
these kits also include a Z-Stick. The Z-Stick
plugs into your computer or laptop and, after
registration, connects the user to Z-Cloud.
24
low energy wireless news
Shipments of NFC-
enabled handsets
reached 30M units in
2011
According to a new research report by Berg
Insight, global sales of handsets featuring Near
Field Communication (NFC) increased ten-fold in
2011 to 30 million units. Growing at a compound
annual growth rate (CAGR) of 87.8 percent,
shipments are forecasted to reach 700 million
units in 2016.
The global rise in smartphone adoption is also
driving higher attach rates for other wireless
connectivity technologies in handsets including
GPS, Bluetooth and WLAN. These connectivity
technologies are already a standard feature on
high-end smartphones and most medium- and
low-end models.
Declining costs will also enable broader
integration in the featurephone segment that is
rapidly gaining smartphone-like functionality. The
attach rate for GPS among GSM/WCDMA/LTE
handsets reached 31 percent in 2011 and grew
to 38 percent for all air interface standards.
Shipments of WLAN-enabled handsets have
more or less doubled annually in the past four
years and the attach rate increased to 33 percent
in 2011. WLAN connectivity in handsets enables
a range of use cases including offloading data
traffic from increasingly congested mobile
networks, media synchronisation and indoor
navigation services.
André Malm, Senior Analyst, Berg Insight told
Incisor: “Reliable indoor navigation systems for
Incisor extends across social media: Incisor has its own group on LinkedIn called WPAN World,
and contributes and interacts with many other LinkedIn focus groups including:
Click on the LinkedIn group logos to access these discussions
WPAN World
handsets need hybrid location technologies that
fuse signal measurements from multiple satellite
systems like GPS and GLONASS with cellular
and WLAN network signals, together with data
from sensors such as accelerometers,
gyroscopes, compasses and altimeters.” He
added that periodic calibrations using satellite
and wireless network signals are necessary to
compensate for the low data accuracy and high
drift obtained from low cost sensors used in
handsets today.
Malm observed that NFC technology for short-
range wireless point-to-point communication
reached a breakthrough in 2011 when several
leading handset vendors released more than 40
NFC-enabled handsets. “Even though it will take
some time before the stakeholders agree on
business models for payment networks, other
use cases such as reading tags and easy pairing
of devices may well be compelling enough for
handset vendors to integrate NFC in mid- and
high-end devices already today.”
… meanwhile, smart
payment card
shipments hit one billion
in 2011
While some start to question the security aspect
of contactless payment cards, the Smart
Payment Association (SPA) has told Incisor that
in 2011, for the first time in history, the number
of smart payment cards shipped annually to
financial institutions worldwide passed the one
billion mark (1037 million).
www.incisor.tv
The six SPA members, who represent more than
85% of the total available market, shipped 898
million smart payment cards (of which 90% were
EMV cards); a 12% rise in volumes on 2010
figures.
The highest regional climb was recorded in the
Americas. Here, Canada’s completion of its EMV
migration, the increasing adoption of chip and
PIN cards across Latin America and the first
significant volumes of EMV cards to be issued in
the United States all contributed to a +29%
jump in shipments. The Asia Pacific market was
similarly buoyant in 2011, with the region
showing a +26% increase.
The SPA’s view is that by investing in
contactless cards, issuers are increasingly able
to offer faster, more convenient and more
intuitive payment options to customers; while
investments made on the procurement side
(terminals and infrastructure) are paving way for
the expected growth in mobile NFC payments.
The review did, though, touch upon security, and
the SPA suggests that there is a continued move
towards ever more secure ways to pay. Almost
one out of every two (47%) cards shipped
featured Dynamic Data Authentication (DDA) or
Combined Data Authentication (CDA)
mechanisms. Mature markets, stimulated by
payment schemes and/or regulatory compliance,
are increasing the pace of migration towards
these more secure authentication methods; in
Western Europe 90% of shipments were
DDA/CDA. Similarly, Static Data Authentication
(SDA) remained the natural option for “phase 1”
migration to EMV in other areas (e.g. 90% SDA
in Americas).
Bluetooth LE White Spaces Network
25
white space/4G/m2m news
Qualcomm expands
ecosystem for Internet
of Everything
Qualcomm Atheros, the networking and
connectivity subsidiary of Qualcomm Inc, has
launched the AR4100P. This is a highly
integrated 802.11n single-stream Wi-Fi system-
in-package with integrated networking stack,
and is an enhanced version of the FCC-certified
AR4100 that includes an integrated IPv4/IPv6
TCP/IP stack. Qualcomm’s target customers are
apparently those implementing machine-to-
machine (M2M) communications in the smart
home, building and appliances channels.
Qualcomm hasn’t featured much in Incisor to
date, but we learn that the AR4100P is the latest
product within the Qualcomm Atheros Internet
of Everything portfolio, which includes
standards-based wired and wireless
technologies that enable scalable IP
infrastructure for smart energy, intelligent home,
security, building automation, remote health and
wellness monitoring, and other M2M
applications.
The AR4100P is featured in Qualcomm Atheros’s
SP137 development kit, which is a reference
design for low-power IP sensors. The
development kit integrates Energy Micro’s
EFM32 Gecko low-energy Cortex-M3
microcontroller running the Micrium µC/OS-III
operating system. With a well of additional
onboard sensors, the so called ‘energy friendly’
Wi-Fi kit supports deep sleep modes of only
2uA, enabling operation off just AA batteries.
The kit also includes expansion capabilities for
additional sensors and can be ported to other
microcontrollers or operating systems as
required.
Adam Lapede, senior director of product
management at Qualcomm Atheros told Incisor:
“The new system-in-package reinforces
Qualcomm’s continued investment and
commitment to leadership in the Internet of
Everything and machine-to-machine solutions
industries. Through collaboration with our
ecosystem partners, we have developed a
solution that delivers outstanding performance
for low-energy monitoring and control
applications. The AR4100P system-in-package
provides a unique set of capabilities that will
help expand the growing ecosystem of
connected devices.”
Lapede explained that with the introduction of
the AR4100P, Qualcomm Atheros is expanding
its design ecosystem for the AR4100 and
AR4100P to include multiple microcontroller,
software and module vendors, along with
distribution, design and manufacturing partners.
Anritsu signal
generators meet future
wireless test challenges
The wireless industry is moving at its fastest
ever pace with the rapid introduction of LTE,
says Anritsu, and now the fast pace for LTE-
Advanced and new technologies in Wi-Fi. To
match this pace and provide effective test
solutions, the test equipment company suggests
that designers must keep ahead so that they
can effectively test new technologies such as
MIMO, carrier aggregation (CA), multi band
radio, and co-ordinated multi point
transmissions. Achieving this requires a new
generation of signal generator to create all of the
required new reference signals in an integrated
environment. This is needed to meet the
technology and measurement challenges of
Multi Standard Radio, Carrier Aggregation, and
MIMO with multi-carrier transmissions
Anritsu claims to be the first test equipment
supplier to release the new generation
equipment that is following these market
demands. Its MG3710A supports new
measurement techniques to support these latest
wireless transmission standards. Features
include ‘waveform combining’ to enable an
engineer to create more complex signal
combinations from libraries of signals, and the
dual RF capability that addresses the future
needs of Carrier Aggregation and multi-carrier
transmissions that are being developed for
higher speed data links. The architecture allows
www.incisor.tv
for multiple units to be locked together in RF
phase and signal clock, enabling the
implementation of test systems for high order
MIMO configurations that are currently in
development (e.g. 8x8 MIMO).
Universal Wireless
Communications Toolkit
from Lime
Lime Microsystems has announced a Universal
Wireless Communications Toolkit that the
company claims will allows developer to more
easily create wireless protocols.
The Toolkit comprises Lime's configurable
transceiver board linked to an Altera FPGA
design kit via a high speed mezzanine
connection (HSMC) interface board. The
combination of Lime and Altera boards enables
wireless applications from consumer and
enterprise broadband equipment through to
bespoke white space, military and GNU Radio
applications to be created.
Communication system designs can be
implemented in Altera's portfolio of 28-nm
FPGAs, which are tailored to meet a variety of
system requirements. Mike Fitton, senior
architect at Altera's Communications Business
Unit told Incisor: "FPGAs are well suited to
address a diverse market like wireless
communications, which is constantly evolving
with new standards, frequency bands, size
requirements and ongoing cost pressures.”
Lime's LMS6002D is a multi-band, multi-
standard single-chip RF transceiver for 3GPP
(WCDMA/HSPA and LTE), 3GPP2 (CDMA2000)
and WiMAX applications. It can be digitally
configured to operate in 16 user-selectable
bandwidths up to 28MHz. In addition to small
cell base stations, Lime's customers are using
the IC to create machine to machine (M2M),
GNU radio and white space radio applications.
The Lime HSMC interface and transceiver
boards are available via Lime Microsystems with
FPGA design kits available from Altera.
26
high speed wireless news
Chinese Uni’s get
Wi-Fi-tastic
Ruckus Wireless tells Incisor that its Smart
Wi-Fi products and technology are being
deployed by colleges and universities
throughout China.
Guangxi Unicom, a unit of China Unicom,
is using a wide range of Ruckus’ Smart
Wi-Fi products and technologies to deliver
public broadband access across eight
universities and colleges in Guangxi
province. Additionally, China’s Shaanxi
Normal University (SNNU) has selected
Smart Wi-Fi to construct a multi-campus
wireless infrastructure with more than
1,200 APs supporting 50,000 students
and staff.
With a total population of over 46 million
people, Guangxi province is located in the
far southeast of China and has
approximately 100 higher education
institutions serving more than a million
students. Previously Guangxi Unicom
experienced a variety of problems in its
legacy Wi-Fi equipment that made it
difficult for them to offer a reliable and
profitable service. Due to the use of
conventional antenna technology in the
previous Wi-Fi system, complete wireless
coverage was difficult to extend across
campuses.
With the Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi
infrastructure, more than 100,000 students
and teaching staff will now have wireless
access to online services for indoor and
outdoor academic usage. Over 400
Ruckus ZoneFlex outdoor access points
(APs) and 80 Ruckus ZoneFlex wireless
bridges are being deployed across eight
university campuses in the province,
covering an area of over 2,000 acres.
With the new broadband wireless services,
students within all the deployed campuses
are now have wireless broadband
services, based on their subscribed data
service package from Guangxi Unicom,
ranging from 512Kbps to 2Mbps.
….while downtown San José to gain
‘insanely fast and reliable’ Wi-Fi
Ruckus Wireless has also been busy nearer
home. The Californian City of San José has
selected Ruckus and its integration partner
SmartWave Technologies to supply Wi-Fi
products and services for a new high-
capacity, high-performance public Wi-Fi
network initiative.
The new outdoor Wi-Fi network, initially
being deployed in dozens of downtown
locations, will cover San José’s business
district, allowing the city to offer free high-
speed Wi-Fi services. Ruckus told Incisor
that the new high-speed network will be
capable of supporting tens of thousands of
simultaneous users and hundreds of
terabytes of aggregate traffic.
In addition, the City of San José’s new Wi-
Fi network will be able to support new
applications such as high-definition video,
parking meters and digital parking guidance
signs, video surveillance, and traffic
signaling. The network will also play a key
role in offloading mobile data traffic from
congested cellular networks and will be
used to backhaul data traffic to the Internet.
Traffic will be backhauled from select APs
connected to the city’s fiber network that
terminates at the Metropolitan Area
Exchange, West (“MAE West”), an Internet
exchange point at the Market Post Tower.
Expected to go live by the middle of 2012,
the city’s new Wi-Fi network is based on
Ruckus’ Smart Wi-Fi technology. Smart Wi-
Fi uses miniaturized directional antenna
arrays and traffic handling techniques to
extend wireless signals two to four times
the distance over conventional technology.
The Smart Wi-Fi technology also
automatically avoids interference and
obstacles that can degrade user
performance.
www.incisor.tv
Rohde & Schwarz
adds WLAN signalling
functions to test
platforms
The Rohde & Schwarz (R&S) CMW500
wideband radio communication tester and
the R&S CMW270 wireless connectivity
tester now have new options to test WLAN
user equipment under realistic operating
conditions: In signalling mode, they can
emulate a WLAN access point in line with
IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n. The R&S CMW500
covers all common cellular and non-cellular
standards, while the R&S CMW270 has
been customized for non-cellular standards.
Manufacturers of WLAN components for
smartphones, tablet PCs and laptops can
use the R&S CMW500 and the R&S
CMW270 during development to test the
functionality and performance of their
products and to conduct transmitter and
receiver tests. R&S told Incisor that, thanks
to configurable test parameters, developers
obtain comparable and reproducible results
that create the basis for objective analysis.
Signalling mode measurements are also
apparently considerably easier: The testers
exchange protocol information with the DUT
to control the DUT's settings, eliminating the
need for the separate control software
previously required for some chipsets.
The signalling mode provided by the new
options allows developers to test the
transmitter of WLAN user equipment as well
as the quality of a receiver under realistic
operating conditions. The testers measure
the data throughput of WLAN components
in both receive and transmit mode. The
protocol stack can also be analyzed to
optimize the message flow between access
point and user equipment.
The new options for WLAN in signalling
mode for the R&S CMW500 and R&S
CMW270 test platforms are available now.
27 www.incisor.tv

events

DATE EVENT LOCATION NOTES LINK

April 15 - 20 light+building Messe Frankfurt, World’s biggest trade fair

2012 Franfurt, Germany for lighting & intelligent http://light-building.messefrankfurt.com
buildings

April 24 - 26 Bluetooth Special Renaissance - http://www.bluetooth.org

2012 Interest Group All Vancouver Hotel,
Hands Meeting Vancouver, Canada

June 12 - 14 Wi-Fi Alliance Toronto, Ontario, - http://www.wi-fi.org/events_

2012 member meeting Canada overview.php?id=351

June 27 - 28 European ZigBee Munich, Germany http://www.zigbee-devcon-europe.de/

2012 Developers
Conference

Jan 8 - 11 2013 International Las Vegas, Nevada, - www.cesweb.org

2013 CES USA

March 5 - 9 CeBIT Messegelande, - http://www.tradefairs.com

2013 Hanover, Germany

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