Simple wave, an inexpensive last mile communication technology

378 fiber optic cables covering an estimated 800000 KMs around the earth transmit data at Terabit speeds. How fast is a terabit? One tera bit is 1000 gigabits. A network with a speed of one terabit per second will transfer 1000 gigabits of data in 1 second. 1 gigabit in a millisecond. A 2 hour long high definition video of 32 giga bits can be downloaded in 32 milliseconds. We take 100 milliseconds to blink an eye.

And yet fiber optic cables together with all the satellites, copper wires and other transmission mediums are only able to provide internet to less than half of the worlds population.

More than 3B people have no or marginal access to the internet. The benefits of technology, global knowledge sharing, digital financial services are all unknown in these parts of the world.

Data is costliest at the last mile. Terabit speeds resolve to a few mega bits at the level of consumer.

All of our internet achievements have been the result of decades of work. While, no doubt, it is commendable, it raises an uncomfortable question. How many more will be needed to connect the rest of the world? How many roads will need to be dug up before more homes can be connected, if that is indeed, as it appears to be, the big plan?

Perhaps more importantly what can we do with the infrastructure that is already in place? Surely these must be an alternative to this all or nothing, black and white outlook towards connectivity.

It is true that digital technology is the driver of innovation in the world today. Such has been its impact that many companies prefer to call themselves digital even when they offer a physical product. Digital banks, digital airlines, digital shops, cloud kitchen? Digital has become a symbol of high performance. On merits? Perhaps? Perhaps not? For now we are not going to argue on this point. But I hope we can all agree that it certainly seems to be the perception.

While the trend is going towards increasing the speeds, with the idea that high speed data will increase the rate of innovation, it is easy to agree that the impact of communication technology will be highest in places with no/limited connectivity.

Simple wave is a collaborative project that looks to provide alternative means of connectivity to the unconnected places in the world. Make the last mile inexpensive.

Wavelength

All Simple Wave stations must confirm to the following 3 principles

1. Technology based on open standards. Open source software for operation. Open cellular frequencies for communication. Standards which can be used by all. To minimize the setup, distribution and working costs.
2. All stations must operate in online and offline modes. Even when the network is unavailable the stations must provide core services as a part of its operation. Network independent services will be accessed by the users wirelessly in the same way they access network services.
3. Single point of access managed via a secure identity program. All Simple Wave stations will be compatible with each other. A user with access to one Simple Wave station will be able to access any Simple Wave station anywhere in the world.

Please note that the access here means access to the network. Application services may employ their own identity management and restrictions. So while a user will always be able to access Simple Wave station, the services may/may not be accessible depending upon the situation.

Waveforms

As long as simple wave collaborators and partners agree to the principles above they can use simple wave stations in any way they want.

Want to charge for internet access? Sure. Simple Wave allows you to run accounting on identities.

Want to give away free service? Simple Wave lets you do that too.

Want to deploy business specific applications? Go right ahead.

Simple Wave can be a wireless internet gateway, a voice calling service, a messaging platform. CRM, e-commerce, news feed, social network. Video game server or a movie streaming station. Simple wave can be anything you want. And maybe even more.

Phase

Simple wave is flexible enough to serve different geographical requirements.In coastal areas with direct access to fiber optic connectivity Simple Wave may be used as a feeder/backhaul for inland connectivity. Simple Wave coastal distributors may also be used offer cheaper data plans to encourage tourism.

In inlands Simple Wave is capable of dense deployments to handle peak demands. Further Simple Wave stations may also allow access to specific technologies that encourage effective administration and development of smart cities.

Simple Wave may be attached to an antenna on ground or mounted on a satellite and sent into orbit. Once more Simple Wave does not make any assumptions on how to best use it. It leaves it to the operators. As long as an operator confirms to Simple Wave guiding principles they are free to do what they want.

Amplitude

Simple wave is a collaborative project. It recognizes the importance of partners in execution of ideas. As such Simple Wave is eager to partner with

* Infrastructure Providers: Organizations that work with network equipment, Hardware manufacturers etc
* Service providers: Infrastructure is for nothing if applications don’t work on it. Simple Wave is a secure but open platform that is compatible with the services of key economic sectors such as education , retail, transport, banking and entertainment. Simple Wave partners may chose to deploy their branded services on their Simple Wave wireless machines.
* Operators. Post deployment Simple Wave will need skilled professionals for up keep and maintenance of the system. Simple Wave will create 100s of jobs and demand for skilled workers. To fulfill this requirement Simple Wave is eager to partner with premier educational institutions around the world to help inculcate this skill among future professionals.

Frequency

Simple wave is a convergent telecommunication technology that aims to promote open cellular infrastructure to decrease the associated costs in setting up of telecommunication technology and increase the rate of innovation in the world.

It is our belief that Simple Wave will multiply the effect of other service industries rapidly by giving them a wider reach to an audience that would otherwise not be able to have access to their products.

Simple wave is a cross functional collaborative project. We are eager to work with people in different industries. Technology, manufacturing, hospitality, education, finance, retail , arts,science,government etc.

If you like the idea of simple wave and want to work with us please send an email to

workrockin@gmail.com

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July 24, 2019July 29, 2019

Do different wifi devices have slower/faster WiFi receivers?

Thank you for asking this question.

Yes it is true. Different devices may have different speeds according to the kind of their wifi receivers.

Wifi speeds have evolved in generations. This is why when you see the wifi specifications on the device it will be listed something like this

802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax

The letters a,b,g,n,ac,ax denote different wifi standards that the device can work with.

So if this hypothetical device connects to a router with 802.11n capability it will get speeds according to 802.11n standard and so on.

The good thing here is that most wifi devices ,both base station and client, are backwards compatible so they work across a variety of standards. In this respect the members of wifi alliance and it’s partners have done a terrific job! Otherwise industry is rife with examples of backward incompatibility. Thankully wifi avoided this route.

Finally as an example take a look at Qualcomm snap dragon 855 mobile platform that powers the recent one plus 7 mobile among many others phones.

Snapdragon™ 855 Plus | Best Mobile Processor for Gaming

Now if you go to the wifi section you’ll see that it has support for following standards

802.11ad, 802.11ay, 802.11ax-ready, 802.11ac Wave 2, 802.11a/b/g, 802.11n

Which means that it can be used with a wifi router supporting any one of these standards. Accodingly it will get speed that corresponds to that standard.

So when you upgrade your router to new standard all your client devices automatically benefit.

Workrock wireless’ wifi beacons help in digitizing key economic sectors of banking, transportation, tourism, retail and education.

July 20, 2019July 29, 2019

ASUS XG-C100C 10 Gigabit PCIe Network adapter

#ethernet #fiber #internet

XG-C100C is a low cost 10 Gigabit network interface card by Asus. The card is based Aquatia AQC107 chip [1]. While the highest speeds (10 Gigabit)are attainable with CAT 6a cables the card is also compatible with 5/2.5/1Gbps and 100Mbps standards on Cat 5. It is flexible enough to be used in a variety of service categories.

XG-C100C comes built in with 802.1 p support that provides Quality of service on the hardware level with implementation of 8 traffic classes. Quality of service controls mean that the user can prioritize traffic speed going through each physical/virtual port.

QOS support is provided by the operating system. eg vconfig [2] in linux helps you create VLANs on which you can assign traffic speed classes.

While the application of QOS is specific to use case it is good to know that XG-C100C helps you create scenarios in which you can prioritize certain kinds of traffic, like applications that consume high bandwitdh due to streaming games, movies etc running on their own virtual interface.

Aquantia supports linux natively and they have contributed their drivers to the linux source code [3]. So using an Aquantia card and hence by extension XG-C100C should be a plug and play experience for most linux users. This makes them especially attractive from a service deployment point of view. Using linux based system for internet access means no associated licencing cost as compared to proprietary platforms.

Besides that, the chip supports a wide variety of protocols most of which are to be expected from an ethernet card but some features like Wake on LAN are good addition to the standard stack. You can check out the full list on their product brief [1].

*Gadget Blues’ review of XG C100C on youtube is quite thorough so do check it out*

XG-C100C chips can be used to create wireless internet distribution hubs for a small offices with about 100 employees or a 6 floor multifamily residence housing 50 apartments.

The chip is powerful enough to serve multiple concurrent users while maintaining an appreciable quality of service at hardware and application level.

For redundancy and better bandwidth provision multiple systems embedding these chips may be used. Although on motherboards with multiple PCIe slots several of these chips may be combined to build a single access point for multiple users.

[A system designer should take note of the bandwidth requirements and provision adequate main memory for DMA access by the cards. ]

Whether you go for a consolidated access point or a distributed access point architecture depends upon the service requirements. In a dense location where people using the network would be close to each other, like in an office, it would make more sense to go with a consolidated architecture and save costs. In a sparse environment distributed architecture becomes a necessity.

A middle ground may be chosen for keeping the costs low while at the same time providing a redundant network access by setting up two access points in tandem on different devices and using cheap range extenders to increase the network coverage.

Since XG-C100C works on an electrical Rj45 ethernet port it can also be used as a part of a high capacity Optical Network Unit. A small form factor plug transceiver would convert optical connections into electrical and the ethernet port could be used to distribute the network either over wired RJ45 cables to the end users or wirelessly over a high speed external wifi network. This comes in handy at locations where fiber optic connectivity is available. The fact that the card is more than capable of handling high speed fiber optic connection makes it an obvious choice in these scenarios.

**Final thoughts**
XG C100C is a low cost, high performance feature rich network card that makes it a good fit for both home and enterprise usage. A good driver support in Linux means that XG C100C machines can be used in service deployments. Although a single RJ45 port is a bit of a letdown XG C1OOC is still an impressive piece of equipment for providing high speed LAN or internet connection.

Workrock Wireless builds gigabit wireless distribution systems for internet service providers. Our technology can help you serve customers in residential and commercial buildings as well create open wifi access points at airports restaurants and railway stations. Our devices are compatible with both fiber optic and well as traditional copper lines.*

workrockin@gmail.com

[1]https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/aq-media/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/AQtion-Brief-101717.pdf
[2] https://linux.die.net/man/8/vconfig

[3]https://github.com/torvalds/linux/tree/master/drivers/net/ethernet/aquantia