Wireless Transmission

2.3 Wireless Transmission

Our age has given rise to information junkies: people who need to be on-line all the time. For these mobile users, twisted pair, coax, and fiber optics are of no use. They need to get their hits of data for their laptop, notebook, shirt pocket, palmtop, or wristwatch computers without being tethered to the terrestrial communication infrastructure. For these users, wireless communication is the answer. In the following sections, we will look at wireless communication in general, as it has many other important applications besides providing connectivity to users who want to surf the Web from the beach.

Some people believe that the future holds only two kinds of communication: fiber and wireless. All fixed (i.e., nonmobile) computers, telephones, faxes, and so on will use fiber, and all mobile ones will use wireless.

Wireless has advantages for even fixed devices in some circumstances. For example, if running a fiber to a building is difficult due to the terrain (mountains, jungles, swamps, etc.), wireless may be better. It is noteworthy that modern wireless digital communication began in the Hawaiian Islands, where large chunks of Pacific Ocean separated the users and the telephone system was inadequate.

2.3.1 The Electromagnetic Spectrum

When electrons move, they create electromagnetic waves that can propagate through space (even in a vacuum). These waves were predicted by the British physicist James Clerk Maxwell in 1865 and first observed by the German physicist Heinrich Hertz in 1887. The number of oscillations per second of a wave is called its frequency, f, and is measured in Hz (in honor of Heinrich Hertz). The distance between two consecutive maxima (or minima) is called the wavelength, which is universally designated by the Greek letter l (lambda).

When an antenna of the appropriate size is attached to an electrical circuit, the electromagnetic waves can be broadcast efficiently and received by a receiver some distance away. All wireless communication is based on this principle.

In vacuum, all electromagnetic waves travel at the same speed, no matter what their frequency. This speed, usually called the speed of light, c, is approximately 3 x 10⁸ m/sec, or about 1 foot (30 cm) per nanosecond. (A case could be made for redefining the foot as the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1 nsec rather than basing it on the shoe size of some long-dead king.) In copper or fiber the speed slows to about 2/3 of this value and becomes slightly frequency dependent. The speed of light is the ultimate speed limit. No object or signal can ever move faster than it.

The fundamental relation between f, l, and c (in vacuum) is

Equation 2

Since c is a constant, if we know f, we can find l, and vice versa. As a rule of thumb, when l is in meters and f is in MHz,  . For example, 100-MHz waves are about 3 meters long, 1000-MHz waves are 0.3-meters long, and 0.1-meter waves have a frequency of 3000 MHz.

The electromagnetic spectrum is shown in Fig. 2-11. The radio, microwave, infrared, and visible light portions of the spectrum can all be used for transmitting information by modulating the amplitude, frequency, or phase of the waves. Ultraviolet light, X-rays, and gamma rays would be even better, due to their higher frequencies, but they are hard to produce and modulate, do not propagate well through buildings, and are dangerous to living things. The bands listed at the bottom of Fig. 2-11 are the official ITU names and are based on the wavelengths, so the LF band goes from 1 km to 10 km (approximately 30 kHz to 300 kHz). The terms LF, MF, and HF refer to low, medium, and high frequency, respectively. Clearly, when the names were assigned, nobody expected to go above 10 MHz, so the higher bands were later named the Very, Ultra, Super, Extremely, and Tremendously High Frequency bands. Beyond that there are no names, but Incredibly, Astonishingly, and Prodigiously high frequency (IHF, AHF, and PHF) would sound nice.

Figure 2-11. The electromagnetic spectrum and its uses for communication.

The amount of information that an electromagnetic wave can carry is related to its bandwidth. With current technology, it is possible to encode a few bits per Hertz at low frequencies, but often as many as 8 at high frequencies, so a coaxial cable with a 750 MHz bandwidth can carry several gigabits/sec. From Fig. 2-11 it should now be obvious why networking people like fiber optics so much.

If we solve Eq. (2-2) for f and differentiate with respect to l, we get

If we now go to finite differences instead of differentials and only look at absolute values, we get

Equation 2

Thus, given the width of a wavelength band, Dl, we can compute the corresponding frequency band, Df, and from that the data rate the band can produce. The wider the band, the higher the data rate. As an example, consider the 1.30-micron band of Fig. 2-6. Here we have l=1.3 x 10^-6 and Dl = 0.17 x 10^-6,soDf is about 30 THz. At, say, 8 bits/Hz, we get 240 Tbps.

Most transmissions use a narrow frequency band (i.e.,) to get the best reception (many watts/Hz). However, in some cases, a wide band is used, with two variations. In frequency hopping spread spectrum, the transmitter hops from frequency to frequency hundreds of times per second. It is popular for military communication because it makes transmissions hard to detect and next to impossible to jam. It also offers good resistance to multipath fading because the direct signal always arrives at the receiver first. Reflected signals follow a longer path and arrive later. By then the receiver may have changed frequency and no longer accepts signals on the previous frequency, thus eliminating interference between the direct and reflected signals. In recent years, this technique has also been applied commercially—both 802.11 and Bluetooth use it, for example.

As a curious footnote, the technique was co-invented by the Austrian-born sex goddess Hedy Lamarr, the first woman to appear nude in a motion picture (the 1933 Czech film Extase). Her first husband was an armaments manufacturer who told her how easy it was to block the radio signals then used to control torpedos. When she discovered that he was selling weapons to Hitler, she was horrified, disguised herself as a maid to escape him, and fled to Hollywood to continue her career as a movie actress. In her spare time, she invented frequency hopping to help the Allied war effort. Her scheme used 88 frequencies, the number of keys (and frequencies) on the piano. For their invention, she and her friend, the musical composer George Antheil, received U.S. patent 2,292,387. However, they were unable to convince the U.S. Navy that their invention had any practical use and never received any royalties. Only years after the patent expired did it become popular.

The other form of spread spectrum, direct sequence spread spectrum, which spreads the signal over a wide frequency band, is also gaining popularity in the commercial world. In particular, some second-generation mobile phones use it, and it will become dominant with the third generation, thanks to its good spectral efficiency, noise immunity, and other properties. Some wireless LANs also use it.

For the moment, we will assume that all transmissions use a narrow frequency band. We will now discuss how the various parts of the electromagnetic spectrum of Fig. 2-11 are used, starting with radio.

2.3.2 Radio Transmission

Radio waves are easy to generate, can travel long distances, and can penetrate buildings easily, so they are widely used for communication, both indoors and outdoors. Radio waves also are omnidirectional, meaning that they travel in all directions from the source, so the transmitter and receiver do not have to be carefully aligned physically.

Sometimes omnidirectional radio is good, but sometimes it is bad. In the 1970s, General Motors decided to equip all its new Cadillacs with computer-controlled antilock brakes. When the driver stepped on the brake pedal, the computer pulsed the brakes on and off instead of locking them on hard. One fine day an Ohio Highway Patrolman began using his new mobile radio to call headquarters, and suddenly the Cadillac next to him began behaving like a bucking bronco. When the officer pulled the car over, the driver claimed that he had done nothing and that the car had gone crazy.

Eventually, a pattern began to emerge: Cadillacs would sometimes go berserk, but only on major highways in Ohio and then only when the Highway Patrol was watching. For a long, long time General Motors could not understand why Cadillacs worked fine in all the other states and also on minor roads in Ohio. Only after much searching did they discover that the Cadillac's wiring made a fine antenna for the frequency used by the Ohio Highway Patrol's new radio system.

The properties of radio waves are frequency dependent. At low frequencies, radio waves pass through obstacles well, but the power falls off sharply with distance from the source, roughly as 1/r² in air. At high frequencies, radio waves tend to travel in straight lines and bounce off obstacles. They are also absorbed by rain. At all frequencies, radio waves are subject to interference from motors and other electrical equipment.

Due to radio's ability to travel long distances, interference between users is a problem. For this reason, all governments tightly license the use of radio transmitters, with one exception, discussed below.

In the VLF, LF, and MF bands, radio waves follow the ground, as illustrated in Fig. 2-12(a). These waves can be detected for perhaps 1000 km at the lower frequencies, less at the higher ones. AM radio broadcasting uses the MF band, which is why the ground waves from Boston AM radio stations cannot be heard easily in New York. Radio waves in these bands pass through buildings easily, which is why portable radios work indoors. The main problem with using these bands for data communication is their low bandwidth [see Eq. (2-3)].

Figure 2-12. (a) In the VLF, LF, and MF bands, radio waves follow the curvature of the earth. (b) In the HF band, they bounce off the ionosphere.

In the HF and VHF bands, the ground waves tend to be absorbed by the earth. However, the waves that reach the ionosphere, a layer of charged particles circling the earth at a height of 100 to 500 km, are refracted by it and sent back to earth, as shown in Fig. 2-12(b). Under certain atmospheric conditions, the signals can bounce several times. Amateur radio operators (hams) use these bands to talk long distance. The military also communicate in the HF and VHF bands.

2.3.3 Microwave Transmission

Above 100 MHz, the waves travel in nearly straight lines and can therefore be narrowly focused. Concentrating all the energy into a small beam by means of a parabolic antenna (like the familiar satellite TV dish) gives a much higher signal-to-noise ratio, but the transmitting and receiving antennas must be accurately aligned with each other. In addition, this directionality allows multiple transmitters lined up in a row to communicate with multiple receivers in a row without interference, provided some minimum spacing rules are observed. Before fiber optics, for decades these microwaves formed the heart of the long-distance telephone transmission system. In fact, MCI, one of AT&T's first competitors after it was deregulated, built its entire system with microwave communications going from tower to tower tens of kilometers apart. Even the company's name reflected this (MCI stood for Microwave Communications, Inc.). MCI has since gone over to fiber and merged with WorldCom.

Since the microwaves travel in a straight line, if the towers are too far apart, the earth will get in the way (think about a San Francisco to Amsterdam link). Consequently, repeaters are needed periodically. The higher the towers are, the farther apart they can be. The distance between repeaters goes up very roughly with the square root of the tower height. For 100-meter-high towers, repeaters can be spaced 80 km apart.

Unlike radio waves at lower frequencies, microwaves do not pass through buildings well. In addition, even though the beam may be well focused at the transmitter, there is still some divergence in space. Some waves may be refracted off low-lying atmospheric layers and may take slightly longer to arrive than the direct waves. The delayed waves may arrive out of phase with the direct wave and thus cancel the signal. This effect is called multipath fading and is often a serious problem. It is weather and frequency dependent. Some operators keep 10 percent of their channels idle as spares to switch on when multipath fading wipes out some frequency band temporarily.

The demand for more and more spectrum drives operators to yet higher frequencies. Bands up to 10 GHz are now in routine use, but at about 4 GHz a new problem sets in: absorption by water. These waves are only a few centimeters long and are absorbed by rain. This effect would be fine if one were planning to build a huge outdoor microwave oven for roasting passing birds, but for communication, it is a severe problem. As with multipath fading, the only solution is to shut off links that are being rained on and route around them.

In summary, microwave communication is so widely used for long-distance telephone communication, mobile phones, television distribution, and other uses that a severe shortage of spectrum has developed. It has several significant advantages over fiber. The main one is that no right of way is needed, and by buying a small plot of ground every 50 km and putting a microwave tower on it, one can bypass the telephone system and communicate directly. This is how MCI managed to get started as a new long-distance telephone company so quickly. (Sprint went a completely different route: it was formed by the Southern Pacific Railroad, which already owned a large amount of right of way and just buried fiber next to the tracks.)

Microwave is also relatively inexpensive. Putting up two simple towers (may be just big poles with four guy wires) and putting antennas on each one may be cheaper than burying 50 km of fiber through a congested urban area or up over a mountain, and it may also be cheaper than leasing the telephone company's fiber, especially if the telephone company has not yet even fully paid for the copper it ripped out when it put in the fiber.

The Politics of the Electromagnetic Spectrum

To prevent total chaos, there are national and international agreements about who gets to use which frequencies. Since everyone wants a higher data rate, everyone wants more spectrum. National governments allocate spectrum for AM and FM radio, television, and mobile phones, as well as for telephone companies, police, maritime, navigation, military, government, and many other competing users. Worldwide, an agency of ITU-R (WARC) tries to coordinate this allocation so devices that work in multiple countries can be manufactured. However, countries are not bound by ITU-R's recommendations, and the FCC (Federal Communication Commission), which does the allocation for the United States, has occasionally rejected ITU-R's recommendations (usually because they required some politically-powerful group giving up some piece of the spectrum).

Even when a piece of spectrum has been allocated to some use, such as mobile phones, there is the additional issue of which carrier is allowed to use which frequencies. Three algorithms were widely used in the past. The oldest algorithm, often called the beauty contest, requires each carrier to explain why its proposal serves the public interest best. Government officials then decide which of the nice stories they enjoy most. Having some government official award property worth billions of dollars to his favorite company often leads to bribery, corruption, nepotism, and worse. Furthermore, even a scrupulously honest government official who thought that a foreign company could do a better job than any of the national companies would have a lot of explaining to do.

This observation led to algorithm 2, holding a lottery among the interested companies. The problem with that idea is that companies with no interest in using the spectrum can enter the lottery. If, say, a fast food restaurant or shoe store chain wins, it can resell the spectrum to a carrier at a huge profit and with no risk.

Bestowing huge windfalls on alert, but otherwise random, companies has been severely criticized by many, which led to algorithm 3: auctioning off the bandwidth to the highest bidder. When England auctioned off the frequencies needed for third-generation mobile systems in 2000, they expected to get about $4 billion. They actually received about $40 billion because the carriers got into a feeding frenzy, scared to death of missing the mobile boat. This event switched on nearby governments' greedy bits and inspired them to hold their own auctions. It worked, but it also left some of the carriers with so much debt that they are close to bankruptcy. Even in the best cases, it will take many years to recoup the licensing fee.

A completely different approach to allocating frequencies is to not allocate them at all. Just let everyone transmit at will but regulate the power used so that stations have such a short range they do not interfere with each other. Accordingly, most governments have set aside some frequency bands, called the ISM (Industrial, Scientific, Medical) bands for unlicensed usage. Garage door openers, cordless phones, radio-controlled toys, wireless mice, and numerous other wireless household devices use the ISM bands. To minimize interference between these uncoordinated devices, the FCC mandates that all devices in the ISM bands use spread spectrum techniques. Similar rules apply in other countries

The location of the ISM bands varies somewhat from country to country. In the United States, for example, devices whose power is under 1 watt can use the bands shown in Fig. 2-13 without requiring a FCC license. The 900-MHz band works best, but it is crowded and not available worldwide. The 2.4-GHz band is available in most countries, but it is subject to interference from microwave ovens and radar installations. Bluetooth and some of the 802.11 wireless LANs operate in this band. The 5.7-GHz band is new and relatively undeveloped, so equipment for it is expensive, but since 802.11a uses it, it will quickly become more popular.

Figure 2-13. The ISM bands in the United States.

2.3.4 Infrared and Millimeter Waves

Unguided infrared and millimeter waves are widely used for short-range communication. The remote controls used on televisions, VCRs, and stereos all use infrared communication. They are relatively directional, cheap, and easy to build but have a major drawback: they do not pass through solid objects (try standing between your remote control and your television and see if it still works). In general, as we go from long-wave radio toward visible light, the waves behave more and more like light and less and less like radio.

On the other hand, the fact that infrared waves do not pass through solid walls well is also a plus. It means that an infrared system in one room of a building will not interfere with a similar system in adjacent rooms or buildings: you cannot control your neighbor's television with your remote control. Furthermore, security of infrared systems against eavesdropping is better than that of radio systems precisely for this reason. Therefore, no government license is needed to operate an infrared system, in contrast to radio systems, which must be licensed outside the ISM bands. Infrared communication has a limited use on the desktop, for example, connecting notebook computers and printers, but it is not a major player in the communication game.

2.3.5 Lightwave Transmission

Unguided optical signaling has been in use for centuries. Paul Revere used binary optical signaling from the Old North Church just prior to his famous ride. A more modern application is to connect the LANs in two buildings via lasers mounted on their rooftops. Coherent optical signaling using lasers is inherently unidirectional, so each building needs its own laser and its own photodetector. This scheme offers very high bandwidth and very low cost. It is also relatively easy to install and, unlike microwave, does not require an FCC license.

The laser's strength, a very narrow beam, is also its weakness here. Aiming a laser beam 1-mm wide at a target the size of a pin head 500 meters away requires the marksmanship of a latter-day Annie Oakley. Usually, lenses are put into the system to defocus the beam slightly.

A disadvantage is that laser beams cannot penetrate rain or thick fog, but they normally work well on sunny days. However, the author once attended a conference at a modern hotel in Europe at which the conference organizers thoughtfully provided a room full of terminals for the attendees to read their e-mail during boring presentations. Since the local PTT was unwilling to install a large number of telephone lines for just 3 days, the organizers put a laser on the roof and aimed it at their university's computer science building a few kilometers away. They tested it the night before the conference and it worked perfectly. At 9 a.m. the next morning, on a bright sunny day, the link failed completely and stayed down all day. That evening, the organizers tested it again very carefully, and once again it worked absolutely perfectly. The pattern repeated itself for two more days consistently.

After the conference, the organizers discovered the problem. Heat from the sun during the daytime caused convection currents to rise up from the roof of the building, as shown in Fig. 2-14. This turbulent air diverted the beam and made it dance around the detector. Atmospheric ''seeing'' like this makes the stars twinkle (which is why astronomers put their telescopes on the tops of mountains—to get above as much of the atmosphere as possible). It is also responsible for shimmering roads on a hot day and the wavy images seen when one looks out above a hot radiator.

Figure 2-14. Convection currents can interfere with laser communication systems. A bidirectional system with two lasers is pictured here.