What about bluetooth?
Wi-fi isn’t the only technology that can provide voice and data over one wireless network. Norwood Systems’ EnterpriseMobility platform uses Bluetooth to keep people in touch as they roam around their premises. Standard Bluetooth headsets are linked to a telephony gateway via base stations interconnected by Ethernet, so people are always reachable on their allocated extension. Roaming between base stations during a call is fully supported.The inclusion of a voice recognition server means calls can be placed by speaking the number required, with a soft dialler running on a PDA or PC as an alternative.
A system serving 30 people through around 10 base stations costs around $30,000 including servers and software licences, says Terry Walsh, vice president, marketing and sales.
Norwood’s customers are drawn from a variety of markets. Healthcare is attracted by the mobility, hands-free operation, and freedom from interference. Financial services (eg private banking, traders), advertising, and public relations require personnel to be accessible by their clients: “it’s about more calls making their mark the first time,” says Walsh. 128-bit over the air encryption and frequency hopping provide security where it’s important, he adds. Government departments are using the technology for occupational health and safety reasons, preferring the ergonomics of headsets to regular handsets.
The Bluetooth network can also be used for data, taking advantage of either the serial port or dialup networking profile in the Bluetooth specifications, says product manager Will Klinger. Despite the name, no dialling would be necessary to access a corporate network from a Bluetooth-equipped notebook or PDA in this way.
EnterpriseMobility has been adopted by Damovo to provide systems that allow appropriately equipped GSM phones on their clients’ premises to place calls via Bluetooth and the PABX rather than the mobile carrier, saving 27 to 40 percent on call costs.
The technology is also being trialled for British Telecommunications’ Project Bluephone initiative. Bluephone is aimed at delivering fixed and mobile calls through a single device, with propositions for office workers, teleworkers, residential, and public hot spot users.
Inmarsat drives world rally championship
Wireless VoIP isn’t the only technology that allows voice and data traffic to travel across the same network. Inmarsat’s satellite network provides ISDN-style broadband (144kbps) voice and data links to practically anywhere on the planet.The organisers of the World Rally Championship have to cope with many of the IT and communications challenges faced by more conventional businesses. These include the need for real-time, straight-through processing; the flexibility to work in different locations, often in difficult conditions; and the ability to handle large amounts of data.
Two types of data are collected using Inmarsat facilities during WRC events. Split times are captured by trackside equipment at two or three points along each stage. Before Inmarsat became involved in the sport in 2002, split times were not recorded due to the difficulty of relaying them efficiently and reliably from remote areas. Times are also recorded at the end of each stage. Secondly, each car has an onboard computer that uses GPS to log its position five times a second. At the end of each stage, this data is downloaded via an 802.11b WLAN.
Both types of data are transmitted via Inmarsat to the WRC data centre near London. The data are then bounced back to the on-location operations centre for distribution to rally officials, teams, and the media, who have access to the data just three seconds after collection. This back-and-forth structure provides a consistent service platform regardless of where any rally is held.
Inmarsat also provides the WRC community with data links between team headquarters and the crews in the field, phone links to keep personnel in touch with their families, and voice, data, and videophone facilities for the international media.
Each car collects a lot more data than is currently relayed. Images from the onboard video cameras are stored on tapes that are transferred to the editing suite via sneakernet when the cars return to the rally service park. Inmarsat has been testing the use of MPEG video recording, which would allow for wireless transfer at the end of each stage. This would reduce the pressure on the video editors, as each video would be available within seconds of the completion of a stage and editing could start without the current delay while tapes are loaded.
The onboard computers also store information collected by the engine management system and other sensors, and it is important for crews to begin analysing this data as soon as possible. Subaru, for example, stores the data on a PC Card. As soon as the car arrives at the service park, a crew member extracts the card and runs back to the garage while the car completes the formalities.
According to Richard Denny, vice president, global satellite operations at Inmarsat, these logs could be downloaded along with the GPS data at the end of each stage. This would allow crews to make better use of the limited time their cars spend in the service park.
Virtual Spectator
Rallying has some drawbacks as a spectator sport. The special sections are usually well away from population centres, and may require spectators to drive for a couple of hours and then walk several kilometres from parking areas to observation points.
None of this seems to bother the hardcore fans, as 12 million spectators attend the 14 events, and approximately 10 percent of the population of Finland turn out for their country’s leg of the WRC! The biggest limitation on the sport’s attractiveness to the average TV spectator is perhaps that the cars cover the course sequentially, so it is difficult to see how well one is doing relative to the others.
Using techniques originally developed for the America’s Cup in New Zealand and a mix of off-the-shelf and custom software, Virtual Spectator (which recently merged with Pineapplehead’s sports graphics business) recreates portions of the rally from the GPS logs. The video game-style animations can combine the progress of multiple cars to give broadcast viewers a head-to-head comparison. “We try to produce the data the camera can’t see,” says Jack Ralston, Virtual Spectator’s general manager, sales and marketing.
The animations must be released to broadcasters in time for that evening’s news, but work can’t begin until the GPS data from the cars has been received. Transferring the data from the cars at the end of each stage via Inmarsat has accelerated the process, and the company is looking forward to the advent of real-time data acquisition.
Virtual Spectator is exploring the delivery of its animations to the public via broadband services and mobile phones. The company also has its eye on the possibilities provided by transferring a richer set of data as each car finishes a stage, and is experimenting with physiological data (heart rate, etc) from the drivers and co-drivers.
Stephen Withers travelled to Perth as a guest of Inmarsat.
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