Communications

Agilent Technologies claims that its 90nm CMOS process will allow “hundreds” of high speed serdes channel on the one chip. The multi-channel serialiser/deserialiser (serdes) is seen as a key technology for broadband communications, and most notably in Fibre Channel and PCI Express bus systems. Typical Asics currently offer up to 128 channels per chip. “Our latest 90nm validated serdes core ...

O2 Airwave is confident of winning the Firelink contract to provide a national communications network for the fire and rescue services. “We’ve been shortlisted and are optimistic of winning the fire and ambulance services contract,” said Peter Richardson, managing director of O2 Airwave, speaking at the Tetra World Congress in Vienna. “We have to get this right. There’s no opportunity ...

Comms watchdog Ofcom has ended the ten year debate on breaking up BT’s phone network business. A structural break-up of BT, so its national phone network is run by an independent firm allowing access to all, has been firmly rejected by Ofcom. “We believe that equality of access can be achieved without the structural separation of BT,” said Ofcom as ...

Telecoms regulator Ofcom is recommending that new wireless spectrum allocation in the UK be decided by the market, rather than Government agencies. Following a series of consultations, a document published by the regulator today is intended to bring together its policies on spectrum trading and liberalisation. Spectrum trading in the UK is due to start next month. In its review of the civilian radio ...

The European Commission should learn from the experience of the US and avoid its mistakes when it looks again at the requirements for mobile phone location in an emergency according to US-based TruePosition. “The US made mistakes,” said Jason Angelides, director of global services at TruePosition. “The critical mistake was when it created a mandate and forced wireless operators to ...

The convergence of wireless and consumer electronics is fueling the growth of 3G into a high-volume, high-revenue industry, a Texas Instruments executive told the 3G World Congress in Hong Kong. Custom ring tones, 3D games, multi-megapixel cameras, video and digital TV are just a few of the cool mobile entertainment applications pushing the industry, Doug Rasor, TI v-p and manager for ...

Mobile phone makers are beginning to add location services to handsets specifically for elderly consumers. The Secufone features an emergency button which will send your last fixed location to an operator while German firm Vitaphone plans to add GPS to the next generation of its Mobi-Click phones. Vitaphone already has a heart monitor, mobile phone and GPS in one – ...

US researchers have come up with a technique for improving the performance of free-space optical (FSO) communications. FSO communications suffer from variable reliability as a result of varying channel conditions – for example water particles in cloud cause fading and dispersion. Combining FSO and RF transmission in hybrid systems leads to high availability systems, but the much reduced bandwidth of ...

UK Bluetooth firm CSR has branched out to release a range of single chip Wi-Fi devices

CSR has issued Q3 results showing increases in both profits and revenues. The firm said revenues were up 32 per cent to $77.7m from the previous quarter ($58.9m), and by 344 per cent over the same quarter a year ago ($17.5m). Single figure growth is expected in Q4 over Q3 2004. Pre-tax profit at the firm rose 24 per cent to ...