The future of wireless mobile internet phones

Ok, various different phones have several antennae to pick up the triband frequencies for 3G, Bluetooth, Wireless. Each antennae needs its own source of power, this can be a drain on the battery.

Each year, there is a new wireless protocol developed as the technology is non-standard and is developing at a very fast rate. SO, there will be 4G phones.. 5G phones etc each with its own antennae inside your phone, hence battery life is gonna be short

So, reading in the computer weekly magazine, there was an article about this, which basically states that instead of having a new antennae each time a new frequency or protocol is used for wireless devices, you can emulate an antennae using software to filter the frequencies, all you need is just one antennae, the software digitally analyses the frequency spectrum for the right signals.

Advantages:-

One antennae.. longer battery life
Software controlled.. when a new protocol is used, you phone can be buzzed by your network operator with a phone installation upgrade patch, hence your phone will always be up to date with the latest wireless protocols.
You can probably download and install patches from the internet if you connect your phone via usb

Also, this means for the mobile phone industry is that they don't have to develop even more complicated phones that drain battery in minutes

pretty cool, hope they realise this rather soon and develop the technology rather than thinking "i know, we'll attach another antennae to the phone, great"

2G (GSM) will disappear when 3G is widely spread, Bluetooth can be disabled, same with wireless (I guess you're talking about W-LAN). But W-LAN will be found on high-end business phones in the future as today (Nokia Communicator 9500).

BTW: W-LAN and Bluetooth do use the same frequencies (2.4GHz) which is also "used" by microwaves

(yes, they can disrupt a signal when turned on).

How many antennas there are really built-in, no idea...

But everything that isn't needed can be deactivated and won't dry the battery fast...

Also there are stronger and faster recharging batteries coming...

Also one antenna would have one major problem: you can't use all technologies at once...

Especially if the GSM/3G antenna part is deactivated...

But the problem with Wireless is that its not technically a standardised technology, theres always some company developing a new implementation of it, the technology changes so rapidly. SO on phones, there are different antennae for each of these frequencies, each using their own power.

There is a well known fact in the electronics industry that hardware can be emulated by software, and software can be emulated by hardware etc.

So by having one aeriel to filter out the radio/microwave frequencies and digitally process it will mean that,
A) less power consumption
B) whenever a new form of microwave communication comes out, the phone's software can be upgraded, or installed with the latest program
C) Cheaper phones to make

Currently there are aeriels in your phone for each of the communication methods:- making calls/text messages, WAP, 3G, Wireless, Bluetooth etc.

Cut them down to just 1 aeriel, and use software to filter out the frequencies, you will have one mighty fine phone

WAP and GSM use the same aerial.

And as I said: bluetooth and wireless can be deactivated (and should be! -> security) and won't use any power that way.

For the software solution: that way the phone has to work the whole time, the CPU is always used and uses much more power than normally. Emulating hardware with software needs alot CPU power which will need much, much energy.

Even if you put in a hardware-solution which does all this: it still needs power. Especially if you want it to filter all possible frequencies at once.

The only way for less power consumption: don't use it!

if you want to have a read, here's the link:-

http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2006/01/31/213921/Softwaredefin edradiosystemholdsoutthehopeoffullwirelessinteroperability.htm

OK, that article has some points... but they list also some points which speak against this solution:

You can only use one band at once... so when using bluetooth GSM will be deactivated...

Also they only talk about how to integrate new technologies with low costs.

The idea is good, but I personal prefer to be reachable when I use bluetooth

From what I've read, I guess it will take at least 5-10 years until this will be realized.
Also I guess that most manufacturers dislike this idea... when everybody can add new features with a software-update... how could they sell new phones that way?

I think they would develop ways around it, but the point being you would get sick of having to get a new phone every so often because theres a new way of communicating, eg new wireless protocol etc especially the case in different countries

Recently i heard of instead of having several 1Km range wireless stations dotted around a city, eg check philadelphia as an example, there has been a new wireless development with a 16Km range wireless transmitter, but that uses a different protocol/frequency etc.

I like the selective idea of the software emulation where it looks at the various frequencies to see which has the highest bandwidth at that point in time and selects the best to use.

You should be able to multiplex the signal as you would with a fibre obtic cable, ie instead of broadcasting 1 bit at a time, you can broadcast several bits in the red spectrum, green spectrum, yellow spectrum, blue spectrum simultaneously etc and the receiving node filters out each part of the spectrum.

Thats as far as my knowledge of digital communication goes. Any electronics guys out there wanna give it a go with making a software signal generator and a receiver with a software frequency filter. (Thats a university thesis if there ever was one..)

I have in the past made a fibre obtic transmitter and receiver as a 1st year uni project, broadcasting several signals at once. It shouldn't be too hard to create the c++ program to generate the signal

The future of wireless mobile internet phones

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