New opportunities for Wireless Technology Integration

As we all know, for vertical industries such as the wireless market, the market scale is not as large as that of traditional industries. In this narrow market space, thousands of enterprises are crowded and enterprises must survive, competition is inevitable, but the market has cruel rules. Enterprises that lack innovation and the cost will disappear from the market and have the innovative power, enterprises that use new technologies to effectively reduce costs will greatly promote the transformation of the wireless industry. In the current global economic recession, technological innovation is particularly important.

The purpose of technological innovation is to reduce the cost of equipment, provide diversified applications, and strive for a more competitive market. In the wireless industry, due to the fact that in recent years, upstream enterprises have begun to penetrate into the low-end market. Due to the lack of sufficient funds and technical support, downstream enterprises have a low awareness of product innovation, resulting in serious homogeneity, the market competitiveness is relatively weak. With the rapid development of wireless technologies such as Wi-Fi, WiMAX, and 3G, technology convergence has become an important means for equipment manufacturers to get rid of the predicament.

Several methods of Technology Integration

Wi-Fi, WiMAX, and 3G technologies have their own advantages. However, through analysis, we can see that if one of the three technologies has its own shortcomings, we can find a technology to make up for it, this is also the most favorable reason for the integration of the three technologies.

3G networks can use the features of high-speed Wi-Fi data transmission to make up for their own data transmission rate limitations, while Wi-Fi not only can use the comprehensive authentication and billing mechanisms of 3G networks, in addition, multiple access switches can be implemented based on the features of high coverage of 3G networks, and the convergence with 3G enables WLAN to generate a new business model. However, for Wi-Fi and WiMAX, because WiMAX has a wider coverage, it can be integrated with Wi-Fi to build a wide range of All-wireless broadband networks, in order to achieve better access to data, voice, and security videos in a large scope ......

Currently, the integration of the three technologies is mainly shown in two aspects: terminal convergence and network convergence.

As far as terminals are concerned, the dual-mode or multimode Chip Based on 802.11a/B/g has been pushed to the market. Due to the rapid maturity of 802.11n, many chip manufacturers have begun to prepare for the design with 802.11n as the main body, in the mobile communication field, the industry has developed dual-mode or multimode mobile phones compatible with GSM/CDMA/3G. In recent years, with the increasing demand for applications, wi-Fi/3G-based dual-mode mobile phones are also growing.

It is foreseeable that in the future, this kind of hyper-integrated chip will appear more on the market. Integrates multimedia playback, positioning, TV reception and playback, Wi-Fi, and other functions into one or two chips, and supports 3G or 4G mobile access at the same time.

In terms of network convergence, Wi-Fi + WCDMA, Wi-Fi + WiMAX, and Wi-Fi + CDMA are currently the main methods.

First, the wireless LAN can be combined with the WCDMA Mobile Network in two ways: the Compact mode and the loose mode. In the Compact mode, the WLAN network is connected to the GPRS Core network in the same way as the WCDMA base station (Iups interface. This method fully utilizes the existing mobile, security, and service quality mechanisms of the GPRS Core network to provide strong mobility between the two networks. In the loose mode, WLAN is used as a supplement to the WCDMA network and is integrated with the mobile network (Gi Interface), instead of using the GPRS core network, only authentication and billing signals are transferred from GGSN or dedicated devices to the GPRS core network, thus avoiding the mixing of data traffic from two different access technologies to the GPRS Core network nodes.

For WiMAX, Chinese carriers are not optimistic about the prospect of WiMAX in general due to reasons such as the maturity of the already established network costs. However, to enter the Chinese market, WiMAX must open up new channels, and the Wi-Fi and WiMAX combination solutions are proposed in a timely manner, that is, on the basis of the Wi-FiMesh network, wiMAX can allow more wireless access, more economical return methods, and faster access performance. It is expected to integrate Wi-Fi networks, work with each other to become the "Last Mile" solution. China Telecom's construction of wireless cities in 21 southern provinces and cities and the Construction of China Telecom's Beijing wireless city all adopt Wi-Fi + WiMAX technology.

In China, due to the restructuring of China Telecom, China Telecom has obtained a cnetwork license for the integration of Wi-Fi and CDMA. In order to form a competitive position with China Mobile, china Telecom uses Wi-Fi + CDMA to build a comprehensive mobile operator with full services, fixed network + mobile + wireless.

Technology convergence highlights advantages

The key factor for the integrated development of multiple technologies is to bring better market competitiveness to enterprises so that enterprises can be interested in developing research, especially in the current extreme economic slump, A large amount of investment is invested in R & D. If you do not have confidence in the future prospects, you will never try it easily. What are the technical advantages of this integration.

1) technology integration, supporting diversified applications, and increasing the competitiveness of enterprises. With the rapid development of wireless technology, its application is widespread. In recent years, with the emergence of high-end smart terminal devices such as the iPhone, the application of its support has become more and more extensive. Obviously, enterprises with a single technology are no longer competitive, new technologies need to be added to form a strong competitiveness.

2) reduce the production costs of enterprises. From the perspective of equipment production costs, the costs mainly include technical costs, labor costs and raw material costs. The technical costs are fixed, if you need to reduce production costs, you need to consider the latter two. For example, it takes one worker a day to produce chips with three different functions, if three functions are combined on one chip, one chip only takes 1/3 of the time for one function, and the raw material is only 1/3.

3) help operators ease the data traffic burden. For operators, the construction cost of 3G networks is high, and bandwidth is limited. If 3G networks alone are used to support user data streams, it is not only cost-effective, but also the user experience will be greatly affected. By integrating with Wi-Fi networks, Wi-Fi can effectively decompose 3G network data streams to relieve bandwidth pressure.

The author believes that in the future, various technologies will promote the integration process as the group looks like. In the future, the super functions and user experience of the integrated focus products will inevitably be unprecedented. At the same time, we will also wait for the future development of this market.

1. Wireless Technology Evaluation of Wi-Fi and WiMAX
2. Comparison of broadband wireless technologies such as 3G, WiMAX, and LTE