Wi-Fi (pronounced wye fye, IPA: /wafa/), a wireless-technology brand owned by the Wi-Fi Alliance, promotes standards with

the aim of improving the interoperability of wireless local area network products based on the IEEE 802.11 standards. Common applications for Wi-Fi include Internet and VoIP phone access, gaming, and network connectivity for consumer electronics such as televisions, DVD players, and digital cameras. Wi-Fi is an abbreviation of Wireless Fidelity. The Wi-Fi Alliance, a consortium of separate and independent companies, agrees on a set of common interoperable products based on the family of IEEE 802.11 standards.[1] The Wi-Fi Alliance certifies products via a set of defined test-procedures to establish interoperability. Those manufacturers with membership of Wi-Fi Alliance and whose products pass these interoperability tests can mark their products and product packaging with the Wi-Fi logo.[2] Wi-Fi technologies have gone through several generations since their inception in 1997. The Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS X and open source Unix and Linux operating systems support Wi-Fi to different extents.

Uses
A Wi-Fi-enabled device such as a PC, game console, cell phone, MP3 player or PDA can connect to the Internet when within range of a wireless network connected to the Internet. The coverage of one or more interconnected access points called a hotspot can comprise an area as small as a single room with wireless-opaque walls or as large as many square miles covered by overlapping access points. Wi-Fi technology has served to set up mesh networks, for example, in London.[3] Both architectures can operate in community networks.[citation needed] In addition to restricted use in homes and offices, Wi-Fi can make access publicly available at Wi-Fi hotspots provided either free of charge or to subscribers to various providers. Organizations and businesses such as airports, hotels and restaurants often provide free hotspots to attract or assist clients. Enthusiasts or authorities who wish to provide services or even to promote business in a given area sometimes provide free Wi-Fi access. Metropolitan-wide WiFi (Muni-Fi) already has more than 300 projects in process.[4] Wi-Fi also allows connectivity in peer-to-peer (wireless ad-hoc network) mode, which enables devices to connect directly with each other. This connectivity mode can prove useful in consumer electronics and gaming applications. When wireless networking technology first entered the market many problems ensued for consumers who could not rely on products from different vendors working together. The Wi-Fi Alliance began as a community to solve this issue aiming to address the needs of the end-user and to allow the technology to mature. The Alliance created the branding Wi-

Fi CERTIFIED to reassure consumers that products will interoperate with other products displaying the same branding. Many consumer devices use Wi-Fi. Amongst others, personal computers can network to each other and connect to the Internet, mobile computers can connect to the Internet from any Wi-Fi hotspot, and digital cameras can transfer images wirelessly. Routers which incorporate a DSL-modem or a cable-modem and a Wi-Fi access point, often set up in homes and other premises, provide Internet-access and internetworking to all devices connected (wirelessly or by cable) to them. One can also connect Wi-Fi devices in ad-hoc mode for client-to-client connections without a router. As of 2007 Wi-Fi technology had spread widely within business and industrial sites. In business environments, just like other environments, increasing the number of Wi-Fi access-points provides redundancy, support for fast roaming and increased overall network-capacity by using more channels or by defining smaller cells. Wi-Fi enables wireless voice-applications ( VoWLAN or WVOIP). Over the years, Wi-Fi implementations have moved toward "thin" access-points, with more of the network intelligence housed in a centralized network appliance, relegating individual access-points to the role of mere "dumb" radios. Outdoor applications may utilize true mesh topologies. As of 2007 Wi-Fi installations can provide a secure computer networking gateway, firewall, DHCP server, intrusion detection system, and other functions.

[edit] Advantages
Wi-Fi allows LANs to be deployed without cabling for client devices, typically reducing the costs of network deployment and expansion. Spaces where cables cannot be run, such as outdoor areas and historical buildings, can host wireless LANs. As of 2007 wireless network adapters are built into most modern laptops. The price of chipsets for Wi-Fi continues to drop, making it an economical networking option included in even more devices. Wi-Fi has become widespread in corporate infrastructures, which also helps with the deployment of RFID technology that can piggyback on Wi-Fi.[5] Different competitive brands of access points and client network interfaces are interoperable at a basic level of service. Products designated as "Wi-Fi Certified" by the Wi-Fi Alliance are backwards inter-operable. Wi-Fi is a global set of standards. Unlike mobile telephones, any standard Wi-Fi device will work anywhere in the world. Wi-Fi is widely available in more than 250,000[citation needed] public hotspots and tens of millions of homes and corporate and university campuses worldwide. WPA is not easily cracked if strong passwords are used and WPA2 encryption has no known weaknesses. New protocols for Quality of Service (WMM) make Wi-Fi more suitable for latencysensitive applications (such as voice and video), and power saving mechanisms (WMM Power Save) improve battery operation.

[edit] Disadvantages
Spectrum assignments and operational limitations are not consistent worldwide. Most of Europe allows for an additional 2 channels beyond those permitted in the U.S. for the 2.4 GHz band. (113 vs. 111); Japan has one more on top of that (114). Europe, as of 2007, is now essentially homogeneous in this respect. A very confusing aspect is the fact a Wi-Fi signal actually occupies five channels in the 2.4 GHz band resulting in only three nonoverlapped channels in the U.S.: 1, 6, 11, and four in Europe: 1, 5, 9, 13. Some countries, such as Italy, formerly required a 'general authorization' for any Wi-Fi used outside an operator's own premises, or require something akin to an operator registration.[citation needed] Equivalent isotropically radiated power (EIRP) in the EU is limited to 20 dBm (0.1 W). Power consumption is fairly high compared to some other low-bandwidth standards, such as Zigbee and Bluetooth, making battery life a concern. The most common wireless encryption standard, Wired Equivalent Privacy or WEP, has been shown to be easily breakable even when correctly configured. Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA and WPA2), which began shipping in 2003, aims to solve this problem and is now available on most products. Wi-Fi Access Points typically default to an "open" (encryptionfree) mode. Novice users benefit from a zero-configuration device that works out of the box, but this default is without any wireless security enabled, providing open wireless access to their LAN. To turn security on requires the user to configure the device, usually via a software graphical user interface (GUI). Wi-Fi networks that are open (unencrypted) can be monitored and used to read and copy data (including personal information) transmitted over the network, unless another security method is used to secure the data, such as a VPN or a secure web page. (See HTTPS/Secure Socket Layer.) Many 2.4 GHz 802.11b and 802.11g Access points default to the same channel on initial startup, contributing to congestion on certain channels. To change the channel of operation for an access point requires the user to configure the device. Wi-Fi networks have limited range. A typical Wi-Fi home router using 802.11b or 802.11g with a stock antenna might have a range of 32 m (120 ft) indoors and 95 m (300 ft) outdoors. Range also varies with frequency band. Wi-Fi in the 2.4 GHz frequency block has slightly better range than Wi-Fi in the 5 GHz frequency block. Outdoor range with improved (directional) antennas can be several kilometres or more with line-of-sight. Wi-Fi performance also decreases exponentially as the range increases. Wi-Fi pollution, or an excessive number of access points in the area, especially on the same or neighboring channel, can prevent access and interfere with the use of other access points by others, caused by overlapping channels in the 802.11g/b spectrum, as well as with decreased signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) between access points. This can be a problem in high-density areas, such as large apartment complexes or office buildings with many Wi-Fi

access points. Additionally, other devices use the 2.4 GHz band: microwave ovens, security cameras, Bluetooth devices and (in some countries) Amateur radio, video senders, cordless phones and baby monitors can cause significant additional interference. General guidance to those who suffer these forms of interference or network crowding is to migrate to a WiFi 5 GHz product, (802.11a or the newer 802.11n IF it has 5GHz/11a support) as the 5 GHz band is relatively unused and there are many more channels available. This also requires users to set up the 5 GHz band to be the preferred network in the client and to configure each network band to a different name (SSID). It is also an issue when municipalities,[6] or other large entities such as universities, seek to provide large area coverage. This openness is also important to the success and widespread use of 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi. Interoperability issues between non WiFi brands or proprietary deviations from the standard can disrupt connections or lower throughput speeds on all user's devices that are within range, to include the non-WiFi or proprietary product

Origin and meaning of the term "Wi-Fi"

Despite the similarity between the terms "Wi-Fi" and "Hi-Fi", statements reportedly made by Phil Belanger of the Wi-Fi Alliance contradict the conclusion that "Wi-Fi" stands for "Wireless Fidelity".[17][18][19] According to Belanger, the Interbrand Corporation developed the brand "Wi-Fi" for the Wi-Fi Alliance to use to describe WLAN products that are based on the IEEE 802.11 standards. In Belanger's words, Wi-Fi and the yin yang style logo were invented by Interbrand. We [the founding members of the Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance, now called as the Wi-Fi Alliance] hired Interbrand to come up with the name and logo that we could use for our interoperability seal and marketing efforts. We needed something that was a little catchier than 'IEEE 802.11b Direct Sequence'.[20] The Wi-Fi Alliance themselves invoked the term "Wireless Fidelity" with the marketing of a tag line "The Standard for Wireless Fidelity," but later removed the tag from their marketing. The Wi-Fi Alliance now seems to discourage the propagation of the notion that "Wi-Fi" stands for "Wireless Fidelity", but it has been referred to as such by the Wi-Fi Alliance in White Papers currently held in their knowledge base: " a promising market for wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) network equipment."[21] and "A Short History of WLANs." The association created the Wi-Fi (Wireless Fidelity) logo to indicate that a product had been certified for interoperability.[22]

WiMAX
WiMAX, the Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, is a telecommunications technology aimed at providing wireless data over long distances in a variety of ways, from point-to-point links to full mobile cellular type access. It is based on the IEEE 802.16 standard, which is also called WirelessMAN. The name WiMAX was created by the WiMAX Forum, which was formed in June 2001 to promote conformance and interoperability of the standard. The forum describes WiMAX as "a standards-based technology enabling the delivery of last mile wireless broadband access as an alternative to cable and DSL.

Definitions of terms
The terms "fixed WiMAX", "mobile WiMAX", "802.16d" and "802.16e" are frequently used incorrectly.[1] Correct definitions are:
Mobile communication standards
GSM / UMTS (3GPP) Family GSM (2G) GPRS EDGE (EGPRS) o EDGE Evolution CSD o UMTS (3G) HSPA o HSDPA o HSUPA o HSPA+ UMTS-TDD o TD-CDMA o TD-SCDMA HSCSD

FOMA UMTS Revision 8 (Pre-4G) LTE

HSOPA (Super 3G) cdmaOne / CDMA2000 (3GPP2) Family

cdmaOne (2G) CDMA2000 (3G) EV-DO UMB (Pre-4G) AMPS Family AMPS (1G) TACS / ETACS D-AMPS (2G) Other Technologies 0G 1G 2G iDEN PDC CSD PHS NMT Hicap CDPD Mobitex DataTAC PTT MTS IMTS AMTS OLT MTD Autotel / PALM ARP

WiDEN Pre-4G iBurst HIPERMAN WiMAX WiBro

GAN (UMA) Channel Access Methods FDMA

o OFDMA TDMA SSMA

o CDMA Frequency bands Cellular o GSM o UMTS o PCS SMR

[edit] 802.16d
Strictly speaking, 802.16d has never existed as a standard. The standard is correctly called 802.16-2004 and was developed by the IEEE 802.16 Task Group d. Therefore the project was called 802.16d, but the standard never was. However, since this standard is frequently called 802.16d, that term is also used in this article to assist readability.

[edit] 802.16e
Just as 802.16d has never existed as a standard, neither has 802.16e. 802.16e is an amendment to 802.16-2004, and the amendment is properly referred to as 802.16e-2005. 802.16e-2005 is not a standard in its own right since it is only an amendment, the original document (802.16-2004) has to be read and then the amendments added to it.

[edit] Fixed WiMAX

This is a phrase frequently used to refer to systems built using 802.16-2004 ('802.16d') and the OFDM PHY as the air interface technology. Fixed WiMAX deployments do not cater for handoff between Base Stations, therefore the service provider cannot offer mobility.

[edit] Mobile WiMAX

A phrase frequently used to refer to systems built using 802.16e-2005 and the OFDMA PHY as the air interface technology. "Mobile WiMAX" implementations can be used to deliver both fixed and mobile services.

[edit] Uses
The bandwidth and reach of WiMAX make it suitable for the following potential applications:

Connecting Wi-Fi hotspots with each other and to other parts of the Internet. Providing a wireless alternative to cable and DSL for last mile broadband access. Providing high-speed data and telecommunications services. Providing a diverse source of Internet connectivity as part of a business continuity plan. That is, if a business has a fixed and a wireless Internet connection, especially from unrelated providers, they are unlikely to be affected by the same service outage. Providing nomadic connectivity.

Comparison with Wi-Fi

Possibly due to the fact both WiMAX and Wi-Fi begin with the same two letters, are based upon IEEE standards beginning with "802.", and both have a connection to wireless connectivity and the Internet, comparisons and confusion between the two are frequent. Despite this, the two standards are aimed at different applications.

WiMAX is a long-range system, covering many kilometers that typically uses licensed spectrum (although it is also possible to use unlicensed spectrum) to deliver a point-to-point connection to the Internet from an ISP to an end user. Different 802.16 standards provide different types of access, from mobile (similar to data access via a cellphone) to fixed (an alternative to wired access, where the end user's wireless termination point is fixed in location.) Wi-Fi is a shorter range system, typically hundreds of meters, that uses unlicensed spectrum to provide access to a network, typically covering only the network operator's own property. Typically Wi-Fi is used by an end user to access their own network, which may or may not be connected to the Internet. If WiMAX provides services analogous to a cellphone, Wi-Fi is more analogous to a cordless phone. WiMAX and Wi-Fi have quite different Quality of Service (QoS) mechanisms. WiMAX uses a mechanism based on setting up connections between the Base Station and the user device. Each connection is based on specific scheduling algorithms, which means that QoS parameters can be guaranteed for each flow. WiFi has introduced a QoS mechanism similar to fixed Ethernet, where packets can receive different priorities based on their tags. This means that QoS is relative between packets/flows, as opposed to guaranteed. WiMAX is highly scalable from what are called "femto"-scale remote stations to multi-sector 'maxi' scale base that handle complex tasks of management and mobile handoff functions and include MIMO-AAS smart antenna subsystems.

Due to the ease and low cost with which Wi-Fi can be deployed, it is sometimes used to provide Internet access to third parties within a single room or building available to the provider, often informally, and sometimes as part of a business relationship. For example, many coffee shops, hotels, and transportation hubs contain Wi-Fi access points providing access to the Internet for customers.

Limitations
A commonly-held misconception is that WiMAX will deliver 70 Mbit/s over 50 kilometers. In reality, WiMAX can do one or the other operating over maximum range (50 km) increases bit error rate and thus must use a lower bitrate. Lowering the range allows a device to operate at higher bitrates. Typically, fixed WiMAX networks have a higher-gain directional antenna installed near the client (customer) which results in greatly increased range and throughput. Mobile WiMAX networks are usually made of indoor "customer premises equipment" (CPE) such as desktop modems, laptops with integrated Mobile WiMAX or other Mobile WiMAX devices. Mobile WiMAX devices typically have an omni-directional antenna which is of lower-gain compared to directional antennas but are more portable. In practice, this means that in a line-of-sight environment with a portable Mobile WiMAX CPE, speeds of 10 Mbit/s at 10 km could be delivered. However, in urban environments they may not have line-of-sight and therefore users may only receive 10 Mbit/s over 2 km. Higher-gain directional antennas can be used with a Mobile WiMAX network with range and throughput benefits but the obvious loss of practical mobility. Like most wireless systems, available bandwidth is shared between users in a given radio sector, so performance could deteriorate in the case of many active users in a single sector. In practice, many users will have a range of 2-, 4-, 6-, 8-, 10- or 12 Mbit/s services and additional radio cards will be added to the base station to increase the capacity as required. Because of this, various granular and distributed network architectures are being incorporated into WiMAX through independent development and within the 802.16j mobile multi-hop relay (MMR) task group. This includes wireless mesh, grids, network remote station repeaters which can extend networks and connect to backhaul. Wireless Application Protocol WAP is an open international standard for applications that use wireless communication. Its principal application is to enable access to the Internet from a mobile phone or PDA. A WAP browser provides all of the basic services of a computer based web browser but simplified to operate within the restrictions of a mobile phone. The Japanese i-mode system is another major competing wireless data protocol. WAP sites are websites written in, or dynamically converted to, WML (Wireless Markup Language) and accessed via the WAP browser. Currently, there are WAP site authoring tools accessible to many countries - tagtag.com (hosted in Slovenia), wapple.net (England U.K.), all2wap.com (Switzerland) and celladmin.com (Israel).

Before the introduction of WAP, service providers had extremely limited opportunities to offer interactive data services. Interactive data applications are required to support now commonplace activities such as:

Email by mobile phone Tracking of stock market prices Sports results News headlines Music downloads

Technical specifications

The bottom-most protocol in the suite is the WAP Datagram Protocol (WDP), which is an adaptation layer that makes every data network look a bit like UDP to the upper layers by providing unreliable transport of data with two 16-bit port numbers (origin and destination). WDP is considered by all the upper layers as one and the same protocol, which has several "technical realizations" on top of other "data bearers" such as SMS, USSD, etc. On native IP bearers such as GPRS, UMTS packet-radio service, or PPP on top of a circuit-switched data connection, WDP is in fact exactly UDP. WTLS provides a public-key cryptography-based security mechanism similar to TLS. Its use is optional. WTP provides transaction support (reliable request/response) that is adapted to the wireless world. WTP supports more effectively than TCP the problem of packet loss, which is common in 2G wireless technologies in most radio conditions, but is misinterpreted by TCP as network congestion. Finally, WSP is best thought of on first approach as a compressed version of HTTP.

This protocol suite allows a terminal to emit requests that have an HTTP or HTTPS equivalent to a WAP gateway; the gateway translates requests into plain HTTP.

Maintenance and evolutions

The WAP Forum has consolidated (along with many other forums of the industry) into OMA (Open Mobile Alliance), which covers virtually everything in future development of wireless data services.

[edit] WAP 2.0

WAP 2.0 is a re-engineering of WAP using a cut-down version of XHTML with end-toend HTTP (i.e., dropping the gateway and custom protocol suite used to communicate with it). A WAP gateway can be used in conjunction with WAP 2.0; however, in this scenario, it

is used as a standard proxy server. The WAP gateway's role would then shift from one of translation to adding additional information to each request. This would be configured by the operator and could include telephone numbers, location, billing information, and handset information. XHTML Mobile Profile (XHTML MP), the markup language defined in WAP 2.0, is made to work in mobile devices. It is a subset of XHTML and a superset of XHTML Basic. A version of cascading style sheets (CSS) called WAP CSS is supported by XHTML MP.

[edit] WAP Push

WAP Push, has been incorporated into the specification to allow WAP content to be pushed to the mobile handset with minimum user intervention. A WAP Push is basically a specially encoded message which includes a link to a WAP address. WAP Push is specified on top of WDP; as such, it can be delivered over any WDP-supported bearer, such as GPRS or SMS. In most GSM networks there are a wide range of modified processors, however, GPRS activation from the network is not generally supported, so WAP Push messages have to be delivered on top of the SMS bearer. On receiving a WAP Push, a WAP 1.2 or later enabled handset will automatically give the user the option to access the WAP content. This is also known as WAP Push SI (Service Indication). The network entity that processes WAP Pushes and delivers them over an IP or SMS Bearer is known as a Push Proxy Gateway

Wireless LAN
A wireless LAN or WLAN is a wireless local area network, which is the linking of two or more computers without using wires. WLAN utilizes spread-spectrum or OFDM modulation technology based on radio waves to enable communication between devices in a limited area, also known as the basic service set. This gives users the mobility to move around within a broad coverage area and still be connected to the network. For the home user, wireless has become popular due to ease of installation, and location freedom with the gaining popularity of laptops. Public businesses such as coffee shops or malls have begun to offer wireless access to their customers; some are even provided as a free service. Large wireless network projects are being put up in many major cities. Google is even providing a free service to Mountain View, California[1] and has entered a bid to do the same for San Francisco.[2] New York City has also begun a pilot program to cover all five boroughs of the city with wireless Internet access.

Benefits

The popularity of wireless LANs is a testament primarily to their convenience, cost efficiency, and ease of integration with other networks and network components. The majority of computers sold to consumers today come pre-equipped with all necessary wireless LAN technology. The benefits of wireless LANs include:

Convenience: The wireless nature of such networks allows users to access network resources from nearly any convenient location within their primary networking environment (home or office). With the increasing saturation of laptop-style computers, this is particularly relevant. Mobility: With the emergence of public wireless networks, users can access the internet even outside their normal work environment. Most chain coffee shops, for example, offer their customers a wireless connection to the internet at little or no cost. Productivity: Users connected to a wireless network can maintain a nearly constant affiliation with their desired network as they move from place to place. For a business, this implies that an employee can potentially be more productive as his or her work can be accomplished from any convenient location. Deployment: Initial setup of an infrastructure-based wireless network requires little more than a single access point. Wired networks, on the other hand, have the additional cost and complexity of actual physical cables being run to numerous locations (which can even be impossible for hard-to-reach locations within a building). Expandability: Wireless networks can serve a suddenly-increased number of clients with the existing equipment. In a wired network, additional clients would require additional wiring. Cost: Wireless networking hardware is at worst a modest increase from wired counterparts. This potentially increased cost is almost always more than outweighed by the savings in cost and labor associated to running physical cables.

[edit] Disadvantages
Wireless LAN technology, while replete with the conveniences and advantages described above, has its share of downfalls. For a given networking situation, wireless LANs may not be desirable for a number of reasons. Most of these have to do with the inherent limitations of the technology.

Security: Wireless LAN transceivers are designed to serve computers throughout a structure with uninterrupted service using radio frequencies. Because of space and cost, the antennas typically present on wireless networking cards in the end

computers are generally relatively poor. In order to properly receive signals using such limited antennas throughout even a modest area, the wireless LAN transceiver utilizes a fairly considerable amount of power. What this means is that not only can the wireless packets be intercepted by a nearby adversary's poorly-equipped computer, but more importantly, a user willing to spend a small amount of money on a good quality antenna can pick up packets at a remarkable distance; perhaps hundreds of times the radius as the typical user. In fact, there are even computer users dedicated to locating and sometimes even cracking into wireless networks, known as wardrivers. On a wired network, any adversary would first have to overcome the physical limitation of tapping into the actual wires, but this is not an issue with wireless packets. To combat this consideration, wireless networks users usually choose to utilize various encryption technologies available such as Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA). Some of the older encryption methods, such as WEP are known to have weaknesses that a dedicated adversary can compromise. (See main article: Wireless security.)

Range: The typical range of a common 802.11g network with standard equipment is on the order of tens of meters. While sufficient for a typical home, it will be insufficient in a larger structure. To obtain additional range, repeaters or additional access points will have to be purchased. Costs for these items can add up quickly. Other technologies are in the development phase, however, which feature increased range, hoping to render this disadvantage irrelevant. (See WiMAX) Reliability: Like any radio frequency transmission, wireless networking signals are subject to a wide variety of interference, as well as complex propagation effects (such as multipath, or especially in this case Rician fading) that are beyond the control of the network administrator. In the case of typical networks, modulation is achieved by complicated forms of phase-shift keying (PSK) or quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM), making interference and propagation effects all the more disturbing. As a result, important network resources such as servers are rarely connected wirelessly. Speed: The speed on most wireless networks (typically 1-108 Mbit/s) is reasonably slow compared to the slowest common wired networks (100 Mbit/s up to several Gbit/s). There are also performance issues caused by TCP and its built-in congestion avoidance. For most users, however, this observation is irrelevant since the speed bottleneck is not in the wireless routing but rather in the outside network connectivity itself. For example, the maximum ADSL throughput (usually 8 Mbit/s or less) offered by telecommunications companies to general-purpose customers is already far slower than the slowest wireless network to which it is typically connected. That is to say, in most environments, a wireless network running at its slowest speed is still faster than the internet connection serving it in the first place. However, in specialized environments, higher throughput through a wired network might be necessary. Newer standards such as 802.11n are addressing this limitation and will support peak throughputs in the range of 100-200 Mbit/s.

Wireless LANs present a host of issues for network managers. Unauthorized access points, broadcasted SSIDs, unknown stations, and spoofed MAC addresses are just a few of the problems addressed in WLAN troubleshooting. Most network analysis vendors, such as Network Instruments, Network General, and Fluke, offer WLAN troubleshooting tools or functionalities as part of their product line.

Wireless network
While the term wireless network may technically be used to refer to any type of network that is wireless, the term is most commonly used to refer to a telecommunications network whose interconnections between nodes is implemented without the use of wires, such as a computer network (which is a type of communications network).[1] Wireless telecommunications networks are generally implemented with some type of remote information transmission system that uses electromagnetic waves, such as radio waves, for the carrier and this implementation usually takes place at the physical level or "layer" of the network.[2]

Types
Wireless LAN One type of wireless network is a WLAN or Wireless Local Area Network. Similar to other wireless devices, it uses radio instead of wires to transmit data back and forth between computers on the same network.

Wi-Fi: Wi-Fi is a commonly used wireless network in computer systems which enable connection to the internet or other machines that have Wi-Fi functionalities. Wi-Fi networks broadcast radio waves that can be picked up by Wi-Fi receivers that are attached to different computers or mobile phones. Fixed Wireless Data: Fixed wireless data is a type of wireless data network that can be used to connect two or more buildings together in order to extend or share the network bandwidth without physically wiring the buildings together.

Wireless MAN A type of wireless network that connects several Wireless LANs.

WiMAX: WiMAX is the term used to refer to wireless MANs.

Mobile devices networks

Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM): The GSM network is divided into three major systems which are :the switching system, the base station system, and the operation and support system (Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM)). The cell phone connects to the base system station which then connects to the operation and support station; it then connects to the switching station where the

call is transferred where it needs to go (Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM)). This is used for cellular phones, is the most common standard and is used for a majority of cellular providers.[3] Personal Communications Service (PCS): PCS is a radio band that can be used by mobile phones in North America. Sprint happened to be the first service to set up a PCS. D-AMPS: D-AMPS, which stands for Digital Advanced Mobile Phone Service, is an upgraded version of AMPS but it is being phased out due to advancement in technology. The newer GSM networks are replacing the older system

Wireless networks have significantly impacted the world as far back as World War II. Through the use of wireless networks, information could be sent overseas or behind enemy lines easily and quickly and more reliably. Since then wireless networks have continued to develop and its uses have significantly grown. Cellular phones are part of huge wireless network systems. People use these phones daily to communicate with one another. Sending information over seas is possible through wireless network systems using satellites and other signals to communicate across the world. Emergency services such as the police department utilize wireless networks to communicate important information quickly. People and businesses use wireless networks to send and share data quickly whether it be in a small office building or across the world.[4] Another important use for wireless networks is as an inexpensive and rapid way to be connected to the Internet in countries and regions where the telecom infrastructure is poor or there is a lack of resources, like most developing countries. Compatibility issues also arise when dealing with wireless networks. Different components not made by the same company may not work together, or might require extra work to fix compatibility issues. Wireless networks are typically slower than those that are directly connected through an Ethernet cable. A wireless network is more vulnerable because anyone can try to break into a network broadcasting a signal. Many networks offer WEP - Wired Equivalent Privacy - security systems which have been found to be vulnerable to intrusion. Though WEP does block some intruders, the security problems have caused some businesses to stick with wired networks until security can be improved. Another type of security for wireless networks is WPA - Wi-Fi Protected Access. WPA provides more security to wireless networks than a WEP security set up. The use of firewalls will help with security breaches which can help to fix security problems in some wireless networks that are more vulnerable.

Internetworking
Internetworking involves connecting two or more distinct computer networks or network segments together to form an internetwork (often shortened to internet), using devices which operate at layer 3 (Network layer) of the OSI Basic Reference Model (such as

routers or layer 3 switches) to connect them together to allow traffic to flow back and forth between them [1]. The layer 3 routing devices guide traffic on the correct path (among several different ones usually available) across the complete internetwork to their destination. Note: Routers were originally called gateways, but that term was discarded in this context, due to confusion with functionally different devices using the same name. The connecting together of networks with bridges is sometimes incorrectly termed "internetworking", but the resulting system mimics a single subnetwork, and no internetworking protocol (such as IP) is required to traverse it. However, a single computer network may be converted into an internetwork by dividing the network into segments and then adding routers or other layer 3 devices between the segments [1]. The original term for an internetwork was catenet. Internetworking started as a way to connect disparate types of networking technology, but it became widespread through the developing need to connect two or more local area networks via some sort of wide area network. The definition now includes the connection of other types of computer networks such as personal area networks. The most notable example of internetworking in practice is the Internet, a network of networks running different low-level protocols, unified by an internetworking protocol, the Internet Protocol (IP). IP only provides an unreliable packet service across an internet. To transfer data reliably, applications must utilize a Transport layer protocol, such as TCP, which provides a reliable stream (These terms do not mean that IP is actually unreliable but instead that it sends packets without contacting and establishing a connection with the destination router beforehand. The opposite applies for reliable). Since TCP is the most widely used transport protocol, people commonly refer to TCP and IP together, as "TCP/IP". Some applications occasionally use a simpler transport protocol (called UDP) for tasks which do not require absolutely reliable delivery of data, such as video streaming.
[2]

History of Internetworking

The first networks were time-sharing networks that used mainframes and attached terminals. Such environments were implemented by both IBM's Systems Network Architecture (SNA) and Digital's network architecture. Local-area networks (LANs) evolved around the PC revolution. LANs enabled multiple users in a relatively small geographical area to exchange files and messages, as well as access shared resources such as file servers and printers. Wide-area networks (WANs) interconnect LANs with geographically dispersed users to create connectivity. Some of the technologies used for connecting LANs include T1, T3,

ATM, ISDN, ADSL, Frame Relay, radio links, and others. New methods of connecting dispersed LANs are appearing everyday. Today, high-speed LANs and switched internetworks are becoming widely used, largely because they operate at very high speeds and support such high-bandwidth applications as multimedia and videoconferencing. Internetworking evolved as a solution to three key problems: isolated LANs, duplication of resources, and a lack of network management. Isolated LANs made electronic communication between different offices or departments impossible. Duplication of resources meant that the same hardware and software had to be supplied to each office or department, as did separate support staff. This lack of network management meant that no centralized method of managing and troubleshooting networks existed.
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Internetworking Challenges

Implementing a functional internetwork is no simple task. Many challenges must be faced, especially in the areas of connectivity, reliability, network management, and flexibility. Each area is key in establishing an efficient and effective internetwork. The challenge when connecting various systems is to support communication among disparate technologies. Different sites, for example, may use different types of media operating at varying speeds, or may even include different types of systems that need to communicate. Because companies rely heavily on data communication, internetworks must provide a certain level of reliability. This is an unpredictable world, so many large internetworks include redundancy to allow for communication even when problems occur. Furthermore, network management must provide centralized support and troubleshooting capabilities in an internetwork. Configuration, security, performance, and other issues must be adequately addressed for the internetwork to function smoothly. Security within an internetwork is essential. Many people think of network security from the perspective of protecting the private network from outside attacks. However, it is just as important to protect the network from internal attacks, especially because most security breaches come from inside. Networks must also be secured so that the internal network cannot be used as a tool to attack other external sites. Early in the year 2000, many major web sites were the victims of distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks. These attacks were possible because a great number of private networks currently connected with the Internet were not properly secured. These private networks were used as tools for the attackers. Because nothing in this world is stagnant, internetworks must be flexible enough to change with new demands.

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Open System Interconnection Reference Model (OSI Model)

The Open System Interconnection (OSI) reference model describes how information from a software application in one computer moves through a network medium to a software application in another computer. The OSI reference model is a conceptual model composed of seven layers, each specifying particular network functions. The model was developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in 1984, and it is now considered the primary architectural model for intercomputer communications. The OSI model divides the tasks involved with moving information between networked computers into seven smaller, more manageable task groups. A task or group of tasks is then assigned to each of the seven OSI layers. Each layer is reasonably self-contained so that the tasks assigned to each layer can be implemented independently. This enables the solutions offered by one layer to be updated without adversely affecting the other layers. The following list details the seven layers of the Open System Interconnection (OSI) reference model: Layer 7Application Layer 6Presentation Layer 5Session Layer 4Transport Layer 3Network Layer 2Data link Layer 1Physical

Bluetooth
Bluetooth is an industrial specification for wireless personal area networks (PANs). Bluetooth provides a way to connect and exchange information between devices such as mobile phones, laptops, personal computers, printers, digital cameras, and video game consoles over a secure, globally unlicensed short-range radio frequency. The Bluetooth specifications are developed and licensed by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group

Uses
Bluetooth is a standard and communications protocol primarily designed for low power consumption, with a short range (power-class-dependent: 1 meter, 10 meters, 100 meters) based on low-cost transceiver microchips in each device.[1] Bluetooth enables these devices to communicate with each other when they are in range. The devices use a radio communications system, so they do not have to be in line of sight

of each other, and can even be in other rooms, as long as the received transmission is powerful enough. Maximum Permitted Power Range mW(dBm) (approximate) Class 1 100 mW (20 dBm) ~100 meters Class 2 2.5 mW (4 dBm) ~10 meters Class 3 1 mW (0 dBm) ~1 meter Class It has to be noted that in most cases the effective range of class 2 devices is extended if they connect to a class 1 transceiver, compared to pure class 2 network. This is accomplished by higher sensitivity and transmitter power of the Class 1 device. The higher transmitter power of Class 1 device allows higher power to be received by the Class 2 device. Furthermore, higher sensitivity of Class 1 device allows reception of much lower transmitted power of the Class 2 devices. Thus, allowing operation of Class 2 devices at much higher distances. Version Data Rate Version 1.2 1 Mbit/s Version 2.0 + EDR 3 Mbit/s WiMedia Alliance 53 - 480 Mbit/s (proposed)

[edit] Bluetooth profiles

Main article: Bluetooth profile In order to use Bluetooth, a device must be compatible with certain Bluetooth profiles. These define the possible applications and uses of the technology. A typical Bluetooth mobile phone headset More prevalent applications of Bluetooth include:

Wireless control of and communication between a mobile phone and a hands-free headset. This was one of the earliest applications to become popular. Wireless networking between PCs in a confined space and where little bandwidth is required. Wireless communications with PC input and output devices, the most common being the mouse, keyboard and printer. Transfer of files between devices with OBEX. Transfer of contact details, calendar appointments, and reminders between devices with OBEX. Replacement of traditional wired serial communications in test equipment, GPS receivers, medical equipment, bar code scanners, and traffic control devices. For controls where infrared was traditionally used.

Sending small advertisements from Bluetooth enabled advertising hoardings to other, discoverable, Bluetooth devices. Two seventh-generation game consoles, Nintendo's Wii[2] and Sony's PlayStation 3, use Bluetooth for their respective wireless controllers. Dial-up internet access on personal computer or PDA using a data-capable mobile phone as a modem.

[edit] Bluetooth vs. Wi-Fi in networking

Bluetooth and Wi-Fi have slightly different applications in today's offices, homes, and on the move: setting up networks, printing, or transferring presentations and files from PDAs to computers. Both are versions of unlicensed spread spectrum technology. Bluetooth differs from Wi-Fi in that the latter provides higher throughput and covers greater distances, but requires more expensive hardware and higher power consumption. They use the same frequency range, but employ different modulation techniques. While Bluetooth is a replacement for a variety of applications, Wi-Fi is a replacement only for local area network access. Bluetooth is often thought of as wireless USB, whereas Wi-Fi is wireless Ethernet, both operating at much lower bandwidth than the cable systems they are trying to replace. However, this analogy is not entirely accurate since any Bluetooth device can, in theory, host any other Bluetooth devicesomething that is not universal to USB devices, therefore it would resemble more a wireless FireWire.

[edit] Bluetooth
Bluetooth exists in many products, such as phones, printers, modems and headsets. The technology is useful when transferring information between two or more devices that are near each other in low-bandwidth situations. Bluetooth is commonly used to transfer sound data with phones (i.e. with a Bluetooth headset) or byte data with hand-held computers (transferring files). Bluetooth simplifies the discovery and setup of services between devices. Bluetooth devices advertise all of the services they provide. This makes using services easier because there is no longer a need to setup network addresses or permissions as in many other networks.

[edit] Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi is more like traditional Ethernet networks, and requires configuration to set up shared resources, transmit files, and to set up audio links (for example, headsets and handsfree devices). It uses the same radio frequencies as Bluetooth, but with higher power resulting in a stronger connection. Wi-Fi is sometimes called "wireless Ethernet." This description is accurate as it also provides an indication of its relative strengths and weaknesses. Wi-Fi requires more setup, but is better suited for operating full-scale networks because it enables a faster connection, better range from the base station, and better security than Bluetooth

Operating system support

For more details on this topic, see Bluetooth stack. Apple has supported Bluetooth since Mac OS X version 10.2 released in 2002.[3] As for Microsoft platforms, Windows XP Service Pack 2 and later releases have native support for Bluetooth. Previous versions required the users to install their Bluetooth adapter's own drivers, which were not directly supported by Microsoft.[4] Microsoft's own Bluetooth dongles (that are packaged with their Bluetooth computer devices) have no external drivers and thus require at least Windows XP Service Pack 2. Linux provides two Bluetooth stacks, with the BlueZ stack included with most Linux kernels. It was originally developed by Qualcomm and Affix. BlueZ supports all core Bluetooth protocols and layers. NetBSD features Bluetooth support since its 4.0 release. Its Bluetooth stack has been ported to FreeBSD and OpenBSD as well.

[edit] Specifications and features

The Bluetooth specification was developed in 1994 by Jaap Haartsen and Sven Mattisson, who were working for Ericsson Mobile Platforms in Lund, Sweden.[5] The specification is based on frequency-hopping spread spectrum technology. The specifications were formalized by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), organised by Mohd Syarifuddin. The SIG was formally announced on May 20, 1998. Today it has a membership over 7000 companies worldwide. It was established by Ericsson, Sony Ericsson, IBM, Intel, Toshiba, and Nokia, and later joined by many other companies.

[edit] Bluetooth 1.0 and 1.0B

Versions 1.0 and 1.0B had many problems, and manufacturers had difficulty making their products interoperable. Versions 1.0 and 1.0B also included mandatory Bluetooth hardware device address (BD_ADDR) transmission in the Connecting process (rendering anonymity impossible at the protocol level), which was a major setback for certain services planned for use in Bluetooth environments.

[edit] Bluetooth 1.1

Ratified as IEEE Standard 802.15.1-2002. Many errors found in the 1.0B specifications were fixed. Added support for non-encrypted channels. Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI).

[edit] Bluetooth 1.2

This version is backward-compatible with 1.1 and the major enhancements include the following:

Faster Connection and Discovery Adaptive frequency-hopping spread spectrum (AFH), which improves resistance to radio frequency interference by avoiding the use of crowded frequencies in the hopping sequence. Higher transmission speeds in practice, up to 721 kbit/s, as in 1.1. Extended Synchronous Connections (eSCO), which improve voice quality of audio links by allowing retransmissions of corrupted packets. Host Controller Interface (HCI) support for three-wire UART. Ratified as IEEE Standard 802.15.1-2005.

[edit] Bluetooth 2.0

This version, specified on November 10, 2004, is backward-compatible with 1.1. The main enhancement is the introduction of an Enhanced Data Rate (EDR) of 3.0 Mbit/s. This has the following effects:[6]

Three times faster transmission speedup to 10 times in certain cases (up to 2.1 Mbit/s). Lower power consumption through a reduced duty cycle. Simplification of multi-link scenarios due to more available bandwidth.

The practical data transfer rate is 2.1 megabits per second and the basic signalling rate is about 3 megabits per second.[7] The "Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR" specification given at the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) includes EDR and there is no specification "Bluetooth 2.0" as used by many vendors. The HTC TyTN pocket PC phone, shows "Bluetooth 2.0 without EDR" on its data sheet.[8] In many cases it is not clear whether a product claiming to support "Bluetooth 2.0" actually supports the EDR higher transfer rate.

[edit] Bluetooth 2.1

Bluetooth Core Specification Version 2.1 is fully backward-compatible with 1.1, and was adopted by the Bluetooth SIG on July 26, 2007.[6] This specification includes the following features:

Extended inquiry response: provides more information during the inquiry procedure to allow better filtering of devices before connection. This information includes the name of the device, a list of services the device supports, as well as other information like the time of day, and pairing information. Sniff subrating: reduces the power consumption when devices are in the sniff lowpower mode, especially on links with asymmetric data flows. Human interface

devices (HID) are expected to benefit the most, with mouse and keyboard devices increasing the battery life by a factor of 3 to 10.

Encryption Pause Resume: enables an encryption key to be refreshed, enabling much stronger encryption for connections that stay up for longer than 23.3 hours (one Bluetooth day). Secure Simple Pairing: radically improves the pairing experience for Bluetooth devices, while increasing the use and strength of security. It is expected that this feature will significantly increase the use of Bluetooth.[9] NFC cooperation: automatic creation of secure Bluetooth connections when NFC radio interface is also available. For example, a headset should be paired with a Bluetooth 2.1 phone including NFC just by bringing the two devices close to each other (a few centimeters). Another example is automatic uploading of photos from a mobile phone or camera to a digital picture frame just by bringing the phone or camera close to the frame.[10][11]

[edit] Future of Bluetooth

Broadcast Channel: enables Bluetooth information points. This will drive the adoption of Bluetooth into mobile phones, and enable advertising models based around users pulling information from the information points, and not based around the object push model that is used in a limited way today. Topology Management: enables the automatic configuration of the piconet topologies especially in scatternet situations that are becoming more common today. This should all be invisible to the users of the technology, while also making the technology just work. Alternate MAC PHY: enables the use of alternative MAC and PHY's for transporting Bluetooth profile data. The Bluetooth Radio will still be used for device discovery, initial connection and profile configuration, however when lots of data needs to be sent, the high speed alternate MAC PHY's will be used to transport the data. This means that the proven low power connection models of Bluetooth are used when the system is idle, and the low power per bit radios are used when lots of data needs to be sent. QoS improvements: enable audio and video data to be transmitted at a higher quality, especially when best effort traffic is being transmitted in the same piconet.

[edit] High-speed Bluetooth

On 28 March 2006, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group announced its selection of the WiMedia Alliance Multi-Band Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (MB-OFDM) version of UWB for integration with current Bluetooth wireless technology.

UWB integration will create a version of Bluetooth wireless technology with a highspeed/high-data-rate option. This new version of Bluetooth technology will meet the highspeed demands of synchronizing and transferring large amounts of data, as well as enabling high-quality video and audio applications for portable devices, multi-media projectors and television sets, and wireless VOIP. At the same time, Bluetooth technology will continue catering to the needs of very low power applications such as mice, keyboards, and mono headsets, enabling devices to select the most appropriate physical radio for the application requirements, thereby offering the best of both worlds.

[edit] Bluetooth 3.0

The next version of Bluetooth after v2.1, code-named Seattle (the version number of which is TBD) has many of the same features, but is most notable for plans to adopt ultrawideband (UWB) radio technology. This will allow Bluetooth use over UWB radio, enabling very fast data transfers of up to 480 Mbit/s, while building on the very low-power idle modes of Bluetooth.

[edit] Ultra Low Power Bluetooth

On June 12, 2007, Nokia and Bluetooth SIG announced that Wibree will be a part of the Bluetooth specification as an ultra low power Bluetooth technology.[12] Expected use cases include watches displaying Caller ID information, sports sensors monitoring your heart rate during exercise, as well as medical devices. The Medical Devices Working Group is also creating a medical devices profile and associated protocols to enable this market.

[edit] Technical information

[edit] Communication and connection
A master Bluetooth device can communicate with up to seven devices. This network group of up to eight devices is called a piconet. A piconet is an ad-hoc computer network, using Bluetooth technology protocols to allow one master device to interconnect with up to seven active devices. Up to 255 further devices can be inactive, or parked, which the master device can bring into active status at any time. At any given time, data can be transferred between the master and one other device, however, the devices can switch roles and the slave can become the master at any time. The master switches rapidly from one device to another in a round-robin fashion. (Simultaneous transmission from the master to multiple other devices is possible, but not used much.)

Bluetooth specification allows connecting two or more piconets together to form a scatternet, with some devices acting as a bridge by simultaneously playing the master role and the slave role in one piconet. These devices are planned for 2007. Many USB Bluetooth adapters are available, some of which also include an IrDA adapter. Older (pre-2003) Bluetooth adapters, however, have limited services, offering only the Bluetooth Enumerator and a less-powerful Bluetooth Radio incarnation. Such devices can link computers with Bluetooth, but they do not offer much in the way of services that modern adapters do.

[edit] Setting up connections

Any Bluetooth device will transmit the following information on demand:

Device name. Device class. List of services. Technical information, for example, device features, manufacturer, Bluetooth specification used, clock offset.

Any device may perform an inquiry to find other devices to connect to, and any device can be configured to respond to such inquiries. However, if the device trying to connect knows the address of the device, it always responds to direct connection requests and transmits the information shown in the list above if requested. Use of device services may require pairing or acceptance by its owner, but the connection itself can be initiated by any device and held until it goes out of range. Some devices can be connected to only one device at a time, and connecting to them prevents them from connecting to other devices and appearing in inquiries until they disconnect from the other device. Every device has a unique 48-bit address. However these addresses are generally not shown in inquiries. Instead, friendly Bluetooth names are used, which can be set by the user. This name appears when another user scans for devices and in lists of paired devices. Most phones have the Bluetooth name set to the manufacturer and model of the phone by default. Most phones and laptops show only the Bluetooth names and special programs that are required to get additional information about remote devices. This can be confusing as, for example, there could be several phones in range named T610 (see Bluejacking).

[edit] Pairing
Pairs of devices may establish a trusted relationship by learning (by user input) a shared secret known as a passkey. A device that wants to communicate only with a trusted device can cryptographically authenticate the identity of the other device. Trusted devices may also encrypt the data that they exchange over the airwaves so that no one can listen in. The encryption can, however, be turned off, and passkeys are stored on the device file system, not on the Bluetooth chip itself. Since the Bluetooth address is permanent, a pairing is

preserved, even if the Bluetooth name is changed. Pairs can be deleted at any time by either device. Devices generally require pairing or prompt the owner before they allow a remote device to use any or most of their services. Some devices, such as Sony Ericsson phones, usually accept OBEX business cards and notes without any pairing or prompts. Certain printers and access points allow any device to use its services by default, much like unsecured Wi-Fi networks. Pairing algorithms are sometimes manufacturer-specific for transmitters and receivers used in applications such as music and entertainment.

[edit] Air interface

The protocol operates in the license-free ISM band at 2.4-2.4835 GHz. To avoid interfering with other protocols that use the 2.45 GHz band, the Bluetooth protocol divides the band into 79 channels (each 1 MHz wide) and changes channels up to 1600 times per second. Implementations with versions 1.1 and 1.2 reach speeds of 723.1 kbit/s. Version 2.0 implementations feature Bluetooth Enhanced Data Rate (EDR) and reach 2.1 Mbit/s. Technically, version 2.0 devices have a higher power consumption, but the three times faster rate reduces the transmission times, effectively reducing power consumption to half that of 1.x devices (assuming equal traffic load).

[edit] Security
[edit] Overview
Bluetooth implements confidentiality, authentication and key derivation with custom algorithms based on the SAFER+ block cipher. In Bluetooth, key generation is generally based on a Bluetooth PIN, which must be entered into both devices. This procedure might be modified if one of the devices has a fixed PIN, e.g. for headsets or similar devices with a restricted user interface. During pairing, an initialization key or master key is generated, using the E22 algorithm.[13] The E0 stream cipher is used for encrypting packets, granting confidentiality and is based on a shared cryptographic secret, namely a previously generated link key or master key. Those keys, used for subsequent encryption of data sent via the air interface, rely on the Bluetooth PIN, which has been entered into one or both devices. An overview of Bluetooth vulnerabilities exploits has been published by Andreas Becker.
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[edit] Bluejacking
Bluejacking allows phone users to send business cards anonymously using Bluetooth wireless technology. Bluejacking does NOT involve the removal or alteration of any data from the device. These business cards often have a clever or flirtatious message rather than the typical name and phone number. Bluejackers often look for the receiving phone to ping or the user to react. They then send another, more personal message to that device. Once again, in order to carry out a bluejacking, the sending and receiving devices must be within

range of each other, which is typically 10 meters for most mobile devices. Devices that are set in non-discoverable mode are not susceptible to bluejacking. However, the Linux application Redfang claims to find non-discoverable Bluetooth devices

Origin of the name and the logo

Bluetooth was named after a late tenth century king, Harald Bluetooth, King of Denmark and Norway. He is known for his unification of previously warring tribes from Denmark (including now Swedish Scania, where the Bluetooth technology was invented), and Norway. Bluetooth likewise was intended to unify different technologies, such as personal computers and mobile phones.[24] The name may have been inspired less by the historical Harald than the loose interpretation of him in The Long Ships by Frans Gunnar Bengtsson, a Swedish Viking-inspired novel. The Bluetooth logo merges the Germanic runes analogous to the modern Latin letter H and B: (for Harald Bluetooth) (Hagall) and (Berkanan) merged together, forming a bind rune.

General Packet Radio Service

General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) is a Mobile Data Service available to users of Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) and IS-136 mobile phones. It provides data rates from 56 up to 114 kbps. GPRS can be used for services such as Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) access, Short Message Service (SMS), Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), and for Internet communication services such as email and World Wide Web access. 2G cellular systems combined with GPRS is often described as "2.5G", that is, a technology between the second (2G) and third (3G) generations of mobile telephony. It provides moderate speed data transfer, by using unused Time division multiple access (TDMA) channels in, for example, the GSM system. Originally there was some thought to extend GPRS to cover other standards, but instead those networks are being converted to use the GSM standard, so that GSM is the only kind of network where GPRS is in use. GPRS is integrated into GSM Release 97 and newer releases. It was originally standardized by European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), but now by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP).

Basics
WAP is just a gateway used to access Internet via mobilephone and vice-versa. Usually, GPRS data are billed per kilobyte of information transceived, while circuit-switched data

connections are billed per second. The latter is inefficient because even when no data are being transferred, the bandwidth is unavailable to other potential users. The multiple access methods used in GSM with GPRS are based on frequency division duplex (FDD) and TDMA. During a session, a user is assigned to one pair of up-link and down-link frequency channels. This is combined with time domain statistical multiplexing, i.e. packet mode communication, which makes it possible for several users to share the same frequency channel. The packets have constant length, corresponding to a GSM time slot. The down-link uses first-come first-served packet scheduling, while the up-link uses a scheme very similar to reservation ALOHA. This means that slotted Aloha (S-ALOHA) is used for reservation inquiries during a contention phase, and then the actual data is transferred using dynamic TDMA with first-come first-served scheduling. GPRS originally supported (in theory) Internet Protocol (IP), Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) and X.25 connections. The last has been typically used for applications like wireless payment terminals, although it has been removed from the standard. X.25 can still be supported over PPP, or even over IP, but doing this requires either a router to perform encapsulation or intelligence built in to the end-device/terminal e.g. UE(User Equipment). In practice, when the mobile built-in browser is used, IPv4 is being utilized. In this mode PPP is often not supported by the mobile phone operator, while IPv6 is not yet popular. But if the mobile is used as a modem to the connected computer, PPP is used to tunnel IP to the phone. This allows DHCP to assign an IP Address and then the use of IPv4 since IP addresses used by mobile equipment tend to be dynamic.
Class A : Can be connected to GPRS service and GSM service (voice, SMS), using both at the same time. Such devices are known to be available today.

Class B Can be connected to GPRS service and GSM service (voice, SMS), but using only one or the other at a given time. During GSM service (voice call or SMS), GPRS service is suspended, and then resumed automatically after the GSM service (voice call or SMS) has concluded. Most GPRS mobile devices are Class B. Class C Are connected to either GPRS service or GSM service (voice, SMS). Must be switched manually between one or the other service. A true Class A device may be required to transmit on two different frequencies at the same time, and thus will need two radios. To get around this expensive requirement, a GPRS mobile may implement the dual transfer mode (DTM) feature. A DTM-capable mobile may use simultaneous voice and packet data, with the network coordinating to ensure that it is not required to transmit on two different frequencies at the same time. Such mobiles are considered pseudo-Class A, sometimes referred to as "simple class A". Some networks are expected to support DTM in 2007.

Cellular network
A cellular network is a radio network made up of a number of radio cells (or just cells) each served by a fixed transmitter, known as a cell site or base station. These cells are used to cover different areas in order to provide radio coverage over a wider area than the area of one cell. Cellular networks are inherently asymmetric with a set of fixed main transceivers each serving a cell and a set of distributed (generally, but not always, mobile) transceivers which provide services to the network's users. Cellular networks offer a number of advantages over alternative solutions:

increased capacity reduced power usage better coverage

A good (and simple) example of a cellular system is an old taxi driver's radio system where the taxi company will have several transmitters based around a city each operated by an individual operator.

General characteristics
The primary requirement for a network to succeed as a cellular network is for it to have developed a standardised method for each distributed station to distinguish the signal emanating from its own transmitter from the signals received from other transmitters. Presently, there are two standardised solutions to this issue: frequency division multiple access (FDMA) and; code division multiple access (CDMA). FDMA works by using varying frequencies for each neighbouring cell. By tuning to the frequency of a chosen cell the distributed stations can avoid the signal from other cells. The principle of CDMA is more complex, but achieves the same result; the distributed transceivers can select one cell and listen to it. Other available methods of multiplexing such as polarization division multiple access (PDMA) and time division multiple access (TDMA) cannot be used to separate signals from one cell to the next since the effects of both vary with position and this would make signal separation practically impossible. Time division multiple access, however, is used in combination with either FDMA or CDMA in a number of systems to give multiple channels within the coverage area of a single cell. In the case of the aforementioned taxi company, each radio has a knob. The knob acts as a channel selector and allows the radio to tune to different frequencies. As the drivers move around, they change from channel to channel. The drivers know which frequency covers approximately what area. When they don't get a signal from the transmitter, they also try other channels until they find one which works. The taxi drivers only speak one at a time, as invited by the operator (in a sense TDMA).

[edit] Broadcast messages and paging

Practically every cellular system has some kind of broadcast mechanism. This can be used directly for distributing information to multiple mobiles, commonly, for example in mobile telephony systems, the most important use of broadcast information is to set up channels for one to one communication between the mobile transreceiver and the base station. This is called paging. The details of the process of paging vary somewhat from network to network, but normally we know a limited number of cells where the phone is located (this group of cells is called a Location Area in the GSM or UMTS system, or Routing Area if a data packet session is involved). Paging takes place by sending the broadcast message to all of those cells. Paging messages can be used for information transfer. This happens in pagers, in CDMA systems for sending SMS messages, and in the UMTS system where it allows for low downlink latency in packet-based connections. Our taxi network is a very good example here. The broadcast capability is often used to tell about road conditions and also to tell about work which is available to anybody. On the other hand, typically there is a list of taxis waiting for work. When a particular taxi comes up for work, the operator will call their number over the air. The taxi driver acknowledges that they are listening, then the operator reads out the address where the taxi driver has to go

Frequency reuse
Example of frequency reuse factor or pattern 1/4 The increased capacity in a cellular network, compared with a network with a single transmitter, comes from the fact that the same radio frequency can be reused in a different area for a completely different transmission. If there is a single plain transmitter, only one transmission can be used on any given frequency. Unfortunately, there is inevitably some level of interference from the signal from the other cells which use the same frequency. This means that, in a standard FDMA system, there must be at least a one cell gap between cells which reuse the same frequency. The frequency reuse factor is the rate at which the same frequency can be used in the network. It is 1/K (or K according to some books) where K is the number of cells which cannot use the same frequencies for transmission. Common values for the frequency reuse factor are 1/3, 1/4, 1/7, 1/9 and 1/12 (or 3, 4, 7, 9 and 12 depending on notation). In case of N sector antennas on the same base station site, each with different direction, the base station site can serve N different sectors. N is typically 3. A reuse pattern of N/K denotes N sector antennas per site. Common reuse patterns are 3/3, 3/9 and 3/12.

If the total available bandwidth is B, each cell can only utilize a number of frequency channels corresponding to a bandwidth of B/K, and each base station site can use a bandwidth of BN/K. Code division multiple access-based systems use a wider frequency band to achieve the same rate of transmission as FDMA, but this is compensated for by the ability to use a frequency reuse factor of 1, for example using a reuse pattern of 3/3. In other words, adjacent base station sites use the same frequencies, and the different base stations and users are separated by codes rather than frequencies. Frequency division is in this case typically only used to separate cells (sector antennas) at the same base station site. Depending on the size of the city, a taxi system may not have any frequency-reuse in its own city, but certainly in other nearby cities, the same frequency can be used. In a big city, on the other hand, frequency-reuse could certainly be in use.

Code division multiple access

Code division multiple access (CDMA) is a channel access method utilized by various radio communication technologies. It should not be confused with cdmaOne (often referred to as simply "CDMA"), which is a mobile phone standard that uses CDMA as its underlying channel access method. CDMA employs spread-spectrum technology and a special coding scheme (where each transmitter is assigned a code) to allow multiple users to be multiplexed over the same physical channel. By contrast, time division multiple access (TDMA) divides access by time, while frequency-division multiple access (FDMA) divides it by frequency. CDMA is a form of "spread-spectrum" signaling, since the modulated coded signal has a much higher bandwidth than the data being communicated. An analogy to the problem of multiple access is a room (channel) in which people wish to communicate with each other. To avoid confusion, people could take turns speaking (time division), speak at different pitches (frequency division), or speak in different directions (spatial division). In CDMA, they would speak different languages. People speaking the same language can understand each other, but not other people. Similarly, in radio CDMA, each group of users is given a shared code. Many codes occupy the same channel, but only users associated with a particular code can understand each other. CDMA has been used in many communications and navigation systems, including the Global Positioning System and the OmniTRACS satellite system for transportation logistics.

Asynchronous Transfer Mode

Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) is a cell relay, packet switching network and data link layer protocol which encodes data traffic into small (53 bytes; 48 bytes of data and 5 bytes of header information) fixed-sized cells. ATM provides data link layer services that run over Layer 1 links. This differs from other technologies based on packet-switched networks (such as the Internet Protocol or Ethernet), in which variable sized packets (known as frames when referencing Layer 2) are used. ATM is a connection-oriented technology, in which a logical connection is established between the two endpoints before the actual data exchange begins. The standards for ATM were first developed in the mid 1980s. The goal was to design a single networking strategy that could transport real-time video and audio as well as image files, text and email. Two groups, the International Telecommunications Union [ITU 2004] and the ATM Forum [ATM 2004] were involved in the creation of the standards. ATM has been used primarily with telephone and IP networks.

ATM Addressing
A Virtual Channel (VC) denotes the transport of ATM cells which have the same unique identifier, called the Virtual Channel Identifier (VCI). This identifier is encoded in the cell header. A virtual channel represents the basic means of communication between two endpoints, and is analogous to an X.25 virtual circuit.[1] A Virtual Path (VP) denotes the transport of ATM cells belonging to virtual channels which share a common identifier, called the Virtual Path Identifier (VPI), which is also encoded in the cell header. A virtual path, in other words, is a grouping of virtual channels which connect the same end-points, and which share a traffic allocation. This two layer approach can be used to separate the management of routes and bandwidth from the setup of individual connections.

[edit] Successes and failures of ATM technology

This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims.
Please improve the article by adding references. See the talk page for details. (September 2007)

ATM has proved very successful in the WAN scenario and numerous telecommunication providers have implemented ATM in their wide-area network cores. Many ADSL implementations also use ATM. However, ATM has failed to gain wide use as a LAN technology, and its complexity has held back its full deployment as the single integrating network technology in the way that its inventors originally intended. Since there will always be both brand-new and obsolescent link-layer technologies, particularly in the LAN area, not all of them will fit neatly into the synchronous optical networking model for which ATM was designed. Therefore, a protocol is needed to provide a unifying layer over both ATM and non-ATM link layers, as ATM itself cannot fill that role. IP already does that, therefore, there is often no point in implementing ATM at the network layer.

In addition, the need for cells to reduce jitter has declined as transport speeds increased (see below), and improvements in Voice over IP (VoIP) have made the integration of speech and data possible at the IP layer, again removing the incentive for ubiquitous deployment of ATM. Most Telcos are now planning to integrate their voice network activities into their IP networks, rather than their IP networks into the voice infrastructure. Many technically sound ideas from ATM were adopted by MPLS, a generic Layer 2 packet switching protocol. ATM remains widely deployed, and is used as a multiplexing service in DSL networks, where its compromises fit DSL's low-data-rate needs well. In turn, DSL networks support IP (and IP services such as VoIP) via PPP over ATM and Ethernet over ATM (RFC 1483). ATM will remain deployed for some time in higher-speed interconnects where carriers have already committed themselves to existing ATM deployments; ATM is used here as a way of unifying PDH/SDH traffic and packet-switched traffic under a single infrastructure. However, ATM is increasingly challenged by speed and traffic shaping requirements of converged networks. In particular, the complexity of SAR imposes a performance bottleneck, as the fastest SARs known run at 10 Gbit/s and have limited traffic shaping capabilities. Currently it seems likely that gigabit Ethernet implementations (10Gbit-Ethernet, Metro Ethernet) will replace ATM as a technology of choice in new WAN implementions.

[edit] Recent developments

Interest in using native ATM for carrying live video and audio has increased recently. In these environments, low latency and very high quality of service are required to handle linear audio and video streams. Towards this goal standards are being developed such as AES47 (IEC 62365), which provides a standard for professional uncompressed audio transport over ATM. This is worth comparing with professional video over IP

Code division multiple access

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(Redirected from CDMA) Jump to: navigation, search

Multiplex techniques

Circuit mode
(constant bandwidth)

TDM FDM WDM Polarization multiplexing Spatial multiplexing (MIMO) Statistical multiplexing
(variable bandwidth)

Packet mode Dynamic TDM FHSS DSSS OFDMA Related topics Channel access methods Media Access Control (MAC)
This box: view talk edit

Code division multiple access (CDMA) is a channel access method utilized by various radio communication technologies. It should not be confused with the mobile phone standards called cdmaOne and CDMA2000 (which are often referred to as simply "CDMA"), that use CDMA as their underlying channel access methods. One of the basic concepts in data communication is the idea of allowing several transmitters to send information simultaneously over a single communication channel. This allows several users to share a bandwidth of frequencies. This concept is called multiplexing. CDMA employs spread-spectrum technology and a special coding scheme (where each transmitter is assigned a code) to allow multiple users to be multiplexed over the same physical channel. By contrast, time division multiple access (TDMA) divides access by time, while frequency-division multiple access (FDMA) divides it by frequency. CDMA is a form of "spread-spectrum" signaling, since the modulated coded signal has a much higher bandwidth than the data being communicated. An analogy to the problem of multiple access is a room (channel) in which people wish to communicate with each other. To avoid confusion, people could take turns speaking (time division), speak at different pitches (frequency division), or speak in different directions (spatial division). In CDMA, they would speak different languages. People speaking the same language can understand each other, but not other people. Similarly, in radio CDMA, each group of users is given a shared code. Many codes occupy the same channel, but only users associated with a particular code can understand each other.

CDMA has been used in many communications and navigation systems, including the Global Positioning System and the OmniTRACS satellite system for transportation logistics.

Contents
[hide]

1 Uses 2 Technical details o 2.1 Code Division Multiplexing (Synchronous CDMA) 2.1.1 Example o 2.2 Asynchronous CDMA o 2.3 Advantages of Asynchronous CDMA over other techniques o 2.4 Spread Spectrum Characteristics of CDMA 3 See also 4 References 5 External links

[edit] Uses
One of the early applications for code division multiplexing predating, and distinct from cdmaOneis in GPS.

The Qualcomm standard IS-95, marketed as cdmaOne.

The Qualcomm standard IS-2000, known as CDMA2000. This standard is used by several mobile phone

companies, including the Globalstar satellite phone network.

[edit] Technical details

CDMA is a spread spectrum multiple access technique. In CDMA a locally generated code runs at a much higher rate than the data to be transmitted. Data for transmission is simply logically XOR (exclusive OR) added with the faster code. The figure shows how spread spectrum signal is generated. The data signal with pulse duration of Tb is XOR added with the code signal with pulse duration of Tc. (Note: bandwidth is proportional to 1/T where T = bit time) Therefore, the bandwidth of the data signal is 1/Tb and the bandwidth of the spread spectrum signal is 1/Tc. Since Tc is much smaller than Tb, the bandwidth of the spread spectrum signal is much larger than the bandwidth of the original signal. [1]

Each user in a CDMA system uses a different code to modulate their signal. Choosing the codes used to modulate the signal is very important in the performance of CDMA systems. The best performance will occur when there is good separation between the signal of a desired user and the signals of other users. The separation of the signals is made by correlating the received signal with the locally generated code of the desired user. If the signal matches the desired user's code then the correlation function will be high and the system can extract that signal. If the desired users code has nothing in common with the signal the correlation should be as close to zero as possible (thus eliminating the signal); this is referred to as cross correlation. If the code is correlated with the signal at any time

offset other then zero, the correlation should be as close to zero as possible. This is referred to as auto-correlation and is used to reject multi-path interference. [2] In general, CDMA belongs to two basic categories: synchronous (orthogonal codes) and asynchronous (pseudorandom codes).

[edit] Code Division Multiplexing (Synchronous CDMA)

Synchronous CDMA exploits mathematical properties of orthogonality between vectors representing the data strings. For example, binary string "1011" is represented by the vector (1, 0, 1, 1). Vectors can be multiplied by taking their dot product, by summing the products of their respective components. If the dot product is zero, the two vectors are said to be orthogonal to each other. (Note: If u=(a,b) and v=(c,d), the dot product u.v = a*c + b*d) Some properties of the dot product help to understand how WCDMA works. If vectors a and b are orthogonal, then Each user in synchronous CDMA uses an orthogonal codes to modulate their signal. An example of four mutually orthogonal digital signals is shown in the figure. Orthogonal codes have a cross-correlation equal to zero; in other words, they do not interfere with each other. In the case of IS-95 64 bit Walsh codes are used to encode the signal to separate different users. Since each of the 64 Walsh codes are orthogonal to one another, the signals are channelized into 64 orthogonal signals. The following example demonstrates how each users signal can be encoded and decoded.

[edit] Example
Start with a set of vectors that are mutually orthogonal. (Although mutual orthogonality is the only condition, these vectors are usually constructed for ease of decoding, for example columns or rows from Walsh matrices.) An example of orthogonal functions is shown in the picture on the left. These vectors will be assigned to individual users and are called the "code", "chipping code" or "chip code". In the interest of brevity, the rest of this example uses codes (v) with only 2 digits.

An example of four mutually orthogonal digital signals. Each user is associated with a different code, say v. If the data to be transmitted is a digital zero, then the actual bits transmitted will be v, and if the data to be transmitted is a digital one, then the actual bits transmitted will be v. For example, if v=(1,1), and the data that the user wishes to transmit is (1, 0, 1, 1) this would correspond to (v, v, v, v) which is then constructed in binary as ((1,1),(1,1),(1,1),(1,1)). For the purposes of this article, we call this constructed vector the transmitted vector.

Each sender has a different, unique vector v chosen from that set, but the construction method of the transmitted vector is identical. Now, due to physical properties of interference, if two signals at a point are in phase, they add to give twice the amplitude of each signal, but if they are out of phase, they "subtract" and give a signal that is the difference of the amplitudes. Digitally, this behaviour can be modelled by the addition of the transmission vectors, component by component. If sender0 has code (1,1) and data (1,0,1,1), and sender1 has code (1,1) and data (0,0,1,1), and both senders transmit simultaneously, then this table describes the coding steps: Step Encode sender0 0 vector0=(1,1), data0=(1,0,1,1)=(1,1,1,1) 1 encode0=vector0.data0 2 encode0=(1,1).(1,1,1,1) 3 encode0=((1,1),(1,1),(1,1),(1,1)) 4 signal0=(1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1) Encode sender1 vector1=(1,1), data1=(0,0,1,1)=(1,1,1,1) encode1=vector1.data1 encode1=(1,1).(1,1,1,1) encode1=((1,1),(1,1),(1,1),(1,1)) signal1=(1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1)

Because signal0 and signal1 are transmitted at the same time into the air, they add to produce the raw signal: (1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1) + (1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1) = (0,2,2,0,2,0,2,0) This raw signal is called an interference pattern. The receiver then extracts an intelligible signal for any known sender by combining the sender's code with the interference pattern, the receiver combines it with the codes of the senders. The following table explains how this works and shows that the signals do not interfer with one another: Step Decode sender0 0 vector0=(1,1), pattern=(0,2,2,0,2,0,2,0) 1 decode0=pattern.vector0 2 decode0=((0,2),(2,0),(2,0),(2,0)).(1,1) 3 decode0=((0+2),(2+0),(2+0),(2+0)) 4 data0=(2,2,2,2)=(1,0,1,1) Decode sender1 vector1=(1,1), pattern=(0,2,2,0,2,0,2,0) decode1=pattern.vector1 decode1=((0,2),(2,0),(2,0),(2,0)).(1,1) decode1=((02),(2+0),(2+0),(2+0)) data1=(2,2,2,2)=(0,0,1,1)

Further, after decoding, all values greater than 0 are interpreted as 1 while all values less than zero are interpreted as 0. For example, after decoding, data0 is (2,2,2,2), but the receiver interprets this as (1,0,1,1). We can also consider what would happen if a receiver tries to decode a signal when the user has not sent any information. Assume signal0=(1,-1,-1,1,1,-1,1,-1) is transmitted alone. The following table shows the decode at the receiver: Step 0 Decode sender0 Decode sender1 vector0=(1,1), pattern=(1,-1,-1,1,1,-1,1,vector1=(1,1), pattern=(1,-1,-1,1,1,-1,1,-1) 1)

1 2 3 4

decode0=pattern.vector0 decode0=((1,1),(1,1),(1,-1),(1,-1)).(1,1) decode0=((1+1),(1-1),(1+1),(1+1)) data0=(2,2,2,2)=(1,0,1,1)

decode1=pattern.vector1 decode1=((1,1),(1,1),(1,-1),(1,-1)).(1,1) decode1=((11),(1+1),(1-1),(1-1)) data1=(0,0,0,0)

When the receiver attempts to decode the signal using sender1s code, the data is all zeros, therefore the cross correlation is equal to zero and it is clear that sender1 did not transmit any data.

[edit] Asynchronous CDMA

See also: Direct-sequence spread spectrum The previous example of orthogonal Walsh sequences describes how 2 users can be multiplexed together in a synchronous system, a technique that is commonly referred to as Code Division Multiplexing (CDM). The set of 4 Walsh sequences shown in the figure will afford up to 4 users, and in general, an NxN Walsh matrix can be used to multiplex N users. Multiplexing requires all of the users to be coordinated so that each transmits their assigned sequence v (or the complement, -v) starting at exactly the same time. Thus, this technique finds use in base-to-mobile links, where all of the transmissions originate from the same transmitter and can be perfectly coordinated. On the other hand, the mobile-to-base links cannot be precisely coordinated, particularly due to the mobility of the handsets, and require a somewhat different approach. Since it is not mathematically possible to create signature sequences that are orthogonal for arbitrarily random starting points, unique "pseudo-random" or "pseudo-noise" (PN) sequences are used in Asynchronous CDMA systems. A PN code is a binary sequence that appears random but can be reproduced in a deterministic manner by intended receivers. These PN codes are used to encode and decode a users signal in Asynchronous CDMA in the same manner as the orthogonal codes in synchrous CDMA (shown in the example above). These PN sequences are statistically uncorrelated, and the sum of a large number of PN sequences results in Multiple Access Interference (MAI) that is approximated by a Gaussian noise process (following the "central limit theorem" in statistics). If all of the users are received with the same power level, then the variance (e.g., the noise power) of the MAI increases in direct proportion to the number of users. In other words, unlike synchronous CDMA, the signals of other users will appear as noise to the signal of interest and interfere slightly with the desired signal in proportion to number of users. In other words, unlike synchronous CDMA, the signals of other users will appear as noise to the signal of interest and interfere slightly with the desired signal in proportion to number of users. All forms of CDMA use spread spectrum process gain to allow receivers to partially discriminate against unwanted signals. Signals encoded with the specified PN sequence (code) are received, while signals with different codes (or the same code but a different timing offset) appear as wideband noise reduced by the process gain. Since each user generates MAI, controlling the signal strength is an important issue with CDMA transmitters. A CDM (Synchronous CDMA), TDMA or FDMA receiver can in

theory completely reject arbitrarily strong signals using different codes, time slots or frequency channels due to the orthogonality of these systems. This is not true for Asynchronous CDMA; rejection of unwanted signals is only partial. If any or all of the unwanted signals are much stronger than the desired signal, they will overwhelm it. This leads to a general requirement in any Asynchronous CDMA system to approximately match the various signal power levels as seen at the receiver. In CDMA cellular, the base station uses a fast closed-loop power control scheme to tightly control each mobile's transmit power. See Near-far problem for further information on this problem.

[edit] Advantages of Asynchronous CDMA over other techniques

Asynchronous CDMA's main advantage over CDM (Synchronous CDMA), TDMA and FDMA is that it can use the spectrum more efficiently in mobile telephony applications. (In theory, CDMA, TDMA and FDMA have exactly the same spectral efficiency but practically, each has its own challenges - power control in the case of CDMA, timing in the case of TDMA, and frequency generation/filtering in the case of FDMA.) TDMA systems must carefully synchronize the transmission times of all the users to ensure that they are received in the correct timeslot and do not cause interference. Since this cannot be perfectly controlled in a mobile environment, each timeslot must have a guard-time, which reduces the probability that users will interfere, but decreases the spectral efficiency. Similarly, FDMA systems must use a guard-band between adjacent channels, due to the random doppler shift of the signal spectrum which occurs due to the user's mobility. The guard-bands will reduce the probability that adjacent channels will interfere, but decrease the utilization of the spectrum. Most importantly, Asynchronous CDMA offers a key advantage in the flexible allocation of resources. There are a fixed number of orthogonal codes, timeslots or frequency bands that can be allocated for CDM, TDMA and FDMA systems, which remain underutilized due to the bursty nature of telephony and packetized data transmissions. There is no strict limit to the number of users that can be supported in an Asynchronous CDMA system, only a practical limit governed by the desired bit error probability, since the SIR (Signal to Interference Ratio) varies inversely with the number of users. In a bursty traffic environment like mobile telephony, the advantage afforded by Asynchronous CDMA is that the performance (bit error rate) is allowed to fluctuate randomly, with an average value determined by the number of users times the percentage of utilization. Suppose there are 2N users that only talk half of the time, then 2N users can be accommodated with the same average bit error probability as N users that talk all of the time. The key difference here is that the bit error probability for N users talking all of the time is constant, whereas it is a random quantity (with the same mean) for 2N users talking half of the time. In other words, Asynchronous CDMA is ideally suited to a mobile network where large numbers of transmitters each generate a relatively small amount of traffic at irregular intervals. CDM (Synchronous CDMA), TDMA and FDMA systems cannot recover the underutilized resources inherent to bursty traffic due to the fixed number of orthogonal codes, time slots or frequency channels that can be assigned to individual transmitters. For instance, if there are N time slots in a TDMA system and 2N users that talk half of the

time, then half of the time there will be more than N users needing to use more than N timeslots. Furthermore, it would require significant overhead to continually allocate and deallocate the orthogonal code, time-slot or frequency channel resources. By comparison, Asynchronous CDMA transmitters simply send when they have something to say, and go off the air when they don't, keeping the same PN signature sequence as long as they are connected to the system.

[edit] Spread Spectrum Characteristics of CDMA

Most modulation schemes try to minimize the bandwidth of this signal since bandwidth is a limited resource. However, spread spectrum techniques use a transmission bandwidth that is several orders of magnitude greater then the minimum required signal bandwidth. One of the initial reasons for doing this was military applications including guidance and communication systems. These systems were designed using spread spectrum because of its security and resistance to jamming. Asynchronous CDMA has some level of privacy built in because the signal is spread using a pseudorandom code; this code makes the spread spectrum signals appear random or have noise-like properties. A receiver cannot demodulate this transmission without knowledge of the pseudorandom sequence used to encode the data. CDMA is also resistant to jamming. A jamming signal only has a finite amount of power available to jam the signal. The jammer can either spread its energy over the entire bandwidth of the signal or jam only part of the entire signal. [3] CDMA can also effectively reject narrowband interference. Since narrowband interference effects only a small portion of the spread spectrum signal, it can easily be removed through notch filtering without much loss of information. Convolution encoding and interleaving can be used to assist in recovering this lost data. CDMA signals are also resistance to multipath fading. Since the spread spectrum signal occupies a large bandwidth only a small portion of this will undergo fading due to multipath at any given time. Like the narrowband interference this will result in only a small loss of data and can be overcome. Another reason CDMA is resistant to multipath interference is because the delayed versions of the transmitted pseudorandom codes will have poor correlation with the original pseudorandom code, and will thus appear as another user, which is ignored at the receiver. In other words, as long as the multipath channel induces at least one chip of delay, the multipath signals will arrive at the receiver such that they are shifted in time by at least one chip from the intended signal. The correlation properties of the pseudorandom codes are such that this slight delay causes the multipath to appear uncorrelated with they intended signal, and it is thus ignored. However, spread spectrum signals can also exploit the multipath delay components to improve the performance of the system by using a Rake receiver which anticipates multipath propagation delays of the transmitted spread spectrum signal and combines the information obtained from several resolvable multipath components to produce a stronger version of the signal. [4] Frequency reuse is the ability to reuse the same radio channel frequency at other cell sites within a cellular system. In the FDMA and TDMA systems frequency planning is an important consideration. The frequencies used in different cells need to be planned carefully in order to insure that the signals from different cells do not interfere with each

other. In a CDMA system the same frequency can be used in every cell because channelization is done using the pseudorandom codes. Reusing the same frequency in every cell eliminates the need for frequency planning in a CDMA system; however, planning of the different pseudorandom sequences must be done to ensure that the received signal from one cell does not correlate with the signal from a nearby cell. [5] Since adjacent cells use the same frequencies, CDMA systems have the ability to perform soft handoffs. Soft handoffs allow the mobile telephone to communicate simultaneously with two or more cells. The best signal quality is selected until the handoff is complete. This is different then hard handoffs utilized in other cellular systems. In a hard handoff situation, as the mobile telephone approaches a handoff, signal strength may vary abruptly. In contrast, CDMA systems use the soft handoff, which is undetectable and provides a more reliable and higher quality signal. [6]

[edit] See also

Radio-frequency identification
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2008)

An EPC RFID tag used by Wal-Mart.

Radio-frequency identification (RFID) is

an automatic identification method, relying on storing and remotely retrieving data using devices called RFID tags or transponders. An RFID tag is an object that can be applied to or incorporated into a product, animal, or person for the purpose of identification using radiowaves. Some tags can be read from several meters away and beyond the line of sight of the reader. Most RFID tags contain at least two parts. One is an integrated circuit for storing and processing information, modulating and demodulating a (RF) signal, and other specialized functions. The second is an antenna for receiving and transmitting the signal. A technology called chipless RFID allows for discrete identification of tags without an integrated circuit, thereby allowing tags to be printed directly onto assets at a lower cost than traditional tags. Today, a significant thrust in RFID use is in enterprise supply chain management, improving the efficiency of inventory tracking and management. However, a threat is looming that the current growth and adoption in enterprise supply chain market will not be sustainable without linking the indoor tracking to the overall end-to-end supply chain visibility. Analysts such as Venture Development Corporation and wireless guru, Andrew Seybold believe that a single platform linking RFID to outdoor GPS tracking and cellular systems is required for a complete solution. This coupled with fair cost-sharing mechanisms, rational motives and justified returns from RFID technology investments are the key ingredients to achieve long-term and sustainable RFID technology adoption [1].

Contents
[hide]

1 History of RFID tags 2 RFID tags o 2.1 Passive o 2.2 Active o 2.3 Semi-passive o 2.4 Extended capability o 2.5 Antenna types o 2.6 Tag attachment o 2.7 Tagging positions o 2.8 Tag environments 3 Current uses o 3.1 Passports o 3.2 Transportation payments o 3.3 Product tracking o 3.4 Lap scoring o 3.5 Animal identification

3.6 Inventory systems 3.6.1 RFID mandates 3.6.2 Promotion tracking o 3.7 Human implants o 3.8 Libraries o 3.9 Schools and universities o 3.10 Museums o 3.11 Social retailing o 3.12 Miscellaneous 4 Potential uses o 4.1 Replacing barcodes o 4.2 Telemetry o 4.3 Identification of patients and hospital staff o 4.4 Yoking 5 Regulation and standardization o 5.1 EPC Gen2 6 Problems and concerns o 6.1 Global standardization o 6.2 Security concerns o 6.3 Exploits o 6.4 Passports o 6.5 Protection against interception o 6.6 Shielding o 6.7 Cancer risk 7 Controversies o 7.1 Privacy o 7.2 Human implantation o 7.3 RFID implant as the mark of the beast 8 See also 9 References
o

10 External links

[edit] History of RFID tags

An RFID tag used for electronic toll collection. In 1946 Lon Theremin invented an espionage tool for the Soviet Union which retransmitted incident radio waves with audio information. Sound waves vibrated a diaphragm which slightly altered the shape of the resonator, which modulated the reflected radio frequency. Even though this device was a passive covert listening device, not an identification tag, it has been attributed as a predecessor to RFID technology. The technology used in RFID has been around since the early 1920s according to one source (although the same source states that RFID systems have been around just since the late 1960s).[2][3][4][5] Similar technology, such as the IFF transponder invented by the United Kingdom in 1939, was routinely used by the allies in World War II to identify aircraft as friend or foe. Transponders are still used by military and commercial aircraft to this day. Another early work exploring RFID is the landmark 1948 paper by Harry Stockman, titled "Communication by Means of Reflected Power" (Proceedings of the IRE, pp 11961204, October 1948). Stockman predicted that "considerable research and development work has to be done before the remaining basic problems in reflected-power communication are solved, and before the field of useful applications is explored." Mario Cardullo's U.S. Patent 3,713,148 in 1973 was the first true ancestor of modern RFID; a passive radio transponder with memory. The initial device was passive, powered by the interrogating signal, and was demonstrated in 1971 to the New York Port Authority and other potential users and consisted of a transponder with 16 bit memory for use as a toll device. The basic Cardullo patent covers the use of RF, sound and light as transmission media. The original business plan presented to investors in 1969 showed uses in transportation (automotive vehicle identification, automatic toll system, electronic license plate, electronic manifest, vehicle routing, vehicle performance monitoring), banking (electronic check book, electronic credit card), security (personnel identification, automatic gates, surveillance) and medical (identification, patient history). A very early demonstration of reflected power (modulated backscatter) RFID tags, both passive and semi-passive, was done by Steven Depp, Alfred Koelle and Robert Freyman at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in 1973[3]. The portable system operated at 915 MHz

and used 12 bit tags. This technique is used by the majority of today's UHF and microwave RFID tags. The first patent to be associated with the abbreviation RFID was granted to Charles Walton in 1983 U.S. Patent 4,384,288 .

[edit] RFID tags

RFID tags come in three general varieties:- passive, active, or semi-passive (also known as battery-assisted). Passive tags require no internal power source, thus being pure passive devices (they are only active when a reader is nearby to power them), whereas semipassive and active tags require a power source, usually a small battery.

RFID backscatter. To communicate, tags respond to queries generating signals that must not create interference with the readers, as arriving signals can be very weak and must be differentiated. Besides backscattering, load modulation techniques can be used to manipulate the reader's field. Typically, backscatter is used in the far field, whereas load modulation applies in the nearfield, within a few wavelengths from the reader.

[edit] Passive
Passive RFID tags have no internal power supply. The minute electrical current induced in the antenna by the incoming radio frequency signal provides just enough power for the CMOS integrated circuit in the tag to power up and transmit a response. Most passive tags signal by backscattering the carrier wave from the reader. This means that the antenna has to be designed both to collect power from the incoming signal and also to transmit the outbound backscatter signal. The response of a passive RFID tag is not necessarily just an ID number; the tag chip can contain non-volatile, possibly writable EEPROM for storing data.

Passive tags have practical read distances ranging from about 10 cm (4 in.) (ISO 14443) up to a few meters (Electronic Product Code (EPC) and ISO 18000-6), depending on the chosen radio frequency and antenna design/size. Due to their simplicity in design they are also suitable for manufacture with a printing process for the antennas. The lack of an onboard power supply means that the device can be quite small: commercially available products exist that can be embedded in a sticker, or under the skin in the case of low frequency RFID tags. In 2007, the Danish Company RFIDsec developed a passive RFID with privacy enhancing technologies built-in including built-in firewall access controls, communication encryption and a silent mode ensuring that the consumer at point of sales can get exclusive control of the key to control the RFID. The RFID will not respond unless the consumer authorizes it, the consumer can validate presence of a specific RFID without leaking identifiers and therefore the consumer can make use of the RFID without being trackable or otherwise leak information that represents a threat to consumer privacy. In 2006, Hitachi, Ltd. developed a passive device called the -Chip measuring 0.150.15 mm (not including the antenna), and thinner than a sheet of paper (7.5 micrometers).[6][7] Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) technology is used to achieve this level of integration. The Hitachi -Chip can wirelessly transmit a 128-bit unique ID number which is hard coded into the chip as part of the manufacturing process. The unique ID in the chip cannot be altered, providing a high level of authenticity to the chip and ultimately to the items the chip may be permanently attached or embedded into. The Hitachi -Chip has a typical maximum read range of 30 cm (1 foot). In February 2007 Hitachi unveiled an even smaller RFID device measuring 0.050.05 mm, and thin enough to be embedded in a sheet of paper.[8] The new chips can store as much data as the older -chips, and the data contained on them can be extracted from as far away as a few hundred metres. The ongoing problems with all RFIDs is that they need an external antenna which is 80 times bigger than the chip in the best version thus far developed. Further, the present costs of manufacturing the inlays for tags has inhibited broader adoption. As silicon prices are reduced and new more economic methods for manufacturing inlays and tags are perfected in the industry, broader adoption and item level tagging along with economies of scale production scenarios; it is expected to make RFID both innocuous and commonplace much like Barcodes are presently. Alien Technology's Fluidic Self Assembly and HiSam machines, Smartcode's Flexible Area Synchronized Transfer (FAST) and Symbol Technologies' PICA process are alleged to potentially further reduce tag costs by massively parallel production[citation needed]. Alien Technology and SmartCode are currently using the processes to manufacture tags while Symbol Technologies' PICA process is still in the development phase. Symbol was acquired by Motorola in 2006. Motorola however has since made agreements with Avery Dennison for supply of tags, meaning their own Tag production and PICA process may have been abandoned.[9] Alternative methods of production such as FAST, FSA, HiSam and possibly PICA could potentially reduce tag costs dramatically, and due to volume capacities achievable, in turn be able to also drive the economies of scale models for various Silicon fabricators as well. Some passive RFID vendors believe that Industry

benchmarks for tag costs can be achieved eventually as new low cost volume production systems are implemented more broadly. (For example, see [4]) Non-silicon tags made from polymer semiconductors are currently being developed by several companies globally. Simple laboratory printed polymer tags operating at 13.56 MHz were demonstrated in 2005 by both PolyIC (Germany) and Philips (The Netherlands). If successfully commercialized, polymer tags will be roll-printable, like a magazine, and much less expensive than silicon-based tags. The end game for most item-level tagging over the next few decades may be that RFID tags will be wholly printed the same way a barcode is today and be virtually free, like a barcode. However, substantial technical and economic hurdles must be surmounted to accomplish such an end: hundreds of billions of dollars have been invested over the last three decades in silicon processing, resulting in a per-feature cost which is actually less than that of conventional printing.

[edit] Active
Unlike passive RFID tags, active RFID tags have their own internal power source, which is used to power the integrated circuits and to broadcast the response signal to the reader. Communications from active tags to readers is typically much more reliable (i.e. fewer errors) than from passive tags due to the ability for active tags to conduct a "session" with a reader. Active tags, due to their on board power supply, also may transmit at higher power levels than passive tags, allowing them to be more robust in "RF challenged" environment with humidity and spray or with dampening targets (including humans/cattle, which contain mostly water), reflective targets from metal (shipping containers, vehicles), or at longer distances: Generating strong responses from weak reception is a sound approach to success. In turn, active tags are generally bigger, caused by battery volume, and more expensive to manufacture, caused by battery price. However, their potential shelf life is comparable, as self discharge of batteries competes with corrosion of aluminated printed circuits. Many active tags today have operational ranges of hundreds of meters, and a battery life of up to 10 years. Active tags may include larger memories than passive tags, and may include the ability to store additional information received from the reader. Special active RFID tags may include sensors for Temperature. Temperature logging is used to monitor the temperature profile during transportation and storage of perishable goods as fresh produce or certain pharmaceutical products. Other sensor types are combined with active RFID tags, including humidity, shock/vibration, light, radiation, temperature, pressure and concentrations of gases like ethylene. The United States Department of Defense (DoD) has successfully used active tags to reduce search and loss in logistics and improve supply chain visibility for more than 15 years (concept of in-transit-visibility ITV, [5]).

[edit] Semi-passive
Semi-passive tags, also called semi-active tags, are similar to active tags in that they have their own power source, but the battery only powers the microchip and does not power the broadcasting of a signal. The response is usually powered by means of backscattering the RF energy from the reader , where energy is reflected back to the reader as with passive tags. An additional application for the battery is to power data storage. If energy from the reader is collected and stored to emit a response in the future, the tag is operating active Whereas in passive tags the power level to power up the circuitry must be 100 times stronger than with active or semi-active tags, also the time consumption for collecting the energy is omitted and the response comes with shorter latency time. The battery-assisted reception circuitry of semi-passive tags leads to greater sensitivity than passive tags, typically 100 times more. The enhanced sensitivity can be leveraged as increased range (by one magnitude) and/or as enhanced read reliability (by reducing bit error rate at least one magnitude). The enhanced sensitivity of semi-passive tags place higher demands on the reader concerning separation in more dense population of tags. Because an already weak signal is backscattered to the reader from a larger number of tags and from longer distances, the separation requires more sophisticated anti-collision concepts, better signal processing and some more intelligent assessment which tag might be where. For passive tags, the readerto-tag link usually fails first. For semi-passive tags, the reverse (tag-to-reader) link usually collides first. Semi-passive tags have three main advantages 1) Greater sensitivity than passive tags 2) Longer battery powered life cycle than active tags. 3) Can perform active functions (such as temperature logging) under its own power, even when no reader is present for powering the circuitry.

[edit] Extended capability

Extended capability RFID defines a category of RFID that goes beyond the basic capabilities of standard RFID as merely a license plate or bar-code replacement technology. Key attributes of extended capability RFID include, but are not limited to, the ability to read at longer distances and around challenging environments, to store large amounts of data on the tag, to integrate with sensors, and to communicate with external devices. Examples of extended capability RFID tag technologies include EPC C1G2 with extended memory (e.g. 64Kb), battery-assisted passive, and active RFID. Battery-assisted passive, also known as semi-passive or semi-active, has the ability to extend the read range of standard passive technologies to well over 50 meters, to read around challenging materials such as metal, to withstand outdoor environments, to store an on-tag database, to be able to

capture sensor data, and to act as a communications mechanism for external devices. Also, battery-assisted passive only transmits a signal when interrogated, thus extending battery life. Active RFID, which can have some of the features of battery-assisted passive, is commonly used for even longer distances and real-time locationing. It also actively transmits a signal, which often results in shorter battery life. Common applications of extended capability RFID include Yard Management, Parts Maintenance and Repair Operations, Cold-Chain Management, Reusable Transport Items tracking, High Value/High Security Asset tracking, and other applications where extended capabilities are needed.

[edit] Antenna types

The antenna used for an RFID tag is affected by the intended application and the frequency of operation. Low-frequency (LF) passive tags are normally inductively coupled, and because the voltage induced is proportional to frequency, many coil turns are needed to produce enough voltage to operate an integrated circuit. Compact LF tags, like glassencapsulated tags used in animal and human identification, use a multilayer coil (3 layers of 100150 turns each) wrapped around a ferrite core. At 13.56 MHz (High frequency or HF), a planar spiral with 57 turns over a credit-cardsized form factor can be used to provide ranges of tens of centimeters. These coils are less costly to produce than LF coils, since they can be made using lithographic techniques rather than by wire winding, but two metal layers and an insulator layer are needed to allow for the crossover connection from the outermost layer to the inside of the spiral where the integrated circuit and resonance capacitor are located. Ultra-high frequency (UHF) and microwave passive tags are usually radiatively-coupled to the reader antenna and can employ conventional dipole-like antennas. Only one metal layer is required, reducing cost of manufacturing. Dipole antennas, however, are a poor match to the high and slightly capacitive input impedance of a typical integrated circuit. Folded dipoles, or short loops acting as inductive matching structures, are often employed to improve power delivery to the IC. Half-wave dipoles (16 cm at 900 MHz) are too big for many applications; for example, tags embedded in labels must be less than 100 mm (4 inches) in extent. To reduce the length of the antenna, antennas can be bent or meandered, and capacitive tip-loading or bowtie-like broadband structures are also used. Compact antennas usually have gain less than that of a dipole that is, less than 2 dBi and can be regarded as isotropic in the plane perpendicular to their axis. Dipoles couple to radiation polarized along their axes, so the visibility of a tag with a simple dipole-like antenna is orientation-dependent. Tags with two orthogonal or nearlyorthogonal antennas, often known as dual-dipole tags, are much less dependent on orientation and polarization of the reader antenna, but are larger and more expensive than single-dipole tags.

Patch antennas are used to provide service in close proximity to metal surfaces, but a structure with good bandwidth is 36 mm thick, and the need to provide a ground layer and ground connection increases cost relative to simpler single-layer structures. HF and UHF tag antennas are usually fabricated from copper or aluminum. Conductive inks have seen some use in tag antennas but have encountered problems with IC adhesion and environmental stability.

[edit] Tag attachment

There are three different kinds of RFID tags based on their attachment with identified objects, i.e. attachable, implantable and insertion tags [10]. In addition to these conventional RFID tags, Eastman Kodak Company has filed two patent applications for monitoring ingestion of medicine based on a digestible RFID tag[11].

[edit] Tagging positions

RFID tagging positions can influence the performance of air interface UHF RFID passive tags and related to the position where RFID tags are embedded, attached, injected or digested. In many cases, optimum power from RFID reader is not required to operate passive tags. However, in cases where the Effective Radiated Power (ERP) level and distance between reader and tags are fixed, such as in manufacturing setting, it is important to know the location in a tagged object where a passive tag can operate optimally. R-Spot or Resonance Spot, L-Spot or Live Spot and D-Spot or Dead Spot are defined to specify the location of RFID tags in a tagged object, where the tags can still receive power from a reader within specified ERP level and distance [12].

[edit] Tag environments

The proposed ubiquity of RFID tags means that readers may need to select which tags to read among many potential candidates, or may wish to probe surrounding devices to perform inventory checks or, in case the tags are associated to sensors and capable of keeping their values, question them for environmental conditions. If a reader intends to work with a collection of tags, it needs to either discover all devices within an area to iterate over them afterwards, or use collision avoidance protocols.

Finding tags in a search environment. To read tag data, readers use a tree-walking singulation algorithm, resolving possible collisions and processing responses one by one. Blocker tags may be used to prevent readers from accessing tags within an area without killing surrounding tags by means of suicide commands. These tags masquerade as valid tags but have some special properties: in particular, they may possess any identification code, and may deterministically respond to all reader queries, thus rendering them useless and securing the environment. Besides this, tags may be promiscuous, attending all requests alike, or secure, which requires authentication and control of typical password management and secure key distribution issues. A tag may as well be prepared to be activated or deactivated in response to specific reader commands. Readers that are in charge of the tags of an area may operate in autonomous mode (as opposed to interactive mode). When in this mode, a reader periodically locates all tags in its operating range, and keeps a presence list with a persist time and some control information. When an entry expires, it is removed from the list. Frequently, a distributed application requires both types of tags: passive tags are incapable of continuous monitoring and perform tasks on demand when accessed by readers. They are useful when activities are regular and well defined, and requirements for data storage and security are limited; when accesses are frequent, continuous or unpredictable, there are time constraints to meet or data processing (internal searches, for instance) to perform, active tags may be preferred.

[edit] Current uses

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RFID is becoming increasingly prevalent as the price of the technology decreases. In January 2003 Gillette announced in that it ordered 500 million tags from Alien Technology. Gillette VP Dick Cantwell says the company paid "well under ten cents" for each tag.[13]

[edit] Passports
RFID tags are being used in passports issued by many countries. The first RFID passports ("E-passport") were issued by Malaysia in 1998. In addition to information also contained on the visual data page of the passport, Malaysian e-passports record the travel history (time, date, and place) of entries and exits from the country. Standards for RFID passports are determined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), and are contained in ICAO Document 9303, Part 1, Volumes 1 and 2 (6th edition, 2006). ICAO refers to the ISO 14443 RFID chips in e-passports as

"contactless integrated circuits". ICAO standards provide for e-passports to be identifiable by a standard e-passport logo on the front cover. In 2006, RFID tags were included in new US passports. The US produced 10 million passports in 2005, and it has been estimated that 13 million will be produced in 2006. The chips will store the same information that is printed within the passport and will also include a digital picture of the owner. The US State Department initially stated the chips could only be read from a distance of 10 cm (4 in), but after widespread criticism and a clear demonstration that special equipment can read the test passports from 10 meters (33 feet) away, the passports were designed to incorporate a thin metal lining to make it more difficult for unauthorized readers to "skim" information when the passport is closed. The department will also implement Basic Access Control (BAC), which functions as a Personal Identification Number (PIN) in the form of characters printed on the passport data page. Before a passport's tag can be read, this PIN must be entered into an RFID reader. The BAC also enables the encryption of any communication between the chip and interrogator [14]. Despite this precaution, the Center for Democracy and Technology has issued warnings that significant security weaknesses that could be used to track U.S. travelers are apparent in the specifications of the card design as outlined by the U.S. Department of State.[15] Other nations introducing RFID-chipped passports include Ireland (2006), Japan (March 1, 2006), Pakistan, Norway (November 2005)[16], Malaysia (early 2000), New Zealand (November 4, 2005), Belgium, The Netherlands (2005), Germany, and The United Kingdom. Many European Union countries are also planning to add fingerprints and other biometric data, while some have already done so. Security expert Bruce Schneier has suggested that a mugger operating near an airport could target victims who have arrived from wealthy countries, or a terrorist could design an improvised explosive device which functioned when approached by persons from a particular country.

[edit] Transportation payments

RFID in a form of a sticker with bar code on the opposite side.

An Electronic Road Pricing gantry in Singapore. Gantries such as these collect tolls in high-traffic areas from active RFID units in vehicles.

PayPass RFID chip removed from a MasterCard.Throughout Europe, and in particular in Paris (system started in 1995 by the RATP), Lyon, Bordeaux and Marseille in France, Porto and Lisbon in Portugal, Milan, Turin, and Florence in Italy, and Brussels in Belgium, RFID passes conforming to the Calypso (RFID) international standard are used for public transport systems. They are also used now in Canada (Montreal), Mexico, Israel, Bogot and Pereira in Colombia, Stavanger in Norway, etc. T-money cards can be used to pay for public transit in Seoul and surrounding cities. Some other South Korean cities have adopted the system, which can also be used in some stores as cash. T-money replaced Upass, first introduced for transport payments in 1996 using MIFARE technology.JR East in Japan introduced SUICa (Super Urban Intelligent Card) for transport payment service in its railway transportation service in November 2001, using Sony's FeliCa (Felicity Card) technology. The same Sony technology was used in Hong Kong's Octopus card, and Singapore's EZ-Link card.In Hong Kong, mass transit is paid for almost exclusively through the use of an RFID technology, called the Octopus Card. Originally it was launched in September 1997 exclusively for transit fare collection, but has grown to be similar to a cash card, and can still be used in vending machines, fast-food restaurants and supermarkets. The card can be recharged with cash at add-value machines or in shops, and can be read several centimetres from the reader. The same applies for Delhi Metro, the rapid transit system in New Delhi, capital city of India. In Singapore, public transportation buses and trains employ passive RFID cards known as EZ-Link cards. Traffic into crowded downtown areas is regulated by variable tolls imposed using an active tagging system combined with the use of stored-value cards (known as CashCards). RFID is used in Malaysia Expressways payment system. The name for the system is Touch 'n Go. Due to the name and design, one must touch the card for usage. The Washington, D.C. Metrorail became the first U.S. urban mass-transit system to use RFID technology when it introduced the SmarTrip card in 1999.In Turkey, RFID has been used in the motorways and bridges as a payment system over ten years. Also the new electronic bus tickets in Istanbul The Chicago Transit Authority has offered the Chicago Card and the Chicago Card Plus for rail payments across the entire system since 2002 and for bus payments since 2005. The New York City Subway is conducting a trial during 2006, utilizing PayPass by MasterCard as fare payment. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority introduced the use of a CharlieCard RFID as a fare payment system which is cheaper than its paper or cash equivalent. Six transit agencies in the King County region of Washington State are

collaborating to introduce the Smart Card, or Orca Card. The Moscow Metro, the world's second busiest, was the first system in Europe to introduce RFID smartcards in 1998. In the UK, op systems for prepaying for unlimited public transport have been devised, making use of RFID technology. The design is embedded in a creditcard-like pass, that when scanned reveals details of whether the pass is valid, and for how long the pass will remain valid. The first company to implement this is the NCT company of Nottingham City, where the general public affectionately refer to them as "beep cards". It has since then been implemented with great success in London, where "Oyster cards" allow for pay-as-you-go travel as well as passes valid for various lengths of time and in various areas. In Oslo, Norway, the upcoming public transport payment is to be entirely RFID-based. The system is to be put into production around spring 2007 In Norway, all public toll roads are equipped with an RFID payment system known as AutoPass.Since 2002, in Taipei, Taiwan the transportation system uses RFID operated cards as fare collection. The Easy Card is charged at local convenience stores and metro stations, and can be used in Metro, buses and parking lots. The uses are planned to extend all throughout the island of Taiwan in the future. RFID tags are used for electronic toll collection at toll booths with Georgia's Cruise Card, California's FasTrak, Colorado's E-470, Illinois' I-Pass, Oklahoma's Pikepass, the expanding eastern states' E-ZPass system (including Massachusetts's Fast Lane,Delaware, New Hampshire Turnpike, Maryland, New Jersey Turnpike, West Virginia Turnpike, New York's Thruway system, Virginia, and the Maine Turnpike), Florida's SunPass, Various systems in Texas including D/FW's NTTA TollTag, the Austin metro TxTag and Houston HCTRA EZ Tag (which as of early 2007 are all valid on any Texas toll road), Kansas's KTag, The "Cross-Israel Highway" (Highway 6), Philippines South Luzon Expressway EPass, Brisbane's Queensland Motorway E-Toll System in Australia, Autopista del Sol (Sun's Highway), Autopista Central (Central Highway), Autopista Los Libertadores, Costanera Norte, Vespucio Norte Express and Vespucio Sur urban Highways and every forthcoming urban highway (in a "Free Flow" modality) concessioned to private investors in Chile, all toll tunnels in Hong Kong (Autotoll) and all highways in Portugal (Via Verde, the first system in the world to span the entire network of tolls), France (Liber-T system), Italy (Telepass), Spain (VIA-T), Brazil (Sem Parar - Via Fcil). The tags, which are usually the active type, are read remotely as vehicles pass through the booths, and tag information is used to debit the toll from a prepaid account. The system helps to speed traffic through toll plazas as it records the date, time, and billing data for the RFID vehicle tag. The plazaand queue-free 407 Express Toll Route, in the Greater Toronto Area, allows the use of a transponder (an active tag) for all billing. This eliminates the need to identify a vehicle by licence plate.[citation needed] The Transperth public transport network in Perth, Western Australia uses RFID technology in the new SmartRider ticketing system. In Atlanta, MARTA (Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority) has transitioned its bus and rail lines from coin tokens to the new Breeze Card system which uses RFID tags embedded in disposable paper tickets. More permanent plastic cards are available for frequent users.In Rio de Janeiro, "RioCard" passes can be used in buses, ferries, trains and subway. There are two types, one you cannot recharge, the other one can be recharged if it's been bought by the company you work for, if they provided it (only in Brazil). A number of ski resorts, particularly in the French Alps and in the Spanish and French Pyrenees, have adopted RFID tags to provide skiers hands-free access to ski lifts. Skiers don't have to take their passes out of their pockets. In Santiago (Chile) the subway system Metro and the recently

implemented public transportation system Transantiago uses an RFID card called Bip or Multivia. In Medelln (Colombia) the system Metro and the recently implemented card system uses an RFID card called Cvica. In Colombia, "Federacin Nacional de Cafeteros" uses an RFID solution to trace the coffee. In Dubai, (United Arab Emirates) drivers through Sheikh Zayed Road and Garhoud Bridge pay toll tax using RFID tags called Salik (Road Toll). In Milano (Italy), the ATM "Azienda Trasporti Milanese" has implemented RFID tags for frequent users. In Barcelona, its used to identify users in a bike sharing system called Bicing to prevent bicycle theft and detect the periode of bicycle usage. In Mumbai, the busiest suburban rail transport in the world, which transports 3.5 million commuters per day, has also implemented the use of RFID ticket cards for the use in automatic ticket vending machines for hassle free and no need to stand in long queues.[citation needed] In the Netherlands the new OV-chipkaart system will eventually replace current bus, tram, metro and train payment systems, allowing for both more accurate fares, access control to (train)stations and more accurate determination of government fees to the various public transportation companies.[citation needed]

[edit] Product tracking The Canadian Cattle Identification Agency began using RFID tags as a replacement for barcode tags. The tags are required to identify a bovine's herd of origin and this is used for tracing when a packing plant condemns a carcass. Currently CCIA tags are used in Wisconsin and by US farmers on a voluntary basis. The USDA

is currently developing its own program.

RFID tags used in libraries: square book tag, round CD/DVD tag and rectangular VHS tag.High-frequency RFID tags are used in library book or bookstore tracking, jewelry tracking, pallet tracking, building access control, airline baggage tracking, and apparel and pharmaceutical items tracking. High-frequency tags are widely used in identification badges, replacing earlier magnetic stripe cards. These badges need only be held within a certain distance of the reader to authenticate the holder. The American Express Blue credit card now includes a high-frequency RFID tag. In Feb 2008, Emirates airline started a trial of RFID baggage tracing at London and Dubai airports. [17] BGN has launched two fully automated Smartstores that combine item-level RFID tagging and SOA to deliver an integrated supply chain, from warehouse to consumer. UHF RFID tags are commonly used commercially in case, pallet, and shipping container tracking, and truck and trailer tracking

in shipping yards. In May 2007, Bear River Supply began utilizing UHF RFID tags to help monitor their agricultural equipment. [18] [edit] Lap scoring Passive and active RFID systems are used in off road events such as Enduro and Hare and Hounds racing, the riders have a transponder on their person, normally on their arm. When they complete a lap they swipe or touch the receiver which is connected to a computer and log their lap time. The Casimo Group Ltd make a system which does this.

[edit] Animal identification

implantable RFID tags or transponders can be used for animal identification. The transponders are more well-known as passive RFID technology, or simply "Chips" on animals.[19]

[edit] Inventory systems

An advanced automatic identification technology such as the Auto-ID system based on the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology has significant value for inventory systems. Notably, the technology provides an accurate knowledge of the current inventory. In an academic study[20] performed at Wal-Mart, RFID reduced Out-of-Stocks by 30 percent for products selling between 0.1 and 15 units a day. Other benefits of using RFID include the reduction of labor costs, the simplification of business processes, and the reduction of inventory inaccuracies. In 2004, Boeing integrated the use of RFID technology to help reduce maintenance and inventory costs on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. With the high costs of aircraft parts, RFID technology allowed Boeing to keep track of inventory despite the unique sizes, shapes and environmental concerns. During the first six months after integration, the company was able to save $29,000 in just labor.[21]

[edit] RFID mandates

Wal-Mart and the United States Department of Defense have published requirements that their vendors place RFID tags on all shipments to improve supply chain management. Due to the size of these two organizations, their RFID mandates impact thousands of companies worldwide. The deadlines have been extended several times because many vendors face significant difficulties implementing RFID systems. In practice, the successful read rates currently run only 80%, due to radio wave attenuation caused by the products and packaging. In time it is expected that even small companies will be able to place RFID tags on their outbound shipments. Since January, 2005, Wal-Mart has required its top 100 suppliers to apply RFID labels to all shipments. To meet this requirement, vendors use RFID printer/encoders to label cases and pallets that require EPC tags for Wal-Mart. These smart labels are produced by embedding RFID inlays inside the label material, and then printing bar code and other visible information on the surface of the label.

Another Wal-Mart division, Sam's Club, has also moved in this direction. It sent letters dated Jan. 7, 2008, to all of its suppliers, stating that by Jan. 31, 2008, every full singleitem pallet shipped to its distribution center in DeSoto, Texas, or directly to one of its stores served by that DC, must bear an EPC Gen 2 RFID tag. Suppliers failing to comply will be charged a service fee. [22]

[edit] Promotion tracking

Manufacturers of products sold through retailers promote their products by offering discounts for a limited period on products sold to retailers with the expectation that the retailers will pass on the savings to their customers. However, retailers typically engage in forward buying, purchasing more product during the discount period than they intend to sell during the promotion period. Some retailers engage in a form of arbitrage, reselling discounted product to other retailers, a practice known as diverting. To combat this practice, manufacturers are exploring the use of RFID tags on promoted merchandise so that they can track exactly which product has sold through the supply chain at fully discounted prices.[23]

[edit] Human implants

Hand with the planned location of the RFID chip.

Just after the operation to insert the RFID tag was completed. Implantable RFID chips designed for animal tagging are now being used in humans. An early experiment with RFID implants was conducted by British professor of cybernetics Kevin Warwick, who implanted a chip in his arm in 1998. Night clubs in Barcelona, Spain and in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, use an implantable chip to identify their VIP customers, who in turn use it to pay for drinks.[24] In 2004, the Mexican Attorney General's office implanted 18 of its staff members with the Verichip to control access to a secure data room. (This number has been variously misreported as 160 or 180 staff members.[25] [26])

Security experts have warned against using RFID for authenticating people due to the risk of identity theft. For instance a man-in-the-middle attack would make it possible for an attacker to steal the identity of a person in real-time. Due to the resource-constraints of RFIDs it is virtually impossible to protect against such attack models as this would require complex distance-binding protocols. [27][28][29][30]

[edit] Libraries
Among the many uses of RFID technologies is its deployment in libraries. This technology has slowly begun to replace the traditional barcodes on library items (books, CDs, DVDs, etc.). However, the RFID tag can contain identifying information, such as a books title or material type, without having to be pointed to a separate database (but this is rare in North America). The information is read by an RFID reader, which replaces the standard barcode reader commonly found at a librarys circulation desk. The RFID tag found on library materials typically measures 50 mm X 50 mm in North America and 50 mm x 75 mm in Europe, and can also act as a security device, taking the place of the more traditional electromagnetic security strip.[31] While there is some debate as to when and where RFID in libraries first began, it was first proposed in the late 1990s as a technology that would enhance workflow in the library setting. Rockefeller University in New York may have been the first academic library in the United States to utilize this technology, whereas Farmington Community Library may have been the first public institution, both of which began using RFID in 1999. Worldwide, the United States utilizes RFID in libraries more than any other nation, followed by the United Kingdom and Japan. It is estimated that over 30 million library items worldwide now contain RFID tags, including some in the Vatican Library in Rome.[32] RFID has many applications in libraries that can be highly beneficial, particularly for circulation staff. Since RFID tags can be read through an item, there is no need to open a book cover or DVD case to scan an item. This would help alleviate injuries such as repetitive strain injury that can occur over many years. Since RFID tags can also be read while an item is in motion, using RFID readers to check-in returned items while on a conveyor belt reduces staff time. Furthermore, inventories could be done on a whole shelf of materials within seconds, without a book ever having to be taken off the shelf.[33]. In Ume, Sweden, it is being used to assist visually impaired people in borrowing audiobooks[34]. In Malaysia, Smart Shelves are used to pinpoint the exact location of books in Multimedia University Library, Cyberjaya[35]. However, this technology remains cost prohibitive for many smaller libraries, and the conversion time has been estimated at 11 months for an average size library. With RFID taking a large burden off staff, it has also been shown to produce a threat to staff that their job duties have been replaced by technology,[32] but the threat is not realized in North America where recent surveys have not returned a single library that cut staff because of adding RFID. In fact, library budgets are being reduced for personnel and increased for infrastructure, making it necessary for libraries to add automation to compensate for the reduced staff size.

A concern surrounding RFID in libraries that has received considerable publicity is the issue of privacy. Because RFID tags can in theory be scanned and read from over 350 feet in distance, and because RFID utilizes an assortment of frequencies, there is a legitimate concern over whether sensitive information could be collected from an unwilling source. However, advocates of RFIDs use in libraries will point out that library RFID tags do not contain any patron information,[36] and that the tags used in the majority of libraries use a frequency only readable from approximately ten feet.[31] There is much yet to be written and discussed on the issue of privacy and RFID, but it is clear that vendors need to be aware of this issue and develop improved technologies for secure RFID transactions.

[edit] Schools and universities

School authorities in the Japanese city of Osaka are now chipping children's clothing, back packs, and student IDs in a primary school.[37] A school in Doncaster, England is piloting a monitoring system designed to keep tabs on pupils by tracking radio chips in their uniforms.[38]

[edit] Museums
RFID technologies are now also implemented in end-user applications in museums. An example is the custom-designed application eXsport at the Exploratorium, a science museum in San Francisco. When the visitor enters the museum he receives an RF Tag that can be carried on a card or necklace. The eXspot system enables the visitor to receive information about the exhibit and take photos they can collect later at the giftshop. Later on they can visit their personal Web page on which specific information such as visit dates, the visited exhibits and the taken photographs can be viewed.[39]

[edit] Social retailing

When you walk into a dressing room, the mirror reflects your image, but you also see images of the apparel item and celebrities wearing it on an interactive display. A webcam also projects an image of the consumer wearing the item on the website for everyone to see. This creates an interaction between the consumers inside the store and their social network outside the store. The technology behind this system is an RFID interrogator antenna in the dressing room and Electronic Product Code RFID tags on the apparel item[40].

[edit] Miscellaneous
In November 2007, French company [Violet]http://www.violet.net/index_us.html/ starts selling its RFID-enabled Nabaztag with children's books (from publisher Gallimard Jeunesse) that included RFID tags inside the front cover. When the book is passed in front of the Nabaztag, it downloads the audio book on the Internet and reads the book out loud. Some hospitals use Active RFID tags to perform Asset Tracking in Real Time.In 2006, the Smart Conveyer Tunnel, designed by Blue Vector, was introduced. This allowed the pharmaceutical industry to track both UHF and HF tags. Rite Aid utilized the technology with some of McKesson's products.[42] The NEXUS and SENTRI frequent traveler programs use RFID to speed up landborder processing between the U.S. and Canada and

Mexico. [43] NADRA has developed an RFID-based driver license that bears the license holders personal information and stores data regarding traffic violations, tickets issued, and outstanding penalties. The license cards are designed so that driving rights can be revoked electronically in case of serious violations.[44]Sensors such as seismic sensors may be read using RFID transceivers, greatly simplifying remote data collection. In August 2004, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC) approved a $415,000 contract to evaluate the personnel tracking technology of Alanco Technologies. Inmates will wear wristwatch-sized transmitters that can detect attempted removal and alert prison computers. This project is not the first rollout of tracking chips in US prisons. Facilities in Michigan, California and Illinois already employ the technology. Transponder timing at mass sports events. Used as storage for a video game system produced by Mattel, "HyperScan".RFIQin, designed by Vita Craft, is an automatic cooking device that has three different sized pans, a portable induction heater, and recipe cards. Each pan is embedded with an RFID tag that monitors the food 16 times per second while an MI tag in the handle of the pans transmits signals to the induction heater to adjust the temperature. Slippery Rock University is using RFID tags in their students' ID cards beginning in the fall 2007 semester. 25 real world application case studies can be found in a 61 page free Ebook RFID Technology Applications RFID tags are now being embedded into playing cards that are used for televisied poker tournamnets, so commentators know exactly what cards has been dealt to whom, as soon as the deal is complete. The Iraqi army uses an RFID security card that contains a biometric picture of the soldier. The picture in the chip must match the picture on the card to prevent forgery.[45Theme parks (such as Alton Towers in the United Kingdom) have been known to use RFID to help them identify users of a ride in order to make a DVD of their time at the park. This is then available for the user to buy at the end of the day. This is voluntary by the user by wearing a wristband given to them at the park. Access control - many places which employ traditional swipe cards for access control are slowly shifting towards RFID contactless based solutions in their cards. Meetings and conventions have also implemented RFID technology into attendee badges allowing the ability to track people at conferences. This provides data that can display what rooms people have enter and exited during the day. This data is available to show organizers to help them improve the content and design of the conference. RFID is also being used to improve the lead retrieval process for exhibitors at exhibitions. RFID transponder chips have been implanted in golf balls for the purposes of ball tracking. The uses of such tracking range from being able to search for a lost ball using a homing device, to a computerized driving range format that tracks shots made by a player and gives feedback on distance and accuracy. In 2007 artist couple artcoon starts their world project Kansa. Sirpa Masalins human like wooden sculptures carry an RFID inside. Hans-Ulrich GollerMasalin created a New Media Art work which traces the individual sculptures of Kansa in the internet. Owners are asked to register the city where their sculpture is located. By comparing the RFIDs unique number referenced at artcoon the owner can identify his sculpture as the original one. Some casinos are embedding RFID tags into their chips. This allows the casinos to track the locations of chips on the casino floor, identify counterfeit chips, and prevent theft. In addition, casinos can use RFID systems to study the betting behavior of players.

[edit] Potential uses

[edit] Replacing barcodes

RFID tags are often a replacement for UPC or EAN barcodes, having a number of important advantages over the older barcode technology. They may not ever completely replace barcodes, due in part to their higher cost and in other part to the advantage of more than one independent data source on the same object. The new EPC, along with several other schemes, is widely available at reasonable cost. The storage of data associated with tracking items will require many terabytes on all levels. Filtering and categorizing RFID data is needed in order to create useful information. It is likely that goods will be tracked preferably by the pallet using RFID tags, and at package level with Universal Product Code (UPC) or EAN from unique barcodes. The unique identity in any case is a mandatory requirement for RFID tags, despite special choice of the numbering scheme. RFID tag data capacity is big enough that any tag will have a unique code, while current bar codes are limited to a single type code for all instances of a particular product. The uniqueness of RFID tags means that a product may be individually tracked as it moves from location to location, finally ending up in the consumer's hands. This may help companies to combat theft and other forms of product loss. Moreover, the tracing back of products is an important feature that gets well supported with RFID tags containing not just a unique identity of the tag but also the serial number of the object. This may help companies to cope with quality deficiencies and resulting recall campaigns, but also contributes to concern over post-sale tracking and profiling of consumers. It has also been proposed to use RFID for POS store checkout to replace the cashier with an automatic system which needs no barcode scanning. However, this is not likely to be possible without a significant reduction in the cost of current tags and changes in the operational process around POS. There is some research taking place, however, this is some years from reaching fruition. An FDA nominated task force came to the conclusion after studying the various technologies currently commercially available, which could meet the pedigree requirements. Amongst all technologies studied including bar coding, RFID seemed to be the most promising and the committee felt that the pedigree requirement could be met by easily leveraging something that is readily available. (More details see RFID-FDARegulations)

[edit] Telemetry
Active RFID tags also have the potential to function as low-cost remote sensors that broadcast telemetry back to a base station. Applications of tagometry[citation needed] data could include sensing of road conditions by implanted beacons, weather reports, and noise level monitoring. CAZ

It is possible that active or semi-passive RFID tags used with or in place of barcodes could broadcast a signal to an in-store receiver to determine whether the RFID tag (product) is in the store.

[edit] Identification of patients and hospital staff

In July 2004, the Food and Drug Administration issued a ruling that essentially begins a final review process that will determine whether hospitals can use RFID systems to identify patients and/or permit relevant hospital staff to access medical records. Since then, a number of U.S. hospitals have begun implanting patients with RFID tags and using RFID systems, more generally, for workflow and inventory management.[46] There is some evidence, as well, that nurses and other hospital staff may be subjected to increased surveillance of their activities or to labor intensification as a result of the implementation of RFID systems in hospitals.[47] The use of RFID to prevent mixups between sperm and ova in IVF clinics is also being considered [6]. In October 2004, the FDA approved USA's first RFID chips that can be implanted in humans. The 134 kHz RFID chips, from VeriChip Corp., a subsidiary of Digital Angel, Inc., can incorporate personal medical information and could save lives and limit injuries from errors in medical treatments, according to the company. The FDA approval was disclosed during a conference call with investors. Shortly after the approval, authors and anti-RFID activists Katherine Albrecht and Liz McIntyre discovered a warning letter from the FDA that spelled out serious health risks associated with the VeriChip. According to the FDA, these include "adverse tissue reaction", "migration of the implanted transponder", "failure of implanted transponder", "electrical hazards" and "magnetic resonance imaging [MRI] incompatibility." In 2007 John Wiley & Sons published a guide to RFID use in the book RFID Applied (ISBN 978-0-471-79365-6) == Possible uses for medical field == Human tagging and tracking can be a great asset for use in hospitals, more importantly emergency rooms. One reason being a nurse or doctor can easily access patient history or concerning files, allergies, or any other complications from the incoming patient.

[edit] Yoking
It has been proposed to use a strong cryptography based scheme to generate forensic evidence that two RFID ta

Global System for Mobile communications (GSM: originally from Groupe Spcial Mobile) is
the most popular standard for mobile phones in the world. Its promoter, the GSM Association, estimates that 82% of the global mobile market uses the standard.[1] GSM is used by over 2 billion people across more than 212 countries and territories.[2][3] Its ubiquity

makes international roaming very common between mobile phone operators, enabling subscribers to use their phones in many parts of the world. GSM differs from its predecessors in that both signalling and speech channels are digital call quality, and thus is considered a second generation (2G) mobile phone system. This has also meant that data communication was easy to build into the system. The ubiquity of the GSM standard has been advantageous to both consumers (who benefit from the ability to roam and switch carriers without switching phones) and also to network operators (who can choose equipment from any of the many vendors implementing GSM[4]). GSM also pioneered a low-cost alternative to voice calls, the Short message service (SMS, also called "text messaging"), which is now supported on other mobile standards as well. Newer versions of the standard were backward-compatible with the original GSM phones. For example, Release '97 of the standard added packet data capabilities, by means of General Packet Radio Service (GPRS). Release '99 introduced higher speed data transmission using Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE).

Contents
[hide]

1 History 2 Technical details o 2.1 Network structure o 2.2 Subscriber Identity Module o 2.3 GSM security 3 Standards information o 3.1 GSM 02.07 o 3.2 GSM 07.07 - Main AT commands o 3.3 GSM 07.05 o 3.4 GSM 07.10 4 See also 5 References 6 Literature 7 External links

[edit] History
In 1982, the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT) created the Groupe Spcial Mobile (GSM) to develop a standard for a mobile telephone system that could be used across Europe.[5] In 1987, a memorandum of understanding was signed by 13 countries to develop a common cellular telephone system across Europe.[6][7]

In 1989, GSM responsibility was transferred to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and phase I of the GSM specifications were published in 1990. The first GSM network was launched in 1991 by Radiolinja in Finland with joint technical infrastructure maintenance from Ericsson.[8] By the end of 1993, over a million subscribers were using GSM phone networks being operated by 70 carriers across 48 countries.[9]

[edit] Technical details

GSM is a cellular network, which means that mobile phones connect to it by searching for cells in the immediate vicinity. GSM networks operate in four different frequency ranges. Most GSM networks operate in the 900 MHz or 1800 MHz bands. Some countries in the Americas (including Canada and the United States) use the 850 MHz and 1900 MHz bands because the 900 and 1800 MHz frequency bands were already allocated. The rarer 400 and 450 MHz frequency bands are assigned in some countries, notably Scandinavia, where these frequencies were previously used for first-generation systems. In the 900 MHz band the uplink frequency band is 890915 MHz, and the downlink frequency band is 935960 MHz. This 25 MHz bandwidth is subdivided into 124 carrier frequency channels, each spaced 200 kHz apart. Time division multiplexing is used to allow eight full-rate or sixteen half-rate speech channels per radio frequency channel. There are eight radio timeslots (giving eight burst periods) grouped into what is called a TDMA frame. Half rate channels use alternate frames in the same timeslot. The channel data rate is 270.833 kbit/s, and the frame duration is 4.615 ms. The transmission power in the handset is limited to a maximum of 2 watts in GSM850/900 and 1 watt in GSM1800/1900. GSM has used a variety of voice codecs to squeeze 3.1 kHz audio into between 5.6 and 13 kbit/s. Originally, two codecs, named after the types of data channel they were allocated, were used, called Half Rate (5.6 kbit/s) and Full Rate (13 kbit/s). These used a system based upon linear predictive coding (LPC). In addition to being efficient with bitrates, these codecs also made it easier to identify more important parts of the audio, allowing the air interface layer to prioritize and better protect these parts of the signal. GSM was further enhanced in 1997[10] with the Enhanced Full Rate (EFR) codec, a 12.2 kbit/s codec that uses a full rate channel. Finally, with the development of UMTS, EFR was refactored into a variable-rate codec called AMR-Narrowband, which is high quality and robust against interference when used on full rate channels, and less robust but still relatively high quality when used in good radio conditions on half-rate channels. There are five different cell sizes in a GSM networkmacro, micro, pico, femto and umbrella cells. The coverage area of each cell varies according to the implementation environment. Macro cells can be regarded as cells where the base station antenna is installed on a mast or a building above average roof top level. Micro cells are cells whose antenna height is under average roof top level; they are typically used in urban areas.

Picocells are small cells whose coverage diameter is a few dozen meters; they are mainly used indoors. Femtocells are cells designed for use in residential or small business environments and connect to the service providers network via a broadband internet connection. Umbrella cells are used to cover shadowed regions of smaller cells and fill in gaps in coverage between those cells. Cell horizontal radius varies depending on antenna height, antenna gain and propagation conditions from a couple of hundred meters to several tens of kilometers. The longest distance the GSM specification supports in practical use is 35 kilometres (22 mi). There are also several implementations of the concept of an extended cell, where the cell radius could be double or even more, depending on the antenna system, the type of terrain and the timing advance. Indoor coverage is also supported by GSM and may be achieved by using an indoor picocell base station, or an indoor repeater with distributed indoor antennas fed through power splitters, to deliver the radio signals from an antenna outdoors to the separate indoor distributed antenna system. These are typically deployed when a lot of call capacity is needed indoors, for example in shopping centers or airports. However, this is not a prerequisite, since indoor coverage is also provided by in-building penetration of the radio signals from nearby cells. The modulation used in GSM is Gaussian minimum-shift keying (GMSK), a kind of continuous-phase frequency shift keying. In GMSK, the signal to be modulated onto the carrier is first smoothed with a Gaussian low-pass filter prior to being fed to a frequency modulator, which greatly reduces the interference to neighboring channels (adjacent channel interference).

[edit] Network structure

The network behind the GSM system seen by the customer is large and complicated in order to provide all of the services which are required. It is divided into a number of sections and these are each covered in separate articles. the Base Station Subsystem (the base stations and their controllers). the Network and Switching Subsystem (the part of the network most similar to a fixed network). This is sometimes also just

called the core network. the GPRS Core Network (the optional part which allows packet based Internet connections). all of the elements in the system combine to produce many GSM services such as voice calls and SMS.

The structure of a GSM network

[edit] Subscriber Identity Module

Main article: Subscriber Identity Module One of the key features of GSM is the Subscriber Identity Module (SIM), commonly known as a SIM card. The SIM is a detachable smart card containing the user's subscription information and phonebook. This allows the user to retain his or her information after switching handsets. Alternatively, the user can also change operators while retaining the handset simply by changing the SIM. Some operators will block this by allowing the phone to use only a single SIM, or only a SIM issued by them; this practice is known as SIM locking, and is illegal in some countries. In Australia, Canada, Europe and the United States many operators lock the mobiles they sell. This is done because the price of the mobile phone is typically subsidised with revenue from subscriptions, and operators want to try to avoid subsidising competitor's mobiles. A subscriber can usually contact the provider to remove the lock for a fee, utilize private services to remove the lock, or make use of ample software and websites available on the Internet to unlock the handset themselves. While most web sites offer the unlocking for a fee, some do it for free. The locking applies to the handset, identified by its International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number, not to the account (which is identified by the SIM card). It is always possible to switch to another (non-locked) handset if such a handset is available. Some providers will unlock the phone for free if the customer has held an account for a certain time period. Third party unlocking services exist that are often quicker and lower cost than that of the operator. In most countries, removing the lock is legal. United Statesbased T-Mobile provides free unlocking services to their customers after 3 months of subscription.[11]

In some countries such as Belgium, Costa Rica, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Malaysia, all phones are sold unlocked. However, in Belgium, it is unlawful for operators there to offer any form of subsidy on the phone's price. This was also the case in Finland until April 1, 2006, when selling subsidized combinations of handsets and accounts became legal, though operators have to unlock phones free of charge after a certain period (at most 24 months).

[edit] GSM security

GSM was designed with a moderate level of security. The system was designed to authenticate the subscriber using a pre-shared key and challenge-response. Communications between the subscriber and the base station can be encrypted. The development of UMTS introduces an optional USIM, that uses a longer authentication key to give greater security, as well as mutually authenticating the network and the user whereas GSM only authenticated the user to the network (and not vice versa). The security model therefore offers confidentiality and authentication, but limited authorization capabilities, and no non-repudiation. GSM uses several cryptographic algorithms for security. The A5/1 and A5/2 stream ciphers are used for ensuring over-the-air voice privacy. A5/1 was developed first and is a stronger algorithm used within Europe and the United States; A5/2 is weaker and used in other countries. Serious weaknesses have been found in both algorithms: it is possible to break A5/2 in real-time with a ciphertext-only attack, and in February 2008, Pico Consulting, Inc revealed its ability and plans to commercialize FPGAs that allow A5/1 to be broken with a rainbow table attack [1]. The system supports multiple algorithms so operators may replace that cipher with a stronger one

Infrared (IR)
radiation is electromagnetic radiation of a wavelength longer than that of visible light, but shorter than that of microwaves. The name means "below red" (from the Latin infra, "below"), red being the color of visible light with the longest wavelength. Infrared radiation has wavelengths between about 750 nm and 1 mm, spanning five orders of magnitude. Humans at normal body temperature can radiate at a wavelength of 10 microns.[1] Infrared imaging is used extensively for both military and civilian purposes. Military applications include target acquisition, surveillance, night vision, homing and tracking. Non-military uses include thermal efficiency analysis, remote temperature sensing, shortranged wireless communication, spectroscopy, and weather forecasting. Infrared astronomy uses sensor-equipped telescopes to penetrate dusty regions of space, such as molecular clouds; detect cool objects such as planets, and to view highly red-shifted objects from the early days of the universe.[2] At the atomic level, infrared energy elicits vibrational modes in a molecule through a change in the dipole moment, making it a useful frequency range for study of these energy

states. Infrared spectroscopy examines absorption and transmission of photons in the infrared energy range, based on their frequency and intensity.[3] Objects generally emit infrared radiation across a spectrum of wavelengths, but only a specific region of the spectrum is of interest because sensors are usually designed only to collect radiation within a specific bandwidth. As a result, the infrared band is often subdivided into smaller sections. The International Commission on Illumination (CIE) recommended the division of optical radiation into the following three bands:[4] IR-A: 700 nm 1400 nm IR-B: 1400 nm3000 nm IR-C: 3000 nm1 mm

A commonly used sub-division scheme is:[citation needed] Near-infrared (NIR, IR-A DIN): 0.75-1.4 m in wavelength, defined by the water absorption, and commonly used in fiber optic telecommunication because of low attenuation losses in the SiO2 glass (silica) medium. Image intensifiers are sensitive to this area of the spectrum. Examples include night vision devices such as night vision goggles.

Shortwavelength infrared (SWIR, IR-B DIN): 1.4-3 m, water absorption increases

significantly at 1,450 nm. The 1,530 to 1,560 nm range is the dominant spectral region for longdistance telecommunications Midwavelength infrared (MWIR, IR-C DIN) also called intermediate infrared (IIR): 3-8 m. In guided missile technology the 35 m portion of this band is the atmospheric window in which the homing heads of passive IR 'heat seeking' missiles are designed to work, homing on to the IR signature of the target aircraft, typically the jet engine exhaust plume.

Longwavelength infrared (LWIR, IR-C DIN): 815 m. This is the "thermal imaging" region, in which sensors can obtain a completely passive picture of the outside world based on thermal emissions only and requiring no external light or thermal source such as the sun, moon or infrared illuminator.

Forward-looking infrared (FLIR) systems use this area of the spectrum. Sometimes also called the "far infrared." Far infrared (FIR): 15-1,000 m (see also far infrared laser)

NIR and SWIR is sometimes called reflected infrared while MWIR and LWIR is sometimes referred to as thermal infrared. Due to the nature of the blackbody radiation curves, typical 'hot' objects, such as exhaust pipes, often appear brighter in the MW compared to the same object viewed in the LW. Astronomers typically divide the infrared spectrum as follows:[5] near: (0.7-1) to 5 m mid: 5 to (2540) m long: (25-40) to (200-350) m

These divisions are not precise and can vary depending on the publication. The three regions are used for observation of different temperature ranges, and hence different environments in space.

Plot of atmospheric transmittance in part of the infrared region. A third scheme divides up the band based on the response of various detectors:[6] Near infrared (NIR): from 0.7 to 1.0 micrometers (from the

approximate end of the response of the human eye to that of silicon) Short-wave infrared (SWIR): 1.0 to 3 micrometers (from the cut off of silicon to that of the MWIR atmospheric window. InGaAs covers to about 1.8 micrometers; the less sensitive lead salts cover this region Mid-wave infrared (MWIR): 3 to 5 micrometers (defined by the atmospheric window and covered by Indium antimonide [InSb] and HgCdTe and partially by lead selenide [PbSe]) Long-wave infrared (LWIR): 8 to 12, or 7 to 14 micrometers: the atmospheric window (Covered by HgCdTe and microbolometers) Very-long wave infrared (VLWIR): 12 to about 30 micrometers, covered by doped silicon These divisions are justified by the different human response to this radiation: near infrared is the region closest in wavelength to the radiation detectable by the human eye, mid and far infrared are progressively further from the visible regime. Other definitions follow different physical mechanisms (emission peaks, vs. bands, water absorption) and the newest follow technical reasons (The common silicon detectors are sensitive to about 1,050 nm, while InGaAs' sensitivity starts around 950 nm and ends between 1,700 and

2,600 nm, depending on the specific configuration). Unfortunately, international standards for these specifications are not currently available. The boundary between visible and infrared light is not precisely defined. The human eye is markedly less sensitive to light above 700 nm wavelength, so shorter frequencies make insignificant contributions to scenes illuminated by common light sources. But particularly intense light (e.g., from lasers, or from bright daylight with the visible light removed by colored gels[1]) can be detected up to approximately 780 nm, and will be perceived as red light. The onset of infrared is defined (according to different standards) at various values typically between 700 nm and 800 nm.

[edit] Telecommunication bands in the infrared

In optical communications, the part of the infrared spectrum that is used is divided into several bands based on availability of light sources, transmitting/absorbing materials (fibers) and detectors:[7] Band Descriptor Wavelength range 12601360 nm 13601460 nm 14601530 nm 15301565 nm 15651625 nm

O band Original E band Extended S band Short wavelength C band Conventional L band Long wavelength

U band Ultralong wavelength 16251675 nm The C-band is the dominant band for long-distance telecommunication networks. The S and L bands are based on less well established technology, and are not as widely deployed.

[edit] Heat
Main article: Thermal radiation Infrared radiation is popularly known as "heat" or sometimes "heat radiation", since many people attribute all radiant heating to infrared light and/or to all infrared radiation to being

a result of heating. This is a widespread misconception, since light and electromagnetic waves of any frequency will heat surfaces that absorb them. Infrared light from the Sun only accounts for 49%[8] of the heating of the Earth, the rest being caused by visible light that is absorbed then re-radiated at longer wavelengths. Visible light or ultraviolet-emitting lasers can char paper and incandescently hot objects emit visible radiation. It is true that objects at room temperature will emit radiation mostly concentrated in the 8 to 12 micrometer band, but this is not distinct from the emission of visible light by incandescent objects and ultraviolet by even hotter objects (see black body and Wien's displacement law).[9] Heat is energy in transient form that flows due to temperature difference. Unlike heat transmitted by thermal conduction or thermal convection, radiation can propagate through a vacuum. The concept of emissivity is important in understanding the infrared emissions of objects. This is a property of a surface which describes how its thermal emissions deviate from the ideal of a black body. To further explain, two objects at the same physical temperature will not 'appear' the same temperature in an infrared image if they have differing emissivities.

[edit] Applications
This section needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2007)

[edit] Infrared Filters

Main article: Night vision Infrared (IR) filters can be made from many different materials. One type is made of polysulphone plastic that blocks over 99% of the visible light spectrum from white light sources such as incandescent filament bulbs. Infrared filters allow a maximum of infrared output while maintaining extreme covertness. Currently in use around the world, infrared filters are used in Military, Law Enforcement, Industrial and Commercial applications. The unique makeup of the plastic allows for maximum durability and heat resistance. IR filters provide a more cost effective and time efficient solution over the standard bulb replacement alternative. All generations of night vision devices are greatly enhanced with the use of IR filters.

[edit] Night vision

Main article: Night vision

Active-infrared night vision. Despite a dark back-lit scene, active-infrared night vision delivers identifying details, as seen on the display monitor. Infrared is used in night vision equipment when there is insufficient visible light to see.[10] Night vision devices operate through a process involving the conversion of ambient light photons into electrons which are then amplified by a chemical and electrical process and then converted back into visible light.[10] Infrared light sources can be used to augment the available ambient light for conversion by night vision devices, increasing in-the-dark visibility without actually using a visible light source.[10] The use of infrared light and night vision devices should not be confused with thermal imaging which creates images based on differences in surface temperature by detecting infrared radiation (heat) that emanates from objects and their surrounding environment[11]

[edit] Thermography
Main article: Thermography

A thermographic image of a dog Infrared radiation can be used to remotely determine the temperature of objects (if the emissivity is known). This is termed thermography, or in the case of very hot objects in the NIR or visible it is termed pyrometry. Thermography (thermal imaging) is mainly used in

military and industrial applications but the technology is reaching the public market in the form of infrared cameras on cars due to the massively reduced production costs. Thermographic cameras detect radiation in the infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum (roughly 90014,000 nanometers or 0.914 m) and produce images of that radiation. Since infrared radiation is emitted by all objects based on their temperatures, according to the black body radiation law, thermography makes it possible to "see" one's environment with or without visible illumination. The amount of radiation emitted by an object increases with temperature, therefore thermography allows one to see variations in temperature (hence the name).

[edit] Other imaging

Infrared light from the LED of a remote control as seen by a digital camera. In infrared photography, infrared filters are used to capture the near-infrared spectrum. Digital cameras often use infrared blockers. Cheaper digital cameras and camera phones have less effective filters and can "see" intense near-infrared, appearing as a bright purplewhite color. This is especially pronounced when taking pictures of subjects near IR-bright areas (such as near a lamp), where the resulting infrared interference can wash out the image. There is also a technique called 'T-ray' imaging, which is imaging using far infrared or terahertz radiation. Lack of bright sources makes terahertz photography technically more challenging than most other infrared imaging techniques. Recently T-ray imaging has been of considerable interest due to a number of new developments such as terahertz timedomain spectroscopy.

[edit] Tracking
Main article: Infrared homing Infrared tracking, also known as infrared homing, refers to a passive missile guidance system which uses the emission from a target of electromagnetic radiation in the infrared part of the spectrum to track it. Missiles which use infrared seeking are often referred to as "heat-seekers", since infrared (IR) is just below the visible spectrum of light in frequency and is radiated strongly by hot bodies. Many objects such as people, vehicle engines and

aircraft generate and retain heat, and as such, are especially visible in the infra-red wavelengths of light compared to objects in the background.

[edit] Heating
Main article: Infrared heating Infrared radiation can be used as a deliberate heating source. For example it is used in infrared saunas to heat the occupants, and also to remove ice from the wings of aircraft (deicing). FIR is also gaining popularity as a safe method of natural health care & physiotherapy. Far infrared thermomedic therapy garments use thermal thechnology to provide compressive support and healing warmth to assist symptom control for arthritis, injury & pain. Infrared can be used in cooking and heating food as it predominantly heats the opaque, absorbent objects, rather than the air around them. Infrared heating is also becoming more popular in industrial manufacturing processes, e.g. curing of coatings, forming of plastics, annealing, plastic welding, print drying. In these applications, infrared heaters replace convection ovens and contact heating. Efficiency is achieved by matching the wavelength of the infrared heater to the absorption characteristics of the material.

[edit] Communications
IR data transmission is also employed in short-range communication among computer peripherals and personal digital assistants. These devices usually conform to standards published by IrDA, the Infrared Data Association. Remote controls and IrDA devices use infrared light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to emit infrared radiation which is focused by a plastic lens into a narrow beam. The beam is modulated, i.e. switched on and off, to encode the data. The receiver uses a silicon photodiode to convert the infrared radiation to an electric current. It responds only to the rapidly pulsing signal created by the transmitter, and filters out slowly changing infrared radiation from ambient light. Infrared communications are useful for indoor use in areas of high population density. IR does not penetrate walls and so does not interfere with other devices in adjoining rooms. Infrared is the most common way for remote controls to command appliances. Free space optical communication using infrared lasers can be a relatively inexpensive way to install a communications link in an urban area operating at up to 4 gigabit/s, compared to the cost of burying fiber optic cable. Infrared lasers are used to provide the light for optical fiber communications systems. Infrared light with a wavelength around 1,330 nm (least dispersion) or 1,550 nm (best transmission) are the best choices for standard silica fibers. IR data transmission of encoded audio versions of printed signs is being researched as an aid for visually impaired people through the RIAS (Remote Infrared Audible Signage) project.

[edit] Spectroscopy
Infrared vibrational spectroscopy (see also near infrared spectroscopy) is a technique which can be used to identify molecules by analysis of their constituent bonds. Each chemical bond in a molecule vibrates at a frequency which is characteristic of that bond. A group of atoms in a molecule (e.g. CH2) may have multiple modes of oscillation caused by the stretching and bending motions of the group as a whole. If an oscillation leads to a change in dipole in the molecule, then it will absorb a photon which has the same frequency. The vibrational frequencies of most molecules correspond to the frequencies of infrared light. Typically, the technique is used to study organic compounds using light radiation from 4000-400 cm-1, the mid-infrared. A spectrum of all the frequencies of absorption in a sample is recorded. This can be used to gain information about the sample composition in terms of chemical groups present and also its purity (for example a wet sample will show a broad O-H absorption around 3200cm-1).

[edit] Meteorology

IR Satellite picture taken 1315 Z on 15th October 2006. A frontal system can be seen in the Gulf of Mexico with embedded Cumulonimbus cloud. Shallower Cumulus and Stratocumulus can be seen off the Eastern Seaboard. Weather satellites equipped with scanning radiometers produce thermal or infrared images which can then enable a trained analyst to determine cloud heights and types, to calculate land and surface water temperatures, and to locate ocean surface features. The scanning is typically in the range 10.3-12.5 m (IR4 and IR5 channels). High, cold ice cloud such as Cirrus or Cumulonimbus show up bright white, lower warmer cloud such as Stratus or Stratocumulus show up as grey with intermediate clouds shaded accordingly. Hot land surfaces will show up as dark grey or black. One disadvantage of infrared imagery is that low cloud such as stratus or fog can be a similar temperature to the surrounding land or sea surface and does not show up. However, using the difference in brightness of the IR4 channel (10.3-11.5 m) and the near-infrared channel (1.58-1.64 m), low cloud can be distinguished, producing a fog satellite picture. The main advantage of infrared is that images can be produced at night, allowing a continuous sequence of weather to be studied. These infrared pictures can depict ocean eddies or vortices and map currents such as the Gulf Stream which are valuable to the shipping industry. Fishermen and farmers are interested in knowing land and water temperatures to protect their crops against frost or

increase their catch from the sea. Even El Nio phenomena can be spotted. Using colordigitized techniques, the gray shaded thermal images can be converted to color for easier identification of desired information.

[edit] Climatology
In the field of climatology, atmospheric infrared radiation is monitored to detect trends in the energy exchange between the earth and the atmosphere. These trends provide information on long term changes in the earth's climate. It is one of the primary parameters studied in research into global warming together with solar radiation. A pyrgeometer is utilized in this field of research to perform continuous outdoor measurements. This is a broadband infrared radiometer with sensitivity for infrared radiation between approximately 4.5 m and 50 m.

[edit] Astronomy

The Spitzer Space Telescope is a dedicated infrared space observatory currently in orbit around the Sun. (Note the black side to the telescope, to maximize infrared radiation.) NASA image. Main articles: infrared astronomy and far infrared astronomy Astronomers observe objects in the infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum using optical components, including mirrors, lenses and solid state digital detectors. For this reason it is classified as part of optical astronomy. To form an image, the components of an infrared telescope need to be carefully shielded from heat sources, and the detectors are chilled using liquid helium.

The sensitivity of Earth-based infrared telescopes is significantly limited by water vapor in the atmosphere, which absorbs a portion of the infrared radiation arriving from space outside of selected atmospheric windows. This limitation can be partially alleviated by placing the telescope observatory at a high altitude, or by carrying the telescope aloft with a balloon or an aircraft. Space telescopes do not suffer from this handicap, and so outer space is considered the ideal location for infrared astronomy. The infrared portion of the spectrum has several useful benefits for astronomers. Cold, dark molecular clouds of gas and dust in our galaxy will glow with radiated heat as they are irradiated by imbedded stars. Infrared can also be used to detect protostars before they begin to emit visible light. Stars emit a smaller portion of their energy in the infrared spectrum, so nearby cool objects such as planets can be more readily detected. (In the visible light spectrum, the glare from the star will drown out the reflected light from a planet.) Infrared light is also useful for observing the cores of active galaxies which are often cloaked in gas and dust. Distant galaxies with a high redshift will have the peak portion of their spectrum shifted toward longer wavelengths, so they are more readily observed in the infrared.[2]

[edit] Art history

The Arnolfini Portrait by Jan van Eyck, National Gallery, London Infra-red (as art historians call them) reflectograms are taken of paintings to reveal underlying layers, in particular the underdrawing or outline drawn by the artist as a guide. This often uses carbon black which shows up well in reflectograms, so long as it has not also been used in the ground underlying the whole painting. Art historians are looking to see if the visible layers of paint differ from the under-drawing or layers in between - such alterations are called pentimenti when made by the original artist. This is very useful information in deciding whether a painting is the prime version by the original artist or a

copy, and whether it has been altered by over-enthusiastic restoration work. Generally the more pentimenti, the more likely a painting is to be the prime version. It also gives useful insights into working practices. [2] Among many other changes in the Arnolfini Portrait of 1434 (right), his face was higher by about the height of his eye, hers was higher, and her eyes looked more to the front. Each of his feet was underdrawn in one position, painted in another, and then overpainted in a third. These alterations are seen in infra-red reflectograms.[12] Similar uses of infrared are made by historians on various types of objects, especially very old written documents such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Roman works in the Villa of the Papyri, and the Silk Road texts found in the Dunhuang Caves.[13] Carbon black used in ink can show up extremely well.

[edit] Biological systems

Thermographic image of a snake eating a mouse

Thermographic image of a fruit bat. The pit viper is known to have two infrared sensory pits on its head. There is controversy over the exact thermal sensitivity of this biological infrared detection system.[14][15] Other organisms that actively employ thermo-receptors are rattlesnakes (Crotalinae subfamily) and boas (Boidae family), the Common Vampire Bat (Desmodus rotundus), a variety of jewel beetles (Melanophila acuminata),[16] darkly pigmented butterflies (Pachliopta aristolochiae and Troides rhadamantus plateni), and possibly blood-sucking bugs (Triatoma infestans).[17]

[edit] Photobiomodulation
Near infrared light is currently used for treatment of chemotherapy induced oral ulceration as well as wound healing. There is some work relating to anti herpes virus treatment.[18] Research projects include work on central nervous system healing effects via cytochrome c oxidase upregulation and other possible mechanisms.[19]

[edit] The Earth as an infrared emitter

The Earth's surface and the clouds absorb visible and invisible radiation from the sun and re-emit much of the energy as infrared back to the atmosphere. Certain substances in the atmosphere, chiefly cloud droplets and water vapor, but also carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, and chlorofluorocarbons,[20] absorb this infrared, and reradiate it in all directions including back to Earth. Thus the greenhouse effect keeps the atmosphere and surface much warmer than if the infrared absorbers were absent from the atmosphere.[