Wifi Revolution

InterDigital has stated that it has successfully demonstrated their Media Independent Handover (MIH). The company officials say that this demo proves the worth of this new MIH standard which was introduced to act as a simple and reliable solution for seamless networking between 2G/3G cellular systems and Wi-Fi or WiMAX (News - Alert) networks and other communications standards.

 

InterDigital designs, develops and provides advanced wireless technologies and products that drive voice and data communications.

 

Company officials add that 802.21 is an IEEE (News - Alert) emerging standard. The standard supports algorithms enabling seamless handover between networks of the same type as well as handover between different network types also called MIH or vertical handover. The standard provides information to allow handing over to and from cellular, GSM, GPRS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 802.11 and 802.16 networks through different handover mechanisms. The reason for such a standard to be formulated was because current standards do not support handover between different types of network.

 

This particular InterDigital (News - Alert) demonstration showed the uninterrupted transfer of data when switching between live 3G and Wi-Fi networks, enabled by InterDigital's thin-client middleware loaded onto an off-the-shelf touch-screen Smartphone with 3G (UMTS), Wi-Fi (802.11b/g) and Windows Mobile operating system.

 

InterDigital officials claim that their middleware has the potential to be a defining solution for the convergence of multiple air interface technologies, including LTE (News - Alert).

 

Company officials add that the software is used to implement this vertical handover which means that service providers need not worry about heavy increases in networking devices cost while implementing this new standard.

 

BT Innovate has stated that it supported the demo by supplying remote access to its MIH Information Server in Ipswich, UK, assisting the handovers, as well as BT (News - Alert) Mobile 3G roaming on a commercial network in Barcelona, and Wi-Fi service on a public network at the Barcelona Mobile World Congress.

 

BT officials state that their company believes in future technologies that will provide seamless connection to mobile users who move between different access technologies without any breaks in services. The company is also pleased to present this MIH demo in conjunction with InterDigital that illustrates the kind of services and technology-free access that users can expect in the future.

 

 

 

 

 

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