Communications

Bluetooth is being touted for a wider range of applications as its data rate is tripled to 3Mbit/s. The upgrade, announced at WiCon World in Amsterdam, is called Bluetooth EDR – enhanced data rate. “Portable music is the hottest [Bluetooth] application right now,” said Glen Collinson, co-founder of Bluetooth chip firm CSR. “EDR is needed for streaming to multiple users ...

Texas Instruments (TI) is talking to telecommunications equipment manufacturers and network operators about adopting a unified DSL standard called Uni-DSL (UDSL) which incorporates all the DSL types – ADSL, ADSL2, ADSL2+, VDSL, VDSL2 and UHDSL (ultra high-speed DSL). “We’re in discussions with worldwide operators on the concept and we’re in strategic discussions with key customers,” said Michael Seidl, TI’s European ...

Russia is expected to start awarding 3G mobile phone licences next year and the 3G/UMTS system used elsewhere in Europe looks like the front-runner for adoption. Russia is already a big user of GSM mobile systems and the UMTS Forum has convinced Russia’s own 3G special interest group to support the use of 3G/UMTS mobile systems in the region. The ...

The E112 legislation setting out European requirements for locating a mobile phone in an emergency is liable to be tightened up soon, according to US location specialist TruePosition. “The legislation in place is passive legislation, meaning it’s a best effort approach or, ‘do what you can and we’ll revisit this’,” said Jason Angelides, director of global services at TruePosition. “I ...

Digital video recorders (DVRs) are transforming advertising in the US as the technology begins to take off in the home. Independent consultant Paul Bristow said the technology has had an unexpected benefit as it has made advertisers nervous about the commercial breaks being skipped over too easily. “Since DVR was introduced in the US there’s been an incredible improvement in ...

The next big challenge to the major telecommunications operators could be from a wave of entrepreneurial firms deploying fibre-to-the-home (FTTH). The price of the technology has now come down to a level which makes it economic for domestic users, according to the US DSL specialist firm Centillium Communications, which is about to launch a range of FTTH products. “Two years ...

Voice, data and video are the goal of every satellite TV, telecoms, cable and and mobile operator, and the key is doing it all over the Internet, according to Zarlink Semiconductor. The three applications are known as triple-play in the industry. “They all want to play in the triple-play and they all want to take the others out of the ...

Cambridge-based Bluetooth firm CSR has revealed a chip for the 3Mbit/s Bluetooth v1.2 EDR (enhanced data rate) standard. Called BlueCore4, it is the fourth generation of CSR’s Bluetooth chip. “We think it is the first in the world to sample,” said CSR co-founder Glenn Collinson. The EDR Bluetooth standard was only officially launched today by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group ...

Amino Technologies has named an offer price of 120p for its impending flotation on the AIM stock market. At that share price, the Cambridge-based Internet technology company will have a market capitalisation of  £61.2m when it floats next Wednesday. It hopes to raise £7m of new money through the placing. The seven year-old company develops software and hardware products, the ...

With total handset shipments totaling less than 60,000 in 2003, the voice-over-wireless LAN (VoWLAN) market is still in its infancy. However, according to In-Stat/MDR, despite the relatively high cost of handsets and the lack of standardised QoS and fast roaming, this technology is already reaching a surprising amount of business users, and a significant number have it on their radar ...