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DSP and Software Defined Radio (SDR)

Toronto, ON, Jan. 2008 – Wireless IP connectivity greater than 50 kilometers is still an elusive creature almost impossible to capture.

Wifi and WiMAX provide the first glimpse of extended communications. However the goal is mobile and fixed wireless IP-connectivity at distances up to 1000km. This year the communications industry prepares for the first prototypes of wireless, software based, open source, multi-slotted connectivity device, with minimum 64Kbs throughput.

Oftelsat, a leader in the pioneering of Software Defined Radio (SDR), is working together with other vendors in the United States, building the Software Designed Radio SDR1000. With SDR, computer hardware can be used as radio hardware. The SDR uses software digital signal processing, which will in the future be part of Wifi and wiMAX devices. Parallel processing makes possible more bandwidth and a higher bitrate. With advent of DSP processors almost two decades ago computer and communications technology saw a DSP leveraged to provide sound, fax, video and telecommunications capabilities wrapped in a simple small package. Now companies such as Oftelsat are calling for more cooperation from DSP development leaders. Oftelsat acknowledges that such expertise and knowledge is not widespread and a lot of work needs to be done. People with experience in Digital Signal processing (DSP) and/or DSP programming tools (digital signal generation, filtering and demodulation of complex waveforms) as well as people with organizational and communication skills are being sought to enter the arena of this new SDR innovation. Even though tools for digital signal processing are very expensive and the companies which focus on DSP development are rare, once the SDR proves to be workable there's no debate about how such a tool could help in building connectivity.

Oftelsat is building a device using short-wave (30 Mhz) multi-slotted radio systems. The radios work with digital signal processing and advanced serial modulation using soundcards, up to 128 kbs per channel over Near Vertical Incident Skywave (NVIS) . Wifi is used for space division between short-wave nodes. The device will be intelligent, meaning that it chooses the best frequencies and, using load balancing, route via the nodes with the best propagation. For the node operators this process is automatic and transparent.

We took up the plan to develop a tactical short-wave radio system for rural and remote areas, capable delivering 64 Kbsec over distances, more than 500 km as an addition to Wifi/Wimax possibilities which end at 50 km.

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