Healthcare Wireless and Device Connectivity

Ultra Lower Power Wireless Quarterly Application Opportunities The PAN Crossing the WLAN and WAN

Integra Systems, Inc. www.integrasystems.org over the past twenty years has provided the connectivity knowledge and technical expertise to many companies in multiple vertical markets on a global basis based upon our decades combined of the end point device and the wireless domain knowledge experience.

Our work has extended to working with Nordic on several projects and we consider them the de-facto standard in BTLE SoC, ANT, and Thread.

While this issue of the ULP (Quarter/Spring 2018) is very interesting from the BTLE application perspective; the convergence of cellular into the IOT space with BTLE and WLAN will drive a major cross the chasm business opportunity.

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IXIA Comprehensive Solutions

Integra Systems, Inc., has worked with former Veriwave and now IXIA for a number of years. We have supported their efforts through the authored white paper and various presentations at conferences. Their comprehensive network testing and monitoring solutions are the gold standard in the industry. We have used their solutions to validate scaled SLA (service level agreements) for an extremely complex pilot wireless voice over IP deployment that performed flawlessly based upon our RF predictive modeling.

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Technical 802.11ac White Paper from Cisco

While this is a pretty technically detailed white paper on 802.11ac from Cisco; it does a very good job of explaining the technology "under the cover". Terms like channel bonding and others are explained.

Newer and faster necessarily is not always better as you have to consider your application requirements. Folks are not only now designing networks with different ESSIDS (there are reasons for limiting these), different security schemas and network topologies, but separation by frequencies. 802.11ac is all 5.0Gz. 802.11ac will like wireless has done is upstaging again the wired side of things. The challenge to deployment will become the backhaul of Gig Ethernet and/or fiber, and/or the combination to provide the capacity at the edge.

A long way from 1999 when I cut my teeth with Symbol when 802.11b got approved by IEEE.

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802.11ac and Healthcare Implications

802.11ac will be bigger than 802.11n and it truly can move speed up to 1 GPS.

So now the radiologist/surgeon can download to his/her iPad a PACS image.

This changes the dynamics of networking was we know it. I challenge though that running multiple Gigabit Ethernet runs probably is not the way to go.

I venture Ethernet will be legacy and the future is fiber to support the next generation of wireless as well as LTE. Say goodbye probably to co-axial cable for DAS. I expect approval of 802.11ac probably by the end of 2013. Here is a good presentation from QualComm which helps explain 802.11ac and the value proposition.

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Mitigating Carrier Mobile Traffic Jams - Where is WIFI in 2013 in the Enterprise?

I used to work for now www.motorola.com in my career. Spent a lot of the time in the field developing all kinds of applications for many vertical markets for POS (point of sale) and the medical device vertical. This was the time from 1999 when 802.11b got ratified and the whole revolution of WIFI as we know it started. The realization in 2013 is the smart phone, and the I-Pad (Thank you Apple) is big time straining the carrier's network. The issue is there is a finite amount of spectrum. Femtocells have not quite really taking off; so it seems that the off load of the cellular traffic onto the WLAN may prove to be easier and more the economical route to take.

See attached the white paper by Motorola.

As a side, Integra Systems, Inc. has also authored white papers for Motorola on other technical areas. These will be forthcoming. Stay tuned to further blogs regarding Wi-Fi Certified Passpoint.(It is in parallel with the current discussion).

We will have a major series of blogs centered around 802.11n and 802.11 ac and where is this space regarding medical device wireless and connectivity. This will be forthcoming in January 2013.

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Distributed Antenna Systems...WLAN...Reality of the Cost Model

While I have written many blogs about Distributed Antenna Systems, this is one area where I do want to focus on…the right design versus cost....what does this actually mean? There has been tremendous marketing hype about some sort of design providing the ultimate solution for combining the WLAN with a DAS. (as I said in previous blogs...really again?) While some customers have gone down this path initially, it is like jumping out of a plane with a parachute…there is no going back....once you make this decision. (But in this case..you are now at 28,000 ft and you forget your oxygen). However many in the past years many have made the decision to bite the bullet and decouple the WLAN from the DAS that they have installed..the pain became too high. The reality is a coaxial distribution system was never designed to propagate 802.11 signals in an elegant fashion. Add to this the fast pace of the 802.11 standard in evolution essentially means that the coaxial infrastructure is future proofed…by “rip and replace”..certainly not cost effective when you consider the costs of the installation of a discrete WLAN architecture.
So why do I say this…let’s take closer look. As in my previous blogs, the whole concept of a DAS is to propagate cellular/PCS/ and public safety signals where diversity is not required. Signals generally extend from 700-1900MHz. Add WLAN 802.11b/g (at 2400MHz), at a signal strength of -85dBm, this is not much of a stretch to deal with the link budget. However if later you decide to add voice over IP, the signal strength has to be much stronger…around -62dBm. Still you can engineer the design…it takes a fair amount of work. However when adding 802.11a (5.0GHz), remember this came out after 802.11g, so now the entire DAS has to be entirely “re-engineered” and amplification has to be added (additional multiple points of failure). Now folks look to 802.11n and MIMO. It cannot be supported by earlier DAS/WLAN designs, and the entire coaxial infrastructure essentially is a rip/replace/re-design. With 802.11ac around the corner..well you guessed it. So one has to ask themselves…how really “future proof is this “concept” of a WLAN on a DAS and at what CAPEX/OPEX costs as well as a TCO? Whether coaxial cable used in DAS for WLAN, or Ethernet the architectures will never be able to support the bandwidth requirements of LTE or 802.11ac….only optical will. I have heard some that make the suggestion...go after the..fill in the blanks. My goal is to do the best for the healthcare industry...now and in the years ahead.

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802.11ac

Just when folks are moving to 802.11n, we now have 802.11ac coming around the corner. (Well a few years out at least) Interesting that it is in the 5GHz range, just as 802.11a. (Both Welch Allyn and Masimo use 802.11a). The specification will enable multi-station WLAN throughput of at least a Gigabit per second and a maximum single link throughput of at least 500 megabits per second (500 Mbits.second). This definitely puts "wireless" in the afterburner mode! Hardwired Ethernet...legacy. How this is done is by enhancing the air interface concepts of 802.11n. For instance providing wider channel bandwidth of 80MHz and 160MHz versus 40MHz of 802.11n, supporting more MIMO spatial streams up to 8 versus 4 in 802.11n, multi-user MIMO, and high density modulation (up to 256 QAM) The initial technical draft 0.1 was confirmed by IEEE 802.11 TGac on January 20, 2011, with standard finalization anticipated in 2012. Just like 802.11n, this will be a boon to say laptops, I-Pads, to say download PAC images, video, etc. Never see any current potential in medical devices. There will continue to be a mixture of medical devices using 802.11b/g/a for the portended future. However, the issue will be the backhaul. I expect that this will change the landscape of the L2/L3 model and digital fiber to the AP, or that digital fiber will be the new highway replacing traditional copper. Maybe intelligence built into optical head ends? At the end of the day you need the pipe ( the utility) and this is perhaps a direct head on to LTE. Just my thoughts.