MANHASSET, N.Y. — The Wi-Fi Alliance has formed a group to study the specific implications for Wi-Fi of continuing Wi-Fi/cellular convergence.
The initiative was launcehd as the Alliance released a list of Wi-Fi/cellular devices that achieved Wi-Fi certification under the current Application Specific Device program.
Heading the new Wi-Fi/Cellular Convergence (WCC) task group will be Paul Meche, a member of the Alliance's board and a Nokia Mobile Phone Fellow. Vice chairmen are Richard Watts of Hewlett-Packard and Ajay Mishra of wireless LAN switch startup Airespace.
Meche said the task group's purpose is to work with the cellular community to address cellular-specific issues raised by Wi-Fi in converged devices. To date, said Meche, the Alliance has focused on PC-oriented applications and form factors, including PDAs. "Until now there was no real push to have discussion on convergence of a licensed [cellular] and an unlicensed [Wi-Fi] transmitter, but now it's coming to pass and it makes sense for the Wi-Fi Alliance to do this."
Market drivers for convergence, according to Brian Grimm, the Alliance's marketing director, include voice-over-IP as well as high-speed data downloads from overloaded cellular basestations.
The topics to be discussed "are wide ranging, and the intent is to have no holds barred in terms of what we discuss," said Meche. The formation of the group was driven by "the incredible increase in demand for these devices" as well as the fact that the category wasn't visible under the existing programs.
"One key driver is to find out where are the snaps?" said Grimm. "Where are the interfaces on the cellular and Wi-Fi sides?" For example, said Grimm, the Alliance defined the handoff between 802.11a and 802.11b/g networks. "That's the kind of thing that's possible between cellular and Wi-Fi, and we can work with them [the cellular groups] as this needs to work on both sides."
The Alliance already has programs in place examining roaming issues as well as VoIP.
"But we're going to look at what else we need to address to make Wi-Fi more suited to this kind of application," said Meche. The first step is to perform a market requirements document (MRD). "The basic schedule is to have a draft, or something to look at, in 2005," he said.
Another important issue for converged device untouched so far by the Alliance is standards conformance testing of the RF interface. The Alliance has historically only been focused on interoperability testing.
"With cellular, interoperability is the first phase of testing, and [after that] virtually every cellular test is a conformance test," said Meche. Hence, the Alliance acknowledges the basic need for conformance testing at the RF level. "That was the most basic difference that sets it apart from what the Wi-Fi Alliance has done before," said Meche.
The WCC group will also look minimum-receive sensitivity and transmit-output power. "But the interest from the operators in conformance testing is a desire to ensure that at least the core RF aspects were conformance tested, versus just IOT [interoperability] tested," said Meche. "They need to set up this kind of grid on the unlicensed standards, they need to find some way to bring together two very disparate entities." To that end, the group will work with the cellular certification bodies.
The first round of Wi-Fi-certified products with WCC capabilities includes WiFi-capable PDA/cellphones such as HP's Pocket PC h6315, Nokia's 9500 Communicator and Motorola's MPx, as well as the Intermec 760 Mobile Computer and the SanDisk Connect Wi-Fi SD Card.
