Future broadband infrastructure requires ubiquitous availability and ‘always-on’ services and applications for the business community and education. The development of access network solutions, which consist of various technological options for the last mile (DSL, Cable, Mobile, etc), needs to be optimized so that it comes at a reasonable cost for the end-users.
This project aims at investigating alternative technologies based on wireless metropolitan high-speed Internet access to provide adapted multimedia contents (voice, video and data) at higher rates within a certain agglomeration of end-users. Users that could be represented by their Personal Area Networks (PANs) expect that their ‘domestic’ electronic equipments including phones, PDAs and Laptops are automatically connected to the network, and required services are adapted to their current situation of use.
Ambient context aware applications with ambient networks and ubiquitous high-speed underlying networks are therefore urgently required in order to enable attractive value-added services with the necessary ease of use. For such an environment, the following objectives are identified:
- Experiment and measure the impact of setting up a high-speed wireless metropolitan access network based on WiMAX technology in the Ottawa region (connecting different buildings of the University of Ottawa, surrounding residence areas,
- Integrate the concept of context awareness and ambient networks in providing end-users with new value-added services.
- Manage users’ mobility within the area covered by the field of experimentation. Each user should have the ability to use provided multimedia services from any place within the range and with any device in hand. For instance, a user with 3-bands PDA (Wi-Fi, WiMAX, cellular) would be switched transparently from one type of network to another.
The Infrastructure is build with the Redline Communications Technologies, in a licensed band configuration limited to the University of Ottawa Campus.