Cohda tests enhanced Wi-Fi in Australian city

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Cohda Wireless Pte. Ltd., a municipal Wi-Fi startup spun from the University of South Australia's Institute for Telecommunications Research, has set up a trial testbed in Adelaide, Australia, to demonstrate its use of OFDM technology to improve both unlicensed wireless meshes and licensed public-safety networks.

Cohda established a U.S. office in Orlando, Fla., last year. Since then, primary interest in the company's technology in the States has been for improving the multipath resistance of traditional municipal Wi-Fi meshes in the 5.8-GHz band, said Martin Suter, CEO of Cohda. But the Adelaide test network will place equal emphasis on unlicensed Wi-Fi and licensed 4.9-GHz public safety service. Applications for police and fire networks include automatic vehicle location tracking, voice-over-Internet Protocol, teleconferencing and distribution of full-motion video from in-vehicle cameras.

"We are demonstrating a series of test vehicles in a square-mile area for high-throughput services even in a high-mobility environment," Suter said. "Our unlicensed services are completely 802.11-compatible, but our receiver signal processing collects all the energy from each OFDM symbol, so there is a better ability to adjust for interference and show better sensitivity in the link budget."

The specific Adelaide tests involve the 4.9- and 5.8-GHz bands, but the tests could be expanded to cover the 2.4-GHz unlicensed, 3.65-GHz broadband wireless and 5.9-GHz telematics bands. The public-safety tests are structured to confront harsh multipath and physical interference conditions.