The flags of Mexico and the United States fly side by side above Lopez & Sons Tire Shop, a bright yellow building on an otherwise dreary street in Houston’s East End. The busy tire shop is hard to miss, but it’s easier to overlook what stands behind the two flags atop the roof. Even people who notice the slim antenna have no idea that it’s part of a wireless network set to deliver data speeds up to 1 terabit per second.
Researchers at Rice University are creating a network they say could deliver 1,000-times the bandwidth of the 1 gigabit per second networks wireless carriers are racing to commercialize. The Rice radios will use high frequency pulses of radiation instead of wave modulation and are expected to deliver enough bandwidth to download 200,000 high-definition movies per second. In time, the Rice research could revolutionize mobile broadband.
“We are designing and inventing the next generation of wireless technology,” said Dr. Edward Knightly, chair of the university’s electrical and computer engineering departments. Intel, Cisco and the U.S. government are all investing in the research underway in Knightly’s wireless networks group. The National Science Foundation recently awarded the team a $1.3 million grant to develop terabit wireless technology.
Dr. Aydin Babakhani, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Rice, designed a silicon-germanium chip that converts a digital trigger to a pulse of radiation. Magnetic energy is stored on the chip and when the digital trigger releases it, it radiates as a 5-picosecond pulse of radiation with a frequency spectrum exceeding 1 terahertz.
Neighborhood test bed
This futuristic network is coming to an area where half the residents don’t carry smartphones. The story of how this east Houston neighborhood became a wireless test bed begins with a Methodist minister. Will Reed was a pastor in Sugar Land, Texas, when one of his parishioners started talking to him about efforts to repurpose castoff corporate computers in low-income neighborhoods. Reed got involved and eventually became director of a nonprofit called Technology for All. In 2003, Reed was trying to find an affordable way to connect used computers to the internet when he read about Knightly’s work at Rice.
Knightly was on sabbatical in Switzerland when he got his first call from Reed, who wanted him to move his test bed from the lab at Rice to a low-income Houston neighborhood near the Technology for All office. Reed said Knightly’s research would benefit from tests in a real world environment and the community would benefit from the free wireless service.
“My first response was ‘No, we don’t go out in the field … industry usually takes research out into the field,’” said Knightly. But he was intrigued, and when he returned to Houston he met with Reed. The two have been working together ever since.
The Technology for All network uses a Wi-Fi mesh network as well as unused UHF spectrum not needed by broadcasters. The network’s only tower is located beside the church that houses the Technology for All office, and roughly 20 antennas are deployed throughout the neighborhood.
“We’ve had to negotiate each one of those sites,” said Reed, adding that some are on private homes. Unlike the wireless carriers, Technology for All does not pay for antenna sites.
Three of the network sites are slated to become part of the terabit-per-second network test within the next three years. Two are at neighborhood schools and the third is at Lopez & Sons Tire Shop. These are three of the sites that are closest to the tower. Knightly said that in the mesh network, bandwidth availability close to the base station is greater than it is farther out.
For the roughly 20,000 people living within range of the Rice test network, service has been inconsistent because most people who connect rely on the Wi-Fi mesh network. The addition of UHF radio equipment at the tower has helped, especially for sites near the tower such as Milby High School. Technology for All has helped the school supply each student there with a portable computer.
Reed believes one of the major benefits of the free service has been exposure, meaning people have learned for the first time how internet access can improve their lives. The average personal income in the neighborhood is below $1,000 per month, but Reed said when he drives the streets he sees more AT&T and Comcast equipment on houses, suggesting residents are prioritizing reliable internet service.
Reed wants to leverage the Rice test bed to create a reliable wireless network residents can access for free, and is currently raising funds to overlay the existing network with commercial equipment designed to mimic the Rice radios but will stay in place. Reed said the test equipment is often removed so the research team can make adjustments or collect data.
“Right now the research and the community benefit are somewhat in conflict,” Reed said. “The research is primary and the community benefit is secondary.”
Nonetheless, these two ambitious projects have coexisted for more than a decade and the benefits are clear to both parties. The next chapter could be even more extraordinary.
“Breaking the terabit-per-second barrier with radio will enable an entirely new set of wireless applications and communication paradigms,” said Knightly, whose work could also create a new paradigm for wireless testing if other research projects find their way into needy communities.
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