CELLULAR BROADBAND TELEMETRY OPTIONS FOR THE 21st CENTURY: Looking at broadband cellular from a telemetry perspective

Abstract

With the recent broadband upgrades to various cellular infrastructures and the myriad new emerging wireless broadband standards and services offered by carriers, it is often difficult to navigate this sea of technology. In deciding the best choice for broadband telemetry applications, one must look not only at the technology, but also at the economics, market timing, bandwidths, legacy issues, future expandability and coverage, security, protocols, and the requirements of the specific application. This paper reviews the technology roadmap of cellular providers keeping these issues in perspective as they apply to TCP/IP data for images, audio, video, and other broadband telemetry data using CDMA 1xRTT, EV-DO, and EV-DO Rev A systems as well as GSM GPRS/EDGE, UMTS/W-CDMA, HSDPA, and HSUPA networks. Lastly, issues seen by system integrators when using cellular channels for telemetry applications are examined, and a case is presented for overcoming many of these issues through the use of cellular routers.