Fixed Wireless Terminals are NOT …

Fixed Wireless Terminals are NOT … (necessarily stuck in a “fixed location”.) 

Fixed Wireless Terminals (FWT’s) also sometimes called Fixed Cellular Terminals (FWC’s) are not “Fixed”. I think those names are legacy from earlier applications of what is now called Mobile Broadband Router for WCDMA/HSPA Mobile Networks. Maybe they could also be called Mobile Wireless Terminals (MWT’s) or Mobile Cellular Terminals (FCT’s) but I think we’ve got enough fancy or confusing names and abbreviations not to mention acronyms and technologies that a lot of people just don’t understand. And I think the marketing departments finally caught up with what these things were being used More and More for… Mobile Internet and Mobile Office-like Voice Services. I ran into them first on Motor Yachts around the year 2004 - back then they weren’t really broadband as they did GPRS (around 50-60 Kb/s) or Edge (around 100-130 Kb/s).

So what is a Mobile Broadband Cellular Router (now we’re talking: MBCR’s) ?

A Mobile Broadband Cellular is an expanded use of something that I believe was initially expected to be used in offices or homes as landline voice telephone replacement and as Internet became available over cellular … then why not add Internet to them. As technology evolved from Circuit Switched Data over Cellular (like Dial up modem over cellular) to 2G (see GPRS and Edge above) and then on to 3G (now we’re talking UMTS - WCDMA - HSPA) they become more and more popular not only as the old “fixed location” landline and Internet replacement, but as an Internet and Voice Router that you can install on a moving vehicle.

Its not new to have Cellular 2G and 3G Internet shared by routers. Others have done it for laptop style Internet cards. But where the Ericsson gear excels is in doing it all in one box - only needing a sim card for service - and converting cellular voice to analog voice for PBX systems or standard POTS telephone equipment. That means plain old desk telephones or Office Phone Extension Systems. That’s what I believe made them popular in the marine / yachting industry. That and the fact that they are an unlocked device so you can get a sim card and put it on anybodies cellular network worldwide.

So… this can make for a very nice portable / mobile office - in many types of vehicles. I had someone call wanting to put one in a bus the other day. That can provide Internet to the passengers. It can also provide an office style telephone connection for the driver or other operator/employee of such a transit vehicle. And a permanent phone number that can be called from any phone should dispatch need to reach them (say radio communications, if used, goes down.)

On yachts it’s critical to be able to have a telephone line and telephone number in as many places as possible. These units provide that wirelessly (cellular voice) to their phone sets onboard or extensions via their PBX system, as well as providing 3G Internet on board as well.

These units are pretty SUPER boxes. And they now look even better with the new Ericsson W35. I’ve been saying that some users may not want to hide them in the doghouse (or communications compartment) - but may think they look good enough to display out in the open.

—

Alan Spicer Telecom / Alan Spicer Marine Telecom

http://www.marinetelecom.net/Ericsson_W35

+1 954 683 3426

communications@marinetelecom.net

This entry was posted on 16. June 2009 at 11:52 and is filed under Cellular Voice and Internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.