LightWaves, the future is not wireless

These days everything seems to be centered on portable and wireless technologies. There are a great number of startups specializing in RF technologies, digital amplifiers, and software defined radio. Even wireless power harnessing for low power applications has appeared on the horizon. With 3G, 4G, WiMAX, Ultra Wide Band, Wireless USB, and beyond it seems that the entire wire-line infrastructure that has been built over the last century at a cost of billions, if not trillions, of dollars, might become obsolete. Given the media’s infatuation these days with everything wireless, someone not well versed in the data communication business can easily be mislead to believe that wire-line obsoleteness is inevitable. Thus, when a startup appears and claims that it has developed technology that will revolutionize the speed and distances at which wire-line networks can operate, one quickly takes notice. Enter LightWaves, an equipment startup that originated out of Cedar Rapids, Iowa and has recently moved its headquarters to Austin, TX. The company has developed what it calls TimeFlux technology, which enables data transmission on any wire type at greater speed than any other currently existing technology. I recently had the pleasure of meeting with Drew Childress, LightWaves’ Vice President of Business Development and Marketing, to speak a little bit about LightWaves. During our meeting Drew was kind enough shed some light on the company’s TimeFlux technology and data communication businesses in general. What follows below is a summary of our conversation.

ChipCrunch:
"Cedar Rapids, Iowa is a rather unusual place for a startup to emerge from?"
Drew Childress:
"That’s true. But what you might not know is that Cedar Rapids actually has the highest number of engineers per capita of any major metropolitan area in the US with Rockwell Collins  being the major employer."

ChipCrunch:
"I didn’t know that. What prompted the company to move its headquarters to Austin, TX recently?"
Drew Childress:
"Although we have plenty of EEs in Cedar Rapids, what we lacked were people that really understood telecom, and people that wanted to be engaged in startups. Additionally, when talking to Venture Capitalists, they very much considered Cedar Rapids a fly over zone, meaning, they urged us to move to an area where both talent and VCs were more readily available."

ChipCrunch:
"Obviously you had other choices than Austin, such as Boston or San Jose. So why did you choose Austin?"
Drew Childress:
"Boston seems rather more focused on the medical startups. San Jose and Austin both feature a lot of electrical engineering talent, however being from the mid-west we felt a lot more at home in Austin. As a matter of fact, if you could pick up Austin and place it somewhere in the mid-west it would fit right in, it is very much a mid-west kind of town. Additionally, other factors such as the cost of living and receptiveness of VCs also influenced our decision. "

ChipCrunch:
"What are the plans for your site in Cedar Rapids?"
Drew Childress:
"We’re definitely keeping the Cedar Rapids site. We currently employ several outstanding engineers there who did not want to relocate down to Austin. Further, we lease a lot of land up there. Land we most likely could not afford down here. We have over five miles of buried wire up there and as such, unlike other companies which rely on simulations to test their theories, we are able to test everything on actual wires. "

ChipCrunch:
"Your company web-site is rather vague on how many employees you currently have, how much funding you have received and from whom, and so on. Can you elaborate?"
Drew Childress:
"Sure. We currently employ sixteen people almost all of whom are electrical engineers. We just recently hired three engineers in Austin, and plan to hire an additional eight or so throughout the year. We have had several rounds of funding in which we were able to raise a total of 16 million. We’ve been able to use that money to run the company for about five years, so we are very conservative cash wise. We are currently working on Round D for our funding."

ChipCrunch:
"With the economy being as it is, do you have any concerns about raising more money?"
Drew Childress:
"Not really. If you have a promising technology that can solve some real problems, there is still plenty of money out there. On a related note, an interesting thing about the economy is that the demand for home services such as internet and cable TV tends increase when times are bad. People spend more time at home and look for cheaper entertainment alternatives to going out."

ChipCrunch:
"Now to the real question. Everybody seems to be enamored with wireless these days. So why do you believe that wired is the way of the future?"
Drew Childress:
"If you understand data communications and the industry, you will quickly come to understand that in the industry nobody believes in wireless for large data transfers. In order to deliver IPTV or related video services you need high quality, low jitter and low latency. In other words, you need guaranteed quality of service. A customer might tolerate mediocre video quality on a small portable device screen, but when the same customer watches content on a big screen television the quality being delivered better be top notch or the customer will be very unhappy. You can look at air as one large coaxial cable where all the wireless devices share bandwidth, and while this will work, the throughput will suffer and so will the content quality that is being delivered."

ChipCrunch:
"Why not buffer the content then? For example, the same way that providers such as  Netflix do before streaming a movie?"
Drew Childress:
"Buffering is certainly a solution, if you only want to watch a specific stream. What happens when you want to browse channels? You can’t expect the consumer to wait several seconds while switching channels. Nor can you expect them to have enough storage space and bandwidth to buffer all of the channels simultaneously. And to complicate things even further, bandwidth requirements will only increase from here on. 3D television is coming down the pipes and that by itself will double the required data rates."

ChipCrunch:
"Ok. So now that we have an idea about the problems, what do you guys bring to the table to solve them?"
Drew Childress:
"We have developed a new wire-line technology for home networking that we call TimeFlux. TimeFlux works on any type of wire and at speeds significantly faster than anything that is currently available. The type of wiring and quality of wiring is unique in every house, and as such for us to be able to use any kind of wire and our ability to maintain high throughput even on lower quality wires is a huge advantage. As a matter of fact, just last month we successfully completed a mock home test with a potential customer, and we achieved speeds twice as fast as anything they have ever seen."

ChipCrunch:
"I understand you don’t want to reveal all the details about TimeFlux, but can you expand a little bit on how you are able to achieve these high speeds?"
Drew Childress:
"Sure. But let me first start out by taking a step back and explaining a couple more problems that telecom providers currently face. Many technologies, such as vdsl2 for example, promised 100 Mbps at a range of up to 5000 feet. As these technologies exited the labs, reality quickly kicked in and currently vdsl2 can at best do about 25 Mbps at up to 3000 feet. This shortcoming in performance stems from the fact that current technologies are hitting fundamental physical limits of carrier based modulation schemes, which cannot be overcome by increasing the signal power or by more sophisticated encoding techniques. In the case of vdsl2, as signal power is increased, waves begin jumping off the actual wire resulting in a lack of throughput. What current schemes essentially do is modulate the frequency and multiplex in time. With TimeFlux we do exactly the opposite: we modulate time and multiplex in frequency. Based on the math alone, we are able to achieve twice the throughput of competing technologies simply because we are twice as efficient with bandwidth."

ChipCrunch:
"I can imagine that that there are quite a few companies interested in your TimeFlux technology. How do you intend to bring it to market?"
Drew Childress:
"We are currently designing TimeFlux based products for the commercial market (hotels, hospitals and multi-tenant buildings). Our UltraJack family of wall-mounted network adapters can utilize the existing wiring in these buildings to deliver high quality connectivity throughout the building. Next up will be products for the residential market and we may also offer TimeFlux chipsets a little further down the road."

ChipCrunch:
"Thank you so much for your time and all the information that you shared. Best of luck with TimeFlux and please keep us abreast of any new developments at LightWaves."

Readers have left 18 comments

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No.1 Just some guy with a college degree

This all sounds like snake-oil to me. It makes no difference how you do your modulation or multiplexing, either in time or frequency. It's all the same thing.

If your math shows you can get twice the throughput by messing around with either the modulation or multiplexing, then obviously you made a mistake in your math. This isn't rocket science.

Anybody

Submitted by John Williams, on 2009-04-10 18:37:50

No.2 Just some guy with a college degree

Anybody who would like to confirm for themselves that TimeFlux WILL NOT increase data transmission rate can look at the following link:

http://tinyurl.com/de6zb7

Submitted by John Williams, on 2009-04-12 13:15:47

No.3 Just some guy with a college degree

And why stop at just doubling your throughput?

I can show you a way to double your gas mileage !!!!

http://www.hydro4power.com/

Submitted by John Williams, on 2009-04-12 15:47:10

No.4 Lightwaves Response

John I understand your sceptisim. As the saying goes - the proof is in the pudding. To that end we have prototype hardware (FPGA based for now but ASIC on the way) and we have started major Service Provider laboratory testing. Using their testing facilities and their "mock homes", TimeFlux has yielded more than twice the throughput of any other existing wire technology they have ever seen. We firmly believe that OFDM/TDMA based technologies are running out of gas and FDMA is the future.

Unfortunately in the age of patent trolls we have to be careful how we bring this to market. We plan to build some product over the next year and at that time, or maybe sooner, we will be able to public performance validation.

Submitted by drewcswj, on 2009-04-14 10:34:12

No.5 Senior Staff DSP Engineer, Motorola

I agree with John Williams. To say that TimeFlux will double
transmission rate is a direct violation of Time/Frequency Duality.

In addition, your statement is a direct violation of the Shannon/Hartley
theorem, which states:

C = B log2(1 + S/N)

where

C is the channel capacity in bits per second;
B is the bandwidth of the channel in hertz;
S is the total signal power over the bandwidth, measured in watt or volt2;
N is the total noise power over the bandwidth, measured in watt or volt2; and
S/N is the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) or the carrier-to-noise ratio (CNR) of the communication signal to the Gaussian noise interference expressed as a linear power ratio (not as logarithmic decibels).

Note that the Shannon/Hartley theorem applies to all possible
multi-level, and multi-phase encoding techniques, including
OFDM, TDMA, and FDMA.

The Shannon/Hartley theorem is a basic tennet of communications
theory, and the assertion that you have found a way around it
is incorrect.

Submitted by Senior Staff DSP Motorola, on 2009-04-18 00:28:16

No.6 Marketing Manager ATT

When I worked for Time Warner, we did market studies comparing wireless to wired data services through the home. What we found in every case was that
wireless was faster, cheaper, and more flexible.

When a new home is built, telephone jacks are located in the best locations to place a telephone. These locations are rarely the best locations for a
television or other data device.

For example, most living rooms we looked at didn't even have a phone jack. Those that did were placed next to where the sofa ideally should be. The best location for the television would be along the wall on the complete other side of the room.

Same with bedrooms. The telephone jacks were located near where the head of the bed (or nightstand) would be. Most people who watch television in bed locate the television along the opposite wall near the foot of the bed. We also found that unfinished basements were rarely covered with a lot of phone jacks, even when the basements were finished by the owners.

Submitted by Pranay Krishna, on 2009-04-20 12:20:43

No.7 Marketing Manager ATT

Even when you leave out the wildly exaggerated technical claims LightWaves is making here, it seems like UWB may be in trouble, just in general terms. Intel has abandoned UWB. The WiMedia alliance folded in March. UWB companies appear to be dropping like flies:

http://tinyurl.com/c46yfl

Looks like wireless 802.11n is the way of the future.

Submitted by Pranay Krishna, on 2009-04-27 22:20:48

No.8 UWB troubles

Pranay: Seems like you were dead on regrading UWB troubles: http://eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=217201265

Submitted by maciej, on 2009-05-04 14:21:23

No.9 Marketing Manager ATT

Maciej, you seem to be a qualified hardware engineer, with a good
degree of experience in electronic communications. I have seen
your impressive resume:

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dir/?last=Bajkowski&first=Maciej

So would you care to comment on the technical claims made by Lightwaves
Systems during your interview with Drew Childress? It seems
impossible Lightwaves will double their data transmission rate through
modulating in time rather than in frequency. Mainly, because of
time-frequency duality. Somebody else mentioned the Shannon-Hartley
theorem, which also applies here.

What is your opinion on the technical issues?

Submitted by Pranay Krishna, on 2009-05-11 02:26:32

No.10 need to brush up first

Pranay, thanks for the kind words regarding my background, but what you also might have noticed is that networking and telecommunications is absolutely not my forte. The last time I opened a book remotely related to this topic was optical networking back in my college days. As such, I would like to defer technical comments on the validity of the claims to more qualified individuals as yourself and others in this comment thread here, at least until I get a chance to read the Time-Frequency Duality paper mentioned above and brush up on TDMA vs. FDMA. I surely hope that the investors that allowed LightWaves to raise $16 million took some time to do the same!

Submitted by maciej, on 2009-05-13 10:19:11

No.11 Lightwaves Response part 2

I'll address several things in this reply so bear with me:

UWB Troubles - Yes UWB as a wireless technology is foundering. PulseLink and Tzero started as wireless guys and then tried to morph into wired over Coax. 3GHz carriers don't work very well in anything other than perfect coax installs. At Lightwaves we like to say at the start of every wireless network is a wire. We don't care what gets used for the last few feet whether it be UWB, WiGig, or WirelessHDMI. TimeFlux will get the bits to the radio.

AT&T - We are under NDA with AT&T so Pranay if you want to know some details contact me and I'll let you know who we are working with for validation.

Submitted by drewcswj, on 2009-05-19 16:52:57

No.12 Lightwaves Response part 3

Shannon-Hartley - We approach but do not violate Shannon-Hartley. By the way so do several other existing-wire technologies. PHY rate is the actual transmission bit rate and HPNA currently specs 320Mb/s PHY rate with 32Mhz of bandwidth, MoCA specs 270Mb/s with 50Mhz and PowerlineAV (HomePlug) is 200Mb/s with 26Mhz. TimeFlux is 512Mb/s with 32Mhz. We are slightly better in PHY rate due to better SNR thanks to a wide spectrum UWB-like signal. Where we kill them is in throughput. TDMA overhead in a multi-drop configuration is very inefficient. With mixed packets (for reference we use 40% 64 byte, 20% 600 byte and 40% 1,500 byte which approximates consumer internet traffic) you'll see our competition achieve throughput rates less than 25% of PHY rate. As more nodes are added total system throughput falls even futher. TimeFlux is 55% of PHY rate being FDMA added nodes have no impact on total system performance.

Wi-Fi - We agree Wi-Fi is easy and convenient. What it doesn't do well is handle real-time streaming. Just try and connect a VOIP adapter through a wireless bridge. Real-time (not buffered) video is even more challenging. Better yet hook up an Xbox through a wireless adapter and start an Xbox live match while trying to do VOIP. Game over.

Thanks for the interest and dialog thus far,

Drew Childress
Lightwaves

Submitted by drewcswj, on 2009-05-19 16:53:51

No.13 Marketing Manager ATT

Unfortunately, from quantization noise considerations
it is going to take at least a 16 bit CODEC operating
at 100 MSPS to achieve the 512 MBPS performance that
you are claiming.

C = B * log2(1 + S/N)

512 MBPS = 32 MHz * 16

16 = log2(1 + S/N) -- 16 bit codec S/N = 65535

A 16-bit CODEC that operates at 100 MSPS is going
to run you about $60. At that point, your system
price will easily exceed $200, and it isn't really
a viable consumer home product at that point.

I am reasonably sure that MoCA and HPNA are based
around 10-bit CODECs that cost around $5. That's why
their performance is 320 MBPS and below. That's
also why their system costs are below $200.
Their performance is dictated by economics, not
technology.

If MoCA and HPNA wanted to go to 512 MBPS, they
could just go to a larger CODEC, and wider data path.
Their system cost would also increase.

Submitted by Pranay Krishna, on 2009-05-23 08:17:25

No.14 Lightwaves Response

Pranay we use an off the shelf AFE that has 12 bit, 64 MSPS converters and costs less than $10 in volume. Give me a call and I will tell you who we are working with at AT&T Labs.

Drew Childress
Lightwaves
512-338-4999

Submitted by drewcswj, on 2009-05-23 21:47:59

No.15 Marketing Manager ATT

Now that Lightwaves Systems has provided the specs regarding their analog
front end, it's pretty easy to see that it won't conduct data at 512 MBPS.
Their performance claim of 512 MBPS is false, and a violation of the
Shannon-Hartley theorem. They said 12-bit conversion, 64 MSPS sample
rate, and 32 MHz signal bandwidth:

C = B * log2(1 + S/N)

384 MBPS = 32 MHz * log2(1 + 4096) - 12-bit A/D, 32 MHz bandwidth

So under IDEAL conditions, Lightwaves Systems analog front end can only
deliver 384 MBPS.

They are running too close to the Nyquist frequency to actually get this
high, though. Also, the channel capacity is a MAXIMUM number that you
must operate BELOW to get decent performance. So the actually performance
they get will fall significantly below 384 MBPS.

The small SNR performance differences between various forms of OFDM and UWB
don't even come into play here. In this application, the quantization noise
of the CODEC dominates, and it ultimately determines the upper limit for
channel capacity.

UWB and TimeFlux won't make any difference here. Any modulation scheme
WILL operate BELOW 384 MBPS.

And Drew, I have checked around, and as far as I can determine, you are
not working with anybody here. And I am not going to debate this with you
over the telephone.

Submitted by Pranay Krishna, on 2009-05-28 10:48:09

No.16 Lightwaves Response

Well Pranay I checked around too and per my AT&T labs contact no one by your name (or even close) works at AT&T. It could be that you are using a false name to protect your real identity but my issue is that you post as an "AT&T Marketing Manager". As I have mentioned before Lightwaves is under NDA with AT&T and you can confirm that with your legal department if you work at AT&T. If so send me an email and we'll clear this up.

Submitted by drewcswj, on 2009-05-29 08:17:24

No.17 Marketing Manager ATT

Your technical claim of 512 MBPS data transmission rate is false.
Based on information you published on the internet, your claim of
512 MBPS violates basic engineering concepts. Any NDA you claim to
have does not not cover information you post in a public place.

And I hope you DON'T like it. That's tough sh** for you.

Submitted by Pranay Krishna, on 2009-06-02 22:20:50

No.18 please keep it polite

Guys,

To disagree is a normal thing, and sometimes is it necessary to agree to disagree. Please keep the discussion polite for the sake of other users, or take it offline.

Regards,

Maciej

Submitted by maciej, on 2009-06-02 23:11:53

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