By David John Urban, Comcast
Wireless standards are developed to meet the needs of many different applications, data rates and form factors. The IEEE 802.11ac standard is optimized for data rates greater than 300 Mbps for ranges of 1 to 10 meters with notebook computers having all day battery life. IEEE 802.15 based Bluetooth low energy is optimized for wearable devices such as watches, heart rate monitors, and stride sensors with data rates of 1 Mbps in extremely small form factors with battery life of weeks, months, and even years. Sensors that are geographically dispersed requiring years of battery life and very minimal data transfer may be best served using a lower frequency band with modulation tailored for low data rates and long range.
This paper discusses these three different use cases and describes how modulation, spectrum, and bandwidth can be matched to the unique requirements of each application and form factor.