Meet iBwave Public Safety

While we have always been in the business of providing software to design Public Safety networks, it’s always been within the context of using our iBwave Design software – you know, the one that designs every wireless network under the sun.

But over the last couple of years, we started to notice an increase in interest in the design of public safety networks, and all you have to do is think about large emergency situations, think about the amount of data traffic – videos, voice, audio, and otherwise – flowing through the public safety networks between all first responder teams, and see why they are so important.

Simply put, without a well-designed public safety network, it can be extremely difficult for first responders to communicate vital information to and from each other. And when the ability to communicate in an emergency situation is compromised, so are people’s lives.

So Why Use this Software to Design your Public Safety Networks?

Some of you already familiar with iBwave might be wondering what’s different about this particular software – and the answer is pretty simple: it is targeted at those who are only designing public safety networks. And while you can still design public safety networks using iBwave Design, and all features in this software will be in that one – for those who only design public safety networks, this would be the best software for them to use.

Let’s talk about the specific public safety features we’ve added into this software, as well as iBwave Design.

Critical/General Zone Identification

In public safety certain guidelines need to be adhered to – in particular, you need to have -95dBM in 90% of ‘General’ area, and ‘Critical’ areas need to be -95 dBM as well, but 99%. With the new iBwave Public Safety software, you can identify both the ‘General and ‘Critical’ zones within your design and set the different compliance requirements for each area.

So for example, in the below – the ‘General’ area has been defined as well as select ‘Critical’ areas (equipment room, lobby, emergency exit, etc). Once that is done, you can right click on the area and select ‘Compliance Area Properties’ and then set your requirements for each area : General -95 dBm, 95% and Critical -95dBm, 99%. Then when you run your prediction, your compliance in each of the areas will show.

Here’s a short video of setting the different areas with different requirements. To do it you just select either one area, or all the same areas, right click and set up the compliance criteria. Then when you run your prediction, you will see the compliance labels telling you how they will perform.

Donor Isolation

A common challenge is feedback because you don’t have enough isolation between your donor and serving antennas – the donor antenna often picks up the signal of its own DAS network almost as clearly as the macro signal, which causes a feedback loop and renders the network unusable. A big problem when designing public safety networks.

To know things will work as they need to, guidelines are in place that stipulate you need -20 dB of isolation between donor and server antennas. To help with this, we’ve added this new ‘Donor Isolation’ feature which will calculate and show you the isolation dB and whether it meets the criteria of -20.

Here’s a short video showing you this. In it, I just go over to the predictions area and select ‘Donor Isolation’ – from there I can validate my design, and it will give me a result. As you can see the result shows -17.41 dB, which does not meet the -20 dB guideline and therefore it’s a fail. In this case, you would know you would need to adjust your design, and re-validate until you get a pass. Unfortunately, the feature to print a smiley face sticker out when successful didn’t make it into this version.

What’s Next for iBwave Public Safety?

The new iBwave Public Safety software is a great start, but it’s just that – only the start of what we intend to be a long roadtrip along the public safety highway. We’ve got a roadmap, we’ve got a development team, and we’ve got great customers to give us the right input to keep improving.

Interested in Learning More?

You can read all about iBwave Public Safety by heading over to the product page, found here. From there you can take a look at the datasheet, watch a demo video of it in action, and reach out to our team with any specific questions you may have.

Wirelessly yours,

Kelly

Wi-Fi 6: The Key Features

Wi-Fi 6 is largely based around the new radio specification, 802 .11ax, plus additional features such as mandatory WPA3 security. Unlike previous upgrades to Wi-Fi, the main focus is not on ever higher peak speeds, but instead on better efficiency, predictability and reliability of the connections. This reflects the requirements of the modern enterprise and consumer wireless marketplace, and expected mid-term trends.

Remember that Wi-Fi 5, previously known as 802 .11ac, was first launched in 2013, with the requirements and standards work having been done over the previous 3 years. At that point of conception in 2010, iPhones and Android devices were still something of a novelty, especially in enterprises. The Wi-Fi world still revolved around laptops – which were themselves often seen as more convenient alternatives to desktop PCs, rather than the default computing device for most workers.

By contrast, Wi-Fi 6 has been born into the era of wireless-first users, IoT transforming business processes, and an array of new mobile/cloud computing and data-access paradigms. Its core features and improvements reflect that.

Without delving too deeply into the underlying technology, the key aspects to be aware of include:

OFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access) is a change from older Wi-Fi versions’ OFDM (M=multiplexing), which in essence allows radio channels to be split into sub-units. This improves the management of traffic, increasing both overall network capacity and allowing for much more “deterministic” connectivity. Particular devices or applications can receive more reliable QoS (quality of service) than in the past. There is less risk of contention, congestion or delay. This makes the technology much better-optimized for demanding use-cases such as VoIP or time-sensitive industrial automation. This is very important for the Wi-Fi community, as the growing interest in private/enterprise 5G poses a competitive threat.

MU-MIMO & Transmit Beamforming: (Multiple-User, Multiple-In, Multiple-Out). MIMO refers to a technique of using multiple antennas to form radio signals into “beams”. This has been around in several previous versions of Wi-Fi, but is now standardized in a form that allows multiple simultaneous beams to be supported by an AP, connecting to several devices concurrently for both down- and up-link. Up to 8 streams can be supported.

1024-QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation mode), which is a new RF modulation enhancement, increases throughput speeds by up to 25%.

BSS Coloring: This is a technique for dense deployments, which allows multiple APs and devices to use the same RF channels, but with less interference and thus higher effective capacity.

Target Wait Time: This is a mechanism by which Wi-Fi clients and APs can pre-negotiate to schedule future connection timings, allowing the devices’ radios to remain idle most of the time, and thus saving battery life. It should be particularly important for IoT use-cases such as sensors, where permanent connectivity is not essential – they can send/receive data in batches, rather than keeping the radio alive for continuous transmission.

One other important development is around spectrum used by Wi-Fi 6. Currently, the world’s Wi-Fi works in two main bands – 2 .4GHz and 5GHz – both available on an unlicensed basis. While there are differences in some areas because of certain channels being occupied by other applications, there is global consistency. This harmonization has been key to Wi-Fi’s past growth.

In future it will be desirable to add new bands to improve capacity further. However, as is also the case with the cellular industry (and broadcasting and satellite), finding new global bands is tricky. The Wi-Fi 6 industry may have to deal with regional variations, either in the width of the band, or precise regulations on power and coexistence with other users. Fortunately, the silicon industry (and regulatory spectrum management) is becoming more sophisticated, so various approaches should emerge. We may see more spectrum-sharing and dynamic allocation mechanisms.

The most promising band for Wi-Fi in the near future is in the 6GHz range. In the US, it seems likely that 1GHz or more may become available in this band in the next 2 years, coinciding with many Wi-Fi 6 deployments. Europe is also looking at 6GHz, but with less overall capacity and perhaps some form of sharing with 5G cellular. The exact shape of this band is one of the unknowns at present, but for which deployments should be future-proofed.

In any case, it seems likely that any new 6GHz band will only be certified for Wi-Fi 6 and OFDMA, in order to maximize the benefits of the new standard. Older variants of Wi-Fi will be confined to 2.4GHz and 5GHz.

The above is an excerpt from our free eBook Wi-Fi 6 and Enterprise Networking Convergence by guest writer Dean Bubley. Click here to download the full version.

More Wi-Fi 6 Resources

Want to get into the specifics of Wi-Fi 6 design? Download our Wi-Fi 6 Wireless Standards quick reference poster.

What does Dean think of convergence and the evolution of indoor networks? Read his guest blog article to find out!

Or, learn the Do’s and Dont’s of Stellar Wi-Fi design in our exclusive webinar.

Feature Spotlight: Optimized Inclined Surface Modeling

Many users understand the negative effects poor modeling can have on RF performance and cost. But inaccurate prediction doesn’t just have financial implications, it can also double the time it takes to complete a wireless design — especially when it comes to complex venue modeling.

In iBwave Release 13, we’ve introduced optimized inclined surface modeling to address this concern. With the latest version, users can now draw multiple inclined areas at once when modeling for large complex venues. This is particularly useful when designing for large arenas and stadiums with rows of inclined seating – users can expect to cut up to 60% of the time normally spent modeling these types of venues.

Complex Venue Design in iBwave Release 13

Users can also model curved sections of the inclined surface for the purpose of modeling a curved seating area or other curved sections in a stadium or complex venue.

Designers can now define an inclined surface as a prediction area and run required output maps. These results can then be displayed in iBwave’s built-in 3D viewer. To isolate prediction sections, users can split the incline segments to omit from the prediction results.

iBwave Release 13 also adds new enhancements that simplify floor and design plan modeling. Improvements include:

A displayed riser notification message when connecting parts across different floors
The ability to make multiple duplicates of one floor

Note that the pictograms and riser notifications are applicable on Design plans only.

To download the latest version of iBwave, log in to your My iBwave portal.

Learn More About Complex Venue Modeling

Want to see the complete list of new features in iBwave Release 13? Check out our what’s new page.

To go in-depth on modeling wireless networks for complex venues like stadiums and arenas, read our e-book all about the topic.

Have you watched our Designing Wi-Fi Networks in Complex Environments webinar with industry expert Tom Carpenter? You can access it on-demand along with all of our other webinars right here.