Chipsets Used to Determine Transportation-Based Wireless Standard

    SUNNYVALE, Calif.--Aug. 30, 2001--After rigorous testing of competing technologies, a special committee made up of private businesses and public agencies selected IEEE 802.11a technology for licensed "telematics" applications in the specially designated 5.850-5.925 GHz band. Atheros AR5000 chipsets were used to test the IEEE 802.11a technology.
    Telematics includes vehicular public safety, electronic toll-taking, commercial vehicle operations, and information applications. Emerging telematics applications will, for example, warn drivers of nearby emergency vehicles and traffic congestion, allow consumers to easily pay a bridge or road toll wirelessly, and download music files when they pull up to a gas station or into their garage. Businesses such as trucking companies will be able to track their fleet of trucks and cargo whenever a truck passes a weigh station or truck stop.
    "The recent independent testing of Atheros chipsets demonstrates the performance, reliability, and breadth of applications possible with Atheros 802.11a technology," said Mark Bercow, vice president of marketing for Atheros Communications.
    Atheros AR5000-based products were tested in a variety of severe multipath environments including parking garage and toll booths, high speed environments where vehicles exchanged data with stationary and mobile stations at up to 120 mph, and vehicle-to-vehicle at distances up to 400 meters. The products passed these tests by providing packet error rates of less than 0.1 in 100 percent of the multipath tests, exchanging messages in 100 percent of the high speed runs, and consistently establishing wireless links at long distances through heavy traffic.
    Sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration, performance testing was done by the Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) 5.9 GHz Standards Writing Group, a sub-group of American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) E17.51. On August 24, 2001, the group voted 20-2 to select 802.11a RA (roadside applications), a version of IEEE 802.11a modified to operate at 5.850-5.925 GHz.
    "The selection of a standard for this band is a major milestone towards developing new telematics applications in the 5.850-5.925 GHz band," said Paul Najarian, director of telecommunications for ITS America, a public-private organization mandated by the U.S. Congress in 1991 to coordinate the development and deployment of intelligent transportation systems in the United States.
    "As a leading provider of wireless location products and integration services for telematics, intelligent transportation systems, automatic vehicle location and public safety, we are integrating 802.11a into our existing product lines," says Dr. Khaled Dessouky, CTO of TechnoCom Corporation. "And as active participants in the DSRC Standards Writing Group and independent evaluators of DSRC technologies, we have been impressed by the performance of the Atheros AR5000-based products in the demanding DSRC environments."