Siemens Claims Wireless Speed Record

Siemens claimed Tuesday it has set a record by transferring data via a wireless communications system at one gigabit per second.

The company said in a statement that it performed the feat using Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) technology and what it called an intelligent antenna system at its research center in Munich, Germany.

By contrast, wireless LANs are rated at speeds of about 54 Mbps, although actual data throughput speeds typically are far less. The upcoming generation of wireless broadband systems is expected to deliver speeds of between 1 Mbps and 3 Mbps and current 3G cellular data systems deliver typical speeds of about 384 Kbps.

The company said that, while the speeds were the result of laboratory experiments, that such speeds will be necessary in the future.

"Future mobile communication systems will have to utilize the frequency band as efficiently as possible, with the lowest possible transmit power," Christoph Caselitz, president of Siemens' mobile networks division, said in a statement. "With our experimental system, we've been able to demonstrate how powerful intelligent antennas can be in combination with OFDM. In doing so, we've created a major module for future mobile communication systems."The antenna system, which is similar to Multiple Input, Multiple Output (MIMO) systems that are already starting to appear on the market, was key to the high speeds, according to Siemens. The company said that it developed signal processing algorithms for the antenna system that are efficient enough even for current systems.