Georgia Tech Joins Industry Alliance to Help Build the Mobile Internet

Atlanta — True mobile Internet capability for wireless devices – including high-definition TV, movies and video-conferencing – has taken a step closer to reality.

The Georgia Electronic Design Center (GEDC) at Georgia Tech is allying with several major corporations and an international standards group to promote a new worldwide cognitive radio (CR) standard that would allow new levels of performance in portable devices such as cellular phones and computers.

The new alliance – called the Cognitive Networking Alliance (CogNeA)—is comprised of top players in the consumer electronics, personal computing, home entertainment, semiconductor and digital imaging fields.

CogNeA members include AT&T, Dell, ETRI, GEDC, HP, Motorola, Philips, Samsung Electro-Mechanics and Texas Instruments.

“CogNeA brings together a number of influential international companies and groups, in order to develop a wireless standard and platform for multimedia networking in the home as well as for broadband Internet access,” said CogNeA Chairman Kiran Challapali.

The new CR standard would utilize the ultra-high-frequency (UHF) band –so-called “white-space” – currently used for television broadcasting. Use of this white space for wireless applications could enable the broad bandwidth demanded by wireless video, while also providing extended range, improved coverage and superior penetration through walls.

The CogNeA standard is aimed at a broad range of applications, including Internet access for communities and in-home High Definition Multi-Media networking and distribution.

“GEDC is extremely pleased to be named the university-based member of this important alliance,” said Joy Laskar, director of GEDC. “We believe this effort can make an important contribution to the development of the mobile Internet.”

GEDC is an internationally known center at Georgia Tech dedicated to the design of mixed-signal chips as well as the education of analog electrical engineers. It has 13 faculty research leaders, more than150 graduate and undergraduate researchers and some 50 industry and government members and research partners. For more information visit www.gedcenter.org.

The Georgia Institute of Technology is one of the nation’s premier research universities. Ranked seventh among U.S. News & World Report’s top public universities, Georgia Tech’s more than 19,000 students are enrolled in its Colleges of Architecture, Computing, Engineering, Liberal Arts, Management and Sciences. Tech is among the nation’s top producers of women and African-American engineers. The Institute offers research opportunities to both undergraduate and graduate students and is home to more than 100 interdisciplinary units plus the Georgia Tech Research Institute.