Indranet gets a Nice chance to strut its stuff in Europe

By CHRIS BARTON IT editor

Investor eyes will be on the city of Nice this year when Christchurch-based Indranet gives the first commercial outing of its radical "minder" technology operating in a broadband "mesh" network.

The project, part of the European Commission's "Virtuhalls" scheme, will feature a "4G" wireless public service telecommunications network created by Indranet, in return for €1 million ($2.14 million) over three years from Virtuhalls' partner Sigma Technologies.

Indranet, which has yet to report any commercial income, is seeking $5 million from the public for further development of its technology.

Sigma manager Jean-Michel Cardi says the Nice contract will begin with a small network of 50 to 100 Indranet minders to be completed before the end of this year, expanding to "a critical mass" of about 300 to 500 nodes before the beginning of 2004.

Mr Cardi said the contract with Indranet is €1 million and the total investment for Sigma Technologies and the City of Nice is €3.5 million. The total investment for the site of Nice is €7 million, including France Telecom's ADSL (asymmetrical digital subscriber line) infrastructure extension.

He said the purpose of Virtuhalls was to provide local and regional authorities with "a cheap and flexible tool" to implement e-administration.

He envisages Indranet's first-generation minders - a cross between router, wireless transceiver and computer - being placed at public service locations such as schools of art, museums, theatres, sport and social associations, cyber employment centres, and mobile emergency and library services.

The aim is to deliver a simultaneous mix of interactive content, including voice, web pages, video and audio.

Asked why Sigma had selected Indranet's largely unproven technology, Mr Cardi said the company's network and telecommunication experts were convinced the "advanced broadband communications we need will require a mesh network which is a risk-minimising approach."

Mr Cardi said Sigma had known of the feasibility of this type of mesh network and had been reassured on technologies and protocols through Indranet's simulations.

The underlying technology for Indranet minders comes from the field of reconfigurable computing using programmable chips called field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). Indranet is in discussion with several companies in this area, including Starbridge Systems, Xilinx and Celoxica.

The wireless communication is achieved through ultra-wideband "pulsed" radio, which sends and receives signals in series of pulses as opposed to the the continuous carrier waves of traditional radio communication.

Links


Indranet

Sigma

Ten Telecom

Virtuhalls

Star Bridge Syatems

Xilinx

Celoxica

Time Domain