Edholm's law, proposed by and named after Phil Edholm, refers to the observation that the three categories of
telecommunication
Telecommunication, often used in its plural form or abbreviated as telecom, is the transmission of information over a distance using electronic means, typically through cables, radio waves, or other communication technologies. These means of ...
,
namely
wireless
Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information (''telecommunication'') between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided transm ...
(mobile), nomadic (wireless without mobility) and wired
networks
Network, networking and networked may refer to:
Science and technology
* Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects
* Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks
Mathematics
...
(fixed), are in lockstep and gradually converging.
Edholm's law also holds that
data rates for these telecommunications categories increase on similar exponential curves, with the slower rates trailing the faster ones by a predictable time lag. Edholm's law predicts that the
bandwidth
Bandwidth commonly refers to:
* Bandwidth (signal processing) or ''analog bandwidth'', ''frequency bandwidth'', or ''radio bandwidth'', a measure of the width of a frequency range
* Bandwidth (computing), the rate of data transfer, bit rate or thr ...
and data rates double every 18 months, which has proven to be true since the 1970s.
The trend is evident in the cases of
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...
,
cellular (mobile),
wireless LAN
A wireless LAN (WLAN) is a wireless computer network that links two or more devices using wireless communication to form a local area network (LAN) within a limited area such as a home, school, computer laboratory, campus, or office building ...
and
wireless personal area networks.
Concept
Edholm's law was proposed by Phil Edholm of
Nortel Networks. He observed that telecommunication
bandwidth
Bandwidth commonly refers to:
* Bandwidth (signal processing) or ''analog bandwidth'', ''frequency bandwidth'', or ''radio bandwidth'', a measure of the width of a frequency range
* Bandwidth (computing), the rate of data transfer, bit rate or thr ...
(including
Internet access
Internet access is a facility or service that provides connectivity for a computer, a computer network, or other network device to the Internet, and for individuals or organizations to access or use applications such as email and the World Wide ...
bandwidth) was doubling every 18 months, since the late 1970s through to the early 2000s. This is similar to
Moore's law
Moore's law is the observation that the Transistor count, number of transistors in an integrated circuit (IC) doubles about every two years. Moore's law is an observation and Forecasting, projection of a historical trend. Rather than a law of ...
, which predicts an exponential rate of growth for
transistor
A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch electrical signals and electric power, power. It is one of the basic building blocks of modern electronics. It is composed of semicondu ...
counts
Count (feminine: countess) is a historical title of nobility in certain European countries, varying in relative status, generally of middling rank in the hierarchy of nobility. Pine, L. G. ''Titles: How the King Became His Majesty''. New York: ...
. He also found that there was a gradual convergence between wired (e.g.
Ethernet
Ethernet ( ) is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...
), nomadic (e.g.
modem
The Democratic Movement (, ; MoDem ) is a centre to centre-right political party in France, whose main ideological trends are liberalism and Christian democracy, and that is characterised by a strong pro-Europeanist stance. MoDem was establis ...
and
Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for Wireless LAN, local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by ...
) and
wireless networks
A wireless network is a computer network that uses wireless data connections between network nodes. Wireless networking allows homes, telecommunications networks, and business installations to avoid the costly process of introducing cables in ...
(e.g.
cellular networks). The name "Edholm's law" was coined by his colleague, John H. Yoakum, who presented it at a 2004
Internet telephony
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also known as IP telephony, is a set of technologies used primarily for voice communication sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. VoIP enables voice calls to be transmitted as ...
press conference.
Slower communications channels like
cellphones and
radio modems were predicted to eclipse the capacity of early
Ethernet
Ethernet ( ) is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...
, due to developments in the standards known as
UMTS
The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a 3G mobile cellular system for networks based on the GSM standard. UMTS uses Wideband Code Division Multiple Access, wideband code-division multiple access (W-CDMA) radio access technolog ...
and
MIMO
In radio, multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) () is a method for multiplying the capacity of a radio link using multiple transmission and receiving antennas to exploit multipath propagation. MIMO has become an essential element of wirel ...
, which boosted bandwidth by maximizing antenna usage.
Extrapolating forward indicates a convergence between the rates of nomadic and wireless technologies around 2030. In addition, wireless technology could end wireline communication if the cost of the latter's infrastructure remains high.
Underlying factors
In 2009, Renuka P. Jindal observed the bandwidths of online
communication networks rising from
bits per second
In telecommunications and computing, bit rate (bitrate or as a variable ''R'') is the number of bits that are conveyed or processed per unit of time.
The bit rate is expressed in the unit bit per second (symbol: bit/s), often in conjunction ...
to
terabits per second, doubling every 18 months, as predicted by Edholm's law. Jindal identified the following three major underlying factors that have enabled the exponential growth of communication bandwidth.
*The
MOSFET
upright=1.3, Two power MOSFETs in amperes">A in the ''on'' state, dissipating up to about 100 watt">W and controlling a load of over 2000 W. A matchstick is pictured for scale.
In electronics, the metal–oxide–semiconductor field- ...
was invented at
Bell Labs
Nokia Bell Labs, commonly referred to as ''Bell Labs'', is an American industrial research and development company owned by Finnish technology company Nokia. With headquarters located in Murray Hill, New Jersey, Murray Hill, New Jersey, the compa ...
between 1955 and 1960, after Frosch and Derick discovered and used surface passivation by silicon dioxide to create the first planar transistors, the first in which drain and source were adjacent at the same surface.
Advances in MOSFET technology (MOS technology) has been the most important contributing factor in the rapid rise of bandwidth in telecommunications networks. Continuous
MOSFET scaling
file:D2PAK.JPG, upright=1.3, Two power transistor, power MOSFETs in D2PAK surface-mount packages. Operating as switches, each of these components can sustain a blocking voltage of 120volts, V in the ''off'' state, and can conduct a conti ...
, along with various advances in MOS technology, has enabled both
Moore's law
Moore's law is the observation that the Transistor count, number of transistors in an integrated circuit (IC) doubles about every two years. Moore's law is an observation and Forecasting, projection of a historical trend. Rather than a law of ...
(
transistor count
The transistor count is the number of transistors in an electronic device (typically on a single substrate or silicon die). It is the most common measure of integrated circuit complexity (although the majority of transistors in modern microproc ...
s in
integrated circuit
An integrated circuit (IC), also known as a microchip or simply chip, is a set of electronic circuits, consisting of various electronic components (such as transistors, resistors, and capacitors) and their interconnections. These components a ...
chips doubling every two years) and Edholm's law (communication bandwidth doubling every 18 months).
*
Laser
A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word ''laser'' originated as an acronym for light amplification by stimulated emission of radi ...
lightwave systems The laser was demonstrated by
Charles H. Townes and
Arthur Leonard Schawlow
Arthur Leonard Schawlow (May 5, 1921 – April 28, 1999) was an American physicist who, along with Charles Townes, developed the theoretical basis for laser science. His central insight was the use of two mirrors as the resonant cavity to take m ...
at Bell Labs in 1960. Laser technology was later adopted in the design of integrated
electronics
Electronics is a scientific and engineering discipline that studies and applies the principles of physics to design, create, and operate devices that manipulate electrons and other Electric charge, electrically charged particles. It is a subfield ...
using MOS technology, leading to the development of lightwave systems around 1980. This has led to exponential growth of bandwidth since the early 1980s.
*
Information theory
Information theory is the mathematical study of the quantification (science), quantification, Data storage, storage, and telecommunications, communication of information. The field was established and formalized by Claude Shannon in the 1940s, ...
Information theory, as enunciated by
Claude Shannon
Claude Elwood Shannon (April 30, 1916 – February 24, 2001) was an American mathematician, electrical engineer, computer scientist, cryptographer and inventor known as the "father of information theory" and the man who laid the foundations of th ...
at Bell Labs in 1948, provided a theoretical foundation to understand the trade-offs between
signal-to-noise ratio
Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR or S/N) is a measure used in science and engineering that compares the level of a desired signal to the level of background noise. SNR is defined as the ratio of signal power to noise power, often expressed in deci ...
,
bandwidth
Bandwidth commonly refers to:
* Bandwidth (signal processing) or ''analog bandwidth'', ''frequency bandwidth'', or ''radio bandwidth'', a measure of the width of a frequency range
* Bandwidth (computing), the rate of data transfer, bit rate or thr ...
, and error-free
transmission in the presence of
noise
Noise is sound, chiefly unwanted, unintentional, or harmful sound considered unpleasant, loud, or disruptive to mental or hearing faculties. From a physics standpoint, there is no distinction between noise and desired sound, as both are vibrat ...
, in
telecommunications
Telecommunication, often used in its plural form or abbreviated as telecom, is the transmission of information over a distance using electronic means, typically through cables, radio waves, or other communication technologies. These means of ...
technology. In the early 1980s, Renuka Jindal at Bell Labs used information theory to study the noise behaviour of MOS devices, improving their noise performance and resolving issues that limited their receiver sensitivity and data rates. This led to a significant improvement in the noise performance of MOS technology, and contributed to the wide adoption of MOS technology in lightwave and then
wireless
Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information (''telecommunication'') between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided transm ...
terminal applications.
The bandwidths of
wireless networks
A wireless network is a computer network that uses wireless data connections between network nodes. Wireless networking allows homes, telecommunications networks, and business installations to avoid the costly process of introducing cables in ...
have been increasing at a faster pace compared to wired networks.
This is due to advances in MOSFET wireless technology enabling the development and growth of digital wireless networks. The wide adoption of
RF CMOS
RF CMOS is a metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) integrated circuit (IC) technology that integrates radio-frequency (RF), analog and digital electronics on a mixed-signal CMOS (complementary MOS) RF circuit chip. It is widely used in modern wir ...
(
radio frequency
Radio frequency (RF) is the oscillation rate of an alternating electric current or voltage or of a magnetic, electric or electromagnetic field or mechanical system in the frequency range from around to around . This is roughly between the u ...
CMOS
Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS, pronounced "sea-moss
", , ) is a type of MOSFET, metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) semiconductor device fabrication, fabrication process that uses complementary an ...
),
power MOSFET
A power MOSFET is a specific type of metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) designed to handle significant power levels. Compared to the other power semiconductor devices, such as an insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IG ...
and
LDMOS (lateral diffused MOS) devices led to the development and proliferation of digital wireless networks by the 1990s, with further advances in MOSFET technology leading to rapidly increasing
bandwidth
Bandwidth commonly refers to:
* Bandwidth (signal processing) or ''analog bandwidth'', ''frequency bandwidth'', or ''radio bandwidth'', a measure of the width of a frequency range
* Bandwidth (computing), the rate of data transfer, bit rate or thr ...
since the 2000s.
Most of the essential elements of wireless networks are built from MOSFETs, including the mobile
transceiver
In radio communication, a transceiver is an electronic device which is a combination of a radio ''trans''mitter and a re''ceiver'', hence the name. It can both transmit and receive radio waves using an antenna, for communication purposes. The ...
s,
base station
Base station (or base radio station, BS) is – according to the International Telecommunication Union's (ITU) Radio Regulations (RR) – a " land station in the land mobile service."
A base station is called '' node B'' in 3G, '' eNB'' in L ...
modules,
routers,
RF power amplifier
A radio-frequency power amplifier (RF power amplifier) is a type of electronic amplifier that converts a low-power radio-frequency (RF) signal into a higher-power signal. Typically, RF power amplifiers are used in the final stage of a radio tra ...
s,
telecommunication circuit
A telecommunication circuit is a path in a telecommunications network used to transmit information. Circuits have evolved from generally being built on physical connections between individual hardware cables, as in an analog phone switch, to v ...
s,
RF circuit
Radio-frequency (RF) engineering is a subset of electrical engineering involving the application of transmission line, waveguide, antenna, radar, and electromagnetic field principles to the design and application of devices that produce or ...
s, and
radio transceivers,
in networks such as
2G,
3G,
4G, and
5G.
In recent years, another enabling factor in the growth of
wireless
Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information (''telecommunication'') between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided transm ...
communication networks has been
interference
Interference is the act of interfering, invading, or poaching. Interference may also refer to:
Communications
* Interference (communication), anything which alters, modifies, or disrupts a message
* Adjacent-channel interference, caused by extra ...
alignment, which was discovered by
Syed Ali Jafar at the
University of California, Irvine
The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Irvine, California, United States. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, U ...
.
He established it as a general principle, along with Viveck R. Cadambe, in 2008. They introduced "a mechanism to align an arbitrarily large number of interferers, leading to the surprising conclusion that
wireless networks
A wireless network is a computer network that uses wireless data connections between network nodes. Wireless networking allows homes, telecommunications networks, and business installations to avoid the costly process of introducing cables in ...
are not essentially interference limited." This led to the adoption of interference alignment in the design of wireless networks.
According to
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...
senior researcher Dr. Paul Horn, this "revolutionized our understanding of the capacity limits of wireless networks" and "demonstrated the astounding result that each user in a wireless network can access half of the spectrum without interference from other users, regardless of how many users are sharing the spectrum."
See also
*
History of the Internet
The history of the Internet originated in the efforts of scientists and engineers to build and interconnect computer networks. The Internet protocol suite, Internet Protocol Suite, the set of rules used to communicate between networks and devi ...
*
History of telecommunication
The history of telecommunication began with the use of smoke signals and drum (communication), drums in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. In the 1790s, the first fixed semaphore line, semaphore systems emerged in Europe. However, it was not until ...
*
Internet access
Internet access is a facility or service that provides connectivity for a computer, a computer network, or other network device to the Internet, and for individuals or organizations to access or use applications such as email and the World Wide ...
*
Internet traffic
Internet traffic is the flow of data within the entire Internet, or in certain network links of its constituent networks. Common traffic measurements are total volume, in units of multiples of the byte, or as transmission rates in bytes per cert ...
*
Moore's law
Moore's law is the observation that the Transistor count, number of transistors in an integrated circuit (IC) doubles about every two years. Moore's law is an observation and Forecasting, projection of a historical trend. Rather than a law of ...
*
Telecommunications
Telecommunication, often used in its plural form or abbreviated as telecom, is the transmission of information over a distance using electronic means, typically through cables, radio waves, or other communication technologies. These means of ...
*
Nielsen's law
Jakob Nielsen (born 5 October 1957) is a Danish web usability consultant, human–computer interaction researcher, and co-founder of Nielsen Norman Group. He was named the “guru of Web page usability” in 1998 by The New York Times and the ...
References
Bibliography
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Edholm's Law
Adages
Computing culture
Computer architecture statements
Computer industry
MOSFETs