Source: www.ida.gov.sg/Technology/20060419133551.aspx

POC Version 2

The POC Lab presents the following technologies:

Fibre

Fibre is touted as the future proof technology, which promises access speeds in the magnitude of gigabits and terabits per second. Four different implementations of fibre infrastructure to residential areas are identified, namely Fibre-to-the Neighbourhood(FTTN), Fibre-to-the-Block(FTTB), Fibre-to-the Floor(FTTF) and Fibre-to-the-Home(FTTH).

In a FTTB model, fibre connections from a telecommunication provider's exchange terminate at a MDF(Main Distribution Frame) room, located within a cluster of 4-5 HDB blocks. It further distributes fibre connections to a TER(Terminal Equipment Room), located at the basement of each HDB block within the cluster. UTP cabling provides final terminations from the TER to the households in the block. This architecture is known as FTTB. Alternatively, fibre connection can be extended beyond the TER and terminates at each user's premise in a HDB block. This is the deepest penetration of fibre optics infrastructure to a residential area - FTTH.

Biometrics Access Control

Biometrics is a security technology that authenticates the identity of a person (what you are) and not a card/key (what you have) or PIN (what you know). It verifies the identity of the user based on his/her fingerprint, hand geometry, retina/iris pattern, voice, face, or a combination of these. The technology is ideal in applications that require unique and secure user verification. On showcase is a biometric access control system based on hand geometry. It has been deployed in many countries in applications ranging from health clubs and day-care centres to laboratories and prisons.

X10

X10 is a communications protocol for remote control of electrical devices. It is designed for communications between X10 transmitters and X10 receivers which can communicate on standard household wiring. Transmitters and receivers generally plug into standard electrical outlets although some must be hardwired into electrical boxes. Transmitters send commands such as "turn on", "turn off" or "dim" preceded by the identification of the receiver unit to be controlled. This broadcast goes out over the electrical wiring in a building. Each receiver is set to a certain unit ID, and reacts only to commands addressed to it. Receivers ignore commands not addressed to them. There are up to 256 different user IDs available. If you want more than one device to respond to the same signal, simply set them to the same addresses.X10 makes it possible to control lights and virtually any other electrical device from anywhere in the house with no additional wiring. All X10 compatible products can be freely mixed and matched. X10 has been widely used in North America for many years. 220/240V compatible X10 products have just being rolled out to the rest of the world.

HomeRF

HomeRF is a localised wireless technology, designed specifically with the needs of home networking in mind. It uses the Shared Wireless Access Protocol (SWAP) that is designed to carry both voice and data traffic and to interoperate with the PSTN (using a subset of the European Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications (DECT) standard). The group's main goal is to enable interoperable wireless voice and data networking within the home at consumer price points.

HomeNetworking via Powerline

HomeNetworking via Powerline makes it possible to deliver Internet and multimedia from every home power outlet. With multiple outlets in almost every room, residential powerlines are already the most pervasive network in the world. As Internet use explodes, broadband access expands, and consumers plug a new generation of electronic devices into the Web, powerlines present a cost-effective, easy-to-adopt home networking solution for consumers around the globe. Powerline networking is available worldwide, affording the use of multiple outlets in every room at a lower cost per connection point. The powerline network is also a power source, leveraging existing outlets to enable communications. Additionally, the convenience of connecting any device through a power outlet will enable exciting new products with breakthrough levels of entertainment, information access, and telephony services.

HomePNA

The Home Phoneline Networking Alliance (HomePNA) is an incorporated, non-profit association of industry-leading companies working together to help ensure adoption of a single, unified phoneline networking industry standard and rapidly bring to market a range of interoperable home networking solutions. The benefits of home networking include: simultaneous, shared Internet access, printer/peripheral sharing, file and application sharing and networked games. Utilising the phoneline takes advantage of existing copper wire inside the home. It adheres to the "no new wires" mantra. The phoneline is, at this early stage in this emerging market, the leading network medium in terms of adoption and household penetration. This has occured because competing solutions and technologies have been chosen by the Home Phoneline Networking Alliance (HomePNA) to be the basis for a de facto phoneline standard. This has eliminated fragmentation, created multiple silicon sources, and accelerated developer adoption. Nearly 50 networked devices can be connected to the network within a home while still maintaining 10 Mbps speeds. The maximum distance is approximately 30 m. Additional devices can also be added, but may result in overall slower network speeds. Announced late last year, HomePNA's 2.0-10 Mbps specification for high-speed networking over ordinary phonelines makes installing a home network a simple process.

Bluetooth

Bluetooth is a cable replacement technology that eliminates the need for numerous and inconvenient cable attachments for connecting computers, mobile phones, mobile computers and handheld devices, using a short-range wireless connection. It has many rich features built onto the protocol, hence it is able to support wide variety of applications, such as information delivery, Internet connectivity, payment, location-based, etc.

Digital ID / Desktop Security

With the phenomenal growth of the Internet, the ability to identify someone securely over this faceless electronic medium has become a major application requirement, especially for Electronic Commerce and its associated activities. Simply transmitting user IDs and passwords over the network, even if encryption is employed, is no longer sufficient. What is critical is a secure mechanism for strong authentication which applications can rely on with confidence. This is the concept of the Digital ID.

To date, several Digital ID technologies have been proposed and implemented. Chief among them are the Digital Certificate, which is based on public-key technology, the Hardware Token, which is based on one-time passwords, and the Smart Card, which acts as a secure storage and computing device. To demonstrate how these technologies can be integrated together for optimal performance, we have on showcase in the POC Lab three revolutionary technologies: (1) Cryptographic Smart Card, (2) Acoustic Smart Card, and (3) Software Smart Card.

Content Delivery Networks (CDNs)

As content being served over the web becomes increasingly high-bandwidth in nature, users face increasing frustration in downloading high-bandwidth content over less-than-perfect networks. Content providers face the increasing need to push content closer to the users in order to reduce latency and enhance the experience of the users. Content delivery networks (CDNs) play an important role in making sure that content is distributed across the networks and delivered to the users with the minimum loss in quality.

Mobile Wireless - Mbassy / Mporium

Mbassy
Mbassy is a prototype messaging service that supports one-to-many messaging across PC and mobile platforms, with natural language translation, shorthand conversion, message scheduling and other user personalisation features. Specifically, it allows the transmission and reception of messages across any combination of the World Wide Web (HTML), WAP and SMS platforms, with the receivers able to read them in languages different from those in which they were sent. The current version supports basic English, French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish vocabularies.

Mporium
Mporium is a prototype mobile shopping (product and price information) and navigation service for a shopping mall, demonstrating the use of WAP and infrared technologies. Adopting Suntec City as the simulated environment, it is made up of three modules that allow shop owners to publish their shop and product information, shoppers to search for shops, goods and walking directions between shops (using WAP), and shoppers to check their shopping lists against shop inventories wirelessly (using the Palm platform and IrDA).