EEWebPULSE_2012_i0037.pdf

EE Web

PULSE

EE Web.com

Issue 37

March 13, 2012

Ian Walter

Altobridge

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Ian Walter

ALTOBRIDGE

Interview with Ian Walter - Vice President of Technology

Featured Products

Comparison of I/Q Sampling with

Dual Core ADCs vs. Ping-Pong Single

Core ADC

BY ELETTRA VENOSA WITH IQ ANALOG

This article describes different approaches of applying ADCs to complex I/Q components

in ping-pong configuration.

Writing Code Using a Spreadsheet

BY PAUL CLARKE WITH EBM-PAPST

Paul Clarke outlines a surprising way to help generate code using basic spreadsheets.

RTZ - Return to Zero Comic

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INTERVIEW

a I W alter

Altobridge

on a broad spectrum of different

technologies that were around at

that time in the aviation industry,

from high frequency (HF) radio

systems to flight control systems

and navigational instruments.

Ian Walter - Vice President of Technology

Where did you go after

working for British Airways?

I left British Airways in the late 1980s,

around the time that the first analog

mobile phone networks were being

installed. Motorola was looking for

field engineers, and as there was

no cellular industry to speak of at

that time, they were recruiting any

one that had RF experience, so if

you could draw a block diagram of

a radio transceiver, then you got the

job. I joined Motorola and stayed

there for about eight years until

1996.

How did you get into

engineering and when did

you start?

My background is actually in

avionics engineering; I trained as

an avionics engineer and worked

with British Airways, which had a

very good training program back

in the 1970s and 1980s. I was lucky

enough to be selected to take part

in the training program, where I

gained both practical training and

theoretical course work. It was a

nice mix, and has turned out to be a

very solid base for the type of work

I do today. Back then I was working

After leaving Motorola, I joined a

Californian start-up company—in-

terWAVE Communications and was

based in its U.K. office. interWAVE

was one of the first companies that

was working on developing a new

range of picocell base stations.

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INTERVIEW

From there, I went to work for

ADC Telecommunications, in the

microcellular division, where I

worked on connecting the Global

System for Mobile Communication

(GSM) base station technology

with corporate private branch

exchanges (PBXs) to provide a

private GSM network solution called

wireless office for large corporate

organizations.

What are the goals of

Altobridge, and what does it

provide?

The goal of Altobridge is to

cost-effectively connect remote

communities of mobile subscribers

via satellite to the core network.

When the company was set up back

in 2002, our initial product focused

on providing cost-effective GSM

services over narrow bandwidth,

high latency satellite connections.

The initial target was to use this

technology to provide GSM services

to passengers on commercial

aircraft. We had started working on

continued to work on developing

and improving the technology

so that we would have a more

compelling solution for the airlines.

I was particularly excited about

it because it brought together

both of my key skills. It pertained

to my avionics background at

British Airways as well as cellular

telephony from my time at Motorola

and interWAVE.

That was where the initial

development was focused—on

delivering that solution for on-board

GSM mobile networks for making

calls on aircraft. We were able to

secure two major customers for our

solution, one was AeroMobile—

which was recently purchased by

Panasonic Avionics Systems and

the other was Honeywell who was

interested in installing our solution

on business jets.

Later on, I was part of the

management team that was

involved in the buyout of the

microcellular division from ADC,

and from there I went on to be CTO

and board member of the new

company, Microcellular Systems.

We still continued to maintain our

involvement with interWAVE, acting

as a distributor of their products

until mid 2000, when interWAVE

purchased the company. It was

interesting, that after two years, I

was an interWAVE employee once

again. At that time, interWAVE

offered me a position as Director

of Product Management at the

headquarters in California, with

responsibility for the GSM and

CDMA product lines. In January

2001, I moved to California and

have lived in the U.S. ever since.

The goal of Altobridge

is to cost-effectively

connect remote

communities of

mobile subscribers

via satellite to the

core network.

There are a lot of social issues that

come with allowing people to talk on

their mobile phones on an aircraft.

It can be annoying to the other

passengers – when you’re traveling

at night, you don’t want a bunch of

phones ringing. So we developed

technology that would allow the

flight crew to be able to block

incoming calls—amongst other

things—so that other passengers

would not become fractious.

a similar project at interWAVE in

the late 90’s with British Aerospace

(BAE) in the U.K. to develop a

GSM solution for aircraft. At that

time, however, we were just too far

ahead of the market. The airlines

weren’t really interested due to all

the regulatory hurdles; the market

just wasn’t ready for the product, so

BAE dropped it.

I worked for interWAVE for a further

four years until February 2005 when

I quit to join Altobridge as VP of

Technology. Altobridge was formed

in 2002 and although at that time I

was still working for interWAVE,

I was one of the angel investors

in the new company. I, along with

almost all of the management team

from Microcellular Systems, are

the senior management team at

Altobridge today.

Today, the software that we

developed is integrated into the

Panasonic In-flight Entertainment

(IFE) System, which is purchased

by airlines around the world to

provide in-flight connectivity, movies

and other entertainment services to

airline passengers.

At Altobridge, however, we were

convinced that there was still a

market for such a product, so we

We were very passionate about

this product, but there were a lot of

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