Startup Artemis Aims to Make Mobile Networks Faster with pCell Technology

The speed and stability of mobile networks has been a concern for many year, and it is not uncommon today to lose signal or quality of the connection changes when moving around a big city, such as New York.

When you're at a place where there is a lot of people, such as a major sporting event, things get even worse.

Artemis, a startup based in Silicon Valley and founded in 2011 by entrepreneur Steve Perlman, aims to solve the problem with the development of pCell technology, Business Insider reports.

The new wireless network technology claims that it will deliver data speeds a thousand times faster than 4G LTE. With pCell, there is no need to change mobile devices because it will run on all current and future models and even consume less energy.

According to a press release, pCell is a Software-Defined Radio C-RAN connected through fronthaul to pWave radios distributed throughout the coverage area.

A single pWave uses 1-milliwatt of power, compared with the 250-milliwatts used by most Wi-Fi radios and larger amounts of power used by cellular towers, Business Insider notes.

Unlike cellular systems, which generally avoid interference among base stations, in a pCell system, the radio signals from pWaves deliberately interfere, so as to synthesize a tiny, 1 cm diameter "personal cell" (a pCell) around the antenna of each standard, off-the-shelf LTE device (such as iPhone, Android phones, tablets and dongles) in the coverage area. As result, each LTE device can utilize the entire spectrum concurrently, even in high user density situations like airports and stadiums. Network throughput and consistency is so high that pCell can concurrently deliver high throughput to what would normally be considered wireline-only applications, opening up new markets for mobile carriers.

In a demonstration last month at Columbia University, Artemis Networks presented a pCell system streaming multiple 4K Ultra HD video streams at once, using off-the-shelf Release 8 LTE dongles each concurrently using the same 10 MHz of spectrum.

According to Perlman, the final commercial product will be ready for release in late 2015.