Chapter 142: Communication Solutions

Sweeping the parts on the laboratory bench aside, Su Xin sat down and pondered intently.

"Could it be that I still have to rely on ground base stations?"

"But if that were the case, my goal could never be achieved, and continuing the research would be meaningless."

"If a disaster were to occur on the ground and the base stations were destroyed, people would still be unable to communicate with the outside world."

"And it's impossible to equip everyone with a satellite phone."

Su Xin shook his head with a bitter smile.

Seeing that it was getting late, he stood up, packed his personal belongings, and left the company.

On the way home, Su Xin was still thinking about a solution, but by the time he reached his front door, he still had no results.

He opened the door.

Just as he was about to change his shoes, a crisp, pleasant voice came from inside the room: "Welcome home!"

"Huh?"

Su Xin paused, looking toward the direction of the voice in confusion.

That was not Liu Xuewei's voice.

Nor was it anyone he was familiar with.

At this moment, a series of pitter-patter footsteps sounded, and Liu Xuewei came out from the direction of the sofa, smiling: "Axin, welcome home."

Su Xin then saw the source of the strange voice; it was a white smart speaker with a quite exquisite and cute design, and a brilliant yellow light was just slowly fading away.

Seeing Su Xin's gaze, Liu Xuewei explained: "I just bought this today; it can keep me company and talk to me at home sometimes."

Su Xin put on his slippers, walked over to hug Liu Xuewei, and asked casually: "Don't we have the Tiantian Assistant? Is there a program on the market with a higher level of intelligence than the Tiantian Assistant?"

"That's different."

Liu Xuewei shook her head with a smile:

"The Tiantian Assistant is an assistant on my phone; although it can chat with me sometimes, its functional positioning is different from this smart speaker."

"A smart speaker can be like a member of our family, greeting us when we return, and it can help me call the police if a stranger breaks in."

"Besides that, it can control various smart appliances in the house, acting as the master control switch for the smart home."

"For example, it can control the temperature of the refrigerator and air conditioner, start the robot vacuum, and control the curtains."

"The Tiantian Assistant is positioned as a personal assistant, while the smart speaker is positioned as a housekeeper."

Su Xin became interested and asked: "Then how is its level of intelligence?"

Liu Xuewei smiled: "It's definitely not on the same level as the Tiantian Assistant, but it's good enough; after all, chatting is just an auxiliary function of a smart speaker."

"If the Tiantian Assistant were used for this, it would definitely crush these products, but you've said before that you don't like doing terminal industries, so no one has brought this suggestion to you."

Hearing this, a thought suddenly flashed through Su Xin's mind, but just as he was about to think about it deeply, that thought had already quietly slipped away.

Just as he felt regret in his heart.

Liu Xuewei continued: "Besides, the functions of a smart speaker have many limitations. Even if we used the Tiantian Assistant to enter the market and occupy the entire share, it wouldn't be as ubiquitous as mobile phones. You probably wouldn't look twice at this kind of small business."

In an instant, Su Xin's whole body jolted.

It was as if lightning had struck his mind.

A thought emerged with absolute clarity.

"Ubiquity! That's it! I have a way!"

Su Xin scooped up Liu Xuewei and spun her around excitedly a few times, startling her into screaming repeatedly.

"Thank you, Xuewei!"

"I've thought of a way; I need to hurry and write down the plan!"

After saying this, Su Xin put Liu Xuewei down, ran into the study in two strides, and closed the door.

He left Liu Xuewei there, panting with a flushed face and a look of bewilderment.

Inside the study.

Su Xin sat at the desk, pondered for a moment, and then began to speak, using the Tiantian Assistant's voice input to record his series of ideas.

With that flash of insight just now, he already had a solution for the communication network.

It was very simple: make base stations ubiquitous.

Although it still didn't get rid of ground base stations, it indirectly achieved his goal, preventing disasters like earthquakes from destroying these base stations.

Of course.

The base station he was thinking of was not the Macro Base Station style seen on towers or street lamps outside, but a miniaturized Small Base Station.

Its functions were basically the same as the well-known Macro Base Station, only because of its small size, its coverage area was small and it carried a lower volume of users.

But its strength lay in being flexible and compact.

It could be easily distributed to various places to meet the needs of different locations, such as train stations, airports, large shopping malls, and so on.

At the same time, because it was wireless, it could be moved freely to any desired place, and could even be carried around.

It was equivalent to a portable Wi-Fi.

Secondly, its cost was low.

It didn't need to occupy land, nor did it need a dedicated team to build each one; instead, it had a modular design, was mass-produced by factories, and could be placed wherever needed.

The Small Base Station was a product that fully embodied the network spirit of "everyone for me, I for everyone"; it could mutually amplify signals, and once it became ubiquitous, everyone's internet speed would be greatly improved.

These were all the advantages of the Small Base Station.

In fact, with the gradual popularization of the 5G Network over the past two years, higher and higher demands had been placed on the number of base stations, and under such conditions, Small Base Stations had long since emerged.

Furthermore, the Small Base Station industry had already developed quite maturely, and according to power from high to low, it was subdivided into three levels: Micro Base Station, Pico Base Station, and Femto Base Station, all of which had already been put into large-scale use.

It was just that.

The reason why Small Base Stations had not become ubiquitous, and why Su Xin had not thought of Small Base Stations before, was because Small Base Stations also had obvious shortcomings—

It is merely a branch of the Macro Base Station.

The Small Base Stations currently on the market are equivalent to routers in home broadband networks, and they are routers shared by everyone; they are only used to distribute broadband networks and cannot connect to the core network on their own.

This nature results in the Small Base Station existing entirely in dependence on the Macro Base Station.

Once the Macro Base Station is damaged, the Small Base Station also loses all function, just like how a router becomes useless after the home broadband network is disconnected.

Secondly.

Since the Small Base Station is only used to distribute the network and is usually placed in a fixed location, what difference does it have from a router?

For users, they have broadband networks and routers at home, so they only need to connect to Wi-Fi after returning home and have no need for a Small Base Station at all.

And if they are outside, even if the Small Base Station has the advantage of significantly enhancing signals, not many people would choose to carry one around.

Based on this drawback, the Small Base Station has no meaning for existence in the eyes of users, and naturally, it does not possess the possibility of becoming widespread.

Even if the major carriers were willing to distribute them for free, many people might refuse them for reasons such as wasting electricity or having radiation.

Logically speaking, a product like the Small Base Station with such obvious pros and cons is not suitable for popularization, and even less suitable as a primary solution for communication networks; at most, it can only serve as a supplement.

When Su Xin thought of the Small Base Station before, he also gave up on it quickly for this reason.

However, just a moment ago, he suddenly thought of a way to leverage strengths and avoid weaknesses, gathering the merits of various communication schemes to solve the problem of the number of base stations, allow the Small Base Station to be unrestricted, and simultaneously be accepted by users.

"As long as a few major technical difficulties are solved, the entire communication scheme will be largely secure."

Su Xin looked at the dense text on his phone and could not help but smile slightly.