The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has proposed rules and guidelines to enable satellite companies like SpaceX, T-Mobile, AST Spacemobile, and Lynk to offer satellite services directly to cell phones. more
It has been observed that the most profound technologies are those that disappear (Mark Weiser, 1991). They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it, and are notable only by their absence. The feat of reticulating clean potable water into every house, so that it is constantly accessible at the turn of a tap, is a great example of the outcome of large scale civil engineering projects, combining with metallurgy, hydrology, chemistry and physics. But we never notice it until it is no longer there. more
I posted reviews of important LEO-satellite Internet service developments during 2017, 2018 and 2019. I've updated those posts during the years and have 18 new posts for 2020. In 2020 we saw increased effort from China, OneWeb's bankruptcy and restructuring with new ownership and prospects, Amazon investng in space-related infrastructure, Telesat making steady progress, SpaceX making rapid progress and satellite and debris tracking and collision-avoidsnce service startups. The following are brief summaries of and links to the 2020 posts. more
I believe Mobile Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) are and very well remain powerful and best-suited technologies that will help provide connectivity and digital access in a much faster and cheaper way for developing countries of the globe. Thus, they are to be leveraged within their most strategic and profitable functional or usage contexts. Mobile access technologies along with relevant innovations have formed a powerful springboard for the Internet to be significantly accelerated in terms of access, usage and penetration. more
Just when you thought Nexus One was the biggest thing coming out of Google this week, we now get word about Google Energy. Well, Nexus One is a big deal, but I say that wearing my telecom analyst hat. Switching to my smart grid hat, Google Energy is something else altogether... As big as that is -- and will be -- Google Energy has all kinds of implications for smart grid. For starters, more
SpaceX has unveiled its new "Starlink Direct to Cell" service, aimed at providing cellular connectivity globally via its Starlink satellite network. The newly launched website promotes the service with the promise of "Seamless access to text, voice, and data for LTE phones across the globe." more
In June 2009 we mused in these columns about Long Term Evolution standing for Short Term Evolution as wireless networks started to drown in a data deluge. It is January 2012 and we keep our heads above the mobile data deluge, even if barely, thanks to a gathering avalanche of LTE networks. Even the wildest prognoses proved conservative as the GSMA was betting on a more 'managed' progression... more
Someone asked me a question today about Google's new partnership with Sprint. Sprint/Nextel is the third largest wireless carrier in the U.S., falling far behind Verizon and AT&T -- who together control 51% of the wireless market. (Sprint services are also resold by Comcast and Time Warner as part of their packages.) Sprint has announced it won't bid in the 700 MHz auction. Sprint has other plans... more
IPv6 a major catalyst for billions of dollars worth of deals? The Intel announcement of their McAfee purchase for 7.7 billion seems to indicate as much when Dave DeWalt , McAfee CEO is quoted as saying during a conference call; "If we look at the transition from IPv4 to IPv6, we're seeing an explosion of billions of devices and they all need to be secured." more
The browser is now a full fledged platform for apps. The major benefits of using the browser as a platform includes ease of universal deployment and avoiding concepts such as having to install software. It's also a very flexible and powerful environment. Increasingly consumer electronics "devices" are software applications... Today's PWAs (Progressive Web Apps) go further. They take advantage of HTML5 and also capabilities of the JavaScript environment. more
Even though 5G hasn't yet made it onto any cellphone, the wireless vendor industry is already off and running looking at the next generation of wireless technology that has been dubbed as 6G. This recent article describes the European Union Hexa-X project that started in January to look at developing specifications for next-generation wireless technology using terahertz spectrum. more
M-commerce (mobile e-commerce) incorporates a range of mobile-driven applications, including payments for parking and theatre tickets (m-payments) to mobile banking (m-banking). M-commerce is a broad field incorporating a large variety of services and business models. In 2011, according to Gartner Group, over 15 billion apps are expected to be downloaded worldwide via app stores. They also estimated app store revenues alone reached over $5 billion in 2010 (incorporating revenue generated from both apps purchases and advertising). more
Mary Meeker delivered her Internet Trends Report, tech communities most anticipated slide deck at the Code Conference 2019 in Arizona today. more
We now know how wireless carriers are going to continue the string of new G generations of cellular technology. 5G was originally defined to include spectrum up to 90 GHz or 100 GHz. In the last few years, international standards bodies have been developing new 6G standards in what is called the terahertz wavelengths between 100 GHz and 1 THz. more
The fact that businesses around the world are knocking on the doors of their governments asking for spectrum is a clear indication that this telco real estate market is hotting up. The reason for this is not too hard to guess -- the enormous growth in the demand for mobile broadband. There is a large amount of pent-up demand as the mobile operators didn't want to open up this market while they were in the middle of adding new customers to their mobile voice services. more