A recent research seems to indicate that financial industries should increase the security standards they use for their mobile home banking solutions. IOActive Labs recently performed a black box and static analysis of worldwide mobile home banking apps. The research used iPhone/iPad devices to test a total of 40 home banking apps from the top 60 most influential banks in the world. more
Contrary to what some financial analysts would have us believe, it is highly unlikely that the price increases for mobile broadband services which were recently announced by AT&T will be replicated by other mobile operators around the world. The mobile market in the US is one of the least regulated and therefore one the most monopolised markets in the western world. more
The success of smart phone, in particular the iPhone, is both a blessing and a curse for the mobile operators. On the one hand it has broken into the monopolistic business models used by most operators and has most certainly loosened part of their stranglehold; on the other, these phones have increased usage on their networks. But these cracks are going to continue and will eventually lead to similar structural changes in the mobile industry to the ones we are currently experiencing in the fixed market. more
US House of Representatives’ committee on energy and commerce has sent a letter to John Hanke, CEO of Niantic, Inc. - the maker of the game Pokémon Go under a license from Nintendo - inquiring about the impact of the game on consumers' mobile data usage: more
In our globalized economy, it is vital that we do establish levels of fair trade, and the USA is right in addressing that issue. However, making technology a key element of the trade war will backfire. Let's take (again) the Huawei issue as an example. The company has admitted that the US boycott is hitting them severely with an estimated loss of $30 billion in revenues. One of the other elements of the trade boycott is that Google is no longer allowed to provide... more
While labs across the world are busy figuring out how to implement the 5G standards, there are scientists already working in the higher frequency spectrum looking to achieve even faster speeds. The frequencies that are just now being explored are labeled as the terahertz range and are at 300 GHz and higher spectrum. This spectrum is the upper ranges of radio spectrum and lies just below ultraviolet light. more
I'm writing this as the 5G hype cycle reaches a new crescendo. What is most striking is how few of those touting 5G (or "private 5G") is how little technical detail there is beyond saying it is the next generation of cellular protocols. Yes, one can look at volumes of specifications with myriad options and flavors but no sense of 5G as such. That alone should make one suspicious - why does one have to eschew wires to get 5G? more
Cuba's government provided free internet to more than 5 million cellphone users on Tuesday as an eight-hour test prior to launching sales of the service. more
In the upcoming Black Hat London presentation, security researcher from University College London, Vasilios Mavroudis and colleagues are going to describe and demonstrate the practical security and privacy risks that arise with the adoption systems enabled with ultrasonic cross-device tracking (uXDT). more
SpaceX successfully launched 21 satellites, including the first six Starlink satellites equipped with "Direct to Cell" capabilities. These advanced satellites aim to offer seamless global access to texting, calling, and browsing for mobile network operators worldwide, eliminating dead zones with a space-based cellphone tower. more
Huawei is the strong favorite of Canadian network builders, for good products and extraordinary support. It displaced the incumbents at Bell Canada years ago and has a joint "Living Lab" in Vancouver with Telus. Huawei had already won the 5G contracts. It has a thousand researchers and spends a quarter billion dollars on Canadian R&D. It was a government decision. more
Amazon has announced the development of a range of customer terminals for its broadband satellite network, Project Kuiper. The company's first device is a "standard" customer terminal that measures less than 11 inches square and one inch thick and weighs less than five pounds. more
"Peak telecom" is described as the maximum point of expansion reached by the traditional telecommunications industry before the internet commoditized the industry to a utility pipe. I had to think of this when I read the recent outcomes of the famous Ericsson Consumer Lab survey. The company used the result of the survey to counteract market criticism regarding the viability of the telco business models in the deployment of 5G. more
Opensignal recently published a report that looks around the world at the quality of cellular video. Video has become a key part of the cellular experience as people are using cellphones for entertainment, and since social media and advertising have migrated to video. The use of cellular video is exploding. Netflix reports that 25% of its total streaming worldwide is sent to mobile devices. The new Disney+ app that was just launched got over 3 million downloads of their cellular app in just the first 24 hours. more
In a rare meeting, Ren Zhengfei the founder of the Chinese tech giant Huawei assured foreign reporters that his company would refuse to disclose secrets about its customers and their communication networks. more