Mobile Internet

Agriculture At High-Speed: Project Updates on Bridging California’s Rural/Urban Digital Divide

When farms are connected to the Internet, we all benefit. Agriculture that gains real-time information about plants, soil, atmosphere, and irrigation, dubbed "precision agriculture", can save farmers 20-30% of their water consumption while increasing productivity by 20-70%, according to Valley Vision. The San Francisco-Bay Area Internet Society Chapter is pleased to announce that we have started phase one of our collaborative project, "Bridging California's Rural/Urban Digital Divide with Mobile Broadband"... more

FCC Gives Approval to LTE-U Devices

Ericsson, Nokia get go-ahead for LTE-U base stations despite early fears they might interfere with Wi-Fi. more

NFV Orchestration Without Network Visibility: OS MANO Needs Operational Improvements

Open Source (OS) Management and Orchestrations (MANO) is a European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) initiative that aims to develop a Network Function Virtualization (NFV) MANO software stack, aligned with ETSI NFV. The main goal of MANO is to simplify the onboarding of virtual network components in telco cloud data centers. The initiative has gained impressive momentum among leading Communication Service Providers (CSPs) around the world as part of their NFV programs. more

FCC Ends Inquires Into “Zero Rating” Programs

"AT&T and Verizon just got a free pass from the FCC to divide up the internet," Colin Lecher reporting in The Verge. more

Who Would You Nominate for the Internet Hall of Fame? (Nominations Open Until March 15)

Who do you think deserves recognition in the Internet Hall of Fame? Do you know of someone who has played a key role in the Internet's development who should be recognized? (And is not already among the existing IHOF inductees?) If you know of someone who deserves the recognition, nominations are open until March 15, 2017. As outlined by Internet Society President & CEO Kathy Brown in a blog post today, the Internet Hall of Fame seeks to honor three types of inductee. more

Report Looks at Humanitarian Futures for Messaging Apps

To develop responsible, effective and safe ways to use messaging apps, organizations need to better understand the opportunities and risks they present - new research report released by The Engine Room in partnership with International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Block Party. more

Virtual Assistants Market on the Rise, Poised to Rule in 2017

In Spike Jonze's 2013 film "Her", the main character Theodore Twombly (played by Joaquin Phoenix) falls in love with a Siri-like virtual assistant. It is an intelligent computer operating system, a variance of AI envisioned by the high technology developers of today. We are still far away from creating AI capable of thinking and learning for themselves, not to mention living in symbiosis with them. However, Intelligent Virtual Assistants can be perceived as a step towards the fulfillment of the idea. more

Experts Concerned Over Looming Security Risks of Ultrasonic Cross-Device Tracking

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

Amnesty International: Popular Mobile Apps Failing to Adopt Basic Privacy Protections

"Tech companies like Snapchat and Skype's owner Microsoft are failing to adopt basic privacy protections on their instant messaging services, putting users' human rights at risk," says Amnesty International. more

U.S. Department of Transportation Issues Federal Cybersecurity Guidance to Automotive Industry

U.S. Department of Transportation issues Federal guidance to the automotive industry for improving motor vehicle cybersecurity. The guidance covers cybersecurity best practices for all motor vehicles, individuals and organizations manufacturing and designing vehicle systems and software. more

Transformation - the Real Business Case for NFV and SDN

2016 has seen a steady flow of announcements on successful Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) Proof-of-Concept deployments, mostly focused on virtualizing Customer Premise Equipment (vCPE). This has been a relatively straight forward starting point because unlike many other NFV applications, the vCPE use case does not involve complex activities like having to scale in or out individual services. more

Internet, Mobile Connectivity a Lifeline for Refugees, Reports UNHCR

"Many refugees regard a connected device as being as vital to them as food, water or shelter," according to a new report from the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), and Accenture. more

What’s Holding Back NFV Deployments?

Back in early 2012, the media was all over stack wars that reportedly were taking place between Cisco and VMware. This culminated in VMware's Nicira acquisition in July 2012, paving the way for the coming of software-based networking. Four years later, the market still remains in development mode. Many service providers and enterprises are trying to come to grips with Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and Software-Defined Networking (SDN). more

IPv6 Now Dominant Protocol for Traffic Among Major US Mobile Providers

"Major Mobile US Networks Pass 50% IPv6 Threshold," reports Mat Ford, Technology Program Manager at the Internet Society (ISOC). more

The Next Development in Wireless Broadband

In the USA the FCC has started the discussion on the next level of telecoms in the wireless market, aimed at making spectrum in bands above 24GHz available for flexible-use of wireless services, including next-generation, or 5G networks and technologies. New technologies such as massive-MIMO are going to make it possible to deliver 'fibre-like' speeds over short distance wireless networks operating in the 24+GHz bands. This will make the technology especially useful for high-speed broadband services in densely populated areas. more