Telecom

Telecom / News Briefs

The Netherlands First Country to Implement Long Range (LoRa) Network for IoT

Dutch telecoms group KPN reports that The Netherlands has become the first country in the world to implement a nationwide long range (LoRa) network for the Internet of Things. more

Google Adds U.S. Cellular as Partner for Project Fi

Google today announced the addition of U.S Cellular, a leading mobile networks in the U.S., as its newest partner network for its Project Fi program. more

Facebook Introduces Open/R as a More Efficient Modular Routing Platform

Facebook has announced a new routing system aimed at solving fast-recovery challenges for its Terragraph network that brings high-speed internet connectivity to dense urban areas. more

Reported Risk of Undersea Communication Cable Sabotage Are Exaggerated

Responding to a recent New York Times article which warned the possibility of Russian submarines possessing the ability to sabotage undersea communication cables, Doug Madory, Director of Internet Analysis at Dyn, calls them exaggerated scenarios. more

U.S. Concerned over Increasing Russian Submarine Patrols Near Data Cables

Russian submarines and spy are reported to be aggressively operating near vital undersea cables that carry global Internet communications, according to a story in the New York Times. The issue is raising concerns among some American military and intelligence officials regarding the possibility that Russians might be planning to attack those lines in times of tension or conflict. more

Google Working on Global Network for Cheap Overseas Calls

Google is in talks towards a deal with Hutchison Whampoa, the owner of the mobile operator Three, that will allow Americans to use their phones abroad at no extra cost, industry sources have disclosed. According to reports, the two companies are discussing a wholesale access agreement that would become an important part of Google's planned attempt to shake-up the US mobile market with its own network. more

Dave Crocker and John Levine Discuss Current Dealings With Spam (Video)

During the M3AAWG meeting in Brussels earlier this year, Dave Crocker and John Levine were asked to step into an impromptu video studio and talk about how email has changed over the past several decades and whether we are any closer to resolving the spam problem. more

Russian Internet Traffic Redirected Due to Routing Errors by China

Doug Madory, Director of Internet Analysis at Dyn, is reporting that the Russian Internet traffic (including domestic traffic) was re-routed out of the country due to routing errors by China Telecom. more

Annual Internet Traffic to Grow More Than 20 Percent, Reaching 1.6 Zettabytes by 2018

Global IP traffic for fixed and mobile connections is expected to reach an annual run rate of 1.6 zettabytes -- more than one and a half trillion gigabytes per year by 2018, according to the Cisco's Visual Networking Index. more

Indonesia’s Largest Telecom Provider Leaks Large Portions of the Global Routing Table

Earl Zmijewski from Renesys reports: Yesterday, Indosat, one of Indonesia’s largest telecommunications providers, leaked large portions of the global routing table multiple times over a two-hour period. This means that, in effect, Indosat claimed that it “owned” many of the world’s networks. Once someone makes such an assertion, typically via an honest mistake in their routing policy, the only question remaining is how much of the world ends up believing them and hence, what will be the scale of the damage they inflict? more

Global M2M Connections Reached 195 Million in 2013, Expected to Reach 250 Million In 2014

Between 2010 and 2013, 120 million Machine to Machine (M2M) connections have been added globally reaching a total of 195 million in Q4 2013, according to a recent study by the GSMA. Globally, M2M connections account for 2.8% of total mobile connections in 2013, up from 1.4% in 2010. Global M2M connections will reach a quarter of a billion (250 million) in 2014, said the GSMA. more

Network Outages Costing Mobile Operators $15B Annually

Sarah Reedy reporting in LightRading: Mobile operators suffer from an average of five network outages or degradations that impact subscribers each year, costing them around $15 billion annually, according to new Heavy Reading research. Put another way, that's about one outage every other month. More than 80 percent of those outages affect just one or a subset of networks or services. more

Australia Aborting Its Ambitious $44 Billion Broadband Project

Rodney S. Tucker reporting in IEEE Spectrum: "In April 2009, Australia's then prime minister, Kevin Rudd, dropped a bombshell on the press and the global technology community: His social democrat Labor administration was going to deliver broadband Internet to every single resident of Australia... So now, after three years of planning and construction, during which workers connected some 210 000 premises (out of an anticipated 13.2 million), Australia's visionary and trailblazing initiative is at a crossroads. The new government plans to deploy fiber only to the premises of new housing developments." more

FCC Confirms Tom Wheeler as the New Chairman

The U.S. Senate has unanimously confirmed Tom Wheeler to be chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. The former wireless industry lobbyist, nominated by President Obama back in May, will be replacing acting chairwoman Mignon Clyburn, who stepped in for former FCC chief Julius Genachowski when he left five months ago. more

23 Countries Ahead of U.S. in Internet Usage According to ITU Broadband Report

United States ranks 24th worldwide in the percentage of residents who use the Internet, according to the International Telecommunications Union's 2013 State of Broadband Report, released recently at a meeting of the Broadband Commission for Digital Development. Eighty-one percent of U.S. residents use the Internet, the ITU said. Countries with the highest percentage of people using the Internet was Iceland, where 97 percent of the people are Internet users. The top 10 countries all had usage rates above 88 percent. more