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Starlink Making a Space Grab

SpaceNews recently reported that Elon Musk and his low-orbit space venture Starlink have filed with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to launch an additional 30,000 broadband satellites in addition to the 11,927 now in the planning stages. This looks like a land grab and Musk is hoping to grab valuable orbital satellite paths to keep them away from competitors. more

The Myth of 5G and Driverless Cars

A colleague sent me an article that had been published earlier this year in MachineDesign magazine that predicts that driverless cars can't be realized until we have a ubiquitous 5G network. When looking for the original article on the web I noticed numerous similar articles like this one in Forbes that have the same opinion. These articles and other similar articles predict that high-bandwidth, low-latency 5G networks are only a few years away. more

Huawei’s Very Red World

The map below shows countries working with Huawei 5G in red and pink. As can be seen, Huawei is doing very well in 5G, although it's not as dominant as the colors here suggest. Ericsson is actually close to Huawei in 5G revenue, aided by the ban in the US and Australia. Years ago, Huawei was the price leader in order to break into the European market. more

Telesat and the Government of Canada Join Forces to Tackle Canada’s Digital Divide

The Canadian satellite operator, Telesat announced this week that it has partnered with the Government of Canada in a mission to provide affordable high-speed Internet connectivity across rural and remote areas of Canada through the development of Telesat's LEO Satellite Constellation. more

Trump’s Assault on 5G Standards Bodies

Over the past 30 months, since Trump was installed in the White House, he has systematically abrogated US treaty responsibilities and diminished the nation's engagement in international collaborative activities. More recently, his gambits have expanded to market entry, chip component, and software restrictions on Chinese telecommunication equipment vendors, especially Huawei. more

As a Service?

I'm happy to have the option of buying services. It's easier to eat at a restaurant than to do my own cooking, and I'm happy to pay for a ride rather than fighting traffic on my own. However, I'm not happy if I don't have the option of cooking for myself or of taking a stroll. I used to be willing to pay for all of my phone calls but today I know that, thanks to VoIP, there is no need to. But the phone companies are attempting to wrest back control with their wider 5G agenda. more

Understanding 5G: A Basic Primer

The initial, essential step toward understanding 5G is to perform an intellectual body purge of the endless disgorging of cluelessness and disinformation that emerges from the Washington White House and radiates out around that city and then to the outside world that it infects. The institutes, pundits, self-professed experts, summits, and even the U.S. press all pretty much feed out of the same trough of 5G political slop that gets passed around as incantations of ignorance, spin, and K-street lobbying. more

Five Inconvenient Facts about the Migration to 5G Wireless

An unprecedented disinformation campaign purposefully distorts what consumers and governments understand about the upcoming fifth generation of wireless broadband technology. A variety of company executives and their sponsored advocates want us to believe that the United States already has lost the race to 5G global market supremacy and that it can regain it only with the assistance of a compliant government and a gullible public. more

Researchers Demonstrate Serious Privacy Attacks on 4G and 5G Protocols

A group of academic researchers have revealed a design weakness in the 4G/5G protocol which can be exploited by an attacker to identify the victim's presence in a particular cell area just from the victim's soft-identity such as phone number and Twitter handle. more

Alphabet’s Loon Balloons Can Now Cover 1000km of Internet Connectivity via 1 Access Point

Loon, formerly a Google X project and now an independent Alphabet company, reveals that it successfully transmitted data over a 1000 kilometers (621 miles) via a network of 7 balloons. more

SpaceX Launching Two Experimental Internet Satellites This Weekend

On Saturday, SpaceX will be launching two experimental mini-satellites that will pave the path for the first batch of what is planned to be a 4,000-satellite constellation providing low-cost internet around the earth. more

What is the Future for Mobile Network Operators?

The telecommunication industry is continuing to resist structural changes, but the reality is that if they don't transform, technology will do it for them. We have seen the fixed telecom operators slowly being pushed back into the infrastructure utility market. Mobile networks are moving in that same direction - that is, the largest part of their network will be a utility, with currently two, three or four mobile infrastructure providers per country... the industry is facing serious problems. more

Telesat, a Fourth Satellite Internet Competitor

I've been following SpaceX, OneWeb and Boeing satellite Internet projects, but have not mentioned Telesat's project. Telesat is a Canadian company that has provided satellite communication service since 1972. (They claim their "predecessors" worked on Telstar, which relayed the first intercontinental transmission, in 1962). Earlier this month, the FCC approved Telesat's petition to provide Internet service in the US using a proposed constellation of 117 low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites. more

The Sustained Potential and Impact of Mobile & Wireless Technologies Access for Emerging Economies

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

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