Welcome:
Login
|
Sign Up
|
About CircleID
Follow:
|
|
|
We're edging closer every day to seeing WiFi 6 in our homes. WiFi 6 will be bolstered by the newly approved 6 GHz frequency, and the combination of WiFi 6 and 6 GHz spectrum is going to revolutionize home broadband. I don't think many people understand how many of our home broadband woes are caused by current WiFi technology. WiFi has been an awesome technology that freed our homes from long category 5 wires everywhere, but WiFi has a basic flaw that became apparent when homeowners started to buy hordes of WiFi-enabled devices. more
At the IP Satellite Summit in Washington this week, a panel composed of satellite service providers and product vendors discussed whether or not they would pursue the economic stimulus funds set aside for broadband development. While the service providers agreed that there are viable business models for satellite broadband service without the stimulus money – of course, they were delivering service before the current economic collapse and talk of the stimulus money – the consensus seemed to be that they would apply for the grants to further develop, deploy and perhaps even subsidize their service offerings... more
Both the Internet and North American cellphones are choking under a 32 bit limitation and reactions from protagonists involved in both cases offer striking similarities. 1983 saw the debut of IPv4 and North American mobile telephony started in earnest with Bell's analog AMPS (Advanced Mobile Phone Service). Responding to the need to uniquely identify the growing number of mobile devices in order to bill their owner, the FCC ordered that handsets be equipped with a unique identification number embedded on a chip. This became the 32 bit ESN... more
In 2018, nothing can get approved in 3GPP that China strongly opposes. In the past, 3GPP often was a battle between a few American giants and their European peers. A Qualcomm or a Nokia will still be heard, but the power has shifted. I haven't seen evidence that the Chinese influence has made for better or worse standards. There are now over a billion 4G subscribers at the big 3 Chinese telcos, by far the largest equipment buyers. Nokia, Ericsson, and the other vendors do not dare oppose their largest customers. more
Only an idiot would believe that the U.S. is blocking TSMC manufacture of Huawei cell phone chips because of security fears. This is a commercial rivalry. The U.S. wants to put China's leading technology company out of business. We will fail, of course, at a price far higher than D.C. understands. The U.S. is ready for China's immediate countermeasures, even if Apple's stock price falls $hundreds of billions. But the long-run price will be devastating. more
In mid-August China launched "QUESS" (Quantum Experiments at Space Scale), a new type of satellite that it hopes will be capable of "quantum communications" which is supposed to be hack-proof, through the use of "quantum entanglement". This allows the operator to ensure that no one else is listening to your communications by reliably distributing keys that are then used for encryption in order to be absolutely sure that there is no one in the middle intercepting that information. more
Technology always evolves, and I've been reading about where scientists envision the evolution of 5G. The first generation of 5G, which will be rolled out over the next 3-5 years, is mostly aimed at increasing the throughput of cellular networks. According to Cisco, North American cellular data volumes are growing at a torrid 36% per year, and even faster than that in some urban markets where the volumes of data are doubling every two years. The main goal of the first-generation 5G is to increase network capacity to handle that growth. more
SpaceX is equipping its new satellites with inter-satellite laser links (ISLLs). They now have over 8,000 optical terminals in orbit (3 per satellite) and they communicate at up to 100 Gbps. The other low-Earth orbit Internet service providers will follow SpaceX's lead. more
A recent session of the Australian Computer Society (ACS) and the Australian Smart Communities Association (ASCA) masterclass on 5G, featured Dr. Ian Oppenheimer, the NSW Government's Chief Data Scientist and one of the country's most respected experts in radio technology. Ian is also the Chair of the scientific advisory board of the 6G Flagship organization, a global research organization based in Finland. This organization has just published a range of fascinating research papers on 6G. more
Today, the FCC has sided with Amazon in a regulatory battle over Project Kuiper, the company's satellite internet system. Despite objections from rival SpaceX, the commission has approved Amazon's plan to prevent the upcoming satellite internet constellation from causing orbital debris in space. more
Broadband infrastructure is advancing rapidly, from multi-gigabit cable and fiber networks to next-generation fixed wireless and satellite systems. With speeds reaching up to 25 Gbps for consumers and 1 Tbps in orbit, these developments mark a pivotal shift in connectivity, setting the stage for more scalable, flexible, and high-capacity networks. more
The Arctic region has largely been left out of the broadband arena in the past due to the high cost of building last-mile broadband infrastructure. The primary broadband available in the region has been provided for decades by Iridium Communications, which provided only low-bandwidth connections capable of supporting satellite phones and low-bandwidth monitoring devices. more
In October 2020, I went on a two-week tour into Queensland's Outback, traveling through various landscapes from pastoral and agricultural lands to savanna and the desert. Leaving Brisbane, past Toowoomba, you enter the Darling Downs. This is one of the richest agricultural areas in Australia. British Botanist Alan Cunningham first explored it in 1827. However, only after the penal colony of Moreton Bay (now Brisbane) was closed, free settlers were allowed in the area. more
Carlos Slim of Telmex tells me the world is about to change. "Two billion more people will connect to the Internet when smartphones cost $50. The phone makers are promising me a $50 phone in 2014." If Spreadtrum and Firefox deliver a $25 smartphone, as promised, that could accelerate takeover. ~310,000,000 Africans will be connected to the Internet in 2017, Arielle Sumits of Cisco predicts... It's inevitable that the U.S. will be dwarfed by the rest of the world. more
Developments in LTE are also going to have a significant impact on the unlicensed spectrum, which is currently used by billions of people through their WiFi modems and WiFi services in cities, cafes, airports and other venues. Known as LTE Unlicensed (LTE-U) or Licensed-Assisted Access (LAA), this technology can also ride on top of WiFi networks (without utilising the mobile service), providing high-speed broadband access to users. more
A World-Renowned Source for Internet Developments. Serving Since 2002.