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Will LTE Steal the Broadband Revolution?

There is no doubt that LTE is going to take a prime position in broadband developments. With competitively priced services, innovative smartphones and an increasing range of very innovative apps this market is set to continue to boom. So how will all this impact the overall broadband market? ...this is not an 'us or them' issue between fixed and mobile broadband. As a matter of fact, the companies that are rolling out LTE are increasingly dependent on deep fibre rollouts as they need to handle massive amounts of data, to which the mobile infrastructure technology is not well-suited. more

Amazon Announces Project Kuiper Customer Terminals with Speeds up to 1Gbps

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

Senate Report on 5G: Recipe for Disaster

The Democratic Staff Report Prepared for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations United States Senate, July 21, 2020, entitled "The New Big Brother," is actually all about 5G technology. The report jumps on the runaway anti-China train chaotically flailing around Washington these days to "out-Trump, Trump." It characterizes 5G technology, longstanding international collaboration, and COVID-19 tracking as all part of a global conspiracy for "digital authoritarianism" run out of Beijing. more

Telecom in China: After the Dust Settles

The long rumored reorganization of the telecommunications sector in China has begun. Now China will have three major companies, each with both mobile and fixed networks. The focus for fixed network growth is broadband Internet access. The focus for mobile will be continued growth in mobile subscribers and the launch of 3G services, with the three companies using three different 3G technologies. more

Satellite Internet Service Progress by SpaceX and Telesat

This has been a busy week in the race to deploy constellations of low-earth orbit (LEO) Internet-service satellites. In their quarterly report, Telesat mentioned progress in two, disparate markets. As I noted earlier, they have signed their first LEO customer - Omniaccess a provider of connectivity to the superyacht market. more

The Death of Millimeter-Wave Cellular?

Apple recently announced that it is not building millimeter-wave spectrum antennas into the next generation SE iPhone. Interestingly, this is a phone sold by Verizon, which spent a year advertising on TV and showing us speed tests on cellphones that were receiving gigabit speeds. more

Pew’s Broadband Home 2010 Research: Is It Truly Representative?

A Pew Home Broadband 2010 Summary reports in a sub-headline, a dramatic absence of continued growth in broadband adoption across the United States; while at the same time reporting increases in demographic adoption in a particular ethnic group. That sub-headline seems contradictory by indicating an overly dramatic slowing of adoption more

Scientists Transmit Terabits Per Second Through Air, May Replace Undersea Cables

Scientists from ETH Zurich and their European partners have demonstrated a groundbreaking capability for transmitting several tens of terabits per second, despite considerable air turbulence. This feat was accomplished with lasers over a distance between the Jungfraujoch mountain peak and the city of Bern in Switzerland. The technology could potentially eliminate the need for expensive undersea cables, currently forming the backbone of the Internet. more

OneWeb Rises From the Ashes – Maybe

A consortium of the UK Government and Bharti Enterprises bought bankrupt OneWeb, a company that had raised $3.2 billion and had acquired valuable spectrum rights, for $1 billion. That is a good start, but a BBC article says experts believe that at least $3 billion is needed to complete the OneWeb constellation. Will they make it?
The UK government will be a source of further funding. OneWeb's primary goal is closing the digital divide by bringing broadband connectivity... more

Sprint Fights for Mobile Market Relevance: First Quarter Earnings Positive

Sprint's vision along with determined action says everything. They are fighting for mobile market relevance, thumbing their noses at detractors, moving beyond being relegated to a distant 3rd ranked carrier in a fast growing market. It's acquisition of the iPhone and agreement to spend $15.5 Billion over four years for the privilege has investors squawking bankruptcy sooner rather than later. First quarter earnings reveal that Dan Hesse's decision to purchase iPhones back in October 2011 is paying off in solid contracts. more

Satellites and Cellular Backhaul

Elon Musk recently announced that he was going to be providing cellular backhaul from the Starlink constellation of satellites. This makes a lot of sense from a financial perspective in that it avoids the costly wired fiber networks needed to reach rural cell sites. This is clearly a shot across the bow for companies that currently bring fiber connectivity to rural cell sites. more

7 Reasons Why R&E Networks and Universities Are Critical to Future of Broadband

There has been considerable discussion about the future of broadband in terms of infrastructure i.e. fiber, wireless, community owned etc. However, there has been little discussion, to borrow a phrase from Internet 2, on Net+ broadband services. It is in the Net+ services where I think R&E networks can play a critical in helping communities and small commercial ISPs deploy advanced services and applications that will provide new business models to underwrite the costs of next generation broadband. more

The Trouble with White Spaces

Like several other engineers, I'm disturbed by the white spaces debate because it focuses on what I regard as the wrong question. The White Space Coalition argues that showing that a system can be constructed that prevents interference between White Space Devices and television broadcast signals compels the Commission to offer up the White Spaces for unlicensed use. This is far from obvious. more

Why You Needed to Be at eComm 2009

I've been posting photos and snippets during eComm 2009 this week, but composing my overall impressions has been another matter. Sitting through 3 days mostly filled with continuous 15 minute presentations is a surefire recipe to fry your brain, and most people I talked to were topped out well before things wrapped up Thursday night. It's information overload of the highest -- and best -- order... Here's my top-line takeaway, and reading the rest of this post is really just detail. But it's detail you'll probably love if you really want to know what you missed... more

Cuba on Advances in the “Computerization of Society”

A recent televised roundtable enumerated advances in the computerization of Cuban society, including: Telephone density is 58% with 6.5 million accounts, 5.2 million of which are cell phones. 1.5 million people access Nauta mail with cell phones. Over 1.7 million have permanent accounts. There are 1,713 public-access spots: 709 WiFi locations, over 700 at ETECSA premises and the same number in third-party locations (but 709+1400 is 2109, not 1,713). more