On February 2, 1989, the Soviet Union launched its Cosmos 2004 satellite and the Chinese launched a rocket on December 15, 2009. Cosmos 2004 is now defunct, as is the third stage of that Chinese rocket, but both remain in orbit. They were long forgotten until recently when LeoLabs, a satellite tracking service, predicted that they had a good chance of colliding at 971 km over the sea near Antarctica. more
Facebook has announced more details on how its Connectivity Lab is working to connect the world from the sky with drones, satellites and lasers. more
The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released its 2019 Broadband Deployment Report on Wednesday stating the digital divide is shrinking substantially, and more Americans than ever have access to high-speed broadband. more
No, not the COVID curve - the curve of U.S. engagement in global industry 5G activities. Let me explain. What is known as 5G actually consists of a broad array of fundamentally revolutionary virtualization platforms that are constantly, collectively developed by industry in several dozen open global bodies. These bodies meet every few weeks, and several score companies around the world process scores to hundreds of input documents to produce many hundreds of effectively mandatory... more
There is a lot of public sentiment against placing small cell sites on residential streets. There is a particular fear of broadcasting higher millimeter wave frequencies near to homes since these frequencies have never been in widespread use before. In the public's mind, higher frequencies mean a greater danger of health problems related to exposure to radiofrequency emissions. more
We're just back from Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, where more than 85,000 attendees from over 200 countries gathered to discover what the 1,800 companies present had to showcase. As expected, some of the show's biggest themes focused on the Internet of Things, the mobile cloud, Big Data, 4G LTE and wearable devices... After speaking to a cross-section of service providers, it became clear that many operators are already starting to leverage their investment in existing 4G LTE infrastructure... more
Soon after ETECSA began rolling out WiFi hotspots for Internet access, people began linking to them from homes and community street nets. These connections and importing the WiFi equipment they used were illegal, but generally tolerated as long as they remained apolitical and avoided pornography. Regulations passed last month legalized some of this activity in a bid to boost connectivity by allowing Internet access from homes and small private businesses like restaurants and vacation rentals that are located close enough to a hotspot to establish a WiFi connection. more
US Federal Communications Commission is proposing privacy rules that wireless companies claim could hurt their ability to compete with the likes of Facebook and Google. more
This week SpaceX petitioned the FCC to reconfigure their Starlink constellation and Elon Musk outlined their beta testing plan. As shown below, the most significant configuration change is reducing the altitude of four of the five groups of orbital planes by around 50%. The total number of satellites and the number orbiting at a 53-degree inclination, which gives good coverage over relatively affluent regions, are not changed very much. more
Google co-founder Larry Page came to Washington last week to take on the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), the lobbying group that represents over-the-air television stations. It's a whole new adversary for the beleaguered broadcasters, who have been fighting cable and satellite television for years. The Federal Communications Commission is currently considering a proposal, by Google and other tech players. It would allow tech companies to build electronic devices that transmit wireless internet signals over the "white spaces," or the vacant holes in the broadcast television band. "We have an ambitious goal called pervasive connectivity through ubiquitous broadband networks," said Page... more
One of the recurring themes used to promote 5G is that wireless broadband is going to become a serious competitor to wireline broadband. There are two primary types of broadband competition - competition by price or performance. Cable companies have largely won the broadband battle in cities and suburbs, and I've been thinking about the competition that cable companies might see from 5G. more
Every second, 4.5 billion people using computers and other electronic devices send 100,000 gigabytes of information to each other. Around 60% of the world's population has an Internet connection. North America and Europe have penetrations of 95% and 87%. But Asia and Africa do not yet get beyond 54% and 40%. On those continents, there are many remote areas where there is no Internet yet. At least no affordable Internet. 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
A web-based poll on the Mobile Broadband Genie site had participants 1160 who were asked: "Is your mobile broadband fast enough?" 133 yes; 740 no; 287 don't know. Perceptions of the term "mobile broadband" appear to far exceed what is being delivered. While operators have been competing to offer cross-subsidized laptop and netbook deals with higher usage caps and ever cheaper mobile Internet deals, they seem to have overlooked the quality of the service. more
"AT&T and Verizon just got a free pass from the FCC to divide up the internet," Colin Lecher reporting in The Verge. more
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