Worldwide IT spending increases were pretty anemic as IT and telecom services spending were seriously curtailed last year. It seems that things are going better. Telecom services spending, which has been curtailed in the past few years, only grew by a tenth of a point in 2012, to $1.661tr, but Gartner projects spending on mobile data services to grow enough to more than compensate for declines in fixed and mobile voice revenues. Infonetics Research Report sees telecom sector growth outpacing GDP growth. Global capital expenditure (capex) by telecommunications service providers is expected to increase at a compounded rate of 1.5% over the next five years, from $207 billion in 2012 to $223.3 billion in 2017, says a new market report from Insight Research Corp.
Europe’s Telco Giants In Talks To Create Pan-European Network. Europe’s largest mobile network operators are considering pooling their resources to create pan-European network infrastructure, the FT is reporting. Mobile network operators are frustrated by a “disjointed European market” that’s making it harder for them to compete.
“Internet of Things” gets new push. Ten Companies (Including Logitech) Team Up To Create The Internet Of Things Consortium article tell that your Internet-connected devices may be getting more cooperative, thanks to group of startups and established players who have come together to create a new nonprofit group called the Internet of Things Consortium.
Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications are more and more used. Machine-to-machine technology made great strides in 2012, and I expect an explosion of applications in 2013. Mobile M2M communication offers developers a basis for countless new applications for all manner of industries. Extreme conditions M2M communication article tells that M2M devices often need to function in extreme conditions. According to market analysts at Berg Insight, the number of communicating machines is set to rise to around 270 million by 2015. The booming M2M market is due to unlimited uses for M2M communications. The more and more areas of life and work will rely on M2M.
Car of the future is M2M-ready and has Ethernet. Ethernet has already been widely accepted by the automotive industry as the preferred interface for on-board-diagnostics (OBD). Many cars already feature also Internet connectivity. Many manufacturers taking an additional step to develop vehicle connectivity. One such example is the European Commission’s emergency eCall system, which is on target for installation in every new car by 2015. There is also aim of Vehicle-to-Vehicle communications and Internet connectivity within vehicles is to detect traffic jams promptly and prevent them from getting any worse.
M2M branches beyond one-to-one links article tells that M2M is no longer a one-to-one connection but has evolved to become a system of networks transmitting data to a growing number of personal devices. Today, sophisticated and wireless M2M data modules boast many features.
The Industrial Internet of Things article tells that one of the biggest stories in automation and control for 2013 could be the continuing emergence of what some have called the Internet of Things, or what GE is now marketing as the Industrial Internet. The big question is whether companies will see the payback on the needed investment. And there are many security issues that needs to be carefully weighted out.
Very high speed 60GHz wireless will be talked a lot in 2013. Standards sultan sanctifies 60GHz wireless LAN tech: IEEE blesses WiGig’s HDMI-over-the-air, publishes 802.11ad. WiFi and WiGig Alliances become one, work to promote 60GHz wireless. Wi-Fi, WiGig Alliances to wed, breed 60GHz progeny. WiGig Alliance’s 60GHz “USB/PCI/HDMI/DisplayPort” technology sits on top of the IEEE radio-based communications spec. WiGig’s everything-over-the-air system is expected to deliver up to 7Gbit of data per second, albeit only over a relatively short distance from the wireless access point. Fastest Wi-Fi ever is almost ready for real-world use as WiGig routers, docking stations, laptop, and tablet were shown at CES. It’s possible the next wireless router you buy will use the 60GHz frequency as well as the lower ones typically used in Wi-Fi, allowing for incredibly fast performance when you’re within the same room as the router and normal performance when you’re in a different room.
Communications on power line still gets some interest at least inside house. HomePlug and G.hn are tussling it out to emerge as the de-facto powerline standard, but HomePlug has enjoyed a lot of success as the incumbent.
Silicon photonics ushers in 100G networks article tells that a handful of companies are edging closer to silicon photonics, hoping to enable a future generation of 100 Gbit/s networks.
Now that 100G optical units are entering volume deployment, faster speeds are very clearly on the horizon. The push is on for a 400G Ethernet standard. Looking beyond 100G toward 400G standardization article tells that 400G is very clearly on the horizon. The push is now officially “on” for 400-Gigabit Ethernet standard. The industry is trying to avoid the mistakes made with 40G optics, which lacked any industry standards.
Market for free-space optical wireless systems expanding. Such systems are often positioned as an alternative to fiber-optic cables, particularly when laying such cables would be cost-prohibitive or where permitting presents an insurmountable obstacle. DARPA Begins Work On 100Gbps Wireless Tech With 120-mile Range.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Tips & Tricks: Seven things wireless backhaul should provide to cover your network where fiber can’t
http://eetimes.com/design/communications-design/4407411/Tips—Tricks–Seven-things-wireless-backhaul-should-provide-to-cover-your-network-where-fiber-can-t
Demand for “everywhere” mobility is, well, everywhere these days. This is placing carriers and mobile network operators under increasing pressure to relieve networks that are becoming overburdened with the demands being placed on them by users. Despite migrations to 3G, 4G LTE and WiMAX, the proliferation of cellular devices and apps requires network operators to take additional steps to increase capacity and coverage. As a result, virtually all network operators are employing small cells to increase capacity in urban areas and provide coverage where gaps exist.
Most carriers are focused on deployment plans in which the majority of small cells will be backhauled using existing fiber or copper. While physical connectivity can work in the majority of cases, total coverage requires backhaul that connects where fiber and copper can’t. In addition, fiber can be cost prohibitive, particularly for spanning long distances, and when time to deployment is a factor.
In such cases, wireless technology can provide the ability to rapidly deploy reliable small-cell backhaul solutions.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mobile Data Revenue in U.S. and U.K. to Surpass Voice Revenue by 2014
http://allthingsd.com/20130225/mobile-data-revenue-in-us-and-uk-to-surpass-voice-revenue-by-2014/?refcat=news
There are about 1.6 billion mobile broadband connections today. Five years from now, there will be more than three times that many — 5.1 billion — and they’ll be generating a ton of revenue for the companies that provide them.
That’s the word from the GSMA, which cited those metrics in the Mobile Economy 2013 report it released this morning as Mobile World Congress kicked off in Barcelona.
According to the GSMA, worldwide mobile operator data revenue will exceed that of voice by 2017. And in countries like the U.S. and the U.K. it will do so even more quickly — perhaps as soon as 2014. Argentina’s data revenue will exceed voice this year.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Verizon considering LTE-only phones in 2014 in push to lower subsidies
http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/4/4065044/verizon-to-sell-lte-only-phones-in-2014-in-push-to-lower-subsidies
Soon after Verizon transitions to Voice over LTE for ordinary telephone calls around the end of the year, it could start selling phones without CDMA chipsets, reducing costs and associated subsidies, said the company’s CFO Fran Shammo. At Deutsche Bank’s Media, Internet, and Telecom conference, Shammo spoke about how a switch to “pure LTE” phones beginning in late 2014 could reduce subsidies over the next two to three years.
“We will ultimately get to voice over LTE, probably end of this year, beginning of next year. Then if you look out into late 2014 then you start to think of things like, okay, so now I can start to take the CDMA chip out of the phone and just have a pure LTE handset. That also starts to reduce subsidies. So over the next two to three years I think we will start to see subsidies come down.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
‘Bandwidth Divide’ Could Bar Some People From Online Learning
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Bandwith-Divide/137633/
Think the digital divide is behind us now that personal computers are ubiquitous? Consider the recent failure of an e-textbook effort in a wealthy school district outside of Washington, D.C.
The e-textbooks used in the project, run by the Fairfax County Public Schools, worked only when students were online—and some features required fast connections. But it turns out that even in such a well-heeled region, many students did not have broadband access at home and were unable to do their homework, sparking complaints from parents that led the school system to approve the purchase of $2-million in printed textbooks for those who preferred a hard copy.
As more colleges rush to offer free online courses in the name of providing educational access to all, it’s worth asking who might be left out for lack of high-speed Internet access to watch video lectures.
Only about 66 percent of American adults have broadband access at home, according to a survey last year by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.
Call it the Bandwidth Divide. And it’s widening, argues Martin Hilbert, a research fellow at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. The difference between those who have access to fast connections and those who have only dial-up speeds or access via a cellphone is “bigger than people think,” he said.
“Outside the U.S., most data plans have a data limit,” he added, meaning that people on such plans who want to watch hours of lecture videos, which require more bandwidth, might face high charges from their Internet provider for doing so.
Tomi Engdahl says:
CommScope demos technical feasibility of Category 8 copper cabling system
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2013/february/commscope-cat8-demo.html?cmpid=EnlCIMMarch42013
CommScope announced that it has successfully demonstrated the technical feasibility of Category 8 cabling for enterprise networks. The company calls the demonstration “a step along the path towards a viable 40GBase-T system for data center applications.”
The demonstration took place at the recent IEEE 802.3 NGBASE-T study group meeting in Phoenix, Arizona. A technical contribution to the study group titled, “Category 8 Structured Cabling Channel Demonstration by CommScope,” described the feasibility of the concept.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Optical wireless bridge installs in under 1 hour for temporary FTTx links
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2013/february/polewall-fso.html
Norwegian company Polewall AS has introduced the LH-100, a 100/100-Mbps symmetrical optical wireless bridge targeting the price-sensitive broadband access market. Featuring robotic alignment and tracking and an iPhone-based commissioning tool, the LH-100 optical link can be installed by a single field engineer in less than an hour, contends the company.
“Our 100-Mbps link is a temporary means of connecting customers to broadband infrastructure while waiting for the fiber-optic cable to be completed,” adds Polewall’s executive chairman, Carl-Fredrik Lehland. “Both business and residential customers can now be connected in days, not weeks or months.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Infonetics: Optical network market will grow in 2013
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2013/february/infonetics-optical-network-growth.html
Market research firm Infonetics Research has released vendor market share and preliminary analysis from its 4th quarter 2012 (4Q12) and year-end Optical Network Hardware report. “After ending 2012 on a flat note, things are looking up for the optical market in 2013,” says Andrew Schmitt, principal analyst for optical at Infonetics.
Schmitt continues, “Our conversations with equipment providers continue to trend positive, particularly in North America where 100G spending is about to ramp. The general consensus remains that an optical cycle for equipment in the core is emerging, what we call the ‘optical reboot.’”
“Meanwhile, there are positive rumbles in the EMEA region, where 2012 ended with a spending flourish and carriers are cutting dividends to plow capital into general capex,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Internet of Things Starts at the Smart Home
http://rtcmagazine.com/articles/view/102735
The smart and energy-efficient home, monitored and controlled by one central application on your smartphone, will finally become a reality and introduce a connected ecosystem for everyday living.
More applications for smartphones are becoming available every day, making the smartphone a centerpiece of communication for the future smart, connected home. Some of these applications intend to “check and control things at home,” like temperature control as in changing the setting of the thermostat, security—making sure that doors are locked—or energy management like lighting controls. However, in spite of the longstanding promise of the home of the future, many of the electric devices at home still live on isolated islands, disconnected from the Internet and unable to connect to each other.
But, this is rapidly changing! More and more home devices are equipped with networking capabilities like Wi-Fi and ZigBee, allowing them to connect to the Internet via a set-top box and/or a home router. The recent arrival of IPv6, which is replacing IPv4, has solved the bottleneck that existed because there were not enough web “addresses” available, marking the transition from “The Internet of People” to “The Internet of Things.” Once connected to the Internet, all these devices can be reached with any mobile web device or smartphone from anywhere in the world
For the home environment, the immediate question is: what networking will be best used in the home? One may think that Wi-Fi and ZigBee are competing with each other. The reality however is that both technologies have their own place.
the battery life of even “energy-efficient” Wi-Fi implementations is usually expressed in weeks or months. This makes ZigBee an attractive candidate to complement Wi-Fi in the home as the management network of choice.
The roles of the set-top box and the home router are going to change. Currently these two devices—or a single device integrating both—are focused on content distribution.
Here the clear advantages of ZigBee stand out since it was developed as a networking standard covering a complete home and with a range that is very comparable to Wi-Fi.
The ZigBee Pro network layer supports Home Automation, Smart Energy and Light Link application profiles. It is IEEE 802.15.4 compliant
The ZigBee standard is rapidly expanding. Already defined are bridge and router devices that allow for concatenating networks for use in larger building environments. To this end the Building Automation profile has been developed that runs on top of ZigBee Pro, and provides wireless connectivity between equipment controllers, lighting controllers, sensors and other devices within commercial buildings. This allows professional building owners to control a large number of devices in applications that benefit from wireless monitoring, control and automation of energy-efficient building systems.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Pirate Bay – North Korean hosting? No, it’s fake.
https://rdns.im/the-pirate-bay-north-korean-hosting-no-its-fake
This is certainly interesting, however let me tell you: It is fake.
TBP is not hosted in North Korea (at least not now).
Now lets look closer at the AS131279, aka Ryugyong-dong, aka STAR-KP – the sole ISP in North Korea, state owned of course.
AS131279 has one Upstream, AS4837 aka China Unicom which we see also in the real North Korean traceroute.
The AS also shows 2 other peers, AS22351 (Intelsat) and AS51040 (Piratpartiet Norge) – This would mean North Korea DOES provide connectivity to The Pirate Bay, right?
No.
Anyone can hijack an AS number and not cause any issues for the real user – In this case The Pirate Bay set up a Sat dish in Phenom Penh, Cambodia – Intelsat gives them a BGP session there.
The peer net for BGP handoff is 175.45.177.217/30, .216 is Intelsats side and .217 is The Pirate Bay’s.
One can use ANY IP they wish for these handoffs, internal, their own, “hijacked” – In this case The Pirate Bay “hijacked” 2 IPs from the North Korean network which does not matter for them as this is only acessible from their side, not from the internet.
This is possible because either Intelsat does not filter BGP announcements (unlikely) or TBP wrote a fake LOA for this AS (likely).
Conclusion:
While it is one of the more advanced fake routings it is still pretty lame, a single drop to AS4737 (like a server in China with a BGP session) and it would look much more real, and much harder to detect.
I cannot certainly say where TPB is hosted now, but it must be Asia
Tomi Engdahl says:
Boeing 787s to create half a terabyte of data per flight, says Virgin Atlantic
http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/infrastructure/3433595/boeing-787s-create-half-terabyte-of-data-per-flight-says-virgin-atlantic/
Internet of things will create a wide range of opportunities and challenges for airline
Virgin Atlantic is preparing for a significant increase in data as it embraces the internet of things, with a new fleet of highly connected planes each expected to create over half a terabyte of data per flight.
Speaking to Computerworld UK at the Economist Technology Frontiers event, Virgin Atlantic IT director David Bulman said that the airline company is expecting an “explosion” of information generated from a growing number of sources, from employees and customers to cargo containers and planes.
“The internet of things, in a broad sense, is where we are starting to see everything from planes to cargo devices getting connected,” Bulman said. “The latest planes we are getting, the Boeing 787s, are incredibly connected. Literally every piece of that plane has an internet connection, from the engines, to the flaps, to the landing gear.
He continued: “If there is a problem with one of the engines we will know before it lands to make sure that we have the parts there. It is getting to the point where each different part of the plane is telling us what it is doing as the flight is going on.”
This level of operational insight will involve generating large amounts of data from each 787 aircraft, he explained. “We can get upwards of half a terabyte of data from a single flight from all of the different devices which are internet connected,” Bulman said.
With RFID tags to track cargo and, in the future, baggage, large demands are being placed on the airline’s IT infrastructure
Making sense of the big data generated by the internet of things is an ongoing project
“The thing about big data right now is that it is experimental”
“As you move to a big data world you can start to see the trends in that data. You can move towards predicting what will happen with the plane so that you can do maintenance before a problem occurs”
Tomi Engdahl says:
ISP Trying Free (But Limited) Home Broadband Plan
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/03/06/1956232/isp-trying-free-but-limited-home-broadband-plan
“Earlier today FreedomPop, a telecom company headquartered in Los Angeles, announced its plans to launch a very low cost home broadband plan for extremely low-intensity users, with 1GB monthly for free. Clearly this is much lower than an average U.S. home broadband usage, which is between 24 and 28 gigs per month. The 1GB of free Internet is basically a teaser”
Comments:
RTFA – median internet usage numbers in the US are 5.8GB/mo. This plan is cheaper for those users than _any_ other plan out there right now.
Hopefully the home ISP market won’t follow the cyclic model of the cell phone industry. With cell phone data, first you paid by the kB, then they introduced unlimited data plans, then they capped the limits and you paid by the GB, now they’re going back to unlimited data plans. I’d prefer the home ISPs to not do that.
“While average [U.S. home broadband usage] is 24-28 gigs per month, the average is skewed heavily by the whales. The median is actually 5.8 gigs, which is basically your non-streaming user,” Stokols said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Telecom Firms Seek to Curb Publicly Funded Web Services
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424127887324539404578342342270674714-lMyQjAxMTAzMDAwNzEwNDcyWj.html
WASHINGTON—Sensing a threat to their business model, telecom companies are pushing more states to curb the spread of publicly funded high-speed Internet access, arguing the networks could squash competition.
In Georgia this year, Arkansas-based Windstream is leading the charge for a bill that would outlaw new public broadband service in census tracts where a private company offers some kind of broadband.
Small-town mayors and county boards have pushed back, saying they want to build or improve networks because private companies won’t.
At least 19 states have placed some sort of limit on publicly funded Internet networks. The spread of such legislation comes as Americans are increasingly relying on high-speed Internet the same way earlier generations relied on telephone service or broadcast television.
“We’re just kind of stuck,” he said. “I can’t blame the cable companies for not wanting to run cables out to the school. It would be so little it wouldn’t be worth it.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nokia Siemens’ Corker talks about LTE, small cells and Liquid Applications
FierceBroadbandWireless: Let’s talk about NSN’s show announcement regarding Liquid Applications, which use network base stations to enable more localized information delivery. How does this news impact your business in North America?
Corker: This concept is very new. We’ve just launched this, though we’ve been actually working with one U.S. operator in the background for some time on Liquid Applications in terms of trials and technology.
The idea here is to use the unique aspects of the base station. Every base station has a location and of course we have full user information at the site itself. So you can start to do real-time analysis of who’s in the cell site, where they are and then by understanding the local area, we can put in applications.
It’s not just caching video content there that may be relevant for a tourist site. There’s a lot more than that. We believe there will be applications that we can put out to individual nodes that will be relevant to that particular location.
It’s going to be very interesting for the U.S. market. The U.S. is a big video market. It’s one of the fastest growing for data applications in the world. I think it’s relevant for the U.S. because the U.S. is already quite advanced in terms of these types of technologies.
We’ve just announced the trial with SK Telecom in Korea. I think we believe the technology’s already very strong. We’ve been developing this for quite some time now. It’s now all about working with the operator ecosystem [and] the over-the-top ecosystem to see, How do you build a business out of this?
Read more: Nokia Siemens’ Corker talks about LTE, small cells and Liquid Applications – FierceBroadbandWireless http://www.fiercebroadbandwireless.com/story/nokia-siemens-corker-talks-about-lte-small-cells-and-liquid-applications/2013-03-07#ixzz2Mwj9eXUv
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ethernet switch pitch less of a b*tch as 2012 comes to a close
10GE starts to ramp and the 40GE shows some backbone
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/11/ethernet_switching_wlan_router_q4_2012/
The Ethernet switch market picked up a tiny bit as last year came to a close, according to various box counters, and the prognosticators at Infonetics Research and IDC were projecting that 2013 would see stronger growth as the move to 10 Gigabit Ethernet begins in earnest in the data center and companies start contemplating using 40GE switches as their new backbones.
The company calculates that global Ethernet switch sales were up 5 per cent sequentially from Q3 to $5.1bn and up a smidgen year-on-year. For the full year, the market expanded by nearly $1bn, hitting $19.8bn and growing 4.7 per cent over levels set in 2011.
Interestingly, all of the top vendors in the Ethernet switch market were able to increase their sales – in order of revenue size that is Cisco Systems, Hewlett-Packard, Juniper Networks, Dell, and Brocade Communications – in 2012 in the Ethernet switch.
“Given the finicky economic backdrop, weakness in Europe, and lower spending by public sector customers, Ethernet switches turned in a solid performance in 2012, returning to modest growth,”
Almost all of the growth in the Ethernet switch market is being driven by the move to 10GE switching. That has been made possible by the advent of less expensive switches (not nearly cheap enough in El Reg’s opinion) and integrated 10GE ports on Xeon E5 servers, which first shipped last spring, as well as the adoption of 10GE ports on other servers too.
IDC reckons that 10GE port shipments were up 43.9 per cent to just under 4 million ports
Tomi Engdahl says:
GainSpan unites WiFi and ZigBee IP on one chip
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/other/4408547/GainSpan-unites-WiFi-and-ZigBee-IP-on-one-chip
Outfitted with two dual-core ARM Cortex-M3 processors and embedded networking software stacks, the GS2000 SoC (system on chip) from GainSpan combines two low-power wireless technologies on a single silicon die: WiFi (IEEE 802.11b/g/n) and ZigBee IP (IEEE 802.15.4).
By incorporating the two wireless Home Area Network standards, which support both IPv4 and IPv6 devices, the GS2000 extends Internet connectivity wherever there is a WiFi access point or hotspot. It also leverages the key benefits of each technology—the high data rates and widespread availability of WiFi, along with the small channelization and meshing capability of ZigBee IP.
Tomi Engdahl says:
100G workshop targets ‘last-mile’ outreach to application end-users
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2013/03/100g-conference.html
The one-day workshop was held in conjunction with the 12th Annual ON*VECTOR International Photonics Workshop. The goal of the workshop was to examine 100-Gigabit networking and the ways in which it will impact areas as diverse as data-intensive science, health care, media arts applications, smart manufacturing, and more.
Workshop panels and presentations focused on the myriad ways in which 100-Gigabit networks will spur technology innovation in the decades to come. Also covered were the campus and lab strategies that could enable researchers and the facilities in which they operate to take full advantage of 100G for research and education networking, innovation on the network itself, and in regional, national, and international testbeds.
“100-Gigabit networking is new standard for data-intensive research and education, and workshops like these are necessary to understand the way ahead, not only in terms of network design, but also to make sure that applications, facilities, and researchers themselves are prepared to take as much advantage of ultra-high-performance networks as possible,” commented CENIC’s president and CEO, Louis Fox, at the workshop’s opening.
Software-Defined Networking (SDN) emerged as a major topic of subsequent panels on network innovation and testbeds. ESnet’s Inder Monga chaired a panel on 100-Gigabit network innovations including software-defined networking enabling the network to become a programmable instrument.
“Without the application drivers,” Smarr observed, “you end up with empty networks.” However, the workshop demonstrated that many data-intensive applications are ready and able to make the jump to 100G optical flows, opening entirely new vistas for scientific discovery.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Netflix Launches Speed Index To Highlight The Best ISPs For Streaming
http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/11/netflix-launches-speed-index-to-highlight-the-best-isps-for-streaming/
For the last few months now, Netflix regularly published a list of the fastest ISPs for streaming video. Today, the company launched a dedicated site for this data, the Netflix ISP Speed Index. The Speed Index includes data from many of the countries the service is currently available in
The data on the site, Netflix says, is based on data from more than 33 million Netflix members ” who view over 1 billion hours of TV shows and movies streaming from Netflix per month.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Six-year-old Wimax network was condemned in Finland: “It did not come to the ecosystem. Impossible to get spare parts”
The Wimax network building started at Mid-2000s. WiMAX network construction began in 2003 Rantasalmi, Juva, Puumala and Sulkava area. Included the most extensive network of nearly 200 base stations and the South Savo, but also parts of North Karelia.
Down the run in the background is the obsolescence of equipment. Spare parts such as base stations to break the storm is almost impossible to obtain. The network will be maintained until a few years, but little by little it will fade of new techniques.
- This is about the same as now, a little talk about the case, or smartphone ecosystem. Wimax is a kind of become. Hardware manufacturers’ interest waned and the customer’s point of view, for example terminal price was high, savonlinna a Blue Lake Development Communication, Hannu Väänänen says.
The network was built in the eu, the municipalities and the provincial telephone companies money. Eu, provincial and municipal money to build the network received around 1.7 million. MPY’s contribution towards the estimated 1.2 million, but the Savonlinna telephone operator does not want to tell the exact amounts.
Source: http://yle.fi/uutiset/kuusi_vuotta_vanha_laajakaista_sai_purkutuomion_tasta_ei_tullut_ekosysteemia_varaosia_mahdoton_saada/6531999
Tomi Engdahl says:
March 12, 2013, 8:00 AM
Stealthy Startup Unveils Bold Router Attack
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/03/12/stealthy-startup-unveils-bold-router-attack/
Not many entrepreneurs would take on mighty Cisco Systems in its stronghold of router hardware. A startup called Compass-EOS has been secretly planning that very attack for six years, with investors that include Cisco itself.
The company, though formally announcing its plans Tuesday, says it is already selling its routers.
Routing products brought in $8.4 billion in revenue for Cisco in the fiscal year ended in September Juniper Networks has also built a sizeable business, reporting nearly $2 billion in routing revenue in 2012.
Compass-EOS is targeting the most lucrative “core routers,” which handle central management chores for communications carriers, content distribution networks and other big Internet players.
Companies like Intel and IBM have been working on reducing the costs by making key optical components out of silicon, the foundation of standard computer chips. Others, like the startup Luxtera, have been making some cabling and connectors using the approach. But the field called “silicon photonics” has so far been largely characterized as a research activity, rather than changing the internal design of computers and networking devices.
But Compass-EOS says it has perfected such chips and deployed them in routers to greatly improve efficiency. Their key circuit boards–known as line cards–are designed to be directly plugged into fiber-optic cables, eliminating switching layers that add to the cost and complexity of such routers.
The approach also creates very speedy connections between line cards in a single enclosure or between multiple boxes
Over five years, Compass-EOS claims, lower operating and hardware expenditures from deploying its routers should reduce a typical company’s costs three-fold to four-fold over five years.
“If these claims are valid, they are of a magnitude that does fit into a ‘disruptive innovation’ class,” says Vernon Turner, an analyst at IDC.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tapping: It’s not just for phones anymore
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/print/volume-21/issue-3/features/tapping-its-not-just-for-phones-anymore.html?cmpid=$trackid
Integrated tapping technology allows administrators to monitor data center traffic without disrupting the production environment.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Testing the evolved packet core to prepare for LTE/4G billing
http://www.edn.com/design/test-and-measurement/4408352/Testing-the-evolved-packet-core-to-prepare-for-LTE-4G-billing-
Thanks to LTE, consumers are experiencing a complete overhaul of the way mobile services are used. Traditional text messaging is being replaced with rich communication services like real-time video calling, especially as screen size increases with higher screen resolution and phone batteries are lasting longer.
These improvements are great for the end-user, but they are causing service providers to support a variety of applications not traditionally seen on mobile phones. Everything from web surfing, streaming video, peer-to-peer networking, and machine-to-machine communications that consume large amounts of bandwidth for longer durations are moving from ‘nice-to-haves’ to ‘must-haves.’ Not to mention that moving forward, LTE will be available for notebooks, ultra-portables, cameras, camcorders, mobile broadband routers, and other devices that would benefit from access to wireless.
As such, mobile services providers will be tasked with creating billing structures that drive revenue for these enhanced services. Smartphones have already increased backhaul traffic and created nightmare scenarios for carriers. Now, they must regulate the traffic flows and monetize new services, as well as optimize network performance.
Besides, it’s no surprise that downloading a YouTube video uses 100x more bandwidth than voice, and the average iPhone uses 400MB of data per month.
But does this mean that the Netflix HD movie streamer should be billed at a different rate than your average texter? Most service providers believe so, considering there are millions of concurrent mobile users on any one network at any given time. Solutions must not only recognize the applications and services each individual is using, but also decipher their different billing plans based on a variety of criteria.
In order to maintain profitability in a climate of ever-increasing backhaul network costs, operators will need to move beyond a flat data rate model. Infrastructures will need to be designed simply for easier deployment and operation, while at the same time becoming flexible enough to adapt to frequency band constraints.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Thingsquare releases its open-source Mist IoT firmware
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/systems-interface/4409772/System-update—Open-source-IoT-firmware–Over-the-air-updates-for-Bluetooth-Smart
Thingsquare has released the open source code for its Mist firmware for STMicroelectronics and Texas Instruments Socs and MCUs with wireless transceivers. The launch source code has support for TI’s CC2538 2.4 GHz 802.15.4 SoC, and CC1101 and CC1120 sub-GHz transceivers with TI’s MSP430 microcontroller as well as the SPIRIT1 sub-GHz transceiver on the STM32L microcontroller platform from STMicroelectronics
Thingsquare Mist uses open standards including IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6), 6lowpan (IPv6 for low-power wireless networks), RPL (Routing Protocol for Lossy networks), and AES (Advanced Encryption Standard).
The Thingsquare Mist open source code is available for download from the Thingsquare website. Thingsquare Mist-compatible hardware kits and reference designs will be available.
Thingsquare Mist
http://thingsquare.com/mist/
Thingsquare Mist brings resilient wireless mesh networking and true Internet-connectivity to the Internet of Things. The Thingsquare Mist open source firmware is exceptionally lightweight, battle-proven, and works with multiple microcontrollers with a range of radios.
Tomi says:
Verizon: We’re America’s 4G LTE king
http://venturebeat.com/2013/01/22/verizon-were-americas-4g-lte-king/
Verizon is the king of fast cellular networks in America, or so it says. And it’s hard to argue with the company’s numbers.
“Customer adoption of 4G LTE is really gaining momentum,”
Almost all of the Android phones Verizon sold were 4G LTE capable, and 65 percent of the entire 9.8 million smartphones sold were 4G LTE
“Almost half of our data traffic is on the 4G LTE network,”
The company will no long be adding any capacity to its 3G network; instead it is continuing to expand 4G coverage. Verizon expects to have full coverage of the U.S. by mid-year 2013.
Tomi says:
Wireless Carriers Move to New Technology—for Voice
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323699704578326361049129122.html
U.S. wireless carriers are working on a new way to deliver voice calls to make their networks more efficient.
While carriers have spent tens of billions of dollars developing and marketing their data networks, wireless voice calls still use technology rolled out more than 10 years ago.
To maximize efficiency, carriers aim to eliminate the dedicated voice channels needed by older technology and clear the airwaves for the latest standard, called long-term evolution, or LTE. To do this, companies are taking on the multiyear process of converting voice calls into Internet traffic so the same airwaves can be used for voice or data.
“As an industry, we spent 20 years building for voice capacity and 10 years fixing it that so that it would work for mobile data,”
“Now we look at this mobile-data network and have decided that this isn’t the best way to deliver voice.”
Replacing traditional voice service with voice over LTE will take time, as complex kinks are worked out, network equipment is installed and, eventually, phones are made with the necessary hardware. VoLTE, as the new technology is known, offers greater efficiency because once-dedicated voice space can also run data when not being used for voice calls, something the current technology doesn’t allow.
Consumers aren’t expected to see any difference in how voice calls work or sound during or after the transition, although better quality and enhanced services are possible.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Internet’s Bad Neighborhoods
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/03/14/211229/the-internets-bad-neighborhoods
“Of the 42,000 Internet Service Providers (ISPs) surveyed, just 20 were found to be responsible for nearly half of all the spamming IP addresses — and some ISPs have more than 60% of compromised hosts, mostly in Asia. Phishing Bad Neighborhoods, on the other hand, are mostly in the U.S”
Bad Neighbourhoods on the internet are a real nuisance
http://www.utwente.nl/en/archive/2013/03/bad_neighbourhoods_on_the_internet_are_a_real_nuisance.doc/
Tomi says:
Implementing ZigBee Light Link for lighting control applications
ZigBee profiles provide interoperability between devices and applications
http://www.electronicproducts.com/Digital_ICs/Communications_Interface/Implementing_ZigBee_Light_Link_for_lighting_control_applications.aspx
ZigBee profiles define application-level communication protocols that provide interoperability between devices and applications from different vendors. Profiles are based on a number of target application areas such as smart energy, healthcare, telecom, and, most recently (April 2012), lighting. To also ensure networking interoperability it is required that ZigBee profiles are implemented on top of ZigBee PRO–compliant networking stacks.
he ZigBee PRO standard uses license-free 2.4-GHz frequency band with a 250-Kbit/s physical data rate and specifies important mechanisms for networking such as security, mesh routing, and network management.
Industry lighting leaders such as Philips, Osram and GE, together with ZigBee chip vendors, drove the design of the ZigBee Light Link (ZLL) profile. The ZLL profile specifies two main groups of devices: controllers (e.g. sensor, bridge, remote controller) and lighting devices (color light, dimmable light. etc.). An important part of the ZLL profile design is to ensure ease of installation and use of the devices without any prior technical knowledge. This is achieved by providing a thorough description of device commissioning procedure, extensive test coverage, and the absence of any optional functionality that can lead to interoperability issues.
Light Link–controlled devices can interoperate with home automation (HA) devices if they are joined to the same ZigBee network.
A new lighting device is added to a ZLL network via “touchlink” commissioning. To initiate this procedure, a controller device and a lighting device are put close to each other (typically within 20 to 50 cm), and the user presses a button on a controller that instigates a command exchange. During this step, network parameters are transferred to the lighting device, after which it becomes attached to the controller’s network. This operation is repeated for each new lighting device that has to be manipulated by the controller.
Noah Esteybar says:
This is a set of words, not an essay. you’re incompetent
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Ethernet Is Expanding Its Role
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1386&doc_id=260368&cid=NL_Newsletters+-+DN+Daily
The move to industrial Ethernet for factory networking has been an evolutionary change. In the past 10 years, motion and I/O networks have embraced new approaches, and companies have leveraged the technology to improve machine control networks, data collection, connections to business systems, and remote monitoring and maintenance.
“What we have seen in factory networking is a rapid move from a wide range of fieldbus and proprietary networks to solutions based on industrial Ethernet that has really been a surprise,”
In the beginning, the technology was easy to work with, because it provided a big, wide pipe and could handle the complexities of moving to larger, more sophisticated network architectures, he said. Instead of viewing Ethernet as a fieldbus substitute, many companies started creating these larger networks. Where a Profibus DP or ControlNet network might include 30-40 nodes, and DeviceNet networks might reach 10-15, large users expanded their industrial Ethernet network to 1,000 nodes and beyond.
The first key benefit that companies are seeing is the efficiencies of moving to one network technology and having fewer networks.
A second trend has been demand for more agility to make quicker business decisions based on plant floor information.
Agility provides the ability to access information and collaborate more across the enterprise, from the supply chain to manufacturing and distribution.
These networks are also being used in new and innovative ways. Customers are integrating commercial technology such as iPads into the industrial space very quickly.
The final theme in the expansion of industrial networking has been the need to manage risk. Oulton said that engineers have heard about the risk and security issues while working with customers implementing industrial Ethernet. But with these networks, if security is applied correctly, the installations are inherently much more secure than the fieldbuses they often replace.
An Ethernet network is often connected to the Internet, and information can be pushed back and forth. But over the past 20 years, companies have been working on technology solutions to secure these networks
To manage risk effectively, any company needs to implement a solid, well-designed infrastructure. That makes it is much easier to secure the network than an ad hoc setup.
“We see the same people securing their networks also taking steps with cybersecurity to protect information assets,” Oulton said. “They are using the same network to power their physical security systems, cameras, and keypads, because all of those devices are on Ethernet, as well.”
The market is growing fast, and there is a takeaway for machinery builders and the engineering teams designing machines. With a good infrastructure in place, the machinery builder won’t need two, three, or four networks in the machine. Historically, OEMs have had a PLC network, a connection to the end user’s network, and another network for remote I/O. But more and more machine builders, especially in Europe, are moving to a single network technology, which is possible today using industrial Ethernet.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Internet of Everything – was still a switchable
Our IT folks “Ubiquity” has for years been familiar with the concept, which has been ground almost ad nauseam. We know that IT is all over.
More than 99 percent of the world things are still not connecting to each other. By 2020, the Internet is 2.5 billion people and 37 billion in new things. This means that the information on the Internet multitude feed the many different actors: people, devices, applications, processes.
When your car turns nternet in the future, it brings one thing to add to the network. When it switches to turn to other things – such as other cars, traffic lights, your home, a service center, traffic warning, tolling – to help the aggregation of data and the use of cars to make safer, easier and greener.
But linked with the number of cases alone is not bliss. Offered on the Internet, and the available information about the future by identifying and refining new opportunities are created: new business innovation, new services, and new technology. New innovations.
This phenomenon is known as the “Internet of Everything”
Overall, online open similar opportunities for all of us, the organization and the people. The world has at this point already. The question is, are we ready to take everything out of it?
Source: http://www.tietoviikko.fi/cio/blogit/ict_standard_forum/internet+of+everything+ndash+viela+on+nettiin+kytkettavaa/a887553?s=r&wtm=tietoviikko/-18032013&
Tomi Engdahl says:
Internet of Everything: It’s the Connections that Matter #IoE [Infographic]
http://blogs.cisco.com/news/internet-of-everything-its-the-connections-that-matter/
It is important to understand that the real value of the Internet of Everything (IoE) lies in both the number and value of connections.
To illustrate this point, consider the following scenario. When your car becomes connected to the Internet of Everything in the near future, it will simply increase the number of things on the Internet by 1. Now, think about the numerous other elements to which your car could be connected—other cars, stoplights, your home, service personnel, weather reports, warning signs, and even the road itself. It is from these multiple connections that your driving experience will become better than it is today. You will be safer, more informed and entertained, arrive on time, and even save on fuel and maintenance costs as you travel to your destination.
By 2020, with an Internet that has an estimated 50 billion things, the number of connections balloons to 13,311,666,640,184,600. And adding just one more thing (50 billion + 1) will increase the number of connections by another 50 billion!
While this is just a thought exercise (clearly not every thing will connect to every other thing), even if only a fraction of things connect to other things, the connections among them grow exponentially.
So, while it’s fun to play with the numbers, it is clear that the most important aspect of IoE is the value that results from making intelligent and relevant connections to give people and machines the information needed to make better decisions.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Comment from http://blogs.cisco.com/news/internet-of-everything-its-the-connections-that-matter/
I do agree that connections is the key! I believe that various architectures that are showing up on the market today are missing this point, and being designed as “stove pipe” solutions that do not think about routing IoE data like IP packets.
It seems to me that shared sensors and sensor data will be one of the first major stepping stones, and then the introduction of numerous decision support systems (or rule systems) that will determine what outputs need to be triggered, or even what new data sources need to be acquired. As new data analysis tools are made compatible, they will be able to access data streams from sensors and provide new solutions.
As sensors become multi-point, and acuators do also, then extremely dynamic and flexible environments can be created. So it’s not just about persistent connections.
Connections are definitely more important than the things. And especially human connections are the basis for all other types of connections.
Tomi Engdahl says:
ITU Aims At 20Mbps Broadband For All By 2020
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/03/19/0027253/itu-aims-at-20mbps-broadband-for-all-by-2020
“commitment that would require countries around the world to ensure that everybody can access broadband internet speeds of 20Mbps from just $20 by 2020. Easier said than done, especially in poorer countries.
Tomi Engdahl says:
NPD: US homes now hold over 500m Internet-connected devices with apps, at an average of 5.7 per household
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/03/18/npd-us-homes-now-hold-over-500m-internet-connected-devices-with-apps-at-an-average-of-5-7-per-household/
There are now more than 500 million devices in US homes connected to the Internet. Furthermore, the average number of devices per US Internet household has grown from 5.3 devices just three months ago to 5.7 today.
The firm apparently refers to “apps” as software in general, as opposed to devices with access to an app store. While I would normally refer to gadgets with apps as anything running Android, iOS, BlackBerry, Windows 8, or Windows Phone, it’s clear the term has expanded to almost any device that a consumer can buy, but I digress.
NPD says PC penetration among US Internet connected households this quarter is “nearly ubiquitous at 93 percent” but was “virtually unchanged” over the last quarter.
“Even with this extraordinary growth in the smartphone and tablet market, PCs are still the most prevalent connected device in U.S. Internet households, and this is a fact that won’t be changing any time soon,”
“However, when you look at the combined number of smartphones and tablets consumers own, for the first time ever it exceeded the installed base of computers.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Internet Providers Persuade FCC Panel Against Cybersecurity Recommendations
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424127887323639604578368722811930666-lMyQjAxMTAzMDEwODExNDgyWj.html
Big Internet providers seem to have talked their way out of unwelcome new recommendations on cybersecurity.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Internet Defense League To Be Deployed Against CISPA
http://news.slashdot.org/story/13/03/19/0127255/internet-defense-league-to-be-deployed-against-cispa
Tomi Engdahl says:
Finnish internet architecture expert Jari Arkko has been appointed as the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the organization’s chairman.
Arkko is working at Ericsson. He is the IETF’s first Finnish Presidency. His two-year term began last week.
The Internet has a large number of Arkon both technical and political challenges. Most importantly, he sees a common and open network is maintained.
Source: http://www.tietoviikko.fi/kaikki_uutiset/quotinternetin+isaquot+on+nyt+suomalainen/a887801?s=r&wtm=tietoviikko/-19032013&
Tomi Engdahl says:
EU stares down rocky road to single telecoms market
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/03/15/uk-eu-telecoms-regulation-idUKBRE92E0SO20130315
The European Commission will sketch out a blueprint for a single telecoms market in coming months, forcing governments to decide how much power they could surrender to Brussels regulators to make it function.
For now, the Commission is treading carefully on how much authority Brussels should have over telecoms companies.
“The single regulator would be a natural consequence of such a plan,” the diplomat added.
Big companies believe one regulatory voice in Europe would help them fulfil their goal of merging across markets and investing in faster, next-generation broadband.
Telecom companies in the United States, Japan and South Korea have been spending heavily on networks, but similar efforts in Europe have been held back by four straight years of revenue decline.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sigma Designs Updates Z-Wave SoC Portfolio for Affordable Home Automation
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6836/sigma-designs-updates-zwave-soc-portfolio-for-affordable-home-automation
The rise of connected devices has brought about an increased interest in home automation amongst consumers.
HA technologies have been around since the 1970s, but the costs (mainly due to the technology’s complexity and the necessity for custom installers) have kept it out of the reach of the common man. However, the usage of Wi-Fi in HA devices has suddenly made the technology more accessible.
Sigma Designs is known for its video decoder chipsets, but they have been trying to transform into a one-stop shop for ‘powering the new digital home’ by making some strategic acquisitions. One of these was the 2008 purchase of the Danish company, Zensys, responsible for creating the Z-Wave home control technology.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Making the switch from 62.5- to 50-micron fiber
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/print/volume-18/issue-5/features/making-the-switch.html?cmpid=$trackid
What to do, and what not to do, when opting for higher-bandwidth 50-micron multimode.
The first optical fibers, deployed in the 1970s for both short- and long-reach applications, were 50-µm multimode fibers. In the early 1980s, singlemode fiber replaced 50-µm fiber in longer-distance installations. However, 50-µm multimode continued to be more cost-effective for short-reach interconnects, such as building and campus backbones, up to 2,000-meter distances.
But as data rates increased, 50-µm fiber could not support 10-Mbit/sec rates over the 2-kilometer distances required by some campus installations.
62.5-µm multimode fiber was introduced in 1985 to solve this problem. It could capture more light from a LED in its larger core, and 2-km campus links operating at 10 Mbits/sec were easily supported. Also, the larger-core fiber was easier to cable and connectorize. It became the most commonly used fiber for short-reach enterprise applications in North America.
Today, as data rates surpass 10-Gbits/sec and lasers have replaced LEDs, 62.5-µm fiber has reached its performance limit. 50-µm fiber offers as much as 10 times the bandwidth of the 62.5-µm fiber. What’s more, improvements in technology have made 50-µm fiber easier to use.
The latest offerings in multimode fiber are 50-µm bend-optimized products. These fibers offer all the advantages of high-bandwidth laser-optimized multimode fiber, with the added advantage of lower bend sensitivity. Traditional 50-µm multimode fibers can be sensitive to tight bends, leading to high link loss that could exceed the system loss budget.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Industry figures look at how far we’ve come
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2013/03/industry-retrospective.html?cmpid=$trackid
Several of the professionals whom we’ve recognized for their positive contributions to the industry have been in this trade for a long time. They’ve seen it evolve, and in some cases have helped to shape that evolution.
As a university professor in the 1990s, Sexton says, “It was always rewarding to see the light come on as people began to grasp the very practical aspect of wiring everything to an 8-pin modular jack on both ends and crossconnecting to the appropriate resource.
The 8-pin modular interface indeed has been through more than a few trials and tribulations, in the 1990s and since.
Recognizing the industry’s positive contributors
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/slideshow/recognizing-the-industry-positive-contributors.html?cmpid=$trackid
In commemoration of Cabling Installation & Maintenance’s 20th anniversary, we asked our audience to nominate individuals they believe have made positive contributions to the industry over the past 20-plus years. In most cases, the nominations were in fact individuals. But one prominent association-representing a large group of individuals-also was nominated.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Automotive Ethernet: Evolution in the fast lane
http://www.eetimes.com/design/automotive-design/4410090/Automotive-Ethernet–Evolution-in-the-fast-lane?Ecosystem=communications-design
Tomi Engdahl says:
The 49ers’ plan to build the greatest stadium Wi-Fi network of all time
The San Francisco 49ers build stadium technology in Facebook’s image.
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/03/the-49ers-plan-to-build-the-greatest-stadium-wi-fi-network-of-all-time/
When the San Francisco 49ers’ new stadium opens for the 2014 NFL season, it is quite likely to have the best publicly accessible Wi-Fi network a sports facility in this country has ever known.
The 49ers are defending NFC champions, so 68,500 fans will inevitably walk into the stadium for each game. And every single one of them will be able to connect to the wireless network, simultaneously, without any limits on uploads or downloads.
Until now, stadium executives have said it’s pretty much impossible to build a network that lets every single fan connect at once.
Even if you build the network perfectly, it would choke if every fan tried to get on at once—at least according to conventional wisdom.
“We see the stadium as a large data center,”
Today’s networks are impressive—but not unlimited
An expansive Wi-Fi network at this year’s Super Bowl in the New Orleans Superdome was installed to allow as many as 30,000 fans to get online at once. This offloaded traffic from congested cellular networks
“Within the stadium itself, there will probably be a terabit of capacity. The 68,500 will not be able to penetrate that. Our intentions in terms of Wi-Fi are to be able to provide a similar experience that you would receive with LTE services, which today is anywhere from 20 to 40 megabits per second, per user.
“The goal is to provide you with enough bandwidth that you would saturate your device before you saturate the network,” Williams said. “That’s what we expect to do.”
Current stadium Wi-Fi designs, even with hundreds of wireless access points distributed throughout a stadium, often can support only a quarter to a half of fans at once. They also often limit bandwidth for each user to prevent network slowdowns.
According to Williams, most current stadium networks are limited by a fundamental problem: sub-optimal location of wireless access points.
the Super Bowl had 700 and the Patriots have 375. But this number isn’t the most important thing. “The number of access points will not give you any hint on whether the Wi-Fi is going to be great or not,” Malik said. “Other factors control that.”
But Williams said 100 percent Wi-Fi coverage with no bandwidth caps could be done in any type of stadium, no matter how old. He says the “spectrum shortage” in stadiums is just a myth.
The 2.4GHz problem
There is one factor preventing better stadium Wi-Fi that even the 49ers may not be able to solve, however. Wi-Fi works on both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. Generally, 5GHz is better because it offers more powerful signals, less crowded airwaves and more non-overlapping channels that can be devoted to Wi-Fi use.
The 2.4GHz band has 11 channels overall and only three that don’t overlap with each other. By using somewhat unconventionally small 20MHz channels in the 5GHz range, the 49ers will be able to use about eight non-overlapping channels.
The 49ers are still evaluating what Wi-Fi equipment they will use.
“Once we get into 5GHz, there’s so much more capacity there that 11ac doesn’t even become relevant until we’ve reached capacity in the 5GHz range,” he said. “We really think planning for growth right now in 5GHz is acceptable practice for the next couple of years.”
Santa Clara Stadium network construction is expected to begin in Q1 2014. Many miles of cabling will support the “zero to 1,500″ access points, which connect back to 48 server closets or mini-data centers in the stadium that in turn tie back to the main data center.
Wireless networks should be closely watched during games to identify interference from any unauthorized devices and identify usage trends that might result in changes to access points
A small team that does it all
Believe it or not, the 49ers have a tech team of less than 10 people, yet the organization is designing and building everything itself.
“We are control freaks,” Williams said with a laugh. He explained that doing everything themselves makes it easier to track down problems, accept responsibility, and fix things.
Not all the hardware must be in-house, though. The 49ers will use cloud services like Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud when it makes sense.
And whatever applications are built should be cross-platform. As Malik said, the 49ers are moving away from proprietary technologies to standards-based systems so they can provide nifty mobile features to fans regardless of what device they use.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bringing light to the Internet of Things
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/enlightened-insights—leds/4410242/Bringing-light-to-the-Internet-of-Things
Do you ever wish you had the ability to control the brightness or settings of your home lighting system right from your smartphone? Or have the lights automatically turn off when you are no longer occupying a room? With the ZigBee Light Link standard for wirelessly connected LED lighting, all of this is possible and more. The new standard has seen great traction since being introduced including bulb introductions and demos at large events like electronica 2012 and CES 2013, and we expect more buzz throughout 2013 as more products roll-out.
In 2012, the ZigBee Alliance introduced the new ZigBee Light Link standard, working with leading LED bulb manufacturers, to make it easier for consumers to install and manage lighting networks.
At the end of the day, consumers want to be able to interact with their energy-efficient and energy-saving home devices with ease. The addition of mobile device applications will certainly increase market acceptance of ZigBee Light Link and the use of LED lighting.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google Offers Sneak Peek at Your Available Spectrum
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1386&doc_id=260412&cid=NL_Newsletters+-+DN+Daily
The electromagnetic spectrum, a range of frequencies that permeate the fabric of space, is just as valuable a resource as any on Earth. Wireless technology use continues to expand at an alarming rate.
Like any other resource, there are untapped regions that are not being utilized to their full extent. Google.org, the Internet mogul’s charitable arm, is publicizing a Spectrum Database that monitors unused spectrum frequencies (a.k.a. white space) across the US. The database is undergoing a 45-day public trial with the FCC to test its validity. If all goes well, Google’s spectrum database will be certified, ultimately allowing industry stakeholders and the public to utilize unoccupied frequency ranges through dynamic spectrum sharing.
The database was created to promote dynamic spectrum sharing. The idea is to let interested parties search quickly for open spectrum bands in their area and take advantage of them while they’re not in use by the primary owner.
As of now, unlicensed TV spectrums make up most of the open frequency ranges. The FCC eventually hopes to regulate WiFi broadcast over these ranges to extend wireless Internet access to rural areas.
Anyone can access the Spectrum Database, so feel free to search for unused spectrum in your area. Google has already announced that, once the database is certified, registered devices will check for and use up available local bands automatically.
Google Spectrum Database
https://support.google.com/spectrumdatabase/
Google Spectrum Database: Browse spectrum on map
https://www.google.org/spectrum/whitespace/channel/index.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Rugged fiber will serve the home network
A novel fiber design with an optimized smaller diameter can survive bending and pinching, allowing consumers to create high-speed home optical networks.
Corner research team with Intel started at 2008 to design a low-cost fiber solution to be useful with Light Peak interface.
It was designed to be used with low-cost VCSELs.
The fiber has sever years lifetime at a 10 mm bending diameter for
permanent deployment and one hour survival rate at 3 mm bend diameter.
The fiber has 100 micrometer outer diameter which increased the flexibility compared to traditional 125 micrometer fiber.
Customers had concerns on needs for new 100 micrometer size ferrules (the cost issue that they could be more expensive).
To overcome concerns the designers added an additional hard coat layer that makes the cable compatible with 125 micrometer ferrules. The cable can be stripped down to 100 micrometers for 100 micrometer ferrules.
So this Corning’s design covers both 100 and 125 micrometer needs.
The cable has 80 micrometer core and surrounding 10 micrometer low-reflective-index “trench” surrounding the fiber’s gradient-index.
One of the primary drivers on design was that the cable needs to be very robust for in-home networking and consumer markets.
Data-transmission tests were performed with 850 nm, 10 Gbit/s VCSEL and high speed photodiode in setup including other elements.
Typical results for 50 meter cable with 682 MHz-km bandwidth showed a power penalty of -0.3 dB.
The initial target was for tens of meters, but the “pro-consumer” community is pushing the distances up to 100 meters.
Uncompressed video signals and video editing applications are the key drivers in this pro-consumer space.
Source: http://digital.laserfocusworld.com/laserfocusworld/201303_1?sub_id=FS6QPL1OMixY&folio=57#pg60
Tomi Engdahl says:
‘Internet Snacking’ Coming to GM Vehicles
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1395&doc_id=259961&
In the auto industry’s biggest move yet towards connected cars, General Motors plans to install wireless 4G data modems on millions of its future vehicles, enabling them to serve as Internet hotspots.
Although technical details are still scarce, GM said last week that it’s teaming with AT&T Inc. to equip most of its 2015 models with 4G LTE broadband, a global standard for high-speed data communication in mobile phones. In GM’s implementation, the vehicles would incorporate only the data modem, and not the display, battery, or other parts of a 4G phone. Since most vehicles are now sold with seven- or eight-inch displays in the center console, the 4G modem would work in conjunction with those displays.
“Let me be clear about one thing,” GM vice chairman Steve Girsky said in a prepared statement at the Mobile World Congress. “The technology will be built in, not brought in. And it won’t be phone dependent, either. It doesn’t matter what type of smartphone you have.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Distance record set for 400G
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2013/03/att-400g-distance.html
As network carriers debate the next Ethernet standard — and whether transmission speeds of 400 gigabit per second (400G) or 1 terabit per second should be the norm — engineers are working on new measures to squeeze next-generation performance out of current-generation systems.
a team from AT&T has devised a patent-pending technique, enabling tuning of the modulation spectral efficiency, which allows, for the first time, 400 Gb/s signals to be sent via today’s 100 gigahertz-grid optical networks over ultra-long distances.
Eight 100 GHz-spaced, 400 Gb/s wavelength-division-multiplexed signals were combined and then transmitted over a re-circulating transmission test platform consisting of 100-km fiber spans.
Zhou’s presentation at OFC/NFOEC, entitled “12,000km Transmission of 100GHz Spaced, 8×495-Gb/s PDM Time-Domain Hybrid QPSK-8QAM Signals,
Tomi Engdahl says:
Number of motor-control Ethernet nodes to triple over five years
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2013/03/ihs-industrial-ethernet.html
A new study from IHS Inc.’s IMS Research says that the compound annual growth rate for new motor-control Ethernet nodes will be the highest across the entire industrial space over its five-year span under study (2011-2016), at nearly 30 percent. In all, the use of Ethernet with motor drives and motion controllers will more than triple, from 2011’s 1.8-million figure to more than 5.4 million in 2016.
Analyst Tom Moore commented, “Ethernet, particularly certain industrial variants, is very well suited to drive and motion-control applications.”
Moore continued, “Part of the transition to Ethernet is due to the protocols available, such as ProfiNet, Ethernet/IP, PowerLink and EtherCat, which are all very well suited to motor-control applications. In particular, EtherCat
The analyst firm also says Ethernet’s projected adoption growth is set to outstrip that of Fieldbus technologies in almost all applications. More noted, “It is forecast that in 10 to 15 years Ethernet will have replaced Fieldbus as the mainstream networking technology for motor-control products. This can only be good for the unification and simplification of networking solutions—driving down costs and increasing uptime.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wi-Fi, WiGig finalize unification
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2013/03/wifi-wigig-finalize.html
Wi-Fi Alliance and the Wireless Gigabit (WiGig) Alliance have finalized the agreement defining consolidation of WiGig technology and certification development in Wi-Fi Alliance.
“With 60 GHz efforts concentrated in one organization we have the momentum, technology, and members to deliver on the promise of WiGig technology.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
CommScope demos technical feasibility of Category 8 copper cabling system
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2013/february/commscope-cat8-demo.html
CommScope announced that it has successfully demonstrated the technical feasibility of Category 8 cabling for enterprise networks.
CommScope notes that today, 10GBase-T continues to gain broad acceptance in the server and access layers; the company anticipates that bandwidth growth will necessitate a 40GBase-T solution in the future.
CommScope verified its proof-of-concept solution for a viable 40 Gigabit per second (Gbps) Ethernet channel by utilizing prototype Category 8 RJ-45 connectors and copper twisted pair cables.