Mobile infrastructure must catch up with user needs and demands. Ubiquitous mobile computing is all around us. Some time in the next six months, the number of smartphones on earth will pass the number of PCs. As the power and capability of many mobile devices increases, the increased demand on networks. We watch more videos, and listen to music on our phones. Mobile Data Traffic To Grow 300% Globally By 2017 Led By Video, Web Use. Mobile network operators would have had an easier life if it wasn’t for smartphones and the flood of data traffic they initiated, and soon there will be also very many Internet of Things devices. Businesses and consumers want more bandwidth for less money.
More and more network bandwidth is being used by video: Netflix And YouTube Account For Over 50% Of Peak Fixed Network Data In North America. Netflix remains the biggest pig in the broadband python, representing 31.6% of all downstream Internet traffic in North America during primetime. In other parts of the world, YouTube is the biggest consumer of bandwidth. In Europe, YouTube represented of 28.7% of downstream traffic.
Gartner: Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends For 2014 expects that Software Defined Anything is a new mega-trend in data centers. Software-defined anything (SDx) is defined by “improved standards for infrastructure programmability and data center interoperability driven by automation inherent to cloud computing, DevOps and fast infrastructure provisioning.” Dominant vendors in a given sector of an infrastructure-type may elect not to follow standards that increase competition and lower margins, but end-customer will benefit from simplicity, cost reduction opportunities, and the possibility for consolidation. More hype around Software-Defined-Everything will keep the marketeers and the marchitecture specialists well employed for the next twelve months but don’t expect anything radical.
Software defined technologies are coming quickly to telecom operator networks with Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV). Intel and rather a lot of telcos want networks to operate like data centres. Today’s networks are mostly based around proprietary boxes designed to do very specific jobs. It used to be that way in the server business too until cheap generic x86 boxes took most of the market. The idea in NFV is that low-cost x86 servers can successfully many of those those pricey proprietary boxes currently attached to base-stations and other parts of the network. This scents a shift in the mood of the telcos themselves. This change is one that they want, and rather a lot of them are working together to make it happen. So the future mobile network will have more and more x86 and ARM based generic computing boxes running on Linux.
With the introduction of Network Functions Virtualisation base stations will have new functions built into them. For example NSN has announced a mobile edge computing platform that enables mobile base stations to host data and run apps. Think of this as an internet cloud server that’s really close to the customer.
Hybrid Cloud and IT as Service Broker are talked about. Telecom companies and cloud service providers are selling together service packages that have both connectivity and cloud storage sold as single service. Gartner suggests that bringing together personal clouds and external private cloud services is essential.
The type of device one has will be less important, as the personal or public cloud takes over some of the role. The push for more personal cloud technologies will lead to a shift toward services and away from devices, but there are also cases where where there is a great incentive to exploit the intelligence and storage of the client device. Gartner suggests that now through 2018, a variety of devices, user contexts, and interaction paradigms will make “everything everywhere” strategies unachievable, although many would like to see this working.
“Internet of Things” gets more push. The Internet is expanding into enterprise assets and consumer items such as cars and televisions. The concept of “Internet of Things” will evolve a step toward The Internet of Everything. Gartner identifies four basic usage models that are emerging: Manage, Monetize, Operate, Extend. The Internet of Things (IoT) will evolve into the Web of Things, increasing the coordination between things in the real world and their counterparts on the Web. The Industrial Internet of Things will be talked about. IoT takes advantage of mobile devices’ and sensors’ ability to observe and monitor their environments
Car of the future is M2M-ready and has Ethernet. 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.
Smart Home Systems Are on the Rise article tells that most automated technology is found in commercial buildings that feature automated lighting that changes in intensity depending on the amount of sunlight present. Some of these buildings have WiFi incorporated into their lighting systems. There will be new and affordable technology on the market, but people today are still reluctant to bring automation to their homes.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
FCC boss threatens to BRING WRATH DOWN on states that limit broadband competition
Commission may overrule laws that restrict public networks
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/11/fcc_boss_threatens_to_bring_wrath_down_on_states_limiting_broadband_competition/
The head of the US Federal Communications Commission has threatened to take action against states that limit the ability of cities to build their own broadband networks.
Chairman Tom Wheeler said that the commission is prepared to overrule state laws that would restrict cities from deploying community-funded broadband networks to compete with existing commercial service providers.
It’s probably worth noting, however, that the FCC has not yet actually challenged any specific laws
Should states pass laws restricting city governments from getting into the ISP business and competing with private firms, Wheeler said that the Commission is prepared to step in.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kiwis get cracking with gigabit residential broadband
Copper not ‘good enough’ says UF CEO
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/10/kiwis_get_cracking_with_gigabit_residential_broadband/
While Australians wait for a copper network “upgrade” that can’t be guaranteed to deliver better than 25 Mbps, a speed war has broken out across the Tasman, with residential gigabit plans arriving at wholesale prices that could see households pay under $NZ100 per month.
The wholesaler has announced the offering is now available to its retail customers, with coverage in all the centres in which it’s building its network
company says the gigabit service will wholesale at $NZ65 per month, and Ultrafast Fibre says it will stay on the product list until 2020.
Elliot nominated “multi-use gaming, major data transfer, and high-definition video” as applications that would make the high speed services attractive, noting that households running multiple video streams at once are “now a reality”.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ellipto: Electric Imp meets Keen IO
https://medium.com/@Jim_reich/ellipto-electric-imp-meets-keen-io-b581a8c17b13
Building an fitness tracker device with a beautiful dashboard in 71 lines of original code, with no soldering, and no servers.
So, the other day, my lovely wife Caroline came home with an Imp. An Electric Imp, to be precise — a WiFi sensor/actuator node in the form factor of an SD card. It’s supposed to be designed for simple development and low power consumption.
Electric Imp had just completed an integration with Keen IO (Caroline’s company). Keen IO is a powerful platform for backend analytics— you just send them the data and you can build beautiful dashboards by inserting simple javascript onto an HTML page.
This is what I wanted to investigate— can we build connected devices with no backend whatsoever.
The Keen IO folks introduced me to Brace IO, a new startup which is the simplest, most delightful way to put up static websites I’ve seen. Basically, you sign up for the service, give it permission to create and manage a folder in your dropbox, and then you edit the draft of your website on your local machine in your dropbox folder.
Conclusions
That was pretty quick and painless for such an ambitious project. For a complete system, all it took was a total of 50 lines of original code for the device and 21 lines of new javascript on the dashboard side— the rest of the code is just copied and modified to configure the new screen.
Tomi Engdahl says:
This is an interesting article on network neutrality:
Net Neutrality: FCC Hack is a Speed Bump on the Internet Fast Lane
http://hackaday.com/2014/06/12/net-neutrality-fcc-hack-is-a-speed-bump-on-the-internet-fast-lane/
Net neutrality is one of those topics we’ve been hearing more and more about in recent years. The basic idea of net neutrality is that all Internet traffic should be treated equally no matter what. It shouldn’t matter if it’s email, web sites, or streaming video. It shouldn’t matter if the traffic is coming from Wikipedia, Netflix, Youtube, etc. It shouldn’t matter which Internet Service Provider you choose. This is the way the Internet has worked since it’s inception.
It seems like much of the tech savvy community argues that net neutrality is a “given right” of the Internet. They believe that it’s the way the Internet has always been, and always should be. The other side of the argument is generally lobbied by Internet service providers. They argue that ISP’s have the right to classify Internet traffic that flows through their equipment and treat it differently if they so choose.
With Internet speeds getting faster and faster all the time, consumers are demanding more and more content. Some ISP’s claim to be struggling to keep up with the demand.
Netflix case:
Netflix used to use a Content Delivery Network (CDN) service through a company called Akamai.
Last year, Level 3 won the contract with Netflix to start hosting and distributing Netflix’s content.
Suddenly the reality of the network connection no longer matched the terms of the Comcast/Level 3 peering agreement.
The only way to fix this problem is for Comcast to upgrade their infrastructure to support the new load coming from Level 3. This of course costs a lot of money.
Level 3 claimed that Comcast was singling out Netflix traffic
Netflix eventually got tired of waiting around and purchased new connections directly from Comcast.
On the surface, it looks like Comcast is requiring Netflix to pay for faster access to Comcast subscribers.
On-going discussion:
The most recent entry in the net neutrality saga involves what people are calling the “Internet Fast Lane”. This United States’ FCC proposal would allow for broadband ISP’s to offer up faster connections for companies willing to pay more.
The downsides are not as obvious to most people.
An “Internet fast lane” may unintentionally permit ISP’s to hurt their competitors
This also may be bad for competition.
In the end of the article there is an interesting hack related to network throttling…
It tries to show the FCC the downsides of this “fast lane” proposal in a very direct way.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google wants to put ads on car dashboards and refrigerators
http://www.electronicproducts.com/Computer_Systems/Standalone_Mobile/Google_wants_to_put_ads_on_car_dashboards_and_refrigerators.aspx#.U5rJMyhsUik
Tech-giant Google always seems to be one step ahead of the game, and right now it’s envisioning a future where it can send ads just about anywhere, including watches, thermostats, car dashboards, and even on refrigerators.
Just last week, Google sent a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission revealing its hopes to place marketing messages in ad-free objects. The company, which is just one of many who are swooping into the Internet of Things, revealed that its expectation is to have its users viewing ads on an increasingly wide diversity of devices in the future.
Google already started placing its Android mobile operating system into cars through partnerships with automakers, and is also pushing it on smartwatches through an optimized OS called Android Wear. In January the company announced the Open Automotive Alliance with Audi, GM, and Honda, all of which are committed to developing Android-powered dashboards. That same month, Google bought Nest, the smart thermostat manufacturing company for $3.2 billion.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Watching data-transfer across the Internet in real-time is beautiful and frightening
http://www.electronicproducts.com/Computer_Systems/Servers/Watching_data_transfer_across_the_Internet_in_real_time_is_beautiful_and_frightening.aspx#.U5rJAShsUik
The Internet in real time is a horrifying thing.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cisco: You think the internet is clogged with video now? Just wait until 2018
‘We are firmly in the Zettabyte Era,’ says networking megafirm exec in new report
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/13/cisco_you_think_the_internet_is_clogged_with_video_now_just_wait_until_2018/
Networking megafirm Cisco has released a numbingly comprehensive report forecasting IP traffic up to and including 2018, which comes to the unsurprising conclusion that the market from which Cisco earns its bread and butter will continue to balloon for the foreseeable future.
“Today, we are firmly in the ‘Zettabyte Era’ and witnessing incredible innovations and shifts in the industry,” said Cisco VP of products and solutions marketing Doug Webster when announcing the VNI, citing what he called the “Internet of Everything”, network mobility, and the onslaught of 4K video as primary drivers of the projected increase in IP traffic.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google in talks to nail Virgin as ‘partner’ in satellite internet plan
Will invest millions in JV and take stake in Galactic – report
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/13/google_virgin_galactic_rumoured_talks/
Google is reportedly in talks with Virgin Galactic for a multi-million dollar joint venture and an equity stake in the business, according to Sky News.
The Chocolate Factory is planning to sink its cash into a project with the space tourism biz that will use Virgin Galactic tech in its plans to put hundreds of satellites into low-Earth orbit so that it can offer internet access around the world.
“Skybox’s satellites will help keep Google Maps accurate with up-to-date imagery,” the company said in its announcement. “Over time, we also hope that Skybox’s team and technology will be able to help improve Internet access and disaster relief – areas Google has long been interested in.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
The FCC is going to scrutinize Netflix’s deals with Comcast, Verizon — and others, too
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/06/13/the-fcc-is-going-to-scrutinize-netflixs-deals-with-comcast-verizon-and-others-too/
Netflix’s continued dispute with Internet providers underscores that we can’t declare a winner in the debate without more information about what Netflix is paying Comcast and Verizon to boost customers’ streaming speeds, whether that’s causing people’s bills to rise, and who actually has the leverage in these relationships.
On Friday, the Federal Communications Commission said it’s going to look more closely at those deals.
Netflix’s agreements have been controversial
In a statement, Comcast said it welcomed the probe.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Proof the Net needs to move to IPv6 IP addresses: Microsoft runs out of U.S. address space
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2363580/need-to-move-to-ipv6-highlighted-as-microsoft-runs-out-of-us-address-space.html
Microsoft has been forced to start using its global stock of IPv4 addresses to keep its Azure cloud service afloat in the U.S., highlighting the growing importance of making the shift to IP version 6.
Microsoft doesn’t mention IPv6 in the blog post, but the use of the protocol would make its address problems disappear.
The IPv4 address space has been fully assigned in the U.S., meaning there are no additional addresses available, Microsoft said in a blog post earlier this week. This requires the company to use the IPv4 address space available to it globally for new services, it said.
Microsoft makes it clear that the IP address registration origin does not equate to the physical location. For example, you can have an address registered in Brazil but allocated to a device or service physically located in Virginia.
The adoption of foreign IP addresses gives some breathing room, but there are also drawbacks. It will become more difficult to use geolocation services that rely on IP addresses. Geolocation and ad revenue are such a powerful driving forces that they may help speed up the implementation of IPv6, Eriksson said.
Moving to IPv6 may stimulate more competition among ISPs, as new competitors will be able to get all the addresses they need more easily.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Verizon snags ‘fastest LTE network’ crown from AT&T in new test
Read more: Verizon snags ‘fastest LTE network’ crown from AT&T in new test – FierceWirelessTech http://www.fiercewireless.com/tech/story/verizon-snags-fastest-lte-network-crown-att-new-test/2014-06-11#ixzz34gsYWa2g
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Battle for the Connected Home Has Begun
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/06/12/the-battle-for-the-connected-home-has-begun.aspx
Companies are gearing up to connect nearly everything to the Internet, and your home has become the most recent battlefield. As more companies dive deeper into the so-called Internet of Things, investors can expect the connected home to one of the most sought-after spaces going forward.
Who the major players are
Last week, Apple debuted its HomeKit system aimed at paring connected home devices like thermostats, lights, door locks, etc. to each other on one simplified platform.
Just this week Honeywell threw its hat into the connected home ring with its new Lyric thermostat
smart home leader Nest’s acquisition, which Google recently purchased for $3.2 billion.
Not to be forgotten, Samsung also has its own SmartHome platform that allows Samsung devices, like its TV, to communicate with other mobile products the company makes.
According to the wireless industry group GSMA Association, the connected home market is worth $10 billion this year and will hit $44 billion by 2017.
Obviously there’s no clear winner in the connected home space right now, considering we’re just getting started.
The connected home is just one piece of the Internet of Things puzzle — and there are plenty of other ways to invest in the coming connectivity that don’t involve the words Apple or Google.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Satellite ‘net hype ignores realpolitik
Will tinpot regimes welcome satellite broadband?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/16/satellite_net_hype_ignores_realpolitik/
Google is generating lots of utopian excitement with its various airborne Internet plans – Project Loon, its satellite acquisitions, its work with O3b (the “other three billion”). But is technology all that stands in the way of connectivity?
This musing was prompted by this post by Larry Press, who is eminently qualified to ask whether the technology available to Google today will get it over the hurdles faced by satellite outfits of the dotcom era.
Certainly, Google has something that the low earth orbit broadband satellite ventures of the late 1990s and early 2000s lacked: abundant funding. Teledesic, Iridium and Globalstar all had trouble satisfying impatient investors while they actually got their satellites launched and operating.
However, getting connectivity to users isn’t only about having the money to get the satellites in the air.
For all their lofty – and not-so-lofty, since connectivity means another clickstream that can get sold to advertisers – aims, Google, Facebook, O3b and all their advocates will one day run into an unpleasant realpolitik: some governments don’t want their citizens connected, and have the power to prevent ground stations from existing within their borders.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tiva C Series TM4C1294 Connected LaunchPad
http://www.ti.com/tool/ek-tm4c1294xl
The Tiva™ C Series TM4C1294 Connected LaunchPad Evaluation Board is a low-cost evaluation platform for ARM® Cortex-M4-based microcontrollers. The Connected LaunchPad design highlights the TM4C1294NCPDT microcontroller with its on-chip 10/100 Ethernet MAC and PHY, USB 2.0, hibernation module, motion control pulse-width modulation and a multitude of simultaneous serial connectivity.
Cloud-based, Exosite QuickStart Application
TivaWare 2.1
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel, Dell Ride SDN Into Telcos
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1322742&
Telecommunications will increasingly depend on software running on servers, according to executives from Intel and Dell, speaking at an Intel event here.
Often described as software-defined networking (SDN) or network functions virtualization (NFV), the goal is to minimize hardware in favor of energy-efficient servers and datacenters.
“The focus of Dell’s main hardware business is changing over time. As you switch to a time where software-based is going to be a reality, software is going to be embedded in more things,” Dell Software president John Swainson said at the event. “Software is becoming the way we at Dell add value to basic hardware and the way we configure it.”
Still, transitioning to these functions is a complicated, multi-layer process that involves a variety of infrastructures. Networking equipment is still transitioning from a market founded on basic custom designs to a more service and partner-driven one, while existing equipment in enterprise spaces such as routers and switches needs to be realigned or repurposed for SDN.
“The value system is changing and an ecosystem emerging. Networking has never had an ecosystem; it has had a supply chain”
Officials at Dell want to take software-enabled networking one step further and create channels that primarily consist of software-based networks (SBNs).
By using servers for telecommunications jobs, “more of the software can be written using much more familiar tools for a much wider population of programmers. It just drives that next level of innovation,” Jai Menon, vice president of research and innovation and head of Dell Research, told EE Times. “Tremendous power and functions can be done now with just software running on servers. You don’t need that [traditional telco] box at all.”
“You’re still going to find purpose-built hardware… for a very long time. For almost everything else, good enough will be good enough,” Dell’s Swainson says. “If you start taking basic switching and routing stuff and say you can do it on software and general purpose hardware, it will have an impact.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Atmel’s New Modem Gets Grid Devices Talking
http://www.eeweb.com/blog/eeweb/atmels-new-modem-gets-grid-devices-talking
At the core of Atmel’s smart energy platform is the SAM4C series of products designed for next-generation communications for electricity, gas, and water metering systems as well as energy measurement applications. The SAM4C starts with the SAM4C16 and SAM4C8 system-on-chip solutions for smart energy applications and is built around two high performance 32-bit ARM® Cortex®-M4 RISC processors that operate at a maximum speed of 120 MHz and feature up to 2MB of embedded flash, 304 KB of SRAM, and an on-chip cache for each core.
“Every utility has different communication requirements, so to be able to address all of these segments with one solution is a significant achievement.”
With the provision of a physical communication layer, the Atmel ATPL230A PLC modem expands upon the unique and highly flexible SAM4CX platform and offers smart meter architects an unprecedented level of integration and accuracy for single and multichip architecture solutions. “We have recently introduced a new power line communication device to the European and Asian markets,” said Boutorbi.
The smart grid implements multidirectional communication channels over existing power-distribution networks and incorporates a variety of new alternative energy sources.
Tomi Engdahl says:
South Korea and EU to hammer out 5G standards together
South Korean and European officials signed an agreement to jointly fund 5G mobile network research and to work together on global standards
http://www.itworld.com/unified-communications/423153/south-korea-and-eu-hammer-out-5g-standards-together
South Korea and the European Union will work together to develop 5G wireless network technologies and to reach global consensus on standards.
The two sides agreed on the need for a harmonized radio spectrum policy for ensuring global interoperability of 5G networks, as well as global technical standards, the European Commission and the South Korean government said Monday.
The EU and South Korea will collaborate with the Third Generation Partnership Project, a group of telecommunications standards organizations, and with the International Telecommunication Union, which sets global policies for spectrum use.
By forming a joint research and development group, the EU and South Korea plan to cooperate on developing ICT services for the cloud and the Internet of Things, among other areas.
Earlier this year, she set 2020 as the goal to roll out 5G networks across Europe.
Under the new agreement, the EU and South Korea aim to launch jointly funded research projects in 2016 or 2017.
Tomi Engdahl says:
With the Americas running out of IPv4, it’s official: The Internet is full
Where did all those IP addresses go?
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/06/with-the-americas-running-out-of-ipv4-its-official-the-internet-is-full/
In April, ARIN, the (North) American Registry for Internet Numbers, announced that it had reached “phase 4″ of its IPv4 countdown plan, with fewer than 17 million IPv4 addresses remaining. There is no phase 5. APNIC, the Asia-Pacific registry, reached the 17 million (one “/8″ or 2^24 IPv4 addresses) threshold three years ago, and the RIPE NCC in Europe less than two years ago. LACNIC, the Latin American and Caribbean registry, reached a similar threshold of a little more than four million remaining IPv4 addresses earlier this week.
APNIC and the RIPE NCC will give ISPs and other network operators one last block of 1024 addresses, the rules for LACNIC are similar, and ARIN is tightening the address supply but still allows ISPs to come back for more. Only AfriNIC in Africa is continuing to supply IPv4 addresses as needed to network operators in its service region.
IP is the Internet Protocol, designed to interconnect all kinds of smaller networks into a unified, global one. As such, making the addresses a meager 32 bits was a big failure of imagination. That’s only ten digits when written down as a regular decimal number.
The result was that it took only a decade before IP address numbering ran into trouble. Originally, IP addresses came in three classes: A, B, and C.
The Internet Engineering Task Force was barely able to avoid disaster by abolishing the class system
Under the new classless regime, the deployment of new IP address space slowed down to a much more sustainable pace as the Internet boomed and then busted (a little). Around the turn of the millennium, more and more people got broadband always-on connections, and a few years later the mobile era dawned, where untold millions of smartphones were continuously connected to the network, too. Surprisingly, these developments only produced a small uptick in the IPv4 address usage rate. The reason for this is probably that by now, NAT was seeing broad adoption.
So what now?
In a statement to Ars, John Curran, president and CEO of ARIN, stressed the need to adopt IPv6: “This issuance of IPv4 space in accordance with global policy has been expected for some time (and will occur several more times in smaller amounts) but doesn’t change the need for ISPs and websites to move to IPv6.” LACNIC echoed that tone in its announcement: “Today, the need to deploy IPv6 is now more pressing than ever. It cannot be delayed any longer if connectivity providers still wish to meet the demands of their customers and those of new users.”
It’s true. There is no plan B. During the past 10 years, 1.6 billion IPv4 addresses have been given out. It’s inconceivable that the Internet as we know it today can continue to grow at a meaningful rate over the next decades with pretty much no new addresses being added, even as addresses are now traded. Even if no additional addresses were required, when one ISP grows and another loses business, the contracting ISP is left with a Swiss cheese-like address space full of holes while the growing one needs to find new addresses in the form of reasonably sized blocks to avoid exploding routing tables.
These are, of course, numbers of individual Internet users that have IPv6, (almost always) in addition to IPv4; see Google’s measurements. It’s also important to get websites and other services on IPv6, but those only use a tiny number of IPv4 addresses—it’s the consumer ISPs that get the bulk of new IP addresses, which means that they’re also the first ones to run into trouble when that’s no longer possible.
And it gets worse: deploying IPv6 doesn’t solve the short-term problem, as IPv6 users can’t talk to IPv4-only services or other users who still only have IPv4 connectivity. Current operating systems can all use IPv6, but they don’t always work as expected in an IPv6-only environment. And some applications and, especially, networked devices simply don’t work with IPv6. The most notable example is Skype. All of this means that ISPs really have no other choice than to keep IPv4 running in some way for now.
NAT to the rescue—again
Of course there is a difference between a $50 home router that can handle the NATting for a single home and a NAT that can handle an entire neighborhood. These are called a Carrier Grade NAT (CGN), but they basically do the same thing. To avoid problems with the private addresses in the 10.0.0.0/8, 172.16.0.0/12, and 192.168.0.0/16 ranges, there’s a separate semi-private address block that ISPs can use between the CGN and their subscribers: 100.64.0.0/10. If you get an address in the range 100.64.0.0 – 100.127.255.255, that means you’re behind a CGN. According to Geoff Huston, at least 3 percent of Internet users are already in that situation
Tomi Engdahl says:
Per-Country IPv6 adoption
http://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.html#tab=per-country-ipv6-adoption
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google’s Balloon Internet Experiment, One Year Later
http://www.wired.com/2014/06/google-balloons-year-later/
When Google announced Project Loon on June 15 last year, a lot of people were skeptical. But Google reports that since then, it has been able to extend balloon flight times and add mobile connectivity to the service. As a result, Google’s expectations are flying even higher than the 60,000-foot strata where its balloons live.
“This is the poster child for Google X,” says Astro Teller, who heads the division. “The balloons are delivering 10x more bandwidth, 10x steer-ability, and are staying up 10x as long. That’s the kind of progress that can only happen a few more times until we’re in a problematically good place.” A year ago, balloons typically remained aloft for a few days at most, and download speeds averaged one or two megabits per second—comparable to the slowest wired Internet service.
Since the first public test flights in New Zealand, Google’s balloons have clocked over a million and half kilometers.
Google bumped up flight durations by extensively analyzing its failures.
Google also improved Loon flight times by dramatically upgrading the altitude control system, increasing the vertical range of the balloons so they can catch more favorable winds.
Google made a different kind of advance with Loon when it added the capability to send data using the LTE spectrum—making it possible for people to connect directly to the Internet with their mobile phones. (Loon’s original Wi-Fi connection required a base station and a special antenna.) Using LTE also helped Google boost the capacity of its connections. Recent Loon payloads are providing as much as 22 MB/sec to a ground antenna and 5 MB/sec to a handset.
With the advances made over the last year, Google has a clearer idea of how it might eventually make money with Loon. In addition to connecting the last few billion (and often cash-poor) Internet users, the project might serve already-connected people with fat wallets by partnering with existing providers to deliver a super-roaming experience. “It’s not limited to rural areas,” Teller says. “Even in the middle of Silicon Valley you can lose connections while driving; large buildings and hills can block the signals. Balloons can fill in dead spots.”
Cassidy ticks off the goals for the next year: routine flights of 100 days, 100 balloons in the air at once (that’s four times the previous high), and then a full ring of between 300 to 400 balloons circling the globe to offer continuous service to a targeted area.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Level 3 gobbles rival TW Telecom in $5.7bn deal (that’s 5 Instagrams)
World’s biggest telco: ‘We wanna be stronger, more nimble’
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/17/level_3_buys_tw_telecom/
Internet backbone provider Level 3 has bought its competitor TW Telecom in a cash and stock mega-deal valued at $40.86 per share.
The planned $5.7bn merger, if waved through by US regulators and shareholders, would further consolidate the telco market stateside.
The deal is not expected to close until late this year.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft launches new startup accelerator in Redmond, focusing on home automation and the ‘Internet of Things’
http://www.geekwire.com/2014/microsoft-launches-new-startup-accelerator-redmond-help-american-family-insurance/
Microsoft announced today that it is launching a new startup accelerator in Redmond focused on home automation and the Internet of Things, in partnership with American Family Insurance. It’s designed to promote startups that are searching for new ways to improve how people use their homes.
While home automation is often discussed in the context of new hardware like the Nest thermostat or Phillips’s Hue lightbulbs, Microsoft Ventures General Manager Rahul Sood said that software startups should feel welcome to apply.
“I want to be really clear that this isn’t just a hardware accelerator,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Shadow Internet That’s 100 Times Faster Than Google Fiber
http://www.wired.com/2014/06/esnet/
When Google chief financial officer Patrick Pichette said the tech giant might bring 10 gigabits per second internet connections to American homes, it seemed like science fiction. That’s about 1,000 times faster than today’s home connections. But for NASA, it’s downright slow.
While the rest of us send data across the public internet, the space agency uses a shadow network called ESnet, short for Energy Science Network, a set of private pipes that has demonstrated cross-country data transfers of 91 gigabits per second–the fastest of its type ever reported.
NASA isn’t going bring these speeds to homes, but it is using this super-fast networking technology to explore the next wave of computing applications. ESnet, which is run by the U.S. Department of Energy, is an important tool for researchers who deal in massive amounts of data generated by projects such as the Large Hadron Collider and the Human Genome Project. Rather sending hard disks back and forth through the mail, they can trade data via the ultra-fast network. “Our vision for the world is that scientific discovery shouldn’t be constrained by geography,” says ESnet director Gregory Bell.
ESnet has long been capable of 100 gigabit transfers, at least in theory. Network equipment companies have been offering 100 gigabit switches since 2010. But in practice, long-distance transfers were much slower. That’s because data doesn’t travel through the internet in a straight line.
NASA did a 98 gigabit transfer between Goddard and the University of Utah over ESnet in 2012. And Alcatel-Lucent and BT obliterated that record earlier this year with a 1.4 terabit connection between London and Ipswich. But in both cases, the two locations had a direct connection, something you rarely see in real world connections.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Democrats challenge net neutrality axe with legislation banning internet fast lanes
Would force the FCC to protect neutrality
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2350616/democrats-challenge-net-neutrality-axe-with-legislation-banning-internet-fast-lanes
UNITED STATES SENATORS have introduced legislation to prevent the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from allowing internet fast lanes.
Democratic Senators Patrick Leahy and Doris Matsui who have proposed the bill are not seeking to give the FCC additional powers, but rather to ensure that it uses its existing powers to ensure that net neutrality is maintained.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Operators shackled to GSM, so Huawei ties GSM to LTE
Base station test on Vodafone test range demos spectrum coexistence
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/18/operators_shackled_to_gsm_so_huawei_ties_gsm_to_lte/
Huawei and Vodafone have run a trial in Spain that demonstrated GSM and LTE transmissions co-existing on the same spectrum.
The idea behind Huawei’s GL DSS (GSM-LTE dynamic spectrum sharing) is to let operators roll out their shiny new LTE infrastructure without restricting the spectrum available to the (currently) larger installed base of GSM users.
“Several operators, including Vodafone, currently hold bandwidths of 20 MHz at 1.8 GHz, of which 10 MHz is used for LTE and the rest for high GSM traffic”,
High points of the GL DSS technology are real-time interference scheduling, priority for GSM voice users in heavy traffic periods, and better LTE throughput (compared to fixed spectrum allocation deployments). The claimed 50 per cent improvement in LTE efficiency, Huawei claims, gives it what amounts to 15 MHz more available spectrum “with limited impact to GSM services.”
The GL DSS technology under test was deployed in a Huawei SRC (single radio controller) base station, and doesn’t rely on changes to users’ phones or data devices. It is, at the moment a Huawei-only solution, rather than a standard.
Tomi Engdahl says:
City of London Police Commissioner says TOR is ’90 per cent of the net’
Of course he’s wrong: the TOR-using population is tiny
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/18/no_commissioner_tor_isnt_90_per_cent_of_the_net/
Yet again, someone who should know better is hyping up the size of the so-called “darkweb” to push a law enforcement case.
I can’t tell you whether Leppard said “BitTorrent” and was mis-transcribed, or whether he slipped, but I’d like to address the assertion that TOR – The Onion Router – is “90 per cent of the Internet”.
Let’s take three definitions of “The Internet”: the number of users, the amount of stored data, and the amount of traffic.
In terms of the number of users, TOR is nowhere near “90 per cent” of anything: by its own metrics, TOR users peaked at around three million users and currently the number hovers between 2 and 2.5 million users.
That should spike Leppard’s statement straight away: the ITU estimates that there were 2.7 billion Internet users in 2013 so for TOR user there’s more than a thousand ignoring the network.
Worldwide, Cisco’s Visual Networking Index tells us that 29 Exabytes is sucked down the Internet’s various pipes each month. If TOR users are “90 per cent” of that volume, their average monthly downloads would be nearly 10,000 GB, and the rest of us would have an average monthly download volume of just 100 kilobytes.
The TOR isn’t 90 per cent of anything
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cisco promises Lync link for its UC kit and collaborationware
Borg will try to assimilate Microsoft’s unified comms
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/18/cisco_promises_lync_link_for_its_uc_kit/
Cisco has spent the last couple of years talking up its unified communications and collaboration portfolios, often suggesting it is at the top of the market.
If that assertion is correct it would be quite a coup, given that other players have a long head start.
“Cisco has decided to expand our industry leading interoperability to include two way content sharing with Microsoft Lync 2013.”
One last thought: with Microsoft linking Lync to Skype, Cisco might be about to build a bridge from Redmond’s free VoIP to its own customers? If so, that will certainly set the cat among the pigeons.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Careful with ‘fibre speed record’ hype: which record’s been broken?
91 Gbps seems fast, but isn’t much of a record
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/18/careful_with_fibre_speed_record_hype/
Last January, NASA’s Energy Science Network (ESNet) ran a test that achieved 91 Gbps end-to-end data transfers.
The test made belated news this week in another outlet that touted ESNet as a “shadow network” faster than Google fibre. Leaving aside the inappropriateness of that hype, it got El Reg thinking about the business of the perennial story of communications speed records.
ESnet’s test was hyped as “the fastest of its type ever reported.” That’s true. But “of its type” is the key phrase.
After all, carriers routinely carry more than 100 Gbps between locations. Terabit networks are easy, if you lay enough fibres.
So what has ESNet actually set a record in?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Like so many other electronics companies, including Texas Instruments has in mind, namely the Internet of Things IoT. The company has introduced a new circuit, which can be imported quickly WLAN connection to any device. TI invites you to brand-new as the “Internet of a chip.”
In practice, the TI SimpleLink second series, two new low-voltage chip. CC3100 chip can be connected to any microcontroller. CC3200 circuit is integrated into the ARM controller.
Both new products are intended for battery-operated devices. The idea is that the device is working years on two AA batteries.
CC3100 chip price is $ 6.70 in the volumes of the ARM controller with CC3200 chip price is $ 7.99. TI promises circuits in production volumes available in July.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1530:uusi-siru-lisaa-wlanin-mihin-tahansa&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fifth-generation mobile technology standardization is about to begin next year and the first commercial use of networks should be 2020 early. The European Commission has now been taken under the first concrete steps in the development of 5G networks.
Commission under the METIS project (Mobile and Wireless Communications Enablers for Twenty-Twenty (2020) Information Society) is defined under the first channel models for future 5G connections.
The technical requirements are very tough in 5G, so the radio channel testing is clearly more challenging than the previous systems: should adapt to the delay, frequency, time, place, above the ground, and polarization.
METIS project resulted from the models come with all-5G developers to use
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1526:5g-sai-ensimmaiset-kanavamallit&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Crunch Your IoT Data Before It Clogs the Network
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1322803&
In today’s IoT frenzy, a lot of companies rush to connect sensors and provide all sorts of monitoring services, and carriers will happily bill them for the data that transits through their networks.
But sending all the raw data to the cloud for processing and intelligence is inefficient and expensive
“Out of the estimated 50 billion connected devices that may be deployed by 2020, the vast majority will not have a direct connection to the cloud but will pass on their data through local gateways or routers,” explains Glynn.
“Often, most of the generated data is irrelevant. A sensor may indicate it’s still operational, or that the values it monitors remain unchanged, and often that data could be dumped,” he tells EETimes Europe. While a lot of network and mobile operators see the IoT as an opportunity to sell more SIM cards and data plans, Glynn presents the cloud-based RuBAN platform as a way to build new data services while focusing on data reduction.
In Davra’s solution, data is gathered, filtered, and managed near its source, and only relevant information is sent to the cloud to be turned into insightful business intelligence calling for action. Following Cisco’s fog computing concept, simple sets of rules running on the gateways’ embedded computers can enable local intelligence.
“That way, networks evolve beyond object connectivity, to data services,” he says. “Last year, Cisco would have supplied a router, but now they offer routers bundled with data services” he added.
“As computing power moves to the edges of the network, data analysis has a bigger role to play at the edge,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Radios Give IoT New Channels
WiFi dives down to 900 MHz
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1322799&
A basketful of new radios for everything from wireless charging to millimeter-wave radar are in the works for the Internet of Things, according to researchers at Imec who described their work on several of them.
The emerging 802.11ah specification for running low-power WiFi over 900 MHz at distances up to a kilometer is one of the most promising new radios. “We believe this new standard is a very strong candidate for IoT applications in smart homes and buildings where a WiFi router is nearby,”
Home and building automation has been a fragmented market served by a host of incompatible wireless protocols including EnOcean, 6LowPAN, WirelessHART, ANT, and RF4CE — most requiring their own gateways.
Holst also is researching far-field RF wireless charging over a distance of five to 10 meters as an alternative to inductive approaches that require close alignment of coils.
“With a 3W EIRP source transmitting at 915 MHz, we can harvest 30 microwatts on a continuous basis from up to five meters away from the source,”
At the high end of the spectrum, Imec is among a growing set of researchers that see many mass-market applications emerging in the millimeter wave spectrum from 60 to 90 GHz, spanning automotive radar to 5G cellular links.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wearable Devices and the Internet of Things
http://www.eeweb.com/company-blog/mouser/wearable-devices-and-the-internet-of-things/
This article presents the wearable devices technology and its contribution to the Internet of Things (IoT). The article will also discuss some of the primary functions of this device as well as its role to add more features to other devices.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft Azure cloud platform connects with Rockwell Automation as first industrial partner
http://www.plantengineering.com/single-article/microsoft-azure-cloud-platform-connects-with-rockwell-automation-as-first-industrial-partner/804861e061da3f0765f9d66ffc3f186b.html
Microsoft Azure Intelligent Systems Service selected Rockwell Automation as an early adopter, the first partner in the industrial space, as part of Microsoft’s effort to bring greater connectivity to its customers, according to Barb Edson, general manager of Microsoft IoT commercial. Edson was the RSTechED keynote speaker for June 17. She said it’s not about billions of connected devices in the Internet of Things; it’s about connecting your things.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Remote energy monitoring improves plant performance, reduces downtime
A single dashboard can display power quality information to head off problems
http://www.plantengineering.com/single-article/remote-energy-monitoring-improves-plant-performance-reduces-downtime/eec9fbc9daf15beb0690ee12c4ae408a.html
In the past decade, significant changes have occurred in industrial environments. With the growing cost of downtime and rise of complex, high-density electrical equipment, power distribution systems are increasingly relied on to provide a clean, steady supply of power. Today’s electrical equipment is also far more intelligent, relying on sensitive electronic controls and microprocessors to maintain optimal plant performance around the clock.
To keep a close eye on equipment and power status, equipment vendors and OEMs have moved away from proprietary technology and toward industry standard communications. Many pieces of modern equipment are embedded with Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, which allow plant management to actively and remotely monitor equipment by visiting a dedicated Web address for each device.
Offering a cost-effective solution, modern electric power management software can prove a critical tool in any enterprise’s daily operation.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Virtual Router – Wifi Hot Spot for Windows 8, Windows 7 and 2008 R2
http://virtualrouter.codeplex.com/
What is Virtual Router?
Virtual Router is a free, open source software based router for PCs running Windows 8, Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2. Using Virtual Router, users can wirelessly share any internet connection (Wifi, LAN, Cable Modem, Dial-up, Cellular, etc.) with any Wifi device (Laptop, Smart Phone, iPod Touch, iPhone, Android Phone, Zune, Netbook, wireless printer, etc.) These devices connect to Virtual Router just like any other access point, and the connection is completely secured using WPA2 (the most secure wireless encryption.)
Tomi Engdahl says:
U.S. looks to create an ‘Internet of Postal Things’
The U.S. Postal Service is considering whether it should attach sensors to everything, including your mail carrier
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9249201/U.S._looks_to_create_an_Internet_of_Postal_Things_
The Internet has so far delivered mostly bad news to the U.S. Postal Service, but the agency now hopes an emerging Web application — the Internet of Things — can help it improve efficiency.
The postal service is spending up to $100,000 to investigate how it can utilize low cost sensors and related wireless technologies. The IoT research is closely tied to its ongoing analysis of how it can best use big data technologies.
On Tuesday, the postal service’s Office of Inspector General published a notice for proposals from a supplier with “expertise and critical knowledge” of the Internet of Things, data strategy and analytics.
How might the postal service apply this capability to its services? It has some ideas.
The postal service hopes that an integration of IT and new sensor-based technologies can bring “dramatic improvements” to postal operations in terms of new product offerings, better operational diagnostics, and insights into consumer behavior.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Former FCC Commissioner: “We Should Be Ashamed Of Ourselves” For State of Broadband In The U.S.
http://consumerist.com/2014/06/18/former-fcc-commissioner-we-should-be-ashamed-of-ourselves-for-state-of-broadband-in-the-u-s/
In Washington, DC today, a group of internet industry executives and politicians came together to look back on the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and to do a little crystal-ball gazing about the future of broadband regulation in the United States. Former FCC commissioner Michael Copps was among the presenters, and he had sharp words for the audience about the “insanity” of the current wave of merger mania in the telecom field and the looming threats of losing net neutrality regulation.
Copps, however, was anything but retrospective when he stood to speak. “I’m not here to celebrate,” he began, “I’m here to advocate.” And the landscape he laid out is indeed not one to cheer for.
“But we haven’t given competition the chance it needs,”
Broadband competition is indeed scarce in the United States, and the looming wave of “merger mania” is unlikely at best to improve the situation for anyone.
For all that the current bout of mergers — Comcast with TWC, AT&T with DirecTV, and maybe even Sprint with T-Mobile — seems inevitable, it’s not.
“Whose internet is it anyway? And whose democracy is it anyway?”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Unlike AT&T, T-Mobile isn’t charging companies to circumvent data caps
Still, T-Mobile favors big content providers with unlimited music streaming.
http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/06/unlike-att-t-mobile-isnt-charging-companies-to-circumvent-data-caps/
T-Mobile US last night announced a “Music Freedom” program that will exempt certain music streaming services from counting against the monthly data limits that the so-called “uncarrier” imposes on its customers.
“Beginning immediately, T-Mobile’s Simple Choice customers will now be able to stream all the music they want from all the most popular streaming services, including Pandora, Rhapsody, iHeartRadio, iTunes Radio, Slacker, and Spotify—without ever hitting their high-speed 4G LTE data service [limits],” T-Mobile said. “Music services from T-Mobile partners—Samsung’s Milk Music and the forthcoming Beatport music app from SFX—will also stream without data charges for T-Mobile customers.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
This Tool Boosts Your Privacy by Opening Your Wi-Fi to Strangers
http://www.wired.com/2014/06/eff-open-wireless-router/
In an age of surveillance anxiety, the notion of leaving your Wi-Fi network open and unprotected seems dangerously naive. But one group of activists says it can help you open up your wireless internet and not only maintain your privacy, but actually increase it in the process.
At the Hackers on Planet Earth conference next month, the Electronic Frontier Foundation plans to release software designed to let you share a portion of your Wi-Fi network, password-free, with anyone nearby. The initiative, part of the OpenWireless.org campaign, will maintain its own flavor of free, open-source router firmware called Open Wireless Router. Good Samaritans can install this firmware on a cheap Wi-Fi router, creating a public slice of bandwidth that can dialed up or down with a simple smartphone interface.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Radios Give IoT New Channels
WiFi dives down to 900 MHz
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1322799&
The emerging 802.11ah specification for running low-power WiFi over 900 MHz at distances up to a kilometer is one of the most promising new radios. “We believe this new standard is a very strong candidate for IoT applications in smart homes and buildings where a WiFi router is nearby,”
Her group is designing an 11ah chip now that aims to send 100 kbit/s distances of up to a kilometer with a peak transmit power consumption of 12 milliwatts and 5 mW for the receiver. “Since this is expected to be one of the new mass markets, vendors will differentiate on cost, battery life, robustness, and distance,” she says.
“With a 3W EIRP source transmitting at 915 MHz, we can harvest 30 microwatts on a continuous basis from up to five meters away from the source,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Open Wireless Movement
https://openwireless.org/
We’re working with a coalition of volunteer engineers to build technologies that will let users open their wireless networks without compromising their security or sacrificing bandwidth. And we’re working with advocates to help change the way people and businesses think about Internet service.
Tomi Engdahl says:
FCC to spend $2 BEEELLION to install Wi-Fi in US schools
Telephones and pagers not cutting it anymore
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/20/fcc_school_wifi_plan/
The US Federal Communications Commission says it plans to outfit the nation’s schools and libraries with Wi-Fi and high-speed broadband connections, and it has earmarked $2bn to do it.
“The simple fact of the matter is that the free market has failed to provide basic broadband connectivity to more than 15 million Americans,” FCC chairman Tom Wheeler said in a Friday blog post announcing the proposed initiative.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ensure network availability in an industrial environment
http://www.controleng.com/single-article/ensure-network-availability-in-an-industrial-environment/59feed4b3ea81f251a7dc87204ea94c7.html
These 9 tests show why you need industrial cables, rather than commercial-grade cables. Control Engineering International: Industrial grade cables can improve the long-term performance and reliability of industrial networks, explained Loredana Coscotin, product marketing manager for Industrial Cable EMEA at Belden, in a Control Engineering Europe article.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Redundant cabling’s importance is worth repeating
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/print/volume-22/issue-5/features/data-center/redundant-cabling-s-importance-is-worth-repeating.html
For facilities that simply cannot be offline, specifications prescribe the highest levels of cabling redundancy.
For some data center facilities, the prospect of downtime is a nonstarter. Financial institutions are frequently referred to as fitting this description, because the monetary transactions that take place digitally, i.e. in data centers, (see the book Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis) are their very business. Data center networks with stakes as high as these concern themselves deeply with issues such as latency, because the almost-infinitesimal duration of a delayed transaction literally can mean dollars lost. And in the global economy, some financial market is always open for business. Under these conditions, downtime equates to business disaster.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Carriers are still Cisco’s burden, but future beckons
http://www.cablinginstall.com/blogs/2014/05/carriers-are-still-cisco-s-burden-but-future-beckons.html?cmpid=EnlContractorJune192014
Mitch Wagner of Light Reading’s “Carrier SDN/SDN Archictectures ” news analysis blog reports that Cisco’s quarterly earnings have once again suffered from weakness in its Carrier segment .
“Weak carrier business continues to drag down Cisco’s revenue, but that sector is improving, and future growth will be driven by the cloud , the Internet of Everything , and other new technologies and markets,” the company revealed in its fiscal third-quarter earnings call on May 28, as reported by Wagner.
Tomi Engdahl says:
For Category 6A channels, alien crosstalk matters most
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/print/volume-22/issue-5/features/standards/for-category-6a-channels-alien-crosstalk-matters-most.html
The ability of network electronics to cancel internal noise has left alien crosstalk performance as the single most important factor in the ability to support 10GBase-T.
That theoretical inoperability of 10GBase-T, however, does not translate to reality, because there are two fundamental ways to improve a channel’s SNR to a level that permits successful transmission. The two improvement methods are: 1) using cabling components that prevent noise from exceeding the standard-defined limits and/or reduce the attenuation of the desired signal; and 2) using active components to eliminate noise that exists in the channel.
Several means exist to achieve method 1–improving cabling-component performance–but each of those means has one or more consequences.
We turn then to method 2–using active components to eliminate channel noise. As Base-T Ethernet transmission speeds have progressed from 10 Mbits/sec (10Base-T) to today’s 10 Gbits/sec (10GBase-T), the active components’ role in eliminating channel noise has increased significantly. The term “active components” as used here refers to the chipsets built into transceivers and typically called PHYs. We will use the term PHY here as well.
Alien crosstalk has taken “center stage” in many 10GBase-T/Category 6A discussions in part because of the unprecedented bandwidth in use. 10GBase-T uses five times the bandwidth that 1000Base-T uses (500 MHz vs. 100 MHz). Additionally, 10GBase-T’s transmission scheme uses much more of its 500-MHz channel capacity than 1000Base-T does of its 100-MHz channel capacity. From a signaling perspective, 10GBase-T is significantly more complex than 1000Base-
Tomi Engdahl says:
New sensors will scoop up ‘big data’ on Chicago
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-big-data-chicago-20140621,0,2219153,full.story
The smooth, perforated sheaths of metal are decorative, but their job is to protect and conceal a system of data-collection sensors that will measure air quality, light intensity, sound volume, heat, precipitation, and wind. The sensors will also count people by observing cell phone traffic.
Some experts caution that efforts like the one launching here to collect data from people and their surroundings pose concerns of a Big Brother intrusion into personal privacy.
In particular, sensors collecting cell phone data make privacy proponents nervous. But computer scientist Charlie Catlett said the planners have taken precautions to design their sensors to observe mobile devices and count contact with the signal rather than record the digital address of every device.
Researchers have dubbed their effort the “Array of Things” project. Gathering and publishing such a broad swatch of data will give scientists the tools to make Chicago a safer, more efficient and cleaner place to live
The first sensor could be in place by mid-July.
“Our intention is to understand cities better,” Catlett said. “Part of the goal is to make these things essentially a public utility.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple’s HomeKit hub may already be in your house
http://www.macworld.com/article/2364315/apples-homekit-hub-may-already-be-in-your-house.html
At Apple’s recent Worldwide Developers Conference, the company announced—among a great many other things—HomeKit, a suite of tools for controlling such devices in your home as thermostats, furnaces and air conditioners, smart appliances, lights, cameras, garage-door openers, and security systems. Apple will provide a platform that these devices will be asked to conform to. Do so, and you can control them all from your iOS device.
But imagine this as well: You’re halfway across the country on a business trip and your kid calls and asks if you can flip on the lights downstairs because he’s afraid of the dark. Or a massive heat wave hits at the same time and you want to crank up the air conditioning
If you’re accustomed to using devices such as the Nest Learning Thermostat you already know the answer. You set up an account with Nest and then download its app.
It’s for these reasons that I have to think (or, at least, hope) that Apple has another shoe to drop in regard to remote access via HomeKit. Clean as control of your home may be when you’re standing in it, it makes little sense for the process to get ugly simply because you’re not within range of its Wi-Fi network or iBeacon signal.
And therefore you need something that will arbitrate between you, your remote location, and the devices in your home.
If you haven’t yet glanced over at your Apple TV, now’s the time. Beneath its rounded-rectangular shell is a computer running a form of iOS.
Here’s the gatekeeper for your home’s gear—appliances as well as traditional computing devices.
But it can also provide a needed security layer. Rather than each device sending the intimate details of your home to Nest, Honeywell, GE, and—perhaps more importantly—Google and Facebook, how about if all this information is stored on the Apple TV and hashed for security.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Quirky to Create a Smart-Home Products Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/23/technology/quirky-hopes-wink-will-speed-adoption-of-smart-home-products.html
This is the home of Quirky, a start-up that now fields 4,000 new product ideas a week, picks three winners and then takes over all aspects of production, from making blueprints to marketing the goods through big-box retailers like Home Depot and retail websites, including Amazon.
Yet increasingly, the ideas coming into Quirky — about one in four — are for home products that can communicate with a smartphone or a household Wi-Fi network. These are ideas pursuing the much-promoted vision of the smart home, or the consumer Internet of things.
The vision has been around for years, but the reality has remained elusive. “The Internet of things is still for hackers, early adopters and rich people,” said Ben Kaufman, Quirky’s 27-year-old founder and chief executive.
But Quirky, like others, thinks that is about to change.
Quirky is by no means alone in trying to connect devices in the emerging smart-home business. Several companies address the challenge mainly with hardware hubs, like Revolv, SmartThings and Insteon. Apple offered a software entry this month, introducing its HomeKit technology
Nest Labs, maker of a breakthrough digital thermostat, said it would soon let developers write apps
But the Quirky and Wink approach impressed Home Depot enough that it chose Wink as its technology partner.
The packaging on Wink products will have one of two logos: one for “Wink app ready” products that can communicate with a home Internet router, and one for “Wink app compatible” products that require a hub as a translator.
A hardware hub is a machine, about the size of a hardcover book, that can handle communications from wireless technologies including Bluetooth, ZigBee and Z-Wave, as well as Wi-Fi, the open Internet standard. For Wink, hub-making is a near-term necessity because many smart-home devices on the market now do not yet use Wi-Fi. “We would love not to be in the hub business,” said Brett Worthington, vice president for partners at Wink.
Home Depot and Amazon will sell the Wink hardware hub for $79.