In the end of 2015 there were 3.2 billion people online. 67% of Americans now have broadband at home, compared to 70% in 2013, and 13% connect via smartphone only vs 8% in 2013; smartphone penetration in US at 68%. The share of Americans with broadband at home has plateaued, and more rely only on their smartphones for online access. We can see downtick in home high-speed adoption has taken place at the same time there has been an increase in “smartphone-only” adults – those who own a smartphone that they can use to access the internet, but do not have traditional broadband service at home. The American broadband market is notoriously oligopolistic with the majority of citizens offered limited choice, especially at the high-speed end, complete with high monthly fees.
Fixed Internet speeds increase – even without fiber to every house. We will start to see more 1Gbps Internet connections – and not all of them need fiber (2014 was the year of “fiber everywhere”). For example Comcast ‘rolls out’ ‘world’s first’ DOCSIS 3.1 modem, pumping 1Gbps over existing cable. It should, in theory, be quick and easy to get 1Gbps broadband to your home using DOCSIS 3.1, but I expect we will see only very few experimental roll-outs of the service in 2016. The beauty of DOCSIS 3.1 is that it is backwards compatible.
Mobile networks continue to lead the way when it comes to connecting people for the next generation of communications: Mobile subscriptions are now at 7.1 billion globally, and more than 95% of the world’s population are now within reach of a mobile network signal. Mobile cellular subscriptions have overtaken fixed phone subs, mobile broadband subscriptions and households with Internet access. This development most probably causes expectations that Network jobs are hot so salaries are expected to rise in 2016 as especially wireless network engineers, network admins, and network security pros are needed.
There are still some 350 million people globally who have no way of Internet access, mobile or otherwise, and there will be some race to get connections to at least some of those people. High stakes in broadband satellites race as building a satellite network and associated ground-based facilities and user terminals to provide Internet access to even the remotest and poorest parts of the world will be a huge technical, regulatory, and business challenge. Data versions of low Earth orbiting (LEO) satellite networks started appearing in the late 1990’s, followed with mobile telephony via LEO satellites, but never managed to deliver on the hype—partly because of technology constraints or poor business models. Over years there have been huge technology advances in satellites: they can now be made much smaller and lighter, so launch costs are significantly lower. Also component costs associated with the different terminals and handsets have plummeted. These factors have clearly helped the business proposition, but there are still challenges.
There will be new radio frequencies available for wireless communications thanks to WRC-15 Spectrum Decisions: In addition to confirming the use of the 700 MHz band (technically 694 to 790 MHz) for mobile broadband services in ITU Region 1, which includes Europe, Africa, the Middle east and Central Asia, delegates also agreed to harmonize 200 MHz of the C-band (3.4 to 3.6 GHz) to improve capacity in urban areas and used in small cells, and the L-band (1427-1518 MHz) to improve overall coverage and better capacity. So the mobile broadband sector now has, at least in the short to medium term, three globally harmonized bands. There was also decision for spectrum to be used for wireless avionics intra-communications (WAIC).
5G gets started. Just five years after the first 4G smartphone hit the market, the wireless industry is already preparing for 5G: cell phone carriers, smartphone chip makers and the major network equipment companies are working on developing 5G network technology for their customers. There are still many challenges as 5G infrastructure must be able to serve the billions of internet-connected objects of small appliances in addition to large consumers of information.700MHz harmonization is a key feature in operators’ plans to begin rolling out 5G services and C-band is also likely to be used for 5G. After 2016 to get the fastest promised 5G speeds very high frequency bands that will need to be deployed for 5G services, mainly above 24 GHz.
5G will not only be about a new air interface with faster speeds, but it will also address network congestion, energy efficiency, cost, reliability, and connection to billions of people and devices. Many believe that a critical success factor for 5G will be a fully revamped TCP/IP stack and a group of major vendors has put forward an open source TCP/IP stack OpenFastPath they say is designed to reinvigorate the ancient and rather crusty protocol. Cyber security research will be important important in 2016 as 5G networks will be critical infrastructure, on top of which for example. transport, industry, health and the new operators set up their business around 2020. Growing network virtualization functionality and programmability are both an opportunity and a threat to security. Keep in mind that everything connected to the Internet can, and will be hacked.
Heightened interest in the Internet of Things (IoT) and of Everything (IoE) will continue in 2016. IoT networks heat up in 2016 as low-power wide area networks for the Internet of Things have been attracting new entrants and investors at a heady pace with unannounced offerings still in the pipeline for 2016 trying to enable new IoT apps by undercutting costs and battery life for cellular and WiFi. There are many competing technologies in this field, and some will turn out to be winners and some losers. Remember that IoT is forecasted to be 50 billion connections by 2020, so there is lots of business opportunities for many IoT technologies.
2016 will be another booming year for Ethernet. Wi-Fi is obviously more convenient than wired Ethernet cables for average mobile user. But Ethernet still offers advantages — faster speeds, lower latency, and no wireless interference problems. Ethernet matters a lot with desktop PCs, laptops at desks, game consoles, TV-streaming boxes, and other devices – like when building backbone networks and data centers. Assuming it’s easy enough to plug the devices in with an Ethernet cable, you’ll get a more consistently solid connection. Yes, Ethernet is better.
The augmented global demand for data centers is the key driver for the growth in Global Ethernet Switch and Router Market 2016-2020.25G, 50G and 100G Ethernet is finding it’s place in in the Data Center. Experts predict that the largest cloud operators will shift to 100G Ethernet fabrics while cost-efficient 25G and 50G will remain the workhorses for most of the other well-known data-center companies.The increasing usage of advanced technologies, such as 10GbE ports, by enterprises and universities for educational and official purposes, is a significant factor in the enterprise and campus segment. The key players in this segment will be Arista Network, Brocade Communications, Cisco, Dell, HP, Huawei and Juniper Network. The 2015 Ethernet Roadmap shows a roadmap for physical links through 2020 and looks into the future terabit speeds as well.
I expect 2016 will be a year of widespread product adoption around 2.5 and 5 Gigabit Ethernet (GE) bandwidth over twisted-pair copper cabling (2.5GBASE-T and 5GBASE-T) as transition to next generation 802.11ac Wave 2 access points will drive significant demand for 2.5G ports. Enterprise operators are looking to fill the gap between 1G and 10G over this legacy unshielded twisted-pair copper cabling (Category 5e/Category 6) that is installed all over. IEEE 802.11ac is 3x faster and 6x more power efficient than its predecessor, 802.11n, while remaining interoperable with 802.11n. Rapid adoption of 802.11ac is run by fact that tablets and smartphones are becoming ubiquitous in the workplace.
Driven by IEEE standards, Ethernet hits the road in 2016: A new trend emerging in the automotive market in 2016 is the migration of Ethernet, a tried-and-true computer network technology, into connected cars. The proliferation of advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) features in many vehicles is also expected to expand Ethernet use. The completion of IEEE 100BASE-T1 and 1000BASE-T1 standards are both expected. The emergence of the 1000BASE-T1 standard in mid-2016 provides a roadmap for automotive Ethernet evolution. Ethernet, starting in 2016, will be seen as the dominant in-vehicle network backbone.
Prepare for the PAM4 phase shift. PAM4 (four-level pulse-amplitude modulation) will be coming to wider use in 2016 because we all the time need faster communications links between ICs inside devices. NRZ won’t work at 56 Gbps and it seems that PAM-4 is the way to go as PAM4 doubles the bit rate for a given baud rate over NRZ. At 56 Gbps, 400 Gbps Ethernet can be realized with four lanes of PAM4 but might require eight 28 Gbps lanes with NRZ. PAM-4 is also gaining traction in 28 Gbps links. The bad news is that PAM4 trades off bandwidth for SNR (signal-to-noise ratio) meaning it is more sensitive to noise and timing skew than NRZ. PAM4 does bring SNR (signal-to-noise ratio) to the forefront of design issues. With four voltage level and three eyes, PAM4 requires new design techniques for recovering embedded clocks and for identifying bits in symbols. PAM4 will be used mainly on copper links, but it can be also used with fiber optic links, which has it’s own set of challenges. These and other issues are forging new techniques for how to measure and simulate PAM4 signals.
Cloud Scale Networking term will be seen. The virtualization of networks, storage, and servers is reshaping the way organizations use IT. Cloud computing plays an essential role in this process as cloud delivers the additional capacity required to satisfy growing demand to an enterprise or small business from a third party. The amount of data volume carried by networks has exploded. Cisco estimated last year that by 2017, data centers will handle some 7.7 zetabytes of IP traffic, two thirds of which would be on account of cloud computing. Total global data centre traffic is projected to triple by the end of 2019 (from 3.4 to 10.4 Zettabytes). Legacy, tiered, network designs can be replaced with scalable flat network topologies. They can be future-proofed using open, scalable SDN and NFV platforms. The network is cloud computing’s final frontier, at technology, people and process levels. Service providers seek to reduce costs, create new business opportunities, and introduce new services more quickly.
The “software-ization” of Telco and increasing use of pen-Source Networking will continue in 2016. In 2015, the adoption of OpenStack, OpenDaylight, OpNFV for software and services, and Open Compute for hardware will supported more virtualized, more open source network computing platforms and architecture. The trend will continue. SDN provides control to the enterprises and carriers on the complete network through a single logical point, thereby simplifying the network design and operation. The traditional, one-vendor, proprietary solution is transitioning to solutions involving many suppliers – and this offers customers with significant cost savings and performance optimization. Growing network virtualization functionality and programmability are both an opportunity and a threat to security. Keep in mind that everything connected to the Internet can, and will be hacked.
After COP21 climate change summit reaches deal in Paris there will be also interest in thinking how clean our networking is. It is being reported that communications technologies are responsible for about 2-4% of all of carbon footprint generated by human activity. The needs for communications and faster speeds is increasing in this every day more and more connected world – penetration of smart devices there was a tremendous increase in the amount of mobile data traffic from 2010 to 2014. When IoT is forecasted to be 50 billion connections by 2020, with the current technologies this would increase power consumption considerably. The trend to look for greener technologies is tackling first mobile networks because of their high energy use. Base stations and switching centers could count for between 60% and 85% of the energy used by an entire communication system. More and more facilities, especially big names like Google, Amazon and Microsoft, have looked to renewable energy.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
The FCC releases new “nutrition labels” for broadband to show speed, caps, and hidden fees; ISPs are not required to use the labels — FCC’s “nutrition labels” for broadband show speed, caps, and hidden fees — New labels will help ISPs comply with net neutrality transparency rules.
FCC’s “nutrition labels” for broadband show speed, caps, and hidden fees
New labels will help ISPs comply with net neutrality transparency rules.
http://arstechnica.com/business/2016/04/fccs-nutrition-labels-for-broadband-show-speed-caps-and-hidden-fees/
The Federal Communications Commission today unveiled new broadband labels modeled after the nutrition labels commonly seen on food products. Home Internet service providers and mobile carriers are being urged to use the labels to give consumers details such as prices (including hidden fees tacked onto the base price), data caps, overage charges, speed, latency, packet loss, and so on.
ISPs aren’t required to use these labels. But they are required to make more specific disclosures as part of transparency requirements in the FCC’s net neutrality order, which reclassified Internet providers as common carriers under Title II of the Communications Act. The FCC recommends that ISPs use these labels to comply with the disclosure rules and says use of the labels will act as a “safe harbor” for demonstrating compliance. However, ISPs can come up with their own format if they still make all the required disclosures in “an accurate, understandable, and easy-to-find manner,” the FCC said today.
The labels were approved unanimously by the FCC’s Consumer Advisory Committee
The disclosures should help customers learn the full cost of Internet service before purchasing it, the FCC said. “The FCC receives more than 2,000 complaints annually about surprise fees associated with consumers’ Internet service bills,” the commission’s announcement said. “The actual prices paid for broadband-related services can be as much as 40 percent greater than what is advertised after taxes and fees are added to a bill, according to consumer complaints to the Commission. With the average monthly cost of broadband service ranging between $60 and $70, consumers deserve to know what they are going to get for their money.”
There should be “no surprises after you buy,” FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said at an announcement event.
The NCTA issued a statement on the new labels, saying, “In today’s competitive marketplace, cable Internet providers are committed to providing consumers with accessible and relevant information about broadband services”
Tomi Engdahl says:
NBase-T Alliance elects Zimmerman to board as contributor representative
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2016/03/nbaset-alliance-zimmerman.html?cmpid=Enl_CIM_CablingNews_April42016&eid=289644432&bid=1358279
George Zimmerman, president and principal consultant at CME Consulting, recently was elected to serve on the board of the NBase-T Alliance.
Promoter members of the alliance are Aquantia, Cisco, Intel, Marvell, NXP and Xilinx. Contributor members are Bel, Broadcom, Byzoro, Cadence, CME Consulting, CommScope, Fluke Networks, Ideal Networks, Kinnex A, Molex, Panduit, Qualcomm and UDE.
Zimmerman also currently serves as Technical Committee Chair of the Ethernet Alliance, as well as chief editor of the IEEE’s P802.3bz 2.5G/5GBase-T Task Force.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Soft enterprise outdoor WLAN market persists, finds Dell’Oro
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2016/03/soft-wlan-delloro.html?cmpid=Enl_CIM_CablingNews_April42016&eid=289644432&bid=1358279
A recently published report from Dell’Oro Group found that the enterprise-class plus outdoor wireless LAN (WLAN) market grew 5 percent in 2015, the market’s slowest growth in six years. However, the analyst forecasts the market to double in 2016, as the upgrade to newer 802.11ac Wave 2 systems should stimulate spending in the second half of the year.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cellular data moves from 3G to 4G and LTE…and beyond!
https://www.eeweb.com/news/cellular-data-moves-from-3g-to-4g-and-lte…and-beyond/
When you’re in the market for a new smartphone, you’ll note there are a lot of acronyms included on the sales card: CDMA, GSM, 3G, 4G, LTE, and so on.
Perhaps most vital to the future usability of the cell phone is 4G and LTE. To start things simply, the “G” means generation, so in “4G,” the company selling the device is referring to the fact that it supports the fourth generation of mobile data technology, which is defined by the International Telecommunication Union-Radio (ITU-R), the United Nations’ official agency for information and communication technologies.
LTE, on the other hand, stands for “long term evolution,” which applies more generally to the idea of improving wireless broadband speeds to meet ever-increasing demand.
Third-generation mobile networks, or 3G, came to the U.S. in 2003. With minimum consistent Internet speeds of 144 kbits/s, 3G was supposed to deliver “mobile broadband.” However, there are now so many varieties of 3G that a “3G” connection can get you Internet speeds anywhere from 400 kbits/s to four times that (UMTS TDD).
4G was introduced (or I should say was first talked about) in 2008 as a successor to 3G. At that time, the ITU-R applied a set of standards. When these standards were announced, they talked of data speeds that were unheard of in the real world. Speeds like 100 Mbits/s.
I think of 4G LTE networks as providing at least 10 Mbits/s data downstream and half of that upstream. Some are said to have 50 Mbits/s “peak” speeds. Some say that their speed is 100 Mbits/s, but their average speed is just 12 to 15 Mbits/s, download. So the confusion continues.
By the way, if your phone is mostly for voice use, you don’t need 4G; stick with a cheaper 3G phone that will still operate with all your carriers’ cell towers. And, if you live in an area that doesn’t have 4G coverage, there’s no advantage to a 4G phone.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nokia to cut thousands of jobs following Alcatel deal
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-nokia-alcatellucent-redundancies-idUSKCN0X30YG
Telecom network equipment maker Nokia is planning to cut thousands of jobs globally, including 1,400 in Germany and 1,300 in its native Finland, as part of a cost-cutting program following the acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent earlier this year.
In France, Nokia said on Wednesday it will cut only 400 jobs, but will also create 500 posts in research and development, in line with a promise to the French government last year when it was negotiating the Alcatel deal.
Nokia declined to give a total figure for global job cuts. The company employs about 6,850 people in Finland, 4,800 in Germany, 4,200 in France and around 104,000 around the world.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Some people are still using 2G phones, and not for the reasons you’d expect
http://mashable.com/2016/04/06/2g-phones-austalia/#aiRlUuJKP5q0
These are the twilight hours of 2G. The old mobile phone network, on which many of us spent our youth in the ’90s texting and playing Snake, is slowly getting phased out in Australia.
The country’s biggest telcos are turning it off: Telstra has said it aims to phase out 2G by the end of 2016 and Optus from April 2017. Vodafone has not yet announced any plans to shut down 2G.
“While demand for 3G and 4G is increasing, we recognise many customers are satisfied with a basic mobile service,” a Vodafone spokesperson told Mashable Australia. “We’re continually monitoring spectrum to balance the need for 2G, 3G and 4G services on the Vodafone network.”
While most Australians are playing around on 3G or 4G these days, there are those who remain loyally on so-called “dumb phones,” Nokia 3310s in their rictus grip. Whether out of necessity or fashion, these Australians are getting the most out of 2G, while it lasts.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nokia breaks down the parts of the base station
Nokia has been in the headlines a couple of days the unpleasant dismissals announced, but the company’s technical development machine still intense speed ahead. When approaching 5G networks, the traditional base station ceases to exist. Nokia is breaking down its parts, many of which will have a cloud.
Nokia’s vision – and it is not in its view nothing alone – a base station baseband computing is happening more and more often in the cloud. This so-called. Cloud RAN technology has already had when entering the last years, actually since Nokia launched the airframe-data center.
Sahala the Barcelona demo was used to centimeter waves, or 15-gigahertz range, but AirScale scalable to very broadly to all future frequencies. Also, the millimeter region, or more than 70 gigahertz, where Nokia is frequently demonnut future 5G connections.
Already Barcelona’s demo was impressive: the link latency, or delay of less than one millisecond, and the data rate of five gigabits. The channel was indeed 100 megahertz wide.
- Airscale replace Flexi base stations and will be launched during this year, Sahala says.
The future of the base station antennas also are often located separately from the base station itself. More and more signal processing takes place at the lower end of the mast, or even in the cloud server. And the connection between the antennas and the processing can be a standard Ethernet ports. base stations own CPRI interfaces are likely to disappear. In this sense, approaching the base station solutions, which are familiar from traditional IT technology.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4234:nokia-pilkkoo-tukiaseman-osiin&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
The test confirmed the gigabit mobile phone link
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon promised a new X16 chipset enabling LTE-Advanced network terminal Class 16 data rates. In practice, this would mean a gigabit network link to the terminal. Keysightin testing system, the velocity is now established.
Gigabit-rate of the downlink also achieved when using the three 20 MHz LTE-A channels, data is transmitted and received by four antennas (the so-called. 4×4 MIMO) and a signal modulation technique used for 256QAM modulation.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4232:testi-vahvisti-gigabitin-kannykkalinkin&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
UT Austin Engineers Design Next-Generation Non-Reciprocal Antenna
https://news.utexas.edu/2016/03/14/engineers-invent-next-generation-antenna
Researchers in the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin have designed an antenna that is able to process incoming and outgoing radio-wave signals more efficiently and without the need for separate bulky and expensive electrical components commonly used in antenna systems. This new technology could lead to significantly faster, cheaper and clearer telecommunications in the future.
Andrea Alù, associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, along with postdoctoral fellows Yakir Hadad and Jason Soric, discuss their non-reciprocal antenna’s design and capabilities in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The research team’s breakthrough design is an antenna that can break reciprocity, or the natural symmetry in radiation that characterizes conventional antennas. In textbooks, the angular patterns for antenna transmission and reception have been assumed to be the same — if the antenna opens a door to let signals out, signals can come back through that same door and leak toward the source.
Conventional antennas are subject to reciprocity, implying that they unavoidably transmit and receive signals with the same efficiency.
“Our achievement is that we break the symmetry between transmission and reception signals, so we are able to prevent the antenna from having to listen to reflections and echoes that affect the source,” Alù said. “We show that it is possible to efficiently overcome these constraints using temporally modulated traveling-wave antennas.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Altera has announced a programmable FPGA and SoC circuits that enable telecom equipment speeds to 56 Gbps raise. Altera is now part of Intel’s circuits
Altera has developed an FPGA-technology, two-mode, and 56 Gbps transceivers operate. FPGA and Soc circuits provide a four-level pulse amplitude modulation (PAM-4) and 30 Gbps NRZ coding.
Source: http://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2016/03/24/uutuuspiireilla-vauhtia-datansiirtoon/
Tomi Engdahl says:
There’s wi-fi in the middle of the only place in the U.S. where wi-fi is ‘outlawed’
http://fusion.net/story/243321/wtf-wifi-in-the-green-bank-wv-quiet-zone/
At the beginning of this year, the Washingtonian ran an incredible piece about “electrosensitives” who had moved to “the town without wi-fi.” These people believe all the signals crowding the air to power our telecommunications-dependent society are making them sick, so they fled to Green Bank, West Virginia, which exists in the US’s only federally-mandated “radio quiet zone.”
Electrical equipment that could interfere with a giant radiotelescope that’s trying to pick up the faintest of signals from space is banned in the area.
Yet, right in the middle of this “premodern,” 13,000 square-mile zone of electromagnetic silence is a ski resort which brags about its Wi-Fi and AT&T cellular service.
This year AT&T deployed a robust network at the Snowshoe resort, which had set up limited cellular service by 2013.
“We had to use equipment that broadcasts at a level 10 times less than the norm.”
AT&T developed code that automatically switches cellular devices that connect to the network to low-power mode, quieting the phones from emitting 500 milliwatts to 1/1,000th of a watt or less.
Then, in order to pick up on the weak signals from the phones, AT&T installed nearly 200 antennas around the resort
At Snowshoe, you now walk by an antenna in a building almost every 20 feet—it’s an electrosensitive’s nightmare.
Reducing the distance between towers and people’s handsets mean they can transmit at that low power level, keeping the devices in compliance with the requirements from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) which polices radio signals in the area.
“With the advent in the consumer market of every possible device having the capability of transmitting wireless signals (or so it seems), radio astronomy operations have become challenged,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wireless signal analyzer supports LTE-A and 4×4 MIMO
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/other/4441787/Wireless-signal-analyzer-supports-LTE-A-and-4×4-MIMO?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20160411&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20160411&elqTrackId=15305535b8344cf0bb5beac5115f1565&elq=032b50fb2f1f43cf82fa6997d6c29157&elqaid=31761&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=27741
The increase in content-rich services, such as mobile video on demand, is driving deployment of the faster LTE-Advanced technology by network operators worldwide, which is made possible using key technologies such as CA (Carrier Aggregation), which aggregates several component carriers into one, and MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output), which uses multiple antennas for communications.
With the launch in 2015 of the DL CA 4CCs (four carrier component) measurement software for the all-in-one MT8821C, Anritsu was the first test and measurement company to support the valuation of LTE-Advanced DL 4CCs 2×2 MIMO UE category.
MT8821C
https://www.anritsu.com/en-US/test-measurement/products/mt8821c
Tomi Engdahl says:
Connectivity in focus for multi-dwelling units
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/print/volume-24/issue-3/features/installation/connectivity-in-focus-for-multi-dwelling-units.html?cmpid=Enl_CIM_CablingNews_April112016&eid=289644432&bid=1366148
Two documents recently published by CommScope drive the point home for service providers that their choice of connectivity can significantly impact their ability to efficiently turn up services at multi-dwelling units (MDUs). The documents, titled “The flexible architecture series: Connectorization in the MDU,” and “New techniques for reducing time and cost of MDU installation,” were published in late 2015 and emphasize the benefits of preconnected systems over splicing in the field.
“MDUs represent an enormous opportunity for service providers,” one paper states. “However, with their conduits and wide variety of layouts, they also present some unique challenges, requiring service providers to spend a great deal of time in planning and installing the fiber infrastructure.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nokia introduces passive optical LAN system
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2016/04/nokia-passive-optical-lan.html?cmpid=Enl_CIM_CablingNews_April112016&eid=289644432&bid=1366148
In its recent analysis of the passive optical LAN (POL) marketplace, market-intelligence firm BSRIA stated that uptake of the technology would be bolstered by the entrance of a big-name player. It looks like the market now has that big-name entrant.
Nokia announced on April 5 that it offers a passive optical LAN system. “Based on proven and established Gigabit Passive Optical Network [GPON] fiber technology that is already serving millions of people worldwide, the solution requires, on average, 50 percent less space to deploy and power to run than traditional Ethernet-based LANs,” the company said when making the announcement
Nokia pointed to its recent success deploying passive optical LAN systems for the Japanese hospitality industry, where it teamed with systems integrator KDDI “to manage the growing communication demands” in that country. “
Key components of the Nokia passive optical LAN system are the following GPON elements.
7360 ISAM FX high-capacity fiber platform (pictured)
7368 ISAM ONT fiber termination points
5571 POL command center (PCC) intuitive management system
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sorting out fiber-optic cable options
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/print/volume-24/issue-3/features/technology/sorting-out-fiber-optic-cable-options.html?cmpid=Enl_CIM_CablingNews_April112016&eid=289644432&bid=1366148
For a cabling system end-user organization that is getting ready to implement a fiber-optic infrastructure for the first time-or for the first time in a long while-the considerations that go into choosing the most appropriate optical medium are more plentiful than ever. This article will focus on technologies and applications surrounding multimode fiber. The merits of singlemode fiber in data center, campus and enterprise networks should not be slighted and will be addressed separately in other articles.
Because of its larger core size, 62.5-micron fiber offered a greater numerical aperture (NA), an optical characteristic that determines the fiber’s ability to accept and carry light. At that time, light sources within optical transceivers were light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Compared to the laser-based light sources used today, LED sources emitted broad light beams; some of the emitted light entered the fiber core and some did not. A 62.5-micron fiber’s higher NA, enabled by its larger core, allowed it to capture and transmit more light than a 50-micron fiber, with a lower NA, could.
Gig speeds require the use of vertical cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs), which generate narrow light beams, in contrast to LEDs’ broad beams. As such, an optical fiber’s numerical aperture no longer played an important role in determining a fiber’s information-carrying capacity.
For its part, 50-micron fiber’s bandwidth at 850 is higher than 62.5-micron fiber’s (500 MHz.km to 200 MHz.km), enabling it to support 850-nm-based Gigabit Ethernet for longer distances than 62.5-micron fiber-550 meters to 275 meters.
With the emergence of this new multimode fiber type, and the practical need to distinguish each type from the others, eventually the industry adopted the “OM” nomenclature defined in the ISO/IEC 11801 specification. The three types described to this point are designated Om1, Om2 and Om3. While multiple criteria determine a fiber’s grade, its minimum bandwidth at 850 nm, measured in MHz.km, is a significant criterion. Specifically, Om1’s 850-nm bandwidth is 200 MHz.km; Om2’s is 500; Om3’s is 1,500.
As a practical matter for user organizations, Om1 fiber can support 1000Base-SX-the 850-nm variant of Gigabit Ethernet-to 275 meters. Om2 provides 550 meters of support. When speeds go up to 10 Gbits/sec in the form of 10GBase-SR, Om1 supports 33 meters, Om2 supports 82 meters and Om3 supports 300 meters.
To some extent the technological development that led to Om3’s development repeated itself and resulted in the introduction of Om4 fiber.
When the TIA approved its Om4 fiber specification in 2009, CommScope’s Paul Kolesar explained in an article we published, “Not everyone could wait for the new Om4 standard to emerge. Early adopters have been enjoying Om4 capability for more than five years.”
Om4’s minimum EMB at 850 nm is 4,700 MHz.km, and its minimum OFL bandwidth at 850 nm is 3,500 MHz.km. Like Om1, Om2, and Om3, it has a minimum OFL bandwidth of 500 MHz.km at 1300 nm. Om4 supports 40GBase-SR4 and 100GBase-SR10 to 150 meters; Om3 supports both to 100 meters.
Over the past approximately 18 months another multimode fiber type has emerged and advanced significantly toward official standard specification. Dubbed wideband multimode fiber (WBMMF), the medium is being referred to by some as “Om4+” reminiscent of the decade-earlier “Om3+.” However, the differences between WBMMF and Om4 are more significant than those between Om4 and Om3. Specifically, WBMMF is being developed to support optical transmission at multiple operating windows through what is known as wave-division multiplexing (WDM). Whereas the 850-nm window has been primary, and Om3 as well as Om4 fibers are bandwidth-optimized to support transmission within that specific window, WBMMF will support transmission in four separate operating windows.
WBMMF’s optimization at 850 nm will make it backward-compatible with Om4.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Broadcom Drives Enterprise Wi-Fi to 2 Lanes
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1329350&
To handle an ever-increasing number of devices connecting in public, Broadcom announced a new dual-channel 5 GHz Wi-Fi access point platform for enterprise. Broadcom’s 5G-HD platform is based on the BCM49408, a quad-core 64-bit Cortex A-53 CPU and a flexible architecture for routing different kinds of mobile traffic.
“We’re seeing lot more devices and more devices per person driving up the amount of data used and the number of devices connecting to the network,” Mike Powell, director of product management and marketing, told EE Times. “Enterprises of all types like 5 GHz because there’s less interference.”
Every 802.11ac device supports 5 GHz and most networks support both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz. However, results from a 2015 survey by IHS found that just 12% of WLAN access points will exclusively use 2.4 GHz by 2017. Dual-band platforms will be necessary to serve a changing landscape of users.
Powell estimated that the stadium has 65,000 Wi-Fi clients connecting over 1,500 access points, but the network taps out when newer devices like the iPhone 6s and older, 802.11n-type devices connect at once. Those slower clients eat up a disproportionate amount of airtime from high speed clients, he noted.
“One of ways we can grapple with high density in this new world is to create two lanes of 5 GHz traffic for each access point. We can group users into fast or slow groups, or by capability of the clients, or what their usage is,” he said.
This all relies on Broadcom’s latest generation wave-2 802.11ac 4×4 radios, which offer support for 160 MHz channels, and up to eight concurrent multi-user device performance in dual 5G mode.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cellular data moves from 3G to 4G and LTE…and beyond!
https://www.eeweb.com/news/cellular-data-moves-from-3g-to-4g-and-lte…and-beyond/
When you’re in the market for a new smartphone, you’ll note there are a lot of acronyms included on the sales card: CDMA, GSM, 3G, 4G, LTE, and so on.
Perhaps most vital to the future usability of the cell phone is 4G and LTE. To start things simply, the “G” means generation, so in “4G,” the company selling the device is referring to the fact that it supports the fourth generation of mobile data technology, which is defined by the International Telecommunication Union-Radio (ITU-R), the United Nations’ official agency for information and communication technologies.
LTE, on the other hand, stands for “long term evolution,” which applies more generally to the idea of improving wireless broadband speeds to meet ever-increasing demand.
4G was introduced (or I should say was first talked about) in 2008 as a successor to 3G. At that time, the ITU-R applied a set of standards. When these standards were announced, they talked of data speeds that were unheard of in the real world. Speeds like 100 Mbits/s.
I think of 4G LTE networks as providing at least 10 Mbits/s data downstream and half of that upstream. Some are said to have 50 Mbits/s “peak” speeds. Some say that their speed is 100 Mbits/s, but their average speed is just 12 to 15 Mbits/s, download. So the confusion continues.
By the way, if your phone is mostly for voice use, you don’t need 4G; stick with a cheaper 3G phone that will still operate with all your carriers’ cell towers. And, if you live in an area that doesn’t have 4G coverage, there’s no advantage to a 4G phone.
But, how do we get to even faster speeds? Experts believe it’ll be by way of carrier aggregation, as used in LTE-Advanced. This practice lets operators treat multiple radio channels in different or the same frequency bands as though they’re one. This produces faster speeds and aids bandwidth-dependent applications like streaming HD video and mobile game playing. Chip makers like Qualcomm believe that the aggregation of two signals could very well double download speeds to about 150 Mbits/s. In the future, there could be aggregation across more than two channels, and even up to five.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nokia takes 4G networks to new frequencies,
Nokia announced yesterday the Swedish company to build a terminal operator 3 Sweden 4G network, which is still rare in Europe to take advantage of technology and frequencies. Among other things, the City of Göteborg comprehensive network based on LTE-Advanced technology, time division TDD version.
TDD (time division duplex) is 4G technology, where the same channel is allocated for both the downlink and uplink connections. TDD connection can also be better, for example, by increasing the capacity of the downlink connections more time.
Europe TDD networks have been built so far very little.
Now, when the FDD frequencies are congestion, interest in TDD spectrum point is also increasing in Europe, says Hackenberg.
LTE versions are Hackenberg, 90 percent similar. – TDD frequencies, however, have been cheaper to buy. TD-LTE cell size is also slightly smaller
Typically, at higher frequencies, ie more than 2300 working in MHz TD-LTE’s one advantage is the possibility to grant more time slots in the downlink connections. – In most cases, the TD-LTE is best suited for a faster data-centric smartphone use. DL and UL asymmetric connectivity technology is more suitable, Hackenberg granted.
the techniques are not mutually exclusive, but complementary.
In Western Europe a future 3 Sweden’s TD-LTE network is one of the first
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4252:nokia-vie-4g-verkkoja-uusille-taajuuksille&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Battle Between LTE and Wi-Fi May Have Left LTE-U Out In the Cold
https://news.slashdot.org/story/16/04/12/2035206/the-battle-between-lte-and-wi-fi-may-have-left-lte-u-out-in-the-cold
After more than a year of rancor over whether it would hurt Wi-Fi, a technology that lets LTE networks use unlicensed spectrum may have already missed its window of opportunity. LTE-Unlicensed is designed to improve cellular service by tapping into some of the frequencies used by Wi-Fi and other unlicensed technologies. But almost as soon as LTE-U was proposed in late 2014, Wi-Fi supporters pounced.
After a long fight over LTE-U, some carriers may go straight to the less controversial LAA anyway
http://www.networkworld.com/article/3054654/mobile-wireless/the-battle-between-lte-and-wi-fi-may-have-left-lte-u-out-in-the-cold.html
After more than a year of rancor over whether it would hurt Wi-Fi, a technology that lets LTE networks use unlicensed spectrum may have already missed its window of opportunity.
But almost as soon as LTE-U was proposed in late 2014, Wi-Fi supporters pounced. They charged that it would drown out Wi-Fi signals because LTE didn’t know how to make room for other users.
Backers of LTE-U said adding it to a room full of Wi-Fi gear caused even less interference than adding another Wi-Fi access point.
Now carriers may be getting ready to bypass LTE-U altogether in favor of another system, called LAA (Licensed Assisted Access), that does the same thing but with additional protections for Wi-Fi. The LAA standard is complete, and products are expected to start shipping later this year.
“LTE-U might be deployed, but it’s not for very long,” Tolaga Research analyst Phil Marshall said. “It’s hard to see why an operator would focus on LTE-U when LAA’s right behind it.”
Qualcomm, LTE-U’s biggest backer, is already shipping components for LTE-U cells and mobile devices. Carrier equipment giant Ericsson has a commercially available LTE-U cell feature. Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile, SK Telecom and other carriers have
But Qualcomm is also developing and demonstrating components for LAA that are due later this year, and Ericsson announced last month that its LTE-U software would be upgradable to the newer system. SpiderCloud Wireless, another vendor developing LTE-U gear, also plans to make it upgradable. Most carriers considering LTE on unlicensed spectrum are studying both technologies.
“It’s kind of a question mark whether operators will commercialize LTE-U or go straight to LAA,”
LAA has two big advantages. First, it includes a “listen before talk” feature to overcome what critics call LTE-U’s biggest flaw: that it may start transmitting even if another radio is using the same channel. Second, it’s part of the official LTE standard, which carriers count on to make sure their systems work and can grow into the future.
Those pieces were needed just to get an unlicensed LTE technology approved in most parts of the world.
Plus, LAA appears ready to march forward with little opposition from Wi-Fi backers. This might be thanks in part to the battle that’s already been fought over LTE-U
Tomi Engdahl says:
US ISPs Refuse To Disconnect Persistent Pirates
https://yro.slashdot.org/story/16/04/12/179235/us-isps-refuse-to-disconnect-persistent-pirates
The U.S. broadband association USTelecom, a trade association representing many ISPs, is taking a stand against abusive takedown notices and a recent push to terminate the accounts of repeat infringers. They argue that ISPs are not required to pass on takedown notices and stress that their subscribers shouldn’t lose Internet access based solely on copyright holder complaints.
U.S. ISPs Refuse to Disconnect Persistent Pirates
By Ernesto on April 11, 2016
Breaking
https://torrentfreak.com/u-s-isps-refuse-to-disconnect-persistent-pirates-160411/
The U.S. broadband association USTelecom, a trade association representing many ISPs, is taking a stand against abusive takedown notices and a recent push to terminate the accounts of repeat infringers. They argue that ISPs are not required to pass on takedown notices and stress that their subscribers shouldn’t lose Internet access based solely on copyright holder complaints.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ruckus: A strong buy for Brocade, but leaves Juniper isolated again
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/04/13/ruckus_brocade_juniper/
Pity poor Juniper. The networking company’s alliance with Ruckus Wireless last summer raised hopes that it would strike it third time lucky in the Wi-Fi market, filling the gaping wireless gap in its platform. Now Brocade has snatched carrier Wi-Fi leader Ruckus from under its rival’s nose with a $1.2bn acquisition.
It’s the latest in a series of deals which could make Brocade a more dangerous challenger to Cisco in the service provider space than Juniper itself.
The acquisition makes Brocade look far more like Cisco in the wireless operator space – in its statement, it said the key aim was to address “critical networking requirements from the data centre to the wireless network edge”
By contrast, Juniper has lost several strategic partners to others’ acquisitions recently – its sales and marketing arrangement with Nokia will be squeezed out by the Alcatel-Lucent merger; reports that it might be bought by Ericsson ended when the Swedish firm got into bed with Cisco; and HPE snapped up Juniper’s previous Wi-Fi partner Aruba. Juniper’s own Wi-Fi acquisition, of Trapeze Networks back in 2010, failed to deliver the results the firm had hoped for and it has remained a tiny player in the WLAN market with less than 1% share, excluding its Ruckus reseller pact. That was to have expanded into a strategic deal, with plans to integrate the Wi-Fi technology into Juniper’s Ethernet switch.
Brocade’s move has left Juniper as a wallflower in the accelerating search for strategic partners to address the new-look carrier network market, one categorized by virtualization and software-defined networking (SDN), wireless-first access, cloud and video infrastructure, and increasingly commoditized switches and routers.
Brocade adds edge wireless to virtualised core
Like Cisco and Juniper, Brocade has been working hard in the NFV (Network Functions Virtualization) area, partly as a way to penetrate the carrier and access network markets by the back door as these shift away from traditional platforms. Now Ruckus will help it to extend its reach further, complementing previous purchases like Connectem and giving it many of the tools to provide the flexible, on-demand networks that operators will demand in future.
So far, that effort has centered primarily on the core network, where Brocade’s new Virtual Core for Mobile (VCM) is designed to go up against Cisco’s Virtualized Packet Core (VPC) and NFV Infrastructure Solution (NFVI). VCM, announced at Mobile World Congress in February, is based on the Connectem acquisition of last year, and its value proposition looks well beyond the early arguments for carrier virtualization, which were mainly about saving on the cost of specialized hardware by implementing network functions as virtual machines on standard boxes.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Brocade steps up mobile strategy with virtual EPC software
LTE rollouts were too expensive, let’s get it right for 5G
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/17/brocade_steps_up_mobile_strategy_with_virtual_epc_software/
A year on from kicking off its mobile strategy, Brocade has followed up with a pre-Mobile-World-Congress announcement of its first virtualised Evolved Packet Core (EPC) offering.
Its Virtual Core for Mobile (VCM) is part of the company’s strategy to target cellular networks with commodity Intel-based kit.
Speaking to Vulture South ahead of the launch, Brocade A/NZ’s Gary Denman said a key requirement to address this market is that systems like VCM have to be able to live alongside the existing mobile core.
“We’re moving things to the mobile edge,” Denman told The Register, “putting more information and capability out near the tower. That’s more efficient for the network operator.”
The company is also hoping this approach positions them for the future rollout of 5G networks. 4G rollouts were “vastly expensive”, he said, so the next round of network standards needs a different model – especially since one of the drivers for 5G will be machine-to-machine and Internet-of-Things applications.
The virtualised EPC (vEPC) offerings are designed to offer scalable control and user planes, independent localisation, and network slicing (a mechanism that lets the same back-end infrastructure support different radio access networks).
Tomi Engdahl says:
Neeraj Choubey / Facebook Code:
Facebook announces new terrestrial connectivity systems, Terragraph and Project ARIES, to bring Internet to underserved urban and rural areas, respectively
Introducing Facebook’s new terrestrial connectivity systems — Terragraph and Project ARIES
https://code.facebook.com/posts/1072680049445290/introducing-facebook-s-new-terrestrial-connectivity-systems-terragraph-and-project-aries/
Facebook believes that people — no matter where they live — deserve a consistent, high-bandwidth internet experience. While access to high-speed internet varies across the globe, both developing and developed economies can suffer from insufficient data rates. Slow internet speed is especially prevalent in developing economies where mobile networks are often unable to achieve data rates better than 2G. Developed economies are hampered by Wi-Fi and LTE infrastructure that is unable to keep up with the exponential growth in the consumption of photos and video at higher and higher resolutions.
While solutions such as GPON optical fiber can provide 100s of megabits up to several gigabits of capacity, the high costs associated with laying the fiber makes the goal of ubiquitous gigabit citywide coverage unachievable and unaffordable for almost all countries. Similarly, conventional means of increasing the capacity of wireless networks, such as licensing more radio frequency spectrum or installing more base stations, are costly and difficult in both urban and rural areas.
Facebook’s Connectivity Lab is working on a range of new technology solutions to help connect the unconnected and improve the experience of the underserved. Today we announced two new terrestrial systems focused on improving the speed, efficiency, and quality of internet connectivity around the world — Terragraph and Project ARIES (Antenna Radio Integration for Efficiency in Spectrum).
Terragraph is a 60 GHz, multi-node wireless system focused on bringing high-speed internet connectivity to dense urban areas. Utilizing commercial off-the-shelf components and leveraging the cloud for intensive data processing, the Terragraph system is optimized for high-volume, low-cost production.
Although 60 GHz has traditionally been avoided due to its high absorption of oxygen and water, countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, China, South Korea, Japan, and others saw the benefit of making this part of the spectrum — also known as “V-band” — unlicensed, similar to the Wi-Fi 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands. Up to 7 GHz of bandwidth is available in the 60 GHz band, and forward-thinking countries like the United States are seeking input to expand this to a total of 14 GHz.
One of the beneficiaries of this decision is WiGig, an enhancement to the Wi-Fi standard, designed to provide in-room high-bandwidth communication.
Given the limited range of the 60 GHz signal, these nodes are placed across a city at 200-250 meter intervals.
Terragraph also leverages technology created to manage Facebook’s massive data center infrastructure. We implemented IPv6-only nodes, an SDN-like cloud compute controller, and a new modular routing protocol for fast route convergence and failure detection.
Project ARIES is our proof-of-concept effort to build a test platform for incredibly efficient usage of spectrum and energy: A base station with 96 antennas, it can support 24 streams simultaneously over the same radio spectrum. We currently are able to demonstrate 71 bps/Hz of spectral efficiency, and when complete ARIES will demonstrate an unprecedented 100+ bps/Hz of spectral efficiency.
Today, 4G cellular and WLAN systems use a technology called MIMO — multiple input, multiple output. The progression toward 5G comes with Massive MIMO, an advanced wireless technology that uses a large number of antennas. ARIES is an embodiment of such a technology — by using the notion of “spatial multiplexing,” the antenna array at the base station can serve a multiplicity of autonomous user terminals on the same time-frequency resource.
Tomi Engdahl says:
BT is recruiting 900 security pros to tackle growing cybercrime threat
170 graduates and apprentices to be hired as part of recruitment programme
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2454506/bt-is-recruiting-900-security-pros-to-tackle-growing-cybercrime-threat
BROADBAND BOTHERER BT is on the hunt for 900 cyber security professionals over the in what the firm says is a drive to protect consumers, businesses and governments from the growing threat of cyber crime.
BT said that it already employs more than 2,500 security professionals but will hire 170 graduates and apprentices as part of the recruitment intake to meet the growing demand for cyber security services.
The new recruits, which it will hire over the next 12 months, will work across range of cyber security and related support roles. They will undergo training in BT’s Security Academy in a range of areas, including physical security, penetration testing, threat intelligence, risk management, security operations and sales.
The majority of the roles will be based in the UK
“A number of high-profile security and data breaches have dominated the headlines in recent months, and this has led to a surge in interest from consumers and IT departments wanting to know how best they can protect themselves in the digital world,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Juniper bleeding data and money: slaps Band-Aids all over Junos OS and warns markets
Security fixes for privilege escalation, DoS, TLS spoofing and more
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/04/14/juniper_drops_a_bunch_of_junos_os_security_fixes/
Juniper’s code reviewers have been hard at work, and have shipped a bunch of security bug-fixes.
First up: the company has turned up a bunch of Junos OS privilege escalation vulnerabilities that need patching. As the advisory states, CVE-2016-1271 covers a set of CLI commands that can be exploited to get root access to the affected system.
As well as patching vulnerable systems, Juniper reminds sysadmins that CLI access should always be restricted to trusted hosts (as well as highly trusted sysadmins).
The company’s also rolled out a fix to a bunch of bugs in curl and libcurl.
When it announced its final quarter results for 2016, the gin palace warned that although it beat expectations for 2015, it forecast headwinds for the start of 2016.
Things have turned out worse than the company expected: its January guidance for the quarter was that revenue would be between US$1.15 billion and $1.19 billion. It now says the quarter will come in at between $1.09 to $1.1 billion.
Customers’ upgrade cycles are troublesome things, and kit-sellers all over are suffering slow sales in troubled economies like Russia, Latin America and China.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Finland’s new online cable is already ready for use – however in Germany is still some work to do
Finland and Germany pulled to the new C-Lion1 submarine cable is already ready to use, but it provides faster connections get to enjoy later. Cinia told reporters at the end of March, on the basis of tests of the cable has a capacity of up to 144 terabytes per second, which is 20 percent more than the goal was the planning stage.
Dizzying capacity will not be able to use yet. The reason is that cable continues to build constructive Cinia the German side to land lines in Frankfurt. However, the work should be completed during the spring
Vuorinen estimates that in the future a significant part of Finland’s international traffic will shift to the C-Lion-cable. At the initial stage cable is used for transmission networks operating at lower levels of the Internet.
Source: http://www.tivi.fi/Kaikki_uutiset/suomen-uusi-nettikaapeli-on-jo-kayttovalmis-saksassa-on-kuitenkin-tyot-kesken-6541942
Tomi Engdahl says:
Janko Roettgers / Variety:
Sources: Verizon readying all IP-based set-top box using OnCue tech, with pay-tv, online services; testing to begin this summer, available Q3 or Q4
Verizon Readies Next-Gen TV Service for Launch Later This Year (Exclusive)
http://variety.com/2016/digital/news/verizon-ip-tv-service-set-top-box-1201754543/
Verizon is quietly getting ready to launch its next-generation TV service in at least one of its Fios markets later this year, Variety has learned from multiple sources with knowledge of the company’s plans. The service will be based on a new set-top box that incorporates some of the technology Verizon acquired from Intel a little over two years ago, and represents a bigger shift towards IP-based technology and a world where traditional pay TV isn’t the only game in town anymore.
A Verizon spokesperson declined to comment.
Earlier this week, Verizon filed documents with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to get approval for a new “video set-top box.” Those documents included a mention of OnCue, the internet TV service that Intel developed years ago, only to sell it to Verizon before it ever launched.
The new device will offer pay-TV services with a new interface that won’t look at all like Verizon’s existing Fios TV service.
Part of the reason for the delayed roll-out is are technical complexities that go far beyond simply giving consumers a new set-top box. Verizon is looking to finally replace its existing QAM-based TV delivery with a complete IP-based solution.
The old-school QAM approach pushes all content, all the time, to consumers, whereas IP-based technology only delivers the channel a consumer is watching. The result will be massive cost savings for the company, and will free up a lot more bandwidth to give consumers faster internet access. It also makes it possible to use cheaper set-top-box technology, and possibly even forego the set-top altogether to deliver the same programming to third-party streaming devices or mobile screens.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Mitel buys Polycom for $1.96B in enterprise communications consolidation play — As more enterprises move their communications services over to IP networks and cloud-based services, we’re seeing an increasing amount of consolidation as the businesses that serve them continue to grow …
Mitel buys Polycom for $1.96B in enterprise communications consolidation play
http://techcrunch.com/2016/04/15/mitel-buys-polycom-for-1-96b-in-enterprise-communications-consolidation-play/
As more enterprises move their communications services over to IP networks and cloud-based services, we’re seeing an increasing amount of consolidation as the businesses that serve them continue to grow to provide end-to-end services — and to shore up against smaller, newer and less expensive offerings from the likes of Slack, Skype, Google Hangouts and more. Today comes that latest move in that sphere: Mitel announced that it would acquire Polycom in a cash-and-stock deal with a total value of $1.96 billion*, creating a company with combined sales of $2.5 billion and 7,700 employees.
Polycom, based out of San Jose, will continue to keep its branding, Mitel said, with the overall company headquartered in Ottawa, in Mitel’s current HQ. Both companies are publicly traded and have been acquirers of smaller companies themselves, but not on the prolific level of some rivals like Cisco.
“Mitel has a simple vision – to provide seamless communications and collaboration to customers. “
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jack Marshall / Wall Street Journal:
comScore: time spent online on desktop devices declined 9.3% in December, 7.6% in January, 2% in February, and 6% in March compared to the same period last year
Has Desktop Internet Use Peaked?
ComScore data show Internet use from desktop devices has declined year-over-year for four straight months
http://www.wsj.com/articles/has-desktop-internet-use-peaked-1460714718
The amount of time people spend accessing the Internet from desktop devices is showing signs of decline, according to online measurement specialist comScore.
Data from the research company indicate overall time spent online in the U.S. from desktop devices—which include laptop computers—has fallen for the past four months, on a year-over-year basis. It dipped 9.3% in December 2015, 7.6% in January, 2% in February and 6% in March.
Over the past few years, some in the media industry have suggested Internet users have been deserting desktops and instead “going mobile.” But there has been little data to support that assertion, at least at the aggregate market level. In fact, before December, desktop Internet use has risen for 13 straight months.
In May 2015, comScore’s data implied that time spent on the Internet from mobile devices was indeed growing quickly, but that desktop Web usage was growing at the same time. Basically, consumers were spending more time online overall.
If desktop Internet use is indeed beginning to decline, companies may begin to reconsider how they should allocate their resources and investments.
Tomi Engdahl says:
High-speed data connection between Europe and Russia
Cinia and telecom Avelacom have signed an agreement to build a data network connection. Russian Avelacom is thus able to significantly increase its capacity, to provide alternative routes and to improve links with the main international markets.
Avelacom take advantage of Cinian C-Lion1 undersea cable link between Finland and Germany and offers its business customers a fast and matalaviiveisen the route Moscow and major European cities, such as the London, Amsterdam and Frankfurt.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4268:huippunopea-datayhteys-euroopan-ja-venajan-valille&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
5G is looming, but network innovations are needed far more urgently
The path to 5G
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/04/18/5g_is_looming_but_network_innovations_are_needed_far_more_urgently/
In all the excitement about 5G, it is easy to forget that the most intensive innovations of 2016-2020 will go on in “4.5G” – in Release 13 and 14, of course, but more importantly in the way the carriers and their vendors reinvent their cellular networks with new approaches like virtualization and HetNet, in the desperate bid to keep up with capacity, coverage and efficiency demands.
Nokia’s Bell Labs’ R&D unit published a report this week warning that the capacity of mobile and Wi-Fi networks is not growing nearly quickly enough to satisfy the rise in that demand, especially when it comes to content and video. Of course, such a conclusion, coming from an equipment vendor, is predictable and self-serving, but nonetheless, Bell Labs’ figures are compelling.
It calculates that, by 2020, Wi-Fi and cellular networks, taken together, will be able to carry just 81 per cent of the projected mobile con-tent traffic, leaving almost one-fifth of demand unsatisfied. “Network operators will need to accelerate their path to 5G and cloud technologies, such as network functions virtualization (NFV) and software-defined networking (SDN), and adopt new business models to address the demand gap,” Nokia said.
And its warnings did not even take account of new sources of traffic such as IoT growth. This will not put a significant load on capacity – IoT devices will account for about 2% of mobile traffic by 2020, says Bell Labs – but will add to signalling and management burdens, with Nokia predicting that there will be between 20bn and 46bn connected IoT devices by 2020 (though cellular will be less than 10% of those, between 1.6bn and 4.6bn). And after 2020, it sees a rise in higher bandwidth IoT use cases such as video surveillance and body-worn cameras.
“Life automation” really is an issue for 5G, and it is questionable whether MNOs will play a significant role in that – but for now, those operators still have huge data challenges, and the challenges of keeping up with data demand, reducing cost per bit, and sup-porting personalization are all very real today.
Nokia itself was talking this week about a trial of C-RAN (the ‘C’ can be centralized or cloud, depending on the operator’s access to long-haul fibre for fronthaul and to cloud server capacity). It has been working with China Mobile, the frontrunner in these architectures, on a trial in the 6,000-seat Beilun Stadium in Ningbo, as part of the operator’s roadmap towards full Cloud-RAN. The companies said they achieved a 62 per cent improvement in uplink rates on the TD-LTE network, compared to usual performance in high traffic areas, by adopting an approach in which the signals from up to six cells were monitored, and the best four combined to communicate with the smartphone. During peak usage times, devices were receiving data at speeds of 12Mbps or more, with power efficiency improved by one-third.
Another technology where Huawei is very prominent is active antenna, which incorporates radios into the antennas and supports flexible beamforming and spectrum bands. The concept has been slow to take off, but Huawei is confident it is reaching its tipping point now, and claims commercial deployments in 100 networks.
One of the most recent is by Finnish Shared Network (SYV), a joint venture between TeliaSonera Finland and smaller cellco DNA, which has deployed Huawei’s AAUs in to improve network quality and speeds in the northern region of the country.
Rising importance of TDD
These C-RAN and active antenna trials and deployments reflect the rising importance of TDD spectrum in carriers’ LTE expansion. China Mobile’s massive TD-LTE roll-out may originally have been driven by necessity – it was only initially awarded TDD spectrum for 3G and 4G, and it needed to migrate quickly from its underper-forming TD-SCDMA 3G technology.
But it has made a major virtue out of that necessity, putting itself at the heart of a TD-LTE ecosystem which is now going global as operators look to unpaired spectrum to meet their rising capacity needs. Often underused and undervalued, TDD bands in 2.3 GHz, 2.5/2.6 GHz and even 3.5 GHz are becoming important elements of second-stage LTE roll-outs, which are driven by capacity rather than coverage.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Europe, China line up their best bureaucrats for epic 5G battle
The world’s lamest Tough Mudder course
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/12/europe_china_epic_5g_battle/
European and Chinese telco bureaucrats are stripped and ripped and ready for four years of obstacle-course-racing to make sure their 5G is the 5G for the whole world.
Although Europe and China are officially cooperating on 5G standards, both sides want their patents to be the best patents, their standards to be the best standards, and their vendors to take the crown (even though there’s only a muddy definition of what 5G is, with world plus dog tipping anything the marketing department can think of into the battle-pit).
Tomi Engdahl says:
Pricing of Phone EU countries will change end of the month.
EU steps into force on 30 April the price cap regulation, the use of the phone in other EU countries cheaper.
Regulation of the price of data roaming in another EU country must not cost value added tax-free for up to five cents per megabyte greater than at home. The same 5 cents additional fee applies calling minutes. When VAT is added to the prices, operators are allowed to charge extra after the end of the month, and 6.2 cents per megabyte / minute.
When the client is enabled entitling to unlimited data transfer interface, megabyte price for EU Member States will, according to FICORA by 6.2 cents.
Source: http://www.digitoday.fi/bisnes/2016/04/18/puheluiden-ja-datan-hinnat-eussa-uusiksi–taman-verran-paadyt-maksamaan/20164188/66?rss=6
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook ramping super-speed public Wi-Fi system based on WiGig technology
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/pt/2016/04/facebook-ramping-super-speed-public-wi-fi-system-based-on-wigig-technology.html?cmpid=Enl_CIM_CablingNews_April182016&eid=289644432&bid=1375649
MIT Technology Review has released a new article investigating how Facebook is testing a super-speed public Wi-Fi system incorporating new wireless technology that could let mobile devices access data at speeds matching the fastest fiber-optic broadband services.
Google has spent several years building out high-speed fiber-optic Internet services in several U.S. cities. Now Facebook is developing technology to deliver broadband at similar speeds over the air.
The social network has built a small prototype wireless network on its campus in Menlo Park, California, that can serve data at speeds of over one gigabit per second—matching the speed of Google Fiber and nearly 100 times that of the average U.S. broadband connection. Facebook will start operating a larger-scale test network in downtown San Jose later this year, and similar trials will take place in other cities around the world. “We’re going to be able to use this high-capacity urban Wi-Fi solution to bring more people online affordably,” said Jay Parikh, head of infrastructure and engineering at Facebook, at the company’s F8 conference [on April 13].
Facebook’s project, dubbed Terragraph, is built around an emerging wireless technology called WiGig, which is being developed for future gadgets from companies such as Samsung, Intel, and mobile chipmaker Qualcomm…Facebook wants to blanket urban areas with WiGig signals from equipment mounted to light poles and other street furniture.
Facebook Is Testing a Super-Speed Public Wi-Fi System
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601267/facebook-is-testing-a-super-speed-public-wi-fi-system/
Google has spent several years building out high-speed fiber-optic Internet services in several U.S. cities. Now Facebook is developing technology to deliver broadband at similar speeds over the air.
The social network has built a small prototype wireless network on its campus in Menlo Park, California, that can serve data at speeds of over one gigabit per second—matching the speed of Google Fiber and nearly 100 times that of the average U.S. broadband connection. Facebook will start operating a larger-scale test network in downtown San Jose later this year, and similar trials will take place in other cities around the world.
“We’re going to be able to use this high-capacity urban Wi-Fi solution to bring more people online affordably,” said Jay Parikh, head of infrastructure and engineering at Facebook, at the company’s F8 conference today.
Facebook’s project, dubbed Terragraph, is built around an emerging wireless technology called WiGig
WiGig is similar to Wi-Fi in that it operates in radio bands that aren’t controlled by any one company, unlike cellular networks. But the 60 gigahertz radio waves that WiGig uses are capable of packing in more information. The standard is also designed in a way that makes it more reliable. Facebook built its test network using commercially available WiGig equipment.
“Doing this in real time robustly for any street environment is very challenging,” says Zhao, whose lab has collaborated with Facebook on other wireless technology projects.
Facebook doesn’t plan to make money directly from its new wireless technology. Instead, it will offer the plans for free in the hope that telecommunications companies will pick them up. “We want to show that it’s possible to build networks to accelerate how people get connected to the Internet,” says Parikh.
Facebook has both altruistic and profit-seeking motivations for that.
High-speed Internet access could be important to Facebook’s ambitions to make virtual reality a popular and powerful platform, for example.
Tomi Engdahl says:
ABI Research expects third party/neutral hosts to rule $9.5 billion in-building wireless market
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/pt/2016/04/abi-research-expects-third-party-neutral-hosts-to-rule-9-5-billion-in-building-wireless-market.html?cmpid=Enl_CIM_CablingNews_April182016&eid=289644432&bid=1375649
“While carrier-led deployments account for more than 47% of in-building wireless deployments today and vendor-led deployments sit close to only 10%, third-party/neutral hosts control close to 43% of overall market deployment revenue and are set to grow that share to over 54% by 2020,” states ABI Research. The analyst anticipates that the industry will see a larger concentration of neutral hosts funding enterprise projects in the years ahead.
“Commercial property owners, such as real-estate companies or enterprises, are taking more responsibility for in-building wireless systems and provisioning their own buildings,” explains Nick Marshall, research director at ABI Research. Marshall adds, “Subscribers and employees expect wireless coverage and capacity the same as they expect running water or electricity from a building. In-building wireless is increasingly viewed as business-critical and is becoming a major marketing tool for building and venue owners.”
Specifically with regard to a venue-led model, benefits to the enterprise may include complete control of the distributed antenna system (DAS) network, the ability to customize the DAS network, and the rights to engage with a third-party/neutral host that will operate, manage, monitor, and repair the DAS network as needed.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Accelerating LTE wireless infrastructure putting ‘extreme pressure’ on fiber core: Analyst
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/pt/2016/04/accelerating-lte-wireless-infrastructure-putting-extreme-pressure-on-fiber-core-analyst.html?cmpid=Enl_CIM_CablingNews_April182016&eid=289644432&bid=1375649
” The analyst predicts that the dramatic growth of wireless infrastructure is based on the growth of smart phones and apps, and that video and image exchange is accounting for a large part of the growth in network usage. LTE wireless infrastructure markets measured at at $3.9 billion in 2012 are now anticipated to reach $78 billion by 2018.
, “LTE Wireless Infrastructure is being installed to upgrade core networks and upgrade backhaul and base stations to make systems more modern. Infrastructure for the internet and for smart mobile devices creates demand for more sophisticated web development and web applications that in turn depend on more sophisticated infrastructure. Everything is going mobile. This evolution is driven by mobile smart phones and tablets that provide universal connectivity. Modern systems represent a significant aspect of Internet market evolution.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
views of cloud service providers are excellent, the research house IDC predicts cloud IT infrastructure investments to grow 18.9 percent this year.
This development increased the sales of traditional IT infrastructure systems is reduced by four per cent this year, although the traditional systems continue to be the strongest. They account for 62.8 per cent of end-users of all investments.
14.1 per cent of all cloud-infrastructure investment is investing in the public cloud. Private cloud represents 11.1 per cent.
ElasticHostsin CEO Richard Davies says customers especially benefit from the next generation of container technology that allows scalability of IT services will be improved.
“The public cloud, customers pay only for the computing services, is therefore no longer idle,”
The cloud-infrastructure represent the nobility of the Ethernet ports, with investments increasing by 26.8 per cent during the next 12 months.
Servers and storage devices is a growth rate of 12.4 and 11.3 per cent.
Source: http://www.tivi.fi/CIO/pilvi-infran-myynti-kasvaa-lahes-viidenneksen-tana-vuonna-6542309
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook to Facilitate Global Internet Connectivity with Terragraph
http://www.technewstoday.com/29302-facebook-to-facilitate-global-internet-connectivity-with-terragraph/
Facebook is making efforts to build a new way to connect urban areas with Internet. Yesterday, the company announced during the F8 developer’s conference that it is planning to use the new millimeter wave technology in a bid to connect users to the Internet. Also, the social media giant named its new project “Terragraph.”
Interestingly, last January, a startup firm Aereo also launched a similar wireless system dubbed as “Starry.” Both Terragraph and Starry offer Internet connectivity to its users through the millimeter and antenna technology to sustain a narrow beam signal. However, Starry uses antenna technology to offer better signal strength to the users, but Terragraph uses open WiGig standard.
The company claims that the new technology offers Internet speed up to 2.1 Gbps. In addition, Millimeter waves are non-permeable. Therefore, the social network giant plans to install its new wireless system on the streets, as at present, it offers outdoor Internet connection only.
Moreover, this is not the first attempt by Facebook to offer free Internet service to the users living in the urban areas. Last year, the social media giant launched Free Basics initiative in India to allow users to access Basics websites and services. However, the company came under fire because of not following the net neutrality rules.
The social media giant recently announced that it has added support of chat-bots on its Messenger platform. The company currently has 900 million monthly active users (MAU), and many tech experts predicted that it will have one billion monthly active users within next two months.
Tech mammoths, such as Google is also dabbling to offer high speed Internet for free to the users living in urban areas. The search engine giant launched its Project Loon in 2011 with an aim to offer Internet access to the users in remote areas through a giant balloon floating in the air. Also, the company launched its Fiber service in the some parts of the United States
Tomi Engdahl says:
Please Do Not Leave A Message: Why Millennials Hate Voice Mail
http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2014/10/23/358301467/please-do-not-leave-a-message-why-millennials-hate-voice-mail
“Wherever we’re talking to them, we’re hearing the same things, which is: When it comes to voice mail, they’re just over it,” says Jane Buckingham, a trend analyst at Trendera.
Kidd’s main problem with voice mail is that it’s time consuming, and she’s tired of listening to butt-dials and rambling messages. If someone really wants to get hold of her, there are lots of ways to do it, she says.
At the Tone, Leave a What?
Millennials Shy Away from Voice Mail
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/15/fashion/millennials-shy-away-from-voice-mail.html?_r=0
Tomi Engdahl says:
Peak Cable looms: One in five US homes now mobile-only for internet
Cord-cutting has doubled since 2013
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/04/19/one_in_five_us_homes_now_mobileonly/
The number of American households relying solely on mobile networks for internet access has doubled over the past two years.
This is according to Uncle Sam’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) who says that its 2015 internet usage numbers show that 20 per cent households use mobile networks without any wired connection for their internet access. By comparison, 2013′s study showed 10 per cent of homes were mobile-only.
Meanwhile, the number of satellite connections dropped slightly from 3 per cent to 2 per cent, and the “other combinations” category slipped from 5 per cent to 2 per cent.
Wired connections, meanwhile, are still in the majority but are falling. From 2013 to 2015 wired (with or without mobile) homes went from 82 per cent to 75 per cent.
Those numbers back up the contention that more and more Americans are opting to cut the cord with their home connections and dump cable or DSL providers in favor of mobile plans. They also fall in line with the saturation of handsets and tablets, while desktop PCs and notebooks suffer plummeting sales.
“Americans’ rapid move toward mobile Internet service appears to be coming at the expense of home broadband connections,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
’60 Minutes’ asked a security firm to hack an iPhone and we’re all basically screwed
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/04/18/60-minutes-asked-a-security-firm-to-hack-an-iphone-and-were-all-basically-screwed/
Apple’s battle with the FBI may have whipped the tech world into a frenzy of establishment-hating wannabe anarchists, but it’s this ’60 minutes’ segment that should really piss you off.
Wanting to find out just how safe our phones are from hackers, the 60 minutes team sought professionals from Security Research Labs to break into Congressman Ted Lieu’s iPhone. Lieu, a member of the House Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Information Technology (an acronym that’s dangerously close to spelling h-o-r-s-e-s-h-i-t) agreed to be the team’s guinea pig.
While security professionals are abuzz with theories — ranging from deep freezing the flash memory to creating its own operating system — on how the FBI accessed the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone, it turns out all Security Research Labs needed to access secure data was Congressman Lieu’s phone number.
It’s not apples-to-apples; the researchers weren’t accessing encrypted files or attempting to gain access to the physical device, but what they were able to accomplish with just a phone number is still incredible.
With those digits alone, the team was able to hear and record Lieu’s phone calls, track his movement, view his contacts and create a log of all incoming and outgoing calls.
Signaling System 7 (SS7) is a global network that connects all phone carriers around the world into a singular hub, of sorts. The hack exploits a known security flaw in SS7, but one that’s proven relatively difficult to fix due to the way SS7 is governed, or not governed, in this case.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ericsson betrayed expectations
Ericsson’s first quarter was the company, according to disappoint. Both the growth and the profitability fell short of expectations, said President and CEO Hans Vestberg yhtöin.
The company’s net sales amounted to SEK 52.5 billion, while analysts expected 54.5 billion. Net income increased by 2.1 billion kroons, but here too, analysts expected profit for the readings almost three billion.
Vestberg will not be instantly better purpose idle. the published results was reported that the company’s organization will be reformed. Again, one might say.
In the new structure Ericsson consists of five business units and one group of customers. The structure reflects the company’s new focus areas 5G over the Internet and cloud services to the objects, Vestberg explained.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4290:ericsson-petti-odotukset-2&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fixed e-SIM will come to smart sensors
DNA Enevon supply of waste bins IoT by organizing M2M modules with integrated e-SIM cards. Waste collection containers are installed and connected to a mobile network sensors indicate when the emptying of the container is necessary.
Finnish Enevon small size, given to a waste container apparatus includes a M2M modem in addition to the temperature sensor, the acceleration sensor and the function of the sensor. They allow the system to predict the vessels are met and draw up a waste management route for cars recommendations.
“Enevon service is an excellent example of a useful industrial solution to the Internet. M2M is there a growing business area and we are very excited to continue to cooperate with the Enevon such a global delivery “, large customer sales director Eva Lindholm from DNA says.
Source: http://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2016/04/21/kiintea-e-sim-tulee-alyantureihin/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The first software radio for 5G-development
National Instruments has introduced a software defined radio frequencies millimetriaalueen. NI operating in the 71-76 GHz region of the targeted 5G equipment developer software radio is the first of its kind.
The system consists of a radio transmitter-receiver which is able to name according to both transmit and receive data on the E-channel up to two gigahertz channel width.
Scientists have used software-based radios research work of less than six gigahertz area for many years.
For Mm-frequency region corresponding solution has not been before this was available.
The system consists of a new PXI Express modules and NI virtual instrument software.
Nokia has used this system for 5G investigations for over a year.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4295:ensimmainen-ohjelmistoradio-5g-kehitykseen&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Big Cable threatens to sue FCC: You can’t stop us ripping off customers
Common standards for set-top boxes? Ha ha ha
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/04/21/big_cable_to_sue_fcc_over_boxes/
The US National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) has threatened to sue the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) if it pushes ahead with plans to open up cable boxes.
Speaking at a press conference Thursday, the NCTA’s president – and former FCC chair – Michael Powell said that the plan to force cable companies to adopt common standards for data and provide them to third parties was illegal.
“The proposed rules are riddled with gaping holes and leave unresolved major legal problems that the rules themselves would create,” railed the paper. “The FCC may not adopt rules that create such problems and then leave the industry to sort out the mess.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Verizon: We’re sick of waiting for the FCC, so here’s our ‘net neutrality’
American carrier says it won’t throttle or promote any traffic on its network
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/21/verizon_net_neutrality_pitch/
Verizon has laid out its own set of net neutrality rules it will impose – regardless of whether the FCC keeps its grip on America’s broadband service.
General counsel and executive VP for public policy, Craig Silliman, said Verizon would adhere to a set of rules on its networks, including policies against throttling, paid prioritization, and blocking lawful content.
“We can support these rules because we believe they are fair, even-handed, good for consumers and essential for us and others to thrive going forward,” Silliman said.
The policies come as the FCC continues to battle with US Congress over the commission’s authority to impose Title II restrictions on ISPs: Title II rules were designed to regulate phone line services; some say they can apply to broadband providers, others disagree.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Verizon is big on IoT ‘cos its wireline biz is dying on the vine
Telco keeps revenues up with strong hardware sales
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/04/22/verizon_is_big_on_iot_mostly_because_its_wireline_biz_is_dying_on_the_vine/
Verizon says that it will focus on “developing new markets,” as the telco giant was just able to keep revenues on the uptick.
The US carrier said that it would be shifting a focus over towards the internet of things (IoT) and its content market in the coming months, as it looks to bolster sagging revenues in other parts of its business.
The wireline side of the business has for some time now been seen by and large as a drag on Verizon’s more successful mobile network. The carrier has been looking to rid itself of some of its wireless carriers, including the recent sale of its three largest FiOS ISP markets to Frontier Communications.
At the same time, Verizon says it will be increasingly looking to build its IoT business, which logged $195m in revenues, up 25 per cent over the year-ago quarter.
Tomi Engdahl says:
NI’s mmW Radio Speeds 5G Research
Transceiver capable of channel sounding, prototyping
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1329507&
National Instruments (NI) announced a software defined radio (SDR) for the millimeter wave (mmW) spectrum. The transceiver system can transmit and/or receive wide-bandwidth signals at 2 GHz real-time bandwidth, covering the 71-76 GHz spectrum. The system comes with accompanying software.
The mmW transceiver system includes PXI Express modules that collectively function as an mmW access point for a user device. Users can also develop mmW communication prototyping systems or perform channel measurements using the same system. Although NI chose the higher frequency spectrum, officials said the architecture is flexible and could be tuned to a different frequency if needed.
Before mmW can propagate and become a viable means of communication, Kimery said more measurements need to be taken. In particular, how human interference affects propagation needs to be studied.
Tomi Engdahl says:
WiFi Finally Ready for 60 GHz
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1329486&
The 60 GHz version of WiFi is finally starting to gain traction with a number of OEMs and chip set vendors for a variety of applications, according to the author of a new report on the subject.
WiGig, also known as IEEE 802.11ad, is poised to be an essential enabling technology with the increase in bandwidth demanded by applications such as gaming and HD video streaming. Launched by the Wireless Gigabit Alliance back in 2009, it is a step change from the 802.11 evolution we have witnessed over the last few years, adding a new 60 GHz frequency band to the mix of 2.4 and 5 GHz offerings.
The 2.4 GHz band is largely saturated today, and it is projected that the 5 GHz band will also become saturated within 2-3 years due to the roll out of today’s 802.11ac. Hence, introducing a new Wi-Fi protocol operating in the 60 GHz license-free ISM band is a timely innovation.
Back in 2009 users didn’t need WiGig’s 7 Gbit/second maximum speeds and new chipsets that would lower cost and drive usage were slow to come to market. Now commercial use and product rollouts of WiGig are gathering pace including components from giants such as Qualcomm and Intel, and focused vendors such as SiBeam, now owned by Lattice Semiconductor, and Peraso Technologies.
Streaming 4K video is one major use case for WiGig. A GByte movie could take less than three seconds to transfer between devices and uncompressed high-definition videos can be streamed from mobile devices to TVs in real-time without any delay.
Smartphones will account for most of the WiGig chip volumes. Chinese smartphone vendor LeTV launched the first WiGig-enabled smartphone in early 2016.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Toosheh lets Iranians use their ubiquitous satellite TV dishes to download videos, cirumventing the nation’s slow, expensive, censored internet — The Ingenious Way Iranians Are Using Satellite TV to Beam in Banned Internet — Reza, a 20-something mechanical engineer working …
The Ingenious Way Iranians Are Using Satellite TV to Beam in Banned Internet
http://www.wired.com/2016/04/ingenious-way-iranians-using-satellite-tv-beam-banned-data/
YouTube is blocked in Iran. The TED site isn’t, but Iran’s trickling internet speeds make its videos virtually unwatchable anyway. So every couple of days, Reza plugs a USB drive into his satellite TV’s set-top box receiver and changes the channel to a certain unchanging green and white screen that shows only fixed text instructions. He sets the receiver to record to the USB. Then a few hours later he takes the resulting MPEG file on the USB over to his computer, where he decodes it with a piece of software called Toosheh. The result, each time, is more than a gigabyte of compressed, fresh digital contraband pulled directly from space, past both Iran’s infrastructure bottlenecks and its draconian censors.
Last month, a Los Angeles-based group of eight Iranian and American activists that calls itself Net Freedom Pioneers officially launched Toosheh, that free anti-censorship system. Toosheh, Farsi for “knapsack” or “bundle,” is designed to allow Iranians to use their ubiquitous TV satellite dishes as an alternative to the country’s underdeveloped and highly censored internet, where a government body called the Supreme Council for Cyberspace blocks everything from “anti-Islamic” sites to news coverage of opposition political groups. By broadcasting on its own satellite TV channel and distributing a piece of Windows desktop software that can decode that satellite video stream, the Toosheh project sends thousands of Iranians a daily digital bundle of news articles, videos, and audio—everything from Persian music videos to critical news coverage of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. “When they use our software all the content disguised in the video file is extracted and opens in a folder for them,”
Even so, it’s worth noting that the group’s daily care package of digital files isn’t exactly a replacement for the freedom of the open internet. Instead, it’s a carefully assembled package of files, curated by Net Freedom Pioneers’ team of five Iranian immigrant activists who say they aim to offer a mix of entertainment, education and human-rights focused material.
Every day’s bundle includes a collection of news article PDFs, too. And Toosheh’s satellite also broadcasts a collection of censorship circumvention tools like Tor, Psiphon, and Lantern, offering a new detour around the government attempts to block access to those programs.