Archive | Wireless

Samsung WiFi Camera with DualView

Samsung has announced the DV300F, a Wi-Fi enabled camera with a twin LCD ‘DualView’ function. You can share photos and video clips directly to Facebook, Picasa, YouTube, making use of the WiFi connection. Photographs can also be wirelessly transferred to a property Computer and to cloud storage services such as Microsoft SkyDrive. The $ 199, 16-megapixel camera, is capable of 5x optical zoom really should be available this March.

It’s the very first DualView model to offer Wi-Fi. The camera’s built-in Wi-Fi connectivity enables users to e mail their pictures or upload them to social media internet sites including Facebook, Picasa, Flickr and YouTube. In addition, pictures saved onto the camera’s microSD memory card, can be saved to a residence Computer without wires, by employing the Auto Computer Backup function.

Earlier WiFi cameras (with out DualView) contain Samsung’s CL80 even though EyeFi X-two chips ($ 49 for 4 GB), enable numerous SD-card cameras to use WiFi as nicely. Their Direct Mode uploads pictures and videos directly from your camera to an iPhone, iPad or Android device in a snap.

Of course Smartphones like the iPhone 4S equipped with Photo & Video apps or Android phones like the Sony Xperia equipped with Android Photo apps are becoming strong competition for point and shoots, featuring super rapidly 1.4 GHz processors, 3D and 2D sweep panorama apps, 8 MP sensors, and large screens.

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Clearwire Streamlines Pricing – Eliminates Post Paid

Clearwire, the Mobile WiMAX carrier serving some 130 million pops in the United States, announced right now it will streamline its Clear-branded service, offering ONLY unlimited prepaid Net service at $ 50 per month.

The move removes postpaid (contract) plans. It also removes device leasing, activation fees, early termination fees and restocking fees.

Clearwire previously supplied postpaid service at $ 45 per month with a service contract. Now it delivers a flat $ 50/month unlimited service program.

Clearwire will also discontinue sales of dual-mode WiMAX/CDMA devices. Clearwire previously provided devices that could roam onto Sprint Nextel’s 3G CDMA EV-DO network, but now it will only offer you access to its own WiMAX network.

This August, Clearwire announced its intent to add “LTE Advanced-prepared” technology to its 4G network. But the LTE-Advanced service will reportedly use the very same 30 MHz spectrum budget of the current WiMAX network.

Reportedly, rather of utilizing three distinct ten MHz frequency bands in every of 3 tower sectors, Clearwire’s new upgrade will reapportion the very same spectrum. They will devote only 10 MHz to WiMAX with the remaining 20 MHz dedicated to TD-LTE. Each and every sector will reuse the very same frequency (10 MHz for WiMAX, 20 MHz for LTE).

Frequency reuse on each sector is also utilised by CDMA networks. Nevertheless networks like WiMAX and LTE use a various approach, dividing up the Time Division packets to decrease interference with Synchronous OFDMA.

Why would Clearwire eradicate very prized contract subscribers? Perhaps Clearwire doesn’t want to anger subscribers who may soon discover their WiMAX service has deteriorated with the advent of Advanced LTE sharing the tower and spectrum.

Clearwire might provide WiMAX subs a good package deal, enticing them into switching from WiMAX to LTE. Roaming LTE service could be enhanced by Sprint’s FD-LTE service on 1.9 GHz. But it won’t take place subsequent week. Chips, handsets, client gear and towers won’t be usually obtainable until subsequent summer at the earliest.

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Pandora Goes HTML-five

Pandora radio the automated music recommendation service, has a new HTML5 design to make it a lot more responsive, simpler to use, and better integrated with other platforms and services.

Some of the new functions incorporate:

  • Simplified Station Creation – Enhanced auto-complete selections and personalized suggestions make making new stations and discovering new music or comedy far more intuitive and personal.
  • Discovery of Music with Friends – Enhanced listener profiles and a new music feed supply a centralized location to discover, like and comment on what buddies and like-minded listeners are discovering and enjoying on Pandora. The music feed will roll out slowly more than the course of the coming days. In addition to the prominent new “share” button, stations now have their own URLs, generating it super straightforward for listeners to share preferred stations via Twitter, Facebook, or email.
  • Improved Control – Prominent and ubiquitous access to familiar player control buttons which includes Play, Pause, Thumbs-Up and Thumbs-Down icons helps listeners to simply personalize their music and comedy stations. A new shuffle function also permits listeners to shuffle any collection of stations to add selection to their listening expertise.
  • Enhanced Artist Data – An choice to find out a lot more about the music, discover lyrics, read artists’ biographies and expand the album art size.
  • Unlimited listening – The company has removed the 40 hours listening cap – you can now listen as a lot as you want for free of charge.

The new social feed will roll out more than the next couple of days. Here’s a link to view and to edit privacy settings.

Pandora Radio has two subscription plans: a totally free subscription supported by advertisements, and a fee-based subscription with no ads. There are also advertisements in “Pandora Mobile” for mobile phones and “Pandora in The Residence” computer appliances. Most users select the cost-free subscription.

Pandora uses the Music Genome Project to reflect your musical taste, with over 400 diverse musical attributes. These 400 attributes are combined into bigger groups called focus traits. There are two,000 concentrate traits. Examples of these are rhythm syncopation, important tonality, vocal harmonies, and displayed instrumental proficiency.

In other news, Adobe announced nowadays Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 for creating “immersive” 3D application experiences across devices and platforms. Meanwhile, standards-based HTML5 technologies, which do not need proprietary plug-ins like Flash, are becoming increasingly popular.

Flash Player 11 and AIR three are slated to ship to desktop systems in early October, and will function hardware-accelerated rendering that are said to render 2D and 3D graphics 𔄙,000 times faster” than with Flash Player 10 and AIR 2.

Flash doesn’t play on Apple’s iOS devices, Windows Phones or BlackBerry smartphones. Microsoft says its tablet-oriented, Metro-style version of Internet Explorer 10 will also not offer you any plug-in support, rather utilizing HTML5 on Windows 8-based mobile devices as well. Microsoft’s own Silverlight plug-in, lengthy a competitor to Flash, will also suffer at the hands of the alter in IE policy.

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Lightsquared: One more Strategy

LightSquared has given the FCC an amended LTE network program, reports Fierce Wireless, to further lessen GPS interference concerns. The filing (pdf) was created as LightSquared has come below criticism at a congressional hearing over its planned wholesale LTE network, which would be hosted on Sprint towers.

At a Residence hearing Thursday, Republicans criticized the FCC for not using its own engineers to examine regardless of whether LightSquared’s technology posed interference issues.

LightSquared, a mobile satellite communications organization, has received conditional approval from the FCC to build a nationwide 4G wireless network, provided it can be accomplished with out interfering with adjacent GPS signals. But government and industry tests this summer demonstrated the proposed method designed harmful interference.

Under the newest version of their plan, LightSquared will still limit its use the lower 10 MHz chunk of L-Band spectrum at 1.6 GHz, but will now limit the power of its terrestrial base stations to -30dBm when it launches its network.

According to a LightSquared, energy levels, as measured 50 meters from the base station, will not degrade the performance of GPS devices. In tests, only two GPS receivers were operating above that threshold and their efficiency was not degraded. The official stated that LightSquared’s operational efficiency and enterprise plan will not be affected by the alter. By 2015, LightSquared will enhance the power level to -27dBm and by 2017 it will increase it to -24 dBm.

In addition to the alter in energy, LightSquared also proposed a answer for satellite-augmented GPS, which is used for precision GPS devices from companies such as Trimble and John Deere. LightSquared suggested permanently utilizing a 4 MHz chunk of spectrum for those services which will provide them with a stable satellite signal.

That proposal will give LightSquared time to create a filtering resolution for precision GPS receivers, and the company is seeking at antenna replacement or a module modification for legacy precision GPS receivers.

The LightSquared official stated so far the reaction from the GPS community has been mostly positive. The FCC has stated there is no timeline for a decision on LightSquared’s strategy, but the LightSquared official expressed confidence that a choice will be made soon.

The Coalition to Save our GPS, a group of GPS device producers opposed to LightSquared’s network, said in a statement that the newest program “appears to be a positive step toward reducing, for some devices, the harmful interference to GPS signals confirmed during testing of LightSquared’s earlier incomplete proposals.”

Nevertheless, the group stated the strategy does not claim to solve interference to high-precision GPS receivers, and that further testing is necessary.

The new modifications to LightSquared’s plan came as federal government officials stated just before Congress that far more testing of the organization’s program is necessary. The testimony included that of Mary Glackin, a deputy under secretary at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as nicely as Anthony Russo, director of the National Coordination Office for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing, which coordinates federal agencies’ interest in GPS.

LightSquared signed a 15-year, $ 9 billion network-hosting deal with Sprint Nextel in late July, but the deal is contingent on LightSquared getting FCC approval to operate its network.

GPS World and Inside GNSS have far more.

Related DailyWireless Space and Satellite News includes Lightsquared & Sprint Announce Sharing Agreement, Lightsquared Files Official FCC Report , Lightsquared: Program “B”, Lightsquared: Lawmakers Skeptical, Lightsquared + Sprint Deal Accomplished?, Lightsquared Gets 2-week Extension, Ergen Likely Got TerreStar, Charlie Ergen’s Spectacular Triple Play, Lightsquared Interference: No Immediate Fix?, LightSquared: GPS Interference Found, Lightsquared: Program B from Outer Space?, Harbinger: 59MHz or What?. Time Warner Cable + Lightstream?, Lightsquared Signs Cricket Wireless, Another Rumor: Lightsquared + Sprint?, Lightsquared + Sprint?, Charlie’s Big Play, LTE Spectrum: It’s War, Lightsquared: What GPS Interference?, Harbinger Sells Inmarsat Shares, FCC Green Lights Lightsquared, LightSquared: In Trouble?, Lightsquared Unfurled

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Iridium Launches Hotspot

Pioneer satphone company Iridium, with a constellation of Low Earth Orbit satellites, today announced its vision for the future of private mobile satellite communications, Iridium Force and a modest satellite-connected WiFi hotspot that smartphones and tablet computers can connect to.

The Iridium AxcessPoint can present Wi-Fi enabled smartphones, tablets and laptops everywhere via the Iridium network utilizing Extreme or Iridium 9555 satellite telephone. The AxcessPoint will cost less than $ 200, but it wants to be paired with a phone that costs about $ 1,000. The information connection will expense about $ 1 per minute.

Iridium charges data calls by the minute and at voice rates, which will be somewhere between $ .65 to $ 1.30, depending your program or pre-paid package. At a maximum bandwidth supplied by Iridium, 9.6 kbps, each and every MB will take about 14 minutes to download and price somewhere between $ 9 and $ 18 in connection fees.

Iridium Force is the firm’s thrust in opening and licensing their technologies to collaborate with an expanding set of innovators, generating new solutions for a wide range of markets (pdf).

Iridium is integrating GPS location-based services for on-the-go location-distinct applications and personal security capabilities. Iridium NEXT, anticipated to begin service in 2015, will sustain the existing Iridium constellation architecture of 66 cross-linked satellite low-Earth orbiting (LEO) covering 100 percent of the globe.

The Iridium network of 66 satellites spans the world. Their LEO competitor, Globalstar has had a key malfuntion with their voice transponders, and at present only offers reliable one-way data services. Globalstar has presently launched 12 second-generation Globalstar satellites.

Globalstar plans to integrate the 24 new second-generation satellites with the eight very first-generation satellites that had been launched in 2007, to form a 32 satellite constellation. As soon as their new constellation is launched and totally deployed, the Company expects to, once once more, provide two-way voice and data services.

AT&T was promoting their Genus smartphone in conjunction with the bankrupt TerraStar satellite service (recently bought by The Dish network) and their terrestrial cellular network.

However, TerraStar’s spotbeam geosynchronous satellite covers only North America. TerreStar’s footprint covers 330 million folks throughout the United States and Canada. TerreStar-1 has an antenna roughly 60 feet across that enables it to communicate with wireless devices the size of typical cell phones.

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Mobile: Trillion Dollar Business

The growth of the mobile economy – made probable by smartphones – is phenomenal. The Yankee Group sees global mobile transactions exceeding $ 1 Trillion by 2015 from $ 241 billion in 2011.

Nielsen expects the US to have much more smartphones than function phones by the finish of the year. The number of smartphone users will boost 49.6% this year to 90.1 million, according to eMarketer. Virtually half of UK world wide web users go on-line through mobile telephone.

The US mobile Internet population is expected to grow 25% this year as 97.3 million mobile owners log on to the World wide web from their device at least monthly. With out the iPhone, T-Mobile was crushed.

Some 478 million smartphones are expected to ship globe-wide in 2011.

US social network ad revenues are expected to reach $ 3.08 Billion this year and rise by a further 27.7% next year to reach nearly $ four billion.

Google display ad revenues are expected to pass $ 1 Billion This Year, even though eclipsed handily by Facebook. Facebook’s share of US online display ad revenues will grow to 17.7 percent in 2011, up from a 12.2 percent share last year, according to eMarketer.

None of this would have happened if wireless carriers had their way.

Consider the 700 MHz auction in January, 2008. Verizon and AT&T wanted to block independent app stores. They demanded absolute manage over all smartphone applications.

But Google requested the FCC adopt “open” policies to phones and services. That provision would be triggered with a minimum bid of $ 4.6 billion on the 700 MHz band.

Google requested:

  • Open applications: Shoppers ought to be able to download and make use of any computer software applications, content, or services they desire
  • Open devices: Shoppers should be able to make use of a handheld communications device with whatever wireless network they prefer
  • Open services: Third parties (resellers) need to be able to acquire wireless services from a 700 MHz licensee on a wholesale basis, based on reasonably nondiscriminatory commercial terms and
  • Open networks: Third parties (like web service providers) should be able to interconnect at any technically feasible point in a 700 MHz licensee’s wireless network.

The FCC ruled in favor of Google’s request, but only two of the 4 specifications were put in place, open applications and open devices.

The result: Google was outbid by Verizon, triggering open platform provisions.

That enabled a trillion dollar market.

Apple is now the globe’s largest firm and the mobile telecom market has turn into a Trillion dollar enterprise.

Global mobile operator revenues are set to break the trillion dollar mark this year. The global mobile applications market place is expected to be worth $ 25. billion in 2015, growing at a CAGR of 29.6% from 2010 to 2015.

There are at the moment 5.28 billion mobile subscribers worldwide, representing 76% of the world’s population of 6.75 billion. In 2010, barely 20% of the total mobile devices shipped were smart phones — which indicates 80% of the existing user industry is nonetheless untapped.

Global voice and data revenue for 2010 is estimated at $ 830 billion, 1.four% of world GDP of $ 60.63 trillion. Global mobile services revenue is projected to exceed $ 1 trillion by 2014.

None of this would have happened if carriers successfully killed app stores.

Here are more global mobile statistics and mobile advertising and marketing facts.

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Merger Salvage Plan by AT&T

Reuters says AT&T will soon present a propose a two part remedy to the DOJ to salvage its planned $ 39 billion merger with T-Mobile USA.

Even as AT&T gears up for a lengthy court battle against the Justice Department, AT&T is prepared to make concessions to address concerns that the T-Mobile deal is anti-competitive and could trigger wireless costs to rise.

This two-track strategy will enable AT&T to try to uncover a settlement just before the lawsuit reaches the court.

“AT&T is fairly determined that they can locate a answer, and they are fairly confident,” one of the sources stated, requesting anonymity as the talks are private.

Particulars of AT&T’s proposed settlement had been not offered, but it is expected to contain pledges to preserve T-Mobile’s reasonably inexpensive mobile subscription plans, and asset sales.

AT&T might have to sell up to 25 percent of T-Mobile’s enterprise, including airwaves and clients, two sources said, to address the government’s concern that just three organizations would control 90 percent of the U.S. wireless market if the merger goes by means of.

But even if AT&T wins its case against the Justice Department in court or if it strikes a deal with the Justice Department, the organization must still get approval from the Federal Communications Commission, points out C/Net.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said this week, “Competition is an crucial component of the FCC’s statutory public interest analysis, and although our procedure is not complete, the record just before this agency also raises significant concerns about the impact of the proposed transaction on competition.”

The Justice Department said that the proposed $ 39 billion transaction would substantially lessen competition for mobile wireless telecommunications services across the United States. Deputy Attorney General James Cole said the merger would result in greater prices, poorer good quality services, fewer choices and fewer innovative merchandise for the millions of American shoppers who rely on mobile wireless services in their everyday lives.

The DOJ’s complaint (pdf, 25 pages), was filed Wednesday in federal court.

Light Reading explores What AT&T Loses Without having T-Mobile. That would be about $ 6B in forfeit fees. T-Mobile USA would get $ 39B divided by 34 million buyers, or about $ 1,147 per head.

Related Dailywireless articles consist of DOJ Blocking AT&T/T-Mobile Merger, AT&T Merger: Much more Heat, AT&T Merger: Yea & Ney, FCC Receives Pro & Con Support for ATT Merger, LTE Spectrum: It’s War , Spectrum Drama: Made for Television, AT&T MediaFLO Spectrum: A lot more Review, T-Mobile Cuts Costs, FCC: Show Us Your Spectrum Scarcity, AT&T, Combining AWS and 700 MHz: Why?, Comparing Information Plans, ATT Announces 1st LTE Modems, T-Mobile Goes to 42 Mbps, AT&T Declares Spontaneous “4G” Transformation, Far more U.S. LTE Cities July 21, T-Mobile Makes Its (4G) Move , Multicarrier HSPA, WiMAX – Release 2. T-Mobile: LTE in the Future?, Multicarrier HSPA, FCC: Spectrum for Sale, AT&T Information Caps Extend to Femtocells, AT&T’s New Information Plans, T-Mobile: Now HSPA+ Coverage for 75M, Public Safety: Show Us The Cash, Clear: No Limits, FCC to Okay $ 2.3B AT&T Deal, Cellcos: 1 Factor – Bandwidth

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Media Tablet War: Apple Vs B&N, Amazon & Others

Barnes & Noble reported its economic performance nowadays. They generated $ 1.4 billion in sales, a 2 percent boost over the identical period last year.

Book sales were down, but the firm’s Nook operation were up, reports C/Net.

The company reported that its Nook enterprise, which includes hardware and digital-content sales, grew 140 percent during the period to $ 277 million.

The $ 139 Nook and Nook $ 249 Color, which runs Android, functions a B&N application store, in addition to e-book support.

The agency pricing model for e-books, in which book publishers set the retail cost and retailers take a commission, is working nicely for Barnes & Noble, says Paid Content. Amazon now can’t undercut it on e-books from the “big 6” publishers, all of whom use the agency model.

“We think agency is going to take hold as the dominant form of pricing for e-books going forward. It makes a lot of sense for a lot of reasons,” Barnes & Noble CEO William Lynch said in an investor call this morning.

All eyes are now on Amazon, for an anticipated color Android tablet.Technologizer speculates on how the Amazon Tablet may possibly be priced:


Could Amazon sell a tablet for $ 399? Positive, that’s entirely plausible. But that’s not hundreds less–it’s hundred less.

$ 299? Not inconceivable. But I feel we’d be talking one with sharply much less robust technical specs and an iPad or a Honeycomb tablet, and most likely a smallish screen.

$ 199? Hmmm. If Amazon sells a tablet for $ 199, it’s going to be fairly basic and Amazon will eat some of the price in hopes of selling buyers content later.

$ 99? No, it won’t be $ 99. For one factor, that’s less expensive than a Kindle. (Disclaimer: I suppose it’s achievable that Amazon will sell a tablet with some sort of contract or subscription that calls for buyers to pay for content. In that case, $ 99 isn’t an impossibility.)

It would have to be attractive. A thin 7″ device with a Super AMoLED display may well support – particularly when packaged with Amazon’s MP3 cloud library, Movies, Kindle books and Android Apps.

Amazon’s 7-inch tablet PC, which is supplied by Quanta Pc, is expected to begin shipping in October. Mass production of Amazon’s 10.1-inch tablet will be conducted in the first quarter of 2012 with Foxconn Electronics making the device, says Digitimes

Amazon outsources its Kindle e-book reader to Foxconn with an estimated volume of 15-18 million units, accounting for 60-70% of global e-book reader shipments of 25-30 million units in 2011.

But people forget that the Amazon tablet will be a media hog (in contrast to the Kindle). The data connection is key — WiFi is just too inconvenient.

A low cost 4G connection, say $ 10-$ 20/month for 1-2GB/mo, appears required to attract a mass market. Newspapers and magazines might help subsidize the price of the connection — along with Google, Microsoft and other people.

Forrester expects Amazon to sell among three and 5 million units in Q4.

In its revised report on “media tablets,” iSuppli bumped up its overall growth predictions for all shipments, stating that 60 million tablets will ship in 2011, 1.1 million much more than it originally stated. In 2015, it now expects annual shipments to reach 275.three million, up from 262.1 million in its previous report.

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South Korea Auction: It’s Done

The Korea Communications Commission (KCC), wrapped up its most recent spectrum auction this week.

3 bands of spectrum 800MHz, 2100MHz and 2300MHz were up for auction. The regulator raised some KRW1.15 trillion (US$ 1.1 billion) in the auction.

SK Telecom (51% marketplace share) and KT Corp (31% marketplace share) control just over 80% of the country’s mobile market, whilst LG Uplus has a 17.8 percent share.

They all strategy on offering LTE on the new spectrum. That consists of Korea Telecom,which had been a huge supporter (and inventor) of mobile WiMAX.

  • SK Telecom was the greatest spender, paying 1 trillion won ($ 926 million) for 20 megahertz in the 1.8 GHz band. The 20 MHz chunk was believed ideal for LTE.
  • KT Corp dropped out of the 1.8 GHz race but got 800 megahertz licenses that were 10 megahertz wide for 261 billion won.
  • LG Uplus picked up 20 megahertz of spectrum in the 2.1 GHz band, at the minimum price of $ 412 million. The Korean government prevented SK and KT from bidding on the 2.1 GHz spectrum as it wanted to open up that band for new entrants. LG ended up the sole bidder for the license.

At present, SKT has a 30 megahertz bandwidth of the 800 megahertz range and 60 megahertz bandwidth of the 2.1 gigahertz range, while KT has 20 megahertz bandwidth of the 1.8 gigahertz range and 40 megahertz bandwidth of the two.1 gigahertz range.

With operations already in the 2.1 GHz band, LG is expected to be able to immediately begin utilizing its new spectrum assets. Their two.3 GHz spectrum may well use TD-LTE, while KT and SK are most likely to use FD-LTE on their 800 MHz and 1800MHz bands.

The cost per MHz per capita of population in 2100MHz spectrum auctions, 2010–2011, shows Korea’s price a bit above average, despite LG Plus paying a bargain basement cost.

Five blocks in the 700-megahertz band (among 698 megahertz and 806 megahertz) will also be offered in South Korea from 2013 when analog Television broadcasting will be fully replaced by digital broadcasting.

South Korea’s ill-fated MBSAT S-DMB method combined video and audio service employing the two.6GHz band. The hybrid broadcasting method handled both direct satellite reception and terrestrial repeaters on the 2.6-GHz band.

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Huawei’s LTE TDD Wireless Router Goes to 100

Huawei has announced commercial availability of the world’s very first LTE TDD wireless broadband router, the Huawei B593, through Saudi Arabian operator Mobily in October this year, in conjunction with their big-scale LTE TDD network.

The Huawei B593 supports LTE TDD and FDD, capabilities a download speed of up to 100M and offers access to up to 32 WiFi devices as well as desktop computers through an Ethernet cable.

Mobily is the largest mobile broadband service provider in Saudi Arabia and a subsidiary of multinational UAE telecom operator Etisalat.

Aircel and Huawei have already effectively tested LTE TDD in India with plans to launch the service soon. Other significant scale TD-LTE networks consist of the Australian Broadband Net, Clearwire’s LTE Advanced network and China Mobile.

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Smartphones to Rule Planet by 2015

Global smartphone shipments will soar to 1.03 billion units in 2015, resulting in a global smartphone share of 54.4 percent, reports iSuppli Mobile Handset Marketplace Tracker. The worldwide dominance of smartphones is all the far more remarkable taking into consideration that smartphones accounted for only 15.8 percent of the total cellphone marketplace in 2009.

Some 478 million smartphones are expected to ship world-wide in 2011. That would make the world-wide share about 32.five percent. Important drivers of achievement will be powerful support from the developer community, and how effectively OEMs can make their hardware and software program work together.

According to Cisco’s Global Mobile Data Visitors Forecast, the iPad and tablets like it generate five times a lot more data traffic than the average smartphone.

Goldman Sachs figures tablets are growing information demand by 30 percent per year and by 2020 will account for 17 percent of all mobile wireless data demand.

Mobile broadband subscriptions are on track to surpass 1 billion in 2011 barely a year right after reaching half a billion, according to Ericsson. There had been 763 million broadband wireless subscribers in the globe by the end of 2010, figures InStat. According to In-Stat, unit shipments for smartphones will reach practically 850 million by 2015.

Morgan Stanley analyst Mary Meeker previously predicted the shift to mobile (below).

Shipments of smartphones, tablets and other app-enabled devices will overtake PCs shipments in the next 18 months, says industry research firm IDC. Shipments of individual computers will nonetheless continue to enhance even as they are surpassed by other devices.

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Steve Jobs Resigns

Steve Jobs has resigned as Chief Executive Officer from Apple nowadays, in a formal press release.

Tim Cook, previously Apple’s Chief Operating Officer, is expected to take Job’s location as CEO. Here’s the resignation letter from Steve Jobs.

Jobs has been dogged by a string of wellness issues, notes C/Net, and forced him to take periodic leaves of absence from the company.

Jobs announced in January that he was taking an indefinite medical leave from Apple–his third in current years–and handing more than day-to-day responsibility to Cook.

Jobs will be Chairman of the Board of Apple and Cook will take a position on the board as CEO. Jobs really submitted his resignation to the Board today and ‘strongly recommended’ that the Board name Tim Cook as CEO.

Tech Meme and Google News have a lot more.

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Rural Broadband Opportunities

The White Home Rural Council has released a report Jobs and Economic Security in Rural America (pdf) which highlighted the fact that several rural communities “have lower incomes, higher poverty rates, worse well being outcomes, and lower educational attainment than urban and suburban places.”

The expansion of broadband access to more than “7 million rural Americans, which includes 3 million rural households and more than 350,000 rural businesses” aims to address those problems.

It included a summary of some administration accomplishments already made that would boost opportunities for rural Americans:

  • By means of the USDA’s Distance Understanding and Telemedicine Program, far more than 2,500 healthcare and educational facilities have received access to distance studying and telemedicine services.
  • Department of Well being and Human Services (HHS) has invested $ 4.five million to support 17 Telehealth Network grantees, which supplied over 17,000 teleconsultations to patients in isolated locations across 207 locations.
  • As a result of USDA’s Broadband Initiative Program below the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), 2.8 million households will have new or improved broadband services, reaching practically 7 million folks and 364,000 companies across more than 300,000 square miles.
  • The U.S. Chief Technology Officer launched the “Text four Baby” program to use mobile technologies to provide healthcare data to expecting and new parents. The service now has far more than 135,000 subscribers.
  • The SBA / SCORE Broadband Initiative assists small organizations accelerate growth by way of the use of broadband technologies, many of which are in rural communities. To date, its on the internet resources have been leveraged by more than 11,000 tiny businesses.

The entire report can be accessed on the White House’s web site (pdf).

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Small Satellite Conference Celebrates 25 Years

The Tiny Satellite Conference, held last week in Logan Utah, is the premier conference for the small satellite technology community (Proceedings).

Their twenty-fifth conference attracted massive name speakers including Bruce Carlson, Director of the NRO, Robert Gold, MESSENGER Science Payload Manager for Johns Hopkins, and Robert Braun, Chief Technologist, NASA.

The CubeSat Project (list of satellites) was began by a partnership in between the California Polytechnique University in San Luis Obispo and Stanford University in Palo Alto. It has considering that grown to turn out to be an international partnership of more than 40 institutes that are creating picosatellites.

Cubesats are built by colleges and universities to discover concepts. The cost is low – about the cost of a new auto – acquiring them into space is the trick.

A regular CubeSat is a 10 cm cube with a mass of up to 1 kg, although two and three cube satellites have been built. Developers benefit from the sharing of data inside the community. Resources are normally shared between developers and by attending CubeSat workshops.

Technical sessions at the Tiny Satellite Conference included nanosatellite-based astronomy missions, FPGA-Based Processors for CubeSats, Compact Hyperspectrals, and little SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) satellites

Vulcan Wireless has flown a CubeSat radio data link, controlled by the Nexus 1 Android telephone. The user is able to send control messages from the ground to the space vehicle from an Android application.

Their CSR-SDR (CubeSatellite Software Defined Radio) (pdf) successfully flew into space on 5/4/2010 from Space Port America in New Mexico on an Up AeroSpace Spaceloft XL.

The University of Surrey has developed STRaND-1, an Android-powered nanosatellite that will be launched into orbit in early 2012. Surrey Satellite has built and launched 34 tiny satellites given that becoming founded in 1981.

With LTE-Advanced supporting affordable radio relays and Software program Defined Radio, the possibilities for tiny satellite swarms to do helpful work seem to be multiplying. Acquiring to space (inexpensively) is the difficult portion.

At the Oregon International Airshow this weekend I chatted with Dr. Doug Donkel of Premier Space Systems whose Nanolaunch Project hopes to make launching nanosats like Cubesat a lot less expensive and more responsive.

They work with Portland State Aerospace Society to integrate the control systems, electrical components, telemetry and camera systems.

Spath Engineering certifies the rocket motor by way of static testing, engineers the aircraft-rocket interface, and launch control technique.

Space Engineering Group – SPG, supplies the rocket motor and oversees the rocket operation. SPG is 1 of the world’s leaders in hybrid rocket propulsion field and has created a distinctive high overall performance hybrid rocket technology. The non-toxic, effortlessly handled fuel is produced from a substance similar to what is utilized in common candles – paraffine.

A Mig-21 jet takes the rocket and its payload into near space. It’s a far less costly way to go than one thing like Orbital Sciences Pegasus, slung under a Lockheed L-1011.

In other news, Seven medium to little satellites from four continents were launched into orbit Wednesday on best of a Dnepr rocket. Two spacecraft manufactured by Surrey Satellite for Nigeria were successfully contacted right after the launch by way of ground stations in Nigeria and the United Kingdom, according to SSTL. NigeriaSat 2 weighed roughly 600 pounds at launch, and will give high resolution maps of Nigerian territory.

The University of Rome’s EduSat microsatellite and two U.S.-built AprizeSat asset tracking satellites, each weighing about 25 pounds, also rode the Dnepr launcher into space Wednesday. ExactEarth will take ownership of the two AprizeSat spacecraft following profitable completion of in-orbit testing (pdf).

Space-based AIS is becoming a extremely competitive marketplace, with Orbcomm and Com Dev of Canada, via its exactEarth subsidiary, racing to put AIS capacity in orbit.

ORBCOMM was the 1st commercial satellite network with Automatic Identification Method, a shipboard system that transmits a vessel’s identification, position and heading. ORBCOMM utilizes their own low-Earth-orbit satellites to provide tracking, monitoring and messaging capabilities. With the failure of all six Fast Launch satellites, nevertheless, Orbcomm will not be able to resume AIS service until the next-generation satellites launch.

Orbcomm-1 satellites make up most of the existing Orbcomm constellation of about 35 minisatellites. Their next generation will incorporate AIS radios.

ExactEarth claims to be the world’s leading Satellite-based vessel monitoring service. They successfully launched two advanced AIS satellites this week to extend its exactAIS constellation and increase capacity of its global vessel monitoring service. Their COM DEV core technologies is said to enable ExactEarth to filter out all but a very particular VHF portion of the signals devoted to AIS. To attain global AIS coverage with a latency of about 10 minutes about 30 satellites are needed.

COM DEV has calculated that only 3 satellites are required to supply a six hour “revisit time”. According to CEO John Keating, “If you put 3 satellites in polar orbits that takes 100 minutes to total, 120 degrees apart from 1 one more, then [due to the earth’s rotation] you can see any point on earth within six hours – you may possibly be over the poles when each and every 30 minutes, but you are everywhere over the equator as soon as every six hours.”

ExactEarth AIS satellites pass over Norway’s Svalbard Earth Station each 90 to 100 minutes. AIS tracks vessel movements in near actual-time and updates each two minutes or so when near shore stations.

The International Space Station (ISS) represents an ideal platform for testing AIS receivers due to its orbit: its 400 km altitude is low sufficient to give a high probability of ship detection and it also passes across a lot of of the globe’s most densely populated shipping lanes. A tiny, polar-orbiting satellite, by contrast, can see all of the earth.

Norway’s NORAIS and Luxembourg’s LUXAIS have been utilised on the ISS. They had been connected to an AIS antenna constructed by the ARISS (Amateur Radio on the International Space Station) community.

Related DailyWireless stories incorporate Orbcomm’s Space-based AIS Fails, Shipboard AIS Fused with Radar, Arctic Technologies, Amazon Cloud for Ocean Observatories, Tracking Roz, the Ocean Rower, Darkness for New Dawn Satellite? , Lightsquared Unfurled, Satellite with 328 ft Antenna to Launch , Geosync Spies, F.I.A. FUBAR, Advanced EHF – Wait for It, AEHF Satellite – Billion Dollar Brick?, U.S. Antisatellite Weapon to be Tested, Nuclear Powered Spacecraft, Zombie Satellite Out of Control, Satellites Collide

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Android Apps: Longer Tail

Chitika estimates that Verizon carries about 23.9 percent of American iPhones, leaving AT&T with 76.1 percent.

Verizon’s share of iPhone site visitors continues to increase, with Verizon’s iPhone gaining industry share at the expense of Android devices, notes the industry researcher.

Nielsen has located that the best-10 apps in the Android Industry account for a whopping 43% of app usage on Android devices.

The best-50 apps in the Marketplace account for 61% of all usage, which indicates the overwhelming bulk of Android apps account for just 39% of app usage

“With 250,000+ Android apps available at the time of this writing, that indicates the remaining 249,950+ apps have to compete for the remaining 39 percent of the pie,” writes Don Kellogg, Director of Telecom Investigation & Insights, on Nielsen’s blog. “Despite the hundreds of thousands of apps obtainable for Android, a quite modest proportion of apps make up the vast majority of time spent,” writes Kellogg.

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Google Maps: Weather & Amazon RiverView

Google’s Street View is headed down the Amazon to capture images of the river, surrounding forests and adjacent river communities. Here’s a Google Maps preview.

In partnership with the Foundation for a Sustainable Amazon, they’ll pedal the Street View trike along the narrow dirt paths of the Amazon villages and maneuver it up close to where civilization meets the rainforest.

Google will mount the trike onto a boat to take photographs as it floats down the river. The tripod — which is the identical program they use to capture imagery of organization interiors — will also be utilised to give you a sense of what it is like to live and work in locations such as an Amazonian community center and school, says the company.

In other Google Maps news, you can now get neighborhood weather simply by clicking on the layer in Google Maps. To add the weather layer, hover over the widget in the upper appropriate corner of Google Maps and pick the weather layer from the list of choices.

Above is a video shot with an HTC Desire HD utilizing LapseIt, a time lapse application obtainable on the Android Market. Time-Lapse – Lite also continuously shoots pictures and assembles them together as a .mov video file that could be uploaded to YouTube or played back in VLC Media Player.

TimeLapse Apps for the iPhone also allow you to program your iPhone to take a photo each X seconds or hours and to take X number of photos prior to it stops. An iPhone app by Yuval Frndzel, and 1 by Manfred Nerurkar, for example, are $ 1.99 apiece.

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Clearwire Buyout Rumored

Sprint, the third-largest U.S. wireless operator, is discussing an investment in Clearwire with cable businesses like Comcast, reports Bloomberg. Under 1 scenario getting discussed, Sprint would use the cash to obtain the equity in Clearwire it does not own. Talks are preliminary and no deal is imminent, reports Bloomberg.

Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House Networks are already investors in Clearwire. They, along with Sprint, may possibly assist fund the money-losing Kirkland, Washington-based firm so it can develop out its high-speed wireless network.

Although Comcast and Time Warner already resell Clearwire’s WiMax, a Sprint wholesale agreement could enable cable companies make use of TD-LTE. Currently, if cable subscribers also want wireless voice service, they should use a various spectrum segment, for example Sprint’s 3G CDMA band. In the future, Voice over LTE could integrate both services into 1 10-20 MHz band.

Clearwire plans to invest about $ 600 million to upgrade its network to so-known as long-term evolution, or LTE, technology.

The size and timing of the investment in Sprint haven’t yet been determined, Bloomberg reports. The discussions involve various scenarios, such as a Clearwire buyout or an investment in the firm by means of Sprint, the people said. Cox Communications and Cablevision Systems have also been in discussions with Sprint, two of the people mentioned.

Sprint has not but announced official support for TD-LTE, but the organization is widely expected to make an official announcement in early October.

Related Dailywireless articles consist of Clearwire Chooses LTE Advanced, Sprint: New Investment in Clearwire?, Google & Motorola: A Wireless Cable Play? , Spectrum Drama: Created for Tv, LTE Spectrum: It is War, German 4G Auction: It is Carried out, Auctions Winding Down in Germany & India, Germany 4G Auctions Start, Europe to Follow, EU: Global LTE Roaming at 1.8 GHz, T-Mobile Makes Its (4G) Move, Finish Near for Indian WiMAX?, WiMAX & LTE: Policy Vs Pragmatism, India’s Broadband Auction: It’s Done, TD-LTE Gains Momentum, WiMAX Forum: Not Dead Yet, Yota Dumps WiMAX, UK Getting LTE, WiMAX to TD-LTE: Everybody’s Doin’ It, Speculation on Sprint Infrastructure, Sprint’s LTE Advantage, LTE-Advanced Tested in Korea, ITU: The “Official” 4G Standard Approved, IEEE Submits 802.16m to ITU for 4G, LTE-Advanced Submitted to ITU

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HP Kills TouchPad, Buys Autonomy

Hewlett-Packard, the world’s largest pc maker, nowadays announced it is in talks to obtain Autonomy, a enterprise software program maker, for about $ 10 billion and plans to spin off its personal-pc business, reports Bloomberg.

Hewlett-Packard will discontinue its line of merchandise running its WebOS operating program, which includes TouchPad tablets, the organization said right now.

The company is contemplating paying a premium – some $ 10 billion – for Autonomy, folks familiar with the matter said earlier. Autonomy’s primary technologies, ‘Intelligent Data Operating Layer‘ (IDOL), allows search and processing of text taken from database, audio, video or text files or streams.

HP mentioned that it will take a hit to fiscal 2011 earnings of $ 1.16 a share to $ 1.23 a share as it restructures and shuts down WebOS devices and related operations.

There were signs that TouchPad sales had been bleak, but a complete shutdown of WebOS operations was unexpected, notes C/Net.

According to research firm Canalys, Apple is now the globe’s no. three PC manufacturer (if you count the iPad), trailing behind mainstays HP and Acer. Apple is a lot more a wireless devices maker than a laptop or computer maker, nonetheless.

iSuppli, which tracks worldwide PC shipping, reports HP is still king of the hill, but Dell has practically slipped down to number 3, behind Acer. Global PC shipments grew a relatively weak 14.2 percent in 2010.

Soon after a rocky $ 25 billion merger with Compaq in 2002, HP had grown to dominate global PC sales, and bought Palm and WebOS for $ 1.2 billion to grow the mobile marketplace.

It by no means took off. Palm and WebOS couldn’t make a dent in the established players Apple/iOS, Google/Android, Nokia/Microsoft or Blackberry/RIM.

Morgan Stanley analyst Mary Meeker famously predicted a shift to mobile (above) will happen in 2012. Laptops began outselling PCs in 2009, but subsequent year potent smartphones are expected to outsell desktops and laptops combined.

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Visitors Reporter

Here’s an inside look at WTOP’s traffic reporting nerve center, in Washington DC. 3 reporters sit in a space the size of a walk-in closet feverishly fielding calls, listening to scanners and giving on-air reports every single 10 minutes.

Earlier this year, WTOP set up its own Site visitors Center in-studio. In the past, WTOP contracted with outside visitors sources even though utilizing one in-residence traffic reporter, Bob Marbourg. Now there are 20 full- and portion-time staff who work out of the Site visitors Center or in two mobile units.

GPS devices are now the traffic department’s greatest competitor, but these tools nonetheless can not compete with actual-time information the on-air reports provide. Even as technology advances, visitors reporting nonetheless calls for somebody to interpret the data and deliver the info most beneficial to the driver in that specific moment, Marbourg mentioned.

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Site visitors Reporter

Here’s an inside look at WTOP’s visitors reporting nerve center, in Washington DC. Three reporters sit in a space the size of a walk-in closet feverishly fielding calls, listening to scanners and giving on-air reports each and every 10 minutes.

Earlier this year, WTOP set up its own Visitors Center in-studio. In the past, WTOP contracted with outside targeted traffic sources although using 1 in-residence visitors reporter, Bob Marbourg. Now there are 20 full- and part-time staff who work out of the Site visitors Center or in two mobile units.

GPS devices are now the visitors department’s biggest competitor, but these tools still can’t compete with actual-time info the on-air reports supply. Even as technologies advances, visitors reporting nonetheless needs somebody to interpret the data and deliver the details most useful to the driver in that certain moment, Marbourg stated.

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Kindle Cloud Reader: Ready for Kindle 4?

Amazon right now officially launched its Kindle Cloud Reader, a web app that lets individuals browse their Kindle books on the iPad and other devices — and make Amazon purchases from inside the app. Amazon’s Cloud Reader lets you read your Kindle books, immediately, on Amazon’s cloud. It support the Chrome browser on Mac/PC/Linux/Chromebook, Safari on Mac/PC and iPad. Support for further browsers is coming soon, says Amazon.

TechCrunch explains it’s a internet-based version of their Kindle eBook reader app (above). It enables you to read your books from the cloud or to download your books for offline reading thanks to the magic of HTML-five.

Capabilities of Kindle Cloud Reader incorporate:

  • Instant access to all of your books
  • Begin reading over 950,000 Kindle books instantly inside your browser
  • An embedded Kindle Store optimized for your web browser makes it seamless to discover new books and commence reading them instantly
  • New Kindle Store for iPad is built from the ground up for iPad’s touch interface
  • Your present book is automatically created available for offline use, and you can select to save a book for reading offline at any time
  • Obtain automatic software updates without having the require to download new computer software
  • Pick any book to start reading, customize the page layout to your desired font size, text color, background color, and far more
  • View all of the notes, highlights, and bookmarks that you’ve produced on other Kindle apps or on Kindle
  • Sync your final page read across your Kindle and no cost Kindle apps so you can usually choose up where you left off

The success of the $ 250 Color Nook has stimulated speculation of the expected color Kindle that would most likely use Amazon’s Android App Store, Amazon’s Music Cloud service and Amazon’s Instant Video Download store. The new EPUB-three spec for ebooks supports HTML-5 with embedded audio and video.

Downloading audio and video directly to a Color Kindle reader is the problem. The Kindle’s built-in 3G connection from AT&T was only designed for text-based ebooks — not web surfing. That implies a Color Kindle ought to use WiFi or subscribe to a monthly information service. Downloading a movie on a Kindle would call for some flavor of 𔄜G”.

Here are some other speculations:

  • A 7″ and 10″ versions are rumored, with the 10″ supporting HD video
  • At $ 199 for a 7″ color model it would be a loss leader, but could make it back on content.
  • May have Kindle-like keyboard and page turning buttons.
  • Evolving support for E-Pub3 for multimedia ebooks.
  • Packaged information plans from numerous carriers.
  • Streaming Netflix-like video would also be available through landline/WiFi connections.
  • Packaged with Newspaper and Magazine subscriptions (and color display ads).

Samsung’s Celox has an interesting set of functions. The Android 2.3 telephone has a four.5-inch Super AMOLED display with 800𴦸 screen resolution, a 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon APQ8060 chipset and runs on TD-LTE in the 2.6 GHz band. Takes a assortment of USB peripherals. A lower-end color Kindle may possibly use 3G connectivity with WiFi. The cloud has the content. WiFi supplies the link.

If multi-media books and magazines are the future, Amazon is ready to go.

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Sprint: New Investment in Clearwire?

Members of Sprint Nextel’s board expect the carrier to make a “substantial” new investment in Clearwire, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, reports Fierce Wireless

The report cautioned that no final decision on funding Clearwire has been created. One source told the Journal that the precise size and timing of the investment will depend on how rapidly Clearwire can restructure its operations. The funding would support Clearwire into 2013. Sprint is expected to detail far more of its 4G technique at an investor meeting Oct. 7.

Sprint, which owns about half of Clearwire, is paying Clearwire $ 1 billion through the finish of 2012 for use of their spectrum.

Clearwire’s announcement of LTE-Advanced indicated the firm would apparently use the identical 30 MHz of spectrum it presently uses for WiMAX – just partioned differently. Rather of using distinct 10 MHz frequencies on each and every sector, the new program would reuse the exact same frequency on all sectors. One 10 Mhz chunk would be dedicated for WiMAX and a 20 MHz chunk would dedicated for LTE-Advanced. All 3 sectors would share those frequencies.

Sprint-Nextel might soon supply wholesale LTE service to other operators using Clearwire’s LTE-Advanced spectrum. Sprint plans to support Mobile Virtual Network Operators. MVNOs offers mobile phone services but do not have their own spectrum.

MVNOs owned by Sprint incorporate Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile USA. TracPhone, a subsidiary of América Móvil is the largest virtual operator. Virtual operators also contain telematics companies like OnStar and KORE Telematics. Smaller cellular operators like Leap Wireless, MetroPCS and US Cellular also need to have 4G spectrum.

Sprint’s got it.

LightSquared claims five buyers may possibly use their terrestrial LTE capacity, which includes Leap Wireless, Cellular South, SI Wireless and Open Range Communications. Truly? They’re going to have to deliver service first.

New mobilized entrants may possibly be searching for wholesale LTE spectrum to deliver a package of services. They could consist of Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Time Inc, USA Today, Fox, as properly as telecom companies like Lightsquared and Dish Networks. Cable operators like Comcast and Time Warner Cable could provide both voice and data on two.6 GHz spectrum.

Even if Dish Networks partners with Verizon for 40MHz in the two GHz band, Sprint would effortlessly have double Verizon’s LTE bandwidth and the very same goes for AT&T.

According to info inadvertently released in an FCC document, AT&T plans to upgrade 44,000 nodes to LTE over the subsequent two years, including 8,000 nodes this year, 16,000 nodes next year and 20,000 nodes in 2013. Expanding its LTE network into areas left out of its prior strategy will involve 18,000 cell web sites. AT&T’s 1st LTE plan covered just 80 percent of the U.S. population, but the business says it will expand the network to 97 percent of Americans if the T-Mobile deal is approved.

In other words, it would price AT&T $ three.8 billion to develop an LTE network covering 97 percent of Americans, but $ 39 billion to acquire T-Mobile in order to achieve basically the very same objective.

Related Dailywireless articles consist of Spectrum Drama: Produced for Television, Clearwire Chooses LTE Advanced, Lightsquared Files Official FCC Report, Lightsquared: Plan “B”, LTE Spectrum: It’s War, German 4G Auction: It’s Accomplished, Auctions Winding Down in Germany & India, Germany 4G Auctions Start, Europe to Follow, EU: Global LTE Roaming at 1.8 GHz, T-Mobile Makes Its (4G) Move, Finish Near for Indian WiMAX?, WiMAX & LTE: Policy Vs Pragmatism, India’s Broadband Auction: It’s Completed, TD-LTE Gains Momentum, WiMAX Forum: Not Dead However, Yota Dumps WiMAX, UK Obtaining LTE, WiMAX to TD-LTE: Everybody’s Doin’ It, Speculation on Sprint Infrastructure, Sprint’s LTE Advantage, LTE-Advanced Tested in Korea, ITU: The “Official” 4G Standard Approved, IEEE Submits 802.16m to ITU for 4G, LTE-Advanced Submitted to ITU

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Social Media Under Attack

The UK government is considering cutting off social networks and messaging services such as Twitter and BlackBerry Messenger at times of social unrest.

Prime Minister David Cameron said in a statement.

“Everyone watching these horrific actions will be stuck by how they were organized via social media. When people are using social media for violence we need to stop them. So we are working with the police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality.”


More than 1300 people have been arrested since rioting broke out in London on August 6, which has forced many UK courts to work 24 hours.

BlackBerry Messenger on BlackBerry phones, along with Twitter and Facebook, are said to have been widely used by the rioters to organize themselves. BlackBerry Messenger also offers some protection by scrambling communications in transit, and sometimes also allows users to encrypt communications.

The BlackBerry Messenger is a popular instant messaging tool for rioters. While Twitter is very much a public platform, BBM can be used to communicate between groups in private. It’s free to use (unlike text messages) and you can instantly see when someone has read a message.

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion already said earlier this week that it is cooperating with UK officials to access data related to the riots. Hacker group TeaMp0isoN (Team Poison) did not approve of RIM’s cooperation and hacked the BlackBerry official blog, threatening to access and release information from RIM’s employee database should the company help police identify rioters.

Twitter too has come in for criticism for its role in the riots, even though it was used to many positive ends too. For example, a Bristol-based cyclist took it upon himself to cover the riots in his city, tweeting only “unbiased and verified information” about looting and violence. And it was used to organize clean-ups across London too.

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White Space War

WiFi, in ten years, has rapidly become a world-wide, mass-market phenomena. The reason is simple — it’s free. No monthly subscriptions. The future of free WiFi may be at risk, however, with cellular operators teaming up with governments to kill the next big thing in WiFi — White Spaces — using unused TV channels.

One billion Wi-Fi units are expected to ship this year, according to ABI Research. Mobile phones, TVs, tablets and gaming devices now account for more than half of all certifications. The Dell’Oro Group forecasts the worldwide WLAN market will grow from 5 billion last year to $ 9 billion by 2014.

Wi-Fi has become a necessity. Unlicensed hotspots can be purchased and used anywhere. In Stat says:

  • TVs with Wi-Fi are expected to jump from less than 5 million to around 65 million in 2014.
  • Wi-Fi-enabled Blu-ray players will be in 61 million units by 2014.
  • Tablets are set to rise to 242 million units in 2015, up by a factor of 12 from 2010
  • Cisco, Aruba, and Motorola will benefit from a $ 1.3 Billion Healthcare Wi-Fi Market by 2016, says ABI Research.
  • Overall, shipments of all Wi-Fi-enabled appliances and devices could soar past 3.5 billion by 2014.

But WiFi (FAQ) was perceived by the FCC to have no economic value. The 2.4 GHz spectrum is shared by microwave ovens, so the FCC made the spectrum “unlicensed”. Free.

Today IEEE 802.11 standards consists of 802.11a (5 GHz), 802.11b (2.4GHz), 802.11g (54Mbps), IEEE 802.11n (MIMO) 802.11ac (Very High Throughput/5GHz), IEEE 802.11ad (Very High Throughput 5GHz/60 GHz) and 802.11af (White-Fi) in unused television frequencies.

White space gear now comes in two flavors; 802.11af (a simpler protocol) and 802.22 (with cognitive radio and database interrogation).

The FCC ruling that opened up white space spectrum has become a concern for multinational cellular operators. White spaces can penetrate walls. It could provide cheap broadband access. Unlicensed WiFi on steroids.

Engineers have created cost/effective – unlicensed – solutions to deliver broadband wireless to whole countries. In consists of using 802.11af or 802.22 in unused television channels and 802.11y or 802.16h in 50 MHz of the “lightly licensed” 3650 Mhz band.

The 802.11y wireless standard utilizes WiFi-like standards to operate in the mostly vacant 3650 to 3700 MHz band. It allows for increased range using higher power than via traditional Wi-Fi equipment — up to 3 miles or more. The final 802.16h IEEE standard defines a similar set of cognitive radio capabilities based on the IEEE Wimax standard.

Google, Microsoft and other content delivery networks support white spaces.

Cellular carriers are out to kill free white spaces. Their plan is simple:

  • Auction unused television frequencies to carriers
  • Use those proceeds to build 700 MHz networks for police.

Eliminating “white space” broadband access would be criminal. WiFi has become a $ 5-$ 10 billion dollar business. A government licensed duopoly, primarily interested in money and power, IS the problem. Free broadband enables local newspapers and magazines to thrive – with advertising.

I humbly offer this pragmatic solution:

  • Give cops the 700MHz “D Block” – but share it with city government.
  • Move narrowband voice out of the 700 MHz public service band.
  • Guarantee half the unused TV channels are available for “free” public white spaces.
  • Auction off the rest of the unused TV channels to pay off the national debt.
  • Dedicate the orphaned 2150-2180 MHz band for municipal broadband wireless.
  • Make 1Mbps broadband a right for every citizen.

Taxpayers currently subsidize the Universal Service Fund to the tune of $ 8.7 billion. Let’s save that money.

Everyone’s happy!

Related DailyWireless stories include; White Spaces Get IEEE Standard, Microsoft: Shared Spectrum Analyzers for White Space, White Space: Now With TD-LTE?, FCC Chooses White Space Administrators, FCC Okays White Spaces , Hospital Tests White Spaces, FCC to Decide on White Spaces, White Spaces Tested in Wilmington NC , First White Space Trial for “Smart Grid”, White Spaces Trialed in North Carolina, White Spaces Heating Up, FCC Moves Forward with White Space Databases,

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