Wireless Blog

Intel is rolling out its next generation laptop platform on Monday. Previously codenamed Montevina, Intel says the new Centrino 2 platform, provides faster performance with longer battery life by using the Penryn 45nm Core 2 Duo processor with a variety of support chips.

The 45nm Penryn processor, teamed with Intel’s Mobile 4 Express chipset (formerly codenamed Cantiga), Intel’s GMA X4500 integrated graphics chip and a wireless module with both WiFi and WiMax. Intel expects it will be inside mainstream laptop vendors like HP, Sony, Toshiba and others.

The launch was originally slated for June at the Computex show in Taipei, but there were a couple of problems, notably with the new graphics module. Machines using the GMA X4500 integrated graphics chip and the Mobile WiMAX chipset may be delayed still further, say some industry observers.

Penryn-based processors boast a 1066MHz front-side bus, and are lumped into “Performance” and “Small Form Factor” segments, with a power draw between 35 watts and 5.5 Watts (on the single-core U3300). Three of several new processors run at 25 watts, versus the usual 35 watts while DDR-3 memory supplies faster, more power efficient memory access.

This is the first Centrino platform with built-in support for WiMAX. In the lid are 3 antennas enabling MIMO support for both WiFi (802.11n) and Mobile WiMAX (802.16e). The Montevina platform offers a WiFi/WiMAX Link 5150/5350 mini-PCIe adapter (code-named Echo Peak), the Intel WiFi Link 5100/5300 mini-PCIe adapter (code-named Shiloh) or an add-on card WiMAX (802.16) (code-named Dana Point).

According to Wikipedia, the code-name Montevina refers to the fifth-generation Centrino platform, now formally named Centrino 2 to avoid confusion with previous Centrino platforms. It was scheduled for release at Computex Taipei 2008, which took place on June 3 - 7, 2008, but was delayed until July 14, due to problems with integrated graphics and wireless certification. Montevina will support Penryn, Intel’s 45nm die-shrink version of Core 2 processors.

The Montevina platform is branded as “Centrino 2 vPro” when combined with security and manageability features built-in technologies.

Today Verizon Wireless announced the new LG Chocolate 3 music-centric phone. The Chocolate 3 is unlike previous Chocolates, which were sliders.

In this undated surveillance photo provided by TracFone Wireless, a man is seen checking cheap cell phones.

Charles Avenue Henderson claims to want nothing more than to relax in rural West Virginia with his beloved wife Mary Jane and live the genteel life of a successful bed-and-breakfast proprietor.
– Purple Dots

Gizmodo says San Francisco will convert 6,000 of their 24,000 metered parking spaces into “smart” spots in a $23 million program called SFPark.

A San Francisco-based company called Streetline provides a “congestion management system,” which includes parking sensors and wireless networked meters. The sensors, using magnetics, create a unique parking signature for each vehicle, which can determine, based on variations in parking angles and size of vehicles, when a parking space is filled. That information is then sent to nearby electronic parking meters and then to the web, gps systems or cell phones. It also allows drivers to find open spots and pay electronically.

The city will adjust hourly parking rates based on demand - the price will go up when spaces are scarce and go down when plenty are available.

A 2006 congestion study undertaken by Partnership for New York, a nonprofit organization comprising 200 of the city’s top CEOs, reported that traffic congestion costs New York City $13 billion in lost revenue and 50, 000 jobs annually.

SF officials hope to start the test program in September and operate it for at least a year.

Alaska Communications Systems (ACS) has begun cable-laying operations to link Anchorage with Florence, Ore., providing an eight-fold boost to the bandwidth, according to the company. The project, dubbed AKORN, short for Alaska Oregon Network (10K), is meant to meet the demand for bandwidth by large-capacity users including government, the military, banks and corporations.

The system will have an ultimate capacity to transmit 64, 10 Gigabit wavelengths on each of the 4 fiber pairs for a total potential bandwidth of nearly 2.6 Terabits. It provides significant advancements over the existing links from Alaska to the Lower 48 which have just 2 or 3 fibers, and a much lower design capacity.

Competitor GCI’s Alaska United West fiber-optic line links Seward, AK, to Warrenton, Oregon while their Southeast fiber line runs 754 miles of cable connecting Ketchikan Alaska to Seattle.

The cable ship Tyco Resolute, owned by Tyco Communications, will lay the 3,000 miles of cable between Kachemak Bay by Homer Alaska and Florence, Oregon. It will pick up the end of the cable in Kachemak Bay, then splice it to the cable stored on board. It’s a delicate and time-consuming operation done in a “clean room” inside the ship.

The ship will then begin go south across the Gulf of Alaska, buried beneath the ocean floor. A splitter in the new cable will also allow a future connection to Southeast Alaska and Juneau.

AKORN is part of a $175 million investment by ACS.

WCI’s Northstar cable, built earlier, also has a branch to Juneau, Alaska, with a design capacity of 15 Gbps (upgradeable to 200 Gbps with current generation terminal equipment), and had points of interconnection to international networks in Hillsboro and Portland.

Despite $300 million in funding from its founding in 1996, WCI Cable declared bankruptcy in 2001. Carlyle Venture Partners purchased WCI’s stock from bankruptcy in July 2002 for $47.9 million.

In April of 2008, ACS announced its intent to purchase Crest Communications, now the owner and operator of Northstar. The purchase will then give ACS control of two of the four cables currently connecting Alaska to the Lower 48.

The earlier Northstar system includes an undersea fiber system of approximately 1,900 miles with cable landing facilities in Whittier, Juneau, and Valdez, Alaska, and Nedonna Beach, Oregon, providing redundancy to their new Florence, Oregon landing site. The Northstar system also includes terrestrial fiber linking Nedonna Beach, Oregon to their Network Operations Control Center in Hillsboro, Oregon and collocation facilities in Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington.

The Oregon Coast Telecommunications Economic Development Strategy (pdf) partly relies on transpacific fiber.

In an interview with ZD Net, Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, the NSA’s director, laughed when asked whether the NSA had tapped undersea cables. “I’m not going to sit here and dissuade you from your views,” he said. But he suggested that access isn’t the problem. Rather, he said, the sheer volume and variety of today’s communications means “there’s simply too much out there, and it’s too hard to understand.”

Veterans of the undersea fiber-optic cable business say an undersea tap would strain the limits of technology, and cable operators aren’t happy that the NSA may have pulled one off. “We don’t believe this is possible, but assuming it was, there’s no way we want someone trying to get into our cables,” says Frank Denniston, chief technical officer for London-based Flag Telecom.

By the end of 2007, 25 oceanic fiber contracts totaling 112,000 route-kilometers were awarded.

Both of Portland’s cable ships, the Tyco Durable and Global Sentinel, are expected to have plenty of work throughout the Pacific as the telecom industry rebounds. Here are Research Ship Schedules.

Related DailyWireless articles include; Ships Impounded for Cable Cutting, AT&T: More Transpacific Cable, Verizon’s TransPacific Express, Google: Now it’s Transpacific Fiber, Google + SingTel = Unity Submarine Fiber, Fifth Submarine Cable Damaged, Forth Submarine Cable Damaged, Mediterranean Submarine Cables Cut and Fiber Crosses the Pond.

It's hard to think of any other device that's enjoyed the level of exposure and hype that Apple found in the launch of the first iPhone.

This summer, Captain “Fatty” Goodlander, who is editor-at-large of Cruising World magazine, is sending regular dispatches from his boat to NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday as he explores Southeast Asia (listen).

“Sailing to me isn’t just about boats and it isn’t about the destination,” Goodlander says. “It’s about freedom, it’s about passion, it’s about lust, it’s about life.”

He and his wife work together to captain the boat, taking turns keeping watch when the other is working or sleeping. The couple is constantly aware of their surroundings, he says. “Freedom is my drug,” he says. “Freedom is my God, and I mainline this drug. I want to be the man most capable of doing things on a whim.”

To locate Wild Card’s current position, enter Fatty’s ham call sign of W2FAT.

Kyocera has announced an updated wireless USB modem offering iBurst connectivity.

One of the nation's largest correctional institutions is spending $3.3 million to install an RFID inmate tracking system to track and monitor over 2,000 of its inmates - making it the largest installation of ...

A majority of federal employees use wireless technology to access the Internet for work, and they say it helps with productivity and continuity of operations, according to a study funded by Sprint.