Mumbai, August 1: The Maharasthra Anti-Terrorist Squad has found that many visitors to the upmarket residential complex in Navi Mumbai, from where the Ahmedabad blasts e-mail was sent, had regularly given fake ...
A unit of ERF Wireless Inc. said Tuesday it has signed a multiyear deal to supply wireless Internet services to a pair of its rural bank clients.
AT&T is considering expanding its WiMax footprint as the rising cost of copper starts to make DSL deployments prohibitively expensive in rural areas of the U.S., reports Unstrung.
The carrier’s CTO, John Donovan, tells USA Today that WiMax is “at the top of the list” as an alternative technology to copper for the operator. He added that the carrier is also considering cellular femtocells — tiny base stations that extend the speed and coverage of wireless signals in the home — as the way to get cheaper broadband faster to country folk.Unstrung exclusively reported in September that AT&T could deploy fixed WiMax in some Southern states as early as this year. (See AT&T WiMax Heading South) The operator acquired 2.3 GHz spectrum that would be suitable for WiMax deployments when it bought BellSouth. AT&T presently holds 22, 2.3 GHz licenses in the South.
AT&T already has a limited deployment of WiMax technology in Alaska. The operator is using 2.3 GHz equipment from Alvarion for those networks. The operator is also said to be looking at extending the WiMax specification for improved video performance.
Spectrum will also be an issue for AT&T if it wants to deploy outside the South. The 22, 2.3 Ghz licenses that it holds come from the BellSouth merger and only cover some of the Southern markets.
Robert Scoble interviewed CTO, John Donovan, live, using his own 3G network.
Emerging markets, short on broadband offerings, accounted for more than 60% of WiMAX subscribers globally in 2007 says Pyramid Research in it’s latest report. They expect emerging markets will account for most WiMAX subscribers, through 2012. Research and Markets expects an explosion of WiMAX in the next few years.
Satellite communications company TerreStar has signed a nationwide reciprocal roaming agreement with AT&T Wireless. It will allow the satellite phone company to allow roaming with it’s handheld devices. Financial terms and duration of the agreement were not disclosed.
TerreStar is developing a geosynchrounous satellite phone system with terrestrial repeaters. The company plans to target its service at commercial, government, rural and public-safety users in North America. TerreStar is developing bridging technology to provide interoperability across legacy Land Mobile Radio (LMR) systems and cellular, satellite and land-based communications.
TerreStar will operate in two 10-Mhz blocks of contiguous spectrum in the 2 GHz band throughout the United States and Canada. TerreStar Networks shares the 2.2 GHz (MSS) band with ICO. ICO launched its huge spotbeam platform, ICO G1 this March.
TerreStar now plans to launch its TerreStar-1 satellite in the second quarter of next year. Earlier the company had planned on a Dec. 2008 to Feb. 2009 launch.
Both ICO and TerreStar have 20 MHz each in the MSS band (2.0/2.1 GHz). They’ll deliver spotbeam satphone services from geosynchronous space, but will suppliment the space connection with terrestrial repeaters which allow small, inexpensive handsets to be used.
TerreStar received $300 million in financing earlier this year to help the company deploy its mobile hybrid satellite service. TerraStar was also named in a lawsuit filed last month by Sprint Nextel for not paying relocation costs associated with the ongoing 800 MHz rebanding efforts.
ICO plans to deliver 10-15 channels of premium live TV content for 7–15 inch screens in the United States. The service is expected to start later this year.
Meanwhile, Toshiba said it will shut down its four-year-old, satellite-based digital multimedia broadcasting service, which it offers via its Mobile Broadcasting Corporation business unit.
The MBSAT from Mobile Broadcasting Corporation is a three-axis attitude stabilized geostationary satellite designed and manufactured by Space Systems / Loral, based on the SS/L 1300 bus and featured a 12m-aperture (40 foot) S band high gain antenna.
The company said the service has failed to attract sufficient customers in the face of demand for free mobile broadcasting services that are targeting mobile handsets. Toshiba said it will dissolve the company and end services by March of next year. It is expected to cost Toshiba about $232 million. The company launched the service in Oct. 2004. In 2005, South Korea began a similar mobile TV beginning satellite DMB (S-DMB) and terrestrial DMB (T-DMB) service on May 1 and December 1, respectively.
US : Wireless broadband services will create significant opportunities for revenue growth, and cellular technologies will take the largest share, according to the latest report from Analysys Mason, the premier ...
Wired says cable television got its start 59 years ago, today
On August 1, 1949, a secretary at the Federal Communications Commission sends a letter to cable pioneer Ed Parsons in Astoria, Oregon, asking him to explain his community-antenna television system. It’s the first-known FCC involvement in cable TV.
The FCC requested “full information with respect to the nature of the system you may have developed and may be operating.” Parsons complied, and an FCC attorney eventually concluded that CATV was a common carrier, subject to FCC jurisdiction. The commission, however, didn’t adopt his recommendation, and it would be 1965 before the FCC decided to regulate cable TV.
Parsons figure out a way to receive TV signals from Seattle 120 miles away to his home in Astoria, near the mouth of the Columbia River. He rigged a large antenna atop the Astoria Hotel and ran a coaxial cable across the street to his apartment. He got it working November 25. Problem solved.
The apartment was the only place in town that could pick up the signal from Seattle, and soon friends, neighbors and total strangers were crowding into the Parsons’ living room to watch the modern marvel.
Parsons was nearly driven out of house and home: “People would drive for hundreds of miles to see television. We had gotten considerable publicity …. And when people drove down from Portland or came from The Dalles or from Klamath Falls to see television, you couldn’t tell them no.”
He ran another cable from the hotel roof down to a TV set in the hotel lobby. So many people clogged the lobby that they got in the way of the hotel’s paying guests. Parsons began running cable to other people’s homes.
Problem solved, industry born.
The Cable Center credits Parsons with inventing cable TV, because his system, completed in February 1949, was the first in the United States to use “coaxial cable, amplifiers and a community antenna to deliver television signals to an area that otherwise would not have been able to receive broadcast television signals.” Nonetheless, the center notes that Jim Davidson beat Parsons to the punch with the first cable program: the Tennessee vs. Mississippi college football game on November 13, 1948.
The Cable Center has historical data and interviews with pioneers like Ed Parsons.
|
Ed invents cable, invites neighbors over
|
 Cable television has come a long way since Ed Parsons invented it on Thanksgiving Day, 1948. That’s when he gathered the family around a TV set in Astoria, Oregon and watched a Seattle broadcast using an antenna amplifier of his own design. It worked! Others wanted it too, so he began wiring people up and selling TV sets from his radio shop. The FCC, surprised that television could travel so far, issued a “UHF freeze” to avoid “interference” in other communities. A plaque on the Astoria Column commemorates his achievement. Parson’s wrapped up his career installing satellite terminals for the Alaska telecommunications system. |
Satellite pioneer Roy Bliss may have been the original “War Driver”:
“Billings, Montana, came on the air–one station–and Worland, the town where we were down in the Bighorn Basin in Wyoming, was about 125 airline miles from Billings, 165 miles by road. And so a friend of mine with some test equipment and a dipole antenna took off in my Cessna airplane to look for the Billings signal even though it was that far away and there were mountains in between. I had to climb up to 8,000 feet before we could even get a weak signal.
So we more or less gave it up. But he left the equipment on. They were drilling an oil well–a wildcat–west of town so I said, “Well, we’ll just go down by that oil well.” So we went down and we were buzzing along this ridge just about 25 feet off the ground and all at once he said, “I’ve got a signal.” (Laughter)
Brian Lamb explains how the satellite monopoly nearly killed cable television.
“…Tom Whitehead is almost single-handedly responsible, as an individual, for reversing the Federal Communications Commission policy that they were headed toward, of having a single entity [AT&T] control the satellite system. It became an open skies policy, and that’s why you have the flowering of all kinds of communications today…”
In 1972, Chuck Dolan and Gerry Levin of Sterling Manhattan Cable launched the nations first pay-TV-network with “The Thrilla from Manilla” on Home Box Office over two cable systems.
Bill Bresnan built a motorized camera to pan across a thermometer and other instruments for the first weather channel and trained a camera on a Teletype machine for the first all-news channel. A news junkie, Bresnan later helped Brian Lamb and Ted Turner get C-SPAN and CNN, respectively, off the ground.
Ted Turner beamed up WTCG on RCA’s Satcom F1 satellite on December, 1978. He launched Cable News Network on June 1st 1980 amid much snickering.
Ted Rogers and Phil Lind created what became the largest cable company in Canada and a major force in the cable industry in the US. Both were born and raised in Toronto.
The Netshare app by Nullriver is based on SOCKS -- an Internet protocol that enables client-server applications to transparently employ the services of a network firewall. Netshare essentially converts any iPhone into a portable Wi-Fi hotspot, with all Wi-Fi-enabled devices able to share a broadband Internet connection wherever a cellular signal is available.
"We're trying to get ahold of Apple right now," said Nullriver spokesperson Maksim Rogov in an e-mail. "Until we hear from Apple, it's hard to say what the real reason is, because if it was AT&T, well, AT&T is not the iPhone service provider outside the U.S."
Not On AT&T's List
Wireless carriers are understandably not happy about programs such as Netshare because they allow users to bypass their cellular networks and avoid data-access fees.
"The iPhone is not intended to be used as a tethering device and we have no plans to offer separate tethering plans for it," said AT&T spokesperson Wes Warnock. "We offer LaptopConnect cards that you can use to access our wireless data network. Those cards offer typical download speeds as high as 1.7 Mbps."
Warnock noted that AT&T wireless provides tethered access for a monthly fee on smartphones from LG, Motorola, Nokia, RIM, Samsung and others, but the iPhone is not on the carrier's list of supported devices. "For customers looking for a smartphone with tethering capability, we have many other options," Warnock said.
Developer Mystified
Some media outlets were quick to suggest that Nullriver had come under pressure when its Netshare product description was cleared from the Web site earlier today. But Nullriver says it is as mystified as everyone else as to why...
A proposed ban on in-flight calling has now passed its first major hurdle in Congress, getting approval from the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in a voice vote on Thursday.
The “Halting Airplane Noise to Give Us Peace” (HANG UP) bill would make permanent the current ban on in-flight cellphone use. It would also put a stop to all in-flight voice communications, which its co-sponsors hope will prevent airlines from charging some passengers to use their own phones.
The bill still has a long ways to go before it becomes law, but may have a decent chance of going all the way.
“I do believe this is important that we don’t make what is already a crowded and difficult environment for the traveling public and flight attendants” worse by allowing cell phone use in-flight, said Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., sponsor of the Halting Airplane Noise to Give Us Peace (HANG UP) Act.
But Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., said there are a lot of annoying things on airplanes, including children with dirty diapers and noisy MP3 players, but that doesn’t mean they should be banned.
Industry reaction is mixed for now. In-flight texting, Wi-Fi, and e-mail on airplanes would not be affected.
Google’s Public Policy Blog says a trial experiment in Ottawa, Canada is trying out the consumer-owned model for fiber on a downtown neighborhood of about 400 homes.
A specialized construction company is already rolling out fiber to every home, and it will recoup its investment from individual homeowners who will pay to own fiber strands outright, as well as to maintain the fiber over time. The fiber terminates at a service provider neutral facility, meaning that any ISP can pay a fee to put its networking equipment there and offer to provide users with Internet access. Notably, the project is entirely privately funded. (Although some schools and government departments are lined up to buy their own strands of fiber, just like homeowners.)The main challenges with this model are economic, rather than technical. Most importantly, ownership has to be made appealing and affordable to consumers.
The construction company is using conservative estimates that only 10% of homeowners will sign up and there will be a per-customer cost of $2700. If you assume 50% take-up, then the per-customer cost drops to $1100. Both figures might seem like a lot, but people pay for a variety of improvements to their home — like remodeled kitchens, or a deck — that also cost large sums.
This model faces other significant obstacles as well and it may only be possible in certain circumstances, if it’s practical at all. But the only way to really figure that out is to experiment. Cable television started out as CATV — community antenna television, an experiment by individual entrepreneurs and rural towns to deliver broadcast signals across longer distances. The Internet started as an experiment in the research community before becoming the worldwide network we know today.
Last night in Portland, 
The Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN), officials from the City of Portland and members of the Personal Telco Project, gathered to discuss the history, progress, and future of fiber in Portland.
Willamette Week newspaper overviewed the Portland Community Fiber Network Project which is now undergoing a request for information phase.
Brendan Finn, the chief of staff from Commissioner Dan Saltzman’s office and Mary Beth Henry from Portland’s cable and franchise office spoke about the city’s role in stimulating a fiber optic network that would be available for every citizen in the city of Portland.
“Until you have that [fiber] infrastructure, you’re not going to be competitive as a city,” said Brendan Finn. Mary Beth Henry overviewed The Institutional Network (I-Net) which was built in conjunction with the city’s cable tv franchise. The I-Net currently has fiber connectivity to over 270 public facilities and serves over 20 public agencies. It connects schools and city departments but is not available to the general public.
Henry also overviewed Portland’s Integrated Regional Network Enterprise (IRNE - pdf). Their agreement with Comcast provides an interconnection of this local network used for voice and data communications between city departments.
Portland is now creating a Request For Information. That will gauge the interest of private partners on their $500 million fiber plan. Portland hopes their fiber approach will gather supporters, both in the private and public sector, who see advantages in working together. They would share the infrastructure cost and compete with each other to deliver fiber to the home.
Ashland, Oregon built one of the first municipal fiber networks. Tacoma Washington’s Fiber network has been operational for years. Neither have been free of controversy. Seattle and San Francisco are now developing proposals for their own fiber networks.
Portland officials were told by Qwest that the phone company would not string fiber to the home for ten years or so. “We don’t have ten years”, said Mary Beth Henry.
She is concerned that Verizon’s FiOS (which is not allowed into the Portland region due to franchise considerations), will make Portland a less attractive place to do business then Portland’s adjoining cities.
PersonalTelco’s president Michael Weinberg and secretary Russell Senior, expressed strong support of the city’s initiative. PersonalTelco’s Mississippi Neighborhood Project was seen as a good grass roots community model. It provided businesses and some homes along a ten block section of North Portland with free WiFi and was funded with a $14,000 grant from the Fred Meyer Memorial Trust.
Yours truly (Sam Churchill), expressed some skeptism from the audience. Fiber to the tower was my plea. I think wireless — especially Mobile WiMAX — has a good chance of delivering a more cost/effective “broadband” solution than either DSL or Cable Modems.
No, it’s not 100 Mbps. But it might be a first step.
If a variety of wireless companies — using different technologies — could share in a joint fiber backbone, then everyone might deliver more cost/effective solutions — with more support from private industry. Fiber to the premises might be step two.
Whatever. It makes sense to have city officials actively pursue these studies. The RFI should help indicate whether a city-sponsored fiber initiative is visionary or can be a practical reality.
See Dailywireless: Municipal Fiber: Fits and Starts and City Fiber Networks.
E-Authentication Partnership laying the foundation for cross-entity ID acceptance Digital signatures via SIM cards and mobile phones take off in Finland Wavelink Launches Terminal Emulation 'SpeakEasy' ...
Recent Comments