Connectivity Technology Blog

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for all matters related to information and communication technologies. Established in 1865 as the International Telegraph Union, it is one of the oldest international organizations in operation. The ITU promotes the shared global use of the radio spectrum, facilitates international cooperation in assigning satellite orbits, assists in developing and coordinating worldwide technical standards, and works to improve telecommunication infrastructure in the developing world.  The ITU recently held a series of Satellite Webinars to share the current technical and regulatory situation, evolution, and trends in the field of satellite communications. They featured discussions and contributions from well-known experts from the satellite and space industries and were open to ITU members and non-members alike! Part 1 - ​Interference to Satellite Systems: preventing or protecting? : From case

In this blog we have looked at lots of different solutions to improve rural and remove connectivity (see related posts at the end of this post). Now Facebook Connectivity has announced that they have been working on prototyping the SuperCell, a wide-area coverage solution for increasing mobile connectivity in rural communities. After working with telecom industry partners to conduct several trials and data analyses, they are ready to share what they have learned. From the Facebook Engineering blog post :  SuperCell is a large-area coverage solution that leverages towers up to 250 meters high and high-gain, narrow-sectored antennas to increase mobile data coverage range and capacity.   Our field measurements found that a 36-sector SuperCell base station mounted on a 250-meter tower can serve a geographical coverage area up to 65 times larger than a standard three-sector rural macro base station on a 30-meter tower in the same topography. In an analysis of uncovered regions in Nigeria,

While there is no shortage of challenges for satellites, especially the low earth orbit or LEO satellites, one of the tricky ones is to to ensure some kind of continuous connectivity to a ground station. LEO satellites orbit the earth roughly every 90 minutes and are in contact with their ground station for roughly 4% of the orbit. To have a continuous connectivity available on demand, Inmarsat and Addvalue Innovation announce real-time link between satellites with promise of quicker delivery of data and imagery across the globe. The press release says : The world’s first ever publicly-available, real-time link between satellites in high and low earth orbits is now available, it was announced today. After a five-year collaboration, Inmarsat and Addvalue Innovation are pleased to announce the Commercial Service Introduction (CSI) of their Inter-satellite Data Relay System (IDRS) service, following the successful demonstration of the first live data connectivity between customer Capella

As we have started converting more wind, solar and other forms of energy to electricity, there is more supply that ever available previously.  Similarly we are also consuming more power than ever. Electric cars for example consume a lot of energy. In addition we have more electronic gadgets that we keep connected to chargers, regardless of weather they need charging or not.  At every instant of time, the power fed in the grid has to be consumed or stored somewhere. In addition, it has to be ensured that the amplitude, frequency and phase remains constant. This is where Synchrophasors come into play. The video below, explains it in a simple way what they are:  u-blox has a nice write-up on this topic explaining why this is important.  Improvements in terms of timing accuracy have come in lock-step with improvements in positioning accuracy. The u‑blox F9 GNSS receiver platform, which brought scalable and affordable high precision positioning – down to the decimeter-level – to the mass m

The technology advancement has reached a stage where it looks like everyone is trying to outperform others in communications from stratosphere. The latest in line is this announcement from Deutsche Telekom and Stratospheric Platforms Limited (SPL).  The DT press release says : Deutsche Telekom and its technology partner Stratospheric Platforms Limited (SPL) conducted the world's first successful demonstration of LTE/4G voice and data connectivity over a platform flying at the edge of the stratosphere and fully integrated into a commercial mobile network.  Beginning of October, several test flights were carried out in Bavaria with a remote-controlled aircraft system at an altitude of approximately 14 kilometers (Flight Level 450) to establish voice and data connections via the antennas installed on the aircraft. This enabled voice over LTE (VoLTE) calls, video calls, data downloads and web browsing on a standard smartphone. During the test, the smartphone was connected to the terres

We have been writing about Wi-Fi for a long time, weather it's to do with indoor connectivity , competition with 5G or just a name change to something simpler. When we last wrote about WiFi 6, a.k.a. 802.11ax, we were expecting a quick adoption of the technology in the industry. We are still not there yet.  You know what's strange? None of the new @madebygoogle gadgets from yesterday support Wi-Fi 6. Not the Pixel 5, not the Pixel 4a 5G, not the Nest Audio, and not the new Chromecast. pic.twitter.com/QtJ8iB9FeO — Ry Crist (@rycrist) October 1, 2020 Take for instance the new iPhone 12 supports Wi-Fi 6 in all their models as one would expect but none of the new Google Pixel phones (4a, 4a 5G and 5) support it. In fact none of the new Google devices support it. Which is rather bizarre. While we are still looking forward to Wi-Fi 6 becoming widespread, IEEE has already started working on the successor of 802.11ax, 802.11be - Standard for Information technology--Telecommunicati

Back in summer, Telecom Infra Project (TIP) published a Playbook for Smart Cities. For people who may not understand, you can think of a Playbook as a case study but playbook is much more than case study. A case study shows how a company did something but it may not be relevant for anyone else or any scenario. If a scenario is repeatable then a playbook can be created with a complete process, workflows, procedures, communication needs, strategies, etc. Other companies can then follow the playbook to provide similar results and outputs. The Executive summary of the playbook states : This playbook is an output of the Smart City Connectivity sub-group within the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) mmWave Networks Project Group. It’s the result of a collaboration between TIP Members —operators, infrastructure providers, system integrators, and equipment vendors—to provide guidance to key audiences (especially municipalities) about the deployment of communication services at the street level. Coll

While 5G rollout is gaining momentum, 6G is the new shiny object nowadays. Operators may still be struggling with finances and the ability to increase ARPU or revenues through 5G but that has not dampened the vendors and researchers appetite to start talking about 6G. Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS), North American Organizational Partner for 3GPP and a leading technology and solutions development organization recently announced Next G Alliance to Advance North American Leadership in 6G. It has several operators and vendors as founding partners. In addition, 6G Symposium was held just last week bringing together vendors, researchers and though leaders in the mobile telecom networks to discuss the next evolution of mobile technology. While there is a lot of activity going on everywhere, 6G Flagship has been taking leadership role with the publication of many different whitepapers and even a magazine now. One of the whitepapers that has been published is about

Last year, I wrote about how HAPSMobile is bringing connectivity from the sky for underserved, unserved areas as well as emergencies.  Earlier this year we saw HAPSMobile and Loon Partner for Stratosphere-Based LTE Communications Solution. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that HAPSMobile and Loon have announced "First in the World to Deliver LTE Connectivity from a Fixed-Wing Autonomous Aircraft in the Stratosphere" Selected extract of the  press release as follows:  SoftBank Corp.’s HAPSMobile Inc. (“HAPSMobile”) and Alphabet’s Loon LLC (“Loon”) today announced they successfully tested their jointly developed communications payload in the stratosphere on HAPSMobile’s “Sunglider,” a solar-powered unmanned aircraft system (UAS). Taking place during Sunglider’s first stratospheric test flight at Spaceport America (SpA) in New Mexico on September 21 MT, the test marked the world’s first successful delivery of LTE connectivity from a fixed-wing High Altitude Platform Sta