Connectivity Technology Blog

Ever wondered how Wi-Fi and mobile connectivity works on aeroplanes? This video explainer is all you need to understand this.

GSMA recently released couple of reports on Sub-Saharan Africa. The Mobile Economy Report (including the Infographic above) and  5G: laying the foundations report . The interesting bit was the technology popularity in the region. This can be seen in the picture below. 2019 is the year when 3G overtakes 2G and in 2023, 4G will overtake 2G. What should be remembered here is that in 2025, there will roughly be 1.04 billion connections. So in 2025, nearly 620 million 3G connection, 120 million 2G connections, 230 million 4G connections but only 30 million 5G connections. The 5G report details the number of IoT connections. There will be 332 million connections, 130 million in the consumer segment while 202 million in the enterprise. My guess will be that the majority will still be 2G in 2025, with LTE-M and NB-IoT just starting to become noticable. The final chart that is interesting is the backhaul that is used in different parts of the world. In SSA there is hardly a...

Back in April SoftBank announced the launch of a High Altitude Platform Station (HAPS) business through HAPSMobile, a joint venture between SoftBank and US-based company AeroVironment, Inc. With the aim of constructing a HAPS system that delivers telecommunications network connectivity from the sky for a global business, HAPSMobile developed “HAWK30,” an unmanned aircraft for stratospheric telecommunications platform system that flies at altitudes of approximately 20 kilometers. HAPS refers to systems where unmanned objects such as aircraft flying in the stratosphere can be operated like telecommunication base stations to deliver connectivity across wide areas. By utilizing HAPS, SoftBank will be able to build stable Internet connection environments at locations unserved by telecommunication networks, such as mountainous terrain, remote islands and developing countries. Furthermore, by efficiently interconnecting with current telecommunication networks, SoftBank will be able to ...