Connectivity Technology Blog

For a very long time, Internet of Things or IoT has been promised to revolutionise the world and solve many of the issues with ARPU and Monetization that many operators are facing. Many of the predictions have yet to come pass but nevertheless, IoT is a promising technology.  While we are now conditioned to just think about 4G & 5G for everything, IoT is a very wide topic and there are a variety of technologies that help solve some or the other issue. While NB-IoT and LTE-M are catching on, the majority of Cellular IoT is still based on 2G / GSM. It is increasingly looking like a 2G+4G+5G world as IoT will ensure 2G is not shut off everywhere #2G3Gshutdown https://t.co/3hegU4AzPw — Zahid Ghadialy (@zahidtg) February 12, 2021 This is a misleading title @Telecomwaring - China Mobile had 884 million IoT customers at the end of 2019. According to @CounterPointTR some 95 million were on NB-IoT ( https://t.co/KS9ilaA23h ) so nearly 750 million+ on GSM / 2G - migration will take a ...

At CES 2021 , Skyward, A Verizon company, and UPS Flight Forward, announced collaborative efforts to deliver retail products with drones connected to Verizon 4G LTE, as well as 5G testing and integration for delivery. The companies aim to deliver retail products via connected drones at The Villages in Florida.  The press release said: “We will need the ability to manage and support multiple drones, flying simultaneously, dispatched from a centralized location, operating in a secure and safe environment. To do this at scale, alongside Verizon and Skyward, we’ll need the power of 5G,” said Carol B. Tomé, CEO of UPS. “We’re just beginning to see how the power of 5G Ultra Wideband will transform the way businesses operate,” said Rima Qureshi, Chief Strategy Officer at Verizon. “By partnering with UPS and other innovative companies, we can learn from each other’s expertise and collaborate to create solutions that help move the world forward.” In 2020, Verizon, UPS Flight Forward, and S...

We wrote about  Futuristic Glass Antenna by NTT Docomo and AGC back in 2019. It's good to see the partnership continue with this new announcement about use of metasurface lens to enhance radio signal reception indoors.  Metamaterials is one of the focus areas of 6G as highlighted here . Samsung's 6G Vision whitepaper explains it as follows: A metamaterial is usually constructed by arranging multiple tunable elements (PIN diodes, varactor diodes, etc.) in repeating patterns, at scales that are smaller than the wavelengths. Its precise shape, geometry, size, orientation, and arrangement enable smart properties capable of manipulating electromagnetic waves, e.g., blocking, absorbing, enhancing, or bending waves, to achieve benefits that go beyond what is possible with conventional materials. In addition, each element constituting a metamaterial can be controlled independently to achieve desirable characteristics of the electromagnetic waves such as the direction of propagati...

We have written a lot about Loon on this blog. The project started with a lot of scepticism within the mobile industry but over the years they kept on persisting and solving challenges, one after another. Just when everyone thought that the technology is mature enough and operators starting to give commitment, the parent company has announced the end of Loon! The internet balloon that came down in Morelos, Mexico An official blog post by Alastair Westgarth, CEO of Loon, explains : We talk a lot about connecting the next billion users, but the reality is Loon has been chasing the hardest problem of all in connectivity — the last billion users: The communities in areas too difficult or remote to reach, or the areas where delivering service with existing technologies is just too expensive for everyday people. While we’ve found a number of willing partners along the way, we haven’t found a way to get the costs low enough to build a long-term, sustainable business. Developing radical new t...