New Florence. New Renaissance.

The transoceanic cable landscape

The world’s biggest owner of cables is a household name, at least to Americans – it’s AT&T, which has a stake in around 230,000 kilometres of international internet cabling, or around one sixth of the total. But looking at others in the top ten reveals why both Big Tech and Western governments are starting to pay the apparently dull issue of cable ownership more attention: in second place is China Telecom, while Chunghwa Telecom (based in Taiwan) is third and China Unicorn is sixth.

In the tenth and eleventh spots, however, are some very familiar names: Facebook and Google. Big Tech is getting into big cables – and doing so in a big way. Over the past few years, 80 percent of investment in new cables has flowed from the two US tech giants. As of today, Facebook owns or co-owns 99,399 kilometres of cables, Google 95,876 kilometres. And more investments are on their way: in August, Facebook and Google announced their plans for building a 12,000 kilometre undersea cable, Apricot, which will link Singapore, Japan, Guam, the Philippines, Taiwan and Indonesia when completed in 2024. For Google, that came hot on the heels of a previous announcement about the Echo subsea cable, which will connect California, Singapore, Guam and Indonesia. For its part, Facebook has thrown its weight behind the coalition of telcos building what might turn out to be the longest subsea cable ever: 2Africa, a 45,000 kilometre-long cord planned to encompass the whole African continent and connect 33 countries in Africa, Europe and the Middle-East by 2024. In May 2020 Bloomberg reported that the project will cost under $1 billion – but that was before Facebook announced several expansions to the initial design.

Wired UK

 

Sizzling Space Bacon

In the space between satellites, DARPA wants there to be a shared language. The Space-Based Adaptive Communications Node (Space-BACN) is a program designed to place satellites that can talk to other satellites in orbit, overcoming existing design barriers and adapting to the future. It’s the promise of robust infrastructure in space, capable of routing signals around damaged satellites.

“In simpler terms, the goal of this program is to eliminate stovepipes and ‘connect space,’ which will in turn enable the joint all-domain fight.”

“Joint all-domain fight” is Pentagon-speak for across all branches, and in land, air, space, and anywhere else the military might fight. Getting there means first breaking communications free of stovepiping.

Popular Science

 

5G C-Band and aviation concerns

Many of my followers are frequent flyers and most are addicted to their mobile devices, so should be interested in an issue the WSJ summarizes which has pitched the airlines and telcos into a screaming contest, especially when it comes to US airports

“At issue is whether the new 5G signals affect aircraft equipment that helps planes land in difficult weather conditions and avoid crashes. The equipment, called radar or radio altimeters, uses radio frequencies to measure the distance between aircraft and the ground.

Aviation officials worry the cellular frequencies that telecom companies plan to activate could interfere with altimeters, potentially throwing off readings the devices take and endangering planes. The 5G service will operate in a frequency known as the C-band, which is close to the airwaves the altimeters use.”

The article also goes into compromises Verizon and AT&T have made including buffer zones around cell towers near airports. 

New Scientist explains why the issue is especially applicable to the US

"There is no single part of the electromagnetic spectrum that 5G occupies. Some countries are using 600 megahertz to 900 megahertz, which isn’t dissimilar to 4G. Some are placing it between 2.3 gigahertz and 4.7 gigahertz, which boosts data speed somewhat. And others are using 24 gigahertz to 47 gigahertz, which requires more towers but offers even higher data speeds. In many cases a network will use a mix of these. In the US, the frequencies allocated for 5G are closer to those used by aircraft than those allocated by the EU. Radio altimeters operate in the 4.2 gigahertz to 4.4 gigahertz band, and the US has set aside a portion of the spectrum right up to the lower band of that for 5G. In the UK, the comparable band ends at 4 gigahertz and in the EU, it ends at 3.8 gigahertz."

Pilot Juan Browne explains the concerns in 30 minutes of geeky detail. Bear in mind he is presenting the aviation pov. 

If Rip Van Winkle had fallen asleep watching TV

…20 years ago, he would wake up a wild new world of today's television

Costco Connection has a primer on LED, OLED, QLED, Mini-LED sets and resolutions – 1080p, 4K, 8K, HDR, Dolby Vision

Popular Science provides an update on TVs at this week’s CES in Vegas

and then there is the ever changing range of streaming, cable and other content

Michael Saves discusses likely streaming trends in 2022

Rural broadband options evolve

To augment coverage, Aristotle is turning increasingly to Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS), a wireless spectrum historically used by U.S. Navy aircraft carriers for radar transmissions. In recent years the Federal Communications Commission has opened a slice of this spectrum for commercial use, enabling Aristotle to beam broadband as far as 6 miles to distant Arkansans over signal stations—installed atop cell towers, barns, even a prison—that are sort of like massive Wi-Fi routers. The network is fast enough to stream movies and costs a fraction of what fiber costs to build. “We are one of the poorest states in the country, and the Delta is the poorest area of the state,” Bowles says. “If we can solve the problem here, we can solve it anywhere.”

BusinessWeek (sub required)

 

Li-Fi

Li-Fi stands for Light Fidelity and is to Wi-Fi (Wireless Fidelity) as lidar is to radar. That is, Li-Fi uses light to do what Wi-Fi uses radio waves to do: provide "last meters" over-the-air delivery of internet service from a router to a user's computer, handheld device, or other inter net-connected gizmo.

There are many benefits and a few drawbacks. Data transmission is speed-of-light speedy, so the time it takes for messages to go back and forth (latency) is vastly lower than with Wi-Fi (0.5 millisecond versus perhaps 20.0 ms). Huge amounts of data can be exchanged quickly (theoretically up to 14 times faster than Wi-Fi), making the technology ideal for virtual- and augmented-reality applications. Li-Fi can be used where radio waves can't reach or where their presence is problematic some hospital equipment and medical patients can't tolerate radio interference, for example.

Motor Trend

Product placement in the streaming era

Hiram Lodge, the manipulative crime lord who targets the fictional town of Riverdale, sits back in his office chair. After plotting his latest scheme with a cohort over submarine sandwiches, he takes a bite of a Doritos chip, holding the bag in clear view of the camera while looking away pensively.

Frito-Lay, which got the snack on the CW Network's teen drama Riverdale with the help of the No.1 product placement company BEN, hopes audiences noticed enough to crave their own bag of Doritos, but not so much that they became annoyed. That's the delicate balance companies strike when using product placement, which is becoming an even more popular form of advertising thanks to factors including increasingly sophisticated data collection and the rise of streaming and mobile video.

BusinessWeek (sub required)

 

Apple iPhone 12 teardown

No chance I am tearing down my new 12 Pro. It has Belkin Ultraglass to shield the screen and a clear case to protect the body. However, I am glad there are others who have torn theirs down.  

The teardown from Fomalhaut Techno Solutions shows a bill of materials of around $406. It shows the most expensive components of this iPhones models are undoubtedly the Qualcomm X55 5G modem which cost around $90 (estimated). After this, it’s the OLED display from Samsung. The estimated price for this Samsung OLED display is around $70. around $90. Deep in the report, we got the production cost for the A14 Bionic chipset is said to be around $40. 

The iFixit video shows the teardown of the phone with an updated 3 camera system that includes Lidar, a new flat-edged design, an updated processor and 5G network support.

Microsoft FarmBeats

"Many of the grower’s decisions are based on guesswork today. By capturing large amounts of data from the farm and then using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to translate that data into insights, Microsoft is building technology that replaces the guesswork.

To enable data-driven agriculture, a seamless data collection system is needed. Our FarmBeats platform enables seamless data collection from a wide variety of sources, including sensors, satellites, drones, and weather stations. It then leverages machine learning, so partner ag tech companies can turn that data into actionable intelligence for farmers.

Because farms also don’t have great connectivity, Microsoft is investing in technologies such as TV white space, as well as the Azure IoT Edge for collecting data, which can then be ingested in FarmBeats."

Successful Farming

 

5G and Farming

Wireless sensors connected through 5G could monitor field conditions and detect when crops need watering, pesticides, or fertilizer, experts say. It could also help with tracking livestock and guiding agricultural drones and self-driving tractors.

While major wireless carriers Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile are racing to install 5G, they've so far focused only on metropolitan areas because of their high concentration of potential customers. It will take years before their 5G networks are widely available in rural areas, meaning most farmers will have to wait.

Many farmers have already installed sensors in their fields that are connected using 4G, which operates at up to 100Mbps. In comparison, 5G speeds of up to 10Gbps are expected.

Fortune