Wireless Internet

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Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, fresh off a two-day fact-finding trip to hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico, talks with B&C Washington Bureau Chief John Eggerton about what he saw, including devastation unlike any of the preceding hurricanes, the need for more Universal Service Fund money, the value of creative thinking about communications solutions, and the lack of an FCC field office that could have helped before and after the storm, he suggests.

The Senate Communications Subcommittee looked at the impact of the internet of things on rural America in a hearing Nov 7, with both sides of the aisle agreeing that the Federal Communications Commission needed better data on where broadband is and isn't deployed, given that connectivity is key to IoT deployment.

[Commentary] On November 16, 2017, the Federal Communications Commission will vote on an item that will impact the commission's Lifeline program, which provides discounts on telecommunications services for qualifying low-income consumers. On October 26, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai released a draft of the item in advance of the November vote. Here we break down the rules that the FCC plans on changing immediately at the November meeting, the new proposals the FCC is seeking comment on, and the more general evaluation the FCC is launching into the program's "ultimate purposes." [Kevin Taglang]

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune (R-SD) and Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) have circulated the draft of a bill that would speed the deployment of 5G, just one a host of moves to goose the buildout of high-speed broadband.

This report analyzes the current and emerging generation of mobile wireless technologies and Compares those technologies to wireline technologies such as fiber‐to‐the‐premises (FTTP), cable broadband, and copper DSL across a range of technical parameters, including reliability, resilience, scalability, capacity, and latency. The report also evaluates wireless carriers’ mobile pricing and usage structures—including so‐called “unlimited” data plans—because those policies play a significant role in whether consumers can substitute mobile for wireline service.

The report concludes that, for both technical and business reasons, wireless technologies are not now, and will not be in the near to medium future, adequate alternatives or substitutes for wireline broadband.

Researchers at the University of Washington have found a way to track a person’s location and app use through serving ads on mobile apps.

The result opens the door for significant privacy invasions through the app-based advertising system. The researchers obtained the information by purchasing a series of ads targeted to specific locations and apps, then checking which mobile subscribers fit the targeting. In experiments conducted on Android devices, the team was able to pinpoint a person’s location within eight meters through a targeted ad. They tested ads on 10 different apps, including Grindr, Imgur, Words with Friends, and Talkatone, all using widely available ad networks. By serving ad content to a user’s apps, the ad buyers could learn what apps the user has installed. That information could be sensitive, revealing a user’s sexual orientation or religious affiliation. Researchers could also find out when a user went to a specific place. After targeting ads to a specific location, the ad network would notify them within 10 minutes of when the user arrived.

A top federal government cybersecurity watchdog issued an advisory on Oct 16, warning users to update their devices to protect against a newly discovered vulnerability that affects nearly every modern, protected Wi-Fi network. The US Computer Emergency Readiness Team's announcement comes after a security expert at the University of Leuven in Belgium published findings that showed that a widely used encryption system for wireless networks could give attackers an opening to steal sensitive information such as e-mails, chat histories and credit card numbers.

The exploit would allow hackers to eavesdrop on Internet traffic between computers and wireless access points. The findings are significant because of the wide range of devices that could be affected. "The attack works against all modern protected Wi-Fi networks,” Mathy Vanhoef said on a website he created to share his research. “Depending on the network configuration, it is also possible to inject and manipulate data. For example, an attacker might be able to inject ransomware or other malware into websites.”

[Commentary] By launching 11,943 satellites SpaceX will do to telecoms what WhatsApp/Facebook Messenger did to SMS and in doing so capture a $1tn+ business — and there’s fringe benefits for Tesla.

What SpaceX are actually seeking is to replace every broadband and communications provider on the planet, by cutting out the middle man of land-based networks that stand between you and the internet. In doing so they will be essentially competing with every communications provider in the world — a business valued at over a trillion dollars. Forget about poor communities in Africa for a second: this is a pitch to replace physical fibre/cable connections in modern industrialised economies But a few questions arise from this including the big one: mobile phones. Will the plan be to have mobile phones work directly with satellites overhead? Is that even possible? Or will there be a hybrid approach — provide broadband to physically static locations and work from there?

[Gavin Sheridan is the Founder and CEO of Vizlegal.]