Mobile infrastructure must catch up with user needs and demands. Ubiquitous mobile computing is all around us. Some time in the next six months, the number of smartphones on earth will pass the number of PCs. As the power and capability of many mobile devices increases, the increased demand on networks. We watch more videos, and listen to music on our phones. Mobile Data Traffic To Grow 300% Globally By 2017 Led By Video, Web Use. Mobile network operators would have had an easier life if it wasn’t for smartphones and the flood of data traffic they initiated, and soon there will be also very many Internet of Things devices. Businesses and consumers want more bandwidth for less money.
More and more network bandwidth is being used by video: Netflix And YouTube Account For Over 50% Of Peak Fixed Network Data In North America. Netflix remains the biggest pig in the broadband python, representing 31.6% of all downstream Internet traffic in North America during primetime. In other parts of the world, YouTube is the biggest consumer of bandwidth. In Europe, YouTube represented of 28.7% of downstream traffic.
Gartner: Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends For 2014 expects that Software Defined Anything is a new mega-trend in data centers. Software-defined anything (SDx) is defined by “improved standards for infrastructure programmability and data center interoperability driven by automation inherent to cloud computing, DevOps and fast infrastructure provisioning.” Dominant vendors in a given sector of an infrastructure-type may elect not to follow standards that increase competition and lower margins, but end-customer will benefit from simplicity, cost reduction opportunities, and the possibility for consolidation. More hype around Software-Defined-Everything will keep the marketeers and the marchitecture specialists well employed for the next twelve months but don’t expect anything radical.
Software defined technologies are coming quickly to telecom operator networks with Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV). Intel and rather a lot of telcos want networks to operate like data centres. Today’s networks are mostly based around proprietary boxes designed to do very specific jobs. It used to be that way in the server business too until cheap generic x86 boxes took most of the market. The idea in NFV is that low-cost x86 servers can successfully many of those those pricey proprietary boxes currently attached to base-stations and other parts of the network. This scents a shift in the mood of the telcos themselves. This change is one that they want, and rather a lot of them are working together to make it happen. So the future mobile network will have more and more x86 and ARM based generic computing boxes running on Linux.
With the introduction of Network Functions Virtualisation base stations will have new functions built into them. For example NSN has announced a mobile edge computing platform that enables mobile base stations to host data and run apps. Think of this as an internet cloud server that’s really close to the customer.
Hybrid Cloud and IT as Service Broker are talked about. Telecom companies and cloud service providers are selling together service packages that have both connectivity and cloud storage sold as single service. Gartner suggests that bringing together personal clouds and external private cloud services is essential.
The type of device one has will be less important, as the personal or public cloud takes over some of the role. The push for more personal cloud technologies will lead to a shift toward services and away from devices, but there are also cases where where there is a great incentive to exploit the intelligence and storage of the client device. Gartner suggests that now through 2018, a variety of devices, user contexts, and interaction paradigms will make “everything everywhere” strategies unachievable, although many would like to see this working.
“Internet of Things” gets more push. The Internet is expanding into enterprise assets and consumer items such as cars and televisions. The concept of “Internet of Things” will evolve a step toward The Internet of Everything. Gartner identifies four basic usage models that are emerging: Manage, Monetize, Operate, Extend. The Internet of Things (IoT) will evolve into the Web of Things, increasing the coordination between things in the real world and their counterparts on the Web. The Industrial Internet of Things will be talked about. IoT takes advantage of mobile devices’ and sensors’ ability to observe and monitor their environments
Car of the future is M2M-ready and has Ethernet. Many manufacturers taking an additional step to develop vehicle connectivity. One such example is the European Commission’s emergency eCall system, which is on target for installation in every new car by 2015.
Smart Home Systems Are on the Rise article tells that most automated technology is found in commercial buildings that feature automated lighting that changes in intensity depending on the amount of sunlight present. Some of these buildings have WiFi incorporated into their lighting systems. There will be new and affordable technology on the market, but people today are still reluctant to bring automation to their homes.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel in Taiwanese IoT tie-tup
Expands partnership with Chunghwa Telecom
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/08/26/intel_in_taiwanese_iot_tietup/
Intel has attracted another name to its SDN and Internet of Things strategies, this time in Asia.
According to reports out of Taiwan, Chipzilla has signed an agreement with Chunghwa Telecom extending their existing cloud computing partnership with IoT and SDN work. As CTimes reports, the two have signed an MOU to accelerate their efforts.
The aim, according to the company’s Gordon Graylish, is to “realise the vision of the connected society in Taiwan”.
The cloud computing Chunghwa Telecom has already carried out with Intel will be reworked as a fully-fledged data centrer
On Internet of Things projects, the partners will be working on “smart city, smart home, energy management, intelligent security, fleet management and healthcare apps”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Net Neutrality Is ‘Marxist,’ According To a Koch-Backed Astroturf Group
http://politics.slashdot.org/story/14/08/26/0030234/net-neutrality-is-marxist-according-to-a-koch-backed-astroturf-group
American Commitment, a conservative group with strong ties to the Koch brothers has been bombarding inboxes with emails filled with disinformation and fearmongering in an attempt to start a “grassroots” campaign to kill net neutrality
Tomi Engdahl says:
Net Neutrality Is ‘Marxist,’ According to This Koch-Backed Astroturf Group
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/net-neutrality-is-marxist-according-to-this-koch-backed-astroturf-group
A mysterious conservative group with strong ties to the Koch brothers has been bombarding inboxes with emails filled with disinformation and fearmongering in an attempt to start a “grassroots” campaign to kill net neutrality—at one point suggesting that “Marxists” think that preserving net neutrality is a good idea.
The emails, which come with subject lines like “Stop Obama’s federal Internet takeover,” come from American Commitment, an organization that is nonprofit in name only
Tomi Engdahl says:
New Chip Alert: The ESP8266 WiFi Module (It’s $5)
http://hackaday.com/2014/08/26/new-chip-alert-the-esp8266-wifi-module-its-5/
. The ESP8266 WiFi module is the latest, made interesting because it pretty much doesn’t exist outside China.
Why is it cool? It’s a WiFi module with an SOC, making it somewhat similar to TI’s CC300 in conception (A.K.A. the thing that makes the Spark Core so appealing), in that a microcontroller on the module takes care of all the WiFi, TCP/IP stack, and the overhead found in an 802.11 network. It’s addressable over SPI and UART, making this an exceptionally easy choice for anyone wanting to build an Internet of Things thing; you can simply connect any microcontroller to this module and start pushing data up to the Internet. Oh, it’s also being sold for $5 in quantity one. Yes, for five dollars you can blink a LED from the Internet. That’s about half the price as the CC3000 itself, and a quarter of the price if you were to build a CC3000 breakout board.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hey FCC, Comcast-TWC merger is bad news for Netflix, says Netflix
Combined giants would fleece lowly video streamers, claims not-so-lowly video streamer
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/08/27/netflix_calls_on_fcc_to_chop_comcasttwc_merger/
Netflix has formally petitioned the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to block the proposed $42.5bn tie-up between US cable giants Comcast and Time Warner Cable (TWC).
The web vid upstart provided the FCC with a 256-page petition outlining its feelings on the matter and making the case for the watchdog to shoot down the deal.
According to Netflix, the deal would give Comcast far too much power in the market, and further limit consumer choice – particularly in the broadband internet space.
“Consumers are as likely as not to be left paying more money, for the same service, with few meaningful alternatives.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Electric Imp provides an innovative and powerful service platform that makes it simple to connect devices to the Internet
http://www.eeweb.com/websites/electric-imp
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT Needs Open Discovery Scheme
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1323646&
A great many people fail to understand the fundamental changes that will come with the Internet of Things. Instead, they expect traditional networking protocols such as TCP/IP and host-server architectures to carry on. After all, doesn’t IPv6 make possible trillions of addresses? And isn’t that the only problem that was left to solve in the Internet of Things?
That might be true enough if the only devices on the IoT were the PCs and smartphones familiar to us today. But that’s not the future. Instead, there will myriad purpose-built machines, sensors, appliances, and actuators pumping out countless streams of data. This rise of the machines creates the need for an open-source solution in three ways.
First, most of these relatively simple devices will be cheap — less than a few dollars per device.
Second, they will number in the trillions.
Third, their manufacture and sale will be completely decentralized.
The answer to gaining useful information from this impending fire hose of IoT data is simplicity itself. It requires the use of publish/subscribe architectures in IoT servers. This is key because the most interesting data streams may be completely unknown to the organizations that need them. By searching for published streams of a particular type, streams from a defined area, or streams that vary in an interesting way, servers may build up information neighborhoods to extract and integrate knowledge from the IoT.
Self-classification is the fundamental requirement for publish/subscribe architectures to work, and publish/subscribe will be the only way to make sense out of the emerging Internet of Things. But that self-classification must be open-source if it is to scale to the trillions of devices and millions of makers that are in our very near future.
Tomi Engdahl says:
US Launches Smart Cities Effort
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1323652&
Uncle Sam is looking for more than a few good engineers to help build smarter cities around the world.
The US National Institute of Standards and Technology is putting out a call to deploy the Internet of Things in smart cities applications around the US, Europe, and Asia. ARM Holdings, Cisco Systems, Extreme Networks, IBM, Intel, Juniper Networks, and Qualcomm have already signed up to participate in what amounts to a second round of the Smart America program.
“We want to see these things get out of the lab and deployed in real-world scenarios,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel Shrinks 3G Chip for IoT
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1323649&
Intel announced a 3G cellular modem with an integrated power amplifier that fits into a 300 mm2 footprint, claiming it is the smallest such chip. Intel targets the XMM 6255 at Internet of Things uses in areas such as healthcare monitors and advertising.
OEMs often turn to WiFi and Bluetooth Low Energy links for IoT applications first, given their relatively high bandwidth and low power consumption. “Wherever mobility, reliability, and security are important in combination, that’s where cellular is better,”
The new 65 nm CMOS modem supports both 3G and 2G connections. Wolff said an LTE modem would be a “logical next step” in Intel’s IoT roadmap.
“The Internet of Things will not allow [vendors] to build well performing antennas for many reasons… antennas need volume,” Wolff said. “We believe IoT [uses] will neither offer the volume for well-designed antennas nor will people have the capability to engineer and test these antennas,”
Intel will support GPS and WiFi links to the modem
“WiFi of course is a much higher data rate but only good for 300 feet, maybe, while with 3G you can communicate from here to China,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel reveals world’s smallest wireless modem for the Internet of things
http://venturebeat.com/2014/08/26/intel-reveals-worlds-smallest-wireless-modem-for-the-internet-of-things/
Intel is revealing what it calls the world’s smallest standalone wireless modem for connecting the Internet of things, or everyday things that are connected to the web like coffee machines that you can turn on with a mobile app.
The Intel XMM 6255 3G modem is a chip that connects a device to a cellular network, which in turn can link billions of interconnected smart devices such as wearables, sensors, and industrial equipment. The chip is a little larger than a penny.
Chalk it up to technological progress. 3G modems have been shipping since 2001, when NTT DoCoMo turned on its first 3G wireless data network in Japan. At the time, the 3G modems could barely fit in the sizable cell phones of the day. Now, thanks to Moore’s Law (the prediction by Intel chairman emeritus Gordon Moore that the number of transistors on a chip doubles every couple of years), the chips are tiny. More than a billion have shipped over the past decade or so.
By 2020, Internet-connected devices are expected to number between 26 billion and 50 billion
Intel figures that 3G modems will be needed in industrial equipment, home appliances, security and safety devices, and all sorts of other things.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel builds ‘world’s smallest’ 3G modem
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28939873
Intel has unveiled a 3G modem not much bigger than a UK penny or US one-cent coin, with the aim of embedding it in connected devices around the home.
The company says the XMM 6255, with an area of about 300 sq mm, is the world’s smallest modem.
The standalone chip could be used in wearable tech, as well as security devices such as “smart” smoke alarms.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Video and HD Voice over LTE on the way to Verizon in the “coming weeks”
http://gigaom.com/2014/08/26/video-and-hd-voice-over-lte-on-the-way-to-verizon-in-the-coming-weeks/
Verizon is the last major U.S. carrier to get the VoLTE ball rolling but the wait is nearly over. Soon, the company will introduce Advanced Calling 1.0 with video calls and HD Voice across its LTE network.
To get the most benefit, customers on both sides of the voice or video conversation will need to be Verizon subscribers, on the Verizon network and have phones capable of supporting VoLTE.
HD Voice uses advanced audio codecs with wide-band audio and typically sounds much richer and clearer than traditional cellular voice calls. T-Mobile has already rolled out VoLTE with HD Voice nationwide — only on a few handsets, however — and Sprint also offers HD Voice service. AT&T started its VoLTE service rollout in May on a single handset in just a few markets.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Lurie named CEO of AT&T Mobility, de la Vega to oversee mobile and enterprise
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/lurie-named-ceo-att-mobility-de-la-vega-oversee-mobile-and-enterprise/2014-08-26
According to an AT&T spokesman, the company has been working for some time to integrate its wireless and wireline operations, and now it is integrating its marketing and distribution for the business solutions group into AT&T’s Mobility division.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Report: Cloud hosted PBX, unified communications market could hit $12B
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2014/08/cloud-pbx-ucs-report.html
“While sales of premises-based PBX systems have been stagnant to declining over the past few years, the market for cloud services continues to expand with businesses worldwide seeking out hosted alternatives,”
According to Infonetics Research, hosted PBX and unified communications (UC) services are a growth market that has moved well beyond early stages, with revenue on track to grow 13% this year and positive activity in every major geographic region.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cloud computing success demands the right connectivity
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2014/08/gtt-cloud-computing-paper.html
“Cloud adoption has moved beyond the tipping point, with the majority of enterprises using some form of cloud computing in their business,” notes Rick Calder, president and CEO of GTT. “Many companies use the public Internet to access cloud applications, but a private network provides the security, performance and reliability many organizations need to support their mission-critical business operations.”
In this white paper, GTT explains that a cloud solution is only as good as the network that supports it.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Report: Optical components market growing; 100G WAN, 10G/40G datacom, FTTA equipment seen gaining
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2014/08/ovum-optical-growth-report.html
The global optical components (OC) market posted revenues of $6.8 billion in 2013, up 3% from the 2012 level, according to the latest report from market research firm Ovum. “Although the market posted a low-single-digit sequential decline in 1Q14, partly due to annual telecom price declines that take effect in the first quarter of the year, it expanded compared to the year-ago period,” said Daryl Inniss, practice leader for telecoms components at Ovum.
Vendors have good reason to be optimistic about 2014 and beyond, Innis added. Ovum expects the OC market to expand 8% in 2014, in part to support continuing annual double-digit network traffic growth and the infrastructure needed for cloud services.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Report: Enterprise, cloud SDN market to hit $8 billion by 2018
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2014/08/idc-enterprise-cloud-sdn.html
International Data Corp. (IDC) is the latest market research firm to predict the size of the software-defined networking (SDN) market. According to the firm’s new forecast, the worldwide SDN market for the enterprise and cloud service provider segments will grow from $960 million in 2014 to over $8 billion by 2018, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 89.4%. IDC defines the SDN space as including in-use physical network infrastructure, controller and network-virtualization software, SDN network and security services and related applications, and SDN-related professional services.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Constructing a software-defined network over a robust infrastructure
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/print/volume-22/issue-8/features/data-center/constructing-a-software-defined-network-over-a-robust-infrastructure.html?cmpid=EnlDataCentersAugust262014
Today’s issue is not implementing SDN, but rather laying the groundwork for it over a 10-, 40- or even 100-Gbit Ethernet infrastructure.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Time Warner Cable Blames “Maintenance” For Nationwide Internet Outage
August 27, 2014, 5:00 AM PDT
http://recode.net/2014/08/27/time-warner-blames-maintenance-for-nationwide-internet-outage/
It wasn’t just you. Time Warner Cable says its Internet service was knocked out nationwide this morning.
The company is the second-biggest cable TV and broadband provider in the country, with 15 million customers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Relative Cost of Bandwidth Around the World
http://blog.cloudflare.com/the-relative-cost-of-bandwidth-around-the-world
Over the last few months, there’s been increased attention on networks and how they interconnect. CloudFlare runs a large network that interconnects with many others around the world.
To be a part of the Internet, CloudFlare buys bandwidth, known as transit, from a number of different providers. The rate we pay for this bandwidth varies from region to region around the world.
CloudFlare buys transit wholesale and on the basis of the capacity we use in any given month. Unlike some cloud services like Amazon Web Services (AWS) or traditional CDNs that bill for individual bits delivered across a network (called “stock”), we pay for a maximum utilization for a period of time (called “flow”). Typically, we pay based on the maximum number of megabits per second we use during a month on any given provider.
Most transit agreements bill the 95th percentile of utilization in any given month.
While we pay for transit, peering directly with other providers is typically free — with some notable exceptions recently highlighted by Netflix.
To start, let’s assume as a benchmark in North America you’d pay a blended average across all the transit providers of $10/Mbps (megabit per second per month). In reality, we pay less than that
or every 1,000Mbps (1Gbps) you’d pay $10,000/month
the effective price for bandwidth in the region is the blended price of transit ($10/Mbps) and peering ($0/Mbps).
While we peer nearly 40% of traffic globally, we only peer around 20-25% in North America.
Europe’s transit pricing roughly mirrors North America’s so, again, assume a benchmark of $10/Mbps. While transit is priced similarly to North America, in Europe there is a significantly higher rate of peering. CloudFlare peers 50-55% of traffic in the region, making the effective bandwidth price $5/Mbps.
In Europe, and most other regions outside North America, these and other exchanges are generally run as non-profit collectives set up to benefit their member networks. In North America, while there are Internet exchanges, they are typically run by for-profit companies.
Asia’s peering rates are similar to Europe. Like in Europe, CloudFlare peers 50-55% of traffic in Asia. However, transit pricing is significantly more expensive.
Asia’s transit pricing is approximately 7x as expensive ($70/Mbps, based on the benchmark).
While today our peering ratio in Latin America is the best of anywhere in the world at approximately 60 percent, the region’s transit pricing is 8x ($80/Mbps) the benchmark of North America and Europe
Australia is the most expensive region
Telstra
charges some of the highest transit pricing in the world — 20x the benchmark ($200/Mbps).
Tomi Engdahl says:
Growth in the Cloud
http://www.slideshare.net/CiscoSP360/growth-in-the-cloud?ref=https://communities.cisco.com/docs/DOC-37800
Global data center traffic is projected to triple between 2012 and 2017.
Differences in regional network behavior and resources influence data growth.
Broadband ubiquity varies by region.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Internet of Overhyped Things
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1323680&
Practically everywhere I turn, vendors want to chat with me about the Internet of Things, that great vision that soon billions of devices will enjoy network connectivity by which they can burble forth a torrent of information and potentially receive all kinds of useful commands. Of the many touted examples are refrigerators that can show you their internal temperature and alert you when it gets too high, DVRs that can notify you they’re running out of space, and on and on.
In the commonly presented dream scenario, your “smart” house would have the ability to send data to a website where you could monitor all the important — as well as inconsequential — telemetry of your abode, including regular updates from every single one of your appliances, built-in cameras, thermostat, and so on. Being in the know about your home will never have been so complete and so draining. For people who like to worry constantly about details, welcome to heaven!
There is good reason vendors are scrambling after this imagined universe. Every hardware vendor wants to participate (processors, WiFi/Bluetooth, monitoring devices, screens, and so on), and every software vendor wants a role in a scenario in which literally billions of Internet endpoints suddenly teem forth as data collection points.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cisco teases UCS refresh with most of 2014′s best buzzwords
Borg servers look set for social mobile disruptive big data cloud of things injection
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/08/28/cisco_teases_ucs_refresh_with_most_of_2014s_best_buzzwords/
Cisco has decided to go first by letting it be known there’ll be a new range of its UCS servers announced next week.
The Borg has already dribbled out some teasers, stating that:
We need a common operating environment that spans from the data center to the very edge.
We need a stronger engine to accelerate core applications and power data-intensive analytics.
We need a common operating environment that spans traditional and emerging applications.
Elsewhere, Cisco says the September 4th event will “unveil the next wave of Unified Computing innovation to meet the needs of the applications powering The Internet of Everything.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Pay to play: The hidden cost of software defined everything
Enter credit card details if you want that system you bought to actually be useful
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/08/28/why_sdn_means_more_pay_to_play/
Unlocking additional functionality used to be restricted to game play, but now it’s spreading into more mainstream IT applications.
Bought the hardware? That’s just the beginning…
The thing that is enabling makers of tech to withhold features on pain of payment is software, and with more appliances and devices becoming software defined, the chatter at this week’s VMworld, we are sleepwalking into a world were buying a device is only the first step on an endless treadmill of paying to simply turn on more features.
In other words: Pay to play, for everything. No exceptions.
Remember Big Blue’s golden screwdriver?
It goes back through generations to the IBM “golden-screwdriver” upgrades. Golden-screwdriver upgrades were a practice on old IBM hardware where the computing giant would initially ship a larger than required system to a customer with additional RAM and CPU capacity.
Sometimes pay to play works in your favour
Tomi Engdahl says:
Multipath TCP speeds up the internet so much that security breaks
Black Hat research says proposed protocol will bork network probes, flummox firewalls
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/07/31/multipath_tcp_will_bork_your_network_probes_flummox_your_firewalls/
Tomi Engdahl says:
RadioShack to Sell Kits for IoT Connectivity
http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/geek-life/hands-on/radioshack-to-sell-kits-for-iot-connectivity
New York City startup littleBits, which makes snap-together electronic modules for budding tinkerers, is wading into the ever-deepening sea of hardware configured for the Internet-of-Things. Those who want to investigate this hardware first hand should have no trouble making an impulse purchase, because the company’s $99 kit of modules for assembling Internet-connected gizmos will soon start selling at Radio Shack stores.
The heart of this kit is what littleBits calls the “cloud bit” module, which snaps together with the company’s other modules using special magnetic connectors. So, you can quickly add a cloud-bit module to something you’ve created with the company’s other input and output modules—buttons, lights, motors, and so forth. The point of the cloud-bit module is to connect what you have assembled to the Internet in a way that allows you to control your creation using a littleBits cloud account.
How exactly does the cloud-bit module work? And how is if different from, say, the Electric Imp, a similar device that’s allowed tinkerers to connect hardware to the Internet since its introduction in 2012?
The cloud-bit module is a diminutive Linux computer with a non-integral Wi-Fi adapter plugged into it.
The digital generation is well enough acquainted with connecting to Wi-Fi networks that this should be no big deal, even for a child.
Each of the littleBits cloud-bit modules has its own unique code, which you no doubt have to provide when you sign on for a cloud account with the company.
Tomi Engdahl says:
THP Semifinalist: Level, The Ultrawideband Radio Module
http://hackaday.com/2014/08/29/thp-entry-level-ultrawideband-radio/
When you start looking into the Internet of Things, the first thing you realize is that despite there being grand ideas for Internet connected everything, nobody knows how these things will actually connect to the Internet. There are hundreds of different radio protocols being pushed, and dozens of networking schemes currently in development. The solution to this is a radio module that can do them all, talking to all these modules and serving them up to the Internet. This is the idea of [Hunter Scott]‘s Level, a radio module with a frequency range of 30 MHz to 4.4 GHz. That’ll cover just about everything, including some interesting applications in the TV whitespace.
[Hunter]‘s module is based around TI’s CC430, basically an MSP430 microcontroller and a CC1101 transceiver smooshed together into a single piece of silicon.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Pokewithastick, an Arduino programmable web-logger/server
http://hackaday.com/2013/10/08/pokewithastick-an-arduino-programmable-web-loggerserver/
[Stewart] tipped us about his very nice project: pokewithastick. It is an Arduino compatible board (hardware, not footprint) based on the ATMEGA1284P which can be programmed to collect and post data to internet logging sites such as Thingspeak or Xively.
As you can see in the picture above, it has a small 50x37mm footprint (roughly 2″x1.5″). The pokewithastick is composed of an Wiz820 Ethernet module, a micro-SD card slot, 2 serial ports, one battery backed Real Time Clock (RTC), one radio connector (for the usual nRF24L01 2.4GHz radio), one power & user LED and finally a reset button.
Tomi Engdahl says:
DIY WiFi Raspberry Pi Touchscreen Camera
Make your own Cloud-connected point-and-shoot camera
https://learn.adafruit.com/diy-wifi-raspberry-pi-touch-cam/overview
This project explores the Adafruit PiTFT touchscreen and the Raspberry Pi camera board to create a simple point-and-shoot digital camera. One can optionally use WiFi and Dropbox (a cloud file storage and synchronization service) to automatically transfer photos to another computer for editing.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Broadcom offers $19.99 Internet of Things development kit
It’s a Raspberry Pi for wearables
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2362294/qualcomm-offers-usd1999-internet-of-things-development-kit
BROADCOM IS OFFERING developers who want to experiment with the Internet of Things (IoT) a low cost, generic device to play around with and explore.
The Wiced Sense consists of a small Bluetooth Smart – also known as Bluetooth 4.0 or LE – powered device with five low powered micro electro-mechanical systems sensors (MEMS), such as those found in IoT devices.
Bundled with it is an accompanying smartphone app that Broadcom claims can be connected and running development programs in minutes.
Example use cases include a baby monitor that detects temperature, movement and breathing, or a pet tracker that sounds an alarm if your pet leaves a certain area, but the important thing is that the only limit is the developer’s imagination. The main purpose of the device is to help developers create brand new ideas and test them without the need for expensive prototypes.
The Wiced Sense is compatible with both iOS and Android phones, supports iBeacon and NFC tag reading, and offers full encryption, certificate signing and verification.
The device is already on sale at $19.99.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Connect your Bluetooth® Smart product to an Android or iOS device
Endless ‘appcessories’ with TI’s SimpleLink™ SensorTag
http://www.ti.com/ww/en/wireless_connectivity/sensortag/index.shtml?DCMP=sensortag&HQS=sensortag-bn
The award winning SimpleLink Bluetooth® Smart SensorTag, based on TI’s CC2541 Wireless MCU,is designed to shorten the design time for Bluetooth app development from months to hours. With a SensorTag App and no required hardware or software expertise, the kit removes the barriers to entry for smartphone app developers who want to take advantage of the growing number of Bluetooth Smart-enabled smartphones and tablets. The over-the-air download feature provides the ability to update the SensorTag firmware from a central device like a smartphone, tablet or PC.
$25 – order today!
The SensorTag now supports iBeacon technology, allowing you to quickly and easily evaluate iBeacon for “indoor GPS” applications.
Tomi Engdahl says:
One apartment’s Wi-Fi dead zones, mapped with a physics equation
A doctoral student does the math on where his Wi-Fi is, and isn’t.
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/08/mapping-wi-fi-dead-zones-with-physics-and-gifs/
A home’s Wi-Fi dead zones are, to most of us, a problem solved with guesswork. Your laptop streams just fine in this corner of the bedroom, but not the adjacent one; this arm of the couch is great for uploading photos, but not the other one. You avoid these places, and where the Wi-Fi works becomes a factor in the wear patterns of your home. In an effort to better understand, and possibly eradicate, his Wi-Fi dead zones, one man took the hard way: he solved the Helmholtz equation.
The Helmholtz equation models “the propagation of electronic waves” that involves using a sparse matrix to help minimize the amount of calculation a computer has to do in order to figure out the paths and interferences of waves, in this case from a Wi-Fi router.
Cole writes that making the mapping simulation a Web service would probably be unfeasible due to the intensive calculations
Tomi Engdahl says:
How big telecom smothers city-run broadband
AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner Cable use statehouses to curb public Internet service
http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/08/28/15404/how-big-telecom-smothers-city-run-broadband
Janice Bowling, a 67-year-old grandmother and Republican state senator from rural Tennessee, thought it only made sense that the city of Tullahoma be able to offer its local high-speed Internet service to areas beyond the city limits.
After all, many of her rural constituents had slow service or did not have access to commercial providers, like AT&T Inc. and Charter Communications Inc.
But a 1999 Tennessee law prohibits cities that operate their own Internet networks from providing access outside the boundaries where they provide electrical service. Bowling wanted to change that and introduced a bill in February to allow them to expand.
She viewed the network, which offers speeds about 80 times faster than AT&T and 10 times faster than Charter in Tullahoma according to advertised services, as a utility, like electricity, that all Tennesseans need.
At a meeting three weeks after Bowling introduced Senate Bill 2562, the state’s three largest telecommunications companies — AT&T, Charter, and Comcast Corp. — tried to convince Republican leaders to relegate the measure to so-called “summer study,” a black hole that effectively kills a bill.
A national fight
Tullahoma is just one battlefront in a nationwide war that the telecommunications giants are fighting against the spread of municipal broadband networks. For more than a decade, AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner Cable Inc., and CenturyLink Inc. have spent millions of dollars to lobby state legislatures, influence state elections and buy research to try to stop the spread of public Internet services that often offer faster speeds at cheaper rates.
The companies have succeeded in getting laws passed in 20 states that ban or restrict municipalities from offering Internet to residents.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fujitsu Ethernet Tag Switching
http://www.eeweb.com/company-blog/fujitsu_semiconductor/fujitsu-ethernet-tag-switching/
Fujitsu presents its white paper entitled “OpEx Benefits of the Fujitsu Ethernet Tag Switching Implementation of Connection-Oriented Ethernet”. It discusses features of a connection-oriented ethernet and ethernet tag switching. As an overview, ethernet tag switching is similar to VLAN Tag Switching using IEEE 802.1ad frame format (Q-in-Q). With Fujitsu’s implementation of Ethernet tag switching, it has solved the scaling limitations of Q-in-Q.
Transport networks must be highly scalable and packet-centric to flexibly and cost effectively meet the requirements of services and applications including:
Metro Ethernet aggregation for handoff to service edge networks including Internet, Video, Telephony, Storage, Cloud services and the MPLS core
Mobile and broadband backhaul
Commercial business Ethernet services
High availability and high security applications.
It also is necessary that the transition to highly scalable and packet-centric transport be made in a way that does not compromise the quality and operational efficiency of existing SONET/SDH metro transport networks. In particular network operations procedures should be similar to those used on existing SONET/SDH networks and smooth for operations personnel who are trained in SONET/SDH technology.
Connection-Oriented Ethernet on packet optical transport platforms meets these requirements by combining the packet capabilities of Ethernet with the transport capabilities of SONET/SDH.
Operation and management of the transport network is often separated from operation and management of the router network. The three largest network operators in the U.S., for example, maintain transport or transmission organizational entities that are distinctly separate from their router organizations. NTT in Japan does so as well. Some operators in Europe go so far as to maintain a subsidiary transmissions company. The transport and routing organizations require different technical skills, training and certifications. More technical training and certifications are required for managing routers than transport equipment in most cases. MPLS technology due to its multiservice and multi-layer capabilities is a more sophisticated and complex technology, and requires higher levels of training and multiple technical certifications.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microchip in Pursuit of CSR
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1323699&
It’s official. Microchip Technology CEO Steve Sanghi, once known as a skeptic on the Internet of Things, wants to join the parade big time, as it pursues the UK-based leading Bluetooth chip vendor CSR as a potential acquisition target. Microchip confirmed Thursday that it has had “preliminary mutual discussions with CSR.”
The US firm released the statement, several hours after CSR made it publicly known that it has rejected Microchip’s preliminary offer.
In the statement, Microchip stressed that “the discussions between the parties are at a very preliminary stage.”
CSR said that the undisclosed sum of money proposed by Microchip wasn’t enough, if Microchip actually wants to raise its role in the IoT market with CSR’s radio technology.
CSR announced late last month that Microchip has partnered with CSR to offer a CSR-based Bluetooth Smart module. The goal for the new module is to leverage CSR’s proven Bluetooth Smart ICs and offer a turnkey solution to a wider range of customers, the companies said at that time.
CSR today is freshly armed with its home-grown mesh networking technology called CSRmesh, a protocol designed to run over Bluetooth Smart. CSR is now at a critical point in evangelizing the new protocol, thus hoping to lead the Bluetooth-based IoT market. CSR could use Microchip’s powerful presence in the embedded market, in which Microchip leverages its microcontroller, mixed-signal, analog, and flash technologies.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Internet of Overhyped Things
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1323680&
How I Hacked My Home, IoT Style
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1323681&
The Internet of Things Versus Slumlords
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1323710&
Tomi Engdahl says:
9 Insights From Hot Interconnects
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1323695&
Like two tin cans and a string, communications channels are getting stretched to the breaking point and are sometimes victims of poor engineering decisions, said speakers at the annual Hot Interconnects conference here.
Facebook detailed its next-generation switch, Wedge, a high-profile response to the hyper growth of big datacenters. Others lambasted shortcomings of Ethernet, WiFi, InfiniBand, last-mile links, and communications silicon in general.
Silicon photonics is on the near horizon to help fill a few of the gaps, they said. But it brings its own challenges.
Fittingly, the event was held on the headquarters campus of Google, one of many cloud computing giants whose 100 megawatt datacenters are stretching networks to the breaking point. “The constant topic is: What’s the most cost effective, high performance way to build these networks?” said Andy Bechtolsheim, chairman of Arista Networks and serial entrepreneur.
The requirements in requests-for-quotes from datacenters have leapt a hundredfold over the last eight years, he said (see above). That’s because many datacenters have taken an approach to building flat, fast networks so applications can be blissfully unaware of the details of the network.
Arista specializes in building such nets based on the latest, fastest merchant switch chips it can get, mainly from Broadcom.
The job is software intensive. Ninety percent of Arista’s 600 engineers are writing software, Bechtolsheim said.
Facebook decided it couldn’t wait for companies like Arista to come out with new switches, so it will build its own. The Wedge switch (above), already being tested in production networks, will become a design Facebook will contribute to its Open Compute Project, an open-source hardware initiative.
“We wanted to get agility because we are changing our requirements in a three-month cycle,” far faster than vendors like Arista and Broadcom can field new products, said Yuval Bachar, a former Cisco engineering manager, now working at Facebook.
The company’s datacenters are approaching a million-server milestone, Bachar said. Today it uses 10 Gbit/s links from its top-of-rack servers, but it will need to upgrade in six to eight months, he said. The Wedge sports up to 32 40G ports.
The most interesting thing about Wedge is its use of a small server card, currently using an x86 SoC. However it could be replaced with an ARM SoC or “other programmable elements,” Bachar said.
Comments at the event made it clear the datacenter is developing a case of split personality. It wants fast, flat dumb pipes to keep software simple, but it is also starting to feel the need for smart networks that automate complex traffic management tasks and offer new kinds of virtual features.
Broadcom and Arista are championing the need for dumb pipes that are fast and wide.
The split personality is spreading to other giants including Cisco Systems, one of the world’s top ASIC designers
“We are generating more elements in the network that need to be managed, whether you call them virtual machines or containers, and we are creating more kinds of state, too — there are seven kinds of network overlays today and may be more coming,”
In an invited talk he took Ethernet to task for its bumpy roadmap that, after a series of 10x jumps, took a 4x leap to 40 Gbit/s followed by a step backwards to 25G.
“25G Ethernet is not special. Ethernet is doing what it’s always done, stealing the best ideas from everyone and calling it Ethernet, and that’s what it should do again with PCI Express.”
“A typical suburban WiFi router sees six signals, an urban apartment often sees 24, and my apartment in Paris sees 38,” he said. “Who needs Gbit WiFi if it knocks out your neighbor and they knock you out as well?”
He slammed the 802.11ac standard for squandering spectrum.
Several talks highlighted silicon photonics, expected to debut soon, supporting 100 Gbit/s aggregation switches in big datacenters with 4x 25G links. Several camps are rolling out competing products based on technologies from Intel, Mellanox, and others.
Datacenters will use copper inside the rack, active optical cables between racks, and silicon photonics links for the kind of third-tier links Microsoft described in a talk about its datacenters
“Ultimately, electronics and optics need to be co-designed in a non-proprietary way so they can be broadly used… ”
crosstalk on ADSL lines that can let one neighbor eat into another’s bandwidth
“Guaranteed moderate bandwidth could be better than variable low to high throughput,” said Cioffi.
“InfiniBand is strong in high-performance computing and works fine under low loading, but on 100% loads it has intractable problems,” he said, noting spikes in network congestion. “People use the highest-speed InfiniBand to avoid congestion, and there are ways to tweak it,” but the approach has basic design flaws for today’s datacenters, he claimed.
Tomi Engdahl says:
ZigBee Alliance announces now been certified by a thousand different products. According to the Alliance of milestone achievement reflects the growing popularity of ZigBee in particular, the future of the Internet of Things or IoT solutions platform.
Basis for Zigbee 802.15.4 standard, the IEEE completed in 2003, operates in 900 MHz on both sides, when the data rate is 20-40 kbps. 2.4 gigahertz region of data are transferred to 250 kilobits per second.
Zigbee is mainly intended for home automation, and control of the equipment that the light of data collection. The alliance of the zigbee devices market is growing at 67 percent per year to watch at least the next five years.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1721:zigbee-ylitti-tarkean-rajapyykin&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Femto- and picocells has been talked about for a long time mobile phone networks, increasing capacity, and the technology has been finished, but the small base stations for sale has not started. In 2018, a mini base stations sold, however, for nearly five billion dollars.
Research Marketandmarketsin of the mini base stations, markets are still in this year, $ 690 million, or approximately EUR 525 million. The following 4-5 years, however, the market will grow 42 percent boost, so that in 2018 is spoken by 3.6 billion business.
Femtot interest for virtually all equipment manufacturers.
Example: NSN Flexi Zone is the size of a five-liter box, which weighs five pounds, and the transmission power of five watts (same functionality and capacity than the traditional macrocell base station)
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1712:nyt-alkaa-tulla-pienia-kannykkasoluja&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google has spaffed more cash on lobbying this year than Big Cable
Don’t worry, it’ll be cheaper when they use drones
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/09/01/google_has_outspent_big_cable_lobbying_this_year/
Google has single-handedly outspent Big Cable in terms of lobbying dollars so far in 2014.
The ad giant spent $9.3m compared to the $8.15m spent by the NCTA, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, according to the Open Secrets website, which keeps count.
The NCTA represents Time Warner and Comcast and is run by former FCC chief Michael Powell – so isn’t short of a bob or two.
Not all Google’s lobbying spending is on cable and telco issues. It actually spends more on trying to reform intellectual property laws such as copyright and patents to make them more Google-friendly. Only telecommunications comes second on Google’s lobbying list. After that Google lobbies on labour issues and, in the fourth biggest spending category, “consumer product safety”.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Steelie Neelie: Enjoy your EXCLUSIVE UHF spectrum in 2020, mobile operators
But you’d better play nicely with broadcasters until then
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/09/01/steelie_neelie_broadcasters_and_broadbanders_must_work_together/
Europe’s digital chief presented a report on Monday that sets out a plan to redistribute access to the Ultra High Frequency (UHF) spectrum band.
Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes said that there were obviously differences of opinion on who should have most access, but she said Europe cannot ignore the needs of the growing digital industry.
The report proposes that the 700 MHz band (694 – 790 MHz) should be completely dedicated to wireless broadband by 2020, but that the remaining UHF spectrum (470 – 694 MHz) should be safeguarded for terrestrial broadcasters until 2030. The 2025 element is to be a review of the plan.
This means that at the World Radiocommunication Conference in 2015, the EU would reject any plans to allocate this lower band (470 – 694 MHz) to mobile. This has alarmed some in the telecoms sector.
“We are concerned that the report’s recommendations on the sub-700MHz band could put Europe at a competitive disadvantage compared to other regions,” said Anne Bouverot, Director General, GSMA.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Net Neutrality Campaign To Show What the Web Would Be Like With a “Slow Lane”
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/14/09/01/2025215/net-neutrality-campaign-to-show-what-the-web-would-be-like-with-a-slow-lane
In a move out of the anti-SOPA campaign playbook, Fight for the Future and other net neutrality activist groups have set up the Battle for the Net coalition, which plans to launch an “Internet slowdown day” later this month.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Vertigan killed FTTP but the battle for scalable FTTN has not begun
Australia’s technology industries need to fight for the best-possible FTTN
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/09/01/vertigan_killed_fttp_but_the_battle_for_scalable_fttn_has_not_begun/
Innovators like Cable Labs and the many organisations working on DSL successors show us that it will be possible to deliver gigabit speeds over copper or hybrid-fibre-coax. If not this decade or the next, then in the future.
The economic argument that proved so devastating in the FTTP vs. FTTN debate can be used again here by pointing out that shortcuts in NBN design and implementation impose future costs on those who might want to upgrade the network
Tomi Engdahl says:
Homemade Activity Monitor
http://hackaday.com/2014/09/01/homemade-activity-monitor/
A group of developers have uploaded a tutorial on Instructables showing the steps needed to develop a homemade DIY fitness tracker. The design is the second iteration of an Arduino-based wearable smart watch project of theirs.
The microcontroller used is an Arduino Pro mini 3.3v. Accelerometer and gyro sensors were integrated to capture the movement of the ‘RetroBand.’ A wireless bluetooth module connects to an Android phone which presents the data through a Play Store app complete with graphs included.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ground-Breaking Family Lifestyle Systems
http://www.eeweb.com/news/ground-breaking-family-lifestyle-systems
GreenPeak Technologies introduces a ground-breaking sensor and cloud based intelligent systems for Family Lifestyle integrated with Social Media. The first release is a Senior Lifestyle System that empowers children and their elderly parents to privately and securely share lifestyle information, enabling the seniors to feel safe and live longer at home independently, while their children feel secure that their parents are well. The Senior Lifestyle system is currently being rolled out to consumers in Germany and China via Service Operators, such as cable operators, telco’s, and large retailers.
GreenPeak’s Family Lifestyle Systems are built around a set of wireless ZigBee sensor nodes located throughout the home and connected via an internet gateway to a cloud based self-learning algorithm with advanced behavior pattern recognition capabilities, that learns the normal day to day activities and behavior of people in their home. When irregular behavior or exception situations are identified, family or friends will be notified via a smart phone application that can be integrated with online messaging and social media platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, WeChat and QQ.
“Smart home solutions need to address real problems to the consumer.”
“The World Market for Home Health Technologies” and “Smart Home Subscribers & Services”, the installed base of independent living solutions is set for rapid growth over the coming years. “Sensor and alarm-based technologies, in conjunction with cloud-based external monitoring capabilities, can be used to support the aging population by enabling a higher level of independence while addressing growing care bills,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
50G Ethernet Debate Brewing
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1323733&
When engineers gather in October to discuss the future of Ethernet, one of the big questions will be the possibility of a 50 Gbit/s standard. The Ethernet Alliance is hosting the October 16 event in Santa Clara, Calif., billed as “The Great Rate Debate.” Engineers from Alcatel-Lucent, Avago Brocade, Broadcom, Cisco, Dell, Finisar, Intel, and Juniper are among those slated to speak.
The event comes in the wake of a surprise switchback on the Ethernet road map earlier this year. After the IEEE approved 40G and 100G Ethernet standards as the next big leaps after today’s 10G, a consortium of vendors launched an effort in June to set de facto 25G and 50G standards for datacenter servers. The IEEE quickly responded, announcing in July a new 25G standards effort.
So far the IEEE has not said anything about a 50G follow-up effort, but it would make sense for two reasons. The datacenter consortium is already planning to define a 50G rate, and 56G serial serdes and optical interconnects are in the works that would likely become the next big building blocks in communications.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Example how huge sport stadium networks can be nowdays:
C Spire, Ole Miss tackle stadium Wi-Fi in time for 2014 college football season opener
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2014/08/cspire-olemiss-stadium-wifi.html?cmpid=EnlCIMSeptember22014
To meet growing demand by tech-savvy fans for Internet access on their smartphones and tablets before, during and after games, C Spire and the school’s athletic department are installing a new state-of-the-art stadium Wi-Fi network in the 60,580 seat-capacity venue.
The high capacity network will feature the latest in Wi-Fi and fiber-optic technology, with over 700 access points strategically located throughout the stadium.
C Spire will provide free network access for its customers who attend the game. Fans with service from other wireless providers will also be able to access the network for a $4.99 fee each game.
With mobile technology now an integral part of the game-day experience, fans expect to use their smartphones to talk, text, share photos and video, access social media, listen to audio files and surf the mobile web, according to Hu Meena, president and CEO for C Spire. “As a leading telecommunications and technology services provider, we know first-hand how important these devices are to an entire generation of consumers,” Meena said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Aruba Networks deploys wide-area 802.11ac Wi-Fi for Black Hat USA 2014
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2014/08/aruba-ac-wifi-blackhat.html?cmpid=EnlCIMSeptember22014
Aruba Networks (NASDAQ: ARUN) announced that it designed, deployed and operated a secure wireless LAN (WLAN) infrastructure for the recent Black Hat USA 2014 Conference in Las Vegas (August 2-7), protecting thousands of attendees’ laptops and mobile devices from dozens of pervasive and new security threats.
Aruba reports that the wireless network, which covered the nearly one million square foot convention facility in the Mandalay Bay Convention Center, was quickly deployed in less than one day. Wireless hardware infrastructure consisted of 130 Aruba AP-225 802.11ac wireless access points, Aruba 7200 Series controllers, and Aruba S-Series Ethernet switches.
Aruba notes that its ability to safeguard network infrastructures against wireless security threats was put to the test at this year’s event. The company created multiple, parallel Wi-Fi networks to deliver both an open and secured network option for attendees. To deliver unmatched security and network visibility, Aruba deployed its AppRF technology and Aruba AirWave Network Management.
According to the company, AppRF provides network operators with a real-time snapshot of how the network is being utilized and offers fast and simplified drill-downs that show more detailed application usage information.
Tomi Engdahl says:
CommScope expands PIM-avoiding passive device line for in-building DAS applications
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2014/08/commscope-adds-low-pim.html?cmpid=EnlCIMSeptember22014
The company says that all new products are thoroughly tested for sources of PIM among other factors, and PIM rated to an industry-leading -160 dBc.
“DAS installations that must support high data rates using large channel counts and MIMO antenna schemes are especially vulnerable to PIM’s impact on system performance,”
The evolution of wireless networks to LTE brings about increased scrutiny of the performance-degrading phenomenon called passive intermodulation (PIM). PIM is unwanted radio frequency (RF) interference that can result in degraded voice quality, dropped calls and reduced data throughput. The effects of PIM can be significant — for example, just a one decibel drop in uplink sensitivity due to PIM can reduce wireless coverage by 11 percent, claims CommScope.
Tomi Engdahl says:
AT&T back in the enterprise-cabling business
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2014/08/att-cabling-systems.html?cmpid=EnlCIMSeptember22014
Industry veterans recall that the market-share-leading Systimax cabling-system brand, now owned by CommScope, was originally developed and sold by AT&T. Through a series of spinouts and acquisitions, the Systimax brand was the property of a couple organizations (Lucent Technologies and Avaya) before being acquired by CommScope in 2004.
Earlier this year the AT&T Cabling Systems business launched, with Europe Middle-East Africa (EMEA) headquarters in Cologne, Germany. At the time of that launch, the company said the system is available worldwide.