Street Broadband

The US president signed the principal memorandum about dropping off new communication channels which will let double the size of the commercial range for mobile broadband.

The authorities are planning to provide 500 MHz of federal and commercial range within ten years. It will lead to the creation of hundreds of thousands of new working places and the economic growth and the sale of new channels will provide money for expanding the information network of public services.

According to some estimates, in the USA in five years the volume of data transferred wirelessly (via smartphones, netbooks, etc.) will increase by 20–45% in comparison with 2009. And one should do with this.

In the age of the Internet and computer networks even the little ones are entitled to their share in advanced technology. Just make sure that the latter will be baby-sized and safe.  VTech has recently released the new product – Baby’s laptop. The laptop itself looks very nice, and at only £14.99 it is really a bargain, especially as it had the potential to last a couple of years as your baby grew and wanted to learn basic computer skills.

The laptop’s surface is brightly coloured in red, yellow and blue. It has an easy lift up lid that a one year old can manage to open and shut close again. Inside there are nine chunky buttons each of them of a different shape and picture. These pictures correspond to the interactive modes of play through which your child will be taught early learning concepts in a fun and engaging way.

There is a total of three playing modes on this laptop:

Learning mode – When you press the shaped keys you will hear the name of the shape and a tune and the lights on the light panel flash in various patterns. Press the same key again and it will say what the picture on the key depicts and then play another little tune while the lights flash again. Press the same key a third time and it will say the name of the item shown in the corresponding area of the light panel and then play another tune while the lights flash again.

Discovery mode – when you press any of the keys the voice will say something about the corresponding picture on the light panel and then play a tune. If pressed again the same key will make other noises or sing songs depending on which key is pressed.

Music mode – each shaped key which plays a series of nursery rhymes while the lights flash on the panel. There are nine different tunes to hear.

The laptop is also very sturdy and can take a lot of bashing about. VTech knows its customer base really well and quality reflects this. The hinge of the laptop is very strong and as the lid does not click shut the hinge also holds the top down when it’s not being used. There is nothing flimsy about the laptop and no parts that can be removed or pulled off. The laptop takes two AA batteries that fit into a compartment underneath. There is a flat headed screw keeping this compartment closed. I personally can add that I really like the concept of providing babies with their very personal laptop computer. Not only for educational reasons but also because it will more likely prevent them from going up to their parents’ laptops and banging on the keys…

The analytical company Quantcast has published the latest data on the prevalence of the operation systems for mobile devices in North America. The research provides three main solutions — iPhone OS, Android OS and Blackberry. In general, Apple with its market share of 58.8% is the leader, Android gives in to iPhone OS (the market share — 19.9%). The given divergence in the figures is connected with the fact that Quantcast takes into account all mobile devices with installed operation systems, including iPod touch players. However, the analysts unambiguously admit that according to the statistics of the prevalence of the mobile operation systems Google Android is the leader on the Web. The reason of this can be a rapid growth of the platform.

After many months of discussions and proceedings (including court proceedings) the latest version of Skype for iPhone supports the calls not only from Wi-Fi networks but from 3G networks. The application Skype 2.0 is already available for downloading in the App Store.

For a long time Skype for iPhone and other smartphones didn’t allow making calls using Mobile Internet. One could use the application for voice transmitting only in the places where the phone receives Wi-Fi. Now calls can be made from any place where the 3G network is available and by those who have installed the 3^rd or the latest version of iPhone OS into their mobile devices.

According to the official announcement, calls between Skype users via 3G in the USA where AT&T is an exclusive operator of iPhone will be free of charge till August 2010. Upon the expiry of this period, a monthly fee will be introduced for them. Calls via Wi-Fi will remain free.

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, promised that London will be covered with Wi-Fi networks by the Olympic Games 2012. Speaking at the conference ‘Google Zeitgeist’ in Hertfordshire Johnson stated that access points will be deployed at every lamp post and at every bus stop.

He also said that it’s only the beginning and in plans the city council is going to turn London into the technological capital of the world. He said Berners-Lee, the inventor of the Internet, was born in London that’s why «we claim paternity of the internet». He also declared that London is home for technological innovations and added that Wi-Fi London is one of the most important of all current projects.

This innovation will let people use the Internet freely not only at home but in the street as well.

The Federal Network Agency of Germany (Bundesnetzagentur) held an auction on distributing frequencies for 4G networks. During this auction the government received about €4.4 billion. Most frequencies went to the telecommunication holding Deutsche Telekom as well as the mobile operators Vodafone and O2. Two last mentioned companies paid €1.42 and €1.38 billion for 11 and 10 blocks of frequencies correspondingly.

The government sold out the frequencies which became free after Germany had moved from analogue TV to digital TV. However, the auctions can’t be called ‘very successful’. Let’s compare: in 2000 the government received about € 50 billion for licensing 3G networks.

Now it is supposed that LTE wireless broadband networks will be deployed at the new frequencies. Their testing and trial operation is already being conducted in Germany as well as in Norway and Sweden. In December 2009 in Oslo the first commercial 4G network in the world was launched. By the end of this year the biggest mobile operator in the USA – Verizon Wireless – will have launched its own LTE network.

Mary Meeker, an analyst working for Morgan Stanley, aka “Queen of the Net” (1998) according to Barron’s magazine, presented the last report about development of the Net, containing among other things, projections for the future.  According to this document, the overall Internet market will be affected by two powerful trends in the near future — growth of mobile broadband and social networks.

Mary Meeker believes that the number of people entering the network via mobile devices will exceed the number of users entering the network via desktop computers in the next five years.

Today relatively low data transmission speeds can be considered as one of the major problems of computer networks development. That is why the U.S. researchers worked at a completely new method of information transfer. They decided to use a device, which realizes optical signal and information processing. Those studies, funded by the National Science Foundation and the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), have led to the creation of polymethine, the new synthetic polymer material.

The scientists still facing mass of unsolved problems, but their work continues and soon will appear the first examples of communication devices, which will be able to achieve data transmission speeds of 100 gigabits per second (using existing communications infrastructure). However, the potential of this technology is so high that in the future it will be possible to achieve data rates of 2,000 gigabits per second.

What factors have an influence on the speed of your Internet connection? Let’s consider those of them, which can be controlled and adjusted by the users themselves. So, the Internet speed depends on:

• your tariff plan;
• various viruses and other similar programs, as well as applications filtering traffic;
• settings of your operating system and hardware (does your hardware work in a proper way? )
• settings of your network card driver;
• external network equipment (router, etc.);
• the type of your connection (wireless Internet (Wi-Fi) or wired internet access);
• quality of the “last mile” access.

So check these points trying to speed up your uploads and downloads from the Internet.