Tag Archive for ITU

| April 2, 2013
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What is 4G Mobile Wireless

What is 4G Mobile WirelessWireless operators continue to roll out mobile networks built with acronym-heavy standards such as 4G, Long Term Evolution (LTE), IEEE 802.16 (WiMAX), or HSPA+. Stacey Higginbotham at GigaOM says it’s hardly a surprise that every press release is touting 4G, which presumably stands for the fourth generation wireless network. Only, according to InfoWorld, the truth is, neither WiMax nor LTE qualify as 4G technologies, according to the International Telecommunications Union Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R). For a service to be called 4G by the ITU-R carriers will have to use one of two future mobile wireless technologies.

GigaOM reports that in October 2009, the ITU fielded 6 candidates that could meet the true definition of 4G mobile wireless. The main criteria required speed boosts, but more importantly, new technologies that make more efficient use of spectrum, as well as an ability to work with other radio access systems and fixed wireline networks. The standard also requires that equipment makers offer features that will help guarantee the quality of service on wireless networks. Of the 6 candidates, the ITU declared the upcoming called LTE-Advanced and WirelessMAN-Advanced – also known as IEEE 802.16m the only true 4G mobile wireless technologies.

True 4G wireless calls for peak speeds of 100 Mbps for mobile applications and 1 Gigabit per second for fixed networks. To do such speeds, operators will need five to ten times as much spectrum as most are using now to deploy LTE, as well as complex antenna configurations. The new 8×8 MIMO will need some new antennas at the tower and inside the mobile devices. Some operators won’t ever get to that point. Others might, but it’s going to take four or five years before people start rolling out anything like the ITU’s version of 4G mobile wireless according to the GigaOm article.

IEEE logoThe faux 4G we are getting now, comes in three flavors thanks to a bold marketing effort by T-Mobile writes Ms. Higginbotham. T-Mobile’s HSPA+ network is most assuredly 3G (or maybe 3.5G for some) but as its CTO, Neville Ray, argued with GigaOM founder Om Malik, its real-world mobile wireless speeds are better than those offered by WiMAX and are comparable to the real-world expectations of Verizon’s LTE network. The key to T-Mo’s experience lies in its spectrum resources. As a general rule, the more spectrum an operator has, the more lanes in its highway it can cram bits into. The blog says T-Mobile can use that spectrum to increase capacity or increase speeds. With plans to move from 21 Mbps to 42 Mbps speeds using HSPA+, T-Mo is going for speed to keep up with the wireless mobile Jones.

Laptop reports that other mobile wireless operators do not qualify as 4G either. “… Sprint and Clearwire’s Mobile WiMax (3 to 6 Mbps), T-Mobile’s HSPA+ (5 to 8 Mbps), and even Verizon Wireless’ LTE network (5 to 12 Mbps) don’t even come close to deserving the 4G moniker.”

After all, marketers pushing LTE first starting waving the 4G mobile wireless flag several years ago, despite the ITU hadn’t yet decided if LTE was 4G. The first releases weren’t. We’ll have to wait for LTE-Advanced in about four or five years for true 4G. By then, it’s possible we’ll be dealing with 5G mobile wireless networks or something even better the marketers dream up. In the meantime, consumers will buy their faux 4G mobile wireless phones for their faux 4G mobile wireless networks and never sweat the difference GigaOm speculates.

The faux 4G networks are incremental improvements over 3G. As Tolaga Research analyst Phil Marshall told InfoWorld, these wireless mobile networks were designed from day 1 for data, and are all Internet protocol (IP) from end to end. That’s a huge improvement over 3G and it’s a marked change. Despite the improved architecture, Wi-Fi Net News asks if the spectrum is available to meet the 2015 rollout for real 4G. “It looks like the maximum speeds being discussed require extremely wide channels, like 100 MHz. That’s not impossible, but no U.S. carrier has 100 MHz in a chunk that it materializes. The FCC white-spaces rulemaking frees up a bunch of 6 MHz pieces, and that’s the last major realignment after DTV 700 MHz spectrum that I’m aware of. The definition of 4G may now be set, but the ability to roll out 4G at anything like the minimum speeds promised seems highly problematic even in five years.”

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| February 12, 2013
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UN Tries to Control the Internet Again

UN Tries to Control the Internet AgainInfoSecurity reports that even after much of the free world refused to sign the controversial new ITU WCIT-12 treaty in December 2012, U.S. Many argued this would give the UN control of the Internet. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Commissioner Robert M. McDowell warned, ‘the worst is yet to come.’

ITU logo“The United States,” he said, “should immediately prepare for an even more treacherous ITU treaty negotiation that will take place in 2014 in Korea. Those talks could expand the ITU’s reach even further.” McDowell seems convinced that the ITU’s desire to control the internet is not a passing fancy, but a long-term intent. He may be right, and it may come before 2014.

Last week the ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré released his draft report for the Fifth World Telecommunication/Information and Communication Technology Policy Forum 2013. “This draft report of the Secretary-General to the WTPF-2013,” it states, “aims to provide a basis for discussion at the Policy Forum, incorporating the contributions of ITU Member States and Sector Members, and serving as the sole working document of the Forum focusing on key issues on which it would be desirable to reach conclusions.”

ITU’s takeover attemptSuggested themes for discussion include, “Global Principles for the governance and use of the Internet,” and “On the basis of reciprocity, to explore ways for greater collaboration and coördination between ITU and relevant organizations – including, but not limited to, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the Regional Internet Registries (RIRs), the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the Internet Society (ISOC) and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) – involved in the development of IP-based networks and the future internet, through cooperation agreements, as appropriate, to increase the role of ITU in Internet governance to ensure the largest benefits to the global community.”

This is exactly what caused disarray in December’s WCIT in Dubai the commissioner states.

Meanwhile, a ‘de-fund the ITU petition has appeared on the White House ‘We the People’ website. A supporting website gives full details. “Fighting on behalf of the Internet,” it states, The United States government and fifty-four other countries rejected the ITU’s takeover attempt, but this is a single battle in a war that the ITU will continue to fight. The ITU is spending more than $180M/year to oppose the Internet and is drawing from its reserves more heavily each year ($9M in 2010, up from $5.5M in 2009), as progressive countries withdraw their payments from the ITU’s war-chest.

The ten most oppressive countries in the Open Net Initiative’s ranking of online freedom all sided against the internet, and none of them are giving the ITU as much as the U.S. is. If all the countries that stood with the Internet against the ITU’s attack withdraw their funding, it claims, “the ITU’s membership revenue will be reduced by 74%.”

The petition also calls for future U.S. delegations to be reduced “to no more than one USG representative, tasked primarily with communicating a U.S. position that the ITU’s only legitimate area of authority is radio communications.” The long-term danger from such entrenched views on both sides is that the worldwide nature of the internet might fracture into one internet under multi-stakeholder governance in the ‘free’ world, and a series of heavily government-regulated Internets elsewhere.

“Freedom and prosperity are at stake,” warned Commissioner McDowell.

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I have warned about the United Nations’ attempt to take over the Internet since November.

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| February 7, 2013
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Internet of Things Infographic

Internet of Things InfographicBosch Software Innovations released some new data on the Internet of Things (IoT)  In the near future, more and more devices and systems will be capable of sending and receiving data automatically via the internet. We’re already poised on the verge of new developments that offer enormous market potential. Bosch believes the Internet of Things isn’t just a distant vision of the future, it’s already very real and is having an impact on more than just technological developments.

The blog claims that in the next few years, increasing numbers of devices and systems will automatically send and receive data over the Internet. The author claims that we are about to see a huge new market develop.

By 2015, Bosch predicts that the number of IP-ready devices connected to the Internet will grow to a total of 6,593 billion. Even more impressive according to the author, is the growth in Internet access. The blog reports that in 1995, less than 1% of the world’s population was online, in 2011 this number exploded to 2.3 billion people online, Bosch expects that in 2015, 5.5 billion people will have internet access (source: ITU). This equates to around 75% of the world’s population.

The German firm estimates the number of devices configured to send and receive data over the Internet will reach 50 billion devices in 2020. Just recently, Vint Cerf, who is better known as the father of the internet, also spoke in an interview about the number of devices and confirms this assumption.

Bosch Internet of Things markets

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| January 3, 2013
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Who supported the ITRs at WCIT-12

Who supported the ITRs at WCIT-12Byron Holland, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) speculated what the results of WCIT-12 mean for the Internet in the article, “Observations on WCIT-12.” Mr. Holland says the results of WCIT-12 will lead to a two-tiered Internet.

One tier consisting of the countries that supported the new ITRs and ratified the resulting agreement. He believes that these governments will use the United Nations agreement to limit and watch, if not censor, Internet traffic transiting across its borders.

censor, Internet traffic transiting across its bordersThe CIRA CEO states that governments that did not support the new ITR’s and the resulting treaty will continue to have access to the free and open Internet and all of its benefits. The governments that rejected the WCIT power grab are primarily in the developed world.  The rest of the world, primarily those that live in the developing world, will have access to some lesser version of the Internet.

There is a clear correlation between a state’s ranking in the Democracy Index and how their place on the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITR) at the International Telecommunication Union‘s (ITU) World Conference on Information Technology (WCIT-12) according to the article. The following chart compares those countries that supported the ITRs with those that did not or deferred their vote until after consulting with their home country.

The author concludes that some of the larger content producers are simply just not going to bother offering content or services to much of the world. This could very well mean that a content producer will be subject to the ITRs if it is available in those countries. Mr. Holland explains that Internet traffic doesn’t travel point-to-point. The traffic is broken into many packets of information which individually take the most efficient route possible. What if that route transits through a country that has signed on to the new ITRs?

content producerThe CIRA CEO urges everyone to think about how the Internet works against the backdrop of the above info-graphic. It is primarily countries in the developing world that supported the new ITRs. This means that it will be the developing world that will not have access to the same information, free and open democracies, like Canada, do.

The article concludes that the result of Dubai is that the free and open Internet – the Internet that has allowed free speech, democracy, and economic development to flourish – will only be available to the citizens of the developed world. The citizens of the developing world – the people who could most benefit from the free and open Internet, from the free flow of information, and from access to global markets for their products and services – will be deprived of these benefits.

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
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| November 24, 2012
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UN Wants to Put the Internet Behind Closed Doors

UN Wants to Put the Internet Behind Closed DoorsThe United Nations (UN) is calling a meeting between the world’s governments starting December 7th, 2012. It could very well decide the future of the Internet through a binding international treaty.

The Internet is in danger

It’s called the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT), and it’s being organized by a government-controlled UN agency called the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

If some proposals at WCIT are approved, decisions about the Internet would be made by a top-down, old-school government-centric agency behind closed doors. Some proposals allow for access to be cut off more easily, threaten privacy, legitimize monitoring, and blocking online traffic. Others seek to impose new fees for accessing content, not to mention slowing down connection speeds. If the delicate balance of the internet is upset, it could have grave consequences for businesses and human rights.

This must be stopped

Only governments get a vote at WCIT. We need people from all around the world to demand that our leaders keep the internet open.

Log your objections to the UN and the ITU putting control of the Internet behind closed doors at www.whatistheitu.org

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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