I've spent the last 17 years focused on Internet Protocol (IP) over various transport systems - wired (copper), wireless and optical. With the explosion of video, social media and other bandwidth hungry applications we've seen fiber moving closer and closer to the end user. Wireless is the perfect example with towers back-hauled into the network by fiber. It's really just the last mile/final connection that is typically not optical fiber based for most of us.
We're seeing IP/optical integration today really ramping with these things called software defined networks (SDNs). I wrote a post defining and describing SDN's last month titled SDN: When The Hardware Becomes A Little More Soft
With the move to all-IP, SDN and cloud services, many service providers are now integrating IP routing and transport. In this short 4 minute and 50 audio clip, Arnold Jansen discusses how IP/optical control integration can help operators simplify and streamline their operations and drive better cost synergies.
Smart, fast, efficient. Good stuff.
Thursday, December 18, 2014
Closing the loop with IP/Optical Integration
Posted by Gordon F Snyder Jr at 9:47 AM 0 comments
Labels: communications, Education, Information, technician, Telecommunications
Thursday, November 6, 2014
SDN: When The Hardware Becomes A Little More Soft
Software Defined Networking (SDN) is a new approach to designing, building and managing networks. The basic concept is that SDN separates the network’s control (brains) and forwarding (muscle) planes to make it easier to optimize each.
In this environment, a Controller acts as the “brains,” providing an abstract, centralized view of the overall network. Through the Controller, network administrators can quickly and easily make and push out decisions on how the underlying systems (switches, routers) of the forwarding plane will handle the traffic.
Posted by Gordon F Snyder Jr at 8:38 AM 0 comments
Labels: Cloud, communications, computing, Education, fiber, Information, optics, technician
Monday, March 24, 2014
Storage Tiering
- SSD’s look like a mechanical hard drive and the server operating system uses standard BIOS calls to access.
- SSA’s are a little different and use a PCI Express (PCIe) interface. The operating system must use a unique set of software drivers specific to the SSA device being used.
Posted by Gordon F Snyder Jr at 2:52 PM 0 comments
Labels: backup, Big, Cloud, communications, Data, Education, Information, Storage, technician, Technology
Monday, March 10, 2014
Cloud Computing Closer Look - Infrastructure as a Service (Iaas)
- Billing.
- Automation of administrative tasks.
- Dynamic scaling.
- Desktop virtualization.
- Policy-based services.
- Internet connectivity.
Posted by Gordon F Snyder Jr at 10:24 AM 0 comments
Labels: Business, commerce, communications, Education, Information, technician, Technology
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
The Rise Of The HetNet
Posted by Gordon F Snyder Jr at 11:07 AM 0 comments
Labels: Cellular, communications, Data, Education, Information, technician, Technology, Voice, Wireless
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Online Tracking, Consumer Profiling, Data Collection and You
Well - it's the holidays when we're using the web along with those credit cards a lot more frequently. Ever wondered who's watching you online? And who the heck you are giving your personal card info to when making online purchases? Ever also wondered if there was anything you could do to protect yourself a little more? Well, others have too.
Abine, a Massachusetts company spun out of MIT in 2008, has developed some pretty nice tools that allow web users more control over their personal data. These accessible tools allow you to choose when you want to share your information, control your personal data, and provide the ability to protect your online privacy. Before we get to the products - here's some interesting tidbits from an Abine fact sheet:
Online tracking, consumer profiling, and data collection are happening wherever consumers go on the web, usually without their knowledge or approval. Consumers are the product being sold. Social networks, ad networks, and e-commerce sites collect every last byte of personal information they can, combining consumers’ online activity with their offline lives. The consequences of all this data collection are growing and real: lost job opportunities, higher prices, more spam, lower credit scores, identity theft, and more. Let's look at some tracking info and stats:
A tracker is a connection that your browser makes when it loads a webpage that’s intended to record, profile, or share your online activity. Usually these connections are made to entirely different companies than the website you’re actually visiting. The most common types of trackers are:So... how do you protect yourself?
- Javascript: 43%
- Images, such as 1-pixels: 14%
- iFrames: 14%
Abine collaborates with the UC Berkeley Center for Law and Technology on a recurring Web Privacy Census. The most recent Census found:
- Flash cookies: 5%
If present trends continue, the amount of online tracking will double on about 2.5 years.
- The use of third-party tracking cookies on the 100 most popular websites increased by 11% from May to October 2012.
- Google has a presence on 712 of the top 1,000 websites
- 26.3% of what your browser does when you load a website is respond to requests for your personal information, leaving the remaining 73.7% for things you actually want your browser doing, like loading videos, articles, and photos.
- Google makes 20.28% of all tracking requests on the web
5% of the top 1,000 websites use social networking code that can match users’ online identities with their web browsing activities, and nearly 25% of the web’s 70 most popular sites shared personal data, like name and email address, with third-party companies (Wall Street Journal, 12/2012).
- Facebook makes 18.84% of all tracking requests on the web
Abine has just rolled out DoNotTrackMe 3.0, a browser extension that stops online trackers from finding your contact and credit card info. Here's a DoNotTrackMe sample screen shot.
In addition, the company is giving out unlimited Masked Cards through December 26. The Masked Cards work with any credit or debit cards you have, allowing you to create disposable credit card numbers for each online purchase you make, preventing having to give out your real card info.
The company also makes a product called MaskMe which keeps you private as you browse and shop the web, and creates and manages secure passwords and DeleteMe which removes your public profile, contact and personal info, and photos of you from leading data sites.
Cool stuff. Check them all out.
Posted by Gordon F Snyder Jr at 11:43 AM 0 comments
Labels: communications, cybercrime, Education, Information, Online, Privacy, shopping, Technology
Friday, September 20, 2013
A Family Without A Phone
Growing up I had a friend who’s family did not have a telephone. His Mom used to whistle (really distinctively and loudly) when she wanted him to come home. When he was over our house or we were out in the woods playing we were all tuned in, listening for her whistle. Everyone knew what it meant and she was good - to this day I’ve never heard anyone who could whistle like her.
Times have certainly changed. I’ve had almost instant contact with my two children with text and voice over the past ten years. Most recently we’ve all got smart phones and we’ve been able to add email and social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc) to our mobile communications tool list along with video applications like Skype and FaceTime. Although some may disagree, the ability to connect or be connected with them no matter where they are in the world has a level of assurance I know my friend’s whistling Mom did not have 45-50 years ago.
This week, prepare a 200 word (plus or minus 10 words) essay describing how mobile technology has impacted your life.
Posted by Gordon F Snyder Jr at 9:43 AM 0 comments
Labels: communications, Education, Engineering, Information, mobile, technician, Technology, Wireless
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
FCC Connect America Fund Phase I Round Two
Last week, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) posted an interactive map (embedded below) showing the locations where new higher-speed broadband may be deployed as the result of the second round of Connect America Phase 1 funding.
Back in 2011, the FCC launched the Connect America Fund (CAF) and it has had limited success. Round one of funding only dispensed $115 million of $300 million in available funds. I'm not sure why the FCC has had difficulty giving this money out - currently the FCC defines broadband as 768 Kbps downstream and 200 Kbps upstream. In this next round the FCC has decided to offer two levels of subsidy in the current round - $775 per location to bring broadband into underserved locations (where broadband does not exist) and an additional $550 per location (where lower speed broadband does exist) to bring broadband speeds up to 3Mbps downstream and 768 Kbps upstream.
Coverage includes over 600,000 homes and businesses in the United States and the map shows the number of homes and businesses along with the amount of subsidy ($775 or $550) for each location.
Four rural telcos are receiving most of the funds:
CenturyLink - $54 million
Frontier Communications - $72 million
AT&T - $100 million
Windstream - $124 million
Interesting that Verizon Landline (with regional sell-offs over past few years) does not appear to be a rural player any more.
Posted by Gordon F Snyder Jr at 9:37 AM 0 comments
Labels: broadband, communications, DSL, Education, Information, technician, Technology
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
Crowdfunding a Super-Smartphone
Well..... it's been a while since I posted here. I like to think I took a little sabbatical for the past four months. Most of my summer was spent on the road so it feels pretty good to be back at home for at least a little while. Even though I was not posting here I was still keeping up with technology and the business of technology.
Today I wanted to write a bit about a company called Canonical that's run by Mark Shuttleworth. You may not have heard of Mark or Canonical but you probably have heard of a version of the Linux operating system called Ubuntu that Canonical makes. Ubuntu is used on millions of servers around the world - basically big high horsepower computers used to host websites, etc.
Mark has this idea to launch what many call a super-smartphone - basically a tablet computer that has all the functionality of a PC called the Ubuntu Edge. Now, Mark happens to be a billionaire but decided back in July he wanted to crowdfund the project to the tune on $32 million using the crowdfunding website Indiegogo. Well long story short, Mark failed - at least with the crowdfunding idea. Canonical raised a little under $13 million ($12,813,501 to be exact) of the $32 million Mark was looking for.
The phone that was spec'd sounded pretty nice - a multi-core processor (fastest on the market), at least 4GB of RAM, 128 GB of storage, a sapphire crystal screen (only a diamond can scratch it), a high capacity silicon anode battery, GPS, gyro, accelerometer, proximity sensor, compass, barometer, HDMI interface for TVs and monitors, dual-LTE, dual band 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth 4, and near field communications.
I found Mark's crowdfunding approach interesting because with Indiegogo there are two options - an all or nothing approach (that's the one Mark picked) or the second option where the company keeps everything pledged whether the stated goal is met or not.
Why did it fail? Mark may have been asking for too much. Donors that wanted to get one of the first phones made were required to pledge at least $725. Initially the campaign set crowdfunding speed records but in the end stalled once the buzz wore off.
Is it over? For Canonical it may be for now. Mark has said he will not use his own funds for the project. But Mark is not the only one with super-smartphone desires - on July 16 (when I was in Poland right next door) Alexey Miller, chief executive officer of a Russian natural gas exporter called Gazprom offered to pay $3.7 million to anyone who could come up with one.
Posted by Gordon F Snyder Jr at 8:38 AM 0 comments
Labels: communications, Education, Engineering, Information, Linux, Smartphone, technician, Technology, Ubuntu, Wireless
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Crosstalk and Copper Wires
Electrical current flowing through any conductor (like the copper wires connecting his phone) will produce a surrounding electromagnetic field. If another conductor is within the surrounding field, an inductively coupled current will flow through the adjacent conductor.
There are two types of crosstalk, near end and far end.
Posted by Gordon F Snyder Jr at 12:52 PM 0 comments
Labels: communications, Data, Education, Information, technician, Technology, Telephone
Monday, December 3, 2012
Watching What You Do While You Watch TV
The image posted is also from the patent application and shows the detection zone.
- if detection facility 104 determines that a user is exercising (e.g., running on a treadmill, doing aerobics, lifting weights, etc.), advertising facility 106 may select an advertisement associated with exercise in general, a specific exercise being performed by the user, and/or any other advertisement (e.g., an advertisement for health food) that may be intended for people who exercise.
- if detection facility 104 detects that a user is playing with a dog, advertising facility 106 may select an advertisement associated with dogs (e.g., a dog food commercial, a flea treatment commercial, etc.).
- if detection facility 104 detects one or more words spoken by a user (e.g., while talking to another user within the same room or on the telephone), advertising facility 106 may utilize the one or more words spoken by the user to search for and/or select an advertisement associated with the one or more words.
- if detection facility 104 detects that a couple is arguing/fighting with each other, advertising facility 106 may select an advertisement associated marriage/relationship counseling.
- if detection facility 104 detects a particular object (e.g., a Budweiser can) within a user's surroundings, advertising facility 106 may select an advertisement associated with the detected object (e.g., a Budweiser commercial).
- if detection facility 104 detects a mood of a user (e.g., that the user is stressed), advertising facility 106 may select an advertisement associated with the detected mood (e.g., a commercial for a stress-relief product such as aromatherapy candles, a vacation resort, etc.).
Pets, people, conversations, moods, beer cans?? I don't think this is something I'd want in my home.
Posted by Gordon F Snyder Jr at 10:47 AM 0 comments
Labels: communications, Education, Engineering, Information, Marketing, technician, Technology, Telecommunications, Television
Monday, November 26, 2012
Global Mobile Stats - Google Our Mobile Planet
In a project called Our Mobile Planet, Google's been collecting mobile stats from 27 countries. Dan Swinhoe from IDG Connect Global has picked this data apart and written a very nice post titled The App Revolution: How this Varies By Market. Here's a few interesting tidbits from Swinhoe's excellent piece:
- Japan is the most ‘appy', but Germany is amongst the most keen to pay.
- According to 148apps, the Apple store has 719,452 apps available, and to buy them all would set you back a hefty $1,307,715.69.
- Angry Birds Star Wars is currently dominating the App store charts.
- By the end of the year, over 45 billion apps will have been downloaded - around 15 billion of those from Google, but you can expect Android to take the majority share in 2013 due to the sheer number of devices being sold using the search engine's OS.
- Microsoft's own appstore is yet to make significant inroads in any market but, depending on the success of its Surface tablet this could well change after Christmas.
- Custom-app building continues to grow, today's estimates putting the average cost of development at around $30-40,000.
- According to a report by Appaccelerator, Apple has become the chosen platform for enterprise app development, with 53.2% of developers picking iOS for corporate app development.
- In all the charts, no matter what system or country, games feature heavily in both free and paid for.
- While things such as social media and certain business software are now fully-apped, other areas are still a while off. For example media outlets are still struggling to cope with apps (web is still a struggle for many), while the largest programs - CAD/CAM and other large engineering/graphics programs simply are too big and complex for apps and mobile devices. At least for now.
Posted by Gordon F Snyder Jr at 5:50 PM 0 comments
Labels: apps, communications, Data, Education, Engineering, Information, mobile, Technology, Video, Voice
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Memories of September 11, 2001
I first published this four years ago.
I was walking into the office when our technician told me a plane had hit one of the towers - he said "they think it was a small plane"
and I did not think too much about it. 20 minutes or so later I was in a
meeting and the same tech came in saying it was an airliner. We all
left the meeting and turned on a small television in our lab. I also
made sure I had a computer close by so I could watch email.......
11:50 AM, 9/11/01
Hope all is well with everyone around the country,
Mete
BMCC is on Chambers Street, next to ground zero and a college building was damaged from the attack. Mete was on the subway on his way in when the attack started and I believe he walked home to Brooklyn.
Here's a reply message from Lynn at the AACC in Washington, DC::
We are ok here, but our office is closing so people can try to get home. The smoke from the Pentagon is visible from our 4th floor conference room. Most of the federal offices have now closed, a couple of subway stations near the Pentagon are closed, the streets are crowded with people driving and walking home from downtown offices, and cars with sirens go by every 5 minutes or so. Folks who live near Capitol Hill are sticking around the office until things calm down in that part of town.
Lynn
A flurry of emails went back and forth during the day from people all around the coutry. We were all worried, frustrated and upset about the attacks and our friends in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. Here's a sample of the response from Paula at Richland College in Dallas:
Thank you both for taking the time to provide us with an update of your safety. Our prayers are with you and all Americans during this tragedy. As in other states, thousands are donating blood. A major sports arena in Dallas has been setup as a blood donation facility. Churches are conducting special services. Please assist us to remain informed as to organizations/drives that are established that will provide direct support.
Paula
This came from Chris at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York City a few days later:
FIT is safe and sound and open for business but few classes are running normally. It is hard to describe the experience of walking south on Manhattan's avenues and seeing a column of smoke where the World Trade Towers should be. When the wind shifts, the smell of the fire comes to Chelsea with a light dusting of the cement that is ankle deep a few blocks away.
We are glad to hear that all are well at BMCC and in Washington.
Chris
Here's a followup from Mete that was also sent on September 14:
The subways are not running and all the outer borough are choked with traffic with people bringing their cars and parking them as close to Manhattan as possible. The air quality is bad, there is possibility that some more buildings (including our own that was next to a collapsed building) may come down aggravating the situation.
There are a number people that I know, with families, that perished in the bombings (we were going go to a 10th bday party this weekend, but the mother is missing - what do we do now ??) from my daughter's school and our neighborhood. But they are defiant, and most of the businesses try to operate as usual with a backdrop of surrealism...
Thanks for all of your e-mails and good wishes. We appreciate it and find comfort in them.
Mete
Hundreds of emails went back and forth over the next few weeks on the listserv. I've saved them all.
Posted by Gordon F Snyder Jr at 8:26 AM 0 comments
Labels: communications, Education, Engineering, Information, technician, Technology
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Data Transmission on T1 Carriers - Part 2
In Part 1of this topic I described how a T1 carrier is used to transmit data. Data transmission by nature is "bursty" meaning large amounts of information are typically transmitted and then followed by relatively quiet transmission periods. This can cause transmission problems for T-carrier systems since they rely on timing synchronization. Let's take a look how this potential problem is avoided.
Posted by Gordon F Snyder Jr at 10:29 AM 0 comments
Labels: Analog, communications, Data, Digital, ebook, Education, Engineering, Information, technician, Technology, Telecommunications, Voice
Thursday, April 19, 2012
87 Million 4G Devices Will Ship In 2012
According to a recent ABI Research report, 4G devices are moving rapidly from the assembly line to retail stores.
- Refers to a range of 4G-enabled mobile devices, from USB dongles, smartphones, tablets, 4G portable hotspots, and wireless broadband CPE modems
- 4G devices are expected to generate 87 million in unit sales in 2012, up 294% year-on-year.
- 61 million 4G handsets being shipped in 2012.
- 26 million 4G non-handset products (e.g. USB dongles for legacy laptops and netbooks, by premise equipment, home modems, etc) will be shipped
- The lion’s share of the market is now backing LTE as service provider and vendor support has fallen away from WiMAX.
- There is a natural evolutionary demand from 3G end-users, both business and consumer, to jump onto the 4G data bandwagon.
- Mobile device vendors are experiencing intense competitive pressure, which is expected to bring down LTE handset prices, estimated at 10 to 20 percent over the next two years.
Posted by Gordon F Snyder Jr at 3:48 PM 0 comments
Labels: communications, Education, Engineering, Information, mobile, technician, Technology, Wireless
Monday, April 16, 2012
Data Transmission on T-1 Carriers Part 1
Back in December I wrote a post here titled T1 Lines - What They Are. In the post I discuss the Digital Signal (DS) Level System and how combining the equivalent of 24 DS-0 voice channels along with overhead consisting of timing and synchronization bits brings the DS-1 bit rate to 1.644 Mbps - that's a T1. In this post, let's have a look in more detail to get a better idea of how the entire system works.
Posted by Gordon F Snyder Jr at 7:28 PM 0 comments
Labels: Analog, communications, Data, Digital, ebook, Education, Engineering, Information, technician, Technology, Telecommunications, Voice
Friday, March 30, 2012
Wireless Shift: LTE Macrocells -> Small Base Stations
- Operators will initially deploy small cell equipment as in fills on the pico and microcell layers, but will quickly transition to deploying them as a fundamental part of a network rollout.
- The number of LTE small cells sold (127,000) will surpass the number of LTE macrocells, forecast at 113,000, as early as 2014.
- Semiconductor suppliers are positioning themselves to participate in this market with TI, Freescale, Cavium, Mindspeed, and DesignArt among the manufacturers offering new “base station-on-a-chip” SoCs.
- However, LTE base station revenues will continue to be dominated by macro base station revenue with small cell revenue of $1.09 billion representing only 5.2% of the total revenue of $20.86 billion in 2014 and growing to $4.44 billion or 23.9% of the total $18.60 billion LTE base station market by 2016.
- Equipment manufacturers have been quick to respond to this shift in RAN (Radio Access Network) architecture. Ericsson acquired BelAir networks as part of its “HetNet” initiative, Nokia Siemens Networks announced Flexi Zone, Alcatel-Lucent continues to expand its lightRadio™ portfolio and Huawei has announced its AtomCell products.
Posted by Gordon F Snyder Jr at 3:28 PM 1 comments
Labels: 4G, antennas, communications, Education, Engineering, Information, LTE, Networks, technician, Technology, Wireless
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
SONET Packet-Oriented Data Framing
Timing is critical here (that's why it's called synchronous) for communications across the entire network.
Posted by Gordon F Snyder Jr at 10:53 AM 1 comments
Labels: communications, Data, ebook, Education, Engineering, Ethernet, fiber, Information, optics, technician, Technology, Telecommunications
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Synchronous Optical Network - SONET
In the United States T-1 carriers have been replaced in many locations with Synchronous Optical Network (SONET) systems. Internationally, the SONET equivalent is called Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH). Both SONET and SDH systems consist of rings of fiber capable of carrying very high bit rates over long distances. Copper has been replaced by fiber to inter-connect most Central Offices (CO’s) in the United States at bit rates ranging from the SONET base rate of 51.84 Mbps up to 39,813,120 Gbps.
Posted by Gordon F Snyder Jr at 9:36 PM 0 comments
Labels: Analog, communications, ebook, Education, Engineering, Information, technician, Technology, Telecommunications, Voice
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Facebook IT Operations Director: Improving ICT Education in Challenging Times
In January for the past few years, our NSF funded National Center for Information and Communications Technologies has been co-sponsoring a Winter 2012 ICT Educator's Conference in San Francisco in collaboration with the Mid-Pacific Information and Communications Technologies Center.
This year the conference was held at the Microsoft offices in downtown San Francisco and we were fortunate to have Facebook's Director of IT Operations, Steven Ruggiero as one of the keynotes. Heres his presentation - it's really good.
Thinking about a technical career or know someone who is? Good stuff for students, parents, educators, guidance counselors, etc.
Posted by Gordon F Snyder Jr at 12:42 PM 1 comments
Labels: communications, Education, Engineering, Facebook, Information, Media, Social, technician, Technology