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Monday, January 17, 2022
2022 Predictions
FAA speeds up approvals of Boeing and Airbus aircraft
Just days ahead of the planned activation of mid-band 5G spectrum by AT&T and Verizon, the FAA cleared some Boeing 737, 747, 757, 767, MD-10/-11 and Airbus A310, A319, A320, A321, A330 and A350 models to perform low-visibility landings at many of the airports where 5G interference is possible during certain weather conditions. This covers an estimated 45 percent of the U.S. commercial fleet where 5G C-band will be deployed on Jan. 19.
As of Jan. 5, none of the 88 airports would have been available for landing during low-visibility conditions. The wireless companies agreed to create buffer zones for six months around airports where transmitters are in close proximity. They also agreed to delay deployment until Jan. 19 while the FAA reviewed new data detailing the location and power of wireless transmitters in all 46 U.S. markets where this service will be deployed.
The FAA notes that even with these new approvals, flights at some airports may still be affected. Additional aircraft and equipment clearances are expected from the FAA in coming days.
https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/faa-statements-5g
FAA issues directives concerning altimeters and 5G
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued two airworthiness directives concerning the expansion of 5G and aviation:AD 2021-23-12 for all transport and commuter category airplanes equipped with a radio (also known as radar) altimeter. This AD was prompted by a determination that radio altimeters cannot be relied upon to perform their intended function if they experience interference from wireless broadband operations in the 3.7-3.98...
United Airlines statement on 5G
On Monday, January 17, United Airlines released the following statement:
"The federal government’s current 5G rollout plan will have a devastating impact on aviation, negatively affecting an estimated 1.25 million United passengers, at least 15,000 flights and much-needed goods and tons of cargo traveling through more than 40 of the largest airports in the country annually. When deployed next to runways, the 5G signals could interfere with the key safety equipment that pilots rely on to take off and land in inclement weather."
"We won’t compromise on safety – full stop. But, governments in other countries have successfully designed policies to ensure the safe deployment of 5G technology and we’re simply asking the US government to do the same. Otherwise, the radio altimeters on certain aircraft, which provide information to other safety systems like autopilot, heads-up displays, terrain warning and pitch control, will be compromised and will result in significant restrictions on 787s, 777s, 737s and regional aircraft in major cities like Houston, Newark, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago. Unfortunately, this will result in not only hundreds of thousands of flight cancellations and disruptions for customers across the industry in 2022, but also the suspension of cargo flights into these locations, causing a negative ripple-effect on an already fragile supply chain. We implore the Biden administration to act quickly and apply the same common sense solutions here that have clearly worked so well around the world."
https://www.united.com/en/us/newsroom/announcements/united-airlines-statement-on-5g-implementation
Vecima demos > 8.5 Gbps down and > 6 Gbps up with DOCSIS 4.0
Vecima Networks and Charter Communications havedemonstrated greater than 8.5 Gbps downstream and 6 Gbps upstream on hybrid fiber-coaxial (HFC) cable plant.
"This provides proof that our network is capable of offering multi-gig speeds bi-directionally,” said Joe Godas, Senior Vice President, Network Engineering & Technology, Charter Communications. “Having this technology offers an option for future improvements and continuing to evolve our leading service for years to come."
“Vecima is excited to help lead the industry in bringing DOCSIS 4.0 to the market,” added Sumit Kumar, President and Chief Executive Officer at Vecima. “The HFC plant remains a huge asset for cable operators, and our recent testing validates the performance and viability of DOCSIS 4.0 and the inherent multi-gig symmetrical capacity of the cable plant. Vecima is proud to play such an integral role in powering the world’s movement to the limitless broadband connectivity of the future.”
Italy's WINDTRE picks Nokia for new optical backbone.
Nokia has been selected by WINDTRE to deploy a new, high performance optical backbone across Italy.
The DWDM deployment will leverage Nokia’s fifth generation PSE-V super-coherent (PSE-Vs) chipset to support programmable line rates up to 600G. The Nokia PSE-V Super Coherent DSP implements second generation probabilistic constellation shaping (PCS) with continuous baud rate adjustment, and supports higher wavelength capacities over longer distances – including support for 400G over any distance – over spectrally efficient 100GHz WDM channels while further reducing network costs and power consumption per bit.
The new backbone with deploy redundant nodes in a wave router mesh configuration with GMPLS-based restoration, enabling the ability to instantly re-route traffic as needed.
Benoit Hanssen, Chief Technology Officer at WINDTRE, said: “Nokia’s solution based on industry-leading coherent technology will help us provide next generation broadband services to both consumer and business customers in the most efficient way. It will also enable us to grow our subscriber base and provide best-in-class experience to WINDTRE’s existing customers."
Sergio Solivera Vela, Vice President Mediterranean Region, at Nokia: “We have a long standing and successful relationship with WINDTRE and are very happy to expand this by deplolying its new optical backbone. Our latest coherent technology solutions will provide WINDTRE with massive capacity that grows as subscriber demand increases, without sacrificing reliability.”
Equinix announces its 10th data center in Paris
Equinix unveiled plans for its 10th data center in Paris.
The new site, named PA10, will be part of the Equinix Saint-Denis campus. Phase 1 of PA10 is due to provide 3,775 m2 of colocation space and 1,525 cabinets of capacity. Upon completion of all planned phases, the full site is expected to generate 5,775 m2 of colocation space with ~2,250 cabinets.
Régis Castagné, Managing Director for France at Equinix, explains: "For a long time, the digital revolution has been seen as the cause of change in society. Its importance during the pandemic is an illustration of this: not only did it allow us to continue to work, learn, or be entertained, but it was also essential for economic recovery. At Equinix, we're working to support this shift, spearheading innovations to address the environmental impact of digital. Indeed, it has become a societal issue that requires, among other things, increased dialogue between industry and local authorities to hasten progress in this area."
"In support of the Choose France initiative, today's investment and expansion serves to bolster the country's digital infrastructure capabilities, providing local and multi-national corporations with a foundational source of differentiation and the global platform needed to thrive in today's digital economy," notes Charles Meyers, President and CEO at Equinix. "Equinix is connecting digital leaders, enabling them to simplify operations, improve customer experience and accelerate the launch of new products and services."
Digicel Tonga confirms two separate undersea cable breaks
Digicel also confirmed that its domestic network in Tongatapu is active.
Digicel Regional CEO, Shally Jannif, said; “We know how vital it is at times like this that we keep people connected. We are focused on doing everything we can to ensure that we are able to establish international connectivity with Tonga.”
https://www.digicelgroup.com/to/en/news/2022/jan/18th/network-update-volcanic-eruption.html
Samsung debuts flagship Exynos 2200 mobile processor
Samsung Electronics Co. announced mass production of its flagship Exynos 2200 premium mobile processor produced using 4-nanometer (nm) EUV (extreme ultraviolet lithography) technology.
The Exynos 2200 mobile processor leverages AMD RDNA 2 architecture based Samsung Xclipse graphics processing unit (GPU) with hardware-accelerated Ray Tracing on Mobile for gaming.
“Built on the most advanced 4-nanometer (nm) EUV (extreme ultraviolet lithography) process, and combined with cutting-edge mobile, GPU, and NPU technology, Samsung has crafted the Exynos 2200 to provide the finest experience for smartphone users. With the Xclipse, our new mobile GPU built with RDNA 2 graphics technology from the industry leader AMD, the Exynos 2200 will redefine mobile gaming experience, aided by enhanced graphics and AI performance,” said Yongin Park, President of System LSI Business at Samsung Electronics. “As well as bringing the best mobile experience to the users, Samsung will continue its efforts to lead the journey in logic chip innovation.”
“AMD RDNA 2 graphics architecture extends power-efficient, advanced graphics solutions to PCs, laptops, consoles, automobiles and now to mobile phones. Samsung’s Xclipse GPU is the first result of multiple planned generations of AMD RDNA graphics in Exynos SoCs,” said David Wang, Senior Vice President of Radeon Technologies Group at AMD.
The Exynos 2200 is one of the first in the market to integrate Arm’s latest Armv9 CPU cores which offer a substantial improvement over Armv8 in terms of security and performance. The octa-core CPU of Exynos 2200 is designed in a tri-cluster structure made up of a single powerful Arm Cortex®-X2 flagship-core, three performance and efficiency balanced Cortex-A710 big-cores and four power-efficient Cortex-A510 little-cores.
The Exynos 2200 NPU’s performance has doubled compared to its predecessor, allowing more calculations in parallel and enhancing the AI performance. The NPU now offers much higher precision with FP16 (16bit floating point) support in addition to power efficient INT8 (8bit integer) and INT16.
Also, the Exynos 2200 integrates a fast 3GPP Release 16 5G modem supporting both sub-6GHz and mmWave (millimeter Wave) spectrum bands. With E-UTRAN New Radio – Dual Connectivity (EN-DC), which utilizes both 4G LTE and 5G NR signals, the modem can boost the speed up to 10Gbps.
The Exynos 2200’s image signal processor (ISP) architecture has been redesigned to support the latest image sensors for ultra-high resolution of up to 200 megapixel (MP). At 30 frames-per- second (fps), the ISP supports up to 108 MP in single camera mode, and 64+36Mp in dual camera mode. It can also connect up to seven individual image sensors and drive four concurrently for advanced multi-camera setups. For video recording, the ISP supports up to 4K HDR (or 8K) resolution.
The Exynos 2200 can decode videos up to 4K at 240fps or 8K at 60fps and encodes up to 4K at 120fps or 8K at 30fps. In addition, the MFC integrates power efficient AV1 decoder enabling longer playback time.
http://www.samsung.com/exynos
Johnson Controls acquires FogHorn for industrial IoT
Johnson Controls, which supplies builiding technology for healthcare, schools, data centers, airports, stadiums and industrial usage, has acquired FogHorn, a Silicon Valley start-up offering Edge AI software for the industrial and commercial Internet of Things (IoT). Financial terms were not disclosed.
"Value is increasingly being created by applying intelligence at the edge-device level to create real-time, secure, actionable insights," said Johnson Controls CTO Vijay Sankaran. "By pervasively integrating Foghorn's world class Edge AI throughout our OpenBlue solution portfolio, we are accelerating the pace towards our vision of smart, autonomous buildings that continuously learn, adapt and automatically respond to the needs of the environment and people."
As the number of sensors and amount of data in buildings continues to grow exponentially, the value of processing data and applying intelligence at the edge, without having to send data to the cloud, becomes increasingly pronounced.
Sastry Malladi, who served as Chief Technology Officer at Foghorn, will join Johnson Controls, reporting to Sankaran as Vice President, OpenBlue Artificial Intelligence.
"We are thrilled to bring the Foghorn team and edge AI capabilities to Johnson Controls and OpenBlue," said Sastry Malladi, Foghorn's Chief Technology Officer. "By combining our respective strengths, Johnson Controls can make an even bigger impact on continuing to address some of the world's most pressing challenges of decarbonization, sustainability and energy efficiency, indoor air quality and smart, secure buildings."
Telenor to sell its stake in Myanmar's Wave Money
Telenor will sell its 51 percent share of Digital Money Myanmar Limited (“Wave Money”) for US$53 million to Yoma MFS Holdings Pte. Ltd, a subsidiary of Yoma Strategic.
Wave Money is a leading provider of money transfer and digital payment solutions in Myanmar. The company was launched in November 2016 as a joint venture between Yoma Bank and Telenor Group, after the fintech pioneer was awarded a license to become the first non-bank institution to work under Myanmar’s new Mobile Financial Services Regulation. In 2020, Wave Money processed a total of US$8.7 billion in remittance and payments, which represented around 12 percent of Myanmar’s GDP. The company runs a network of more than 45,000 active agents or “Wave Shops” in urban and rural areas across 295 out of the 330 townships nationwide. The business has seen a significant recovery in volumes since June 2021 with the trend expected to continue.
“Telenor is proud to have been part of Wave Money’s journey to empower the people of Myanmar with country-wide access to financial services. We have worked in partnership with Yoma Strategic to ensure that anyone from anywhere can digitally send and receive money, make contactless and secure payments in-stores or online using the market leading mobile Wallet App of Wave Money. We are confident that Yoma have the commitment and vision to take Wave Money forward to the next level of driving financial inclusion”, says Lars Erik Tellmann, Head of Financial Services in Telenor Group.
