While tonight will see SpaceX’s 16th launch of its broadband satellites, that launch will also make history, reports CNET: The first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket is set to make its seventh flight, which would be a record for rocket recycling for the company. The booster previously flew on four Starlink missions and a pair of larger telecom satellite launches….
Tag: Broadband
The US Could Soon Ban the Selling of Carrier-Locked Phones
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: In the U.S., a complicated combination of corporate interests and pre-smartphone era legislation has resulted in more than two decades of back and forth about the legality of phone locking. It’s looking like that battle could ramp up again next year. The transition to a Biden administration could shake up the regulatory body…
In Rural ‘Dead Zones,’ School Comes On a Flash Drive
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Shekinah and Orlandria Lennon were sitting at their kitchen table this fall, taking online classes, when video of their teachers and fellow students suddenly froze on their laptop screens. The wireless antenna on the roof had stopped working, and it could not be fixed. Desperate for a solution, their mother…
Alphabet Project Uses Light Beams To Bring Broadband To Remote Regions
An Alphabet X innovation lab project has been working on a high-speed wireless optical communications network that uses beams of light instead of cables or radio waves, and folks in Kenya will be the first to benefit from the fruits of these labors. New Atlas reports: Project Taara, a part of Alphabet’s X moonshot factory, has been working on a wireless…
Trudeau Promises To Connect 98% of Canadians To High-Speed Internet By 2026
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says its government is now on track to connect 98% of Canadians to high-speed internet by 2026. CBC.ca reports: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and a handful of cabinet ministers held a news conference in Ottawa to launch the $1.75 billion universal broadband fund — a program unveiled in the federal government’s 2019 budget and highlighted on…
Planned satellite constellation poses a collision threat, NASA says: Reports
NASA has voiced “substantial concerns” about a planned constellation of broadband satellites, saying the commercial spacecraft would increase the risk of collisions in an important slice of Earth orbit. Source: https://www.livescience.com/satellite-constellation-collision-threat-nasa-warning.html
What Biden’s Victory Means For Net Neutrality – and for Ajit Pai
“A victory by Joe Biden in the Nov. 3 election could usher in an abrupt change in the nation’s telecommunications policy, restoring so-called net neutrality regulation,” Bloomberg recently reported: Biden hasn’t talked much about the FCC during the campaign, but his party’s platform is specific. It calls for restoring net neutrality rules put in place under then-President Barack Obama when Biden…
The Tech Antitrust Problem No One Is Talking About: US Broadband Providers
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: After years of building political pressure for antitrust scrutiny of major tech companies, this month Congress and the US government delivered. The House Antitrust Subcommittee released a report accusing Apple, Amazon, Google, and Facebook of monopolistic behavior. The Department of Justice filed a complaint against Google alleging the company prevents consumers from…
FCC Funding Aims To Guarantee 100 Mbps Internet Throughout Puerto Rico
On Monday, the FCC’s Wireless Competition Board announced that newly allocated financing part of Stage Two of the Uniendo a Puerto Rico fund will ensure that every location across Puerto Rico will have access to broadband internet with download speeds of at least 100 Mbps, with one-third of the territory getting 1 Gbps internet. From a report: The milestone will come…
Ultra-luminous X-ray pulsar Swift J0243.6+6124 investigated with AstroSat
Using India’s AstroSat spacecraft, astronomers have performed broadband timing and spectral observations of an ultra-luminous X-ray (ULX) pulsar known as Swift J0243.6+6124. Results of this observational campaign, presented in a paper published October 16 on arXiv.org, reveal more details about the properties of this pulsar. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-10-ultra-luminous-x-ray-pulsar-swift-j024366124.html…