It's been a year of contradictions for the telecommunications industry.
Like most sectors, it has been heavily impacted by the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic, with a slowdown in global 5G roll-outs being a notable result. Geopolitical conflicts have continued to muddy the market, with governments playing a more active role than ever in setting telecoms-centred policy.
At the same time, however, the air is thick with promise and opportunity. Over the last nine months, entire organizations have transitioned to remote working and high-bandwidth video communication. Corporations have accelerated digital transformation initiatives. Online shopping has soared. The appetite for autonomous manufacturing...
In the recent report by IHS Markit - "The 5G Economy - How 5G will contribute to the global economy" - researchers claimed that manufacturing will garner almost $4.7 trillion in sales enablement by 2035. Or 36% of the $13.2 trillion total opportunity of 5G by 2035. Manufacturing will be by far the largest industry beyond mobile to be impacted by 5G.
In the manufacturing sector the adoption will benefit in the short-to-medium term from enhanced indoor wireless broadband coverage. Other early use cases include asset tracking such as visibility over incoming and outgoing components and goods in the supply...
Neil Harbisson calls himself a cyborg. Without the antenna implanted in his skull, he would not be able to see colour of any kind. Born with achromatopsia, a condition of total colourblindness that affects 1 in every 30 000 people, Harbisson's physical faculties are augmented by cyber technology to grant him access to a life of greater meaning and satisfaction.
As technological evolution leads to concomitant advances in medical science, we are seeing more and more examples of humans who are integrating devices and sensors into their biological makeup. For some, like those part of the growing "transhumanist" movement, this...
The interest in 5G and mIoT is exploding. It's exciting to see so many IT and cybersecurity professionals in my network trying to learn more about 5G and related technologies.
In addition to my usual articles about the societal impacts of these innovations, I'll start a series of articles introducing key 5G and mIoT technology concepts. Before we move on to technical aspects of 5G security.
Let's get started with reviewing the 5G core service-based architecture and learning the first few dozen acronyms, out of approximately a gazillion. The cellular industry loves acronyms. Even more than the cybersecurity industry.
5G architecture is...
In a major milestone for 5G, 3GPP finalized the Release 16 in July - its second set of specifications for 5G New Radio (NR) technology. As a second article in my series of 5G 101 articles, this is a good opportunity to review the 3GPP process and major 5G-related technical specification releases. As well as to clarify some misconceptions about the 5G development process.
This article provides an overview of what is 3GPP and its importance. It also explains the Releases related to 5G including Release 15, 16 and 17. The focus will be on 3GPP Release 16 and 17.
Release...
No, no it doesn’t. Huawei's code might as well be extremely secure. Their code is certainly the most scrutinized. But the recent UDG source code review is not an evidence of security.
ERNW, an independent IT security service provider in Germany, recently performed a technical review / audit of Huawei’s Unified Distributed Gateway (UDG) source code. Huawei made the summary report available here .
The review focused on the quality of the source code and the source code management practices. The report is overall positive and showed that Huawei has significantly improved its software engineering processes. At least for the UDG...
IoT Wireless Protocols data rate and range comparison in a spreadsheet format. Includes downloadable Excel spreadsheet.
IoT Wireless Protocols in a spreadsheet format. Includes downloadable Excel spreadsheet.
For many end-users of today's communications technology, the cloud is a somewhat mystical concept, a digital equivalent of aether. Most think of it as a formless abstraction "up there" when, in fact, the cloud is rooted in the ground. Or the seabed.
Despite rapid advances in satellite connection, almost all intercontinental data transfer that takes place every second of the day occurs via hundreds of thousands of miles of underwater cables. Reading a map of these submarine cables is like viewing a tapestry of international telecommunication.
It is perhaps strange to think that the email you just sent to your colleague...
There are many adjectives that could be used to describe the global outbreak of COVID-19, but perhaps the simplest might be: fast.
The disease has spread quicker than most people can mentally digest. By nature, humans process linearly. This pandemic has been a lesson in exponential thinking for the common man. Those who don’t spend their time contemplating Moore's Law or compound interest have felt overwhelmed by infection or mortality rates that double daily.
In response, governments, businesses, monetary institutions, education systems and the many other players in corporate and civil life have acted at high speed. It is easy to...
Depending on who you speak to, 5G is either humankind’s greatest imminent blessing or its greatest imminent curse. Still in its infancy, and not yet commercially standardized, this technology has already been the most polarizing advancement we have ever seen in communication.
Consumers worldwide are captivated by promises of super-fast download speeds, split-second responsiveness and next-level mobile phone communication, but are divided on the possible sacrifices of privacy and security.
Detractors continue to issue condemnations of 5G cellular’s possible health risks. Supporters continue to shake their heads in disbelief. Governments jostle for geopolitical supremacy; 5G is seen as both a proxy...
In their outstanding book, Wicked and Wise, Alan Watkins and Ken Wilber look at some of the most pressing ‘wicked problems’ facing the human race. ‘Wicked problems,’ they suggest, are difficult to define, but they are essentially unsolvable in the usual scientific sense.
The authors go on: wicked problems, such as climate change, are multi-dimensional, have multiple causes, multiple stakeholders, multiple symptoms and multiple solutions. They are by definition complex and difficult to process.
Crucially, they are created or exacerbated by people.
Our species has proved capable of producing challenges of unfathomable difficulty. We may, however, also prove capable of developing the...
The human will to innovate is seemingly relentless. The history of our species is one of continual development, with the last 350 years, in particular, representing staggering technological progress.
The first industrial revolution mechanized production using natural elements like water. The second revolution used electricity to enable mass production; the third used electronics and information technology to automate production. The fourth industrial revolution unfolding all around us is characterized by an exponential growth in data production and the merging of the physical and digital.
Cyber-physical systems (CSPs) like the internet of things (IoT) and industrial control systems (ICS) are capable of...
In 1967, Lynn Margulis, a young biologist, published a paper that challenged more than a hundred years of evolutionary theory. It proposed that millions of years ago, the eukaryotes emerged not from competition, as neo-Darwinism asserts, but from collaboration.
Margulis’ research showed how single-celled lifeforms working together created an entirely new organism that became the foundation of all advanced life on earth. This was an inflection point in the development of evolutionary biology, shifting the scientific and cultural narrative away from “survival of the fittest” towards “survival of the most cooperative.”
Though competition contributes to better individual or organizational performance, it...
Recently, in the science journal Nature, Google claimed ‘quantum supremacy’ saying that its quantum computer is the first to perform a calculation that would be practically impossible for a classical machine. This quantum computing breakthrough brings us closer to the arrival of functional quantum systems which will have a profound effect on today's security infrastructure. How will quantum computing affect the security of 5G technologies currently being developed and deployed?
Last spring we suggested that the emergence of quantum internet connectivity and computation, expected sometime in the next decade, poses numerous new cryptography and cybersecurity challenges for 5G security.
MIT offers...