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Monday, June 3, 2019
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Monday, May 13, 2019
the Light Reading Big 5G Event in Denver - May 2019
https://www.forbes.com/sites/moorinsights/2019/05/13/what-was-big-at-the-big-5g-event/
Why 5G
“5G’s promise of lightning-fast throughput and low latency”
5G is poised to be disruptive and woven into all fabrics of society
Verizon’s Nicki Palmer summed it up during her keynote at the Big 5G Event this month.
She believes that within the next three years, connected devices could reach three times the world’s population.
The current 4G LTE networks can’t scale to support that onslaught of connectivity - 5G can.
Jason Proctor from CBC news in Canada summarises the 5G narrative quite well.
It is estimated that by 2020 between 50 billion and 100 billion devices worldwide are expected to be connected to the internet with the ability to communicate seamlessly with no latency. (Lag between sending and receiving).
5G will have enough bandwidth to revolutionise entertainment, health care and education - it will enable the “Internet of Things” , Virtual Reality or Augmented Reality.
Uses will include self-driving cars, remote-controlled thermostats and drones — connected to the internet.
Our devices will be able to communicate directly with each other, essentially cutting humans out of the equation.
The players at the conference included
- Ian Campbell, CTO for Cisco Systems’
- Mishka Dehghan, Sprint’s executive lead for 5G services
- Nicki Palmer, Verizon’s Chief Networking Officer, highlighted location-based services,
- Huawei CTO Paul Scanlan and Joy Tan, who leads corporate communications for the company
All shared their excitement and benefits of 5 G which included
- roaming,
- Internet download speeds multiple times faster,
- I o T - communication with many more devices at once,
- the ability to send and receive information closer to real time than ever before.
- Households will be altered through inter-connectivity of equipment,
- Industries made more timely and cost-effective,
- the economy from banking to shopping will be transformed
- improved stadium connectivity/
- back office support, and
- factory automation.
- network slicing,
- virtualization,
- cloudification,
- the leverage of open APIs.
- Smart City implementation - transport and city management will be revolutionised - improving public safety,
- Driverless cars with 5G making possible the superfast sending of precision data between vehicles so that they do not collide and they can communicate with road sensors and traffic lights and surveillance drones.
- Systems will alert police when accidents occur, traffic moves smoothly through integrated signals that keep track of flows, and emergency vehicles arrive as quickly as possible through not being held up by red lights.
- distance learning.
- gaming, and
- healthcare - example - long-distance surgery with robots, a surgeon implanting a stimulation device into the brain of a Parkinson’s disease patient in Beijing using robotic arms controlled from about 3,000km away.
The importance of security of networks
Security of networks to keep them safe from hackers will be no different with 5G than the present 4G.
Systems and equipment, no matter who makes them or where they are from, will need to be constantly checked and monitored and improved.
Given the importance of 5G to the future, governments and companies need to share and cooperate.
Mr. Scanlan’s response to the concerns that Huawei may share subscriber data with the Chinese government.
He pointed out that data ownership and management resides with carriers, not equipment providers, who are bound by privacy laws within each particular region of the world.
A tour of the Huawei’s Independent Cybersecurity Lab in Shenzhen revealed over 240 international security certifications and a multi-layered internal audit protocol for discovering “backdoors” and vetoing product launches independently of its consumer, carrier, and enterprise business units (with documented stops and product cancellations in the past).
Huawei is working hard to allay the concerns of the rest of the world with not only its cybersecurity lab but also by inviting the media to tour its headquarters.
These efforts could be paying off given Huawei started in the telecommunications industry over 30 years ago and in a relatively short amount of time built a $50B consumer business.
This was led by impressive smartphone designs with an emphasis on professional-like camera capabilities and in parallel has created an enterprise switch and router business approaching $10B and growing at an impressive clip.
Bottom line - 5G is coming and Australia should be riding this wave with Huawei
You should also read https://australianinnovation.blogspot.com/2019/05/5g-fifth-generation-of-wireless.html
And
5G - the fifth generation of wireless technology is coming
Jason Proctor from CBC news in Canada summarises the 5G narrative quite well.
The Technology Generations
The first generation — 1G — was introduced in the 1980s with wireless phones that had almost no ability to transmit data.
The next generation occurred a decade later with better sound quality, security and capacity. Email and text became widespread.
3G brought global roaming and higher-speed transmission, allowing for more widespread connectivity and movement with devices.
4G allowed phone users to surf the internet, stream music, access social media, post videos and use a wide variety of apps on smartphones.
5G "will be a game changer in wireless telecommunications, ushering in a network for future generations with more devices, faster communication, and higher speeds."
Current 4G mobile networks can offer speeds of about 45Mbps (megabits per second) on average and experts say 5G could achieve browsing and downloads up to 20 times faster.
Connectivity - Internet of Things
It is estimated that by 2020 between 50 billion and 100 billion devices worldwide are expected to be connected to the internet with the ability to communicate seamlessly with no latency. (Lag between sending and receiving).
5G will have enough bandwidth to revolutionise entertainment, health care and education - it will enable the “Internet of Things” , Virtual Reality or Augmented Reality.
Uses will include self-driving cars, remote-controlled thermostats and drones — connected to the internet.
Our devices will be able to communicate directly with each other, essentially cutting humans out of the equation.
What does 5G mean to Canada
The Accenture report estimates that Canada's wireless operators are expected to invest $26 billion deploying 5G infrastructure between 2020 and 2026, having already spent about $17.6 billion in spectrum auctions.
Accenture claims the payoff in that same time will be a lift of about $40 billion a year to Canada's gross domestic product as well as the creation of 250,000 permanent jobs.
Some of the Benefits to the economy
Farmers will use sensors for soil, crops and livestock maintenance. "Smart irrigation" alone is expected to save blueberry farmers $270 million a year.
The Oil industry will use sensors that allow for "predictive maintenance"
All industries will benefit from a reduction in unplanned downtime and reduction in the risk of catastrophic disasters associated with equipment or facilities failures from human error.
The 3 players
Nokia, Ericsson and Huawei are the leading firms in the field.
Whose banning Huawei and whose not
The possibility of a Chinese company having access to the core of Western telecommunications systems has raised concerns - resulting in USA excluding Huawei from contracts with the American government or its contractors.
The Australian government has also banned the company from its 5G networks.
The United Kingdom has banned Huawei from core parts of the British communications network,
Dutch telecom giant Royal KPN NV has said it will use a Western supplier to build the core 5G mobile network.
Germany, Poland most Asian Countries and the 3rd world have refused to follow suit.
Huawei maintains its independence from the Chinese state.
What’s the Issue?
Will the organisation that provides the underlying technology “control the infrastructure of that network? “
Do the manufacturers and builders have this control or the telecommunication companies who manage the networks?
5G is coming regardless.
Huawei has the technology and the IP and will control a good number of these networks. By definition, the United States is going to have to connect into those networks because you can't have a global communications system where American or European equipment doesn't talk to Chinese equipment.
<iframe src="//www.cbc.ca/i/caffeine/syndicate/?mediaId=1508442179656" width="398" height="224" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
ABOUT Jason Proctor
@proctor_jason
Jason Proctor is a reporter in British Columbia for CBC News and has covered the B.C. courts and mental health issues in the justice system extensively.
You should also read https://australianinnovation.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-light-reading-big-5g-event-in.html
And
https://australianinnovation.blogspot.com/2019/04/heres-what-you-need-to-know-about-5g.html
Thursday, April 18, 2019
Here’s what you need to know about 5G - Beyond the hype, what are the promises and the risks?
Interesting article By Rebecca Slayton in Washington Post
( Rebecca Slayton is an associate professor at the Department of Science & Technology Studies and director of the Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, both at Cornell University.)
Here is a summary
“The race for 5G is on, and America must win.” Trump announced last week last, announcing new federal initiatives to speed the deployment of 5G networks.
5G is the platform for tomorrow’s economy, transforming “everything from education to AI to medicine, but comes with security risks.
Will banning components made by Huawei mitigate those risks?
5G is an evolutionary — not revolutionary — advance in technology.
5G (“fifth generation”) communications standards will extend rather than replace the current 4G infrastructure.
5G protocols can improve three kinds of applications.
- 5G can bring better speed and reliability to mobile broadband,
- More reliable reliability and low latency (i.e., fast response time) in communication
- Enables communication between myriad machines ( Internet of Things) providing online control over door locks, lighting, thermostats, cars and literally everything
Huawei Chairman Eric Xu recently argued that most consumers would notice “no material difference between” 4G and 5G technologies. Many U.S. tech experts share this view, arguing that it doesn’t matter whether the United States lags behind China in its 5G deployment.
The effects of 5G security by hackers will bring new cyber security and hacking dangers, depending on how it’s used.
U.S. and worldwide infrastructure and current telecommunications is as vulnerable as 5G and is vulnerable to espionage and cyberattacks.
“such as disruption of a natural gas pipeline for days to weeks,”
5G may be more secure than 4G.
The danger is that 5G will control massive numbers of machines — including autonomous vehicles, factory processes and much more.
This means that hackers could exploit vulnerabilities in 5G or the equipment used to control such systems, doing much more damage than is now possible.
Imagine, for example, hacked driverless vehicles creating massive pileups on U.S. highways.
Banning Huawei and ZTE will not decrease the security risk of 5G security hacks in fact it would do the opposite!
Finland’s Nokia and Sweden’s Ericsson — manufacture equipment in Chinese factories with partners linked to the Chinese Communist Party, so deploying 5G without some dependence on Chinese suppliers.
Most cyberattacks don’t come from compromised foreign products; instead they exploit known but persistent vulnerabilities, such as unpatched software and people who are easily phished.
Strategies that focus solely on nations and organizations that may pose a threat, while neglecting the social and technical vulnerabilities that attackers exploit, will inevitably fail.
The 5G hype might obscure the full range of technological options — as well as the full range of potential security threats and vulnerabilities in an increasingly wired and wireless world.
It is shortsighted in having a blanket ban of Huawei 5G products in Australia and worldwide and here’s why...
It’s not about China hacking into networks - it’s about anybody hacking into networks. One needs to get the best minds and protocols working together to build security.
Huawei is a major player and should be part of the global team working together with global protocols.
Wednesday, April 17, 2019
An RFI microchip in your finger as your business card, credit card and employee number
The Bob Pritchard Column https://bobpritchard.com/
In August, 2017, employees at Three Square Market got RFID chips implanted between their thumb and forefinger. Now 20 months later, instead of the backlash that many expected, the staff love it.
The chips are about the size of a grain of rice. The implants use Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, also used in credit cards, and are "passive", which means they hold data that can be read by other devices but cannot read information themselves. They make it easier to do things like get into the office, log on to computers, and buy food and drinks in the company cafeteria. Like many RFID chips, they are passive—they don’t have batteries, and instead get their power from an RFID reader when it requests data from the chip
When an employee wants something from the snack food and beverage vending machines they simply wave their hand over the reader and the vending machine immediately deducts money from their account. The employees have been doing likewise for nearly two years now. Three Square Market is a technology company that provides self-service mini-markets to hospitals, hotels, and company break rooms. In 2017, their employees volunteered to have a chip injected into their hand.
While the implantation of microchips is foreign to people in the United States, in Sweden, it is not unusual for people get subcutaneous microchips to do a whole range of things. Many Swedes favor convenience over concerns of potential personal data violations. The small implants were first used in 2015 in Sweden and several other countries. Swedes have gone on to be very active in microchipping, with scant debate about issues surrounding its use, in a country keen on new technology and where the sharing of personal information is held up as a sign of a transparent society.
Swedes can use the injected microchip to enter their workplace, use vending machines, provide access to certain equipment in the office, book train tickets, even replaced gym cards. On trains conductors scan passengers' hands after the tickets are registered on their chip. Citizens have long accepted the sharing of their personal details, registered by the social security system, with other administrative bodies, while people can find out each others' salaries through a quick phone call to the tax authority.
Some believe the biggest risk was around the data contained in the chip. The real question is what data is collected and who shares it. For example, if a chip can detect a medical problem, who finds out and when? Others argue the opposite view, suggesting that if we carried all our personal data on us, we would have better control of its use.
Some staff at Three Square Market uses their chips up to 15 times a day. Swiping their hand over an RFID reader plugged into their computer is no different from typing in their password on a keyboard. In fact, when the RFID reader on the vending machine went down a couple of months ago, staff were really upset, feeling inconvenienced because it has become such a part of their routine.
The privacy and security of any information stored on the chips is an obvious concern. The information gathered by readers could give lots of details about employees’ comings and goings, and someone could in theory ping your chip with a reader to find out what’s on it. But it can be argued that similar personal information could be stolen from his wallet, too. There’s also the chance that the technology inside the employees’ bodies will become outdated.
I guess when that happens you simply get an upgrade.
(Ik:- not sure why the company does not programme the fingerprint into the database and employee can store all relevant information there for company to use?)
Monday, April 15, 2019
Don’t be afraid of what you don’t know
Great article written by Pita Ellis
I love hearing about Australian Startups playing the big game and getting noticed.
Australia Startups tend to shy away from the limelight, it is not our culture to talk about ourselves too much. Aussies can also be harsh on each other, Americans are much better at dishing out high fives and back pats to fellow entrepreneurs having a go.
The downside to keeping quiet when building your empire is that it appears from the outside looking in that there is not much going on in the Australian Startup scene. There is, yet we only hear about a small percentage of people kicking goals. I think it's time we change a few things culturally.
- Startups and Entrepreneurs need to support each other more. Someone somewhere has come up against the same issue as you at some point, so put it out to your network if you get stuck, and ask for help. I guarantee you will be surprised by the response to contribute.
- Don't be afraid of what you don't know. It's a tough gig knowing everything so hook up with complementary skill sets. Between you and your network you should get the answers you need. When people do take the time to explain things - listen and be grateful of the information exchange. Thank them. People actually like to help and no, you won't sound dumb by asking.
- Try, fail, try again. Then talk about it. Please talk about it - share what didn't work with someone else. We are aiming to get better at this 'together'.
- Be honest. If a friend or someone you know is creating something and asks your opinion, tell them what you really think. Mean? No, Challenging? Yes. It may be uncomfortable for both of you but it's much better to give feedback in testing or idea stage than after they have built it. If they are validating effectively they will ask more people than just you so your feedback should be some of many.
- Ditch the fear. Of what people will think. Of failing, of getting stuff wrong, of not achieving your goals, of people stealing your idea, of others being better than you and of not being first to market, or second, or last or whatever place you'd hoped to be. Don't be scared of hard work or setbacks - there will be loads of that. Most of all ditch the fear of being successful, start playing the role of a successful person already and back yourself now because if you don't, who will?
I read a great article of the success of Aussie Startup Stackla. When I read founder Damien Mahoney's comment on "Don't be afraid of what you don't know" it struck a chord with me. I used to be afraid of what I didn't know and saw it as a weakness which I hated. I have since learnt to trust my network, ask questions, be grateful of help and always surround myself with smart, like minded people.
We have some great Startups here in Oz, with the best yet to emerge. I'm keen to see better knowledge exchange and a strong support network in our community.
Ivan’s comment :- hopefully we can assist by creating forums of collaboration , learning and growth.
Join us at a forum near you and see how you can play a part in this narrative that we call BBG http://www.bbg.business
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