Editor’s Note: RCR Wireless News goes all in for “Throwback Thursdays,” tapping into our archives to resuscitate the top headlines from the past. Fire up the time machine, put on those sepia-tinted shades, set the date for #TBT and enjoy the memories!
The farming future is IoT
Farming is wasteful and resources are dwindling. The role of the internet of things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) in smart agriculture has never been so important, says Monsanto. They provide the only way the sector will change its ways and feed future generations. Smarter agricultural techniques are an absolute imperative. Speaking at the IoT Tech Expo in London, the Missouri-based agro-chemical and bio-tech company warned the planet’s fast-rising population, limited farm land, and chronic water and food production wastage place acute pressure on the technology and the farming industries to come up with more efficient and productive processes, and fast. “It’s not a question of if agriculture is going to adopt it, but when, and how fast. If we look at the population of the world today, between now and 2050, there will be 9.7 billion people. By 2100, there will be 11 billion. This means that between now and 2050, we have to increase our food production by at least 50 per cent to feed everyone,” explained Borg Exelmans, director of vegetables in the EMEA region for Monsanto. “It sounds simple, but today, we are using all the potential arable land for agriculture. There is no chance of more tomorrow. What that means is that today, every square metre we are using has to be more effective and efficient to make sure we increase the agricultural production.” … Read more
Kumu Networks on the move
When Vijay Doradla first introduced Kumu Networks to his partners at Verizon Ventures, the reception was lukewarm at best. “It’s a science project, a bunch of Stanford guys,” Doradla remembers his colleagues telling him, and he understood their skepticism. “What Kumu had ventured out to do was something that people said could not be done,” Doradla said. What Kumu had set out to do was to redefine wireless communication by enabling radios to send and receive at the same time on the same channel. Full-duplex self-interference cancellation is indeed a science project, but as of this year it is also part of the specification for a programmable analog chip called the KU2000-1. Kumu says its chip will enable full-duplex or adjacent channel cancellation across a wide range of frequency bands, bandwidths, transmit powers and MIMO modes. Doradla did convince his colleagues to invest in Kumu in 2015, and Verizon may already be benefitting. Kumu says its first-generation chips are live in commercial deployments with two of the top four U.S. carriers in the form of LTE relay nodes. Up next will be true full-duplex technology. By the end of this year, Doradla says Kumu will have a chip scale product that can be “fully integrated into something that can be plugged and played.” The hardware is likely to show up in Wi-Fi and cable networks before it makes its way to cellular. Kumu sees Wi-Fi as its first target market. … Read more
US bans telecom sales to ZTE
The U.S. Department of Commerce has banned American companies from selling telecommunications equipment to Chinese vendor ZTE after the firm allegedly did not live up to the terms of an agreement that had been worked out after it illegally shipped telecom equipment to Iran and North Korea. The government’s order, which goes into effect immediately, will ban American firms from exporting components directly to ZTE or through a third country until March 13, 2025. In March 2017, ZTE agreed to a combined civil and criminal penalty and forfeiture of $1.19 billion after illegally shipping telecommunications equipment to Iran and North Korea, making false statements, and obstructing justice including through preventing disclosure to and affirmatively misleading the U.S. Government, the Department of Commerce said. In addition to the financial penalties, ZTE also agreed to a seven-year suspended denial of export privileges, which could be activated if the company continued to violate U.S. export regulations or if any part of the agreement was not met. Part of the deal was that ZTE would reprimand and deny bonuses to the employees who had acted illegally, but the Department of Commerce says that instead, ZTE paid full bonuses to employees that had engaged in illegal conduct and failed to issue letters of reprimand. The Department of Commerce said that it has now determined the Chinese vendor made false statements to the DOC’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) in 2016, during settlement negotiations, and 2017, during the probationary period, related to senior employee disciplinary actions the company said it was taking or had already taken. … Read more
ZTE says US ban could threaten its survival
Chinese vendor ZTE said that a U.S. ban on the sale of components and software to the company is unfair and threatens its survival but will also potentially affect the interests of a number of U.S firms. Earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) banned American companies from selling telecommunications equipment to ZTE after the firm allegedly did not live up to the terms of an agreement that had been worked out after it illegally shipped telecom equipment to Iran and North Korea. The government’s order, which went into effect immediately, bans American firms from exporting components directly to ZTE or through a third country until March 13, 2025. “It is unacceptable that BIS insists on unfairly imposing the most severe penalty on ZTE even before the completion of investigation of facts, ignoring the continuous diligent work of ZTE and the progress we have made on export compliance,” ZTE said in a statement. The company also highlighted that it had invested over $50 million in its export control compliance program and plans to invest more this year. ZTE also said that the ban “will not only severely impact the survival and development of ZTE, but will also cause damages to all partners of ZTE including a large number of U.S. companies.” … Read more
Mignon Clyburn leaves her FCC position
Federal Communications Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, a strong advocate for net neutrality and digital inclusion, announced during yesterday’s FCC meeting that she was stepping down. Clyburn, one of two Democrats on the commission, was nominated by former President Barack Obama in 2013 and has served at the FCC since 2009. She briefly led the agency in 2013 as acting chairwoman, becoming the first woman to do so. Clyburn was widely respected and has been known for blunt critiques of the commission’s current GOP majority, from policy to procedure. Earlier this week, she blasted the FCC’s $40 million settlement with T-Mobile US on rural call completion failures as inadequate, saying it treated consumers as a “mere afterthought.” “In this case, the punishment does not fit the violation, the process was flawed, and consumers were not made whole,” Clyburn said in her statement on the settlement. Clyburn’s official term expired in mid-2017, but FCC rules allowed her to stay on until the end of 2018. Clyburn said that this week’s FCC meeting was her final meeting as a commissioner. The five-member FCC has been fully seated since August 2017, when Commissioner Brendan Carr came aboard. Politico has reported that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer earlier this year recommended Geoffrey Starks, who is assistant chief in the FCC’s enforcement bureau, to the White House for a seat at the FCC. … Read more
FCC opens comment on mmWave auctions
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission gave the domestic 5G industry a boost yesterday by announcing its pre-auction process to hold two millimeter wave spectrum auctions for 5G use, starting on November 14th. Portions of the 28 GHz and 24 GHz bands are proposed to be auctioned in two batches, with the second auction beginning after the first is exhausted. FCC proposed to auction 5,986 licenses in the millimeter wave bands, known as Upper Microwave Flexible Use Service (UMFUS). The 27.5–28.35 GHz (28 GHz) band falls under Auction 101 and 24.25–24.45 and 24.75–25.25 GHz (24 GHz) under Auction 102. “The FCC had previously released millimeter wave spectrum primarily for 5G testing and trails,” Wayne Lam, IHS Markit analyst Mobile Devices & Networks, told RCR Wireless News. “This latest round of spectral offering is likely larger and favors large carriers such as AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile who have been clamoring for more 5G spectrum to be released so that they can commercialize 5G services.” The FCC action came a few days after U.S. wireless industry group CTIA released a report saying the U.S. was falling behind China in 5G. … Read more
Check out the RCR Wireless News Archives for more stories from the past.
