The first blackberry was released around 1999 and the Blackberry bold (the last one in the pic above) was 2009. You can see that how the phones have changed radically in the last 10 years.
It was interesting to see Iridium phones being displayed by Cambridge Consultants in the Cambridge Wireless International Conference. Iridium has gone through some rough times and I remember reading how Satellite communications will change the world but it never came to pass.
David Chambers of Think Femtocell has provided an excellent summary of the Femtocell World Summit 2010 that concluded today. Please follow the links below to read more:
Slightly off topic today as I was going through the pile of information and I caught attention of this news article that for some reason has not been reported by major newspapers. The article says that the president of USA will have the 'Kill' switch to kill off internet (temporarily i guess) in case of a major emergency like war, etc. Joseph Liberman who proposed this idea has since then backed away saying that he meant that parts of Internet can be disconnected like they do in China.Back in July 2004, reports of a Chinese IPv9 prompted a bewildered reaction from internet godfather Vint Cerf. 'What could this possibly be about‾ As far as I know, IANA [Internet Assigned Numbers Authority] has not allocated the IPv9 designation to anyone. IPv9 is not an Internet standard. Could you please explain what is intended here‾" he wrote in an email to China's internet leaders.
The idea was dismissed as a "rogue" project with no official backing. But it is back on the table led, now as then by Xie Jianping, the head of the Shanghai Universal Institute of Chemical Technology and more recently in charge of the decimal network standards team in the MII's science and technology department.
The project returned to prominence at a press conference at the unusual location of the Party Central School in Beijing two weeks ago, where Xie announced that the networking technology had been successfully tested by China Netcom and the Ministry of Commerce.
He asserted that the project is all about China wresting control of its own IP networks away from US dominance for which, he claimed, China was paying 500 billion yuan a year.
The system reportedly uses numerical addressing to make China "the only country able to unify domain names, IP addresses and MAC addresses" into a single, metric system, according to Xinhua. Without any explanation, Xinhua said it also made China the only country outside the US "to have root servers and IP address hardware connectivity servers and its own domain name, IP address and MAC address resources".
In an interview with a skeptical Sina reporter, Xie and denied the project was another Hanxin - a reference to a fraudulent state-backed chip project.
"Our IPv9 has gone through testing and assessment," he said adding that he could not give any more detail but would "make public some material at the necessary time."
But the system, or what little is known of it, has plenty of doubters at home. Sina said critics of the system complain that turning domain names and brand names into numerals is a "backwards step" for the net.
The fact that the decimal network appears to asset control over root servers is bound to alarm internet governance bodies around the world.
And whatever else might be said about it, the project is clearly backed by the MII. "IPv9" raises more questions than answers.
In my earlier post I had a picture of LTE Home eNodeB architecture. There is a possibility of multiple ways in which Home eNodeB can be connected. A slide from Andy Goddards presentation in LTE world summit summarises the different approaches.
An interesting slide from the presentation by Prof. Simon Saunders, Chairman of Femto Forum in LTE World Summit. The slide throws more light on the Greater-femtocells I blogged about last year. 
Apparently according to this report by Xuefei (Michael) Peng, MBMS is alive and kicking in China with around 200,000 users already. I cant find more info so if anybody who can fill more info is more than welcome.
We have been hearing for years that Solar energy could be used to run remote BTS/Node B so i was glad to see that they are deployed in practise and are working well. It was very interesting to see hear Pradeep de Almeida, Group Chief Technology Officer, Dialog Telekom Plc, Sri Lanka in the LTE World Summit.
In what sounds like the plot of a horror movie, a Bulgarian cellphone company has reportedly suspended the number 0888-888-888 after every single person who was assigned to it in the last 10 years died.
A spokesperson for Bulgarian firm MobilTel refused to comment, telling the Telegraphthat they don’t discuss individual numbers. But the newspaper tracked down the phone number’s eerie history and discovered that each owner had met an untimely end.
The first owner was the former MobilTel CEO, Vladimir Grashnov. In 2001, the 48-year-old died of cancer, although some speculated that he was radioactively poisoned by a business rival.
The number was then passed on to Konstantin Dimitrov, a Bulgarian mafia boss and owner of a $775-million drug smuggling empire. He was shot by a lone assassin in 2003 while eating out with a model in the Netherlands. He was 31.
The third and final owner was Konstantin Dishliev, a real-estate-agent-by-day and a drug-lord-by-night, who secretly ran a massive cocaine trafficking ring. In 2005, after police intercepted $200-million of the white stuff on its way in from Columbia, Mr. Dishliev was assassinated outside a restaurant in Bulgaria’s capital city.
After being temporarily suspended during the investigation into Mr. Dishliev’s death, the number is said to have been de-activated for good. Now anyone who calls is greeted with a recorded message saying the phone is “outside network coverage.”
So are the deaths merely coincidence or proof of a cell phone curse?
Whatever the case, MobilTel could stand to profit off the number by selling it to someone in China, where the number eight is considered lucky. In 2003, a Chinese airline paid 2.33-million yuan (US$280,723) for the phone number 8888-8888.
ZTE has long been focussing on green(er) network and recycling. They launched their new generation 'green base stations back in 2006. They have also been recently cited for their energy saving technology. They also have a solar powered phone which is unfortunately not available in UK. Their Omni-RAN network can help reduce the OPEX by two thirds. Their focus has not only been on Mobile phones and networks but on the fixed lines as well.
Back in 2008, I blogged about Femtocells and stealing of Spectrum. Since the rollout of Vodafone Suresignal, I am seeing people discuss it more and more about using the Femtocells abroad. I should say as I have in the past that this would be illegal and I wouldn't encourage anyone to do it but as couple of people have mentioned to me in private that they have managed to do it I would like to hear if someone else has managed this feat.
Back in the LTE World Summit 2010 there was this ng-connect LTE car demo. I wasn't able to get a demo as there didnt seem to be anyone willing to be filmed for the blog. The first I heard about this ng.connect program was last year when I blogged about the case for early LTE in USA.
The ng connect program ecosystem brings together lots of companies that are collaborating from research to sales and marketing. If you click in the picture above you will be able to see the enlarged image and at the bottom you can see the names of these companies. The car is ofcourse Toyota but I wasnt able to see that in the list of companies.
The following Youtube clip gives an introduction to the connected car
In case if some Apps are running in the background, they can be using these keep alive messages or background messages which may be very useful on the PC but for the Mobiles, these could cause unnecessary state transitions which means lots of signalling overhead.
From The Guardian:
Self explanatory slide showing the impact of Small cells on the capacity growth. This is probably the best way to further increase the capacity.
