Communications

For decades, satellites have helped meteorologists forecast weather, offer cable, television, and radio providers a way to relay signals to their customers, and provide scientists with a tool to gather data for various types of research. Enormous, high-cost, stationary antennas have long been the instrument used to capture these signals,... Read more

Low earth orbit (LEO) satellites are being increasingly used for environmental monitoring of the earth, as well as for logistic purposes, such as the navigation of maritime vessels. The data transmitted from the satellite terminals to the receivers on Earth, known as "downlink," is steadily increasing and, as a result,... Read more

More Californians are gaining access to broadband internet, but Black and Latino households still lag behind their white counterparts, according to an analysis of the latest available American Community Survey data.... Read more

When someone calls 911, seconds matter. That's why the first question a 911 dispatcher asks is, "What is the address of the emergency?"... Read more

Within minutes of losing cellphone and internet service, residents in a remote swath of Arizona were quick to come up with theories about why.... Read more

Federal regulators say Verizon and AT&T will delay part of their 5G rollout near airports to give airlines more time to ensure that equipment on their planes is safe from interference from the wireless signals, but the airline industry is not happy about the deal.... Read more

The Federal Aviation Authority said Friday that mobile operators AT&T and Verizon have reached an agreement with airlines for the gradual deployment of additional 5G antennas around US airports.... Read more

Connected and fully automated vehicles are set to revolutionize transportation as we know it. Thanks to 5G-enabled vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication, which makes it possible for vehicles to communicate with one another and their surroundings, we can look forward to a future with safer roads and more efficient traffic. However, there... Read more

5G networks are becoming more prevalent worldwide. Many consumer devices that support 5G are already benefiting from increased speeds and lower latency. However, some frequency bands allocated for 5G are not effectively utilized owing to technological limitations. These frequency bands include the New Radio (NR) 39 GHz band, but actually... Read more

The potential of millimeter-wave wireless power transfer as a solution for the Internet of Things has finally been harnessed by researchers from Tokyo Tech, who have created a device for simultaneous transmission of power and 5G signal. This transceiver for 5G network signal is fully wirelessly powered and has high... Read more

A research team of the ETRI has revealed a technology which can remotely control one factory simultaneously from home and abroad using 5G technology developed through international joint research and an intercontinental wired network.... Read more

A space-enabled system to help clear congested skies while reducing carbon emissions is going global, following a deal signed today between satellite communications provider Inmarsat and ESA.... Read more

Satellites equipped with remote sensing technology execute many critical national security missions, from detecting explosions to tracking sea ice, but until now it could take a team years to move from a concept to a deployable space system.... Read more

More than half a billion dollars in federal funding will be sent to four U.S. states to expand broadband access as part of a sweeping national effort to bring affordable service to rural and low-income Americans, the U.S. Treasury Department announced Tuesday.... Read more

Birmingham scientists have revealed a new beam-steering antenna that increases the efficiency of data transmission for 'beyond 5G'—and opens up a range of frequencies for mobile communications that are inaccessible to currently used technologies.... Read more

Illinois' planned expansion of broadband internet access will create thousands of jobs, boost workers' wages and help bridge rural-urban and racial divides in online access, researchers with the Illinois Economic Policy Institute and the Project for Middle Class Renewal at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign found in a recent... Read more

Researchers from the Network Research Institute at the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) report the world's first demonstration of more than 1 petabit per second in a multi-core fiber (MCF) with a standard diameter of 0.125 mm.... Read more

The world's first mission to remove several small telecommunications satellites from orbit once they reach the end of their operational service is about to start building and testing its prototype spacecraft.... Read more

Researchers in Delft have succeeded in teleporting quantum information across a rudimentary network. This first of its kind is an important step towards a future quantum internet. This breakthrough was made possible by a greatly improved quantum memory and enhanced quality of the quantum links between the three nodes of... Read more

NASA's Pathfinder Technology Demonstrator 3 (PTD-3) mission, carrying the TeraByte InfraRed Delivery (TBIRD) system, will debut on May 25 as part of SpaceX's Transporter-5 rideshare launch. TBIRD will showcase the high-data-rate capabilities of laser communications from a CubeSat in low-Earth orbit. At 200 gigabits per second (Gbps), TBIRD will downlink... Read more

Smart devices are supposed to make our everyday lives easier. At the same time, however, they are a gateway for passive eavesdropping. To prevent possible surveillance of the movement profile within one's home, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy, the Horst Görtz Institute for IT Security... Read more

A team of researchers with the National Physical Laboratory and the University of Edinburgh, Google and Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica developed a way to use existing undersea fiber cables to detect seismic events. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes their test project involving a... Read more

Crafty hackers can make a tool to eavesdrop on some 6G wireless signals in as little as five minutes using office paper, an inkjet printer, a metallic foil transfer and a laminator.... Read more

The Biden administration is taking the first steps to release $45 billion to ensure that every U.S. resident has access to high-speed internet by roughly 2028, inviting governors and other leaders on Friday to start the application process.... Read more

As a UNESCO World Heritage site, Bagan in Myanmar is home to more than 2, 200 structures, including pagodas and temples constructed from the 10th to the 14th centuries.... Read more

Settling a key dispute in the wireless communications field, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) found that transmission performance is consistent across different bands of the millimeter-wave (mmWave) spectrum targeted for high-speed, data-rich 5G systems.... Read more

The Biden administration announced on Monday that 20 internet companies have agreed to provide discounted service to people with low incomes, a program that could effectively make tens of millions of households eligible for free service through an already existing federal subsidy.... Read more

In 2021, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act authorized $65 billion to expand broadband access and adoption, and address disparities highlighted by the COVID pandemic and the shift to remote work, school and health care. But to invest that funding most effectively for improving digital equity in the United States,... Read more

Tech and streaming giants suck up vast amounts of bandwidth, so the EU this week revived a long-standing idea to make them pay the telecom firms who maintain the infrastructure.... Read more

As the space industry evolves its focus from large satellites to smaller ones with the same functionality, there is a growing need for the hardware on board to shrink as well.... Read more

Telecommunications industry groups on Wednesday ended their bid to block California's net neutrality law that prevents broadband providers from throttling service.... Read more

As Wi-Fi is deployed more widely in cities, and perhaps at higher frequencies, it may depend on an abundant urban asset: streetlight poles.... Read more

In wireless communications, channels can not only change, but they can also age. For contemporary systems, these connections between the transmitter and the receiver break down over time, user movement and power dissipation. Understanding how channels age in future systems, as well as how to mitigate such issues, are key... Read more

From 3G to 4G to 5G, wireless communications are evolving, and the next step is underway. What will constitute 6G, and how will it work with existing infrastructure? An international collaboration set out to begin answering such questions and published their investigation on April 29 in Intelligent and Converged Networks.... Read more

The world is more connected than ever before, with reliable and consistent wireless communications transmitting to and from individual users—but the technology is evolving to something even better, according to an international research team.... Read more

With the emerging Internet-of-Things that holds promise for operating everything from smart homes to smart cities, fifth-generation wireless communication must be able to handle the demands for low delay and high reliability. To meet these demands, researchers propose the use of reconfigurable intelligent surface technology for grant-free massive access to... Read more

Researchers have shown that the UK's existing copper network cables can support faster internet speeds, but only to a limit. They say additional investment is urgently needed if the government is serious about its commitment to making high-speed internet available to all.... Read more

Hawaiian Airlines said Monday that it will offer free wireless internet service from SpaceX's Starlink satellite network on flights between Hawaii and the U.S. mainland, Asia and Oceania.... Read more

For the 70-or-so people who live in the remote Vermont community of Victory, Town Clerk Tracey Martel says she's regularly frustrated watching a spinning circle on her computer while she tries to complete even the most basic municipal chores online.... Read more

Fast broadband will run through water pipes in parts of South Yorkshire as part of plans to get better internet access to people quicker.... Read more

Though satellite internet has existed for years, the competition is about to rapidly intensify, with companies planning to launch thousands of their own systems into low Earth orbit.... Read more

Shortly after Air France flight 447 took off from Rio De Janeiro in June 2009, it entered a storm, vanished from air control systems, and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean. It took more than 2 years for the wreckage to be found, along with the information it held about what... Read more

5G+ (5G/Beyond 5G) is the fastest-growing segment and the only significant opportunity for investment growth in the wireless network infrastructure market, according to the latest forecast by Gartner, Inc. But currently 5G+ technologies rely on large antenna arrays that are typically bulky and come only in very limited sizes, making... Read more

It is particularly important to conduct over-the-air (OTA) testing of multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) devices. MIMO-OTA techniques overcome the limitations of the traditionally conducted tests and are widely used for performance evaluation of the whole MIMO device. There are three main categories of MIMO-OTA testing methods, namely the reverberation chamber-based method,... Read more

New research published in Nature Electronics describes topological control capabilities in an integrated acoustic-electronic system at technologically relevant frequencies. This work paves the way for additional research on topological properties in devices that use high-frequency sound waves, with potential applications including 5G communications and quantum information processing. The study was... Read more

Quantum technology, which makes use of the surprising and often counterintuitive properties of the subatomic universe, is revolutionizing the way information is gathered, stored, shared and analyzed.... Read more

A research team led by Dr. Sang-Bok Lee and Byeongjin Park in the Department of Functional Composites at the Korea Institute of Materials Science (KIMS) succeeded in developing the world's first ultra-thin composite film. This film does not reflect electromagnetic waves for 5G communication but absorbs more than 90% of... Read more

As wireless communications technology continues to advance, the need for smaller, more versatile and energy- and cost-efficient antennas is becoming increasingly important. Now, scientists and engineers at Los Alamos National Laboratory have developed a new type of antenna, called LightSlinger, to meet this need.... Read more

On Sept. 1 and 2, 1859, telegraph systems around the world failed catastrophically. The operators of the telegraphs reported receiving electrical shocks, telegraph paper catching fire, and being able to operate equipment with batteries disconnected. During the evenings, the aurora borealis, more commonly known as the northern lights, could be... Read more