AllThingsD » interference

LightSquared Raises an Additional $265 Million

Ina Fried — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 15:44:39 +0000

LightSquared, which aims to build a 4G cellular network to sell on a wholesale basis to others, said on Monday that it has raised an additional $265 million from a combination of new and existing investors.

With the new money, LightSquared has pulled in $2.3 billion in funding over the last 12 months.

“This latest round of financing signals another endorsement by the financial markets of our business model, and LightSquared’s intent to use private capital to build out a new network to meet the growing demand across this entire nation for wireless broadband access,” LightSquared CEO Sanjiv Ahuja said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the company is also working to address concerns that there could be interference with GPS systems if LightSquared builds its network on the spectrum it currently has a license for.

Last week the company submitted a plan to the Federal Communications Commission that it says takes care of 99.5 percent of interference issues.

“In contrast, the GPS device manufacturers, unlike relevant government agencies, have been largely uninterested in finding a win-win solution,” LightSquared said in a statement. “Rather, their only answer to a problem of their own making is to demand that the government simply block LightSquared from using the company’s own spectrum to roll out the first wholesale-only wireless broadband network for the entire nation -– an economic benefit worth as much as $120 billion to consumers.”

Report to FCC Will Find LightSquared Interferes With GPS

Amy Schatz — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 21:56:18 +0000

Wireless broadband startup LightSquared and a GPS industry group will tell federal regulators in a report due Wednesday that recent joint tests of the company’s network showed widespread interference with GPS receivers.

While LightSquared and the GPS industry agree that the tests showed interference, the two sides will disagree on whether the problem can be solved with filters or other technical fixes, according to several people with knowledge of the pending report.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Could Using Your Gadgets in Mid-Air Really Bring Down the Plane?

Ina Fried — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 11:00:54 +0000

It seems hard for many to believe, but one air travel industry study has found that there may be some merit to the idea that small electronics could interfere enough with airplane navigation to cause a safety problem.

According to a confidential study unearthed by ABC News, a study by the International Air Transport Association trade group found some 75 incidents of potential interference reported between 2003 and 2009. They involved interference with everything from flight controls to navigation to communications systems. The type of device suspected of causing interference varied, though the most commonly cited likely troublemaker was the cellphone.

Cellphone use is, of course, banned by the FAA during flights, though many people forget to turn off their devices or willingly ignore the warnings. It is increasingly common to hear a cellphone ring or an alert chirp well after take-off.

Even more irksome to some is the requirement to shut down non-transmitting devices, such as iPods and Kindles. Those devices are allowed during flight, but not during takeoff or landing, even though some airlines are starting to replace their flight manuals with iPads.

The best part about this story was the reaction I got from boss Kara Swisher when I summarized it on our story list.

“Uh-oh,” she wrote. “I call Walt all the time from a plane. Only place AT&T worked.”

The good news for her fellow travelers is she now has a Verizon iPhone and, perhaps as a result of this article, extra scrutiny from her future flight crews.

(photo credit: Flickr/Brentdpayne)

In 4G Race, Verizon Pulls Ahead With Pricey Speed

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 02:03:48 +0000

One of the biggest technology trends in 2011 will be the expansion of new, faster cellular networks called 4G, or fourth generation. These networks promise a big increase in speed and capacity to handle the surge in streaming video, audio and Web surfing from hot-selling devices like super-smart phones and tablets, as well as from laptops. But you’ll have to buy new phones, modems and other connected consumer devices to get the higher speed they offer.

[ See post to watch video ]

Wireless carriers and handset makers will be touting their 4G plans and compatible devices at this week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, but it will be a couple of years before 4G networks in the U.S. achieve the same coverage as the current standard, called 3G.

The move to 4G from 3G began last year, with Sprint leading the way and Verizon Wireless joining in the last few weeks of 2010 with a limited deployment. But 2011 will see the service spreading to more and more cities, and is also expected to see the entry of AT&T. T-Mobile hasn’t announced an actual 4G network rollout, but is instead relying on a souped-up version of 3G that it is marketing as 4G because it claims it can deliver similar data speeds with its approach.

I’ve been testing the 4G network of the latest entrant, Verizon, in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., which is one of 38 metro areas (plus 60 airports) where the company turned on its 4G network in December. My verdict is that it’s wicked fast—the fastest 4G network I’ve tried—but also potentially costly. In my tests, with a laptop modem, it proved dramatically faster than Verizon’s 3G network, and recorded speeds on a par with some land-line Internet connections.

But 4G from Verizon won’t be cheap. For laptop modem users, at least, Verizon is charging $50 a month for up to 5 gigabytes of data use and $80 monthly for 10 gigabytes. If you run over, the company will bill you $10 for every extra gigabyte. Such data limits aren’t new, but, with 4G’s much higher speeds, users may find themselves sending and receiving more data more often, and thus breaching the limits more regularly. For instance, in my tests, I was easily able to download a nearly 600 megabyte TV show, something I wouldn’t even try with a 3G modem. That one download would have eaten up more than 10% of my monthly cap under the $50 plan.

Verizon’s first LTE laptop modem, the LG VL600, has a flip top that reveals the USB connector.

Verizon’s variant of 4G uses a different underlying technology than Sprint’s. It’s called LTE, for Long Term Evolution, and is also the 4G system being adopted by many other cellular operators around the world, including AT&T. (Technically, this first version of LTE isn’t considered true 4G by the engineering standards body that rules on such matters, but that makes little difference to consumers looking for faster connections.)

The company says it chose LTE because it is not only fast, but is less prone to interference, can provide better battery life, has less latency, or lag, and can better handle multiple users simultaneously. The LTE system doesn’t affect voice calls on Verizon’s network—it’s only for data, and operates in tandem with the current voice network.

Verizon claims its new network is up to 10 times faster than its 3G network and says consumers will see speeds of between 5 and 12 megabits per second for downloads and between 2 and 5 mbps for uploads, in “real-world, loaded network environments.”

As of this writing, Verizon doesn’t offer an actual LTE-capable smart phone, only LTE USB modems that plug into laptops. But the company is expected to offer a sneak peek at CES this week of several LTE phones that will roll out in the coming months, as well other planned LTE devices, from a variety of manufacturers. Again, I want to stress that your current Verizon phone or laptop modem can’t be upgraded to work with LTE. You’ll need a new one.

For my tests, I used Verizon’s first LTE laptop modem, the VL600 made by LG of Korea. It sells for $100 after a $50 mail-in rebate with a two-year service contract. This modem can handle data over slower 3G networks, if you happen to stray out of one of Verizon’s 4G service areas. For now, it works only on computers running Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7. But the company says it should have Mac-compatible LTE modems in a month or so.

To use it, you have to first install, from an included CD, a new version of Verizon’s cellular modem software, VZAccess Manager. Older versions won’t work. My test machine was a Lenovo ThinkPad X301, which worked fine with a Verizon 3G modem. Installation was relatively quick and smooth, though I was immediately instructed to download an updated version of the software, so I had to go through it twice.

I disabled Wi-Fi on the ThinkPad, plugged in the LTE modem and ran 10 tests using the popular Speedtest.net website. The results were impressive. Verizon’s 4G network averaged just a shade under 16 megabits per second for downloads and 6.6 mbps for uploads. That was 15 times the download speed, and 13 times the upload speed, of a Verizon 3G modem I tested immediately afterward using the same method in the same location.

To relate these speeds to real-world scenarios, I downloaded from iTunes a standard-definition episode of the TV show “The Good Wife”—a 588 megabyte file—in just seven minutes, instead of the two hours or so iTunes predicted it would take when I was using the 3G modem. I streamed several long videos, including two in HD, from the Web, and they played smooth as silk.

But there are caveats. For one thing, hardly anyone is using this new Verizon network yet, and it’s likely to slow down as it gets crowded, especially with smart-phone users. Secondly, laptop cellular modems typically deliver faster speeds than phones, so my results don’t necessarily predict phone or tablet performance.

Also, speeds can vary by city and distance. My tests were mainly conducted against a server in my local D.C. area. But I also tried a few tests against a server in San Francisco and only got about 6 mbps download—within Verizon’s claims, but much slower.

Still, if you can afford it, and if it works well in phones and tablets, Verizon’s new LTE network could be a great boon to your digital lifestyle.

Find all Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos at the All Things Digital website, allthingsd.com.

Oracle Vs. SAP: We Got a Right to Pick a Little Fight–Bonanza!

John Paczkowski — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 10:05:24 +0000

As first legal volleys go, the ones fired off Tuesday in the Oracle vs. SAP trial were about what you’d expect, given the sniping between the two companies in recent weeks–all bluster, petulance and condemnation.

Oracle, in its opening argument, slagged SAP as a sinister and scheming rival, claiming the company’s leadership knew it was taking a risk by buying TomorrowNow, which was found to have infringed Oracle’s intellectual property. “SAP could have chosen to compete fairly,” Oracle attorney Geoffrey Howard said. “Instead it chose to buy TomorrowNow, a company that the board of directors at SAP knew was competing unfairly. It did that because it expected to make enormous amounts of money and inflict enormous amounts of harm on Oracle by using its intellectual property.”

And SAP, in its opening argument, derided Oracle as a company deluded by its own avarice into seeking a ridiculously inflated damages award. Oracle wants “a windfall,” SAP attorney Bob Mittelstaedt told the jury. “They want a bonanza that is out of all proportion to the harm they suffered.”

According to Mittelstaedt, SAP should have to pay only for the software sales Oracle lost as a result of TomorrowNow’s malfeasance, and those number less than 500.

And that’s the point of contention around which this case will orbit. Because Oracle claims that SAP, with its acquisition of TomorrowNow, was looking for a bonanza of its own and just didn’t get it.

Memos presented by Howard on Tuesday show that SAP estimated its acquisition of TomorrowNow would disrupt Oracle’s applications business enough to cause a 10 percent decline in the company’s share price, trimming about $7 billion off its market cap.

In other words, the intent was there; the execution was just lacking. Just because SAP didn’t benefit significantly from TomorrowNow’s improper downloads of Oracle software and documentation doesn’t make those downloads any less improper.

PREVIOUSLY:

SAP’s Tab in Oracle Case: $120 Million and Counting

Gag Order Denied in Oracle, SAP Trial

Ellison Taunts HP CEO a Second Time

SAP to Ellison: Save the Drama for Your Mama

Ellison to HP CEO: “Warrior, Come Out to Plaaeeay!

SAP: Please Gag Oracle

HP Scandal Sucks in New York Times Columnist Over Conflict of Interest

Welch to HP Board: You Don’t Know Jack!

Insiders Criticize Ellison For HP CEO Slam

Was Apotheker HP’s First Choice of CEO?

HP Names Ex-SAP Chief Apotheker as CEO

SAP's Tab in Oracle Case: $120 Million and Counting

John Paczkowski — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 19:01:54 +0000

Whatever illusions SAP harbored that it could get out of its TomorrowNow copyright mess with Oracle for under $100 million are long gone. According to a court filing, SAP, which is acknowledging complicity in its unit’s infringement, has already agreed to pay Oracle $120 million just for attorneys’ fees. And that’s before Oracle makes its case to the jury for $2 billion-plus in damages.

Under an agreement filed Monday, SAP said it is willing to pay Oracle for “past and future reasonable attorneys fees and costs” as part of a deal in which TomorrowNow would stipulate “to entry of judgment on Oracle’s claims for violations of the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and California’s Computer Data Access and Fraud Act, breach of contract, intentional interference, negligent interference, unfair competition, trespass to chattels, unjust enrichment/restitution and an accounting.” In exchange for the admission, Oracle would not seek additional punitive damages. The joint stipulation would need judicial approval.

Still, the real damages here are those related to copyright infringement. So while ducking punitive damages will certainly reduce SAP’s ultimate bill, it’s not likely to bring it that much closer to the “tens of millions” it contends Oracle is legitimately owed. Indeed, Oracle still has its sights firmly set on that $2 billion figure, which to be clear is copyright only. In opening arguments today, Oracle attorney Geoffrey Howard said the company will produce evidence to show SAP “expected the benefit to them and the harm to Oracle to be in the billions of dollars.”

PREVIOUSLY:

Gag Order Denied in Oracle, SAP Trial

Ellison Taunts HP CEO a Second Time

SAP to Ellison: Save the Drama for Your Mama

Ellison to HP CEO: “Warrior, Come Out to Plaaeeay!

SAP: Please Gag Oracle

HP Scandal Sucks in New York Times Columnist Over Conflict of Interest

Welch to HP Board: You Don’t Know Jack!

Insiders Criticize Ellison For HP CEO Slam

Was Apotheker HP’s First Choice of CEO?

HP Names Ex-SAP Chief Apotheker as CEO

[Image credit: Pre-Ellison Samurai image by Artem Mirolevioch]

T-Mobile to FCC: We Would Agree With You if You Were Right

John Paczkowski — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 23:59:58 +0000

The Federal Communications Commission has concluded that a free national broadband network established in the so-called “white spaces” of the AWS-3 band would not cause major interference with other services, paving the way for a sale of those airwaves at a federal auction. An unfortunate turn of events for T-Mobile (DT), which has been aggressively lobbying against the idea, arguing that such a network would interfere with the services it offers in a band of spectrum–a band it spent $4.2 billion to license in 2006. “Obviously, we’re disappointed,” said Tom Sugrue, T-Mobile’s vice president of government affairs. “From our preliminary review, [the report] has a number of critical flaws and misinterpretations of the data and some mischaracterizations.”