Networks: the TIP of Facebook's iceberg

Earlier this year, Facebook gave us a TIP (Telecom Infra Project*) about what could come next for them at the infrastructure level. Most members of the project, starting with Intel, Nokia, SK Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, are also on board of Facebook's much wider Open Compute Project, which also claims top coopetitor Google.

Naturally, Menlo Park wants a front seat for next gen network premieres - typically, early bird SKT is expected to be the first on 5G. But recent announcements*** at the F8 days confirm that the company intends to reach deeper into the value chain to secure and strenghten its leadership, particularly where innovation in network performance can prevent bottlenecks in these pervasive big data / heavy content times.

Terragraph (WiGig WiFi on 60 GHz) proposes ultra efficient W-LAN coverage for dense urban areas. You only need a station every 200 to 250 m. Of course it doesn't provide seamless handover, but a 200 m radius allows you more mobility than your typical hotspot.

Project ARIES (Antenna Radio Integration for Efficiency in Spectrum - MIMO) is more into W-WAN for rural areas. It combines 96 antennas to manage 24 simultaneous data streams, and aims at over 100 bps / Hz compared to 71 in early trials.

Here too, for a fraction of the price of a standard infra...
 
Could Facebook become a non-2-to-5G MNO, or a player in the game of standards? Not so fast. But an even more competitive value aggregator, certainly.

mot-bile 2016

* telecominfraproject.com
** opencompute.org 
*** "Introducing Facebook's new terrestrial connectivity systems — Terragraph and Project ARIES" (Facebook 20160414) 

The Bright Side Of Li-Fi

Harald Haas was in Seoul recently, as one might have expected doing some Li-Fi evangelism.

pureLiFi's moto?
"Light becomes data"
(which also reads
"data becomes light")
 website: purelifi.co.uk

Li-Fi is a W-LAN technology transferring data through light (VLC or Visible Light Communication), preferably LED for a capacity similar to Wi-Fi - theoretically, 10 Gps is possible.

No radio frequency, no spectrum, just a spot, a lamp driver, a receiver (e.g. dongle). A bit like IrDA, only sexier because it works better in the dark.

Unfortunately, it's not long range - even shorter than Wi-Fi. So forget about smart semaphore lights. But it works: last time someone flashed their headlights to my car, I could decrypt their curses.

Following his 2011 TED talk, Haas founded pureLiFi to push the technology OEM. Here's the startup-in-the-garage-style demo:



You may feel like a suspect in a police investigation, but when it comes to grilling, LED light is far less harmful than say Wi-Fi waves. And you can see what happens, be sure that no one will sniff your data from beyond your brick walls. That's the beauty of a Li-Fi Hotspot(light).

We're always excited to see dumb objects get smart, particularly when they surround us, like these plugs that a decade ago promised to transform our electric home network into a smart one. VLC can find countless applications, including where we don't expect them (art, toys), but competition is fiercer than ever among short-medium range technologies.


mot-bile 2013