DSL remains the dominant broadband access technology, accounting for 59.8% of fixed broadband connections in the 30 countries of the OECD at the end of 2008.
For the first time since the technology came to the mass-market, however, the majority of net additions during 2008 were not DSL, which accounted for only 46.2% of new fixed broadband lines, according to the latest research figures released by Analysys Mason, global adviser to the telecoms, IT and media industries. (www.analysysmason.com).
 
According to research by Analysys Mason, cable is taking a growing share of new connections and, despite the economic downturn, residential
fibre-to-the-home(FTTH) is also gaining line share.

“Operators are competing in one or more of three areas: price, speed or content and services,” explains Martin Scott, Senior Analyst at Analysys Mason.

“Cable operators have at least a marginal advantage in all three of these areas, but content and services is their true advantage. Cable operators frequently have larger content portfolios and longer-standing relationships with rights holders. Because at the core of their service bundles they have TV, spend on which seems to be relatively protected in the recession, cable operators are likely to be best positioned to maintain their share of net additions in 2009.”

Scott says that, while 8Mbit/s is considered ‘fast enough’ by consumers in many markets, this speed is only achievable on a small proportion of lines that use ADSL. Cable operators following the DOCSIS3.0 upgrade route to next-generation access (NGA) often find it less costly than DSL operators to build fibre closer to the home, which often makes cable’s case for ultrafast broadband appear much more attractive than that of telcos, he explains.

“DSL may be losing net additions across the OECD in general, but France, Germany and Mexico still demonstrate a strong bias towards DSL, so it appears that there are still quite a few years left for the world’s dominant broadband access technology. Advances such as dynamic spectrum management (DSM) are still being made.”

 

 

This posting on zdnet.com by Jason Perlow is an example of VoIP in combination with DECT 6.0 for making free calls. This is an US one, but in many service procviders around the world deploy comparable services.
Why do we post this in the CAT-iq blog, you might ask.

Well simple, suppose the product called OOMA had a CAT-iq connector instead of DECT Connector, the quality of the audio (speech) would be superior and many other IP based services via the CAT-iq hadset / product would be feasable.

The article contains one minor misstake. It is not a 'wireless DECT 3.0 phone base station (an inexpensive Panasonic set)' as mentioned, but a 'wireless DECT 6.0 phone base station (an inexpensive Panasonic set)'.

Read the article.

An interesting article about the different frequencies and DECT 6.0. For those who don't know what DECT 6.0 is, that is the DECT implementation in the United States.

The dawn of the 21st Century has technology running at such a fast clip that even the most enthusiastic person can get tired of trying to keep up with it all. Regarding cordless phone technology, the recent arrival of DECT 6.0 not only begs the question of what it actually is, but also might provoke a debate over the pros and cons of different cordless phone frequencies. Let's take a closer look at the three dominant frequencies today and try to answer the question: if they could talk, what would they say?

Read the complete article, written by Paul Wise.

DECT technology in the baby room.

The Philips AVENT baby monitor offers DECT (Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunication) technology that guarantees a secure, private connection with crystal clear sound and guarantees zero interference to give mom and dad complete control, comfort and assurance.

Read the complete article.

 

 

 

Although cellular handset will continue to dominate shipments of devices with integrated GPS, the next growth spurt will come from mobile consumer electronics (CE) and mobile computing applications, reports In-Stat.

Mobile computing and CE devices will comprise over 100 million units in 2013.

"With growing attach rates and market maturity, GPS chipset providers must carefully evaluate which technologies to integrate into single chip solutions," says Jim McGregor, In-Stat’s Chief Technology Strategist. "Integration of the RF front-end and base band processor may not be enough. For example, which radio makes the most sense to integrate with, given the single mini-card slot of PC-based platforms?"

Recent research by In-Stat found the following:

• Although the number of devices shipping with integrated GPS is increasing, the attach rates and the devices shipments have been hampered by the faltering economy.
• By 2012, there will be more CE devices with integrated GPS shipping than there are stand alone personal navigation devices.
• Mobile computing holds a lot of promise for GPS with 26 million GPS enabled units shipping in 2013, but there are barriers. In the netbook segment for example, cost, integrating yet another antenna, only one mini-card slot will inhibit adoption.
• CPUs must be integrated (ARM, x86, Mips, etc.) to manage the host processor load.
• Infrastructure radios (802.11, Wi-Max, LTE etc.) are likely candidates for integration.

Interesting to see that the in-Stat guys are overlooking CAT-iq as a possible infrastructure radio, as mentioned in the last bullet.

And what sort of CE products do they mean?

There has been a major jump in usage, page views and data transfers for Opera Mini this month. In March 2009, more than 23 million people used Opera Mini, a 12.1% increase from February 2009 and more than 157% increase from March 2008. Those users viewed more than 8.6 billion pages in March 2009. Since February, page views have gone up 17.4%. Year over year (YoY), page views have increased 255%.

The full State of the Mobile Web report is available from this site.
 
The growth in data transfers also highlights the value Opera Mini offers global operators. In March 2009, Opera Mini served 148 million MB of data to handsets worldwide. Since February, the data consumed went up by 19.3%. Data in Opera Mini is compressed 90% on average. If this data were uncompressed, Opera Mini users would have viewed nearly 1.4 PB of data in March. Since March 2008, data traffic is up 319%.
 
About Opera Software ASA
Opera Software ASA has redefined Web browsing for PCs, mobile phones and other networked devices. Opera's cross-platform Web browser technology is renowned for its performance, standards compliance and small size, while giving users a faster, safer and more dynamic online experience. Opera Software is headquartered in Oslo, Norway, with offices around the world. 

 

New CAT-iq product will be able to link to the web directly. Some of these products will be able to have a browser. Could Opera be one of the browsers?