Connectivity, Communications & Cloud News - Page 6

The world of travel was decapitated with the COVID-19 pandemic, and as a frequent traveler myself (Australia to the US at least 4-5 times a year...) it was in-flight Wi-Fi that needed the biggest upgrade to make traveling those ungodly amount of hours a better experience.

SpaceX's Starlink is wanting to make that better, with the satellite internet network giant in talks with "several" airlines to have their satellites blast super-fast internet onto planes flying through the sky.

SpaceX vice president Jonathan Hofeller explained at a panel during the Connected Aviation Intelligence Summit: "We're in talks with several of the airlines. We have our own aviation product in development ... we've already done some demonstrations to date and [are] looking to get that product finalized to be put on aircraft in the very near future".

Intel has just unveiled its very first 5G modem with the new Intel 5G Solution 5000, a new 5G modem through its partnership with MediaTek and Fibocom.

The company announced the news during its all-virtual Computex 2021 keynote, with the new modem will offer up nearly 5x the speeds of a high-speed Gigabit LTE connection, with Intel teasing up to 4.7Gbps download speeds and up to 1.25Gbps upload speeds. If you can't get 5G where you are at the time, the Intel 5G Solution 5000-powered phone that you are using will fall back to LTE Cat 19.

Intel's new 5G modem will work with Windows, Chrome, and Linux systems so it will find Intel (5G) Inside of millions of designs over the coming years.

There are some major changes coming to USB-C and they are very, very welcomed -- the USB Implementers Forum is an industry group that developed the technology, and they've unveiled the USB-C version 2.1 update that supports up to an insane 240W charging over USB-C.

The new 240W charging capacity is called Extended Power Range (EPR) and it will arrive in devices in the second half of 2021, and it'll require new cables that clearly state they support up to 240W charging. The regular lower-power cables are now called Standard Power Range (SPR) and will top out at 60W while delivering an electrical current of 3 amps.

The higher-end 100W cables that you can find today are running at up to 5 amps and will fall into the new Extended Power Range (EPR) family of cables. EPR will range between 100W and 240W with USB-C, meaning you could power a large high-end 32-inch 4K monitor over USB-C or even a high-end gaming laptop or AIO computer.

SpaceX is doing some impressive things with its Starlink satellite internet service, with tests from not long ago now seeing 300Mbps+ connections even when the satellite dish was covered in ice. Now, we're seeing huge 560Mbps download speeds on Starlink in new tests in Germany.

A user on Reddit posted about his experience with Starlink and ran some speed tests through Ookla's Speed Test of course, with download speeds that were hitting 542Mbps and 560Mbps for the first and second speed test on Starlink, respectively. Upload speeds remained at 38Mbps, while the ping was somewhere between 9-13ms which is more than acceptable.

But this is where Starlink download speeds, upload speeds, and latencies are all factors that can be changed at a whim. SpaceX has limited amounts of bandwidth per Starlink satellite, so the speeds and latencies to a particular user can vary depending on different factors -- this can range from the number of satellites in orbit above you, and the ground networks transferring data between the servers on the internet.

It looks like Starlink internet connections are pretty kick ass even in some crazy environments like being covered in ice and 8 inches of snow around it -- whatever, says SpaceX -- it'll throw 300Mbps to your dish from lower Earth orbit.

A user in Colorado, USA has teased her Starlink internet connection with a speed test showing a huge 303Mbps down and 23.7Mbps up -- all while the dish was completely covered in snow. SpaceX said back in November 2021 that their Starlink terminals can operate in temperatures as low as -30C.

Not only that but SpaceX includes pre-built heaters inside of them, which when required will melt snow and ice off of them. The Starlink dish itself is flat, so it will not gather snow or water in its center -- a design tweak by SpaceX which works in extreme environments where snow/ice is an issue.

SpaceX is making some great strides with its satellite-based internet service Starlink, with one user in Sonoma County, California showing that he was rocking up to a pretty insane 200Mbps of bandwidth from his Starlink internet service.

You're not going to get 200Mbps out of the box and 24/7 with Starlink, but it is more of a case of what the service is capable of. The lowest of the 6 results the user shared with Wccftech has him pegged at 44Mbps, but this got a little higher as the tests continued.

SpaceX told the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) back in October 2020 that the average download speed for its Starlink internet service would be at around 80Mbps -- up from the 43Mbps average speed the company talked about in September. But there are other users around the US where in Montana someone hit 190Mbps while Starlink users in Seattle and New York were seeing 230-240Mbps. Not too damn bad at all.

PCIe 6.0 is getting finalized right now, but Synopsys is ahead of the curve announcing the industry's first complete PCIe 6.0 IP solution.

The final PCIe 6.0 specification is still a few months away so what Synopsys is first with is its complete PCIe 6.0 IP solution that it can provide companies with to integrated into their designs. The new PCIe 6.0 IP solution is on the smaller and new 5nm node, too. What Synopsys is doing here with the DesignWare IP package for PCIe 6.0 is provide a new controller, the physical interface (PHY) and verification IP.

We have data transfer rates of up to 64 GT/s per pin, which is up from 8 GT/s on PCIe 3.0, 16 GT/s on PCIe 4.0 and 32 GT/s on the PCIe 5.0 standard. Not only are there major boosts in data transfer rates, but there's also power reductions of up to 20% chip-to-chip, riser card, and backplane interfaces.

I'm sure you've heard of the raging winter storms across many states in the US, with Texas hit very hard with a historic winter cold front -- which has seen millions of Americans without power, cell phone and internet services.

T-Mobile president of technology Neville Ray tweeted: "We're experiencing network issues following severe weather in several areas of the country and especially across Texas. Our teams are working hard to restore service. Stay tuned, stay safe and thank you for your patience".

Jason Furtado, a professor of meteorology at the University of Oklahoma explained the storm: "We're living through a really historic event going on right now". The storm has plunged millions of Americans into darkness in more ways than one, with state officials saying that the demand for power mixed with the freezing conditions has knocked down power stations as Texas' systems are overloaded.

If you are stuck in an area without great internet, Elon Musk is here to save the day with SpaceX and its satellite internet service Starlink, which you can now pre-order for $99.

Starlink will be offering satellite internet to many, but not all people -- where you can enter your home address into their website to see if you'll be able to access the Starlink satellite internet service. Depending on the area, Starlink's website will let you pre-order for $99 with SpaceX saying it is "targeting coverage in your area in mid to late 2021".

At first, Starlink will offer satellite internet coverage for users in the US, Canada, and the UK but countries like Australia will also be enjoying SpaceX's gift of high-speed internet later on in the year. SpaceX notes on its website that pre-orders are "fully refundable" but does note that "placing a deposit does not guarantee service" and that it "orders may take 6 months or more to fulfill" depending on where you live.

If you're in the market for a new super-awesome 4K 120Hz gaming TV or monster 8K 60Hz TV then you're going to need a good quality HDMI 2.1 cable -- and now, that's something that'll be easier to buy moving forward.

Rob Tobias, CEO and president of HDMI Licensing Administrator, Inc. (HDMI LA) explains: "It's exciting to see so many new products available with these new features. And with the launch of the latest gaming consoles, consumers can now enjoy a thrilling HDMI 2.1 end-to-end experience with consoles, AVR's, cables, TVs and monitors. With shipments of HDMI products reaching almost 10 billion since it launched in 2002, HDMI technology continues to be the universal interface for consumer electronics products".

HDMI 2.1 houses many technologies that make it the new enthusiast standard, offering not just 4K120 and 8K60 support but features including Variable Refresh Rate (VRR), Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM) and Quick Frame Transport (QFT).