Blog | News & Information on Wireless Services & Telecommunications
Posted: 03/12/10 by Mobile Future Team
While Savannah, New York City, and Seattle gear up for St. Patrick’s Day this Wednesday, March 17, telecom enthusiasts nationwide will have their eyes turned to the nation’s capital, as the FCC presents its long-awaited National Broadband Plan to Congress. The day before it hits the Hill, the FCC will unveil the plan at an Open Commission Meeting, finally disclosing its contents after a 13-month-long process involving online workshops, town halls, and hearings across the country.
Keeping pace with the transparency surrounding the National Broadband Plan’s creation, Youtube’s Steve Grove will interview FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski immediately following the public meeting. In this session, Mr. Grove, head of news and politics at Youtube, will ask the Chairman questions submitted by the public spanning across a range of topics, including broadband’s potential impact on health care, education, and job creation. Announcing the interview, the FCC stated, “No topic is off-limits… we want to know what Americans have in mind for Internet innovation in the 21st century.”
The blog at broadband.gov encourages the public to join in the discussion using Citizen Tube and submit individual questions for Chairman Genachowski via Google Moderator. The deadline for questions is Sunday evening at midnight on the west coast.
Posted: 03/01/10 by Mobile Future Team
Earlier this year, mobile users donated more than $40 million via text messages to help Haiti's earthquake victims. Now our friends at the Mobile Giving Foundation, who spearheaded the texts-for-Haiti effort, are doing the same for the Chileans. All you need to do is text "Chile" to a five-digit number and you can make a donation of $5 or $10 to Habitat for Humanity, the Salvation Army or World Vision.
For more information, click here.
Posted: 02/26/10 by Mobile Future Team
Most schools around the country don't allow their students to use mobile while school is in session.
That's not the case for a Richmond, VA middle school.
Colonial Heights Middle school uses hand-held mobile devices to supplement the teacher and textbooks in a classroom. Instead of banning mobile technology, Colonial Heights is embracing it.
"This is their generation; this is aimed at their generation," sixth-grade teacher Richard Ridpath said. "They are a cell phone, iPod, Xbox generation. This is just meeting [students] where they are."
Ridpath uses mobile devices with video and interactive applications as a supplement to his more traditional lesson.
Chesterfield, VA Superintendant Marcus J. Newsome said:
"It the past, it seems as though [the cell phone] has been a tool that's been disruptive to the teaching and learning process, but if there's a way to turn it around to our advantage, we need to investigate."
Mobile learning used to be solely associated with online post-secondary education. As technology evolves and preconceptions are lessened, mobile education is beginning to apply to younger and younger students.
Join Mobile Future's email list to learn more about new developments and applications for mobile innovation.
Posted: 02/23/10 by Mobile Future Team
“Along with the State Department, the Pentagon and aid groups, as well as Haiti’s leading cellphone carrier and countless volunteers, the Coast Guard is part of an emergency contact network for Haitians to send text messages requesting aid.”
Amid all the destruction, according to this New York Times report, mobile phones are helping aid workers’ rescue efforts in Haiti. The decision to focus on text messaging resulted from the damage Haiti’s telecommunications system suffered from the earthquake. Broken transmitters and overloaded networks made telephone calls nearly impossible. However, text messaging was still available.
Among the successes according to a Coast Guard volunteer cited by The Times, text messaging helped identify a tent city that the American military and relief workers were previously unaware of.
Posted: 02/19/10 by Jonathan Spalter
100 megabit per second connections to 100 million homes.
No question that FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski laid out an ambitious goal this week for nationwide, affordable broadband. Leaving the details aside for the moment, the underlying concept is important: As Mobile Future consistently has repeated in this blog, all who care about mobility in the US should agree with Chairman Genachowski, about the urgent need to expand wireless capacity so that mobile users continue to have a good quality of service.
As he said only two months ago:
“There may be no greater spur to America's global competitiveness than getting this right. The record contains powerful evidence that the demand on our commercial mobile spectrum is on a course to outstrip the supply.”
Julius’ pledge, though ambitious, is vitally important. But its implementation also will be very expensive.
To effectively walk his talk, the National Broadband Plan he will be submitting shortly to Congress will need to include coherent and practical policies that actually encourage America’s wireless build-out, and enable the considerable private sector investment needed to support it.
The numbers speak for themselves: More than $300 billion invested in wireless during the past 25 years. And according to NY Times tech columnist Randall Stross, even in an urban setting, a typical wi-fi deployment cost in an urban area runs $75,000 to $125,000 per square mile just to install the equipment. The FCC itself as estimated that some $350 billion in new investment will be required to achieve our nation’s broadband goals.
The Chairman has identified a crucial need, and has offered a bold vision for meeting it. Now the pressure’s on for the FCC – and all of us who care about our mobile future -- to work together in creating innovative policies that will help solve that problem rather than exacerbate it.
Posted: 02/18/10 by Allison Remsen
In a recent CNET article, Lance Whitney explores the exponential growth of wireless on a global level. With the ITU predicting that wireless subscriptions will reach 5 billion in 2010 (or 74 percent of the world’s population), it’s pretty clear mobile devices have become ubiquitous in today’s society. And the applications offered by mobile technology are in great demand.
This week at the Mobile World Congress, held in Barcelona, International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Secretary-General Dr. Hamadoun Toure discussed the growing role that mobile plays in providing Internet access:
"Even during an economic crisis, we have seen no drop in the demand for communications services and I am confident that we will continue to see a rapid uptake in mobile cellular services in particular in 2010, with many more people using their phones to access the Internet."
This increase in mobile connectivity can have positive implications for people around the globe.
"Even the simplest, low-end mobile phone can do so much to improve health care in the developing world," said Toure. "Good examples include sending reminder messages to patients' phones when they have a medical appointment, or need a prenatal check-up. Or using SMS messages to deliver instructions on when and how to take complex medication such as anti-retrovirals or vaccines. It's such a simple thing to do, and yet it saves millions of dollars--and can help improve and even save the lives of millions of people."
Posted: 02/12/10 by Mobile Future Team
CNN has an interesting commentary from Larry Rosen, Cal-State psychology professor and author of a new book which explores how Americans of different generations approach new technology.
Rosen cites a recent Neilsen Mobile survey showing that from 2007 to 2009, the number of texts sent by the average teen increased by more than 600 percent. “If you have a teenager (or even a preteen),” he writes, “You must learn how to text, or you two will never ‘connect.’”
More generally, he says, America’s youngest two generations “are defined not by a letter or by their birth year but by their use of technology and media, their need and ability to multitask, their rapid acceptance of anything new and their view of the meaning of technology.” Any way you look at this, it means more texts, more social networking, more streaming videos – increasingly on a mobile network.
For more of Rosen's CNN commentary, click here.
Posted: 02/09/10 by Mobile Future Team
Last week, the White House unveiled a great step forward in the fight to reduce birth defects. It's a public-private effort called the Text4baby campaign and according to the Associated Press, it is the U.S.'s first free, pre-natal education program to use mobile phone text messages.
Expecting parents should text "BABY" (or "BEBE", for Spanish texts) to 511411. They'll receive weekly texts geared to the baby's birth date that cover nutrition, immunization and birth defect prevention. The texts, which have been vetted by government and nonprofit health experts, continue through the baby's first birthday.
An added benefit: Several major wireless carriers have waived text fees for the service.
For more information, click here
Posted: 02/03/10 by Mobile Future Team
So you missed last night’s episode of “Lost”? No problem. Pretty soon, you’ll just stream it through your mobile phone. Read more here.
Posted: 02/01/10 by Molly Kocour
Last week, we tweeted about a cellphone battery that would run on soda. While the idea of a soda-fueled cellphone is still highly conceptual, the New York Times highlights another environmentally-friendly method to charge the electronics in your life.
"The technology uses a photosenstive dye to start its energy production, much the way leaves use chlorophyll to begin photosynthesis. The dye-sensitized cells will be used to provide power for devices ranging from e-book readers to cellphones."
The cells are incorporated into panels that are sewn to a variety of accessories including: covers for e-readers, backpacks and sports bags, and will enable consumers to charge their electronics via a USB cord. You can read more of the article here.
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Tags: Broadband, Congress, Education, eHealth, FCC, National Broadband Plan, National