Communications

The best of Mobile World Congress, highlighting latest trends in mobile technology and services.

Hardware ‘secure elements’ will defend against hacking in Sigfox low-power wireless wide-area networks, claimed STMicroelectronics as it introduced such a device. “It’s more important than ever to consider and plan the security architecture at the very beginning of the design and development of an IoT solution,” Sigfox chief marketing officer Laetitia Jay. STSAFE-A1SX is a secure element in 4x5mm and ...

Rohde & Schwarz and MediaTek collaborate on testing 5G: mm-waves for 5G radio access and over-the-air testing concepts for massive MIMO antenna arrays.

It seems likely that the first 5G network deployments will be in the 28GHz band in the US and South Korea. This jump in frequency, bandwidth and complexity for design of the radio access network  will require new test capabilities, says Rohde & Schwarz, which will show its 5G coverage measurement demonstrator at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next week. ...

Cobham Wireless will demonstrate what it claims is industry’s first software-defined 5G user equipment (UE) simulator, based on Verizon’s open 5G standard and down-linking at up to 10Gbit/s, at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona – and it has an IoT simulator – see below. “Virtualising the solution provides operators with the flexibility to test technology and share hardware, software and licenses ...

Large-scale distributed denial of service (DDoS) internet attacks increased 140% year-over-year from Q4 2015, according to the Q4 2016 ‘state of the internet’ security report from Massachusetts content delivery network firm Akamai Technologies, which carries a significant proportion of global web traffic. It uses data gathered by its own software to analyse threats to cloud security and discover seasonal trends. ...

The first HDMI Alternate Mode cable, which allows phones, cameras and set-top boxes with USB-C video outputs to connect with HDMI port-equipped displays, including HD and 4K TVs

Microchip claims an industry first combining Zigbee PRO and Green Power features in a platform, and getting it certified by the Zigbee Alliance.

Qualcomm and TDK complete their Singapore-based joint venture developing and manufacturing RF components for mobile devices.

A novel slot waveguide with tunable, two-dimensional electron gas could form the basis of a room temperature THz modulator