What yesterday’s Apple satellite announcement really means

I took the summer off to move with my family from California to Virginia, thus escaping the inevitable fires of doom. I deliberately left my Apple/Globalstar column up so it would be still staring at readers when Apple made its eventual announcement, which was yesterday. That was a gutsy move on my part, but clearly I was correct. Today’s column — my first from our new home in Virginia — looks at specifics of the Apple satellite announcement, placing it in a more informed context.

Apple spent only five out of 65 minutes in yesterday’s product announcements talking about satellites, yet the title of the event — Far […]

By |September 8th, 2022|2022, Companies, competition, Internet, mobile technology, Phones, space, strategy|152 Comments
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Apple’s Space Ambitions are Real

Last summer, a couple weeks before the iPhone 13 announcement, Chinese market analyst Ming-Chi Kuo wrote that the iPhone 13 would include satellite communication capability.

Huh?

This was a bolt from the blue. No other Apple analysts were writing about satellites at that time.  And while Ming has a very good track record based on finding out from Apple’s supply chain about likely details in upcoming products, there was nothing about this satellite tip that even made sense, since it didn’t seem to involve hardware at all.

Generally speaking, a Ming tip is a hardware tip, but this one was not.

Ming’s prediction was widely and quizzically […]

By |June 3rd, 2022|2022, Companies, Internet, mobile technology, networking, space, Uncategorized|217 Comments
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Starlink is a global ISP built at ZERO COST to SpaceX, enabling NASA’s Artemis launch

There is lots of good news lately for SpaceX, especially NASA choosing the Hawthorne, CA-based company to build a $2.89 billion lunar lander for NASA’s Artemis Moon landing slated for 2024. Key to that single-source contract, which eliminates two competitors including Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, was SpaceX’s willingness to restructure payments to fit the $750 million appropriated by Congress this fiscal year for the project. Already the lowest Artemis bidder, Elon Musk’s company was willing to make the deal work for the customer, which is unusual thinking for space contractors, with many asking, Where did SpaceX get the money?

They got the money from your phone bill.

This Artemis win for SpaceX […]

By |April 20th, 2021|2021, competition, computer networks, Internet, space|379 Comments
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2021 Prediction #4: WiFi 6 is a bust (for now) as Bufferbloat returns thanks to ISP greed

Remember Bufferbloat? It’s a subject I was among the first to write about a decade ago, starting with a prediction column just like this one in 2011. The problem at the time was that every video or audio application — the big bandwidth consumers — was trying to solve performance issues through pre-buffering. You’d launch Netflix (just one example — they all did it) and it would pause for a few seconds filling a huge buffer intended to smooth-out any playing glitches. Except performance didn’t improve and in fact got worse because of buffers buffering buffers. These extra buffers were defeating TCP/IP’s own flow control mechanisms, often leading to total […]

By |February 4th, 2021|2021, Internet, networking, Predictions|36 Comments
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President Trump thinks he can shut down WeChat: It won’t work

Forty-five days from now, we’re told, President Trump will shut down TikTok and WeChat.

TikTok, maybe, but WeChat? Impossible.

Everything Donald Trump understands about the Internet could fit in a thimble. He’s a reckless leader who isn’t bothered by things like, well, facts, so it shouldn’t be surprising that he expects to command WeChat into oblivion. But what will happen to his already limited Internet authority when that doesn’t work?

What Internet authority?

Trump has a chance of taking down TikTok, the short form video sharing site, because that service is dependent on advertising. He can force the app out of U.S. […]

By |August 8th, 2020|2020, Government, Internet, Politics, Social Media|131 Comments
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