Worth Noting

This is a series of short news worthy items on technology and technology application.

• Global Mobile Data Traffic - will grow 26 times between 2010 and 2015, to 6.3 exabytes (a bn gigabytes) a month, according to the latest report from Cisco's Visual Networking Index. Additionally, two-thirds of all mobile data traffic will be video by 2015, the report predicts. Mobile data traffic grew 159% in 2010, roughly 3.3 times faster than fixed internet traffic. That was higher than the 149% growth rate Cisco had predicted. The main factors are a proliferation in devices (Cisco predicts that by 2015 there will be 5.6bn mobile devices and 1.5bn separate machine-to-machine nodes); devices will have better computing capabilities and the ability to access high bandwidth content; average bandwidth speeds are expected to increase tenfold by 2015; and more people will consume rich content like video.
• Wireless Spectrum - The USA's NTIA has focused on the 1755MHz-1850MHz band as its next target for expanding mobile broadband spectrum. It will conduct a detailed evaluation of whether it can be repurposed for commercial broadband use within 10 years. This is part of the wider plan to make available a total of 500MHz of federal and non-federal spectrum over the next 10 years for mobile and fixed wireless broadband. NTIA is evaluating candidate bands on a rolling basis in order to reach the 500MHz goal as rapidly as possible. The 1755MHz-1850MHz band is currently used by the Department of Defense, federal law enforcement agencies, and other agencies for a variety of satellite, surveillance, aeronautical operations, fixed microwave and other operations.
• The Obama Administration - has backed a plan to allocate the D Block of the 700MHz band of spectrum directly to public safety groups, going against the FCC's strategy to re-auction the spectrum for a public/private partnership, a plan that failed last time around when the block failed to meet its reserve price. A coalition of first responder organizations as well as AT&T and Verizon back the White House position.
• LTE Advances - Korean researchers have successfully demonstrated LTE-Advanced technology, with a maximum speed of 600Mbps for download. State-run research body ETRI showed off an Evolved Multimedia Broadcast and Multicast Service (eMBMS), which allows users to watch 3D TV videos in a moving car. In LTE-Advanced, Korean bodies claim to control 23% of relevant patents, compared to 19% in LTE and 10% in W-CDMA. Most are held by Samsung, LG and ETRI. The research agency expects its LTE patents to generate significant new royalties to add to the $285m it won from Qualcomm in royalties for its CDMA technology and the $300m it gets from its seven W-CDMA standard patents. ETRI expects LTE-Advanced to become available commercially in Korea by 2014.