FIDO Alliance launches protocol to simplify secure IoT deployment
The FIDO Alliance set up to promote stronger device authentication has launched its FIDO Device Onboard (FDO) protocol, an open IoT standard enabling devices to join or ‘onboard’ cloud and on-premises management platforms more securely.
Through this standard, the FIDO Alliance is tackling challenges in security, cost and complexity associated with IoT device deployment at scale. FIDO Device Onboard advances the fundamental vision of the Alliance, which has brought together over 250 enterprises and government agencies around the world to address cybersecurity and where possible move away from reliance on passwords.
Strong wireless growth helps boost AT&T Q1 revenues
AT&T has reported increased revenues on the back of solid wireless growth, driven in turn by a spike in device upgrades. AT&T’s consolidated company revenues for the first quarter of 2021 were $43.9bn, up 2.7% from $42.8bn in the same period of 2020.
Higher equipment revenues led to mobility segment revenues jumping 9.4% compared to the same period last year. The actual equipment revenues themselves were up by over 45%, but AT&T admitted this reflected last year’s first quarter total being unusually low because of Covid-19-related store closures cutting device sales. A more realistic measure therefore was service revenues, up just 0.6% compared to the same period last year, with subscriber gains offsetting declines in international roaming revenues.
Japan’s KATCH appoints Nokia and local partner to deploy private 5G network
Local Japanese telco KATCH is targeting Industry 4.0 contracts among automotive and hi-tech manufacturers in the Aichi Prefecture, in Japan, after selecting Nokia and systems integrator CTC to deploy a dedicated private 5G network in the region.
KATCH plans to offer “autonomous industrial-grade private 5G networks” to enterprises and manufacturing companies in the Mikawa region, in the eastern half of that prefecture. The operator is building a regional 5G infrastructure which will serve the private networks, integrated by CTC.
Thales and Ericsson to supply private LTE at all French nuclear energy sites
Électricité de France (EDF) has appointed Thales and Ericsson to design and supply private industrial-grade LTE networks for all its nuclear energy sites in France.
The company has 56 nuclear power reactors in the country, with only “two to four” plants scheduled for connection each year, so the project would take almost two decades at that rate. Not surprisingly then evolution to 5G is only described as “possible in the long term”.
The first network, at the Blayais power plant on the Gironde estuary near Blaye, in southwest France, is now live, being operated “independently” by EDF itself. Unlike Germany, which abandoned it altogether in the wake of the Japanese Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011, nuclear power remains the largest source of electricity in France, contributing around 70% of the country’s total electricity production.
NGMN publishes its promised 6G white paper
The Next Generation Mobile Networks Alliance (NGMN) has released its first white paper on 6G. The lead authors of the report were Quan Zhao of China Mobile, Narothum Saxena of US Cellular and David Lister of Vodafone – an international group that seems to allay fears that the 6G effort will be split into geopolitical blocs.
“We strongly believe that we have to at least strive and aim for a global standard, which allows for all types of competition,” Anita Doehler, NGMN’s CEO, told Light Reading.
The white paper takes a fairly broad, not to say vague, approach, saying: “The approach for 6G should be based on agile and fully flexible systems, with distributed intelligence including at the edge. 6G will thus be built upon the features and capabilities to be introduced with 5G, alongside novel capabilities, in order to deliver new services and value.”
Among the requirements the NGMN believes there will be for 6G are to “address societal and environmental needs”; “introduce new human-machine interfaces that extend the user experience across multiple physical and virtual platforms, sensing, and immersive mixed realities”; “advance enablement of seamless multi-access service continuity”; and “advance and build from design the forward-looking capabilities introduced with 5G such as disaggregation and software-based agile, cognitive and autonomous networks”.