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T-Mobile Starts to Roll Out its Invite-only Home LTE Internet Service

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T-Mobile, on Thursday, announced that it is piloting a new in-home invite-only internet service on LTE, for the rural and underserved areas in the U.S., through a news post. According to the post, though the service the company intends to connect 50,000 homes this year. The service is only available for T-Mobile‘s existing users and will get the service through invites-only.

T-mobile
Image Source: wsmv.com

This limited service will cost $50 a month for its subscribers, and it is a trial for the company’s future cable internet business. Since it is about to launch its 5G service, soon, ahead of that, it is also the test for the company that it is capable of delivering the 5G services to its huge user base.

The new wireless technology will help the home users get rid of the broadband wires, and they will not have to roam around the router to get the full coverage. For now, the company is providing a 50 Mbps over the 4G LTE network, with no data caps, and after the launch of the 5G network, the speed will, eventually, be raised to 100Mbps.

“For now, only a limited few T-Mobile customers – the goal is to reach 50,000 households this year, less than .04% of U.S. households. But the New T-Mobile plans to cover more than half of U.S. zip codes by 2024 with the capacity for 9.5 million households to cut the cord.” stated the company in the news post.

Earlier this month, T-Mobile had also announced that if it fulfils its pending merger with Sprint, it will launch its 5G home internet soon. So the in-house 4G home internet can be a hint on that the company is ready for its 5G home internet service. By providing the internet service to the rural areas, the company is also trying to warm FCC decision makers up to the merger.

Currently, AT&T and Verizon are already bracing up for the launch of their home internet service, and if the merger succeeds, there will be lesser competition left for T-Mobile in the wireless service industry. The company also claimed that this new service will help Americans choose better internet service and will save billions of dollars.

Robert E. Kahn: American Computer Scientist & the Co-inventor of Internet

Founder, start-up, Story, Tech Story / By

What is the thing in this modern world you cannot live without? Well, without any guesses it would be internet and why? Because it’s simply irresistible! At present, no one can imagine a world without the internet because it has become an integrated part of our lives. Everything we tend to do, normally, at first we check about it on the internet, so that nothing goes wrong. The Internet has got the answer for literally everything! It is no more a thing for the business only, but it has also entered into the personal lives of people. From the brightest of the ideas to the darkest of things, from social media to entertainment, it is everywhere. The Internet carries information, business, entertainment, and what not. In today’s era, almost everyone has access to the internet.

But the internet was not always a posh thing. It had its own origin, and it was Robert Elliot Kahn, who defined its origin. He is the mastermind who made our lives easier by bringing the internet into our lives. The story of Robert though looks simple but is the most inspiring one, as it shows that the knowledge, when contained properly can help one change billions of lives, as he did.

Bob_Kahn
Image Source: Wikipedia

Robert Elliot Kahn was born on December 23, 1938, Brooklyn, New York, US. He was born in a Jewish family. He did a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from New York’s City College. For his higher studies, he went on to Princeton University and received a master’s degree, in 1962, and completed a PhD, in 1964.

Kahn started working in Bell Laboratories. He also gave service as an assistant professor in Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for two years, from 1964 to 1966. Later, he joined Bolt Beranek & Newman (BB&N) as a senior scientist. BB&N was an engineering consulting firm. It was his joining of BB&N that where demonstrated the ARPANET by connecting 20 different computers at the International Computer Communication Conference.

ARPANET, the name derived from its sponsors DARPA was basically a different kind of project. ARPANET stands for Advanced Research Projects Agency. ARPANET is considered as the predecessor to the internet. It basically was a satellite packet network project. In BB&N, he was in the group that designed Interface Message Processor, which was mediate between the network and the host computers, of the institution. He further went on and organized an International Conference on Computer Communication. This also stood out as ARPANET’s public debut.

IIn 1972, Kahn left BB&N and joined DARPA’s IPTO (Information Processing Techniques Office). While working at DARPA, he faced and solved problems about the deployment of packet switching technology. However, the real problem was connecting the military network. That’s where ‘internet’ came into being and got its name, Internet- the network of networks.

In 1973, Kahn was joined by Vint Cerf, and the two started working together on the Internet’s Technical Protocol. The protocol is the basis of internet’s architect, or we can say, is the foundation of the internet. TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/ Internet Protocol) are the primary structures of the internet, which permits a computer to enter a certain network.

Alongside internet, he also contributed to the US government’s Strategic Computing Initiative and coined the term ‘National Information Infrastructure’.

In 1985, he left ITPO, and joined the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI), a non-profit organization in Reston, Virginia, as the president, in 1986.

Robert was an achiever. He won many awards which included U.S. National Medal of technology presented by former President Bill Clinton, in Dec 1997, ACM Alan M. Tuning award in 2004 (biggest award in Computer Science) and Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005, presented by former President George Bush.

The Founder of the Internet, Robert E. Kahn’s (aka Bob Kahn) story shows us that success doesn’t come overnight and it takes patience and hard work. Your work is the baby steps to success. We should never constraint ourselves just because we don’t see results just after.

Robert is an inspiration to the whole world.

Facebook’s Express Wi-fi; All you need to know

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Everyone loves free Wi-Fi. Internet giants like Facebook and Google has been pushing for internet penetration around the world for many years.

Facebook started internet.org in 2013 to get about 4.5 billion unconnected people on internet. Since then, the company is moving straight towards its goal of bringing more population online with services like Free Basics and Facebook’s Express Wi-Fi. These programs are designed to provide fast, reliable and affordable internet to people from developing or underdeveloped nations, thus tempting them to at least try the basic online services including entertainment, study material, online booking, e-commerce etc. When it comes to developing nations, India is always there in top few. But even in India, out of 1.3 billion, only around 400 million people are online; says a report from Telecom Regulatory authority of India (TRAI).

Facebook’s Express Wi-Fi comes as a flexible solution to poor connectivity problem of India by taking help from local entrepreneurs in establishing Wi-fi hotspots in their localities. The program started testing with various ISPs (Internet Service Providers) in India way back in 2015 and after 2 years of development, there are in total 700 Express hotspots at service spread over four states- Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Gujrat and Meghalaya.

Just Few days back, Facebook signed a huge deal with Airtel to plant additional 20,000 hotspots which is going to spread Express Wi-fi’s umbrella over other states in the country.  Although 4G network is growing really fast in India, but it will take years to become a mainstream option. Till then, Express Wi-fi will serve the needs of fast and affordable internet without any need of 4G device.  Munish Seth, head of connectivity solutions at Facebook, said about country’s connectivity problem.

One can say Wi-fi is the easiest possible way to access high speed internet. You don’t need a 4G sim card, or a LAN connection. Just you and your device supporting Wi-fi feature will do the job. The initiative will also bring new earning medium for local retailers who can resell internet to get a steady income stream. Moreover, Facebook is providing all the necessary software and data analytics free of cost along with giving full control of data prices to the entrepreneur.

“Anyone can access the Express Wi-fi network by signing up with an Express Wi-fi retailer and purchasing a daily, weekly or monthly data pack at a rate set by the local service provider. They will then be able to connect to the Express Wi-fi hotspot, register/ create an account, login and start browsing or use any app on the internet”. Seth further added explaining the whole process of getting internet over Express Wi-fi.

Free Basics was another such initiative from Facebook which didn’t get a green signal from TRAI for violating net neutrality. Hopefully, Express Wi-fi doesn’t face any issues in future and runs smoothly. As of now, besides India, the service is live in Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria And Indonesia.