Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2017
CenturyLink, which said earlier this week that it is aiming to buy Level 3 Communications, signaled said that it is selling its data centers and colocation business for $21.5 billion to a consortium consisting of BC Partners, Medina Capital Advisors and Longview Asset Management, according to Light Reading.
CenturyLink will hold a $150 million stake in the entity formed by BC Partners and Medina Capital, the story said. The venture will launch during the first quarter of next year. The venture will also offer perimeter security, segmentation, visualization and security policy enforcement in the fraud protection, machine leaning, data discovery and analytics and insider threat detection.
Using the Sun to Power Drones
Drones are one of the many exciting technologies to emerge during the past decade. Being able to send an unmanned device aloft speeds package delivery in both urban and rural settings more safely. Such devices can also quickly inspect potentially hazardous areas and get a handle on damage from storms or other disasters.
For that reason, increasing functionality of the drones is a big deal. Computerworld reports that Alta Devices is producing thin film solar panels that can power drones far longer than batteries can. The story says that the approach was demonstrated on the Bramor ppX, which was developed by the Slovenian firm C-Astral Aerospace. The demo featured six solar panels, which extended the flight time of the drone from 3.5 hours to 5.5 hours. The efficiency of the panels, which will be included on a commercialized version of the ppX, is 31.6 percent, according to Alta.
A good example of the benefits of drones is their use by Verizon to inspect stadiums. The carrier expanded the program this week.
Chinese Certificate Authority Given the Boot
Certificate authorities are the organizations that check to see that the sites that a browser is seeking to go to are who they say they are. This is vitally important, of course, when it comes to use of the web for connections to financial institutions, health care firms and other mission-critical organizations.
eWeek reports that CA WoSign and its affiliate, StartCom, will no longer be trusted by Google, Microsoft and Mozilla. This could cause disruptions for hundreds of thousands of sites.
The certificate revocation has been in the works for more than a year. The reason stems from the company’s issuances of a Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Layer Security (SSL/TLS) to GitHub without authorization. An investigation by Mozilla revealed multiple – and purposeful – violations.
Broadcom Buys Brocade
Chipmaker Broadcom is buying Brocade for $5.9 billion. Light Reading says that the goal is to acquire its storage business. Broadcom plans to divest itself of Brocade’s networking units. The deal consists of $5.5 billion in cash and $0.4 billion of net assumed depth, according to the story.
The assets include wireless and campus networking, data center switching and routing and software networking assets. Ruckus Wireless, which Brocade bought in April for $1.2 billion, will be among the properties shipped out.
The Many Keys of 5G
It is generally accepted that the cellular industry has a tremendous amount of work to do in anticipation of 5G. Prabhakar Chitrapu, the lead member of the technical staff for small cell platforms at AT&T, gave a presentation at SCWS 2016 in which he laid out just how much work must be done.
The RCR Wireless story is a bulleted list of what must be accomplished to create a mature technology. A second list details what the enablers are. He finishes with bullet points that explain why today’s carriers will be the main “conductors” of 5G. It is a very illuminating set of lists.
Carl Weinschenk covers telecom for IT Business Edge. He writes about wireless technology, disaster recovery/business continuity, cellular services, the Internet of Things, machine-to-machine communications and other emerging technologies and platforms. He also covers net neutrality and related regulatory issues. Weinschenk has written about the phone companies, cable operators and related companies for decades and is senior editor of Broadband Technology Report. He can be reached at cweinsch@optonline.net and via twitter at @DailyMusicBrk.
