The notorious underground online drug marketplace Silk Road was shut down earlier this week, and visitors are now greeted by an FBI seizure notice. This takedown suggests a likely real-world use of Bitcoin: not for casual purchases in pubs, but to pay for illicit drugs. How can we justify that claim? Look at Bitcoin’s market … Read more

(Image Credit: iStockPhoto/BraunS) Swisscom has announced a pilot program to bring fixed-line and mobile networks closer together using DSL + LTE bonding technology as part of a major investment to expand its advanced broadband network. The initial trial, which begins this month, will involve a limited number of residential customers and will deliver up to … Read more

(Image Credit: iStock.com/alphaspirit) Mobile networks will become central to society’s infrastructure. Within a few years, vehicles, surveillance cameras, health monitors, home automation systems, fleet trackers, industrial sensors, environmental analyzers, retail devices, drones and a vast array of consumer appliances will be connected and constantly exchanging data with users and each other. Device and SIM counts … Read more

UK telecoms regulator Ofcom has published new research (PDF) detailing average broadband speeds across UK internet service providers. The report provides a clear view of how the country’s broadband infrastructure is progressing. As expected, Virgin Media leads on download speeds with its fibre-based services often delivering above their advertised rates. However, when it comes to … Read more

SK Telecom (SKT) has announced an ambitious plan to become a global leader in artificial intelligence by 2028. The company aims to triple the share of its investments directed toward AI and related fields and has set a revenue target of KRW 25 trillion (approximately £15.1bn). Historically, SKT allocated about 12% of its investments to … Read more

The digital divide—a wide gap that has kept billions from the opportunities of the internet era—may finally begin to close. This week, the GSM Association (GSMA) announced the creation of the Handset Affordability Coalition, an alliance of mobile operators, device manufacturers, international organisations, and financial institutions. The global initiative is focused on improving access to … Read more

Ericsson has teamed up with EE to showcase the capabilities of 5G standalone (SA) through an augmented reality (AR) experience. Called The Green Planet, the AR installation is inspired by the BBC series of the same name and aims to bring immersive nature storytelling to visitors in a new, interactive format. Katherine Ainley, CEO of … Read more

Cloudflare reports it successfully mitigated a massive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack that peaked at 15.3 million requests per second (RPS). This incident represents the largest HTTPS-based DDoS attack Cloudflare has encountered. HTTPS attacks demand greater computational resources because establishing each secure TLS connection requires additional processing, making these attacks more costly for attackers and harder … Read more

A detailed survey by the Small Cell Forum (SCF) finds that network densification has already begun in current LTE networks and will intensify during the 5G era, driven by substantial shifts in small-cell architecture and economics. The research shows that deployments are accelerating, particularly in enterprise environments: small-cell deployments rose by 98% between 2015 and … Read more

Ericsson has disclosed evidence of corruption-related misconduct in its Iraq operations and cannot dismiss the possibility that some payments reached armed groups, including ISIS. The Swedish telecommunications company launched an internal inquiry in 2019 after detecting unusual expense claims dating back to 2018. That investigation reviewed activity from 2011 through 2019 and examined the conduct … Read more