http://www.wired.com/business/2014/02/steve_perlman_pcell/

This Man Says He Can Speed Cell Data 1,000-Fold. Will Carriers Listen?
By Cade Metz 02.19.14 12:01 AM

Steve Perlman is ready to give you a personal cell phone signal that follows you from place to place, a signal that’s about 1,000 times faster than what you have today because you needn’t share it with anyone else.

Perlman — the iconic Silicon Valley inventor best known for selling his web TV company to Microsoft for half a billion dollars — started work on this new-age cellular technology a decade ago, and on Wednesday morning, he’ll give the first public demonstration at Columbia University in New York, his alma mater. Previously known as DIDO, the technology is now called pCell — short for “personal cell” — and judging from the demo Perlman gave us at his lab in San Francisco last week, it works as advertised, streaming video and other data to phones with a speed and a smoothness you’re unlikely to achieve over current cell networks.

<snip>

The project would involve installing entirely new wireless antennas atop buildings and towers across the country, as well as slipping new cards into our phones. Perlman says he’s already in discussions with some of the world’s largest wireless carriers and handset designers about the technology, but if history is a guide, the Verizons and the AT&Ts — who are still upgrading their networks to the relatively new LTE wireless technology — will be slow to make the move, if they make it at all.

“In business, there is money in scarcity,” says Richard Doherty, director of a technology consulting firm called Envisioneering, who has closely followed Perlman’s project. “The wireless business models of today are based on scarcity. Opening up the floodgates for any service, for any carrier, has tremendous implications. In our experiences working with carriers…they like to have everything defined on their terms, to have breakthroughs arrive when they want them to.”

<snip>

With current wireless networks, each antenna operates mostly alongside the others, as opposed to working in tandem with them. In fact, if you put two antennas too close, they’ll interfere with each other and degrade your signal. But, working hand-in-hand with principal scientist Antonio Forenza and other Rearden engineers, Perlman has developed a new type of antenna that uses signal interference to its advantage. With pCell, interference actually enhances a signal, with multiple waves combining to form even stronger waves. “You can locate the radio heads wherever you want them, rather than where it’s convenient to put them,” Perlman says, “and they all transmit in such a way that there’s huge overlap…creating an extremely high-performance signal”

<snip>

http://www.parabolicarc.com/2014/02/16/google-planning-son-teledesic/

Is Google Planning Son of Teledesic?
Posted by Doug Messier on February 16, 2014, at 8:06 am

Clark Lindsey over at New Space Watch reports on the following rumor from Silicon Valley:

NSG Analysts have heard from several usually reliable industry sources that a major company, possibly “Google or Facebook,” could be announcing the launch of a very large constellation of satellites in the near future.

“Very large constellation” is defined as up to 1,600 small satellites. Based on information Parabolic Arc has received, the story seems to be true. Google appears to be pursuing a plan to provide global broadband services that is similar to a failed attempt by a company called Teledesic.

<snip>

Twelve years later, conditions are more favorable for developing a large satellite broadband network. Demand has increased, small satellite capabilities have vastly improved, satellite receiving technology has shrunk, and launch costs are coming down.

<snip>