Scientists from Bell Labs are claiming they have hit data transmission speeds of up to 10 gigabits per second over traditional copper telephone lines. This could allow service providers to bring gigabit speed to broadband networks without the substantial cost of having to replace copper wires with fiber inside of buildings.
Bell Labs is the research unit of Alcatel-Lucent. Researchers explained that they were able to utilize the copper wiring and a prototype technology called XG-FAST to achieve 1 G-bps speeds over 70 meters on a single copper pair of lines and 10G bps over 30 meters using two pairs of lines, a method called “bonding.”
Improvements have been made to Toggle, AT&T’s cloud-based service that allows a separate business phone number to be added to an employee’s phone. In the U.S., split billing is available, which enables a company to pay for business-related data, calling or messaging expenses.
It also allows IT departments to remotely manage work-related functionalities. Now, there are Toggle App Ecosystem applications that offer an added layer of protection. This gives employees the option to switch between personal and work modes without entering a PIN, along with other updates.
Microsoft is now including Yammer Enterprise with all Office 365 Midsize Business and Office 365 Education plans. Yammer is Microsoft’s mobile-friendly enterprise social platform.
Office 365 Midsize plans start at $15 per user per month, with support for up to 300 users. Along with Yammer, the plans come with desktop and tablet versions of Office apps, email, 1 terabyte of OneDrive cloud storage and Web conferencing.
Intel, Dell, Samsung and others have announced the beginning of another consortium aimed at creating an open standard for the Internet of things – the Open Interconnect Consortium.
This could add to the fragmentation taking place in a rapidly growing market where interoperability will play an increasingly important role. This new consortium may also be a sign of the high level of competition among chip makers in the growing Internet of things market.