Telecommunications

Modern life depends on fast and reliable wireless connections. Video calls, streaming services, virtual reality, and smart devices all place growing demands on networks that already serve billions of users. Most wireless data today travels through radio-based technologies such as Wi-Fi and cellular systems.... Read more

A new data transmission speed record of 450 terabits per second using an existing, commercially installed optical fiber link has been set by a team of engineers involving UCL researchers. The achievement was presented at the annual OFC optical fiber conference in March in Los Angeles, California, and breaks the... Read more

Researchers at Trinity have developed a new light-based technology on a tiny chip that could help make the data centers behind cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and global internet services faster and more efficient. In the new research, recently published in Nature Communications, the Trinity team reported one such promising advance... Read more

Imagine a world without internet, email, streaming services or social media. Imagine having to write letters or call everyone on a rotary dial phone to communicate. Imagine having to drive to a store to buy anything and everything. Unthinkable, right?... Read more

Swarms of pico-satellites could work together as a single large antenna for direct-to-smartphone communications, as reported by researchers from Japan. Instead of relying on a single large satellite with a phased-array antenna, the team showed that pico-satellites orbiting Earth in formation could each carry individual phased-array elements and be synchronized... Read more

When a nuclear plant reaches the end of its life or is damaged, it must be decommissioned. This process can take more than 20 years and includes decontamination, dismantling, and handling radioactive materials so the site can be reused. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, almost half of the... Read more

Korean researchers have confirmed that underground wireless communication is possible, moving beyond the terrestrial wireless communication they have primarily focused on until now. This opened up a new wireless channel for confirming the survival of buried people in the event of a collapse of an underground facility such as a... Read more

Viewers would rather watch video at slightly lower speeds than endure rebuffering, according to new research from Lancaster University. The study investigated how dynamically slowing down or speeding up playback is perceived by viewers, and how playback speed changes compare to other ways of overcoming viewer internet slowdowns—such as reducing... Read more

Researchers from IMDEA Materials Institute, in collaboration with China's Nanjing and Huazhong Universities, have developed a new acoustic metamaterial capable of transmitting complex sound signals directly between water and air. The advance, reported in the paper "High-dimensional multiplexed metamaterial for cross-media all-sound communication," introduces a novel approach that could significantly... Read more

While satellite navigation has become an essential part of modern life, it still struggles to work reliably indoors and in dense urban environments where high-rise buildings deteriorate signal propagation. In his doctoral dissertation at the University of Vaasa, Akpojoto Siemuri investigates how adaptive machine learning and advanced sensor fusion methods... Read more

While the world sprints toward ever faster mobile speeds, another connectivity story is quietly unfolding at the opposite end of the dial. Low-frequency spectrum—the radio bands below one gigahertz (GHz)—is emerging as a practical workhorse for long-range, low-power connectivity.... Read more

Engineers at UNSW Sydney and Monash have developed an innovative way of sending hidden information that's hard to intercept. Using a phenomenon known as "negative luminescence," the system works by making signals blend perfectly into the background of natural heat radiation, such as can be seen with a thermal camera.... Read more

Faster, more secure connections from space could one day make broadband on planes, ships and even remote roads as easy as turning on a light. The European Space Agency (ESA), Airbus Defense and Space, the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) and German payload manufacturer TESAT (as subcontractor) successfully... Read more

A new study examining digital behavior in Taiwan suggests that simply having internet access is no longer enough to ensure digital inclusion—a finding with growing implications for the United States as governments, schools, and employers continue shifting services online.... Read more

The National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) has developed a hybrid signal processing method that integrates an annealing-based quantum computer with classical computing for next-generation mobile communication systems. By implementing this method into a base station, simultaneous communications with 10 devices were successfully demonstrated through outdoor experiments, addressing... Read more