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In my previous post, I talked about Disney’s home of the future from 1957 and the kitchen; now let’s talk about the rest of the house.

Control is an underlying theme of the future. Even in Disney’s 1957 home, residents had the ability to not only control the climate, but even the scent—imagine the small of sweet roses or fresh ocean breeze throughout the house. It is probably best for all of us that this idea never came to fruition.

Disney’s 1957 home was designed for the women of that era. The vanity had a laboratory at one end and a telephone system at the other with a hands free speaker. Disney imagined push buttons in place of a dial (that worked out pretty well!). No need for a handset either—just talk and listen while you get ready for your day.

Those ideas are still popular and you can soon have an “intelligent mirror” in your bathroom that updates you on current news, the weather, and plays your favorite music.

Sure, Disney’s future home from 1957 envisioned a lot of today’s technology (electric toothbrushes, electric razors, and a two-way communication system from the doorstep to any room in your home), but today we are thinking much more about the user, giving the individual ultimate and centralized control of the inside and outside of the house.

Before your ready for your shower, set the exact temperature from your bed and then work on your tan while you warm your towel on the modernized towel lamp. While you drink your coffee, your car can warm up. While you drive away, your house can arm itself.

With products from companies like Nest, SmartThings and SimplyHome, the future home has become even smarter. For example, SimplyHome’s Environmental Controls empowers disabled patrons to live more independently.

Products like this are entering today’s home of the future, enabling individuals to operate beds, lights, TVs, doors, and more by tablet or voice-activation.

SimplyHome has devices like visual readers for the sight impaired; voice-activated environments and communications (phone calls, texts, emails, and web-surfing); touch screen tv’s; and a voice-activated drink dispenser.

Today’s home of the future is catering to the resident or end user, from sleek touch screen design, to automated sensors and voice command. Wireless M2M technologies, integrated with tablets, sensors, and alert notifications, make this possible.

Remote Control

And, then there is remote control.

I don’t just mean the hand-held device that people are so familiar with today … to control their television, home stereo system, Blu-ray players and the like. Instead, imagine controlling all the automation features in your home from your work or vacation spot. Or even when driving home—carefully and safely, of course!

Some of these remote control functions exist today and are being expanded as companies enable more and more features. It is already possible to use the Internet to monitor the video cameras inside your home, control the thermostat and heating system, arm and disarm your security system, etc. While driving home, the lights can be turned on remotely and messages from your refrigerator can be checked to see if a grocery stop is needed. As the functions in the home are automated, adding remote control to these functions becomes easier than ever.

Predictive Reports

What about behind the scenes?

It is interesting to see and watch the interaction between the resident and the house for the comfort functions that are enabled by the smart homes. But, increasing the automation of the home also lends itself to monitoring and diagnosis of systems that are not as visible.

Perhaps the heating system efficiency has degraded due to dust buildup inside the ducts. Or the gardening system has developed a water leak. Or a compressor inside a freezer unit has failed and the temperature is rising and food might spoil. These systems can report their failures to the resident for corrective action.

Predictive reports prior to complete failure can be even more useful—if a low-cost part starts to fails inside a more-expensive system, preventive measure to repair or replace the low-cost part could avoid more costly repairs to the entire system later.

And, yes, let’s not forget about self-diagnosis and self-repair of home systems. This may be science-fiction today since present day systems have not yet reached that level of capability. But, someday … just someday … we may well wonder how we did without it!

Regardless, with all these possibilities, the future for home automation and making our daily lives more comfortable, meets and even exceeds the vision demonstrated by Disney’ 1957 look at the House of the Future.

Copyright © 2013 Aeris Communications, Inc. and Syed Zaeem Hosain. All Rights Reserved.

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“Imagine how wonderful it would be to live in a house like this,” says a woman viewing Monsanto’s House of the Future in Disney’s 1957 Tomorrowland video, “Maybe… someday.”

How far off were those ideas? What does a connected home look like today? What will it look like in the future?

In this blog series, I will discuss Disney’s vision of the future home and compare it to today’s technology.

The Kitchen

To most people today, the kitchen is the heart of the home, and this was even more true in the 1950’s.

It was a dream to have a dishwasher with ultrasonic waves that also collapsed into storage for dishes; cupboards and refrigerator storage spaces that slid up and down from the ceiling; microwaves and oven spaces that popped up from the counter.

In the 50’s, these features were designed for convenience. Today’s innovators, inspired by these early ideas, have taken the smart home to unexpected places. We have already seen connected kitchens with refrigerators that warn us that the door has been open too long, dishwashers that can sense the shape and size of dishes, and ovens that refrigerate food until the appointed cooking time.

In a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, Evgeny Morozov asked, “Is Smart Making Us Dumb?”

While expressing legitimate concerns over individualism, creativity and privacy, there is no doubt that smart devices can help us be more productive, healthier, safer and even more environmentally aware.

All of this is possible of course because of M2M communication using Wireless IP data technologies. M2M communication has never been faster, or less power-intensive, and this creates new possibilities for the house of the future.

So what does the house of the future look like? We have all heard of smart appliances and many of us have refrigerators and ovens with touch screen features.

But what about controlling every aspect of the kitchen from just one screen? All you need in the kitchen to make your life easier: an entertainment system, cooking equipment, and even preset profiles for special occasions that control music, lighting, and other event preparations for you—all controlled by one touch screen. Running out of a key ingredient? Use the touch screen to review ingredients, health facts, and even purchase groceries.

Many of these ideas, and more, are now on display in the “Living Tomorrow” project. Researchers from the University of Washington and Kyoto Sangyo University in Japan have created similar concepts with smart counter spaces. Embedded with tiny robots, the countertops are designed to tell us what kinds of foods go together and what kinds don’t, so you can create the best possible meal just with the food in your pantry.

Once your meal is ready to be enjoyed, you can control your eating speed with the HAPIfork, a smart fork that can monitor how quickly you are eating and signal you to slow down using indicator lights.

Thinking about throwing out the leftovers in your “smart trash bin” at the end of your meal? The BinCam (an experimental project) takes a picture of what you throw out via a tiny camera on the inside of the lid, uploads the image to social media sites, such as Facebook, for you to compete with friends and earn points based on how well you practice recycling habits.

These inventions will not only revolutionize the kitchen, but also our habits and behavior!

“What about the rest of the house?” you might ask!  Stay tuned for part 2 of this blog series.

Copyright © 2013 Aeris Communications, Inc. and Syed Zaeem Hosain. All Rights Reserved.

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As just one example: more than 16 years ago, we recognized that Provisioning and Activation needed to be separate functions. My blog post last year described why this was important for our Customers.

Combined with other pioneering solutions—such as rapid provisioning and automated billing activation—Aeris Customers are able to make excellent use of our services, and manage their costs prior to generating revenue from their own customers.

We continue to provide new solutions that will greatly enhance our M2M Network Services for our Customers, and I am pleased to report on these! Particularly on using Crowdsourcing for M2M Support … I believe that this is a capability that will be used for more than just M2M support in the future.

AerPort 3.0 Launches

This past week, Aeris launched AerPort 3.0, the newest version of our portal. In this blog, you will find an outline of new features and explanations for why they are useful to customers.

Crowdsourcing Your Devices

Faster troubleshooting will save you time and money

The new “Devices Nearby” tool available on AerPort 3.0 can assist you in diagnosing a troublesome Device. This feature identifies the status of other Devices on our network within a 500 meter radius.

Aeris Customers can determine if these other Devices in that area are also experiencing issues by simply checking the map. If they are having trouble, Customers know instantly that the network is the cause of the problem.

If not, it may be time to check on their troublesome Device!

Network Status

Better reporting makes your job easier

We have always believed that complete transparency and information on network status is essential for our Customers. Right from the beginning, we provided timely e-mail notifications on network outages, service restorations and network status.

Today, AerPort 3.0 has simplified the interface of the Network Status dashboard to provide this information in a single location. Customers can now see all recent service impairment issues at a glance. As one Customer put it: “It is note-worthy that you feel comfortable providing this detailed information openly”!

On the same dashboard, Aeris provides downloadable root-cause analysis reports from the last 30 days.

MyAlerts 2.0

Identify problems quickly and reduce downtime

Last, but not least, Aeris has improved the MyAlerts functionality and moved it to the dashboard on the home screen.

In addition to the maximum usage alerts, Customers can now set up alerts for:

• Minimum threshold – Instantly notifying Customers when Devices are not sending an expected amount of data.
• GSM and CDMA devices – Sending alerts for specific GSM and CDMA Devices with Aeris GSM extensions.
• Grouping devices – Allowing Customers to customize and separate alerts into groups based on the Devices’ account, rate plan, pool name, report group, or Device list.
• Time Period – Providing details to see if Device thresholds have been met per day or month to date.

Stay Tuned

Of course, Aeris will continue to update its technology and services! Stay tuned to learn more about what’s new or coming soon.

Copyright © 2013 Aeris Communications, Inc. and Syed Zaeem Hosain. All Rights Reserved.

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• Aeris Launches Crowdsourcing for Machines

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Holiday meals bring to mind red and green sugar cookies, cranberry glazed turkey and mom’s amazing cherry pie. However, not many people think about all the ingredients that go into a family meal. Farms all over America are preparing for holiday feasting months in advance, and much of the activity from farm to table is leveraging M2M technology for productivity enhancements. For example, connected farm equipment can cut the number of planting days by 50%, smart planting software increases yields per acre, and tractor telematics is increasing the efficiency of harvesting. Irrigation systems are monitored remotely to ensure the most efficient watering possible of crops. Fertilizer levels are tracked to make sure they are available when needed. The trucks that bring the food from the farm to the store are connected to reduce the number of miles driven and ensure food is delivered fresh. If you think about it, at nearly every phase of production, M2M is involved in making our holiday dinner fresher, more bountiful, and greener.

Putting gifts under the tree brings the warm spirit of giving. The holiday gift-giving season drives more shopping than any other time of the year. In fact, the holiday season can represent anywhere between 20–40% of annual sales. In 2011 alone, Americans totaled $563 billion in holiday spending. Behind the scenes of the long checkout lines, credit card swipes, and all of that holiday spending are wireless machines. Last year, there were 10.3 million connected payment systems and point of sale devices used is the retail industry worldwide. These range from wireless payment systems to point of sale displays and kiosks. In addition, innovative merchants like Apple are changing the game, using wireless connectivity for store attendants to process a sale anywhere in the store.

All these scrambling shoppers buying gifts for their long-distance loved ones bring in the most business for shipping companies during this time of year. UPS alone is expecting to deliver 25.9 million packages on its busiest day of the year – December 20th. This means hundreds of fleet trucks using up tons of fuel on the road. However, with M2M technology deployed in fleet trucks, they can reduce their operating costs and increase efficiency. In 2010, UPS was able to reduce total driving distance by 9.13 million miles with fleet telematics. More importantly, fleet applications can also keep drivers safe when traveling through harsher weather. M2M devices allow drivers to map best route options to avoid roads with heavy traffic, see reports about the vitals of your truck, monitor appropriate driving speed, and more.

Shipping trucks and packages aren’t the only ones on the road – 91.9 million Americans are expected to travel at least 50 miles between December 23 and January 2, and about 91% of this long-distance travel is in their personal vehicle. With so much time spent in the car, M2M technology can now help alleviate the stress of traveling and being stuck on the road. Today’s new cars are now “connected” and equipped with applications that provide automatic updates on gas mileage and vehicle diagnostics, as well as more detailed GPS mapping, Internet-streaming media services, voice-enabled commands, and rear-view cameras. This means more entertainment for your children and guaranteed safer travels.

Once you get off the road and into your house, M2M can help you reduce the stress from all that year-end party planning. With so many festivities going on during the holidays, the last thing you want to worry about is losing your electricity, especially during a time when energy consumption is expected to increase by 27%. Through the use of smart meters, M2M technology can help you reduce the dollar amount on your utility bills by providing you the visibility on cost. For example, upgrading to new LED lights can reduce your monthly energy bill by more than $50, and your smart meter can help you see that cost. Smart meters also help utility companies make sure your lights stay on this season.

And with all these celebrations going on, you don’t want to forget to protect the valuables in your home with a security system. Homes without an electronic security system increase their risk of being a victim to burglary by 300% but with M2M, you can stay safe and warm in your home during the holidays.

There are many other ways that M2M is involved in the holidays. Aeris Communications has put together an infographic, “Connected Holidays,” that you can download and share.

Have a wonderful, safe holiday, everybody!

Copyright © 2012 Aeris Communications, Inc. and Syed Zaeem Hosain. All Rights Reserved.

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As you all probably know by now, the Apple iPhone 5 was introduced on September 12th. Many reviewers and sites have already commented extensively on the features of the new OS, the new large display, the “thinness”, etc.

However, there has been little discussion of the cellular bands and frequencies supported in the iPhone 5.

So, let’s spend some time on this topic.

Three iPhone 5 Models

As can be seen from the Apple iPhone 5 specifications, there are three models of the phone. Here are the cellular specifications under “Cellular and Wireless” for these models:

GSM model A1428

• UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz)
• GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)
• LTE (Bands 4 and 17)

CDMA model A1429

• CDMA EV-DO Rev. A and Rev. B (800, 1900, 2100 MHz)
• UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz)
• GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)
• LTE (Bands 1, 3, 5, 13 and 25)

GSM model A1429

• UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz)
• GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)
• LTE (Bands 1, 3 and 5)

Not surprisingly, the frequency bands supported for 2G and 3G are quite standard—this is not any different from Apple’s earlier products, or from products from other manufacturers.

However, the number of LTE bands supported in the iPhone 5 has increased from the iPad—this is definitely good news for customers!

Yet, there are some confusing decisions by Apple in regard to the LTE bands that were included, and using these phones in LTE mode in some non-US countries and Carriers may be difficult … or impossible.

Model Summary

Let’s summarize the cellular specifications of the three iPhone 5 models:

Relevant Bands

A table at the end of this post shows the LTE bands of interest for the rest of this discussion (for a full list, see my earlier posts here and here).

Good World-wide 2G and 3G Support

The 3G UMTS/HSPA/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA and 2G GSM/EDGE spectrum and protocol support is identical in all three models. These frequencies are supported by Carriers in most countries, so these three iPhone models should operate quite well in 2G and 3G mode everywhere.

The CDMA model A1429 also includes 2G/3G GSM protocols and frequencies—both Verizon and Sprint provide “World-Phone” capability in many of their handsets. So, no surprise here.

Different LTE Bands in the Two GSM Models

The two GSM models A1428 and A1429 support different LTE bands. The AT&T model A1428 supports LTE in Bands 4 and 17, and the International model A1429 supports LTE in Bands 1, 3 and 5.

I am a bit surprised that LTE support in Bands 1, 3 and 5 was not provided in the GSM model A1428, since that would have eliminated the need for the GSM model A1429.

This limits the countries where these two models can be deployed as LTE phones … the AT&T model A1428 can operate in LTE mode in Canada and some South American countries, but it cannot use LTE in Europe or Asia (where Band 4 is not yet deployed, and Band 17 is not possible). So, AT&T may not be able to offer LTE roaming to countries in Europe.

Why LTE in Band 1?

Most European Carriers have deployed 3G fairly extensively in Band 1, so this is not currently available for LTE, and may not be available for quite a while. This “future use” thinking by Apple seems unusual, particularly given the more likely (and sooner) deployments by Verizon in Band 4 (the FCC has approved their acquisition of the SpectrumCO AWS licenses) and Sprint in Band 26 (the ITU and FCC have approved the re-farmed iDEN spectrum for LTE and 1X Advanced). These  are not supported in the CDMA model A1429.

Band 3 Advantage for some Carriers

In some European countries, only one or two carriers have Band 3 DCS licenses at 1800MHz—they get an advantage. They can provide the iPhone 5 to their customer … their competition cannot.

There is a clear example of this issue in the UK. Vodafone and O2 do not have any DCS 1800MHz spectrum, since almost all the 1800MHz spectrum in the UK is owned by EverythingEverywhere. Thus Vodafone and O2 cannot offer the iPhone 5 to their customers as a 4G LTE handset.

Band 5 For Asian Carriers

Providing LTE support in Band 5 in the CDMA model A1429 was not strictly necessary—the US Carriers are not likely to free that old “Cellular” spectrum use with ANSI-2000 CDMA for quite a while. AT&T could free that spectrum from their 2G GSM use soon perhaps, but this band is not included in the GSM model A1428 for use with LTE.

However, there are some Asian Carriers who could deploy LTE in Band 5. In Japan, KDDI also offers CDMA service, so the inclusion of Band 5 in the CDMA model A1429 may be for that Carrier.

Missing LTE Bands in iPhone 5

Band 2

What about Band 2 PCS at 1900MHz (blocks A through F)? This is not supported in any of the iPhone 5 models for LTE. AT&T has started harvesting spectrum in the PCS bands, presumably for LTE, but none of the three iPhone 5 models support LTE in Band 2.

Since it is likely that this band will be cleared of 2G GSM by AT&T in major cities within the next two to three years, and certainly by January 1, 2017 in their entire footprint (as announced by AT&T), it would have seemed a prime candidate for LTE in any new handset design.

Sprint is likely to deploy LTE in unused PCS bands in some markets, and Verizon is also likely to free up EV-DO usage in their PCS bands in a few years after the 2G GSM shutdown.

Band 26

The Sprint iDEN Band 26 at 800MHz is not supported in any of the iPhone 5 models. This was a recent entry to the band plans for LTE, and probably did not get approved in time for this new design (or its chipset).

Of course, Sprint has not yet deployed LTE in Band 26, but they will do so soon, since the 800MHz in Band 26 is an excellent low-frequency competitor to the 700MHz bands deployed by Verizon, AT&T and others.

Band 41

The Clearwire planned deployment of LTE in Band 41 at 2.5GHz is not supported in any of the iPhone 5 models, although this may be moot since Clearwire has not yet deployed any LTE in that spectrum.

Furthermore, Clearwire is planning to deploy TDD LTE in that band. Although QUALCOMM and Clearwire have announced an agreement to support TDD LTE, this probably has not yet been added to current-generation LTE chipsets for handsets.

Band 12

The numerous small US Carriers who bought much of the 700MHz Lower A/B/C spectrum remain shut out from offering the iPhone 5 as an LTE handset—this Band 12 is not available in any of these models.

Since AT&T was successful in getting Band 17 (a subset of Band 12) separately approved by the ITU and the FCC, the lack of 700MHz interoperability makes it tough for small carriers to get sufficient attention from handset manufacturers.

A Few Final Observations

There are still two versions of the iPhone 5 for the US market—one for use on AT&T and one for use on Verizon/Sprint.

Thus, in the US, it is still not possible for a Verizon or Sprint customer to roam on AT&T, or for an AT&T customer to roam on Verizon or Sprint, regardless of whether they want to roam in LTE mode or 2G/3G modes (in the case of an AT&T customer wanting to roam on Verizon or Sprint).

And, if you want to change Carriers from AT&T to Verizon or Sprint, or vice-versa, you still need to change out the iPhone 5 device due to the separate LTE bands.

Maybe Apple should consider offering a trade-in plan on the iPhone 5 to allow moving from one Carrier to another! But given handset subsidy economics, this is very unlikely.

Ultimately, this lack of roaming between the major US Carriers is a disservice to consumers.

By the way, adding support for LTE in Bands 4 and 17 in the CDMA model A1429 would have made this roaming possible and potentially even simplified the number of Apple iPhone 5 models down to one! Yes, the CDMA and EV-DO support in the CDMA model A1429 would not have been used by AT&T customers, but the slight added cost for this would have have been accepted as a reasonable trade-off, if it enabled LTE roaming within the US.

For now, the Grand Unification of LTE as a common cellular protocol for handsets for all Carriers has yet to occur in the US—let alone the rest of the world. In my opinion, this may not happen till handset manufacturers make LTE-only cellular phones in the future.

Maybe the Apple iPhone 6 or iPhone 7 will get it right! Isn’t waiting for the next Apple product a popular national—perhaps global—pastime for everybody?

What About M2M and LTE?

What has been released with multiple LTE band support in the iPhone 5 is an expensive smartphone for the consumer market. Radio modules with multiple bands for LTE are still a few years from production.

And, the radio module costs would be too high for any large-scale M2M application deployment. Ultimately this will change, but not for the next few years.

In my opinion, using LTE radio modules for most M2M Applications is still a number of years away from being a good decision.

What are your LTE plans for M2M deployments? I’d love to receive comments from people who are reading this post!

Copyright © 2012 Aeris Communications, Inc. and Syed Zaeem Hosain. All Rights Reserved.

As always, although I don’t specifically identify Trademarks in my posts, they are implied. For example, Apple, iPad, and iPhone are trademarks of Apple, Inc., registered in the US and other countries.

Relevant LTE Bands

The LTE bands of interest to the iPhone 5 discussion above (for a full list of all 35 bands, see my earlier posts here and here).

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