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Abstract Wireless communication systems are inherently challenged by factors such as fading, path loss, and shadowing, leading to potential errors in data transmission. Traditional methods to mitigate these issues include power control, diversification, variable beamforming, and modulation techniques. However, the unpredictable nature of the wireless medium often limits their effectiveness. A new approach to address these challenges is the implementation of cascaded intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRS). IRS systems consist of multiple passive elements that intelligently reflect electromagnetic waves, thereby enhancing signal quality. The Advanced Discrete Fourier Transform (ADFT) matrix scheme is explored in channel estimation, a novel method particularly suitable for wireless networks utilising cascaded IRS. The ADFT matrix scheme is significant for its efficiency in managing the common‐link configuration of cascading channel coefficients, which effectively reduces pilot overhead. When compared to traditional channel estimation methods like the Least Square|least squares, Maximal a posteriori probability, and Linear Minimum Mean Square Error, the ADFT matrix scheme exhibits superior performance. It achieves a remarkable reduction in normalised mean squared error (NMSE) – 66% and 80% at 20 dB and 15 dB Signal to‐Noise Ratios (SNR), respectively. Furthermore, increasing the pilot length correlates with enhanced NMSE performance, with a noted 33% improvement as the base station distance increases. Simulations demonstrate that with an escalation in the number of IRS elements and SNR, the ADFT matrix scheme consistently surpasses conventional methods. This advancement represents a significant leap in the field of wireless communication technology.

This study proposed a machine learning approach to predict the scalability of broadband networks, which is crucial for ensuring fast and reliable internet connectivity. Scalability measures a network’s ability to handle increasing users, devices, and data traffic without compromising performance. The researchers leveraged the strengths of Random Forest (RF) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) algorithms to predict scalability. A large dataset of 40,000 data points was collected, focusing on six key metrics: Response Time, Bandwidth, Latency, Error Rate, Throughput, and Number of Users Connected. The data was preprocessed and divided into training and testing sets (80:20 ratio). Both RF and SVM algorithms were trained on the dataset, and a comparative analysis was conducted to determine which algorithm performed better. The results showed that the RF model outperformed the SVM model, achieving an accuracy of 95.0% compared to 91.0%. The RF model also exhibited higher precision, recall, and AUC scores. Feature importance analysis revealed that Response Time and Throughput were the most significant factors in determining network scalability. The study demonstrated the effectiveness of the RF model in predicting broadband network scalability, with a lower loss value (0.0133 for training and 0.0160 for validation) compared to the SVM model. This approach will help network operators and administrators predict and improve network scalability, ensuring reliable and fast internet connectivity. The study contributes to the development of machine learning-based solutions for broadband network performance evaluation and optimization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wireless communication systems are inherently challenged by factors such as fading, path loss, and shadowing, leading to potential errors in data transmission. Traditional methods to mitigate these issues include power control, diversification, variable beamforming, and modulation techniques. However, the unpredictable nature of the wireless medium often limits their effectiveness. A new approach to address these challenges is the implementation of cascaded intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRS). IRS systems consist of multiple passive elements that intelligently reflect electromagnetic waves, thereby enhancing signal quality. The Advanced Discrete Fourier Transform (ADFT) matrix scheme is explored in channel estimation, a novel method particularly suitable for wireless networks utilising cascaded IRS. The ADFT matrix scheme is significant for its efficiency in managing the common‐link configuration of cascading channel coefficients, which effectively reduces pilot overhead. When compared to traditional channel estimation methods like the Least Square|least squares, Maximal a posteriori probability, and Linear Minimum Mean Square Error, the ADFT matrix scheme exhibits superior performance. It achieves a remarkable reduction in normalised mean squared error (NMSE) – 66% and 80% at 20 dB and 15 dB Signal to‐Noise Ratios (SNR), respectively. Furthermore, increasing the pilot length correlates with enhanced NMSE performance, with a noted 33% improvement as the base station distance increases. Simulations demonstrate that with an escalation in the number of IRS elements and SNR, the ADFT matrix scheme consistently surpasses conventional methods. This advancement represents a significant leap in the field of wireless communication technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A design of a broadband Doherty power amplifier (DPA) using a novel harmonic control network (HCN) is presented. The DPA structure focused on manipulating harmonic components using this new HCN to enhance the bandwidth of operation and power efficiency. The proposed HCN combines a third harmonic suppression network (THSN) with the second harmonic impedance inverter circuit (SHIIC). In the design, the second harmonic component of the main transistor and the peaking transistor are short‐circuited by their associated SHIIC. Additionally, the carefully designed SHIIC and THSN circuit placed between the main and peaking transistors realise open circuit conditions at the third harmonic for both transistors at the saturation state and back‐off regions. Side by side with the aid of the properly designed post‐matching tuned network (PMTN), these harmonic loading conditions make both amplifiers to operate in continuous Class‐F modes with enhanced‐added efficiencies over wideband conditions. As a result, a succession of highly efficient DPA modes can be formed over a continuous frequency range in the full Doherty region, resulting in a reduced‐size enhanced power efficiency wideband DPA. For verification, a wideband DPA operating from 1.1 to 1.8 GHz was designed and implemented using the proposed topology. The measured drain efficiency of the implemented DPA at 6‐dB back‐off is 52.5%–67.5%, while the saturated power across the specified bandwidth is 43–43.7 dBm. The fabricated DPA exhibits an average efficiency of 48.7%–59.4%, when supplied by a 40‐MHz long‐term evolution (LTE) signal with a 7.5‐dB peak‐to‐average power ratio (PAPR). Performing digital pre‐distortion (DPD) improves the adjacent channel power ratio (ACLR) from −25.8 dBc to −47.6 dBc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study proposed a machine learning approach to predict the scalability of broadband networks, which is crucial for ensuring fast and reliable internet connectivity. Scalability measures a network’s ability to handle increasing users, devices, and data traffic without compromising performance. The researchers leveraged the strengths of Random Forest (RF) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) algorithms to predict scalability. A large dataset of 40,000 data points was collected, focusing on six key metrics: Response Time, Bandwidth, Latency, Error Rate, Throughput, and Number of Users Connected. The data was preprocessed and divided into training and testing sets (80:20 ratio). Both RF and SVM algorithms were trained on the dataset, and a comparative analysis was conducted to determine which algorithm performed better. The results showed that the RF model outperformed the SVM model, achieving an accuracy of 95.0% compared to 91.0%. The RF model also exhibited higher precision, recall, and AUC scores. Feature importance analysis revealed that Response Time and Throughput were the most significant factors in determining network scalability. The study demonstrated the effectiveness of the RF model in predicting broadband network scalability, with a lower loss value (0.0133 for training and 0.0160 for validation) compared to the SVM model. This approach will help network operators and administrators predict and improve network scalability, ensuring reliable and fast internet connectivity. The study contributes to the development of machine learning-based solutions for broadband network performance evaluation and optimization.

With the fast and rapid pace of developments in wireless technology, energy consumption has become a problem of great significance for future networks. Over the past few years, several energy monitoring policies have been initiated to promote energy efficiency emphasizing the active and important role of consumers to realize this goal. This study resolves the energy consumption issues of broadband networks and determines the energy usage associated with high spectrum allocation in future broadband networks by leveraging clustering from the data mining domain. For analyzing the overall patterns of energy consumption in broadband networks, this study segments the broadband networks based on the similarities of their electrical load profiles and the proportion of energy usage per hour (%) as a common framework and divides the users into different groups. The prime objective for the segmentation is to provide personalized recommendations to each group to reduce the energy consumption and associated costs thereby fostering energy efficiency measures and improving consumer engagement. The segmentation is obtained by an iterative process based on computational clusters calculation which is finalized by a post clustering analysis. Post clustering analysis involves visualization and statistical data mining techniques to analyze the energy consumption patterns and reallocating to a more appropriate group. The K-Means clustering technique is utilized for this purpose which provides the best prediction accuracy of 98.46% for energy load profiles at the spectrum of 100GHz. The energy consumption segmentation of the consumers provides knowledge and a better understanding of the consumer for optimizing energy consumption for future broadband.

Abstract Following the increasing growth in the demand on mobile TV, hybrid broadcast/broadband networks emerged as a suitable approach to overtake the challenges introduced by each network separately in order to enhance users’ experience. This paper presents two possible scenarios for a hybrid, spatially separated, broadcast/broadband network to offer mobile TV linear services for the end users. Namely, the first scenario is based on shared spectrum access for both networks while the second one proposes a dedicated spectrum. Using a stochastic geometry approach, the paper derives analytical formulations for both the probability of coverage and ergodic capacity. These formulations are then used to optimize the hybrid network in terms of its key design parameters including the broadcast (BC) coverage radii, the broadband (BB) base stations’ (BS) density, and spectral capacity. The results have shown that an optimal BC radius maximizing the probability of coverage and capacity exists and it depends on the BS density of the BB network. Other design parameters have been provided and analyzed leading to an optimal network deployment. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper presents a first reference work dealing with the optimization of the hybrid network with the coexistence of broadband and broadcast networks, from stochastic geometry perspective, taking into account the inter-cell interference.

Broadband mobile networks have rapidly evolved over the last years. The unique environment they operate, however, sets new challenges for the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). In this paper, we study the impact of Long Term Evolution (LTE) handover on TCP performance with different TCP congestion control algorithms and in a wide range of networks settings, including different handover types, random channel errors and support of error correction at lower layers. Our results suggest that the congestion control algorithms employed by TCP variants during the LTE X2 handover have different impacts on TCP performance. In particular CUBIC, Scalable TCP and BIC-TCP achieve high goodput and fast window convergence in available channel capacity after LTE X2 handover. In environments involving packet drops that are not corrected at lower layers and single errors with high probability, all TCP variants exhibit very low performance levels. Finally, in terms of fairness, our results identify fairness issues among TCP flows with different Bandwidth Delay Products (BDP), with CUBIC offering the best results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Broadband networks can play a special role as "general purpose technologies" that enable or facilitate the use of other Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), including a plethora of internet-based services, such as e-commerce, e-government, e-learning or social media. Due to the better quality and availability of statistical data, most empirical studies on the economic effects of broadband have focused on their impact on growth, employment and productivity in developed countries. In this study, we set out the reasons why these economic effects should also be relevant for developing countries and examine the potential advantages of increasing broadband take-up. To analyze the significance of broadband for economic development, we specify and estimate an econometric model for nine South American countries, for which relatively high quality data was available. According to our results, increased broadband penetration is associated with significant "spillover" effects, excess societal returns over and above the expected returns of other investments in physical capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the increasing growth in the demand on mobile TV, hybrid broadcast/broadband networks emerged as a suitable approach to overtake the challenges introduced by each network separately in order to enhance users' experience. This paper presents two possible scenarios for a hybrid, spatially separated, broadcast/broadband network to offer mobile TV linear services for the end users. Namely, the first scenario is based on shared spectrum access for both networks while the second one proposes a dedicated spectrum. Using a stochastic geometry approach, the paper derives analytical formulations for both the probability of coverage and ergodic capacity. These formulations are then used to optimize the hybrid network in terms of its key design parameters including the broadcast (BC) coverage radii, the broadband (BB) base stations' (BS) density, and spectral capacity. The results have shown that an optimal BC radius maximizing the probability of coverage and capacity exists and it depends on the BS density of the BB network. Other design parameters have been provided and analyzed leading to an optimal network deployment. To the best of the author's knowledge, this paper presents a first reference work dealing with the optimization of the hybrid network with the coexistence of broadband and broadcast networks, from stochastic geometry perspective, taking into account the inter-cell interference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Despite rich literature on rural and remote broadband and community networking initiatives in Canada, limited research is available on the sequencing, mechanisms, and processes of community engagement for this purpose. Analysis The authors use a case study of the Digital Futures initiative in Alberta, Canada-- a biannual symposium that engages a range of public, private, and community stakeholders to discuss rural broadband--to illustrate the iterative formation and application of such mechanisms. Conclusion and implications The authors demonstrate how an engaged approach to communications research situated in the unique context of the involved community of practice-- in this case, stakeholders involved in addressing broadband deployment and sustainability in Alberta--can help generate a cycle of research and praxis that reflects the normative goals of the scholarship of engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: One of the methods to describe mixed lumped and distributed element two‐port networks is to use two‐variable scattering equations. In literature, the solutions of these explicit descriptive equations for some classes of low‐order ladder networks are derived under some restrictions. In this paper, the complete and explicit solutions of the equations are derived to describe lossless low‐pass two‐port networks with mixed lumped and distributed elements, up to four elements, without any restrictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the working principle of hybrid broadcast-broadband TV (Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV - HbbTV). The architecture of HbbTV system is given, the principle of its operation, as well as an overview of HbbTV specification standards that are in use, with their basic characteristics. Here are described the services provided by Hybrid TV. It is also provided an overview of the distribution of HbbTV services in Europe in terms of the number of TV channels that HbbTV services offer, the number of active hybrid TV devices, HbbTV standards which are in use and models of broadcast networks used to distribute HbbTV service.

This study proposes a multi-ary modulation chirp spread spectrum algorithm specific for the unmanned aerial vehicles field. It further introduces the corresponding fractional Fourier transform de-spreading algorithm and the hardware implementation of the software radio-based communication system to validate the algorithm's better anti-interference performance in the wide-band non-stationary interference environment.

This study proposes a multi-ary modulation chirp spread spectrum algorithm specific for the unmanned aerial vehicles field. It further introduces the corresponding fractional Fourier transform de-spreading algorithm and the hardware implementation of the software radio-based communication system to validate the algorithm's better anti-interference performance in the wide-band non-stationary interference environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article unpacks two infographic analyses to highlight two important themes regarding changes to the distribution systems and business models for the converging broadcast and telecommunications industry. First is that the recent revolution in production practices is now reverberating through the distribution system, as illustrated by a provisional mapping of a complex stakeholder ecosystem. Second is the clarity and consistency of the messages received from Canadians during CRTC consultations. In the Let's Talk TV consultations, consumercitizen messages centered on the desirability of readily available online and on-demand content, particularly Canadian and local content. By showing various stakeholders and their points of intersection throughout the process, this article aims to make a complex business more comprehensible, or at least more accessible, to a broad audience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The design and deployment of urban broadband infrastructures inscribe particular imaginations of Internet access onto city streets. The different manifestations and locations of these networks, their uses, and access points often expose material excesses of urban broadband networks, as well as failures of Internet service providers, urban planners, and public officials to imagine the diverse ways that people incorporate Internet connection into their everyday lives. We approach the study of urban broadband networks through the juxtaposition of invisible networks that are buried under the streets and have always been “turned off” (dark fiber) versus hypervisible that are “turned on” and prominently displayed on city streets (LinkNYC). In our analysis of these two case studies, we critique themes of visibility and invisibility as indexes of power and access. Our findings are meant to provide a critical analysis of urban technology policy as well as theories of infrastructure, visibility, and access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]