In few years there’ll be close to 4bn smartphones on earth. Ericsson’s annual mobility report forecasts increasing mobile subscriptions and connections through 2020.(9.5B Smartphone Subs by 2020 and eight-fold traffic increase). Ericsson’s annual mobility report expects that by 2020 90% of the world’s population over six years old will have a phone. It really talks about the connected world where everyone will have a connection one way or another.
What about the phone systems in use. Now majority of the world operates on GSM and HPSA (3G). Some countries are starting to have good 4G (LTE) coverage, but on average only 20% is covered by LTE. 4G/LTE small cells will grow at 2X the rate for 3G and surpass both 2G and 3G in 2016.
Ericsson expects that 85% of mobile subscriptions in the Asia Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa will be 3G or 4G by 2020. 75%-80% of North America and Western Europe are expected to be using LTE by 2020. China is by far the biggest smartphone market by current users in the world, and it is rapidly moving into high-speed 4G technology.
The sales of mobile broadband routers and mobile broadband “usb sticks” is expected to continue to drop. In year 2013 those devices were sold 87 million units, and in 2014 sales dropped again 24 per cent. Chinese Huawei is the market leader (45%), so it has most to loose on this.
Small cell backhaul market is expected to grow. ABI Research believes 2015 will now witness meaningful small cell deployments. Millimeter wave technology—thanks to its large bandwidth and NLOS capability—is the fastest growing technology. 4G/LTE small cell solutions will again drive most of the microwave, millimeter wave, and sub 6GHz backhaul growth in metropolitan, urban, and suburban areas. Sub 6GHz technology will capture the largest share of small cell backhaul “last mile” links.
Technology for full duplex operation at one radio frequency has been designed. The new practical circuit, known as a circulator, that lets a radio send and receive data simultaneously over the same frequency could supercharge wireless data transfer, has been designed. The new circuit design avoids magnets, and uses only conventional circuit components. The radio wave circulator utilized in wireless communications to double the bandwidth by enabling full-duplex operation, ie, devices can send and receive signals in the same frequency band simultaneously. Let’s wait to see if this technology turns to be practical.
Broadband connections are finally more popular than traditional wired telephone: In EU by the end of 2014, fixed broadband subscriptions will outnumber traditional circuit-switched fixed lines for the first time.
After six years in the dark, Europe’s telecoms providers see a light at the end of the tunnel. According to a new report commissioned by industry body ETNO, the sector should return to growth in 2016. The projected growth for 2016, however, is small – just 1 per cent.
With headwinds and tailwinds, how high will the cabling market fly? Cabling for enterprise local area networks (LANs) experienced growth of between 1 and 2 percent in 2013, while cabling for data centers grew 3.5 percent, according to BSRIA, for a total global growth of 2 percent. The structured cabling market is facing a turbulent time. Structured cabling in data centers continues to move toward the use of fiber. The number of smaller data centers that will use copper will decline.
Businesses will increasingly shift from buying IT products to purchasing infrastructure-as-a-service and software-as-a-service. Both trends will increase the need for processing and storage capacity in data centers. And we need also fast connections to those data centers. This will cause significant growth in WiFi traffic, which will will mean more structured cabling used to wire access points. Convergence also will result in more cabling needed for Internet Protocol (IP) cameras, building management systems, access controls and other applications. This could mean decrease in the installing of special separate cabling for those applications.
The future of your data center network is a moving target, but one thing is certain: It will be faster. The four developments are in this field are: 40GBase-T, Category 8, 32G and 128G Fibre Channel, and 400GbE.
Ethernet will more and more move away from 10, 100, 1000 speed series as proposals for new speeds are increasingly pushing in. The move beyond gigabit Ethernet is gathering pace, with a cluster of vendors gathering around the IEEE standards effort to help bring 2.5 Gbps and 5 Gbps speeds to the ubiquitous Cat 5e cable. With the IEEE standardisation process under way, the MGBase-T alliance represents industry’s effort to accelerate 2.5 Gbps and 5 Gbps speeds to be taken into use for connections to fast WLAN access points. Intense attention is being paid to the development of 25 Gigabit Ethernet (25GbE) and next-generation Ethernet access networks. There is also development of 40GBase-T going on.
Cat 5e vs. Cat 6 vs. Cat 6A – which should you choose? Stop installing Cat 5e cable. “I recommend that you install Cat 6 at a minimum today”. The cable will last much longer and support higher speeds that Cat 5e just cannot support. Category 8 cabling is coming to data centers to support 40GBase-T.
Power over Ethernet plugfest planned to happen in 2015 for testing power over Ethernet products. The plugfest will be focused on IEEE 802.3af and 802.3at standards relevant to IP cameras, wireless access points, automation, and other applications. The Power over Ethernet plugfest will test participants’ devices to the respective IEEE 802.3 PoE specifications, which distinguishes IEEE 802.3-based devices from other non-standards-based PoE solutions.
Gartner expects that wired Ethernet will start to lose it’s position in office in 2015 or in few years after that because of transition to the use of the Internet mainly on smartphones and tablets. The change is significant, because it will break Ethernet long reign in the office. Consumer devices have already moved into wireless and now is the turn to the office. Many factors speak on behalf of the mobile office. Research predicts that by 2018, 40 per cent of enterprises and organizations of various solid defines the WLAN devices by default. Current workstations, desktop phone, the projectors and the like, therefore, be transferred to wireless. Expect the wireless LAN equipment market to accelerate in 2015 as spending by service providers and education comes back, 802.11ac reaches critical mass, and Wave 2 products enter the market.
Scalable and Secure Device Management for Telecom, Network, SDN/NFV and IoT Devices will become standard feature. Whether you are building a high end router or deploying an IoT sensor network, a Device Management Framework including support for new standards such as NETCONF/YANG and Web Technologies such as Representational State Transfer (ReST) are fast becoming standard requirements. Next generation Device Management Frameworks can provide substantial advantages over legacy SNMP and proprietary frameworks.
U.S. regulators resumed consideration of mergers proposed by Comcast Corp. and AT&T Inc., suggesting a decision as early as March: Comcast’s $45.2 billion proposed purchase of Time Warner Cable Inc and AT&T’s proposed $48.5 billion acquisition of DirecTV.
There will be changes in the management of global DNS. U.S. is in the midst of handing over its oversight of ICANN to an international consortium in 2015. The National Telecommunications and Information Association, which oversees ICANN, assured people that the handover would not disrupt the Internet as the public has come to know it. Discussion is going on about what can replace the US government’s current role as IANA contract holder. IANA is the technical body that runs things like the global domain-name system and allocates blocks of IP addresses. Whoever controls it, controls the behind-the-scenes of the internet; today, that’s ICANN, under contract with the US government, but that agreement runs out in September 2015.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
PacketExpert 10G Ethernet/IP tester analyzes LAN/WAN, individual links/switches
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2015/05/packetexpert-10g-tester.html
Communications test and measurement equipment specialist GL Communications has unveiled its PacketExpert 10G, an Ethernet/IP tester.
“It has two 10-Gbps optical ports and two 10/100/1,000-Mbps electrical/optical ports capable of bit-error-rate testing, smart loopback, RFC 2544, wire-speed record and playback, IP link simulation and impairment emulation (IPLinkSim), and Y.1564 (ExpertSAM) test functionalities,” reports Jagdish Vadalia, a GL senior manager for product development.
Vadalia adds, “These tests are supported on each port independently for wire-speed Ethernet/VLAN/MPLS/IP/UDP testing. BERT is implemented for all layers. RFC 2544/Y.1564 is applicable for Layers 2, 2.5, and 3, and loopback is applicable for Layers 2, 3, and 4.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Report: Enterprise LANs will have live SDN by 2017
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2015/05/infonetics-sdn-enterprise-lan.html
Technology market research firm Infonetics Research, now part of IHS Inc. (NYSE: IHS), recently conducted in-depth surveys with businesses in the US and Canada about the enterprise LAN software-defined networking (SDN) market, and found that 72 percent plan to have campus LAN SDN in live production by the end of 2017.
“Expectations for software-defined networking in the campus LAN are clear,” said Cliff Grossner, Ph.D., Infonetics’ research director for data center, cloud and SDN. “Businesses taking part in our study want SDN to provide operational cost savings by integrating with existing networks, delivering better security, simplifying management and improving application performance. And they want all this without network interruptions.”
When asked about barriers to deploying SDN, Infonetics reports that survey respondents most often cited interoperability with existing network equipment/management systems, lack of in-house SDN skills and potential network interruptions. “Enterprises’ top use cases for LAN SDN are focused on automation for provisioning, wired and wireless LAN unification, BYOD, and improved security enforcement at the network access point,” Grossner added.
The research also finds that SDN-capable applications for the campus LAN represent one of the biggest opportunities for third-party SDN, existing virtualization and open source vendors, though existing network vendors are still contenders to provide the technology. Survey respondents most often identified Cisco, HP, Juniper, Microsoft and VMware (in alphabetical order) as the top SDN vendors.
Tomi Engdahl says:
11 telecom/datacom equipment makers’ revenues analyzed
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2015/05/11-telecomdatacom-analyses-bishop.html?cmpid=EnlDataCentersMay192015
A new market analysis brief from Bishop & Associates’ cable assembly practice tracks 11 companies in the telecom/datacom market sector.
According to Dave Pheteplace, the brief’s author, “This market has shown four quarters of year-over-year growth, as measured by these 11 companies’ revenues.”
“In 2013, these companies grew 0.1% year over year,” adds Pheteplace. “In 1Q14, the combined revenues of these companies grew 1.6% year over year; in 2Q14 that number grew 2.1% over the prior year; it grew 8.2% in 3Q14 and 23.1% in 4Q14 — heavily influenced by Apple’s results.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Integrated Optics: Engineered lattice steers light around extremely tight corners
http://www.laserfocusworld.com/articles/print/volume-51/issue-05/world-news/integrated-optics-engineered-lattice-steers-light-around-extremely-tight-corners.html?cmpid=EnlLFWMay192015
Researchers at the University of Central Florida (UCF; Orlando, FL) and the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) have shown that spatially variant photonic crystals (SVPCs) can be used to steer light beams efficiently around extremely tight corners, with potential applications in chip-to-chip optical interconnects.1 Other approaches—based on waveguides, metamaterials, surface plasmons, or other bulk-optic devices—require much larger bend radii or incur higher losses, and all require complex fabrication or alignment processes due to the subwavelength feature sizes and high-refractive-index or metallic materials involved.
While most chip-based optical devices steer light using refraction or waveguides, SVPCs steer light using diffraction and self-collimation.
The SVPC architecture is based on an algorithm developed by a UTEP team led by Raymond Rumpf that can be used to bend and twist lattices very abruptly without deforming the unit cells; such deformation would detune or destroy the self-collimation effect
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nonlinear Optics: PPLN waveguides perform quantum frequency conversion
http://www.laserfocusworld.com/articles/print/volume-51/issue-05/features/nonlinear-optics-ppln-waveguides-perform-quantum-frequency-conversion.html?cmpid=EnlLFWMay192015
Periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) waveguide frequency-conversion devices have advantages over their bulk counterparts.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Alca-Lu pitches carrier SDN from Layer 3 to optical
Network Services Platform hopes to align carriers with clouds
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/20/alcalu_pitches_carrier_sdn_from_layer_3_to_optical/
There’s still too many disparate systems for carriers to easily go down the software-defined network (SDN) path, Alcatel-Lucent reckons, and it’s pitching a network services platform (NSP) to change that.
The company’s VP of product marketing for IP routing and transport, Manish Gulyani, spoke to The Register’s networking desk to outline the NSP, which Alca-Lu says gives carriers a unified SDN platform from the optical layer up to Layer 3.
“For every overlay, there’s an underlay,” he said. “Iif there’s a failure of optical, what happens? If there’s a failure of IP adjacency, what happens?
“The NSP is not just IP – this is all the way down to the Layer 1 services”.
The NSP is a straight software sell. It runs as a VM on x86 or AMD architectures, scales out by adding new instances, with northbound hooks into OSS / BSS environments and southbound interfaces into the network.
As things now stand, carriers are afflicted with the same manual provisioning challenges as exist in the pre-SDN data centre: a customer places a new order, which has to be run into the operational support system (OSS); engineers have to ensure the site connection can support the new order, then provision the relevant switches, and make sure all the network paths can support the service.
That, in turn, means checking available capacity on routers, setting up the IP/MPLS network and Ethernet infrastructure, and assigning the customer ports to the optical paths at the bottom of it all.
“Today, services are manual or semi-automated provisioning. It takes days/weeks to turn on an enterprise site,” Gulyani told El Reg.
He added that carriers’ – and the customers’ – old assumptions were inflexible: once connected, the site stays that way for years, meaning carriers could provision their underlying network on a month-by-month basis.
To get that multivendor support, the NSP uses a suite of standard protocols to gather the network information: PCEP (Path Computation Element Communication Protocol in https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5440 RFC 5440); BGP LS (link state) to gather routing information, and the venerable OSPF and IS-IS protocols.
“To provide automation you need … to understand the IP layer, the MPLS, the optical, and the interplay between them”, he explained. This lets the carrier manage the capacity that exists between the sites, the capacity that’s already been booked, and the utilisation of those links.
Tomi Engdahl says:
5G Base Station Architecture: Evolution
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1326638&
What you need to know about the 5G concept as it exists today as well as some early hardware/software developments.
What is 5G?
Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN) says:
5G is an end-to-end ecosystem to enable a fully mobile and connected society. It empowers value creation toward customers and partners, through existing and emerging use cases delivered with consistent experience and enabled by sustainable business models.
Tom Keathley, SVP, Wireless Network Architecture & Design for AT&T says that 5G is expected to appear as enhanced capabilities of LTE-Advanced (LTE-A). So 4.5G will emerge on the way to 5G as LTE-A evolves. Right now 4G is still being deployed, but early designs have started on its replacement: 5G.
LTE-Advanced
Essentially Qualcomm states that LTE Advanced is evolving to include carrier aggregation, enable hyper-dense Heterogeneous Networks (HetNet) with enhanced receivers. HetNets or Heterogeneous cellular networks (HCN) introduce small cells within the transmission range of a macrocell. For proper operation the high power macrocell will need to shut down its transmissions for a period of time to enable the smaller cells to transmit. This can be achieved by Time-Domain Resource Partitioning (TDRP)2.
Extension of LTE into the unlicensed spectrum and moves LTE towards such things as device-to-device functionality, broadcast TV and higher bands.
Tomi Engdahl says:
ITU Targets 5G Wireline Standards
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1326646&
International Telecommunications Union is forming a working group on prepping existing landline networks to be backbone of 5G.
I have lost count of the number of standards efforts, industry alliances, research consortia and targeted research centers — and even likely air interfaces — that have been created over the past 12 to 18 months as the mobile sector moves towards the nirvana of 5G.
assembling a ‘working group’ focusing on how existing landline networks will need to be adapted to provide the glue that will hold this “tactile Internet” together.
There is no doubt this aspect has had significantly less focus and research, but the perhaps boring backhauling and internetworking will be equally important if 5G is to achieve all that is expected of it.
Specifically, the ITU is looking at the International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT) standards for 2020 and beyond, with hosting being offered by the organization’s Standardization Sector (ITU-T). The standards in question, called the “IMT-2020” systems, are said to be targeting fiber optic infrastructure levels of speed and reliability.
As well as voice and video, IMT-2020 systems are expected to include numerous vertical industry applications such as industrial automation and healthcare, with focus on new devices and ways of working, including self-driving vehicles, real-time robotics and virtual reality. One of the most impressive and ambitious standards referenced by the ITU is latency measured in milliseconds—from end to end.
It should be stressed that the WRC-15 will focus on a myriad of issues other than 5G as well.
The ITU’s analysis and focus on wireline is spot on. But it may have scored an own goal in its official announcement, which included a salient observation from Wen Tong, head of 5G R&D at infrastructure supplier Huawei, stressing that the bottleneck at the moment remains the speed of the network and including a rallying call that “everyone in the ICT ecosystem needs to work together” to realize the potential of 5G. The Chinese company was the only commercial group referenced in the release.
The other infrastructure gear suppliers will need to up their game
Tomi Engdahl says:
First WiGig-connected smartphone
WiGig is a 60 GHz radio technology, which will bring ultra-fast Wi-Fi connection to mobile devices. Chinese Letv has now introduced the world’s first smartphone, which technology is integrated. It is based on Sibeam SiI6400 chipset.
WiGig is also opens on an important role in 5G-standardization. It can be implemented fast interior connections in small areas subject to lower mobile frequencies should not be wasted.
Chinese Letv has already presented a ground-breaking mobile phones. Le Max smartphone also includes the first market for the C-type USB connector smartphones.
La Maxi sales will begin in June.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2848:ensimmainen-wigig-yhteydella-varustettu-alypuhelin&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Scratch Wireless targets bargain hunters with $99 smartphone, free Wi-Fi calls
http://www.cnet.com/news/scratch-wireless-targets-bargain-hunters-with-99-smartphone/
The company, which already offers free mobile phone service via Wi-Fi networks, is trying to make a name for itself with the introduction of a $99 Android handset.
On Tuesday, the company introduced the CoolPad Arise, a Chinese-manufactured smartphone that runs Google’s Android mobile operating system and operates on Scratch’s “Wi-Fi first” wireless service. The inexpensive phone can be used for free on Scratch’s no-contract Wi-Fi service — or as a piggyback on Sprint’s network when no Wi-Fi is available. This combination makes it one of the cheapest options on the market.
Scratch has introduced this new low-cost device at time when consumers are looking for cheaper alternatives to more expensive services from large wireless operators like AT&T, Verizon, Sprint or T-Mobile. While these larger carrier customers are expected to pay $50 or more a month for service plus the full cost of a $600 smartphone, Scratch offers service and a new smartphone for a fraction of that price.
The free Wi-Fi service and new handset are designed for the most cost-conscious of wireless subscribers, said Jon Finegold, vice president of marketing at Scratch Wireless.
“Parents can buy it for their kids or kids can buy it for themselves when they graduate from college and are kicked off the family plan,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Singapore to trial 10Gbps home broadband
Take that Google cable, and weep Australia
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/21/singapore_to_trial_10gbps_home_broadband/
Singapore’s dominant telco, Singtel, has announced a pilot deployment of 10Gbps broadband to a select group next quarter, and says that it expects the blistering fast Internet service to be generally available by the later part of this year.
The high speed connectivity is only possible due to the completion of Singapore’s Next Generation Nationwide Broadband Network (Next Gen NBN) initiative – a master plan to wire up every corner of the city state with fibre optics.
Singapore’s small land area of 716.1 square kilometers certainly makes delivering fibre to the home a much easier proposition than in most other countries in the world.
Yet 10Gbps services are rare anywhere: telcos in Hong Kong and Korea are experimenting with broadband at these speeds while US Internet offers such a service in Minneapolis. Singtel stepping up and promising commercial services by year’s end is therefore globally noteworthy.
“Over 70 per cent of our customers are on fiber,” said Singtel chief technology officer Tay Soo Meng in a canned statement. “Most of these households already have multiple devices connected to their home network. The adoption of this technology will help us meet demand as the number of applications increase and become even more bandwidth-intensive.”
Singaporeans already do okay by global standards: local internet service provider ViewQwest launched a 2Gbos service in March at SG$99.95 (US$74) per month.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tested, works: video conferencing from a flying helicopter using 4g network
In medical helicopter is sometimes very critical to get access to the outside world. Along the country doctors to whisk away the company has been testing video conferencing helicopters, and the results are encouraging.
The national medical helicopter operations managing Finnhems has tested Ukko Mobile’s 4G LTE connections in Their Flying helicopters. The method has been found to be an excellent tool for real-time transmission of patient data.
During the test flights carried out during the spring, was probably held in Finland’s first video conferencing directly from a flying helicopter, the flight crew discussed the video connection to the patient receiving hospital staff with the modeled earth team.
“The network has worked surprisingly well in our tests, and the use of different information systems is going more or less in the air as well as in the country,”
Finnhems has applied for and received special permission from FICORA using equipment intended for terrestrial mobile communications on board aircraft.
Source: http://www.tivi.fi/Kaikki_uutiset/2015-05-22/Testattu-toimii-videoneuvottelu-lent%C3%A4v%C3%A4st%C3%A4-helikopterista-4g-verkossa-3320914.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cisco strengthens its hardware-defined networking products
We so love FC and FICON still
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/22/cisco_strengthens_hwdefined_networking_oroducys/
Cisco has introduced a new Fibre Channel fabric switch to better connect virtualised servers to all-flash arrays, seeing a rise in back-end array connection port-counts and speed needed to satisfy all-flash array IO demands.
It’s also bumped up its mainframe FICON connect speed and spread 40GbitE support across its Nexus switches.
With 40GbitE Nexus support, Cisco blogger Tony Antony says “customers have the flexibility to deploy 40G FCoE, NAS, iSCSI, IP-based object storage, and LAN connectivity on a single platform.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
5G base station architecture, Part 1: Evolution
http://www.edn.com/design/analog/4439467/5G-base-station-architecture–Part-1–Evolution-?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20150521&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20150521&&&elq=bfca0af1610f47cba989bb95f149d528&elqCampaignId=23112&elqaid=26024&elqat=1&elqTrackId=b3c9df13da35465cacd86a0947ea0ec3
NI’s Multi-Element Phased Array Antenna design for 5G
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/anablog/4439506/NI-s-Multi-Element-Phased-Array-Antenna-design-for-5G?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20150521&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20150521&elq=bfca0af1610f47cba989bb95f149d528&elqCampaignId=23112&elqaid=26024&elqat=1&elqTrackId=294c93e0d11248419df04fe67298386f
Tomi Engdahl says:
Connected cars could cause data traffic jams for mobile operators
As levels of machine-to-machine data overload networks
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2409834/connected-cars-could-cause-data-traffic-jams-for-mobile-operators
CONNECTED CARS could lead to data traffic jams for mobile networks as levels of machine-to-machine (M2M) data overload networks, new research has found.
Analyst firm Machina Research said that mobile operators could face major problems during “rush hour”, when “certain cells” will get a 97 percent increase in data traffic, which could have “grave implications”.
It is believed that connected cars will be vital in the future as technology becomes more integrated into different aspects of vehicles to make them safer.
Cars of the future will require an internet connection to function to their full potential, and will offer vastly improved safety features.
They will be able to ‘talk’ to nearby vehicles and be aware of road conditions at all times, and will present traffic data in real time via the cloud. A range of companies are working on such technologies, including Google and Apple.
“Connected cars, as with other M2M devices, don’t behave like smartphones,” said Machina Research founder and CEO Matt Hatton.
“They represent a very diverse set of challenges to operators through highly varying network traffic patterns at different times of the day.”
The report added that M2M connections will increase from 250 million this year to 2.3 billion in 2024
Tomi Engdahl says:
UK sells off unused net addresses
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32826353
The UK government has started selling off internet addresses that it no longer uses.
The first group of 150,000 addresses has been snapped up by a Norwegian firm called Altibox for about £600,000.
The addresses are becoming valuable because the net has almost outgrown the addressing scheme it adopted in the 1970s.
If the UK government sells off all the surplus addresses it owns it could get up to £15m.
However, some fear that as the addresses are shared out more widely, data could go astray.
An official report produced before the DWP began its investigation suggested that 70% of the massive block was used for the UK government’s internal network, leaving about five million free for disposal.
A government spokesman said: “Government periodically reviews all its assets to consider their financial value, including options to release income from those that are not used to their fullest potential.”
The addresses are known as IP Version 4 (IPv4) addresses and are valuable because of a hard limit in the numbering system they use. This caps the total number of IPv4 addresses at 4.3 billion. In practice there are fewer available because some are reserved for other uses.
The net is in the process of moving to IP Version 6 (IPv6), which has an almost inexhaustible supply of addresses. However, technical incompatibilities between the two versions means many firms are seeking to expand their existing IPv4 networks instead of switching.
Regional caches of IPv4 addresses have all but run dry, meaning many firms have to look elsewhere for them, said Sandra Brown, president of address broker IPV4 Market Group.
“Supply has met demand but we are reaching a point where supply is about to fall short and we have seen prices escalate because of that,” she said.
Each individual IP address was worth up to $11 (£7), she said, but prices were lower when big deals were done.
Trading was likely to continue for years as firms were only slowly migrating to IPv6.
“Most of the people I talk to say it will take five to 10 years to convert,” said Ms Brown.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nigeria fuel shortage cripples businesses, banks and flights
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-32873349
Nigeria is being crippled by the fuel shortage that the country has been experiencing for more than a month.
Most Nigerian businesses and homes rely on diesel-powered generators because of the poor electricity infrastructure.
The shortage means that Africa’s biggest economy is slowly grinding to halt, says the BBC’s Will Ross in Lagos.
Three of the country’s mobile phone companies, MTN, Airtel and Etisalat, have warned that the fuel scarcity could effect their services as they were finding it difficult to supply diesel to the base stations.
Radio stations are also restricting their broadcasts and some have gone off air altogether.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fibre Channel over Ethernet is dead. Woah, contain yourselves
No one (well, maybe just Cisco) wanted it
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/26/fcoe_is_dead_for_real_bro/
How many times have you heard one of these statements: Tape is dead! Mainframe is dead! The laptop is dead … and so on. It then turns out not to be true.
Most of the time it was just a way to say that a newer technology was seeing a strong level of adoption, so strong as to eclipse the older one in the eyes of the masses. However, in the case of Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), it’s slightly different.
No one wanted it!
Well, no one except Cisco.
FCoE is a standard way to encapsulate Fibre Channel (FC) frames into Ethernet networks. It is a lossless protocol encapsulated in a best-effort network. Why? Technically speaking it makes no sense.
But FCoE has nothing to do with technical reasons. At one time the FC market was in Brocade’s hands while iSCSI was not considered enterprise-grade. Cisco was not as good as Brocade on FC but it had a lot of expertise in Ethernet and IP. So it pushed very hard, at every level, and promoted FCoE.
It is a protocol that has a lot of implications but, above all, specialised adapters (CNAs) and specialised high-end Ethernet switches. Long story short; it could have meant a lot of revenues and control all over data centre networks. Alas, it didn’t work as expected.
Very few adopted it
In the meantime, iSCSI inherited most of the good stuff from FCoE (suh as DCB, or Data Centre Bridging, for example) and it has slowly become much more appreciated by end users and vendors.
Thanks to FCoE, Ethernet storage has grown tremendously. A few years back, it was considered only for secondary needs.
Now, it is considered as first citizen and some vendors (like SolidFire) leverage it to build huge infrastructures. Nonetheless, all VSAs and hyper-converged products are all based on Ethernet communication protocols, and not FCoE.
Would you buy FCoE today? Cisco partners don’t even use it: EMC maybe, but most NetApp FlexPod installations I’ve spotted in the field primarily use NFS, and other storage suppliers, such as Pure or Nimble, don’t support it at all.
FCoE failed miserably
Tomi Engdahl says:
It’s Official: Charter to Acquire Time Warner Cable in Deal Valued at $78.7 Billion
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/official-charter-acquire-time-warner-797919
Charter Communications, in which John Malone’s Liberty Broadband owns a big stake, made it official on Tuesday, unveiling that it has agreed to acquire Time Warner Cable in a deal valued at $78.7 billion.
Comcast recently abandoned plans to buy Time Warner Cable, the second-largest U.S. cable operator, amid regulators’ opposition. Charter, which currently is the fourth-largest U.S. cable firm and has been touting the benefits of consolidation, had widely been seen as the lead suitor.
Charter will pay $55 billion-plus in cash and stock for Time Warner Cable. Including debt, the deal values Time Warner Cable at $78.7 billion.
Charter, led by CEO Tom Rutledge, on Tuesday also said that it has finalized an updated deal with Advance/Newhouse Partnership
The combined company will be the second-largest U.S. cable operator and the largest in Southern California. It will be the third-largest pay TV company in the U.S. behind Comcast and the planned AT&T-DirecTV.
Analysts have said the deal is likely to face a stringent regulatory review, but likely raise fewer concerns than the dropped Comcast deal given the latter’s bigger size.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Charter Comms to wed Time Warner Cable in monster merger
Proposes $78.7 BEELLION cash’n’shares deal
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/26/charter_communications_time_warner_to_merge/
Charter Communications has confirmed plans to merge with Time Warner Cable in a cash and shares deal worth $78.7bn.
Charter Communications’ chief Tom Rutledge said in a canned statement:
Representatives of each of these companies have invented some of the most revolutionary communications products ever created; innovations like video on demand, VoIP phone service, remote storage DVR, cable TV through an app, downloadable security, and the first backward-compatible, cloud-based user interface.
That spirit of innovation will live on, and it will create real benefits and great long-term value for the customers, shareholders and employees of all three companies.
Tomi Engdahl says:
History of jitter, Part 3: BER as a function of jitter
http://www.edn.com/design/test-and-measurement/4439489/History-of-jitter–Part-3–BER-as-a-function-of-jitter-?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150526&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150526&elq=528975af22ce49969a88457f7d125da8&elqCampaignId=23151&elqaid=26072&elqat=1&elqTrackId=0fe7d987964843859f3ecc46a582471e
in the late 1990s, by which time bit-error rates (BER) had become a predominant statistic for quantifying jitter. That was subsequently refined into thinking in terms of BER as a function of jitter. Looking at BER as a function of jitter seen at a receiver depends on two things: how much jitter the signal has, and where the signal is being latched (see Figure 1). Latching the signal close to the crossover point might yield a BER of 1 bit in 1000. Moving the latching point nearer to the middle of the eye gets the BER down to 10-12, or 1 bit in 1 million million bits.
Tomi Engdahl says:
HP to buy ConteXtream for SDN/NFV top-up
OpenNFV partner becomes virty carrier biz unit
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/27/hp_to_buy_contextream_for_sdnnfv_topup/
HP is looking to beef up its service provider software-defined networking (SDN) footprint, with the acquisition of Comcast and Verizon-backed ConteXtream.
With SDN looking increasingly bedded down in the data centre, the carrier market is becoming the next battleground, with everyone from startups to big names looking for places to plant their flags.
ConteXtream is a combined SDN/network function virtualisation (NFV) player, with three streams in its product portfolio: ContexNet provides control/forwarding separation; ContexView provides the management glass; and ContexWare is a virtualised TCP optimisation environment.
Noting that ConteXtream was already a member of its OpenNFV program, HP’s canned announcement picks out capabilities like service function chaining as reasons for the acquisition.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Interplanetary Internet about as useful as flying pigs says Vint Cef
InterPlanetary Networking Special Interest Group gets a reality check
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/27/interplanetary_network_sig/
Boffins that want to see Internet protocols extend to outer space – the so-called “Interplanetary Internet” – need to prove they’re offering something useful, according to one of the father-figures of the Earth-bound Internet.
Vint Cerf, who has taken an interest in beyond-Earth applications for the Internet protocol stack since the 1990s, told last week’s InterPlanetary Networking SIG (IPNSIG) meeting that to get beyond a mere curiosity, the SIG needs to be useful.
“Our challenge, to the extent that we’re interested in serious expansion of communications capability for space exploration, is to demonstrate its utility,” Cerf told the gathering.
“It’s not that anyone thinks that you should just build this interplanetary thing and hope that somebody uses it,” he added.
But there are nearer-term payoffs to be had more nearby: Delay-Tolerant Networking (DTN) is something useful even on Earth. The Internet of Things, for example, provides plenty of use-cases in which a communication from a sensor has to follow an indirect, relayed path to the Internet and back.
Tomi Engdahl says:
EU net neutrality could kneecap the Tories’ opt-out pr0n filter plans
Leaked doc reveals massive bunfight ahead if Cameron forces the issue
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/27/eu_net_neutrality_trumps_uk_smut_filter_plans/
David Cameron’s plans to treat us all like children unless we opt out looks likely to be scuppered by new EU rules on net neutrality.
Two years ago the PM vowed to stop children stumbling across online pornography by making parental filters the default standard for internet service providers (ISPs). Sky Broadband introduced its “shield by default” to more than five million customers in January.
But as talks over the EU’s proposed net neutrality law limp on, a new leaked draft document (10 pages, PDF) from the EU’s council of national ministers says that parental controls should only be allowed “subject to a prior explicit consent of the end-users concerned.”
In other words, ISPs can’t just switch on the blockers without asking.
And, according to the text, even if a user gives parental controls the thumbs up, they should be able to “withdraw this consent at any time”.
It looks as though the net neutrality proposals as put forward by the EU parliament will also be ripped about by national ministers. The leaked text allows exceptions to the ban on blocking and throttling of content if it is “to comply with legal obligations, to preserve the integrity and security of the network, to prevent impending network congestion and or mitigate the effects of temporary and or exceptional network congestion, and to prevent the transmission of unsolicited communications within the meaning of Article 13 of Directive 2002/58/EC” – that’s spam to you and me.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wi-Fi was MEANT to be this way: Antennas and standards, 802.11 style
Plus: Why your phone’s (sometimes) crap at wireless
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/26/802_11_wifi_through_years_feature/
Forged nearly 20 years ago, the 802.11 wireless networking standard was responsible for cutting the cord and letting us roam. During that time, 802.11 has evolved as devices using it have both proliferated and got smaller – while the data they swallow has grown in quantity and in size.
In March the IEEE OK’d the latest chapter in the 802.11 story – 802.11 ay. This packs more bandwidth in the 60GHz spectrum and promises speeds of up to 20Gbit/sec – that’s ten thousand times faster than 1997’s standard. It targets display ports, HDMI, and USB, suggesting that it will be used to serve more short-range, high-bandwidth connectivity needs such as TV and monitor displays.
Consider 802.11ay a beefed-up version of 802.11ad, with the same broad applications.
And you may ask yourself, well… how did I get here?
The 802.11 standard was ratified in 1997, transmitting at up to 2Mbps (theoretically). Since then, the 802.11 standards process has become an alphabet soup, with different extensions to the standard being processed under different combinations of letters.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jack Marshall / Wall Street Journal:
Mobile web traffic adds to desktop, which is not in decline as some reports might suggest
Mobile Isn’t Killing the Desktop Internet
http://blogs.wsj.com/cmo/2015/05/26/mobile-isnt-killing-the-desktop-internet/
People are increasingly accessing online content on mobile devices, but that doesn’t mean the desktop is in decline.
A theory sometimes bandied about the media industry says audiences are deserting desktops and “going mobile” instead. But actually, data from online measurement firms doesn’t seem to support that view, at least at the aggregate market level.
The share of overall consumption coming from mobile devices is growing, but desktop web usage isn’t dropping. In fact, it might be increasing.
“The key thing to remember is that percentages are not zero-sum,” said Tony Haile, CEO of online analytics firm Chartbeat. “You can have mobile growing to 50% of your traffic and desktop traffic remaining healthy.”
That understanding has important implications for media owners and marketers, who often say they’re altering their sites and strategies to cater for their growing mobile audiences. It makes sense to optimize for mobile if that’s a large and growing audience, but mobile isn’t the only game in town. In fact, it seems desktop Internet use is here to stay, for the time being at least.
Tomi Engdahl says:
ITU: Already 3.2 billion people connected to Internet
The International Telecommunications Union, ITU has published the latest ICT trends and indicators. Was linked by the Organization of the already 3.2 billion. Of these, two billion people living in the so-called. in developing countries.
Currently, on-line penetration is in the world already 43 per cent. Of households to the network’s 46 per cent.
The very poorest do not have access to Internet: In developing countries, there are four billion people outside the internet. Of billion poorest people classified 851 million does not use the internet.
Mobile broadband is the ITU, the most dynamically growing sector. This year, 47 percent of people already include mobile broadband users.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2883:itu-netissa-jo-3-2-miljardia-ihmista&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nokia Networks has together with Singapore’s second largest operator StarHub demoed LTE-Advanced connections with a data rate reaching 600 megabits per second.
The demonstration utilized LTE-Advanced carrier aggregation technology standard, with a number of different frequency channels may be combined at the same link. Link was based on a 4 x 4 MIMO channel connection.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2886:nokia-demosi-600-megabitin-yhteyksia&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cisco predicts Rise Of The Machines in new networking index
Things are going to come online faster than people as we head for two-zettabyte traffic splurge
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/28/most_new_connections_to_2019_will_be_m2m_cisco/
The Internet of Junk Things isn’t going to overwhelm the Internet’s capacity any time soon, according to Cisco’s rolling Visual Networking Index (VNI) report.
What the IoT will do, if Cisco’s got its numbers right, is account for the bulk of new connections to the Internet in the next five years, suggesting that The Borg doesn’t share the “connect the world” optimism of Facebook and others.
That snippet is what El Reg gleans, anyhow, from the user and traffic growth data provided in the latest VNI.
Cisco says machine-to-machine (M2M) connections will grow from 24 per cent of connections in 2014 to 43 per cent of connections by 2019.
With total connections growing from 2.8 billion to 3.9 billion in that period, M2M is predicted to rise from 6.72 billion connections for 2014 to 1.677 billion in 2019 – adding 1.005 billion.
If that’s correct, then the VNI is predicting just 95 million brand-new human connections to the Internet in the same period.
Faster networks and more video, rather than new wetware, will remain the engine-rooms of traffic growth: average broadband speeds will rise from 20.3 Mbps to 42.5 Mbps, Cisco reckons, and hunger for video will drive the global traffic run rate to 2 zettabytes annually.
With relatively low-bitrate M2M connections excluded from the 2019 forecast, that suggests the Netflix effect is going to continue to bite carriers.
With video taking up more punter attention, and high-definition video tipped to represent 53.5 per cent of all video traffic by 2019, per-user downloads will more nearly triple, from roughly 28 GB per user per month to 75.6 GB per user per month.
Cisco VNI device type forecast
Mobile data will, by 2019, show the impact of 4G, Cisco reckons, making up 18 per cent of data compared to a couple of per cent now.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hola
http://8ch.net/hola.html
Hola “Better Internet” is an extremely popular free VPN. How it works is not very clear to all its users though, as I quickly became aware in the past week when 8chan was hit by multiple denial of service attacks from their network.
When a user installs Hola, he becomes a VPN endpoint, and other users of the Hola network may exit through his internet connection and take on his IP. This is what makes it free: Hola does not pay for the bandwidth that its VPN uses at all, and there is no user opt out for this. On the other hand, with the Tor onion router, users must specifically opt in to be exit nodes and are aware that completely anonymous traffic can pass through their connections, which means they should be ready for abuse reports for child porn, spam, copyrighted content and other ills that come with the territory.
Hola was created by the Israeli corporation Hola Networks Limited at the end of 2012, and at first was just the VPN service. However, Hola has gotten greedy. They recently (late 2014) realized that they basically have a 9 million IP strong botnet on their hands, and they began selling access to this botnet (right now, for HTTP requests only) at https://luminati.io .
Hola is the most unethical VPN I have ever seen.
So far as I can tell, there is no way to tell if an IP has the Hola VPN software installed or not
Tomi Engdahl says:
ITU ICT Facts & Figures
http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Documents/facts/ICTFactsFigures2015.pdf
Tomi Engdahl says:
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Netflix Bandwidth Usage Climbs to Nearly 37% of Internet Traffic at Peak Hours — Subscription-video leader accounts for more usage than YouTube, Amazon and Hulu combined, according to Sandvine — Netflix, which already eats up the fattest chunk of downstream bandwidth, is taking an even bigger bite …
Netflix Bandwidth Usage Climbs to Nearly 37% of Internet Traffic at Peak Hours
http://variety.com/2015/digital/news/netflix-bandwidth-usage-internet-traffic-1201507187/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jim Puzzanghera / Los Angeles Times:
New FCC proposal calls for end to robocalls, allows telcos to offer blocking tech to customers
FCC moves to crack down on unwanted robocalls
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-robocalls-fcc-20150527-story.html
Disrupting the lives of millions of Americans, telemarketers and scammers are routinely using technological advances to automatically dial phone numbers and circumvent the popular Do Not Call list.
Now a top federal regulator wants to make it easier for consumers to stop those so-called robocalls, which have become a bigger problem in recent years as they’ve spread from land-line phones to wireless devices.
Tomi Engdahl says:
What can 28-AWG twisted-pair cable do for your telecom room?
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2015/05/28-awg-twisted-pair-cable-web-seminar.html
In an hour-long online seminar to be broadcast live on June 4, Panduit senior product manager Thomas Baum will provide information on the pros, cons, and practical realities of using smaller-diameter, 28-AWG Category 6 twisted-pair cable in telecommunications rooms. As the photo at the top of this page visually indicates, a Category 6 cable incorporating 28-AWG conductors (right) is significantly smaller in diameter than one incorporating 24-AWG conductors
“The telecommunications room is housing more and more equipment, driving the need to maximize the space available,” Cabling Installation & Maintenance said when announcing the seminar. “One option for creating more space is to shrink the size of the network cabling, while preserving network performance. Is 28-AWG copper cabling an option for your telecom room?”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Netflix, HBO Streaming Video Traffic Increases As BitTorrent Declines
http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/28/netflix-hbo-streaming-video-traffic-increases-as-bittorrent-declines/
A new report released today shows the continued domination Netflix has on North American Internet traffic patterns. According to broadband networking company Sandvine, which periodically releases its findings on web usage, Netflix now accounts for 36.5 percent of downstream traffic on fixed networks during peak evening hours, which is up from the 34.9 percent reported in the second half of 2014 . In addition, the study found that HBO is also seeing some growth
HBO GO and HBO NOW, accounted for 4.1 percent of traffic on one U.S. fixed network – an increase of over 300 percent of their average levels.
However, Sandvine notes that overall BitTorrent (file-sharing) traffic is declining, and today only accounts for 6.3 percent of total traffic in North America and 8.5 percent of Latin American traffic.
Other streaming video services are also seeing more modest increases. For example, Amazon Instant Video still only holds a fraction of the bandwidth when compared with Netflix, but its traffic is growing. A year ago, the service had 1.90 percent of peak downstream traffic – now it’s at 1.97 percent.
Elsewhere, YouTube still has a sizable traffic share with 15.56 percent of peak downstream traffic. Hulu accounts for 1.91 percent of peak downstream traffic, and newly launched over-the-top cable service Sling TV accounts for less than 1 percent.
Tomi Engdahl says:
On mobile networks, Sandvine found that Latin America’s mobile traffic is now increasingly controlled by just two companies: Facebook and Google. Combined, these two companies’ various properties, including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube, Google Play, and more, account for more than 60 percent of mobile traffic.
Across North America, real-time entertainment is the most popular mobile traffic category with social networking apps coming in second. YouTube is also popular on mobile, with 21.2 percent of peak downstream traffic up from 17.7 percent in the first half of 2104.
Source: http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/28/netflix-hbo-streaming-video-traffic-increases-as-bittorrent-declines/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Encoding Data in Packet Delays
http://hackaday.com/2015/05/28/encoding-data-in-packet-delays/
Steganography is the art of concealing data in plain sight.
[Anfractuosus] came up with a method of hiding packets within a stream of network traffic. ‘Timeshifter’ encodes data as delays between packets. Depending on the length of the delay, each packet is interpreted as a one or zero.
To do this, a C program uses libnetfilter_queue to get access to packets. The user sets up a network rule using iptables, which forwards traffic to the Timeshifter program. This is then used to send and receive data.
https://www.anfractuosity.com/projects/timeshifter/
http://www.netfilter.org/projects/libnetfilter_queue/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Rebecca R. Ruiz / New York Times:
FCC considering extending $1.7B Lifeline telecommunication subsidy program for the poor to cover broadband access
F.C.C. Chief Seeks Broadband Plan to Aid the Poor
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/28/business/fcc-chief-seeks-broadband-plan-to-aid-the-poor.html?_r=0
For 30 years, the federal government has helped millions of low-income Americans pay their phone bills, saying that telephone service is critical to summoning medical help, seeking work and, ultimately, climbing out of poverty. Now, the nation’s top communications regulator will propose offering those same people subsidized access to broadband Internet.
The effort is the F.C.C.’s strongest recognition yet that high-speed Internet access is as essential to economic well-being as good transportation and telephone service. Mr. Wheeler will propose potentially giving recipients a choice of phone service, Internet service or a mix of both, the officials said.
More than 12 million households now participate in Lifeline, which was created in 1985 by the Reagan administration to subsidize landline telephone service. In 2008, the program was extended to cover the cost of mobile phones. Enrollment rose sharply — as did abuse
Mr. Wheeler’s proposal is an effort to bridge the so-called digital divide, the ever-widening economic and social inequalities of those with access to technology and those without it.
According to Pew data from 2013, the most recent year for which numbers are available, 54 percent of those making less than $30,000 a year have broadband, compared with 88 percent of those making more than $75,000.
“Everything is online these days,” said Ms. Harmon, who said she supported any effort to allow the subsidy to be applied to broadband. “I take classes online, do my schoolwork. My kids play math and phonics games.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Brad Stone / Bloomberg Business:
Google partially automates launches of Project Loon balloons, expands their range by passing Internet signals between them — Google Details New Project Loon Tech to Keep Its Internet Balloons Afloat — Google’s Mike Cassidy describes two advancements that could help Project Loon become commercial as soon as next year
Google Details New Project Loon Tech to Keep Its Internet Balloons Afloat
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-29/google-details-new-project-loon-tech-to-keep-its-internet-balloons-afloat
Google’s Mike Cassidy describes two advancements that could help Project Loon become commercial as soon as next year
Tomi Engdahl says:
AT&T wants to choose which online video services count against data caps
AT&T fights proposed ban on data cap exemptions in DirecTV merger.
http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/05/att-wants-to-choose-which-online-video-services-count-against-data-caps/
AT&T doesn’t want any rules preventing it from choosing which online video services count against its customers’ data caps.
AT&T’s “Sponsored Data” program already charges businesses, often in the ad industry, for the right to deliver services without counting against customers’ mobile data caps. AT&T could potentially charge online video streaming services for exemptions from the caps imposed on AT&T home broadband subscribers as well or exempt its own online services from caps.
Though AT&T doesn’t appear to have done this yet, the company this week asked the FCC to make sure it’s allowed to do so. AT&T’s request came after a group of companies and consumer advocacy organizations asked the Federal Communications Commission to prevent AT&T from granting data cap exemptions.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Drew FitzGerald / Wall Street Journal:
Level 3 now blocking traffic to servers believed to be controlled by criminals, encouraging other carriers to adopt its more aggressive stance
Level 3 Tries to Waylay Hackers
Internet carrier takes to blocking traffic to servers believed controlled by criminal gangs
http://www.wsj.com/articles/level-3-tries-to-waylay-hackers-1432891803
Earlier this month, Brett Wentworth took Level 3 Communications Inc. into territory that most rivals have been reluctant to enter. The director of global security at the largest carrier of Internet traffic cut off data from reaching a group of servers in China that his company believed was involved in an active hacking attack.
The decision was reached after a broad internal review. The Broomfield, Colo., company is taking an aggressive—and some say risky approach—to battling criminal activity. Risky because hackers often hijack legitimate machines to do their dirty work, raising the risk of collateral damage by sidelining a business using the same group of servers. Such tactics also run against a widely held belief that large carriers should be facilitating traffic, not halting it. And carriers are reluctant to create the expectation that they will police the Internet.
Yet with attacks on the rise, Level 3 three years ago decided it is worth the risks. At a rate of about once every few weeks, the carrier is shutting down questionable traffic that doesn’t involve any of its clients. When the source of the trouble is hard to pinpoint, it often casts a wide net and intercepts traffic from large blocks of Internet addresses.
Recently, that meant stopping traffic from a powerful network of computer servers controlled by a group of hackers that security researchers dubbed SSHPsychos.
Level 3 is now opening up about its methods because it wants its fellow network operators to follow its example. The stance, if copied, could change Internet carriers’ traditionally passive approach to defending against attacks meant to overwhelm websites or steal vast amounts of credit card data such as have plagued U.S. retailers for the past two years.
Other large Internet carriers remain wary of playing Internet cop.
What may appear as a flood of Internet traffic designed to cripple a company’s Web servers might actually be an unexpectedly busy day for a retailer, said AT&T Chief Security Officer Ed Amoroso. The telecom giant focuses on attacks that target its own network or the systems of its customers and intrudes on third-party traffic only after careful discussion with its legal team.
“We have to be careful, and the carrier industry has to be very careful not to go pushing buttons,” Mr. Amoroso said. “You’re never 100% sure of these things.”
Level 3 carries traffic to or from about 40% of all Internet addresses, far more than any other network
The company hunts for hackers by combing through security blog posts and email advisories to get a handle on possible threats. Its software scans more than 45 billion detailed routing logs a day for signs of malicious activity before deciding to act, according to Dale Drew, Level 3’s chief security officer.
“Everyone rationalizes why they shouldn’t do anything,” he said. “We’re experimenting with it to see how aggressive we could be.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook scares Cisco with 6-pack network switch platform update
http://www.cloudhub.uk.com/2385/facebook-scares-cisco-6-pack-network-switch-platform-update?utm_source=Outbrain&utm_medium=Cpc&utm_campaign=Inquirer%252BReferral&WT.mc_is=977=obinlocal
Facebook is building a fresh network by itself to support its own operations, but, in a move that should worry networking equipment giant Cisco, is giving the software and designs for it away for free.
While it has been ongoing for a while, Facebook has announced a new facet in the project: a networking product called “6-pack.”
It’s funny how the social network also chose to announce the update to its networking technology, which it is hoping will challenge the networking industry, on the same day that Cisco, the market share leader of this $23 billion market reported its financial earnings.
In its blog post, Facebook digged at Cisco by making out how “traditional networking technologies…tend to be too closed, monolithic, and iterative for the scale at which we operate and the pace at which we move”.
The 6-pack is a switch platform that will be installed in the social network’s vision of its own scalable data centre, a vision that it says only itself can build because of its high demands.
Facebook’s top networking engineer, Yuval Bachar, explained in a blog post facebookthat as the social network’s infrastructure has scaled, it has “frequently run up against the limits of traditional networking technologies.”
“Over the last few years we’ve been building our own network, breaking down traditional network components and rebuilding them into modular disaggregated systems that provide us with the flexibility, efficiency, and scale we need,” he added.
Introducing “6-pack”: the first open hardware modular switch
https://code.facebook.com/posts/717010588413497/introducing-6-pack-the-first-open-hardware-modular-switch/
But even with all that progress, we still had one more step to take. We had a TOR, a fabric, and the software to make it run, but we still lacked a scalable solution for all the modular switches in our fabric. So we built the first open modular switch platform. We call it “6-pack.”
The platform
The “6-pack” platform is the core of our new fabric, and it uses “Wedge” as its basic building block. It is a full mesh non-blocking two-stage switch that includes 12 independent switching elements. Each independent element can switch 1.28Tbps. We have two configurations: One configuration exposes 16x40GE ports to the front and 640G (16x40GE) to the back, and the other is used for aggregation and exposes all 1.28T to the back. Each element runs its own operating system on the local server and is completely independent, from the switching aspects to the low-level board control and cooling system. This means we can modify any part of the system with no system-level impact, software or hardware. We created a unique dual backplane solution that enabled us to create a non-blocking topology.
We run our networks in a split control configuration. Each switching element contains a full local control plane on a microserver that communicates with a centralized controller. This configuration, often called hybrid SDN, provides us with a simple and flexible way to manage and operate the network, leading to great stability and high availability.
The only common elements in the system are the sheet metal shell, the backplanes, and the power supplies, which make it very easy for us to change the shell to create a system of any radix with the same building blocks.
If you’re familiar with “Wedge,” you probably recognize the central switching element used on that platform as a standalone system utilizing only 640G of the switching capacity. On the “6-pack” line card we leveraged all the “Wedge” development efforts (hardware and software) and simply added the backside 640Gbps Ethernet-based interconnect. The line card has an integrated switching ASIC, a microserver, and a server support logic to make it completely independent and to make it possible for us to manage it like a server.
The fabric card is a combination of two line cards facing the back of the system. It creates the full mesh locally on the fabric card, which in turn enables a very simple backplane design.
“6-pack” is already in production testing, alongside “Wedge” and “FBOSS.” We plan to propose the “6-pack” design as a contribution to the Open Compute Project, and we will continue working with the OCP community to develop open network technologies that are more flexible, more scalable, and more efficient.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nokia AirFrame Data Center Solution
http://networks.nokia.com/airframe
Characteristics of telco networks require additional capabilities than traditional IT-based cloud architectures can offer. This is driven by the demanding needs of connectivity and services and the associated telco applications needed to realize these.
Operators are beginning to evolve telco network functions and applications to cloud-based environmemnts.Their first steps have been to emulate IT best practice and architecture within the cloud, but this is not sufficient to deliver the necessary enhancements needed to cover the vast number of use cases that will need to be supported.
To deliver services of the future, including 5G, certain network functionalities and capabilities will need to be located at the most efficient point within an operator’s network.
Network architectures will need a re-think, with layered and distributed network topologies containing optimized hardware needed to deliver unparalleled performance and the greatest flexibility.
Nokia’s AirFrame Data Center Solution is an industry first that combines IT best practice with the needs of the telco domain, by evolving cloud architecture to incorporate centralized and distributed capabilities that will be necessary for future telco networking and service delivery.
Nokia Networks enters cloud infrastructure market with disruptive launch of AirFrame Data Center Solution – See more at: http://networks.nokia.com/news-events/press-room/press-releases/nokia-networks-enters-cloud-infrastructure-market-with-disruptive-launch-of-airframe-data-#sthash.1iW75SVk.dpuf
Tomi Engdahl says:
Reinvent Telcos for the cloud
Mobile broadband operators face a spread of challenges and exciting new opportunities to build profitability. Traffic growth continues almost unbounded, demanding new network capacity, yet traffic patterns are increasingly unpredictable. This was starkly demonstrated in September 2013 when Apple released its iOS 7 operating system. Within a few hours, 130 million people had updated their devices, doubling the data demand on some ISPs around the world.
- See more at: http://networks.nokia.com/innovation/technology-vision/reinvent-telcos-for-the-cloud#sthash.ykQkw5Cf.dpuf
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nokia Unveils AirFrame for Telco Data Centers
https://www.sdxcentral.com/articles/news/nokia-unveils-airframe-telco-data-centers/2015/06/
In response to IT vendors such as HP increasingly targeting the service provider market, Nokia on Monday launched a suite of telco cloud data center products that aim to help carriers compete with cloud providers like Amazon and Google.
Here’s a first look at the new offerings:
Nokia AirFrame Cloud Server: A two-socket rackmount server with built-in storage, running dual Intel Xeon Haswell processors. Nokia’s custom application accelerator makes it “more efficient than existing x86-based servers to run demanding telco applications,” the company claims.
Nokia AirFrame Cloud Switch: High port density and 1.44-Tb/s switching capacity make this top-of-rack switch “optimal for infrastructure-as-a-service” deployments, Nokia says. Supports OpenFlow and open APIs for software-defined network deployments in the data center.
Nokia Airframe Racking: A 42U rack with pre-installed cable sets and metered power distribution unit for remote power monitoring and management via Internet, Telnet, SNMP, or SSH.
The infrastructure products are designed to help carriers offer cloud services to subscribers, as well as run distributed container-based applications, an approach pioneered by webscale players such as Google and Facebook.
“Telco and IT are coming together,” Nokia executive Henri Tervonen said during a press conference Monday morning. “They’re coming together into a new domain, a new market.”
Nokia Localizes Data Center Service, Unveils AirFrame
http://www.valuewalk.com/2015/06/nokia-localizes-data-center-airframe/
On Monday, Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) (BIT:NOK1V) (HEL:NOK1V) announced the launch of a new localized data center service for mobile networks to enable them to compete with players such as Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) in offering internet services. The Finnish company will provide network operators access to cloud-based data centers running on an Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) platform, many of whom are struggling to handle the increasing growth in mobile data traffic.
According to the Finnish firm, the Nokia AirFrame Datacenter Solution supports 5G, and adheres to the concept of flexible and distributed cloud architecture.
With the installation of Nokia’s AirFrame datacenter, data processing capacity can be shared by nearby base station cell sites or by a centralized data center when any specific part of the network is jammed with heavy traffic of mobile users.
Unlike the normal data center, Nokia data centers are just the size of a pizza box, but offer operators immense computing power, and can be installed together with antennas and base station gear that link local areas to wider voice and data networks.
With the launch of the new data center, Nokia stands in direct competition with big names such as Hewlett&Packard and Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO). Ericsson, which is a step ahead of these companies, recently ventured into the data center market with products based on Intel’s platform.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Japan, EU: we’ll research 5G unicorns together
Joint work on standards, spectrum and applications
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/02/japan_eu_well_research_5g_unicorns_together/
We don’t know what 5G will look like yet, apart from fast and probably expensive, but Japan and the European Union have agreed to cooperate to research the coming-in-2020 mobile standards.
Under the agreement announced Friday, the partners will work together on standards efforts, and to harmonise the radio spectrum to be used in Japan and the EU.
The agreement says the research will also cover trackable and snitchable connected cars and electronic health applications, as well as €12 million to go on projects to “help develop the Internet of Things,Cloud or Big Data platforms”.
The agreement formalises a memorandum of understanding signed between the EU’s 5G public-private partnership and Japan’s 5G promo body, the 5GMF in March 2015.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nokia Shifts To Selling Back-End Systems To Mobile Networks
http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/15/06/02/0234229/nokia-shifts-to-selling-back-end-systems-to-mobile-networks
With Nokia’s handset business now sold off to Microsoft, you might be wondering what the remainder of the company does, exactly. The company is trying to use its expertise at other end of its old business, offering data centers and virtualized infrastructure to wireless networking companies
Nokia wants to build data centers for mobile operators
http://www.itworld.com/article/2929575/nokia-wants-to-build-data-centers-for-mobile-operators.html
Nokia wants to help mobile network operators launch new services and cut their costs with a new range of servers, switches and storage they can use to virtualize their networks.
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Enterprises have already adopted virtualization and cloud-based IT infrastructures, and now telecommunications operators are looking at doing the same thing. Meanwhile equipment vendors like Nokia are increasingly offering operators the hardware and software to provide telephony, messaging and mobile broadband as virtualized services.
Telecommunications operators instigated the move away from dedicated, proprietary equipment to virtualized hardware. A group including AT&T, Verizon, China Mobile, Orange and Deutsche Telekom proposed a concept called NFV (Network Functions Virtualization), which is now being standardized by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute.
ETSI’s aim is to help operators build more agile networks that are able to respond dynamically to the traffic and services running over them.
Nokia hopes to target that market with its AirFrame Data Center Solution, now shipping. It consists of racks filled with servers, switches and storage ready to run the virtualized services. The servers were designed in-house and manufactured by a partner, Nokia said.
Some of Nokia’s biggest competitors, including Ericsson and Huawei Technologies, are already selling data center equipment to network operators. Enterprise server and virtualization vendors such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard, VMware and Red Hat hope to profit from NFV to sell to the telecommunications market too.
It will continue an existing partnership with HP to virtualize mobile networks, but believes the AirFrame is the most advanced alternative
Tomi Engdahl says:
Rachel Metz / MIT Technology Review:
Google’s Project Loon head Mike Cassidy says RF used to connect balloons to one another, gimbal direction must be precise to enable sending of data across 80km
EmTech Digital: Project Loon Head Details How the Balloons Interact
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/537956/emtech-digital-project-loon-head-details-how-the-balloons-interact/
Project Loon, Google’s plan for Internet via floating balloons, uses RF for the balloons to connect with each other.
Project Loon, which was named to MIT Technology Review’s 2015 10 Breakthrough Technologies list
, works by having stations on land transmit an LTE wireless signal that is picked up by the balloons and transmitted from one balloon to the other. The balloons, which consist of a large outer balloon filled with helium and a smaller inner balloon filled with air, add or lose air in order to move up or down in the stratosphere; this lets them travel, since the wind that carries them moves in different directions at different altitudes.
Having a reliable way for the balloons to interact is important for Project Loon because it will allow the balloons to do things like spreading out to blanket a larger area with Internet access.
Cassidy also said that the project will conduct tests in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres later this year
Beyond South America, Cassidy sees Africa, where only about 10 percent of the continent has access to the Internet, as a big potential market for Loon, and he thinks it could be useful in India as well.
As for bringing Loon to places like the U.S. that are already largely connected but could still use improved Internet connectivity, Cassidy says that will also happen.
“Even in my house, I don’t have a cell signal,” he said. “We’re going to come to the United States, too.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Driving a Stake Through the Heart of POTS?
Compared to reliable POTs, IP-based telephony is still a bad idea
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1326751&
Attempts by network providers such as Alcatel-Lucent to replace the Plain Old Telephone Service with all-IP alternatives will continue to meet resistance.
see that another attempt is being made to drive a stake through the heart of the two-wire plain old telephone service (POTS), also known as the Public Switched Telephone Network (PTSN). This time it is by Alcatel-Lucent and its PSTN Smart Transform.
Alcatel-Lucent says its PSTN Smart Transform consulting and design services to current POTS providers who want to shift to all voice-over-IP network will reduce migration costs 30–50%, reduce end-user outage time during migration of 20 seconds compared to an average of 20 minutes by competing services, and migrate 99% of their end-users without experiencing issues.
If this plan makes it to my PTSN provider I will probably be one of that 1% who will have “issues,” no matter who is doing the conversion because I have just shifted back to a standard two-wire POTS line from my local telephone company. After numerous tries with different companies, I gave up voice-over-IP (VoIP) because it was maddeningly unreliable.
Limits of IP-based telephony
Based on my experience with Voice over IP (VoIP) systems over the last several years, I don’t have much confidence in the all-IP solution Alcatel-Lucent is proposing. Here’s why
While PTSN-based POTS provides only limited features, low bandwidth, and no mobile capabilities, it has something that after my experiences with VoIP I now value more than I used to: dial-tone availability — that is, a live line — 100 percent available, always or as close to that is as humanly possible. That is due in part to a totally battery-backed up network independent of the power grid.
Aside from the cost of conversion, the only thing that prevents local BabyBells from doing away with PSTN is that users would scream. I live in a rural area in Northern Arizona, where we get varying levels of snow, rain, and thunderstorms during the fall and winter. Invariably, power outages occur, and when my connection to my Internet Service Provider goes down, there goes not only my ordinary Internet access, but my VoIP line as well. Of course I have my cell phone, but only until my battery runs out. I can recharge the cell phone from the cigarette lighter in my truck, but not my computer or my Internet modem.
There is no such end-to-end battery backup for IP, of course, and there is a lot of work yet to be done to overcome the inherent unreliability of voice over IP. PTSN still has something close to the 99.999% (no more than five minutes of a dead line a year) reliability that the original AT&T/Bell system did. None of the VOIP systems I have tried over the years has anything like this. My grade overall for VoIP is not even 90%. Maybe 70 percent at best.
No matter what service I used, there were at least a dozen ways VoIP crapped out on me: dead lines, crossed lines, misdirected calls, varying voice quality dependent on the amount of Internet traffic at the time, and calls lost in mid-conversation.
I know I am going against the grain in my unqualified support of POTS. In a recent Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Local Telephone Competition report 47% of residential users and 15% of business customers with POTS-based landline service have shifted to voice over IP. Other less reliable estimates I have read place this at 70% and 55%, respectively.
If the traditional POTS and its rock-solid reliability goes away, I am looking at alternatives other than voice over IP.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Craig Timberg / Washington Post:
The vulnerable Border Gateway protocol, a quick-fix solution from 1989, still directs most internet traffic
The long life of a quick ‘fix’
Internet protocol from 1989 leaves data vulnerable to hijackers
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/business/2015/05/31/net-of-insecurity-part-2/
The “three-napkins protocol,” as its inventors jokingly dubbed it, would soon revolutionize the Internet. And though there were lingering issues, the engineers saw their creation as a “hack” or “kludge,” slang for a short-term fix to be replaced as soon as a better alternative arrived.
That was 1989.
More than a quarter-century later — a span that has seen the fall of the Berlin Wall, the rise of the smartphone and an explosion of hacking — the “three-napkins protocol” still directs most long-haul traffic on the global network despite years of increasingly strenuous warnings about critical security problems. The three-napkins protocol has become the kludge that never died.
“Short-term solutions tend to stay with us for a very long time. And long-term solutions tend to never happen,” said Yakov Rekhter, one of the engineers who invented the “three-napkins protocol.” “That’s what I learned from this experience.”
The Internet can appear as elegantly designed as a race car as it immerses us in consuming worlds of sight and sound. But it’s closer to an assemblage of kludges — more Frankenstein than Ferrari — that endure because they work, or at least work well enough.
The consequences play out across cyberspace every second of every day, as hackers exploit old, poorly protected systems to scam, steal and spy on a scale never before possible. The flaws they exploit often are well-known and ancient in technological terms, surviving only because of an industry-wide penchant for patching over problems rather than replacing the rot.
“You’re in Hackerville here on the Internet. Period,”
At its most basic level, BGP helps routers decide how to send giant flows of data across the vast mesh of connections that make up the Internet. With infinite numbers of possible paths — some slow and meandering, others quick and direct — BGP gives routers the information they need to pick one, even though there is no overall map of the Internet and no authority charged with directing its traffic.
The creation of BGP, which relies on individual networks continuously sharing information about available data links, helped the Internet continue its growth into a worldwide network. But BGP also allows huge swaths of data to be “hijacked” by almost anyone with the necessary skills and access.
The main reason is that BGP, like many key systems on the Internet, is built to automatically trust users — something that may work on smaller networks but leaves a global one ripe for attack.
Hijackings have become routine events that even experts struggle to explain
Warnings about the risks inherent in BGP are almost as old as the protocol itself.
security “wasn’t even on the table” when he sat down with his soft-spoken co-inventor, Kirk Lougheed, for lunch during an engineering conference in January 1989.
This was an era when hacks were rare and the toll modest.
The big issue of the day was the possibility that the Internet might break down. A halt in its furious expansion would have hurt the network’s users and the profits of companies supplying gear and services.
“When Yakov and I showed up with a solution and it seemed to work, people were quite willing to accept it because they didn’t have anything else.”
There were other efforts underway to build routing protocols. BGP won out because it was simple, solved the problem at hand and proved versatile enough to keep data flowing as the Internet doubled in size, again and again and again. Networks across the world embraced the protocol, giving it an edge it has never relinquished.
“Everybody was just so knee-deep in alligators that they just needed to get something together quickly,” said Noel Chiappa, a retired networking researcher. “They didn’t have the time to look long-term.”
The problem: There is no map. Routers using BGP make routing decisions based on information provided by their neighbors in cyberspace, which in turn gather information from their neighbors in cyberspace, and so on. This works well so long as the information — contained in messages called BGP “advertisements” — is accurate.
Any false information can spread almost instantly across the Internet because there is no way to check the honesty, or even the identity, of those making the advertisements.
Such an obvious problem, Lougheed said, would never be tolerated in today’s more security-conscious world. “If somebody comes up with a design that doesn’t anticipate deception, they get beat up and sent back to the drawing board,” he said.
Whether the cause is intentional deception or an accident, the results are the same: Internet traffic gets diverted, often by thousands of miles. Sometimes it eventually finds its way to the proper destination, causing only delays in transmission. Sometimes the data gets stolen by hackers. Sometimes it just disappears altogether into the cyberspace
Rekhter and others continued improving BGP, implementing the final version of the protocol in 1994. Hijackings of data already had begun, making clear the need for a more secure alternative, but years of work failed to produce one that could supplant BGP.
“All these proposals have died on the vine,”
‘No one was buying’
Industry skepticism was rooted in the idea that security was a bad bet for business. Nobody liked to get hacked, but companies were not legally liable for the damages. Protective measures, meanwhile, carried costs that few wanted to pay, such as limited features, slowed performance or higher sticker prices for gear and software.
Companies that experimented with products that had extra security features, such as built-in encryption, found little interest from consumers who had cheaper, easier alternatives available, said Robert Metcalfe, founder of 3Com, a former networking hardware maker.
“No one would buy the secure versions,” Metcalfe said. “We built it, and we tried to sell it, and no one was buying.”
The pace of action on fixing BGP picked up after the April 2010 incident involving U.S. military traffic flowing through Beijing. A major push has come from the Department of Homeland Security, which has spent $8 million over the past four years on efforts to develop and deploy secure BGP technology.
The first step toward better BGP security has been a new system of secure cryptographic keys for networks, allowing them to authenticate their identities in cyberspace and make clear what networks they ordinarily handle traffic for.
But getting network operators to participate is proving difficult. Many already employ filters that limit exposure to false BGP messages. That approach offers only partial protection, but it’s easier than using cryptographic keys. Many network operators also are cool to taking the further step of adopting a secure new routing protocol called BGPSEC to replace BGP.
That decentralized way of making decisions, which is more essential to the Internet than any single protocol, also means security improvements require many individual actions by networks, site operators and users. Each must weigh the value of a change, then proceed. Or not.
“There is a cost associated with doing security. And the question is: Who is going to pay the price?”
Lougheed, too, is a skeptic. “If lack of security becomes a significant cost to doing business, a lot of people will be interested in fixing the problem. At this point, people are just patching their way through it, keeping one step ahead of the bad guys.”
In Europe and the Middle East collectively, almost 9 percent of networks have taken the first step of acquiring cryptographic keys for identifying themselves in cyberspace.
North America and Africa are doing much worse, with less than 1 percent.