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.
1,044 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
FCC’s WiFi Rule-Making: Making It Fair For Both Open Source and Proprietary
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/15/10/16/0117217/fccs-wifi-rule-making-making-it-fair-for-both-open-source-and-proprietary
The FCC wants to be sure that WiFi drivers don’t cause interference with airport weather radars, but their proposal to lock down WiFi firmware, won’t fly. Many commenters in the proceeding have made it clear that Open Source firmware for WiFi devices must remain legal. While an “alternative” proposal to the FCC that would require that all WiFi routers be Open Source is getting most of the publicity today, I have proposed another alternative that would be fair for both Open Source and proprietary software. It requires approval of the source code of a WiFi driver by a person with a technical license from FCC, the GROL+Radar, if that driver is to be mass-distributed in binary form for use by RF-naïve users by either the manufacturer or Open Source.
It’s pretty easy for someone competent in radio engineering to pass the license test, and many thousands of people hold the license today. Vendors and Open Source are treated the same
http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/comment/view?id=60001303304
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dell-EMC deal could be a game-changer for mobile networks, too
Ericsson and Huawei better watch their backs
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/19/dell_emc_deal_integrated_supplier_option_mobile_carriers/
As carriers race towards virtualisation, software-defined networking and increasingly complex back office IT platforms, they will increasingly bump into suppliers from the data centre world.
IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle and others are already very familiar to them, but now there will be a new powerhouse, if Dell’s record-breaking $67bn takeover of storage supplier EMC goes through.
The deal will give Dell an end-to-end play for cloud and telco providers, as well as enterprises, encompassing servers, storage and virtualisation, and it will pose a very interesting alternative for mobile network operators to set against the claims of Ericsson and Huawei, as well as the IT giants.
The future of VMware
There had been talk, amid the speculation that a deal was in the offing, that EMC’s majority-owned VMware virtualisation unit would be spun out. But that would have seen the loss of a crown jewel, and the risk of turning a full IT platform provider into a box shifter. In fact, VMware will remain inside Dell/EMC, though it will remain a publicly traded company even when its parent becomes part of privately held Dell.
VMware and Dell both emphasised, on the former’s investor call to discuss the deal, that the virtualisation technology was one of the hearts of the matter. This is not a takeover geared to consolidation and cost efficiency, welcome as those will be when up against the might of Huawei on the full-service front, or a potentially reinvigorated, post-reorganization HP.
“This deal is about accelerating growth opportunities [through SDN],” said VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger. In particular, those opportunities lie in the IoT and the big data it generates. Joe Tucci, CEO of EMC, said on the call: “There are more opportunities now than in history of man. There is massive telemetry with sensors being built into everything imaginable, generating massive amounts of data.” Now Dell will be able to provide all the devices to underpin that, from PCs to servers to storage, said the firm (skimming neatly over its many failed forays into mobile devices).
Another important point made by Dell at its press conference – and one which may make HP shiver – is the private firm’s ability to innovate rapidly, and also to play a long game without the pressure of the quarterly results call and the activist investor.
Full platform for operators
The focus on IoT, big data and cloud services is predictable, but Dell is not confining itself to the classic enterprises with which it has dealt for so long. It certainly has service providers, including carriers and cloud operators, in its sights. Here, an increased software defined network and integration element will be critical for it to add value and find its place between IBM on one hand, and Ericsson or Huawei on the other. Telcos have generally been poor at building their own cloud platforms, and so a one-stop-shop will be welcome.
One analyst, Heavy Reading’s Caroline Chappell, commented: “There you have it – a complete software defined data centre solution, hardware and all. From a service provider (not enterprise) perspective, this is good for Dell which has struggled to articulate a strong telco cloud story on the grounds that it is only a box company in a market where telcos in particular want help building/integrating end-to-end cloud.”
Particularly interesting will be the reaction of Cisco, which aims to be a powerhouse in the carrier cloud and the virtualised telco, and which has been very close to VMware and EMC in the past.
Pivotal, actually a joint venture between EMC and VMware, is particularly interesting in the IoT. Most importantly, it powers the Predix big data analytics platform which GE (an investor in Pivotal) has created for the Industrial Internet, and which the manufacturing giant aims to turn into a global service based around de facto standards it is driving.
The combined company will, naturally, be run by Michael Dell
Tomi Engdahl says:
India’s mobile operators move to head off dropped-call refunds
What could go wrong with plan to fine carriers when punters call from a lead-lined hole?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/18/indias_mobile_operators_move_to_head_off_droppedcall_refunds/
India’s mobile operators are doing battle against the country’s telecommunications regulator over plans to refund customers for dropped calls.
If the plan proceeds, from January 1 2016 Indian mobile phone subscribers would get a discount for calls dropped if it’s the fault of the provider’s network.
Only the caller’s network is held to account by the policy – if the call-drop happens on the called party’s network, there’s no refund.
The carriers see a host of problems, as Indian Express reports. For example: if a call drops out because the caller is inside a building a network problem? Or should the caller go outside?
Indian carriers are already under pressure simply because of the huge number of users competing for service on limited spectrum.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Huawei chucks a round $1bn at developers
It’s all about customer biz needs, apparently
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/19/huawei_chucks_1bn_at_developers/
Huawei plans to pump $1bn into support for developers over the next five years.
It comes after IBM inked a deal with Chinese data centre provider 21Vianet Group last week, touting Big Blue’s cloud computing platform Bluemix at developers working in the People’s Republic.
Huawei products director Ryan Ding said, according to Reuters:
“The aim is to help developers create innovative services and rapidly respond to customers’ business needs.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
You know what storage needs? More doughnuts to flatten us up
Flatter hierachies, fewer hops: Rockport and the Torus interconnect
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/19/rockport_and_the_torus_interconnect/
The hierarchy of adapters, switches, routers and directors involved in storage networking is unwieldy, complex and costly and needs replacing with a flatter scheme of direct connections between servers and storage devices. That’s the networking message from start-up Rockport Networks.
It says that current fat tree and spine-and-leaf network architectures tend to prevent economical scalability and hinder cloud computing and analytics. It’s better to rethink storage network architecture, indeed network architecture, than to try and software-define current networking hardware to gain relatively marginal scalability, flexibility and cost-savings.
Its idea is that storage and server nodes in a network should be directly interconnected using a Direct Interconnect (torus mesh) of optical cables.
This is not a new thing. Torus mesh connectivity has been used to interconnect high performance computing environments for years.
Rockport says Direct Interconnect is widely recognised as the most effective way to connect; it is also recognised as a very complex way to cable things together. The company claims it has solved the cabling challenge, with high radix connectivity and simplified cabling with short runs. Direct interconnect is the most efficient way to interconnect data nodes in the data centre and provides dramatic linear scalability, it says.
Ditch the switch
The networking nodes can be servers and filer arrays in scale-out cluster form with the data messages dealing with file IO requests. Each node will have Rockport software running in a chip with ports to the Direct Interconnect mesh. There is no longer any need for switches or routers, so rack space devoted to these can be recovered and used for processors running virtual machines, meaning more chargeable resource and income for cloud service providers.
Today, the Rockport solution can perform at 200Gbit/s comprised of 8 x 25Gbit/s ports per data node with internodal hop delays equal to 80 nanoseconds; PCIe-class bandwidth rate. Rockport contrasts this with a server-to-server connection using three switches and taking up to 3.12msecs. In effect the network is moved closer to compute.
Rockport’s software operates at layer 2, the data link layer or node-to-node data transfer, in the OSI model. The network is not sniff-able and has inherent security. Rockport says its network can scale from 80Gbps to 200Gbps to 800Gbps without any switching hardware. It can also scale up to more than 160,000 nodes in a single mesh.
If a server (node) goes down, then data is redirected. The network is fault-tolerant, with up to 8 paths per node
ESG Founder and senior analyst Steve Duplessie says of Rockport’s scheme: “It’s not the hardware anymore. Switching is a software function. The whole idea of the core/edge hierarchical switch architecture seems way last century with today’s CPU capabilities. Why not have a flat horizontal network that gets fatter when necessary – based on application requirements? Scale out networking – no need for scale up.”
Oprea says servers could well need 1Tbit/s interconnect bandwidth by 2020.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Hostile Email Landscape
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/10/19/1434236/the-hostile-email-landscape
As we consolidate on just a few major email services, it becomes more and more difficult to launch your own mail server. From the article: “Email perfectly embodies the spirit of the internet: independent mail hosts exchanging messages, no host more or less important than any other. Joining the network is as easy as installing Sendmail and slapping on an MX record. At least, that used to be the case. If you were to launch a new mail server right now, many networks would simply refuse to speak to you. The problem: reputation”
The Hostile Email Landscape
http://liminality.xyz/the-hostile-email-landscape/
Email today is dominated by a handful of major services. GMail boasted 425 million active users back in 2012. Outlook.com has at least 400 million users. It’s become increasingly unusual for individuals or businesses to host their own mail, to the point that new servers are viewed with suspicion.
Earlier this year I moved my personal email from Google Apps to a self-hosted server
I had no issues sending to other servers running Postfix or Exim; SpamAssassin happily gave me a 0.0 score, but most big services and corporate mail servers were rejecting my mail, or flagging it as spam
“IPs not previously used to send email typically don’t have any reputation built up in our systems. As a result, emails from new IPs are more likely to experience deliverability issues.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jonathan Katz / The Verge:
As Cubans come online for the first time, a look at foreign companies’ efforts affecting connectivity, censorship policies, and the net’s early impact
Havana’s Hotspots
Cuba is coming online, but who will control its internet?
http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/15/9534205/cuba-internet-access-google-huawei-government-censorship
Over the last two decades, as the internet spread across the planet, Cuba has been in digital isolation. Only the most privileged or crafty have been able to get connections: just 4.1 percent of Cuban households had the internet as of 2013, the most recent data available, according to the UN International Telecommunications Union, and there is no public cellular data service.
The only internet cafés are branches of the state telephone company, where customers can use an archaic terminal under the surveillance of a government worker sitting a few feet away. Even those with home dial-up can rarely access sites outside the national “.cu” domain.
Since the United States and Cuba began restoring diplomatic relations last December, the socialist archipelago has been undergoing an experiment: a slight but steady increase in internet access. The Obama administration, which had been busy trying to sneak private internet connections into Cuba before the détente, has made boosting information technology one of its top negotiation priorities. On September 21st, it lifted restrictions on US telecommunications companies doing business in Cuba, spawning dreams of a telecom gold rush.
The concrete improvements so far have come from the Chinese telecom giant Huawei, which put up the routers to create 35 new hotspots in July. For the first time, wireless access was available in a handful of public parks, near hotels and along the capital’s gritty seafront Malecón — for a price.
President Raúl Castro likes to blame the public’s lack of connectivity on the US trade embargo. But it has clearly been his government’s choice. Cuba is much richer than its Caribbean neighbors in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Jamaica, yet lags behind them all in internet access.
There is also more infrastructure in Cuba than the government lets on: party insiders discuss the latest online articles on state television programs.
The Cuban government openly shares its fears about the kinds of political change the internet could bring. In February, Cuban First Vice President Miguel Díaz-Canel, a 55-year-old party lifer rumored to have the inside track to become the country’s next leader, told a Havana conference on the internet, “The State will work to make this resource available, accessible, and affordable for everyone.” The hotspots opened a few months later. The government also promised to get broadband internet into half of Cuban households by 2020. Yet in that same speech, Díaz-Canel attacked the US government for “aggression to ideologically subvert our youth.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Accidental homicide: how VoLTE kills old style call accounting
It’s all data, all the way down, so tracking voice sessions gets tedious, fast. And dangerous
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/20/volte_kills_voice_call_billing/
Korean and US telco researchers have sounded what’s probably the first death-knell of voice calls, demonstrating a variety of problems – some fundamental – with how Voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) works.
The Carnegie-Mellon CERT has wrapped the problems up in this advisory, based on this ACM paper.
The problems, which we’ll describe in more detail below, include denial-of-service vectors, over-billing risks, and ways for users to game the network for free calls.
The basic problem is that VoLTE abandons the legacy cellular network model of dedicated voice and data channels. Instead, voice is a SIP-based (session initiation protocol) application carried on the plentiful (in LTE) data channel.
The carriers that Hongil Kim of Korean institute KAIST and collaborators from KAIST and Georgia Tech studied were in Korea and not named, but in their paper they warn other operators could be making similar mistakes in their VoLTE implementations.
The problems all arise in how the voice application interacts with session initiation protocol (SIP). Under VoLTE, the voice application is handled by a phone’s application processor instead of being a couple of basic commands on the baseband processor. From the paper “A legitimate user who has control over the AP can potentially control and exploit the call setup process to establish a VoLTE channel.”
It’s obvious, really: since VoLTE runs as an application, it’s trivial to write a voice application to run on an LTE mobile – and that means any mistake the operator makes can be exploited by a malicious application.
That leaves users open to a variety of possible attacks:
It’s easy to make the voice application place calls from a phone without alerting the user. That’s got all sorts of malware possibilities: for example, infecting a phone so it quietly places calls to premium numbers.
Because SIP is just data, there’s no need to place calls through the operator’s SIP server: instead, users can just set up peer-to-peer SIP sessions to bypass call accounting.
If SIP servers don’t authenticate messages properly, phone numbers can be spoofed, creating some pretty juicy fraud opportunities.
Bad session management in SIP servers – for example, allowing one application to call lots of numbers simultaneously – leaves networks open to control-plane denial-of-service attacks.
Vulnerability Note VU#943167
Voice over LTE implementations contain multiple vulnerabilities
http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/943167
Tomi Engdahl says:
LTE 4G Networks Put Android Users at Risk of Overbilling and Phone Number Spoofing
http://news.softpedia.com/news/lte-4g-networks-put-android-users-at-risk-of-overbilling-and-phone-number-spoofing-494840.shtml
Carnegie Mellon University’s CERT security vulnerabilities database has issued an alert regarding the current status of LTE (Long-Term Evolution) mobile networks, which are plagued by four vulnerabilities that allow attackers to spoof phone numbers, overbill clients, create DoS (Denial of Service) states on the phone and network, and even obtain free data transfers without being charged.
The vulnerabilities stem from classic VoIP-related attacks, LTE mobile networks using an internal structure that employs packet switching and the IP protocol (just like VoIP), instead of traditional circuit-switched mobile networks.
As CERT’s team explains, the four vulnerabilities (CWE-732, CWE-284, CWE-287, and CWE-384) allow attackers to take advantage of some things like incorrectly set call permissions, the ability to establish direct sessions between phones, improper authentication for SIP messages, and a bug that enables attackers to establish multiple sessions with the same phone number.
Tomi Engdahl says:
LTE to mobile networks IoT-first technique
The market is running quite a race about how radio technology will IoT IoT billions of devices connected to a network. Research Berg insigth firmly believes that LTE will rise in this race the top of the mobile networks in the race.
Berg Insight, the attached via mobiiliverkkoejn was IoT devices sold in 2020 to about 240 million. Currently, GPRS is still the most common way to connect, for example, M2M modules were. However, LTE technology has already begun to become more common as the most popular connection for already this year.
LTE’s popularity to increase not only the new 0-class technology configuration data, including the recently adopted proposal for a new Internet of Things technology for LTE. NB-IoT a narrow band of IoT supports a very large number of small amounts of data transmitting devices. It tolerates delays very well, enabling a very low-cost drive solutions – therefore IoT nodes – the development of which power consumption is very low.
NB-IoT devices can transfer data inside the normal operator’s LTE traffic. IoT data can also be transferred to the intermediate frequencies between the operator frequency bands (guard band). Moreover, the operator can build a dedicated NB-LTE network, if it has frequencies at their disposal.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3462:lte-sta-mobiiliverkkojen-iot-ykkostekniikka&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
5G mobile phone requires a new kind of receiver because Modern Electronics, fail to meet increasingly faster data processing 5G networks. Allén reminds her dissertation, the faster 5G cellular networks and other wireless communication systems need more and higher-quality radio transmitters and receivers, as well as base stations and mobile devices. They used components, such as amplifiers and analog-to-digital converters, virtually never been perfect, but they distort the signal.
- Radio signals are more sensitive to distortions of what higher data transmission speeds. Even small imperfections in the radio receiver electronics distorting the received signal, and thus may lose data transfer rates significantly, Allén says.
The solution Allén shows a non-linear filtering of the signal interference digital signal processing. The method does not require any changes in the receiver side analog.
Nokia has demoed 5G-esitekniikkaan the ground opens 5G technology with the UAE operator du in Dubai organized at Gitex Technology Week. Data rate exceeded the best 10 gigabits per second.
Nokia did not tell the exact frequency range, but speaks of “millimeter wave region.” Demoissaan previous development partner with National Instruments, Nokia has transferred data is 73 GHz.
Sources:
http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3466:nokia-demosi-5g-ta-lahi-idassa&catid=13&Itemid=101
http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3472:5g-kannykka-vaatii-uudenlaisen-vastaanottimen&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
German Govt mulls security standards for SOHOpeless routers
WPA2 with 20-character passwords? Ja! No firmware updates and CSRF? Nein.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/21/german_govt_mulls_security_tests_of_sohopeless_routers/
The German Government is mulling an assessment of the security chops of consumer routers in a bid to lift current abysmal standards and help inform buyers.
Berlin’s Ministry of the Interior IT security office says it wants to test routers for support of security features like WPS, encryption, and brute force protection of passwords. MAC address filtering and firewalls will also make the list.
The agency points out in a draft document (PDF in German) that poorly-secured routers can lead to mass compromise of users.
It says the increased functionality of SOHO routers with things like network attached storage and the ability to place voice-over-internet-protocol calls makes security of “paramount importance”.
Attackers can do things like enslave users into botnets, place premium phone calls, and deny net access, the agency says, using a multitude of previously disclosed and un-patched vulnerabilities.
The agency would look at simple and deeper security measures including holes like cross-site request forgery, the integrity of guest networks, and various defences against external attack.
Routers that advise users of an available firmware update on login to the web admin interface are winners, as are those that rock WPA2 with a key spinning out to at least 20 characters, and units with WPS that is disabled by default and generates new random PINs on activation.
Tomi Engdahl says:
BT achieves 5Gbps broadband speeds over copper in XG.fast trials
But it’s unlikely to reach your home anytime soon
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2431234/bt-achieves-5gbps-broadband-speeds-over-copper-in-xgfast-trials
UK INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER BT has achieved broadband speeds of 5Gbps over existing copper lines during trials of its experimental XG.fast technology.
XG.fast, a potential future development of BT’s existing G.fast that promises speeds of up to 1Gbps over existing copper lines, is in the early stages of lab testing
delivering average speeds of 5.6Gbps over 35 metres of cable and speeds of 1.8Gbps over 100 metres
“That is why we have announced plans to get ultrafast broadband to 10 million premises by the end of 2020 and to most of the UK by 2025. G.fast is the ideal technology as it can be deployed at scale and speed, allowing as many people to benefit as soon as possible.
“Fibre-to-the-premises technology has a role to play and Openreach has the largest such network in the UK, but G.fast is the answer if the UK is to have widespread and affordable ultrafast broadband sooner rather than later,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
ICANN CEO, internet community heads clash in accountability row
Blowup over efforts to limit DNS overlord’s power during crucial talks
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/21/icann_ceo_governments_accountability/
The CEO of ICANN got his facts wrong during high-level talks on limiting the power of the domain-name overseer, it is claimed.
Fadi Chehade gave a presentation to ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) at the organization’s triannual meeting in Dublin this week in which he provided his “personal view” on a year-long process to improve the organization’s accountability.
ICANN’s accountability is a crunch issue at the moment: the California non-profit is edging closer to taking control of the internet’s engine room, and keeping it in check is essential to the ‘net’s future.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nokia won Finland’s first 5g test license
Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority has granted Nokia of Finland’s first test license 5g of product development, research and testing, the company says in a statement. Test Permission is granted to several frequency ranges in Espoo and Oulu.
Continuous communication between objects and things Internet (IOT) and machines (M2M) growth to accelerate 5g of development.
Source: http://www.tivi.fi/Kaikki_uutiset/nokia-sai-suomen-ensimmaisen-5g-testiluvan-6059722
Tomi Engdahl says:
Today’s Complex Networking Chips Demand Hardware Emulation
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1328089&
Project teams designing complex switches and routers have turned to hardware emulation as the foundation for their verification strategy to battle network congestion and outages.
In the past, verification engineers extended simulation runs on networking designs to reach convergence on the range of various configurations. While simulation is still useful at the block level, verification of a design with five-hundred million gates with simulated traffic is impractical. Ethernet switches and routers expanding from 256 to 1,024 ports and ramping throughput to 120 Gbps render simulation inadequate.
Instead, project teams debugging system-on-chip (SoC) designs for the network have turned to hardware emulation because this practical tool offers high performance, advanced debug capabilities, and power and performance analysis, all of which goes to reduce time to market and improve quality. A key feature of hardware emulation is its ability to test a design with real traffic.
A modern emulator enables the creation of a block-level to system-level accelerated verification flow for networking to be deployed in datacenters instead of labs by replacing traditional physical devices in the In-circuit Emulation (ICE) mode with virtual devices. Virtualization moves emulation from the engineering lab to the computing datacenter for maximum utilization of emulation resources. In a flash, the various project teams working remotely on that complex networking chip have access to the most versatile verification tool.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Schumpeter’s Gale and 25 is the New 10
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1328092&
Leapfrog 10 Gb/s Ethernet and start with 25G, which achieves higher throughput through lane capacity expansion instead of lane aggregation
More recently the concept of leapfrogging is being used in the context of sustainable development for developing countries. Countries that are behind may accelerate development by skipping inferior, less efficient, more expensive or more polluting technologies and industries and move directly to more advanced ones.
In the context of Ethernet speed evolution and adoption, we are seeing a similar trend. Up till very recently, most of the businesses are following the upgrade path of 1Gb/s to 10Gb/s to 40Gb/s and maybe eventually 100Gb/s for server I/O and corresponding Top-of-Rack (ToR) switch speeds. But driven to achieve better economics and efficiency, a handful of very powerful web-scale data center and cloud operators and suppliers—Google, Microsoft, Mellanox, Broadcom and Arista—catalyzed development of a new standard, the 25Gb/s Ethernet last year.
Why is this significant? Because 25G is like Schumpeter’s Gale, and can offer some businesses an opportunity to leapfrog a generation of technologies, be a game changer, and get ahead. I often get this question: “You know, the servers in our data centers are still running at 1G I/O, we barely started thinking about 10G, why do I want to go with 25G?” My answer is, this is the perfect time for you to consider going directly to 25G because it is a much better alternative compared with going 10G. Why?
Before 25G came into being, the general upgrade path of data center server
According to the IEEE 802.3 standard, the next higher link speed after 10G Ethernet is 40G, and 40G is achieved through aggregating four physical lanes running at 10G between link endpoints. The price to pay to get 4X throughput is 4X the number of physical channels on a server’s network adapter and Top-of-Rack (ToR) switch, 4X the amount of copper wiring or fiber in the cables connecting the server and the ToR switch, and higher power consumption and complexity. This will be exacerbated by 10 10G lanes aggregating into 100G interface.
But 25G achieves higher throughput through lane capacity expansion instead of lane aggregation, simply put, it makes each lane wider to pass more traffic. To achieve 100G, only 4 lanes of 25G needs to be aggregated.
In summary, 25 is the new 10, and a better alternative of 10.
Tomi Engdahl says:
“The world’s best 5g-test environment” in Finland
“The world’s best 5g-test environment,” enthuses on its website a newly opened 5G Test Network Finland, which was created by merging four existing 5g test network.
Exceptional is the fact that you have the competitors Nokia, Ericsson and Huawei, together with dozens of other parties.
“Versatile 5g-test environment give Finland a unique advantage in the race towards a digital future,” says Nokia Networks Research and Technology Director Lauri Oksanen.
5G Test Network Finland (5GTNF) announced on Thursday. The test environment is coordinated by VTT Technical Research Centre.
“The test environment will act as a platform for innovation that companies can utilize to test new products and business models,” says VTT Head of Radio Systems research group Kyösti Rautiola.
“To our knowledge, this cooperation is unique. It is very important that you provide operators in the sector to play a common bag ”
Source: http://www.tivi.fi/Kaikki_uutiset/maailman-paras-5g-testiymparisto-suomeen-mukana-kolme-suurta-6060254
Network site:
5GTNF
http://5gtnf.fi/
5G Test Network Finland enables Finland to provide the best and most appealing 5G test network environment and ecosystem in the world for research and business development.
Tekes 5thGear
http://www.tekes.fi/en/programmes-and-services/tekes-programmes/5thgear/
The 5thGear programme aims to solve challenges related to the next generation wireless data communications, the creation of new business, and rocketing Finland as the leading target for international investments.
Tomi Engdahl says:
An Internet Connected Earth
http://hackaday.com/2015/10/24/an-internet-connected-earth/
It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that more than half of the world’s population doesn’t have an Internet connection. It’s tricky to get an exact figure on this, however the number of people without connection is commonly agreed to be somewhere around 2/3rds of the population of the planet. There are some heavy hitters working on this problem with some pretty interesting solutions.
OneWeb is an outfit with [Richard Branson] as the front-man who plan to launch low orbit satellites to communicate with ground terminals. The ground terminals would rebroadcast the communication signals from the satellites resulting in 2G, 3G, LTE, and WiFi signals for those near a ground terminal.
SpaceX is throwing it’s hat in the ring with a little helpful funding from Google and Fidelity to the tune of $1 Billion.
Tomi Engdahl says:
New York Times:
US officials concerned that increased Russian naval operations indicate plans to cut undersea cables carrying most of global Internet data in times of conflict — Russian Presence Near Undersea Cables Concerns U.S. — WASHINGTON — Russian submarines and spy ships are aggressively operating near
Russian Ships Near Data Cables Are Too Close for U.S. Comfort
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/26/world/europe/russian-presence-near-undersea-cables-concerns-us.html
WASHINGTON — Russian submarines and spy ships are aggressively operating near the vital undersea cables that carry almost all global Internet communications, raising concerns among some American military and intelligence officials that the Russians might be planning to attack those lines in times of tension or conflict.
The issue goes beyond old worries during the Cold War that the Russians would tap into the cables — a task American intelligence agencies also mastered decades ago. The alarm today is deeper: The ultimate Russian hack on the United States could involve severing the fiber-optic cables at some of their hardest-to-access locations to halt the instant communications on which the West’s governments, economies and citizens have grown dependent.
While there is no evidence yet of any cable cutting, the concern is part of a growing wariness among senior American and allied military and intelligence officials over the accelerated activity by Russian armed forces around the globe.
Inside the Pentagon and the nation’s spy agencies, the assessments of Russia’s growing naval activities are highly classified and not publicly discussed in detail.
“I’m worried every day about what the Russians may be doing,” said Rear Adm. Frederick J. Roegge, commander of the Navy’s submarine fleet in the Pacific, who would not answer questions about possible Russian plans for cutting the undersea cables.
“The level of activity,” a senior European diplomat said, “is comparable to what we saw in the Cold War.”
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
One NATO ally, Norway, is so concerned that it has asked its neighbors for aid in tracking Russian submarines.
Tomi Engdahl says:
ISM Bands Limit Opportunity
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1328095&
The rise of narrowband networks for the Internet of Things is poised for a fall, according to a senior software developer for cellular systems.
The Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) unlicensed spectrum bands are a great resource for an industry to get started and see some early success, but they are not a suitable space for building a global industry. Networks here lack the reliability, scalability and applicability needed to grow and sustain a global technology revolution.
ISM bands have long been used for machine-to-machine and now Internet of Things applications. It is a good place for developing ad-hoc wireless networks.
Vendors such as Texas Instruments have been producing M2M/IoT chipsets using proprietary protocols for many years. With the rise of IoT, there has been much more interest in the ISM bands. ZigBee, Bluetooth LE, Z-Wave and Wi-Fi all have M2M/IoT footprints. Low power, wide-area (LPWA) networks are the next emerging breed of IoT wireless technologies, and many of these are using ISM spectrum.
ISM provides free spectrum with a low barrier to entry, the ability to move from prototype to production very quickly and relatively low certification cost. This is exactly why LPWA pioneers (such as frontrunners Sigfox and LoRa) have chosen the ISM bands.
ISM bands are available worldwide, but regulations and frequency ranges vary. Unlicensed spectrum is still regulated. In fact, the openness and freedom of ISM comes with the price of strict restrictions on transmit power and duty cycle (time spent transmitting) in order to limit the interference between devices.
There are a couple of things to keep in mind when using ISM for WAN-type applications. For example, all transmitters are treated equally under the regulations. Thus the central node (base station, concentrator or gateway) has the same restrictions as the end-point device.
The restrictions directly affect functionality and potential use cases. In some regions, duty cycles can be less than 10%, impacting how much and how often data can be transmitted.
Sigfox’s technology is reportedly restricted to a maximum of 140 message of 12 bytes each per day — great for some simple metering applications, but a hard limit that will eliminate many other applications.
Applications connected to multiple devices will have to distribute the duty cycle across all those devices. In such situations control applications are not feasible, and you can forget about firmware or configuration updates.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google and cable pals oppose LTE-U’s spectrum grab plan
Signals should not roam across Spectrum, says Google. That’s where our Loon balloons go
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/27/google_et_al_link_arms_with_ncta_stands_against_lteu/
America’s National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) has recruited a bunch of high-profile supporters in its attempt to fend off the Federal Communications Commision’s interest in LTE-U.
LTE-U is a spectrum-plus-standards proposal under which wireless kit could opportunistically use empty spectrum, even if a frequency has been assigned to (and paid for) by someone else.
Back in June, the NCTA first voiced its opposition to the proposal, and now it’s attracted Boingo Wireless, Broadcom, Google, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, consultant Paul Nikolich, and Ruckus Wireless to the cause.
Their opposition substantially reiterates what the NCTA has said previously – that LTE-U proponents (Verizon, Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Qualcomm and Samsung) are defying standards bodies like the 3GPP and IEEE, and that they’re developing technologies without the discipline of peer review.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Otaniemi will get 5g network
Otaniemi, Espoo Finland, built in the fifth generation of mobile network, inform Aalto University.
The trial opened in use, the network allowed the researchers to try out new types of uses and cloud technologies. Network to facilitate start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises for product development, as well as more innovation made by the students.
The test network will be built alongside the existing test network. Step-by-step Otaniemi generated 5g backbone network, which is expanding to the rest of the urban area.
A three-year Take-5 AC project is part of Tekes 5thGear program and 5G Test Network Finlandia.
Source: http://www.tivi.fi/Kaikki_uutiset/otaniemeen-rakennetaan-5g-verkko-6060696
Tomi Engdahl says:
EU urged to ignore net neutrality delusions, choose science instead
Establish facts before making broadband regulations? Might be an idea
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/27/eu_ignore_the_net_neutrality_and_choose_science_instead/
Guest Opinion There are real issue of power, fairness, justice and market transparency in today’s internet. There are real uncertainties over which market structures maximise social and economic benefits. There are real questions about the practicality of different traffic management and charging mechanisms.
But Europe’s misguided “Save The Internet” campaign isn’t the way forward. As a responsible professional and native European, I would like to summarise why it is imperative for EU regulators to ignore calls to “strengthen” net neutrality if they want to retain their legitimacy.
‘Neutral’ networks do not exist
No packet networks have ever been ‘neutral’, and none ever will be. The idea of ‘neutrality’ is not an objective and measurable phenomenon, as shown by the recent work published by Ofcom.
It is an invention of the legal classes attempting to force novel distributed computing services into a familiar carriage metaphor.
‘Neutrality’ has an evil twin, called ‘discrimination’. Asserting that internet packets are being “discriminated” against is a fundamental misunderstanding of the relationship between the intentional and operational semantics of broadband.
Neither concept is a term of the art of performance engineering or computer science.
Disconnected from actual constraints
Networks have resource constraints. One is capacity, and another is ‘schedulability’. The proposals to prevent ‘class-based discrimination’ fatally ignore the scheduling constraints of broadband. They require a cornucopia of resources (that don’t exist) to resolve all scheduling issues (which can’t happen) via an unbounded self-optimisation of networks (that is beyond magical).
Regulators who attempt to direct traffic management will find themselves sabotaging the customer experience and a sustainable cost structure. They will also be held accountable for the global QoE outcomes of their interventions at the level of local mechanisms. This won’t end well. There is no entitlement to performance.
Taking this issue further, discussions around ‘throttling’ or ‘slowing down’ implicitly assume that there is some kind of entitlement to good performance from ‘best effort’ broadband. Yet there is nothing ‘best’ or ‘effort’ about it.
The service’s performance is an emergent effect of stochastic processes. Performance is arbitrary, and potentially nondeterministic under load. Anything can happen, good or bad! That’s the ‘best effort’ deal with the performance devil.
‘Specialised’ services are an illusion
Every application has a performance constraint in order to be useful. Any attempt to define (and possibly restrict) the availability of predictable performance will hit three barriers.
Firstly, there cannot be an objective definition of ‘specialised’. It’s in the eye of the beholder. All my applications are ‘special’. Aren’t your digital children ‘special’, too? Secondly, applications are a form of speech, so you need to regulate classes of privileged speech, which hits both constitutional and human rights problems.
Thirdly, you assume that there are no legitimate ‘editorial’ decisions over the allocation of performance that ISPs can undertake.
Regulators who try to create aristocratic classes of application, or insist all must be equal serfs, are dooming their population to performance misery.
‘Fast lanes’ already exist, and guess what? They’re just fine
Application developers already buy CDNs to achieve higher performance at lower cost. This is seen as being a core feature of a workable net. Paid peering agreements with performance SLAs also exist. Non-IP telecoms services compete for users and usage with IP-based ones (eg ATM, MPLS, TDM).
So-called ‘fast lanes’ also aim for predictable performance, just at lower cost than other telecoms services.
Indeed, the first ISP ‘fast lane’ was built to service the needs of the deaf for reliable sign language
‘Congestion’ discussions are Not Even Wrong
The ideas of ‘congestion’ (whether ‘imminent’ or not) profoundly misses the point and reality of packet networks. The raison d’être of packet networks is to statistically share a resource at the expense of allowing (instantaneous) contention. Networks safely run in saturation are a good thing.
A broken theory
The underlying theory of ‘net neutrality’ advocates a virtuous cycle of innovation. The more users there are, the more applications get written, which drives more users. The leap is then made to to ‘neutrality’. This Utopian ideal (single class of service, ‘best effort’, users pay all performance costs) supposedly maximises the flywheel effect.
The presumptive basis is to minimise risk and cost to developers, and maximise choice for users. This theory is flawed in five key ways
What should Europe do? Ignore the lawgeneers, and be scientific
The FCC went ahead and made rules about ‘net neutrality’ without getting its technical house in order first. This was done at the behest of cohorts of well-funded lobbying lawyers.
As a result it has put at risk the FCC’s credibility, since those rules are in conflict with the technical and economic reality of broadband.
I strongly urge European regulators to ignore these campaigning ‘lawgeneers’. They have no ‘skin in the game’, so suffer no consequences for their pronouncements based on false technical assumptions.
This is a form of ‘moral hazard’. At least ISPs have a stake in the long-term viability of their services.
Tomi Engdahl says:
European Parliament rejects amendments to net neut rules, waves through law
New legislation kicks in from April next year
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/27/european_parliament_rejects_amendments_to_net_neutrality_rules_waves_through_law/
MEPs voted against changes to net neutrality rules in the European Union on Tuesday lunchtime.
It comes after key internet figures, including the creator of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners Lee, warned EU politicos not to wave through amendments to the regulations due to a number of loopholes in the proposed law.
Amendments that would have heavily regulated how internet traffic is managed in the 28-member-state bloc were all chucked out by MEPs.
It means that existing legislation on net neutrality will now be adopted, with the regulations coming into effect in April 2016.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Will a location change improve my MoCA?
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/brians-brain/4440675/Will-a-location-change-improve-my-MoCA-?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20151027&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20151027&elq=2a44713b2640491fbe8e58c768d3f31d&elqCampaignId=25418&elqaid=28911&elqat=1&elqTrackId=47edcc6027214760af5d18fa369920df
I decided to try using an existing coax cable ‘backbone’ in my home, in conjunction with MoCA Ethernet-to-coax bridges, as a means of extending wired LAN connectivity to its two guest bedrooms.
Let me first assure you that the in-line filter I bought along with the adapters definitely works as designed from a security standpoint
Unlike last time, when I ran all cable Internet traffic through the adapter
But when I connected the second adapter down the hallway to its coax connector coming out of the wall, the two ECB2500Cs refused to “see” each other.
Thankfully, it took me only a moment to realize what was going on.
the filter was incorrectly blocking the in-home adapters as effectively as it was correctly blocking any neighbors’ LAN access attempts. And even when I moved the filter outside, I still initially installed it in the wrong location.
Instead, I needed to put the filter ahead of a three-way splitter found elsewhere on the exterior of the property
Tomi Engdahl says:
LAN security for MoCA and powerline
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/brians-brain/4440220/LAN-security-for-MoCA-and-powerline
MoCA adapters, as it turns out, ship by default with encryption turned off. Enabling encryption, along with configuring a custom encryption password (since you won’t just go with the factory default … right?) is by no means intuitive (assuming the necessary hardware switch even exists, which isn’t always the case).
And in the absence of a blocking filter such as the one Amazon recommended to me, if your MoCA adapters have encryption disabled or enabled with the default password, it’s straightforward for neighbors sharing a street-side splitter to snoop your LAN.
This revelation next got me thinking about powerline networking. Thankfully, all of the powerline adapters I know of come with encryption enabled, albeit with a common factory-default password (56-bit DES “HomePlug” for early-generation HomePlug-standard devices, for example, and 128-bit AES “HomePlugAV” for newer-generation products)
it’s difficult enough to get powerline-transported packets to jump across the two phases of the 220V source within a home, far from traveling outside the home.
However, as abundant Internet case studies suggest, LAN data leakage beyond any particular residence is indeed possible, especially in apartment complexes and other close-proximity housing configurations where multiple residences are served by the same street-side transformer.
And true, wireless networking has the same conceptual security issue … I’m easily able to “see” my next-door neighbors’ SSIDs. But I think that LAN equipment manufacturers have been much more upfront in educating consumers of the need to set unique and secure Wi-Fi encryption passwords than they have been with MoCA and powerline. And that’s too bad.
Tomi Engdahl says:
EU votes in ‘weak and confusing’ net neutrality legislation
It’s a win that isn’t made of win
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2432203/eu-votes-in-weak-and-confusing-net-neutrality-legislation
EU MINISTERS have rejected amendments to legislation which would have guaranteed net neutrality throughout the region.
The European Parliament voted in new regulations to manage the internet, but the wording was described by World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee as “weak and confusing”.
Loopholes in the new legislation will allow for zero-rated services, such as access to Netflix by particular ISPs without it counting towards a data allowance. It also allows for fast lanes to be created for priority devices.
Supporters of the bill believe it will allow safe passage for time-critical services such as factory automation and self-driving cars, but opponents say that ISPs will use it to provide a multi-tiered service to customers.
All the amendments were voted down with comfortable majorities, despite claims that support for net neutrality was growing in Brussels.
Andrus Ansip, who heads up the Digital Single Market strategy, said in his opening remarks before the vote: “Common rules on net neutrality mean that internet access providers cannot pick winners or losers on the internet, or decide which content and services are available.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Glyn Moody / Ars Technica UK:
Net neutrality: EU votes in favour of Internet fast lanes and slow lanes — MEPs confused by false claims, tired of the arguments, keen to conclude the file. — The European Parliament has passed the flawed flawed compromise text on net neutrality without including any of the amendments that would have closed serious loopholes.
Net neutrality: EU votes in favour of Internet fast lanes and slow lanes
MEPs confused by false claims, tired of the arguments, keen to conclude the case.
http://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-policy/2015/10/net-neutrality-eu-votes-in-favour-of-internet-fast-lanes-and-slow-lanes/
The European Parliament has passed the flawed compromise text on net neutrality without including any of the amendments that would have closed serious loopholes. The vote, with 500 in favour, and 163 against, took place in a plenary session a few hours after a rather lacklustre debate this morning, which was attended by only 50 MEPs out of the European Parliament’s total of 751, indicating little interest in this key topic among most European politicians. The Greens MEP Jan Philipp Albrecht called the final result a “dirty deal.”
Arguments in favour of the text were disappointing and superficial. Many concentrated on the other major component of the Telecoms Single Market package, the abolition of mobile roaming charges in the EU. This long-overdue, and highly-popular measure was cleverly offered as a carrot by the Council of the EU and the European Commission in order to persuade MEPs to accept the rest of the package. The misleading impression was given that supporting the net neutrality amendments proposed by MEPs would cause the abolition of roaming charges to be lost, but that was not the case.
As the German Pirate Party MEP Julia Reda pointed out, the Telecoms Single Market package doesn’t even deliver on roaming: “The plan to place an end to roaming surcharges in Europe has been adopted pending a review of pricing and consumption patterns. Even if the review is completed by the 15 June 2017 deadline, roaming surcharges will only be suspended up to a ‘fair use’ limit beyond which they still apply and continue to hinder the breaking down of barriers within Europe.”
James Vincent / The Verge:
European Parliament rejects amendments protecting net neutrality
http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/27/9619962/eu-net-neturality-vote
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nathan Ingraham / Engadget:
Google announces $220 ASUS OnHub router which lets you boost the Wi-Fi speed for a device with a wave of your hand; preorders start this week — Google’s second OnHub router is built by ASUS, goes on sale this week — Google introduced its OnHub router this summer, promising …
Google’s second OnHub router is built by ASUS, goes on sale this week
http://www.engadget.com/2015/10/27/google-asus-onhub-router/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Vehicles will get a gigabit network next year
The car is really becoming one of networked devices in the near future.
Broadcom has now presented his own one hundred megabits Ethnernet for car.
Next year will see gigabit speeds – already a new standard is in making.
Broadcom has its own BroadR-Reach chipset, based on its own tailor-made Ethernet technique. The new switching circuits are manufactured in 28-nanometer process.
Broadcom says the switch is ready to Gigabit Ethernet. IEEE is expected by next summer to accept the final version of the car IEEE1000BASE-T1 standard.
The different thing then is when the cars seen in the first gigabit ethernet networks. Broadcom, the more effective higher speed the bus means higher power consumption and therefore greater fuel consumption, for example. Premium class cars Gigabit Ethernet should be guaranteed within a year or two, but this will take longer before it becomes more commonly used.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3515:autoihin-tulee-gigabitin-verkko-ensi-vuonna&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
The study warns, mobile phone networks are leaking
Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority warned as early as last spring, the security problems associated with the SS7 protocol. Now Adaptive Mobile is the seminar demonstrated that the threats are real.
SS7 is an old signaling protocol, which is used to form the voice, SMS and data connections operators’ networks. Generally, operators do not protect the SS7 network, which gives hackers basically carte blanche to users of location and tracking billing information, and in the worst cases, voice and data traffic monitoring.
SS7 networks are abused by cyber criminals and state organizations.
These connections and services is already increasing its own gray market.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3506:tutkimus-varoittaa-kannykkaverkot-vuotavat&catid=13&Itemid=101
Real World SS7 Attacks
Evidence, Analysis and Prevention
http://www.adaptivemobile.com/webinars/ss7
Tomi Engdahl says:
One modem to transfer data to the electricity network throughout the world
Renesas Electronics has introduced third-generation PLC modems (Power Line Communications), which widely supports different protocols, as well as the frequency channels all over the world.
NEW modem supports for example, PRIME1.3.6 / 1.4- and G3 protocols. Frequency range, it supports the CENELEC A, FCC and ARIB-in area.
Renesas offers developers (YCONNECT-IT CPX3 PLC) packet, which come with different protocol stacks (stack of tools and the desired frequency range can be selected with graphical tool).
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3512:yksi-modeemi-siirtaa-dataa-sahkoverkossa-kaikkialla&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
2.4 GHz xceiver module is worldwide certified
http://www.electronicproducts.com/Board_Level_Products/Communication_Boards/2_4_GHz_xceiver_module_is_worldwide_certified.aspx
The STD-503 2.4 GHz radio transceiver module is suitable for worldwide implementation and targets industrial applications that must have stable and reliable communication for up to 300 yards with battery operation. The module uses noise-resistant direct-sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) modulation, as well as a true diversity receiver design that employs two antennas.
Tomi Engdahl says:
8-Port Ethernet switch is rugged, low cost
http://www.electronicproducts.com/Board_Level_Products/Communication_Boards/8_Port_Ethernet_switch_is_rugged_low_cost.aspx
The NM10 unmanaged 8-port Ethernet switch comes in a compact box and has four standard configurations with either 10/100BASE-T or 10/100/1000BASE-T Ethernet interfaces and a Class 2 wide range power supply. Conforming to EN 50155 and ISO 7637-2, the rugged unit reliably operates over -40°C to +70°C (+85°C for 10 minutes) in harsh roadway, railway, and industrial applications.
The switch has eight channels at the front panel, accessible through M12 connectors
Tomi Engdahl says:
Optimize equalization for FFE, CTLE, DFE, and crosstalk
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/eye-on-standards/4440609/Optimize-equalization-for-FFE–CTLE–DFE–and-crosstalk
Combining equalization at both the transmitter and receiver in a high-speed serial-data channel lets designs reach more than 28 Gbits/s. Equalization will continue to play a key role as we switch from baseband, two-level NRZ (non-return to zero) to PAM4 (four-level pulse-amplitude modulation) at lane rates in excess of 50 Gbits/s.
The ideal equalization scheme inverts a channel’s frequency response. Such inversion, which can be implemented at the transmitter, receiver, or both, can remove ISI (intersymbol interference). That leaves just random noise, jitter, DCD (duty-cycle distortion), crosstalk, and electromagnetic interference behind.
Three types of equalization are used in high speed serial designs.
Tx FFE (transmitter feed-forward equalization) modifies the amplitudes of symbols surrounding transitions while keeping the transmitted power constant.
CTLE (continuous time linear equalization) is a linear filter applied at the receiver that attenuates low-frequency signal components, amplifies components around the Nyquist frequency, and filters off higher frequencies
Because both Tx FFE and CTLE address the problem by inverting the channel’s low pass nature, they’re somewhat redundant. Designs at very high rates, especially those using PAM4 signaling, rarely include both.
DFE (decision feedback equalization) is implemented at the receiver
Implicitly nonlinear, DFE feeds a sum of logic or symbol decisions back to the symbol decoder (a.k.a., the slicer).
CTLE technology doesn’t change for PAM4 signaling. Tx FFE doesn’t change in principle, though with four different symbol levels, it changes in practice. But with four distinct “decisions” to feed back to the decision circuit, DFE differs for PAM4.
An optimally equalized serial differential signal complements the high-frequency amplifying/low-frequency attenuating nature of either Tx FFE or CTLE (or both) with the number of DFE taps. But, the optimization problem can’t be addressed without considering crosstalk.
The trick is to balance cost and power against CTLE/Tx FFE and the number of DFE taps in a way that reduces ISI without amplifying crosstalk.
Tomi Engdahl says:
4g phone user can easily traced
Aalto University researchers showed that most phones can be localized using a fake base station and the level of service may degraded with it. Professor N. Asoka and his team built a laboratory environment with such 4g fake base station. The mobile device can be forced to reveal the location, allowing the user to locate in an urban environment of two square kilometers in area. Anyone can acquire the necessary equipment – they cost slightly more than one thousand euros.
When the mobile device connects to the network, it receives a temporary identifier. It is random and is updated at regular intervals. The temporary identifier can be valid for up to three days. Therefore, it cna be used to follow smart phone for about three days.
Spy can locate a person even further by defining distance from three known points. Phishing target may also be forced to use 2G or 3G network, or he may be prevented from entering into any network.
Source: http://www.tivi.fi/rss/4g-puhelimen-kayttajan-voi-jaljittaa-helposti-6061266
Tomi Engdahl says:
Carriers Selling Your Data: a $24 Billion Business
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/15/10/28/0131232/carriers-selling-your-data-a-24-billion-business
It goes without saying that cellphone carriers have access to tons of data about their subscribers. They have data about who you call, what sites you visit, and even where you’re located. Now: “Under the radar, Verizon, Sprint, and other carriers have partnered with firms including SAP to manage and sell data.
The $24 Billion Data Business That Telcos Don’t Want to Talk About
Mobile Carriers Are Working With Partners to Manage, Package and Sell Data
http://adage.com/article/datadriven-marketing/24-billion-data-business-telcos-discuss/301058/
U.K. grocer Morrisons, ad-buying behemoth GroupM and other marketers and agencies are testing never-before-available data from cellphone carriers that connects device location and other information with telcos’ real-world files on subscribers. Some services offer real-time heat maps showing the neighborhoods where store visitors go home at night, lists the sites they visited on mobile browsers recently and more.
Under the radar, Verizon, Sprint, Telefonica and other carriers have partnered with firms including SAP, IBM, HP and AirSage to manage, package and sell various levels of data to marketers and other clients. It’s all part of a push by the world’s largest phone operators to counteract diminishing subscriber growth through new business ventures that tap into the data that showers from consumers’ mobile web surfing, text messaging and phone calls.
There is a lot of marketer interest in that information because it is tied to actual individuals. For the same reason, however, there is potential for resistance from privacy advocates.
Too risky for the E.U.?
To protect privacy, SAP receives non-personally-identifiable, anonymized information from telcos, and only provides aggregated information to its clients to prevent reidentification of individuals. Still, sharing and using data this way is controversial. Nearly all the players exploring the burgeoning Telecom Data as a Service field, or TDaaS for short, are reluctant to provide the details of their operations, much less freely name their clients.
The global market for telco data as a service is potentially worth $24.1 billion this year, on its way to $79 billion in 2020
Perhaps the most prominent recent moves in the burgeoning TDaaS realm are Verizon’s $4.4 billion acquisition of AOL in May, followed by its purchase of mobile ad network Millennial Media for $238 million in September. Many saw the AOL buy as a means for Verizon to turn its data into a viable business, in part because AOL provides ad-tech infrastructure and marketer relationships that Verizon lacks.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ministry of Defence is sitting on £38.5m in depreciating IPv4 addresses
FoI request reveals four out of five departments aren’t IPv6-ready
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2432332/ministry-of-defence-is-sitting-on-gbp385m-in-depreciating-ipv4-addresses
THE UK MINISTRY OF DEFENCE (MoD) is sitting on stocks of IPv4 IP addresses worth £38.5m, as the trailblazing government department migrates to IPv6.
A new Freedom of Information request from network control company Infoblox found that four out of five government departments don’t have a cohesive plan to migrate to IPv6, despite stocks of IPv4 addresses in the EU reaching close to saturation.
The INQUIRER spoke to Infoblox IPv6 evangelist Tom Coffeen who told us that, while the advantages of IPv6 for the end user are minimal and that any speed increase is thought to be neglible, the results of inaction could be a ticking time bomb, but that other countries had done the groundwork.
“This is not a new challenge. There are something in the order of 50 million users in the US. So what ISPs need to do has already been done. It’s just a case of following best practice,” he said.
The IPv4 system runs out at approximately 4.3 billion addresses, based on allocation to regions which is further allocated to departments and service providers at a local level. These ‘chunks’ are not exhausted, leaving horse-trading as the only way to carry on using IPv4, a practice which will become insufficient very quickly.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Empty powerline networking promises
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/brians-brain/4440692/Empty-powerline-networking-promises?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_consumerelectronics_20151028&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_consumerelectronics_20151028&elq=e48d7137db544ae5bfb81620a6473423&elqCampaignId=25421&elqaid=28914&elqat=1&elqTrackId=db435d393b3942e2b8c459aed7d89dba
Instead of punching Ethernet cable through the wall, I could install a HomePlug AV powerline networking adapter both in the furnace room (where the residence’s primary circuit breaker box was conveniently also located) and another in her office, in the hopes that they’d robustly sync up over the home’s power grid.
Doing so, I then realized, might also help me solve my one remaining residence connectivity shortcoming. The upstairs back deck was inadequately Wi-Fi-serviced by the router downstairs; its 2.4 GHz beacon didn’t have sufficient “reach,” far from its inherently shorter range 5 GHz alternative.
As a first pass, after first connecting a NETGEAR XAV5001 HomePlug AV500 adapter downstairs, I resurrected the TRENDnet TPL-310AP HomePlug AV200 wireless access point that I previously mentioned at the beginning of this year. Unfortunately, as the red-color front panel LED indicates, the connectivity between it and the XAV5001 downstairs was sub-pa
This powerline bandwidth constraint was reflected in the transfer rate results … only ~4 Mbps downstream (along with ~10 Mbps upstream) when measured using Speakeasy’s Speed Test and connected to a server in Chicago, versus ~90 Mbps downstream/12 Mbps upstream with that same server over an alternative CAT5e connection.
So I obtained and then installed the XAV5001′s wireless access point generation companion, the XWN5001. I first confirmed that it was running the latest available firmware by logging into it via its built-in Web server and leveraging the convenient “check online” facility,
Downstream bandwidth to the access point was assessed by the utility as being 112 Mbps, while upstream was 62 Mbps. While from past experience I realized that real-life transfer rates would undershoot these rosy forecasts, I was still encouraged. And indeed, a revisit of the Speakeasy Speed Test resulted in ~25 Mbps downstream and ~12 Mbps upstream measurements
What was going on? After peering closely at the product specs, I had my likely answer. The PLA4231KIT was touted as delivering up-to-500 Mbps speeds, but the PLA4201 “mini” adapter included in it only embedded a 10/100 Mbps wired Ethernet transceiver. The NETGEAR XAV5001′s Ethernet transceiver, conversely, was of the more meaningful 10/100/1000 Mbps flavor, as was that in the ZyXEL PLA4205 tested in SmallNetBuilder’s survey.
This isn’t the first time I’ve encountered a product that’s flat-out incapable of meeting the specifications touted in its marketing materials.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Category 7A is the highest grade of
twisted-pair copper cabling supported by
a published performance standard. It is a
popular choice for the European market,
and it has been gaining significant
ground in the U.S. and other regions
such as Latin America. Ratified in 2010
by the International Organization for
Standardization (ISO) under Amendment
2 of ISO/IEC, 11801, 2nd edition,
category 7A (class FA) is a fully-shielded
system characterized up to a bandwidth
of 1000 megahertz (MHz).
ISO/IEC specifies two connector
options for category 7A—an RJ-style
connector as defined by IEC 60603-7-7
and a non-RJ-style connector as defined
by IEC 61073-3-104. The RJ-style connector
features internal category 6A
and 7A circuits. Its category 6A circuit is
backwards compatible in that it accepts
the 8-position, 8-contact (8p8c) RJ-style
modular plug interface used in category
6A and lower category cabling. Its category
7A circuit is activated by the insertion
of a special non-RJ-style plug that
engages with contacts located in the four
outside corners of the jack
The non-RJ-style connector features
an isolated quadrant contact design
(see Figure 2). It fits into a standard
RJ-45-sized modular jack opening
and is backwards compatible with
category 6A and lower category
cabling via hybrid patch cords.
Cable sharing is the practice of
running more than one application
over different pairs of a twistedpair
copper cable
Although the practice of cable
sharing has been accepted by telecommunications
professionals
for more than two decades and
was recognized in TIA and ISO
standards as early as 1991, cable
sharing did not start gaining
popularity until the adoption of
fully-shielded cabling systems like
category 7A. This is because the
amount of internal crosstalk
coupling
fully-shielded category
7A cabling guarantees that there is
sufficient noise isolation between
pairs to support multiple applications,
or the multiple appearance
of any one application, over a fourpair
channel.
Some standards, such as ISO/
IEC 15018, specifically recommend
that cable sharing be considered
when pathway space is limited and
identify the non-RJ-style category
7A interface (IEC 61073-3-104)
as the preferred connector style
for this application
When using the IEC 61076-
3-104 category 7A non-RJ-style
connector, up to four applications
can be shared over a single cable
in addition to
accepting a 4-pair cord, the non-
RJ-style outlet can also accept four
1-pair cords, two 2-pair cords, or a
combination of the two—without
the need for splitters or adapters.
Modular cords supporting cable
sharing are terminated on one end
with either a 1-, 2- or 4-pair non-
RJ-style connector
The other end of the
modular cord is terminated to
an appropriately wired interface
connector, such as an RJ-11 plug for
voice or an RJ-45 plug for Ethernet
Cords with integrated
baluns or modular connections to
F-type balun adapters can be used
for 1-pair video applications like
cable TV (CATV). In fact, class FA
is the appropriate grade of cabling
for supporting all channels of
digital CATV (up to approximately
700 MHz)
When designing cable sharing
solutions, it is critical to plan for
the types of applications to be
supported and understand their
equipment lifecycles. It is important
to ensure that the cabling
infrastructure can support future
applications and upgrades. As a
result, the recommended practice
for all cable sharing solutions is
to provide a minimum of one
dedicated outlet for data and one
outlet for other low-speed 1- and
2-pair applications.
“We typically would put four
outlets at each work area to support
a variety of applications, including
a coaxial outlet for video. We
need to keep track of the weather
and other important emergency
information via CATV, while also
supporting video for training
and digital signage,”
By deploying the non-RJstyle
category 7A connectors and
implementing cable sharing, the
Rock Hill Utilities Department was
able to significantly cut down on
the amount of cabling, outlets and
labor required. Through the use
of hybrid cords terminated to an
F-type connector and featuring an
integrated balun, they were also
able to eliminate the use of coax
to support CATV, surveillance and
other video applications on runs of
less than 175 feet.
“Rather than having four
outlets at each work area, we were
able to go down to just two,”
“By eliminating the extra outlets
and much of the coaxial cabling
for video, we were able to cut labor
costs in half,”
While category 8 may now
be on the horizon, category 7A
is an existing standards-based
system that provides the benefits
of cable sharing, higher bandwidth
capacity and EMI/RFI immunity
over 100 meters. Up to 1000 MHz,
proposed performance limits for
category 8 do not currently meet
those specified for category 7A.
The nearly finalized IEC 61076-3-
104, 3rd edition, will extend the
performance of the IEC 61073-
3-104 category 7A non-RJ-style
connector out to 2 GHz GHz—the same
frequency tentatively proposed for
category 8.
Source: https://www.google.fi/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCsQFjADahUKEwjA1vr0yufIAhUBWCwKHaQIDo0&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffiles.siemon.com%2Fshare-white_papers-pdf%2F14-03-31-cat7-cable-sharing.pdf&usg=AFQjCNEwd-vC5BRRZzoq92WRkY5o6WzFiw
More information:
http://www.encnn.com/design-training/RJ45/IEC%2060603-7-7-2006.pdf
https://www.bicsi.org/pdf/presentations/caribbean_11_10/4%20cat%207a%202%20steps%20ahead%20ma%20bicsi.pdf
Tomi Engdahl says:
Quantenna develops first 802.11ac 10G Wave 3 Wi-Fi product line and Freescale takes advantage
http://www.edn.com/design/analog/4440686/Quantenna-develops-first-802-11ac-10G-Wave-3-Wi-Fi-product-line-and-Freescale-takes-advantage?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20151029&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20151029&elq=cc74bb395b744beda3e349127e2de945&elqCampaignId=25469&elqaid=28962&elqat=1&elqTrackId=49c3e2be29c34f48b7eed846e3b4d94f
Quantenna Communications has developed the industry’s first 10G Wave 3 Wi-Fi product family. The products are built on Quantenna’s True 8×8 QSR10G Wi-Fi platform with multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO) technology for home wireless access points and residential gateways. Quantenna’s design has up-to-12-streams 10G Wave 3 in their product family which enables higher Wi-Fi performance, reliability and capacity for high-density environments, and is able to address both the service provider and retail market segments.
The best Wi-Fi radios in the market today, stack two 4×4 MIMO order radios for 5GHz and 2.4GHz to achieve a high-density wireless network design, have only half the spectral efficiency as True 8×8 used in the latest Quantenna design. In a two 4×4 stacked radio inside a single router, each radio will have to operate on a different channel giving the overall design half the spectral efficiency of Quantenna’s True 8×8 MIMO order, will use more power, cost more due to the need for additional RF filters and cannot be frequency agile.
In contrast, the True 8×8 MIMO design is fully compliant to IEEE 802.11ac which defines 8×8 and not dual radio stacking. Quantenna’s design has only one radio and is the most spectrally efficient design and it can use up to 8 antennas for beamforming, avoids costly RF filters and is capable of tuning to any channel. The total conducted power is only 1000mW.
10G Wave 3 is a revolutionary new way for Wi-Fi networks to operate.
The QSR10G Wave 3 product family also supports a unique adaptive MIMO architecture. This enables 10G Wave 3 access points to maximize overall network performance, delivering the best possible capacity across all client devices. This is important as the mix of legacy and new client devices are changing, as end consumers adopt more devices with 802.11ac
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google Project Loon Balloons To Blanket Indonesia With Internet
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/10/29/2242201/google-project-loon-balloons-to-blanket-indonesia-with-internet
Google’s Project Loon is set to deliver high-speed internet access to more than 100 million Indonesians. The Project Loon program will fly clusters of balloons as high as 60,000 feet above Earth to transmit high-speed Internet signals down to Earth at LTE speeds. Google has been working with mobile network operators; XL Axiata, Telkomsel, and Indosat.
Google Project Loon balloons to blanket Indonesia with Internet
http://www.thestar.com/business/2015/10/29/google-project-loon-balloons-to-blanket-indonesia-with-internet.html
Parent Alphabet’s plan is to broadcast signals to 17,000 islands via Internet hubs floating 18,000 metres high. Only 42 million of the archipelago nation’s 250 million citizens now have web access.
Google’s Internet-beaming balloons are ready to take off on the next phase of their mission to deliver online access in regions where most people live offline.
The balloons will begin hovering in the stratosphere above Indonesia in an expansion of the project announced Wednesday. About 250 million people live in the country composed of about 17,000 islands in that part of Southeast Asia, although only 42 million have Internet access, according to the CIA’s estimates.
Google’s 2-year-old “Project Loon” program aims to change that by transmitting high-speed Internet signals from clusters of balloons floating about 18,000 metres above the Earth.
Project Loon is still testing its technology, so there is still no estimate when it will start selling the Internet service to households and businesses within range of the balloons.
If things pan out as envisioned, Project Loon will deploy hundreds of balloons that serve as cell towers in the sky, invisible to the naked eye. To pull it off, the project’s engineers must choreograph a high-altitude dance, ensuring that as one balloon drifts out of a targeted territory’s Internet-receiving range, another one will float in to fill the void.
Project Loon says it plans to share revenue with telecommunications providers. Its pitch: Telecoms keep subscribers while Loon provides a cost-effective alternative to building new cell towers to reach other remote areas.
Google Project Loon To Service Internet To 100 Million In Indonesia
http://geekinspector.com/2415/news/google-project-loon-to-service-internet-to-100-million-in-indonesia
Google’s Project Loon program is finally ready to take off on the next phase of their mission to help deliver Internet access to about 200 million people in Indonesia that do not have access today.
Google has been working with Indonesia mobile network operators; XL Axiata, Telkomsel, and Indosat. The four have signed an agreement to begin testing Project Loon over Indonesia in 2016. Only about one third of Indonesia is connected to the Internet.
Tomi Engdahl says:
FCC under fire over TV, mobile broadband signal interference fears
Shouldn’t that have been considered before you set up the auction?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/27/fcc_takes_heat_interference_worries/
Staff at the FCC, America’s communications watchdog, have been accused of not doing enough to prevent TV broadcasts from interfering with mobile broadband signals.
This comes as television stations in the US prepare to auction off some of their radio frequencies, which can then be used by cellphone networks to extend their wireless broadband coverage.
The regulator published on Tuesday a plan for preventing interference between the TV stations that will sell their portions of the 600MHz band and the mobile networks that will end up using the frequencies.
The plan includes rules for separating and operating phone masts near television transmission stations so that the mobile networks do not prevent the transmission of television signals in a new limited 600MHz band.
Freeing up portions of the 600MHz space is key to the FCC’s upcoming 2016 spectrum auction. The sale will ask broadcasters to offer up their spectrum holdings in markets across the US for re-use as wireless broadband networks. The auction is expected to raise billions of dollars for the government.
Incentive Auction – Aggregate Interference ISIX 3R&O and 1st Recon
https://www.fcc.gov/document/incentive-auction-aggregate-interference-isix-3ro-and-1st-recon
Tomi Engdahl says:
5g-technology is still a lot of open
The manufacturers begin to develop consensus on the requirements of the new system
Standardization 5g mobile phone networks get started early next year, believe Ericsson and Nokia experts. No manufacturer does not yet know what 5g means exactly, but a common understanding has already been found: on future needs there is a surprisingly common vision
Now it seems that it would be an emerging international standard
Increasing the transmission capacity requires moving networks to increasingly higher frequencies. Kettunen believes that the network is built, at least more than six gigahertz frequencies, when the current 4G networks operate up to 2.6 gigahertz. Highest, talking about dense concentrations of up to millimeter waves, ie 30-90 GHz networks. At high frequencies the coverage area of the base station is small.
Source: http://summa.talentum.fi/article/tt/uutiset/5g-tekniikassa-on-viela-paljon-auki/231579
Tomi Engdahl says:
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
German mobile carrier Deutsche Telekom plans to charge startups for “guaranteed good transmission quality” of Internet under Europe’s new net neutrality rules
Carrier DT Targets Startups After Europe Agrees Net Neutrality Rules
http://techcrunch.com/2015/10/30/guaranteed-good-transmission-quality-vs-paid-prioritisation/
Well that was quick. Europe’s controversial new net neutrality rules haven’t even come into force yet and German mobile carrier Deutsche Telekom is suggesting it intends to charge startups to boost the quality of their services under the new rules — as many in the tech industry had feared.
One of the problems with the incoming rules, which will come into force on April 30, 2016, is their provision to allow for preferential treatment of Internet traffic for so called “specialized services”.
The EC has been couching these as “services like IPTV, high-definition videoconferencing or healthcare services like telesurgery” — which it says use the Internet protocol and the same access network but “require a significant improvement in quality or the possibility to guarantee some technical requirements to their end-users”.
Ergo it’s been trying to claim they are not the same as ‘normal’ Internet access services, whatever those might be.
Tomi Engdahl says:
US Military enlists radio hams to simulate fight with THE SUN
How to stop a Coronal Mass Ejection ending civilisation as we know it
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/11/02/mars_races_ares_to_do_battle_with_the_sun/
Nobody’s quite forgotten that a really big solar event can upset kit even as crude as a telegraph, so the US military is recruiting radio hams to help test its contingency plans.
The exercise will happen between November 8 and November 10 (US time), when operators will be asked to practice what to do before and after the Sun belches plasma and an electromagnetic field into space after a major coronal mass ejection (CME).
The Military Auxiliary Radio System (MARS) is looking to the Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) and Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Services (RACES) groups.
America’s national association for amateur radio (ARRL) says the exercise will focus on developing the “interface with the greater amateur radio community”.
The exercise will simulate a radio blackout and infrastructure damage, starting with three hours of silence, after which stations will start coming back on air (and, as would be the case if such an event happened for real, demanding information as soon as they could talk).
Tomi Engdahl says:
How a group of neighbors created their own Internet service
Powered by radios in trees, homegrown network serves 50 houses on Orcas Island.
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/11/how-a-group-of-neighbors-created-their-own-internet-service/
When you live somewhere with slow and unreliable Internet access, it usually seems like there’s nothing to do but complain. And that’s exactly what residents of Orcas Island, one of the San Juan Islands in Washington state, were doing in late 2013. Faced with CenturyLink service that was slow and outage-prone, residents gathered at a community potluck and lamented their current connectivity.
“Everyone was asking, ‘what can we do?’” resident Chris Brems recalls. “Then [Chris] Sutton stands up and says, ‘Well, we can do it ourselves.’”
Faced with a local ISP that couldn’t provide modern broadband, Orcas Island residents designed their own network and built it themselves. The nonprofit Doe Bay Internet Users Association (DBIUA), founded by Sutton, Brems, and a few friends, now provide Internet service to a portion of the island. It’s a wireless network with radios installed on trees and houses in the Doe Bay portion of Orcas Island. Those radios get signals from radios on top of a water tower, which in turn receive a signal from a microwave tower across the water in Mount Vernon, Washington.
“I think people were leery whether we could be able to actually do it, seeing as nobody else could get better Internet out here,” Sutton said.
But the founders believed in the project, and the network went live in September 2014. DBIUA has grown gradually, now serving about 50 homes.
“It wasn’t that hard”
Back in 2013, CenturyLink service was supposed to provide up to 1.5Mbps downloads speeds, but in reality we “had 700kbps sometimes, and nothing at others,”
That 10-day outage in November 2013 wasn’t a fluke.
But since equipping the island with DBIUA’s wireless Internet, outages have been less frequent and “there are times we’re doing 30Mbps down and 40Mbps up,” Brems said. “It’s never been below 20 or 25 unless we had a problem.”
Unlike many satellite and cellular networks, there is no monthly data cap for DBIUA users.
“The part of Orcas Island we’re on looks back toward the mainland,” Sutton said. “We can see these towers that are 10 miles away, and you realize, ‘hey, can’t we just get our own microwave link up here to us from down there, and then do this little hop from house to house to house via wireless stuff?’”
The DBIUA paid StarTouch Broadband Services about $11,000 to supply a microwave link from a tower on the mainland to a radio on top of Doe Bay’s water tower
Sutton and friends set up Ubiquiti radios throughout the area, on trees and on top of people’s houses, to get people online. Sutton used Google Earth to map out the paths over which wireless signals would travel, and then the team conducted on-the-ground surveys to determine whether one point could reach another.
The rural Orcas Island has a lot of hills and obstacles that could disrupt the wireless signals, and it would have been “prohibitively expensive” for DBIUA to install its own towers. As such, many of the radios had to be installed in trees. Sutton had a solution for this as well—DBIUA would use a drone to determine whether a radio on a treetop could reach other points of the network.
Most homes in the network have a radio on the roof or the side of the house that points to one of about 10 relay points, which have multiple radios for receiving and distributing signals. Relay points themselves can be on a tree, a pole, or on the side of a house.
A tree will generally have a box with DBIUA equipment, and Power over Ethernet (POE) cables going up the tree to the radios. POE cable also goes from the box “back to the closest power source, usually in someone’s home, and we can then provide that home a connection to the network,” Sutton explained. “In the person’s home is the power brick that puts power into the Ethernet cable,” providing electricity to the outdoor equipment. The system uses low-voltage power, with each radio requiring about eight watts.
The network uses 5.8GHz and 900MHz frequencies, and a little bit of 3.65GHz, mostly avoiding the crowded 2.4GHz band. All the connections need line-of-sight, “especially for 5.8GHz,” since the higher frequencies are more easily blocked, Sutton said.
There are now about 200 radios spread throughout the coverage area, and each homeowner who pays for service has a Wi-Fi router in the home to access the Internet.
It can be done
Though DBIUA’s Internet service is a rarity, there are similar projects elsewhere. Brooklyn Fiber in New York was founded by two brothers to sell Internet access to the community. A volunteer project called the Red Hook Initiative buys Internet service from Brooklyn Fiber in order to provide free Wi-Fi.
In Germany, residents of a small town called Löwenstedt built their own Internet service. One Ars reader who lives in Norway personally installed fiber lines to his own property.
“There’s actually a thriving global network of community wireless initiatives—many of whom stay in regular touch and swap information on recent software advances, promising hardware, and innovative business models,”
While CenturyLink is the main ISP on Orcas Island, a company owned by Orcas Power & Light Co-op (OPALCO) is building out a fiber network in the San Juan County islands. That company says construction will cost “$1,500 to $6,000 on average” for each home, and residents would be responsible for anything beyond the first $1,500.
DBIUA charges much less, but even its low prices “can be significant depending on your income,”
DBIUA spent about $25,000 in total to build the network, and an anonymous resident provided the money in a 3-year, interest-free loan. Residents paid $150 to become members of the DBIUA and $75 a month for Internet service, which goes toward paying down the loan. The monthly fees also cover the $900 a month DBIUA pays StarTouch for bandwidth.
“We’re not making any money here, we’re just covering our costs,”
To prevent Internet slowdown, DBIUA builds slowly
DBIUA isn’t adding customers as fast as it can. Customers who signed up from the beginning got first priority.
A smooth ride—most of the time
The network has run perfectly for long stretches of time, requiring little more than basic maintenance. But there have been occasional glitches.
This past summer, Sutton was named the Doe Bay Community Association Patriot of the Year at the Fourth of July celebration. “In the past 18 months, he has literally driven every back road, climbed countless tall trees and run hundreds of sight lines…,”
“I think so many other communities could do this themselves,” he said. “There does require a little bit of technical expertise but it’s not something that people can’t learn. I think relying on corporate America to come save us all is just not going to happen, but if we all get together and share our resources, communities can do this themselves and be more resilient.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Net neutrality debate: If startups want to rival Google, they must show some green to telcos
So says the CEO of Deutsche Telekom, a, er, telco giant
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/30/deutsche_telekom_starts_tiered_pricing/
Just a few days after new net neutrality rules were passed by the European Parliament, the CEO of Deutsche Telekom has revived fears over how “loopholes” will lead to an unequal internet.
As head of one of Europe’s largest telcos, Timotheus Höttges was not a big fan of efforts to make it illegal for his company to differentiate between certain types of traffic going across its networks.
The rules were passed “against our wishes” he noted in a blog post this week, and will serve simply as “more regulation.”
But all is not lost, thanks to “specialized services” that were written into the rules by the European Commission – largely as a result of extensive telco lobbying – but which form one of the four “loopholes” that critics say threatens to undermine the rules.
“Why are these special services needed on the net?” he posits. “The Internet is multifaceted, and creates services that nobody could have imagined until recently. From video conferences, online gaming, telemedicine, and automated traffic management, through to self-driving cars and connected production processes in industry. All these services have different, in some cases more demanding quality requirements than simple surfing or emails that can arrive a few milliseconds later.”
The European Commission went to similar lengths during discussions to paint “specialized services” as something on the edges of the market, such as high-definition videoconferencing or telesurgery.
But Höttges then starts to push a much broader and more mainstream definition of these “specialist” offerings, including email, video streaming, and even simple booking services.
“Quality differentiation on the Internet has long been common practice,” he wrote. “Users can decide for themselves the level of service they want, and what this service is worth to them: additional storage space for emails, for instance, costs extra, just as do enhanced search functions on Xing and LinkedIn, or videos in HD instead of SD quality. In future there will also be the option of booking a service with assured quality in exchange for a few more euros. Quality differentiation is by no means a revolution on the Internet, but natural development.”
What critics will note is that taking such a broad definition provides telcos with a significant financial incentive to charge a large array of companies more for higher-quality data transmission.
“The Internet is certainly more than just a virtual marketplace,” he notes. “It has an important social function as a medium for information and participation. It must therefore remain free, open and non-discriminatory … As a result, the free and open Internet now has a legal basis and a guaranteed future.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
FCC hits Hilton with fine over WiFi jamming probe
http://www.slashgear.com/fcc-hits-hilton-with-fine-over-wifi-jamming-probe-02412612/
The Federal Communications Commission has proposed that Hilton Worldwide Holdings, Inc. be hit with a $25,000 fine for reportedly obstructing a probe into whether it was jamming guests’ WiFi hotspots. In addition, the FCC has ordered Hilton to “immediately provide essential information” detailing its WiFI practices, and has threatened to increase the penalties if the company delays or obstructs the process in any way.
The FCC detailed the legal matter today. According to a statement, the FCC says it received a complaint about a Hilton property located in Anaheim, California, which was reportedly blocking guests’ WiFi hotspots and instead charging $500 to access the hotel’s own WiFi network. This is only one of multiple similar complaints the commission says it has received.
This isn’t the first instance of alleged (and confirmed) WiFi blocking actions by companies charging outrageous access fees for its own WiFi. Marriott, for example, was previously hit with a massive fine for similar actions.