Networking

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The Elon Musk-fronted SpaceX has told an Australian parliamentary committee that it could begin to offer its Starlink broadband services to the nations external territories as early as 2022, while much of Australia will be covered in “early 2021”.
“Certain more proximate islands within the external territories, notably the Ashmore, Cartier, and Coral Sea Islands, could be served by early 2022, when SpaceX has more fully populated its satellite constellation with ongoing launches and with the establishment of gateway earth stations at proximate mainland locations,” the company said in a submission to the Joint Standing Committee on the National Capital and External Territories’ Availability and access to enabling communications infrastructure in Australia’s external territories inquiry.
In order to fully cover Australia’s external territories, SpaceX would need more polar-orbiting satellites with “space-based lasers”. The company launched its first 10 polar-orbiting satellites last month.
“The more remote islands and the southernmost Heard Island and McDonald Islands will require deployment of polar-orbiting satellites employing inter-satellite optical links, a technology that allows customers to be even farther removed from supporting ground infrastructure,” SpaceX said.
“More satellites on orbit are needed in order to provide continuous services to those locations, likely nearer to the end of 2022.”
At the end of last year, SpaceX was among the purchasers of area-wide apparatus licences for 5G millimetre wave spectrum across Australia.
While geostationary satellites have latency in the order of 600-800ms, those in low Earth orbit can provide 20-40ms of latency. Starlink users last year were seeing internet speeds of 134Mbps.

“These new satellite networks are expected to be capable of providing cost-effective, high-speed backhaul which to date has been a barrier to delivering high speed fixed and mobile services to remote communities and territories,” Australian telco Pivotel wrote in a submission.
“Providers such as Pivotel will be in a position to launch 4G and 5G mobile networks together with high-speed wireless internet access to the home or premise, using small cells powered by battery-backed renewable energy sources like solar and/or wind. Small cells connected over low latency high-speed data links opens up the possibility of servicing the most remote locations with affordable, high speed and low latency mobile and broadband connectivity, comparable to what is available in urban areas.”
However, the Norfolk Island Regional Council is pushing for the island to return to the way it was, which means restoring a cable connection to the island, this is despite the island have its own NBN Sky Muster spot beam.
The council has spent AU$8 million over five years on satellite connectivity, and for its money, it gets a 113/37Mbps primary link with a 20/4Mbps redundant link. Norfolk Island previously had a cable connection, but it was cut. The island still has a cable landing station, and in 2003 the Australian government paid to have an “extensive underground” fibre to the node network installed, which now uses satellite backhaul.
In its submission, the council pushed for a branch off the Hawaiki cable that links Australia, New Zealand, and the United States.
Council said the island was previously offered the chance to connect in 2016 with 100Mbps of guaranteed bandwidth, but it was not taken up.
“In return for a (one off) ~AU$14m investment (plus on-going costs), Norfolk Island would have received a branch of approximately 90km long, unrepeated (unpowered) 2 fibre pairs branch with a design capacity of 100Gbps. This opportunity did not proceed, and efforts for improved connectivity have continued ever since,” it said.
“The last proposal was put forward to the island in 2020.”
Consequently, any branching on the cable will be further away and have to rely on the New Caledonia branching unit, but the window on that opportunity is closing.
Hawaiki, in concert with Vocus, said in a submission that the now approximately 400km long branch would cost around $27 million, which could be lowered if synchronised with rolling out other branches.
“The only constraint is the timing: A decision would need to be taken before New Caledonia builds their branch. Once the New Caledonia branch design is finalised (expected Q2 2021), there will be no future opportunities to connect Norfolk Island to the Hawaiki cable,” the submission said.
Another option could be the Chilean-backed Asia-South America Digital Gateway (ASADG) cable that would land in Chile, New Zealand, and Australia, and provide 270Tb of bandwidth.
“Vocus estimates that a connection to Norfolk Island as part of the ASADG initiative would cost ~$23.2 million, based on the assumption of 583km of cable to be manufactured and installed as a spur from the main ‘trunk’ cable’,” it said.
“A spur from the ASADG cable would cost approximately one-third as much as a stand-alone cable from Sydney to Norfolk Island, estimated at ~$74.9 million for 1,700km of cable. This estimate is based on the current indicative ASADG route and does not assume any adjustment to the main cable, which could potentially reduce the length, and cost, of the spur to Norfolk Island.”
Vocus said funding decisions for the cable would be made in the second quarter, and once the design was finalised, Norfolk Island would not have another opportunity to be a part of it.
In its submission, the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications provided a glimpse of the state of connectivity on Norfolk Island.
“As of December 2020, there were 804 premises on Norfolk Island with an active NBN service. Across the 2020 calendar year 54 service faults were recorded. NBN Co’s [business satellite] services are not currently available on Norfolk Island,” it said.
“Many residents have both NBN Sky Muster and Norfolk Telecom ADSL services to provide redundancy if one service is not working. Some Norfolk Island premises have their own commercial satellite service agreements and dishes.”
Although the department said a cable would improve connectivity, it baulked at the “high cost both in absolute terms and per head of population”.
“While a submarine cable connection could provide Norfolk Island with high-bandwidth, low-latency backhaul not subject to disruption from weather and atmospheric conditions, the cost to lay and connect submarine cables is typically relatively high and the benefit relatively isolated compared to a satellite system that can service a much larger population,” it said.
“In other contexts, submarine cable operators have identified that the useful life of a submarine cable is about 25 years, and if cable was funded replacement capital would need to be factored in.
“Users of a cable’s capacity would also be subject to ongoing access fees and charges from the cable operator. Additionally … the condition of the existing network connecting premises on Norfolk Island would limit the quality of services available.”
Firmly in the pro-satellite camp, due to it running its own fleet, Optus pushed for the territories to remain dependent on space-based connectivity.
“Optus believes the territories could act as a test-bed environment for the government to satisfy itself as to the performance and reliability of satellite technology. If proven successful, this trial could be expanded to include those geographical areas serviced under the Universal Service Obligation in mainland Australia,” the telco said.
“Satellite connectivity would offer the greatest value for government whilst providing the broadest and most reliable form of network coverage to consumers and would serve as an effective alternative to subsea cables or other access technologies.”
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T-Mobile delivered better-than-expected fourth quarter financial results on Thursday, with the wireless carrier touting record postpaid phone net customer additions and progress in post-merger synergies with Sprint.

T-Mobile said Q4 earnings were $750 million, or 60 cents per share, on revenue of $20.3 billion. Wall Street was looking for fourth-quarter earnings of 51 cents a share on revenue of $19.9 billion.
The carrier added 1.7 million net additions in the fourth quarter, along with 1.6 million postpaid. T-Mobile’s postpaid churn came in at 1.03%, a slight increase for the company.
For the year, T-Mobile said non-GAAP earnings came to $2.65 per share on revenue of $68.4 billion. Analysts were expecting the company to report fiscal 2020 revenue of $67.7 billion on earnings of $2.70 per share.
By the numbers:
The company ended the quarter and fiscal year with 102.1 million customers.
For full-year 2020, total net customer additions were 5.6 million, with 5.5 million postpaid.
T-Mobile added 824,000 branded postpaid phone net additions in Q4, and 2.2 million for the full year.
Branded prepaid additions were 84,000 in Q4.
Service revenue in the fourth quarter was $14.2 billion and $50.4 billion in full-year 2020, driven by the Sprint merger.
T-Mobile said it covers 280 million people with Extended Range 5G.
For 2021, T-Mobile said it plans to add 4 million to 4.7 million branded postpaid net customers. Adjusted EBITDA will be between $26.5 billion and $27 billion.
On its Sprint synergies, the company said it delivered $1.3 billion of synergies in full-year 2020, exceeding its guidance from last quarter. Meanwhile, customer network migrations began in the fourth quarter and more than 4 million have been completed, the carrier said. Once the migrations are complete, T-Mobile will fully decommission and shut down the Sprint network.
“These results show that we’re pulling way ahead of the pack on what matters – overall 5G network performance – and executing to stay ahead,” said Mike Sievert, CEO of T-Mobile. “2020 was quite simply our best year yet, with our highest ever total postpaid net additions of 5.5 million. Our team delivered – leading the industry on customer growth, while being the only major player to grow profitability as well, with our synergy-backed business model.”

Shares of T-Mobile were down just over 1% after hours.

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Can you really buy a month’s worth of quality web hosting for less than the price of a Starbucks Grande cappuccino? Indeed you can, as we discovered when researching the web hosting services in this buyer’s guide. The average advertised monthly price for the 10 hosting providers we looked at is a low, low $3.19 — just add content.

We also discovered, when we looked a little closer at the details of those cheap web hosting plans, that three of the immutable laws of bargains still apply here. If a deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Always check the fine print. And, most important of all: You get what you pay for.
You’re an ideal candidate for the services we review here if you already have experience with web hosting and don’t need much hand-holding. If you lack those technical skills, consider hiring a designer/consultant who has the requisite background, and let them help with the comparison.
The listings that follow offer a starting point for your research and do not represent hands-on reviews or formal recommendations. All information was accurate as of February 2021, but details can change on a moment’s notice. Because the details of promotional prices and hosting plans vary so greatly, we haven’t included prices in the capsule listings that follow and instead recommend that you compare prices and plans carefully based on your long-term needs. Our goal is to provide the information you need to build a shortlist and then evaluate and compare alternatives, ideally using the trial period each provider offers.

Makes it easy to get started

Customer Support: Phone, chat, ticket available 24/7/365
Backup: Complimentary backups are provided for accounts up to 50GB “on a best effort basis.” Each weekday backup is kept for seven days, each Sunday backup is retained for a month. Options for manual backups include full server, home directory, MySQL databases, and email forwarders/filters.
Security: SSL support is free, via Let’s Encrypt, and two-factor authentication is standard. Out-of-date version detection is included, with WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal installations patched automatically.
A2 (the name is a shout-out to the company’s home in Ann Arbor, Michigan) makes it easy to get started, with free migration, one-click Softaculous installers for a wide range of software packages, and “optimized” WordPress installations. Website building software is included with all shared plans. Non-promo pricing of the high-performance Turbo Boost and Turbo Max tiers ranges from $21 to $26 a month, compared to $11 for the Startup tier.
View Now at A2 Hosting

Platform runs two million website

Customer Support: Available via call and chat, 24/7.
Backup: Automated backups are not free; instead, you can pay $2.99 per month for Codeguard, a site backup tool that does unlimited daily backups of your websites.
Security: Two-factor authentication is standard, and free SSL certificates are offered via Let’s Encrypt.
In business since 2005, Bluehost claims that its platform runs two million websites. Shared hosting plans above the basic level include one Microsoft Office 365 Email Essentials license, which is free for the first month. The company offers three tiers of managed WordPress hosting, with hundreds of free WordPress themes and a high-end option geared to online shopping. For $150, you can transfer up to five sites and up to 20 email accounts from another provider. The Weebly website builder is standard for all customers.
View Now at Bluehost

Full range of higher-end plans available too

Customer Support: Support is available 24/7, but live chat is limited to 5:30am to 9:30pm (Pacific Time) and phone support is via callback.
Backup: Automated daily backups are retained for two weeks.
Security: Two-factor authentication is standard. Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates are free on shared plans; Comodo certificates start at $15 a year. The DreamShield malware scanner costs $3 per month per domain, and you’ll pay $199 for assistance in cleaning up a hacked website.
You won’t find any introductory pricing here. Instead, the low prices come with three-year commitments. Shared plans come in only two options: Starter (one website, email is an extra charge) and Unlimited (as many websites and email accounts as you wish). For those shared plans, there’s a 97-day money-back guarantee. The company also has a full range of higher-end plans, including managed WordPress, VPS, and dedicated server offerings. Site transfer is included with managed WordPress plans and costs $99 with shared hosting plans.
View Now at DreamHost

Generic hosting provider

Customer Support: Phone and live chat options are available 24/7/365 via phone and LiveChat.
Backup: Daily CodeGuard backups and weekly offsite backups are included.
Security: Two-factor authentication is not available. Server monitoring is standard.
If we were looking for a generic hosting provider, we found it here. The prices are competitive, and you get free site transfers and a decent website builder package with every plan. The “QuickInstall” feature allows one-click access to tons of apps. We like the no-contract policy and the 45-day money-back guarantee.
View Now at HostGator

Absolute lowest introductory prices

Customer Support: We were slightly put off by the lack of live chat for new customer inquiries, and a customer service rep confirmed that phone service is not available; instead, customers get live chat and email support options.
Backup: Daily backups are standard.
Security: Two-factor authentication is not available. Most of the security features they highlight are intended to protect against DDoS attacks.
Hostinger has some of the absolute lowest introductory prices we’ve seen, with limited-time offers starting at 99 cents per month. Their website builder is limited, but the templates we saw looked well designed. They also boast of cutting-edge “Next Generation Tech,” such as “customizable server-level caching solutions that can serve up to 3x more requests per second” and data centers in seven global locations. That’s an odd mix, but we suspect it will be appealing to tech-driven bargain hunters.
View Now at Hostinger

Entry-level tiers include strict limitations

Customer Support: The support center offers an almost overwhelming number of options, but traditional chat, phone, and ticket options are available for customers.
Backup: Automated backups are an option, “available at checkout.”
Security: Two-factor authentication is standard.
InMotion Hosting’s landing page features a list of reasonable price tags on a wide range of plans (“no hidden – anything”), with commitments to open source and investments in technology like PCI compliance, as well as the promise of a U.S.-based customer service team. Entry-level tiers include strict limitations on the number of websites and allowed storage. Management tools include a CPanel option that’s different from most. Free “no downtime” transfers are available. The BoldGrid website builder package is free with all plans, or you can pay $99 for a custom-built QuickStarter website with a promised 2-day turnaround.
View Now at InMotion Hosting

One-size-fits-all options perfect for SMBs

Customer Support: 24/7 phone and chat support is standard.
Backup: Backup plans are an extra-cost option, with Basic and Pro tiers ranging from $1.27 to $2.99 per month based on contract length.
Security: Two-factor authentication is not available.
iPage has been around for more than two decades and offers one-size-fits-all options that are perfect for any small business that has a hard time making decisions. The $1.99 per month starting rate resets to a not-too-painful $7.99 tariff when the introductory period ends. The free web-builder software offers hundreds of themes but supports a maximum of six pages. The VDeck control panel might confuse anyone expecting the generic CPanel option (see this review for a detailed comparison).
View Now at iPage

Reliable provider of low-cost domain name registration

Customer Support: Support is quick via a chat and ticket system. We couldn’t find a phone number for support calls.
Backup: This is the most thorough backup regimen we’ve seen, with a rotating schedule that retains the most recent six daily backups, three weekly backups, and 11 monthly backups. Email accounts are backed up, too.
Security: Two-factor authentication (with TOTP support) is standard. SSL certificates are free for the first year.
Wait, Namecheap does web hosting? As longtime customers, we had the same reaction, given the company’s long reputation as a reliable provider of low-cost domain name registration services (thus the name). But you will indeed find a full range of services here. The lowest tier is extremely basic, with no backups and metered bandwidth. But other offerings, especially the EasyWP managed WordPress plans, deliver a competitive mix of features and prices. Namecheap is famous for its Black Friday specials; if you’re attracted to their offerings, we suggest marking your calendar and checking for deals in late November.
View Now at Namecheap

Normal prices after the first year can cause sticker shock

Customer Support: SiteGround offers 24/7 chat, phone options, and a ticket system. In our experience, the chat system offers extremely quick response times.
Backup: Free daily backups are retained for 30 days; on-demand backups (up to five at a time) are available on the mid-high tiers.
Security: Two-factor authentication is standard. Let’s Encrypt SSL support is free and standard. The company has a long history of attention to security and it shows in its approach to updates.
Full disclosure: We’re longtime SiteGround customers, so our descriptions here are based on firsthand experience and not feature tables. The company’s introductory prices are attractive, but the normal prices after the first year can cause sticker shock for some. Higher tiers offer some impressive performance tweaking tools. One-click WordPress transfers are free; professional transfers (managed by an actual person) are also free above the basic tiers. A new client area offers “friendly site tools” with an easier interface for databases, email account creation, and other normally intimidating tasks. This interface can replace the traditional CPanel.
View Now at SiteGround
Is the price right?
All the above web hosting providers are well-established companies, and at a glance, they all promise pretty much the same entry-level offerings. The cheapest plans offer shared hosting for an introductory price of a few dollars a month. So, what’s the catch?
For starters, these plans offer storage space and bandwidth on servers that are shared with other customers. The more sites that share a single server, the more likely your visitors are to encounter slow performance; shared servers also offer a greater risk of security breaches.
Some of the low, low prices you see on the landing page for these web hosting services are introductory offers. When the promotional period ends, the regular prices can be significantly higher. 

Likewise, the low advertised price might require a lengthy commitment. At HostGator, for example, the advertised starting prices range from $2.75 to $5.95 a month, but when you click the Buy button, you’ll see that those rates are for a three-year contract. If you’d rather go for a month-to-month deal, the price ranges go up dramatically, to $10.95 to $16.95, which is also the price you agree to pay when the promo period ends.
Another common gimmick is the “limited time” offer: Buy now before the price goes up! Some of the hosting providers we checked out included a countdown clock on the home page. When we went back a few days later for a second fact-checking pass, the countdown clock had been magically reset.
Those prices might still be a good value, but you’ll have to dig a bit to make accurate long-term comparisons.
Upsells and options
Those dirt-cheap teaser rates are designed to lure you in, and some web hosting providers are not shy about making up the difference by charging extra for features like backup and site migration; here, too, you’ll have to factor those costs in before you can make an informed choice.
A low-cost shared hosting plan is probably good enough for a personal website. It’s also adequate for a basic business site whose main purpose is to serve as an online calling card and a landing page for visitors who want to know more about your organization. It’s not a good choice for a site that occasionally needs to handle large spikes in traffic or e-commerce.
If you choose a cheap plan, expect regular upsell offers for more full-featured (and significantly more expensive) plans. Those upsells come in a wide range of plans. Some of the most popular include these:
Website builder tools Typically, you don’t get much hand-holding with these services, as you might with turnkey solutions like Wix, Squarespace, or Wordpress.com. Some hosting providers do offer wizard-driven tools that allow less technical sophisticated customers to build a site by pointing and clicking. DreamHost, for example, offers its theme-based Remixer tool as part of a shared hosting plan.
Managed WordPress hosting Most of the companies listed here have a managed WordPress offering that insulates customers from the chore of managing the underlying web server or installing and maintaining their own WordPress instance. Most such offerings include a selection of ready-made themes; others include WordPress-oriented website builders.
Virtual private servers (VPS) In the bare-bones shared hosting environments, multiple tenants share the hardware and software resources of a single server. In a VPS, multiple tenants share the physical server hardware, but each server instance is isolated from the others using virtualization software, with resources (memory and storage, for example) assigned directly to the VPS. This configuration ensures that performance remains consistent, regardless of what’s happening with other sites that share the physical server hardware. It also dramatically reduces the likelihood of security issues that can affect accounts in a shared hosting environment. This type of solution can be managed or unmanaged, and costs significantly more than a shared hosting plan. 
Dedicated servers This is the most expensive option of all, with physical hardware dedicated to a specific customer and not shared with other accounts. This option is most appropriate for high-traffic websites that can’t afford any downtime, but the price is far from cheap. At A2 Hosting, for example, the non-promotional price for a managed dedicated server starts at $200 a month, compared to $70 for a managed VPS, and $11 for a basic shared hosting plan.
Other evaluation criteria
When choosing a hosting package, there’s more to consider than just a low price and a feature table packed with checkmarks. We considered a wide range of extra factors that can be crucial when it comes time to separate contenders on your shortlist of hosting providers.
Let’s start with the most important factor of all: A money-back guarantee. Every provider we surveyed offers at least 30 days during which you can try the service risk-free. DreamHost has a 97-day “zero risk” guarantee for its shared hosting plans, and A2 Hosting offers a full refund for the first 30 days and a pro-rated refund for unused service after 30 days. We strongly recommend taking advantage of that trial period to test the following factors:
Customer support How many contact options does the provider offer for the plan you’ve chosen? If phone support isn’t available and email and ticket-based systems are the primary mechanism for problem resolution, how quickly does the support team respond?
Bandwidth and storage For shared hosting plans, most providers offer “unlimited” data transfers and storage, but there’s invariably a page full of fine print that requires you to abide by “reasonable” restrictions and acceptable-use policies. More expensive plans typically include hard limits on storage and monthly data transfer.
Backup Every provider offers the ability to create manual backups and download them to local storage, but automated online backups are the most reliable way to recover from a disaster such as a sitewide compromise. Most hosting providers offer automatic backups, but some charge extra. Bluehost, for example, offers the Codeguard site-backup tool for an extra $2.99 per month. Be sure to check the retention policy to see how long backups are preserved.
Performance As a rule, the less you pay for a shared hosting plan, the more likely you are to encounter slow page loads, because those low-cost plans typically cluster more shared accounts on the server. The simplest way to boost speed is to choose a higher-priced storage plan, especially one like A2 Hosting’s Turbo plan, which includes support for caching and HTTP/2. Also, look for content delivery network options such as Cloudflare.
Security Every provider brags about its secure infrastructure, and as a solitary customer, it’s impossible to put those claims to the test. You can, however, look for basic security best practices. Does the provider offer multi-factor authentication? Are crucial software packages updated automatically, or are you required to stay on top of updates yourself? How easy is it to add SSL support, and how much does it cost to renew a certificate? Ask the support department whether they will assist if your website is hacked, and if so, how much the repair will cost.
Email and domain options Several providers offer free domain registration as part of a hosting package, but of course, the cost of that registration is built into the bill for the plan itself. And don’t expect to find any loopholes: Every provider that we checked with will assess a fee to recover that registration cost if you cancel your plan and try to transfer the domain. In addition, you can expect basic web-based email options from every provider, with some offering more advanced features. If email is important, make sure to test those offerings during the free trial period.
More resources:
Susan Preston of Clearly Presentable, a New Mexico-based website and presentation design firm, provided research assistance for these listings.  

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A government scheme that aimed to roll out faster broadband to ‘commercially unviable’ parts of the UK lead to a surge in home values of up to £3,500, according to a review published by the UK’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport.  
The review found the superfast broadband program “led to an increase in house prices (of between £1,700 and £3,500) suggesting that buyers valued the technology.” The price rise was observed between 2012 and 2019. 
“This estimate represents how much house buyers valued access to a superfast broadband connection, accounting for many of the programme’s indirect effects such as enabling greater remote working and reducing commuting times,” the government said.
Superfast broadband is defined as a minimum of 30 megabits per second. But while those speeds are available to 96% of homes in the UK, only 60% of premises have taken up this level service, UK communications authority Ofcom reported in December. 
Digital Secretary Oliver Dowden said in a statement today that this meant 11 million homes in the UK haven’t upgraded to superfast broadband, despite it being available. 
“96% of us can now access superfast broadband, but 11 million homes are still missing out on faster speeds available in their area,” said Dowden. 
“I encourage anyone fed up with slow loading times or shaky video calls to check with their provider or an online switching service and see if they can join the superfast lane.”

Given the pandemic and the uptick in remote work and remote schooling, households should be looking at superfast broadband even without the increase in to a house’s value. 
But if only 60% of households have taken up superfast broadband, what does this mean for the new £5 billion “Gigabit Britain” program that would enable 1,000 Mbps? As Ofcom recently noted, 20% or 4.7 million UK households struggled to pay for telecoms bills.  
Initially, the plan was to bring gigabit speeds to the whole country by 2025, but the goal was recently revised to target 85% coverage by 2025. 
The £5 billion was the government’s contribution to bringing Gigabit broadband to the 20% of the hardest to reach regions. The private sector would fund 80% of Gigabit coverage, while the the government would subsidise the remaining 20%.   
According to Ofcom, Gigabit broadband is currently available to 7.9 million homes in the UK, amounting to about 27% coverage. 
But the pandemic and new applications could mean Gigabit broadband would be in higher demand by the time it is rolled out more widely. Ofcom found that average monthly data used increased by 80% in two years to 429 GB per connection in 2020, up from 241 GB in 2018.   More

13 months after the residents of the East Gippsland town of Mallacoota were evacuated by the Royal Australian Navy to flee devastating bushfires, the town is able to use the NBN again.
The company responsible for the National Broadband Network has spent the past twelve months restoring a 60 kilometre transit link to get the town back on the NBN.
“Following the massive rebuild, approximately 1,000 premises in Mallacoota are now ready to connect to the National Broadband Network” Communications Minister Paul Fletcher said on Thursday.
“The bushfires last year melted the backhaul cable which completely cut off connectivity to the community.
“Following the fires, new fibre optic cable has been constructed underground, providing greater resilience than deploying via aerial cable.”
The black summer bushfires of 2019-2020 impacted 1% of all NBN services, the company said in June last year.
“12% (or 6,367 services) of all services impacted were directly impacted by fire over the duration of the bushfires,” the company said at the time.

“The remaining services were impacted by power outages as a result of the bushfires.”
In December, NBN unveiled its first disaster satellite service at Namadgi in the Australian Capital Territory.
The broadband wholesaler said it wanted to have 95 sites operating by the end of 2020, including 18 across Victoria, but residents of New South Wales and the Northern Territory would need to wait until this year for the facilities.
In May, Australia’s telco and network builders were pencilled in for AU$37 million that would be spent by the government to improve network resiliency against natural disasters.
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Image: eddygaleotti / Getty Images
On Wednesday, someone over at the Greens Idea-Thinking Collective had a rush of blood to the head. Their solution to this whole tech company versus media company drama? A publicly owned and independent search engine.
A statement from Greens spokesperson for media and communications Senator Sarah Hanson-Young called on the Morrison Government to investigate the establishment of a publicly-owned search engine.
Let’s save everyone a great deal of bother. Here’s what building a non-profit Australian search engine would entail.
At its core, a search engine is just a key-value database lookup. The key is your set of search terms. The values it returns are the URLs of web pages that contain those search terms.
The sort order of those results is … well … OK, it’s a very complicated ranking function. It takes into account some secret-sauce perceived relevance and quality ratings, and returns a different sort order for different search terms.
With sophisticated search engines, it even takes into account your location, knowledge of your interests, what other people have been searching for, and much more.
You have to account for synonyms, where someone searching for “truck” probably also wants the results with “lorry”.

You also have to account for context. Is a search for “cardinal” about the bird, or a sports team, or the senior clergy of the Catholic Church, or a compass direction, or a mathematical concept, or the 1963 film directed by Otto Preminger, or the 2017-2020 TV series, or the watch retailer in Stanmore, Sydney?
Or the American indie pop duo founded by musicians Richard Davies and Eric Matthews in 1992?
So it’s “just” a database lookup, but a really, really complicated one.
Putting aside that complexity, and the fact that Google has a 22-year head start on understanding it, let’s look at the engineering.
‘First, download the internet …’
Gathering all the data for your database is straightforward enough: Use web crawlers to download the entire internet. Or at least the bits of it that are visible on the World Wide Web. Then index it.
Then re-do this for each website when it changes, which in the case of news websites is quite frequently.
How much storage is this going to need? A lot. And we can even estimate that.
It turns out that there’s a bit of set theory which tells us that the storage requirements for a key-value mapping are equivalent to the storage requirements for a value-key mapping for the same data set. (There will not be a question on this in the final exam.)
We already have a reverse search engine that’s equivalent to this value-key mapping, one that starts with URLs and returns the things that we might search for on web pages — which is all the things on the web pages. It’s called the World Wide Web.
So not only do you need to download the entire web for reference, you need the same amount of storage for the index.
Yes, your storage needs for your search engine index are roughly 1.0 World Wide Webs, to a first approximation.
That’s quite a bit of storage.
Now do a Google search for “cardinal”. “About 271,000,000 results (0.83 seconds),” it said for me just now. That’s fast. In fact, it’s so fast there could not have been any disk access involved.
Yes, you need to keep your 1.0 World Wide Webs of index data in RAM.
Actually, you need to keep several replicas in RAM to cope with failures.
That’s quite a bit of RAM.
You could cut that down by only indexing part of the web, sure, but who would make the editorial decisions? And who would use it anyway?
Those replicas of the index need to be geographically dispersed for redundancy, which means you need a WAN fast enough to sling around copies of the entire World Wide Web to replicate them.
That’s quite a bit of network.
Adding it all up, that’s quite expensive.
Obviously, there will be ways to optimise this, but there will also need to be enough infrastructure to cope with the number of users. At least this gives us a rough idea of the scale of the infrastructure that’d be needed.
Which brings us back to Senator Hanson-Young’s modest proposal.
Who’s paying for this?
“We need an independent search engine that is run in the public interest, not for the profit of a corporate giant,” she wrote.
“It would mean Australians can search the internet with the peace of mind that their data is not being sold off to advertisers and corporations.”
In other words, Hanson-Young is proposing that we build all this with government money, and therefore government project management.
Even if it were outsourced to a private-sector vendor, it’d still be the government providing, you know, the governance.
How well do we think the Australian government would handle that, given their past performance? Remember the NBN?
One final point, relevant to the Greens’ worldview: How much energy do you think all this would burn?
Maybe the current Australian government could end up building a coal-fired search engine.
For mine, the most depressing aspect of all this is that such an outlandish idea made it all the way to a press release seemingly without being run by anyone with a clue.
Here is a political party’s official spokesperson for media and communications publicly calling for an inquiry into an idea which could have been shot down during a quick coffee meeting with almost anyone who knows how search engines actually work. Disappointing.
Anyway, senator, we’ve saved the government having to run an expensive inquiry process. Where should I send my invoice?
Stilgherrian would like to thank the participants in the discussions that informed this article, who must remain anonymous.
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Netgear saw a 45% sales surge in the fourth quarter amid strong demand for new Wi-Fi 6 routers and mesh networking gear.
The company reported fourth quarter earnings of 99 cents a share on revenue of $367.1 million, up 45% from a year ago. For 2020, Netgear reported earnings of $1.90 a share on revenue of $1.26 billion, up 25.7% from a year ago.
Wall Street was looking for fourth quarter non-GAAP earnings of 84 cents a share on revenue of $346.3 million.
Mesh networking vs. traditional Wi-Fi routers: What is best for your home office? | Remote work: 10 ways to upgrade your working from home setup
Netgear CEO Patrick Lo said demand for its premium networking products is strong amid remote work and school arrangements during the COVID-19 pandemic. Lo said there is “rapid growth of a new premium segment that is defined by a Wi-Fi 6 mesh system with tri-band architecture.” Netgear, which is layering services on top of its hardware, also added 68,000 paid subscribers in the fourth quarter to end with 437,000.
Recent products include:
Netgear saw connected home sales surge 60% in the fourth quarter and SMBs were going for the company’s ProAV and work-from-home gear.

As for the outlook, Netgear said first quarter revenue will be between $300 million and $315 million with non-GAAP operating margins between 8% and 9%. Netgear said there remains a lot of uncertainty in the market as well as transportation delays at its Southern California main distribution center.
For the first quarter, Wall Street analysts were modeling revenue of $313.3 million.

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5G is one part hardware, one part standards — oh so many 5G standards, and one part software. Indeed, it wasn’t for 5G’s open-source technologies, 5G wouldn’t have gotten off the ground. Now, the software and hardware sides of 5G are getting closer together than ever with the cellular core, network software open-source stack Magma.

Magma was developed by Facebook to help telecom operators deploy mobile networks quickly and easily. The project, which Facebook open-sourced in 2019, does this by providing a software-centric distributed mobile packet core and tools for automating network management. This containerized network function integrates with the existing back end of a mobile network and makes it easy to launch new services at the network edge.
Magma operators can build and augment modern and efficient mobile networks at scale. It integrates with existing LTE and newly minted 5G networks. Several Magma community members are also collaborating in the Telecom Infra Project (TIP)’s Open Core Network project group. The plan is to define, build, test, and deploy core network products that integrate Magma with TIP Open Core disaggregated hardware and software solutions.
The Linux Foundation will help oversee this new stage in Magma’s organizational future. Magma will be managed under a neutral governance framework at the Linux Foundation. Arm, Deutsche Telekom, Facebook, FreedomFi, Qualcomm, the Institute of Wireless Internet of Things at Northeastern University, the OpenAirInterface(OAI)  Software Alliance, and the Open Infrastructure Foundation (OIF). 
You may ask, since Magma is already working with OIF, which is something of a Linux Foundation rival, why Magma will be working with both? Arpit Joshipura, the Linux Foundation’s general manager of Networking, Edge, and IoT, explained, “Magma has gotten great community support from several ecosystem players and foundations including OIF, OAI etc. What we are announcing today is the next evolution of the project where the actual hosting of the project is being set up under the Linux Foundation with neutral governance that has been accepted by the community for a long time. OIF, OAI, and LF will work with their communities of Software Developers to contribute to Magma’s core project.”
Even if you’re already involved in 5G development and deployment you may not know much about Magma. You will. Joshipura said, “Magama provides application functions like Mobile Core that are complementary to existing telecom and edge open-source software like Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP) or Akraino.” 
Magma will provide these features : 

Allow operators to expand capacity and reach by using LTE, 5G, Wi-Fi, and Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS).

Allowing operators to offer cellular service without vendor lock-in with a modern, open-source core network.

Enabling operators to manage their networks more efficiently with more automation, less downtime, better predictability, and more agility to add new services and applications.

Enabling federation between existing mobile network operators (MNO)s and new infrastructure providers to augment mobile network infrastructure more efficiently.

Supporting open source 5G technology and incubating future wireless network use cases like Private 5G,  Integrated Access Backhaul (IAB), Augmented Networks, and Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN).

Boris Renski, co-founder and CEO of FreedomFi, which uses Magma to enable anyone to build low cost, private, long-range, reliable, and secure 4G LTE and 5G networks, loves this plan. “We’ve been contributing to Magma upstream and doing customer deployments for over a year now and have built 20+ Private LTE networks using Magma.”
Renski sees “Magma turning into what we believe is quickly becoming the Linux of the telecom network cores.” Further, “With industry giants like Arm and Qualcomm joining the effort and helping ensure compatibility of Magma with their platforms, we expect that other radio access network (RAN) and OSS vendors will rally around the effort to help further accelerate adoption.”
Qualcomm believes this is happening too. Douglas Knisely, Qualcomm engineer, principal said, “Qualcomm strongly supports the evolution of the Magma core network efforts into a broader coalition among the key founding and contributing projects. This effort builds on the collaboration activities and code contributions from OAI into the Magma project and promotes the harmonization of a common 5G Core Network reference architecture, internal structure, APIs, and interfaces for all of the emerging 5G open source projects in the industry.”
It’s not just vendors that see Magma’s potential. “Magma is one of the most exciting projects I’ve seen in years. In our world, connectivity is directly linked to progress, and Magma’s mission to improve network access for the under-connected is inspiring and meaningful,” said Jonathan Bryce, the OIF’s Executive Director.
Want to get involved? You can join Magma at its Github. 5G’s future is waiting for you.
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