Networking

Since its inception, BT Global Service has operated as a pure global telecommunications provider, but these days the company has its sights set on being more than just that.
Speaking to ZDNet, BT Global Services CEO Bas Burger explained that for the last two years the company has been adding cybersecurity, cloud, and networking to its remit to become more broadly known as a tech company, and not just a carrier.
That process has so far involved BT building an “over-the-top platform that is going to allow us to — in a completely digital native and data-centric way — manage end-to-end performance of networks, whether it’s our own network or somebody else’s network”, according to Burger.
BT has also been investing heavily in developing its cybersecurity platform. 
“Most of our R&D and new technology is in cyberspace because we have so much data … we have a network in 180 countries in the world, we do business with most of the big multinationals in the world, so we see a lot of trends going across our network, not only about what applications are being used or what behaviours do customers have, but also what behaviours do the bad guys have,” Burger said.
Read: 10 tasks every network admin should perform at the end of the year (TechRepublic)
But why the shift? “Because the whole market pivots,” the CEO said.

“The technology available now to run networks in a more fractured way is because there is such a thing as software-defined networks … you don’t have to have dedicated networks for everything anymore, you can use mobile better because you use 4G, 3G, and in the future 5G.
“So the way in which you can utilise different types of networks is determined by software — so that is a technology shift in the whole industry — but we saw this coming already some years ago, and therefore we pivoted our strategy towards that new world.”
As next steps, the UK-based conglomerate is looking to launch another platform that Burger said would be designed to better utilise its threat data, as part of efforts to help speed up the response time to identify and react to potential threats.
“It’s basically a platform, which assembles all the data that we have from our network and third-party data, which is useful, and then we have an AI engine that looks at that data and then anticipates what type of threats will be coming to the firewalls of our customers. What that system does is it automatically sets policies for files,” he said.
This yet to be named, all-in-one platform that has been designed to assemble data, analyse it, and set policies is due to be launched either at the end of this quarter or next, Burger said, following tests with a number of existing customers.
See also: 5G and IoT security: Why cybersecurity experts are sounding an alarm (TechRepublic)
The other significant move by BT as part of this shift has been partnering with other companies so it can remain focused on becoming a managed network service provider.
“We’ve said we don’t want to own access networks anymore, we’d rather lease them from whoever who has the best access. We don’t want to own any satellite ground stations anymore. But we do want to own our global backbone and we want to partner with an ecosystem,” he said.
“The exciting thing is to build those ecosystems to make sure that you make your own platform quite open through API so that all the rest can work with it.”
He pointed out, for instance, that the company has started working with ServiceNow to enable customers to have visibility over application performance. 
“If you add how networks perform underneath — and the APIs into that environment — that’s a huge advantage for customers because they can see if our connection goes badly. Is it because of the PC you’re using or I’m using, or is it the software that sits in the cloud, or is the network,” he said.
Others on the partner list include Zoom, Microsoft through Teams, and Cisco’s Webex, with plans to bring in some SD-WAN providers shortly.
Burger added he believes there are opportunities to bring the network together with future Internet of Things platforms.
“There are big providers in the IoT space that also want to utilise networks in a better way than what they can do today … and we don’t all have to invest in the same IoT platform,” he said.
“We can click into those ecosystems in a way that is seamless and delivers tremendous outcomes for our customers, which will give agility, will give speed, and will give them the ability to not have to invest in all that technology, and also not be constrained by not being able to switch technology because they bought this one technology and they have to stick with it for 20 years.” 
It might have been 20 years since BT Global Services was first established, but Burger believes all the changes being made has created an “extremely exciting period” for the company. 
“I think we are very, very well-positioned to play a very important role in that new world,” he said.
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Apple’s partnership with Verizon on 5G and the iPhone 12 lineup is all about business as well as indoor and enterprise 5G deployments.
Tami Erwin, Executive Vice President and Group CEO for Verizon Business, along with Apple, in an event outlined 5G Fleet Swap, a program that allows companies to trade in their entire fleet of smartphones from Verizon or any carrier and upgrade to any iPhone 12 model for no upfront cost. The iPhone 12 Mini will carry no monthly cost. 

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Erwin detailed the reasoning for the program, highlighting “the acceleration to digital will only get faster.” 
At Apple’s iPhone 12 launch, Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg highlighted the companies’ partnership as a way to expand 5G millimeter wave reach. But the reality is 5G mmwave is going to be more about business.
What is 5G? Everything you need to know about the new wireless revolution | 5G for business: Why this green and leafy campus could hold the key to success | 5G’s mmWave enterprise revolution derailed by COVID-19
Enter the Verizon 5G Fleet Swap effort. Susan Prescott, Apple’s vice president of Markets, Apps and Services said that the iPhone 12 “paired with Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband going indoors it’s now easier than ever for businesses to build transformational mobile apps.”
During the event, Prescott showed a brief video demonstrating enterprise apps, like JigSpace that allows employees to view products in devices using augmented reality. At the start of the pandemic, JigSpace provided instructions and diagrams to technicians in augmented reality for ventilators.

Another app Apple highlighted during the event was OsiriX, a radiology medical image viewer, touting 5G speeds that shortens the load time for large files, making it possible to view and diagnose from anywhere. IBM’s Maximo Visual Inspection app will also benefit from indoor 5G.
From Verizon’s standpoint, the iPhone 12 can be the front end of driving private 5G enterprise deployments. Qualcomm recently outlined how 5G mmwave will play into the enterprise via edge computing.
Indeed, Verizon Business announced that General Motors and Honeywell will be the first enterprise customers to install Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband service inside their corporate offices. Honeywell and GM will develop customized use cases that Apple could use to deploy more iPhone 12 devices.
The initial Verizon Business 5G deployment will be in Honeywell’s headquarters in Charlotte, NC and GM’s Factory Zero at Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Center, which is focused on electric vehicles.
Randy Mott, CIO of GM, said 5G will be critical to improving quality and speed of EV production. Sheila Jordan, chief digital technology officer at Honeywell, said 5G will help showcase the company’s industrial platforms and products.
Honeywell and GM will also explore 5G as a showcase for industrial and manufacturing use cases. Private 5G is likely to be a key enterprise use case for digital transformation, edge computing and artificial intelligence. More

Australian Domain Name Administrator (auDA) has announced that from 12 April 2021, new rules for com.au, net.au, org.au, and asn.au namespaces in the .au domain will come into effect.
The not-for-profit policy authority and industry self-regulatory body for the .au domain space said the new rules were designed to better meet the evolving needs of registrants, enhance trust in the .au domain, and help ensure .au remains Australian and secure.
“This signifies an important step forward in .au governance — modernising the policy framework, ensuring the .au domain can respond to the changing needs of Internet users, and continuing to build trust and confidence in .au namespaces,” auDA CEO Rosemary Sinclair said.
Sinclair said the new rules streamlined and simplified around 30 policies and guidelines that currently govern the .au domain.
Changes included eligibility and allocation rules for some namespaces — com.au, net.au, org.au, and asn.au; the terms and conditions for .au domain names; the complaints process; and how auDA manages rule compliance.
According to the policy document, the rules aim to ensure that a licensing system is established which is transparent, responsive, accountable, accessible, and efficient; improves the utility of the .au country code top-level domain (ccTLD), for all Australians; promotes consumer protection, fair trading, and competition; provides those protections necessary to maintain the integrity, stability, utility, and public confidence in the .au ccTLD; expresses licence terms and conditions in objective and not subjective terms; implements clear, predictable and reliable complaint processes; and preserves the fundamental principles of no proprietary rights in a domain name, first come, first served, and no hierarchy of rights.
As of 30 June 2020, the total number of domains under management by auDA was 3,180,395, encompassing the namespaces in the .au ccTLD which includes com.au, net.au, org.au, asn.au, id.au, gov.au, edu.au, vic.au, nsw.au, act.au, qld.au, nt.au, wa.au, sa.au, and tas.au.

The total figure represents a decrease of less than 1% from June 30 in the previous year.
“Creation of new domains in the last three months of the financial year increased significantly over the same period last year, coinciding with COVID-19 measures that saw an increase in businesses and organisations moving online following restrictions placed on the community’s access to bricks and mortar premises,” auDA said in its annual report, published last month.
Around 2.8 million have the com.au namespace; just over 223,00 are net.au; more than 73,000 are org.au; and just shy of 1,200 are gov.au.
New South Wales boasts just shy of 1.1 million .au domains under management by auDA.
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5G is confusing. It’s not one technology that will bring you gigabit-per-second-speeds and sub-10-millisecond latency. 5G’s actually three different network approaches. Only one of these — millimeter-wave (mmWave) — can give you gigabit speeds. Verizon, under the name 5G Ultra-Wideband, leads in US mmWave deployment. But the company also muddied the water by introducing yet another 5G approach: Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS). Verizon 5G DSS performance is pretty much the same as you’re getting from Verizon 4G LTE.

So, before you buy a new 5G phone, make sure you know exactly what you’re getting. Almost no Verizon customers will see 5G Ultra Wideband’s speeds. Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg praises 5G Ultra-Wideband network, which is now available in 55 cities, 43 stadiums, and 7 airports.
What Vestberg doesn’t mention is that the 5G Ultra-Wideband has a range of about 150 meters. And its 24GHz and 28GHz bands can barely transmit through window glass. Unless you’re almost on top of a mmWave transceiver with a clear line of sight, you won’t get greater speed, latency, or throughput. 
Verizon’s 5G DSS, which Verizon claims is already in 1,800+ markets and covers over 200 million people, has the same range but — and here’s the bad news — speed and throughput of the Verizon 4G LTE you’re already using.
A Verizon spokesperson explained:

Our nationwide coverage layer of 5G was never meant to compete on speed or capacity with our keenly differentiated and powerful 5G Ultra Wideband network. Initially, customers should expect our 5G Nationwide network to perform similarly to our award-winning 4G LTE network. Performance and coverage will continue to grow over time.”

So, why do it? Well, first it’s marketing. When you hear “5G,” you think you’re going to get all that super-fast speed and ultra-low latency. The reality is you’re not. 
That’s going to tick users off when they realize that their pricey 5G smartphone gets exactly the same performance as their brother’s old 4G LTE model. But, Verizon added, there are some benefits from DSS. 

Most of these, however, make life better for Verizon, not for users. For example, by enabling 5G service to run simultaneously with 4G LTE on multiple spectrum bands, Verizon can use its full portfolio of spectrum resources to serve both 4G and 5G customers.
How does that work? Without DSS, when Verizon or any other mobile telephony company has 20MHz of spectrum, it must split the spectrum in two. For example, 10MHz would go to 4G LTE, while the rest goes to 5G. Since, for now, there’s far more 4G LTE customers than 5G users that’s a real waste of spectrum. With DSS, an operator doesn’t have to split it up. Instead, Verizon can dynamically share that 20MHz between 4G LTE and 5G DSS. Or, as Verizon puts it, “It uses spectrum much more efficiently so customers have access to all of Verizon’s spectrum holdings – not just a portion of our spectrum.”
How do they do it? Verizon’s representative wouldn’t go into any detail, but they did say DSS is “built with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) technology which allows for faster response time to meet the dynamically changing needs of our customers.” We also know that Verizon is building its 5G platform on top of OpenStack clouds while running applications in Kubernetes orchestrated containers. This would include the 5G DSS software. 
On the edge, which is where 5G is being deployed, Verizon is using the Open Infrastructure Foundation’s StarlingX, OpenStack cloud infrastructure software stack for the edge. This, in turn, is the basis for Wind River’s Cloud Platform. Verizon uses this to manage its virtual radio access networks (vRANs) and core data center sites. For hardware on the edge, Verizon’s using Samsung’s 5G vRAN hardware and Intel’s Xeon Scalable processor, FPGA acceleration card, Ethernet network adapter, and its FlexRAN software reference architecture.
For users, all that means is that the one good thing 5G DSS customers will see is better latency. Specifically, “Customers accessing 5G using DSS will be able to take advantage of Verizon’s edge computing platforms which bring the power of the cloud nearer to users, drastically reducing the time it takes for data to make a round trip from point A to point B.” In particular, Verizon specific services will be more responsive. 
That’s all well and good, but the bottom line remains that 5G’s hype for consumers is all about all speed, and 5G DSS doesn’t deliver — and never will deliver — on that promise. MmWave, which will only be limited to cities and large indoor spaces, is the only technology that will bring you Gigabit speeds anytime soon. 

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Celona, a startup, is launching technology that will make it easier for enterprises to deploy private LTE/5G wireless networks with one platform.
The technology, called MicroSlicing, uses software to abstract cellular wireless network design and translate it into a framework similar to what IT departments manage today.
Celona’s platform also leverages Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum in the US so enterprises can use it for 5G mobile devices as well as Internet of things infrastructure.
The company features a single software-as-a-service license with three- and five-year subscription options. The pricing covers indoor and outdoor access points, license for spectrum access, software, SIM cards and technical support.

According to Celona, HPE’s Aruba unit will resell the company’s product portfolio. Celona is targeting customers that need to segment networks for interference-free connectivity to devices. Celona-powered networks are designed to ride shotgun with enterprise Wi-Fi networks to provide an interference free network for smartphones and sensors.
Celona’s lineup includes:
Celona RAN, which is a set of enterprise indoor and outdoor CBRS LTE access points that provide up to 25,000 square feet and 1 million square feet of coverage. Radio functions are automated via Celona software.
Celona Edge, a private LTE/5G core that integrates with existing enterprise network configurations and access control policies.
Celona Orchestrator, an AIOps platform that remotely installs Celona access points and Edge software across ties. The Celona Orchestrator allows for provisioning of Celona SIM cards.
The company’s wares are available through Celona’s channel partners.  

Here’s a look at Celona Orchestrator.  More

Cisco has disclosed a critical security flaw affecting its Cisco Security Manager software, along with two other high-severity vulnerabilities in the product. 
Cisco has flagged that the three security vulnerabilities are fixed in version 4.22 of Cisco Security Manager, which was released last week. 

Networking

Cisco Security Manager helps admins manage security policies on Cisco security devices and provision Cisco’s firewall, VPN, Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) devices, Firepower devices, and many other switches and routers. 
SEE: IoT: Major threats and security tips for devices (free PDF) (TechRepublic)
The most serious issue addressed in release 4.22 is a path-traversal vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2020-27130, which could allow a remote attacker without credentials to download files from an affected device. 
The issue, with a severity rating of 9.1 out of 10, affects Cisco Security Manager releases 4.21 and earlier. 
“The vulnerability is due to improper validation of directory traversal character sequences within requests to an affected device. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted request to the affected device,” Cisco explains in the advisory. 

The company appears to have published the advisory after Florian Hauser of security firm Code White, who reported the bugs to Cisco, published proof of concept (PoC) exploits for 12 vulnerabilities affecting Cisco Security Manager. 
Hauser, who uses the Twitter handle @frycos, said in a tweet that he reported 12 flaws affecting the web interface of Cisco Security Manager 120 days ago, on July 13. 
He says he decided to release the PoCs because Cisco didn’t mention the vulnerabilities in 4.22 release notes and had not published advisories.  

“Several pre-auth vulnerabilities were submitted to Cisco on 2020-07-13 and (according to Cisco) patched in version 4.22 on 2020-11-10. Release notes didn’t state anything about the vulnerabilities, security advisories were not published. All payloads are processed in the context of NT AUTHORITYSYSTEM,” he wrote. 
Among them are multiple vulnerabilities in the Cisco Security Manager’s Java deserialization function, which could allow remote attackers without credentials to execute commands of their choice on the affected device. 
Unfortunately, Cisco hasn’t fixed these Java deserialization vulnerabilities in the 4.22 release but plans to fix them in the next 4.23 release. Cisco also says there are no workarounds and has not listed any mitigations that could be used until a fix arrives. 
SEE: Ransomware victims aren’t reporting attacks to police. That’s causing a big problem
These issues affect releases 4.21 and earlier and have a severity rating of 8.1 out of 10. Cisco issued the identifier CVE-2020-27131 to the bugs, which are due to insecure deserialization of user-supplied content.
“An attacker could exploit these vulnerabilities by sending a malicious serialized Java object to a specific listener on an affected system. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary commands on the device with the privileges of NT AUTHORITYSYSTEM on the Windows target host,” Cisco explains. 
A third flaw affecting Cisco Security Manager releases 4.21 and earlier, tracked as CVE-2020-27125, can allow an attacker to view insufficiently protected static credentials on the affected software. The credentials are viewable to an attacker looking at source code. 
This issue, with a severity rating of 7.1, is fixed in release 4.22.
Cisco’s Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) said it is aware of public announcements about these vulnerabilities. However, it was not aware of any malicious use of them.
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Uniti has continued its telco shopping spree, announcing on Tuesday it has signed an agreement to purchase greenfields specialist Harbour ISP.
With a maximum purchase price of AU$9.25 million and AU$1 million worth of options for Uniti shares, Uniti said the purchase price would consist of 90% cash and 10% in shares. At the time of writing, Uniti was trading at AU$1.59 a share.
As a result of the deal, Uniti is set to gain 30,000 broadband customers in housing estates and apartment complexes, doubling Uniti’s consumer business numbers.
“Of particular strategic significance to Uniti is Harbour’s close alliances with a number of national property development companies, including Mirvac,” Uniti said.
“In certain instances, these developer alliances see Harbour enjoy ‘preferred RSP’ status, delivering strong take-up of Harbour broadband services in new greenfield developments via a series of cooperative marketing activities, undertaken with the support and endorsement of the developer.”
Last week, the purchase of greenfields broadband builder Opticomm by Uniti was implemented.
A fortnight prior, Uniti gained ACCC approval to functionally separate to operate both as a wholesale and retail provider in greenfield areas.

At the time, the company said the separation would enable it to actively promote its retail brands to around 110,000 connected premises nationwide and an additional 44,000 premises that are currently under construction when they become connected.
Uniti said on Tuesday it has plans to integrate Harbour ISP into its consumer business in under six months and expects an acquistion multiple of under three times earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA). By fiscal year 2022, Uniti said it expects Habour ISP to have EBITDA of AU$3 million.
Harbour ISP has been “amongst the most active and effective RSPs” on Opticomm’s network for several years, Uniti said.
“Functional separation now enables us to actively promote retail broadband offerings on our owned networks and Harbour ISP, with its proven pedigree in the greenfield broadband market, is an outstanding platform for us to build specific capability as well as scale in our [consumer] business unit,” Uniti CEO and managing director Michael Simmons said.
“With the now confirmed addition of OptiComm to the Uniti Group, our network of private fibre premises (connected, under construction or contracted to be connected) exceeds 400,000 connections. Given this large and growing footprint, the strategic value of acquiring Harbour as a specialist greenfield RSP is significant and timely.”
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