Networking

Nokia has introduced a “world-first” 4G and 5G automation network slicing solution suitable for vendors seeking to cut the costs associated with increasing networking capacity. 

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The networking equipment provider said on Thursday that the new network slicing system leverages Nokia’s end-to-end slicing network functionality for 4G and 5G New Radio (NR), first announced in February, which has been designed for applications running in both public and private clouds. 
In addition, the system utilizes Nokia’s cloud-native Digital Operations Center software, a modular offering which “provides a secure and fully automated process to design, deploy and operate network slices at scale across multi-vendor, multi-domain and multi-technology environments.”
See also: 5G: BT picks Nokia to power networks as UK starts to phase out Huawei
The mobile networking solution has now been bolstered with automation capabilities, a feature Nokia says extends the capabilities of existing network slicing products and “offers operators an unmatched solution to deploy network slices within minutes instead of hours or days.”
Nokia claims that the products, now improved with an “extreme automation” backbone, now allows communication service providers (CSPs) to reduce their operational costs and quickly deploy new network slicing to match the rising demand for high-speed mobile services, a potentially tantalizing prospect with the rollout of 5G. 
The new 4G and 5G slicing system complies with 3GPP and IETF slicing specifications and is compatible with Nokia’s NetAct and SON/Self-Organizing Networks and Network Services Platform/NSP. 
CNET: Not even the coronavirus can derail 5G’s global momentum
Engineers have also included a new network management tool and controller suitable for radio, transport, and core domains. 
Vendors will be able to create, modify, and delete large swathes of slices in real-time and create different customer policies and profiles depending on clients — whether they are SMBs or large enterprise players. 
According to the company, the new automation facilities, controllers, and assurance tools simplify network functions at the service layer by automatically sending instructions to domain controllers through open APIs. Each domain controller then determines how best to manage network slicing and will embed assurance monitors for analyzing performance. In addition, closed-loop optimization is implemented. 
TechRepublic: 5G mobile networks: A cheat sheet
The first deliveries of the new solution are planned for the end of 2020.
“Nokia is the first vendor to provide slicing in LTE and 5G networks in a multivendor network environment,” commented Sasa Nijemcevic, Head of Network Automation for Nokia’s IP/Optical Networks unit. “By adding extreme automation capabilities, we are offering operators a single, modular solution that helps them deliver a new wealth of services at unprecedented speeds.”
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BT and Toshiba have deployed an ‘unhackable’ quantum network that uses streams of photons to encrypt sensitive communications.
A trial of the network, which is the first of its kind in the UK, will see data transmitted between two engineering facilities in Bristol using encryption keys streamed as ‘encoded’ particles of light.  

Quantum Computing

The 6km network connecting the National Composites Centre (NCC) and the Centre for Modelling and Simulation (CFMS) will use Toshiba’s Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) to secure data traffic sent between the two sites via BT’s Openreach fiber infrastructure.
SEE: IoT: Major threats and security tips for devices (free PDF) (TechRepublic)
QKD is used to distribute secret digital keys, which can be used along with an encryption algorithm to either encrypt or authenticate encoded information.  
The technology solution developed by BT and Toshiba allows both the quantum keys and network data to be transmitted within a stream of photons along the same fiber cable, using a technique called multiplexing.
Eventually, the technology could allow quantum-encrypted data to be sent across distances of up to 120km, potentially spanning cities and other metropolitan areas.
NCC will use the quantum-secure link to demonstrate the potential for the offsite control of factories using 5G, while CFMS is hoping to better understand how encryption techniques can secure data used within AI and digital-twin applications.
The announcement marks the first deployment of QKD in the UK. However, Toshiba has been running trials of its technology in both Japan and the US, where QKD is being used to secure sensitive information for healthcare and financial services organizations.
SEE: What is the quantum internet? Everything you need to know about the weird future of quantum networks
In QKD, each bit of the key is encoded onto a single photon. Quantum theory dictates that, if anyone tries to read the encoded state of a single photon, it is immediately altered. This – in theory at least – makes it QKD almost unhackable.
“It gives us a way to test for that type of eavesdropping on the optical fiber,” Dr Andrew Shields, head of quantum technology at Toshiba Europe, told ZDNet.
“The laws of physics mean that if anyone gains any information about the encoded state, that inevitably changes the encoded state. So, eavesdropping can always be detected on the communications channel.
“It’s a very strange idea – it’s the act of reading something [that] actually changes the result.”
At the same time, because QKD is based on the laws of physics and not mathematics, it cannot be broken by the powerful computers of tomorrow, said Shields.
“There’s a concern at the minute that we’ll have more powerful computers, and especially a quantum computer, that will be able to break a lot of the encryption we have today,” he said.
“It will take some time before we have a large quantum computer, but if you have information that needs to remain confidential for several years, then it’s important that it’s encrypted today in a way that won’t be broken in the future.”
SEE: The UK is building its first commercial quantum computer
Previously, NCC and CFMS would have to load sensitive data onto physical storage devices and transport them back and forth between the two facilities.
Another novel element of the BT and Toshiba trial is that it uses a standard fiberoptic solution supplied by BT Openreach, with QKD installed on top of it. Multiplexing filters out digital noise caused by ordinary data signals and allows both quantum signals and conventional network data to be sent along the same cable, meaning no additional infrastructure is needed.
This could offer a cost-effective solution for telecoms operators hoping to introduce quantum cryptography to their networks, or for those looking to offer it as a service to privacy focused customers.
Professor Andrew Lord, head of optical technology at BT, said: “This first industrial deployment of a quantum-secure network in the UK is a significant milestone as we move towards a quantum-ready economy.
“The power of quantum computing offers unprecedented opportunity for UK industry, but this is an essential first step to ensure its power can be harnessed in the right way and without compromising security.”

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Outlook online users around the world are reporting problems accessing the Microsoft service, adding to the woes Office 365 users experienced earlier this week. 
Microsoft at 9am CET, 3am ET, confirmed that users are having issues accessing Exchange Online accounts via Outlook on the web. 
SEE: Office 365: A guide for tech and business leaders (free PDF) (TechRepublic download)
Microsoft initially said users in India are the primary group impacted. However, the company later confirmed on the Microsoft 365 Status Twitter account that the issue is affecting users worldwide. 
Downloaddetector currently indicates the worst impacted regions include the UK, France, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, and India. There are also multiple user reports on Twitter from users in Europe who’ve been unable to access Outlook as the workday begins.  

We’ve received reports of users experiencing issues accessing their Exchange Online accounts via Outlook on the Web. Our initial investigation indicates that India-based users are the primarily impacted audience. Further details can be found in your admin center under EX223208.
— Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) October 1, 2020

This new incident follows a six-hour Office 365 failure earlier this week due to an authentication error that prevented users from signing into Office.com, Outlook.com, Teams, Power Platform, and Dynamics365. Microsoft was forced to roll back a recent change that impacted authentication operations for numerous Microsoft and Azure services.   
Microsoft’s Office Service health dashboard also confirms that users of Outlook.com “may be unable to access their email”. 
“We’re collecting additional data from the affected infrastructure to aid in our investigation to determine the cause of impact,” Microsoft said. 
SEE: Office 365 outage with roll back failure ends after more than six hours
Similar to the incident earlier this week, Microsoft said it is investigating recent updates it has made to its service to identify the potential source of the problem. However, there’s no indication of when the issue will be resolved. 
“We’re reviewing recent changes to our service to further determine the cause of impact. Users may experience problems with various Exchange Online protocols, including Outlook desktop, mobile devices as well as those dependent on REST functionality,” Microsoft said. 
The company followed up that message to say it has diagnosed that a recent configuration update to components that route user requests is the cause of the outage. 
“We’ve reverted the update and are monitoring the service for recovery. We apologize for the inconvenience.”
UPDATE: At 6.46am ET, Microsoft tweeted to say the rollback has mitigated the impact for the affected features in SharePoint and Microsoft Teams.
“For impact to the Exchange service, most users are seeing recovery and we’re taking measures to ensure full recovery for all our users worldwide.” 

Downloaddetector indicates the worst affected regions include the UK, France, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, and India.
Image: Downloaddetector

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Singtel’s consumer business chief will assume the role of group CEO next year, as the Singapore telco’s current head is set to retire. The announcement is the latest to reveal a change at the top seat amongst telcos in the country over the past couple of years.
A 27-year veteran at the company, Yuen Kuan Moon joined the telco in 1993 and currently is CEO of Singtel’s Singapore consumer business as well as chief digital officer. He has held several leadership positions including in marketing, business development, and at Telkomsel in Indonesia. 
CEO of Singtel’s consumer business since 2012, Yuen would take over as group CEO from January 2021, when current chief Chua Sock Koong was scheduled to retire. The latter will remain as senior advisor to the chairman and help guide the transition.

His appointment had followed a global search that assessed both internal and external candidates, said Singtel in a statement Thursday. 
Singtel Chairman Lee Theng Kiat said: “[Yuen’s] years of honed experience in the company’s core telecom business, and his more recent focus on transforming the group digitally for growth, make him extremely well placed to lead Singtel forward in an era of disruption.”
Yuen said Singtel was at an “exciting juncture” with 5G poised to impact the telecommunications sector as well as other industries. The executive holds a First Class Honours engineering degree from the University of Western Australia and a Master of Science in Management from Stanford University.
Chua had assumed the CEO position in 2007 and had been with Singtel since 1989. 
During her stint as chief, the telco had added Optus in Australia to its portfolio as well as invested stakes in major telecommunication players in India, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand, Lee said. She also led Singtel’s digital transformation, including the digitalisation of its core telecom business, and built up its cybersecurity business, he said, adding that Chua helped guide the telco’s investment in 5G.
Singtel, alongside local operators StarHub and M1, had secured licences to deploy nationwide 5G networks in Singapore and opted to work with Ericsson for its network rollout. Joint licensees StarHub and M1 had gone with Nokia to build out their core 5G infrastructures, though, all three telcos had indicated plans to collaborate with others such as Huawei and ZTE on various use cases. 
TPG Telecom was awarded the remaining frequency spectrum in the millimetre wave band, which would enable the Australian telco to roll out localised 5G networks. The telco, as well as other mobile virtual network operators, would have to negotiate wholesale service agreements with Singtel or M1 and StarHub to tap their respective 5G networks, in order to offer retail 5G services to end-users. 
Singtel’s impending CEO change followed StarHub’s announcement in July that it had begun a global hunt for a new CEO, with current chief Peter Kaliaropoulos set to retire and step down from October 31 this year. An interim committee was set up to provide support to the leadership team during the search and oversee the transition to the new CEO. 
Kaliaropoulos had assumed his CEO position in July 2018, following another months-long search that began when StarHub’s former chief Tan Tong Hai stepped down to pursue his own interests. The telco has yet to reveal a potential successor. 
M1’s current CEO Manjot Singh Mann, too, had assumed his position less than two years ago in December 2018, following the retirement of former chief Karen Kooi Lee Wah.
Singtel also has teamed up with Grab in a bid to snag one of a handful of digital bank licences to be issued in Singapore, where the ride-sharing operator and telco will be looking to target “digital-first” consumers and small and midsize businesses. The two partners planned to form a joint entity, with Grab owning a 60% stake. 
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It’s emerged that SpaceX’s Starlink satellites have been delivering internet services since early August to the Washington state military’s emergency management unit helping residents recover from recent wildfires.
As noted by CNBC, providing services to Washington emergency responders is the first publicly known application of the satellite broadband service.   

Networking

SpaceX is currently conducting private Starlink beta trials with residents in some parts of northern US and lower Canada, including remote communities in Washington state, Starlink revealed in an FAQ posted on Reddit in July. 
SEE: Network security policy (TechRepublic Premium)
The Washington emergency division has been using seven Starlink user terminals, which SpaceX Elon Musk has previously described as like a “UFO on a stick”, with a skyward-facing disk that measures 48cm, or 19 inches, in diameter.  
Musk has previously described the end-user terminals as being as easy to set up as “point at sky and just plug in”. 
Richard Hall, the emergency telecommunications leader of the Washington State Military Department’s IT division, appears to confirm Musk’s claim. 
“I have never set up any tactical satellite equipment that has been as quick to set up and anywhere near as reliable [as Starlink],” Hall told CNBC. 
Hall also suggested Starlink was superior to other satellite broadband services his unit has used previously. Starlink satellites orbit Earth at an altitude of about 500km, or 311 miles, far closer to Earth than traditional conventional satellite broadband services. 
According to Hall, Starlink offers double the bandwidth of other services and said he’d seen more than 150% decreases in latency. “I’ve seen lower than 30 millisecond latency consistently,” he said. 
That’s a pretty good third-party reference for Starlink, which has faced doubts from the Federal Communications Commission as to whether it can deliver round-trip latencies below the 50ms that it has claimed in an FCC application to launch 30,000 satellites. In fact, Hall’s experience is closer to the 20ms Musk has previously claimed. 
SpaceX needs to prove to the FCC it can deliver a low-latency service to optimize its chances of securing part of the FCC’s up-to $16bn Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) to bring broadband to six million homes and businesses with current speeds below 25Mbps. 
SEE: Starlink starts to deliver on its satellite internet promise
But SpaceX’s Starlink satellite constellation of fewer than 800 Starlink satellites is just a fraction of the 12,000 satellites it has been approved by the FCC to launch.      
Hall said it took between five and 10 minutes to set up and connect a Starlink terminal compared with other satellite ground units. 
Musk responded to WA Emergency Management’s tweet disclosing its use of Starlink satellites, saying that SpaceX was “prioritizing emergency responders and locations with no internet connectivity at all”. 
According to Hall, Washington’s Department of Natural Resources and the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency are also interested in trialing Starlink satellite broadband services. 

In a recent presentation in aid of its RDOF application, SpaceX showed internet performance tests with download speeds of between 102Mbps to 103Mbps, upload speeds of 40.5Mbps to not quite 42Mbps, and a latency of 18 milliseconds to 19 milliseconds. 
It’s still early days for SpaceX’s Starlink ambitions. The company has applied to the FCC to deploy five million end-user terminals in the US, but it is currently only “on track to produce thousands of consumer user terminals per month”. 
SpaceX is scheduled to launch another batch of 60 satellites on Friday, October 2 at 9:43pm EDT. This launch marks its 13th Starlink mission and should nudge its total satellite count to over 800, which Musk has said is required for moderate coverage of North America. 

Targeting Thursday, October 1 at 9:17 a.m. EDT for launch of Starlink. Due to a conflict on the Range, now targeting launch of GPS III-4 on Friday, October 2; 15-min window opens at 9:43 p.m. EDT pic.twitter.com/VVhhatjBbh
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 30, 2020

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KT is looking to make its debut in Thailand’s internet data centre (IDC) market through its local partner Jasmine Telecom Systems (JTS). Together, the two allies plan to pitch offerings to global cloud service providers and tap the country’s growing digital transformation momentum. 
South Korean telecommunication group KT said Wednesday it had expanded its partnership with Thai telco Jasmine Group to develop an IDC business in Thailand, via the latter’s IDC business unit, JTS. 

KT Global Business’ head Kim Youngwoo said the partnership aimed to explore opportunities in Southeast Asia, which described as a “newly emerging IDC market”. 
The two companies planned to begin offering IDC services in Thailand by end-2021, targeting international cloud service providers and jointly developing new business models. 
JTS’ president and director Somboon Patcharasopak said: “The hyperscale data centre and cloud service business will be a foundation to add value to Jasmine Group’s network business.”
Citing stats from Frost & Sullivan, KT said the Asean data centre market was projected to hit a compound annual growth rate of 16% over the next five years, fuelled by markets such as Thailand and Indonesia. 
KT in March this year inked a $19 million contract with Jasmine’s other subsidiary 3BB TV to offer commercial IPTV service in Thailand. 
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Telstra has taken the wraps off the first set of services to fall under its adaptive networks banner, which will see the telco embrace SD-WAN and shift to month-to-month contracts.
The first products are labelled “adaptive connectivity” and encompass Telstra’s fibre access network, Internet Direct products, and MPLS IPVPN services, with NBN connections to follow in December, and mobile LTE and 5G connectivity to be included in 2021.
Speaking to journalists, Telstra group owner for global connectivity and platforms Sanjay Nayak, said the end result could be a new customer premises operating off mobile connectivity until a fibre endpoint is built — the sort of scenario that Telstra has previously said 5G is the sweet spot for — with the mobile connection remaining in place as a backup.
The telco will also be offering wireless services for smaller sites, Nayak said. On Tuesday, the telco launched its currently invite-only 5G fixed wireless service for residential customers.
In order to build out the new offering, the telco has teamed up with Cisco and VMware to implement its “adaptive SD-WAN”.
“Right now today, we have a very fixed and arguably inflexible IPVPN and MPLS services in connectivity that are effectively bundled for our enterprise customers,” said Telstra Enterprise group executive Michael Ebeid.
“What we’re effectively doing is we’re unbundling our services to give our customers choice, flexibility, much more simplified pricing, and amazingly, no locking contracts for most of our services.”
Ebied said adaptive networks would be a multi-year program that is iterated over the next couple of years.
“Where we’ve already got deployed a Telstra fibre solution for enterprise customers, that will remain the number one choice for us, obviously, but we can optimise the best hybrid network for our customers as well. We need to look at what our customer outcomes are, and give them the best solution and offer that flexibility of what this change really, really does.”
Nayak told ZDNet the new networking solution has customers like AGL and eHealth NSW on board, and the telco wanted to remove the contract renewal element from discussions with its users.
“The rational for us was over the last two years what we have seen is a significant shift in how customers are consuming applications, and a lot of these applications are sitting in the cloud,” he said.
“The conversations that we were having with our customers were focused on not just about how do we move applications to the cloud for you through Purple and our partner ecosystem … but a fair chunk of the conversations were on renewals.
“And we felt ‘what’s the point of that renewal conversation?’ Either a customer is happy with us or they’re not happy with us.”
Nayak earlier said the telco had added more gateways into its core network to allow “fluid routing” of cloud applications, and that customers would not have to pay an early termination fee when cancelling or changing contracts with Telstra.
A day earlier, Telstra announced it had worked alongside Ericsson and Ciena to complete an upgrade to 400G in its optical transmission network from the previous 100G offered.
“This upgrade increases Telstra’s optical network capacity by 400% per wavelength, allowing Telstra to deliver high capacity services to its customers in a shorter period of time as well as the ability to quickly and efficiently scale the transmission network for future needs,” it said.
In August, the telco said it had tested 800G in its live network, and had hit 700G per wavelength between Sydney and Melbourne.
The upgrades arrive after ProtonMail complained on Wednesday morning that its routes suffered from a BGP announcement out of Telstra.
“There is an ongoing BGP hijacking incident impacting the ProtonMail network. Connectivity to Proton services is being impacted. Telstra is announcing our 185.70.40.0/24 subnet without authorization,” the company said in a tweet.
“To clarify, reading emails is not impacted. Incoming/outgoing mails may be delayed (messages are queued & routed through slower secondary paths). No data is lost or breached. The issue unfortunately lies with Telstra and must be fixed on that side.”
Telstra acknowledged the bad routing announcement, and said its systems had received “negligible traffic”.
“The overnight change has now been reversed. No emails or data were breached or lost,” Telstra said five hours after ProtonMail’s initial tweet.
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Image: Asha Barbaschow/ZDNet
Telstra has announced that it will launch its 5G fixed wireless service from Wednesday, with the initial glut of customers to be invited to take part.
Customers are set to pay AU$85 each month for 500GB of data and a connection speed that sits between 50Mbps and 300Mbps. Telstra has said it will waive the payment for the first month, and will not charge for the 5G modem.
The telco said over the next year, it would be “scaling up” the service and taking on more customers.
At the same time, the telco said it was returning to selling 100Mbps plans on NBN copper-based technologies — which include fibre to the node (FttN), fibre to the basement (FttB), and fibre to the curb (FttC) — after binning the plans earlier this year.
“Since we paused selling these plans earlier in the year, we’ve done a lot of work behind the scenes to ensure customers have a better experience with us when purchasing this plan,” Telstra connected home and business executive Michele Garra said.
“We’ve upgraded our systems and set up processes that put customers first, and we’re now confident we can provide a better all-round experience
“If a customer on FttN, FttB or FttC can’t reach the maximum speeds of the premium internet plan or premium add-on, we’ll let them know and provide them with options in accordance with our regulatory commitments.”
Telstra also said it has begun selling NBN’s Superfast and Ultrafast plans. Telstra said the typically 215Mbps Superfast plan would be a AU$30 a month addition to its premium internet plans, while Ultrafast would cost an extra AU$70 a month and provide typical speeds of 250Mbps.
The telco also repeated its claim that the mandated 15% overprovisioning on NBN connections under 1GBps was a speed boost for its customers.
Also on Tuesday, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) released its latest Measuring Broadband Australia report, saying that speeds across all telcos and speed tiers increased for the period of May to June, reversing most of the previous drop.
The report said the number of underperforming connections dropped from 9.6% to 8.1%, with FttN making up 97% of all underperforming connections.
“Within the 50/20Mbps tier, fibre to the node services had an average download speed around 5Mbps lower than other technologies,” the report said.
“Within the 100/40Mbps tier, fibre to the node services had an average download speed around 11Mbps lower than other technologies.
Aussie Broadband took out the latency test in this instalment of the report, followed by Vodafone, Exetel, Telstra, TPG, and iiNet clumped together. Bringing up the rear were Dodo and iPrimus, and reporting over twice the latency of the leaders was MyRepublic.
Last week, NBN announced it would spend AU$4.5 billion to allow 75% of its fixed-line network to access 1Gbps speeds by the end of 2023 by upgrading FttN connections on-demand to full-fibre.
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