Networking

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed work/life patterns for many of us. While there are some folks out there on the front lines doing dangerous, essential work and moving around in the world, many of us are locked down at home, doing our part to reduce transmission of the virus.
The home dynamic has changed drastically as well. While some of us have worked from home for years, we’ve historically been a small fringe of the overall workforce. But since the pandemic hit, working from home has become what marketing folks are calling the “new normal.”

Adding to the complexity of our 9-5 home life, many of our kids are home, too. While the debate rages over school reopening, many parents are opting to keep their kids home to study. Many school districts, colleges, and universities have moved to a slapped-together remote schooling strategy.
While there’s no doubt this new normal has a huge impact on our sense of well-being and sanity, it’s also transforming what we need from our home networks. Prior to the pandemic, the home network and the broadband feeding it was used mostly to stream some movies, watch some YouTube, play some games, and check email.
But now the home network is being put under pressure. Many families have two parents and a bunch of kids, all putting stress on the network by using bandwidth at the same time. The adults might both need to be in Zoom conferences for work, while the kids may also need to be in Zoom sessions for school.
That’s a lot of stress on your network. Your network has become mission-critical. You need it to keep the paychecks coming and your kids need it to get through school. In this context, getting the most out of your network is essential. But what does that really mean?
This comprehensive guide will help you answer that, and help guide you towards changes and improvements you might want to make. I’ll be covering three major topic areas that are inextricably related: understanding your bandwidth requirements, understanding your broadband provider’s offerings, and optimizing your home network.
Also: The best laptop docking stations: Your essential accessory for working from home 
We have a lot of ground to cover, so let’s get started. Keep an eye out for my performance tip callouts. They’ll give you great ideas for maximizing performance. I also have some budget tips at the end of the article.
Understanding bandwidth
If you’ve ever tried to drink a milkshake through a straw, you understand bandwidth. Drinking a soda through a straw is simple. Soda is just water with bubbles. It’s not thick, and you don’t need to apply much suction to quench your thirst. But try to drink a thick milkshake through that same straw and you might have problems. Either you have to suck much harder or you need a bigger straw.
The data we transmit on the internet is like that. Some things, like a simple email text message, require very little bandwidth because there’s not much data. But a 4K video stream requires a lot of bandwidth because the data files are so large.
Sure, you could theoretically watch a 4K video stream with any bandwidth capacity (even dial-up), but you’d have to download the entire file first, which could take days. If you want to just click and watch, the internet pipe needs to be wide enough to accommodate all that data.
These days, it’s all about the video
So let’s jump into the specifics. In our new pandemic-driven normal, it’s all about the video. Emails and basic web surfing consume a relatively small amount of bandwidth. Photos and music consume more, as do games. But it’s video that’s the big bandwidth hog. So that’s what we’re going to look at in this guide.
Bandwidth is generally measured in megabits per second, written as Mbps (with a lower-case “b”). That’s millions of bits per second. As you can see in the following chart, Netflix says the absolute minimum bandwidth it needs is 0.5Mbps. That will be for heavily buffered, very low resolution video.

Video bandwidth requirements
By contrast, to watch a movie streamed in glorious 4K, your connection will need 20Mbps. That means your pipe needs to be able to send 20 million bits in one second. As you can see, different levels of resolution require different amounts of bandwidth.
Fortunately, Netflix and YouTube (and most other streaming services) either let you specify the quality of video you’re watching (and, by extension, the bandwidth you use) or automatically throttle your video based on your existing bandwidth.
In a world where you’re probably only watching one Netflix stream and possibly a YouTube video at a time, this works fine. But when you and your spouse and your kids must all be online at once, all using video, the requirements change.
What your ISP is selling you
When you sign up for broadband service, your ISP usually sells you a package based on the upload and download bandwidth you choose. The more capacity, the more expensive. The less capacity the less expensive. But what, exactly, does that mean?
Take a look at the following diagram. Notice the point marked A. That’s the connection between your home and your ISP’s data connection point, and that’s what your broadband provider is selling you.

From here to there
Everything after your ISP (indicated to the right in the diagram) is generally out of the control of your ISP. Every web access travels beyond your ISP across many different machines, often by many different routes, to the service you use. And then, of course, the response travels back. You and your ISP both have absolutely zero control over that part of the experience.
This next diagram illustrates it in some more detail. You control the network inside your house. That’s indicated by A on the diagram. Your ISP controls all the hardware between their data center and your home, indicated as B.

A simple home network
But you also have some control in that area as well, because you can choose the bandwidth plan, and that determines how big a data transmission pipe you get into your home.
Not all is as it seems, however. While your ISP may sell you a certain amount of bandwidth, they may not be able to deliver it. The Comcast page where you can order services calls this out explicitly. It says, “Actual speeds vary and are not guaranteed.”
This could be for any reason ranging from their desire to throttle you if you use too much data to too many people on the network at once.
Also: A customer experience story: After a year of Comcast, my verdict
Two years ago, I actually had to pay Comcast $600 a year in extra fees just to make sure they wouldn’t throttle me because I used so much data. In a chat with a Comcast rep this week, I was told that fee went down to $30/month, or $360 per year.
Performance tip: Be sure to check with your ISP to make sure you avoid any bandwidth throttling, either by paying the bandwidth tax or controlling your usage.
Take a look at this next diagram:

A community cluster
When you’re purchasing bandwidth, you’re purchasing it at point A, to and from your home. Whether your ISP has implemented dedicated fiber lines to each house, or shares a feed among a cluster of homes, could determine how much flow you actually get. If everyone in your cluster is consuming capacity at the same time, you may experience a slowdown simply because the connection point B from the ISP may become overloaded.

That, too, is out of your control. But it helps to find out if you are on a shared connection (usually cable modem) or on a dedicated fiber connection.
Performance tip: Generally speaking, dedicated fiber will provide you with more reliable service than cable modem.
Of course, even with fiber, your ISP’s upstream connections can become overwhelmed if all their customers are in Zoom conferences at the same time. And let’s be clear. Fiber isn’t available in many communities, so you’re likely to have to live with cable.
Download capacity
Let’s talk about upload and download bandwidth. Until recently, home internet providers have rarely spent much time discussing the upload bandwidth they allocate to each customer.
Here’s a quick bit of background. I’m someone who has needed considerable upload bandwidth across the years for my work projects. I upload terabytes of backup data, lots of 4K video files, VMs for testing, and finished videos to YouTube. I’ve also done a lot of video conferencing where my face-for-radio has been uploaded and then broadcast to TV audiences.
Working from home, getting that upload bandwidth has been problematic. The various broadband reps I’ve spoken to over the years have told me that very few people ever even ask about upload bandwidth, which is why ISP’s have never offered much capacity.
Of course, because of COVID-19, all that is changing rapidly.
Before COVID, most users were surfing the web, watching YouTube or Netflix, or playing games. Little upload capacity was needed. Now everybody’s on Zoom all the time. When you’re on Zoom, you need broadband capacity to send video upstream just as much as you need broadband capacity to watch video.
While all ISPs are different, here’s what a local Comcast rep told me was their suite of offerings as of this month:

Comcast’s offerings in my area – other ISPs will be similar
Notice the very big difference between the download capacity (the larger blue) and the upload capacity (the lighter blue). Comcast (and most ISPs) offer upload capacity that’s only a mere fraction of the download capacity. I don’t use Comcast anymore. I’m fortunate to have very fast local community fiber.
For now, though, let’s focus on download capacity. The following chart shows (roughly) how many simultaneous activities you can perform online with a 100Mbps pipe.

Possible simultaneous downloads with 100Mbps connection
Note two things. First, I’ve labeled a section “overpromised or unavailable bandwidth.” In my experience, the average usable bandwidth is only about 60% of what the broadband provider claims they’re selling you. Since you have to work and function based on what bandwidth you actually have available to you, it’s important you understand the numbers quoted are always optimistic.
In the case above, though, you can comfortably download four Zoom sessions, a 4K Netflix session, and either another 4K video session or a bunch of HD video sessions. With 100Mbps down, your entire family can function together online — at least when it comes to download performance.
Things get tighter for those on a lower budget or who just can’t get as much bandwidth in their area. If you drop to 25Mbps download bandwidth, you can really only support two Zoom streams and one HD video stream. 4K video is out.

Fewer simultaneous downloads with 25Mbps connection
Fortunately, 4K video is unimportant in the context of working at home or home schooling. It’s a nice to have on family movie nights, but is simply not mission critical.
Performance tip: Default to having all 4K video streams turned off. Most of your streaming services will allow you to disable 4K, and doing so is an easy way to regain bandwidth and reduce data usage. You will probably never notice the difference in quality.
Budget tip: Some streamers charge extra for 4K, so cancel that upcharge.
The upload conundrum
If you recall from the earlier chart showing broadband plans, even the Comcast plan that offers 1Gbps download capacity provides for only a mere 35Mbps upload. I’ve been fortunate. One of the reasons I chose the small historic rural farm town I now live in was because the community built out its own fiber-based internet service and offers 1Gbps both up and down.
That matters, especially if you’re concerned about productivity. One of my most recent videos was a 2GB file I had to upload to YouTube. The next chart shows how long (assuming optimal conditions) it would take to upload that video based on the different upload capacities.

Upload time comparison
As you can see, the difference between a full 1Gbps upload speed and the bottom-level 3Mbps offering is a full two orders of magnitude.
Now, let’s be clear. Uploading a video file isn’t the key problem in our new normal. What I used to do before I had good upload bandwidth was set my files to upload when I went to bed. That way, they didn’t tie up my bandwidth and I didn’t have to sit and wait for the upload to complete.
Also: ZDNet Recommends: The best products for every office 
Instead, the really big issue you should be concerned about is upload capacity when it comes to online learning and work-based video conferencing. I know families of six where the two adults and four kids all used to go to either the office or school — and who are now all at home, and who all need to be in Zoom conferences at the same time.
As the following chart shows, it doesn’t matter that you have 100Mbps down, according to your plan, if all you have is 5Mbps up. With 5Mbps up, you can — barely — sustain one Zoom stream.

Very limited upload capacity
Worse, those with even lower upload performance probably can’t even get one stream to function reliably.

More comfortable upload capacity for pandemic times
Even as you go up in plans, upload bandwidth might not be enough. Those with a 15Mbps upload capacity might be able to run three Zoom conferences concurrently, four if all other upload activities are shut down. It’s only when you get to upload capacities in the 35Mbps range and above that you can sustain family-wide Zoom activities.
Managing upload usage
As you can see, the bottleneck for many families working and learning at home is going to be the upload capacity offered by their ISPs. Some families may not have access to higher upload capacities, either because it’s not offered in their areas or because they can’t afford it.
Performance tip: For those with limited available bandwidth, know what’s using your bandwidth at all times. Shut down everything not needed while on video conferences.

If you’re not using your phones for video conferencing, put them in airport mode. Power down (not sleep) TVs and any computers not in use.
When it comes to cloud-based backup, Yev Pusin, Director of Strategy at cloud backup vendor Backblaze says, “A good backup client is neither seen nor felt.” He says that his backup client (and many others) will allow you to set throttle limits, limiting how much bandwidth your backup clients take.
Performance tip: Whether at the router or in your backup client, limit upload bandwidth usage or schedule uploads during sleep time.
Performance tip: Buy the plan with the most upload bandwidth you can afford.
My experience has been that I’ve generally not run into problems with download performance, but upload performance has almost always been a challenge.
Managing upload bandwidth may need to be a team effort. For years, my wife and I would coordinate bandwidth usage so one of us didn’t hog the pipes when the other needed capacity.
You may need to schedule blackout times where Netflix and YouTube are off-limits. You might also need to set up a central calendar where each family member records when they’ll need to do video conferencing, and the others try to work around that time.
Educate your family members, and if that doesn’t work, consider using one of the many parental control options out there. You might need to simply block Facebook, Netflix, YouTube, and all the other streamers during certain times of the day or for certain family members.
Your home network
Up until now, almost all we’ve talked about is the connection between your ISP and your house. But there’s another aspect of network performance: your internal network.
Keep this in mind: performance between your ISP and your home is up to your ISP. Performance between your computer and your router is up to you.
Many families have a very simple home network like this:

A simple home network
But once you start working and learning from home, many family’s home networks have blossomed, looking more like this:

A more comprehensive home network
This diagram represents a network with both wired and wireless connections, as well as a wide range of devices on the network, using network capacity.
What a speed test really measures
Before I dig into ways you can optimize your home network, let’s talk about what a speed test really measures. If you use Fast.com or SpeedTest.net (or anything similar), you may think you’re measuring your ISP’s performance at point A. But you’re not.

Speed tests measure everything in orange
In reality, you’re measuring performance from your test machine (B) to the test server (C). Everything in between contributes to that measurement, so if there’s a TV show being watched, that takes bandwidth. If there’s an automatic download, that takes bandwidth.
A speed test will give you a good indication of overall network performance, but it won’t really help confirm that your ISP is meeting its performance claims.
By the way, note the disparity between download and upload reported in the speed test shown. That’s a test run by one of our editors working from home. With 11Mbps upload, our editor can probably handle two or three Zoom streams at once, but not much else.
Optimizing your home network with wired Ethernet
While optimizing your network feed from your ISP is really a function of the luck of your location and how much you’re willing to pay, optimizing your home network is something else again.
Let’s get the variables out of the way first. How you use your home network may well be different from how I do. I fling very large video and VM files all around, from my various desktops to my server. That’s a very different level of demand than making sure your connection to Zoom and Gmail work reliably.
For the purposes of this article, I’m not going to discuss optimizing home networking for the extreme pro. Instead, I’m going to focus on what you could do to make your network more suitable for working and learning from home, assuming relatively basic use of productivity and learning apps.
Performance tip: A wired connection is always going to be more reliable and usually faster than a wireless connection. If possible, run wires.
Buying my home was a big change for me, in no small part because I could finally run Ethernet cables through the walls. But even if you’re renting, you might want to consider running wires from your router to your desks. For years, as a renter, I ran wires next to baseboards, and over and under doorways. It was ugly, but it worked.
Performance tip: If you need to optimize productivity, let your setup be a bit ugly if it’ll help you get the job done.
When configuring wired internet, look for gigabit Ethernet devices, and that includes your router. Which brings me to another performance tip.
Performance tip: If your router is more than a few years old, consider upgrading it. Super cheap routers (and older routers) can’t handle much video throughput.
When you run cables, you might need to create branches. Use Ethernet switches rated for GigE and avoid Ethernet hubs.
Optimize your Wi-Fi performance
First, let me clarify something that confuses a lot of people. If you have crappy Wi-Fi performance, it’s usually not your ISP’s fault. Wi-Fi is all about how you’ve set up your network inside your home. Your ISP (as we’ve discussed at length here) only manages the connection between your home and the internet.
Wi-Fi can suck for oh, so many reasons. It’s a radio signal, so metal in walls, appliances, even the electricity in the air can affect it. My house has been a Wi-Fi nightmare, which I finally resolved with a mesh wireless network, wired connections where possible, and a lot of testing. I talked about that, along with some very useful optimization tools in another article. If you’re having Wi-Fi issues, this is a must-read.
Performance tip: Consider adopting a mesh network for your Wi-Fi to reach far-flung areas of your home.
I’ve used two mesh networks. The first was the Google WIFi system (now called Nest WiFi). This worked great in our rental house. Not so much in the house we bought after that. For where I’m living now, the Synology router and mesh I discussed here has worked more reliably.
The idea of mesh is that rather than your Wi-Fi radiating from one point, a mesh of router access points creates a blanket of Wi-Fi throughout your home. It’s got its own issues, but it definitely helps.
Budget tips
So far, I’ve talked about increasing the bandwidth you buy from your ISP, adding a mesh router, and running cables and switches throughout your house. That can get expensive. Let’s look at some ideas for saving money and improving performance.
Your Wi-Fi router is the hub of your network. If you can’t get a good signal in other rooms, set up desks or work areas near your router.
Set allowable times for streaming TV and recreational YouTube access. If everyone stays off of streaming media until 7 or 8pm (except for school or work), you’ll effectively increase your available bandwidth.
Even if you can’t afford a new router, cables, and lots of switches, most computers have an Ethernet port. Relatively short Ethernet cables can be super inexpensive (and come with many devices). Try directly connecting your computers to your router if it has available ports.
Be sure to turn off all automatic backups and auto-updates and run them after work hours.
Set YouTube to a lower resolution default. If you use Chrome, the plugin Automatic 4K/HD for YouTube will not only allow you to set automatic 4K, but it will let you set any resolution, as little as 144p. Set this to as low as you can stand on all your Chrome devices.
Tell us what works for you
Well, that should get you going. If you have any great suggestions for optimizing network performance or getting more done on a budget, please post in the comments below. Let me how you’re doing online in these crazy times. Hang in there, folks!

You can follow my day-to-day project updates on social media. Be sure to follow me on Twitter at @DavidGewirtz, on Facebook at Facebook.com/DavidGewirtz, on Instagram at Instagram.com/DavidGewirtz, and on YouTube at YouTube.com/DavidGewirtzTV.

remote work More

Chorus will build two new regional fibre links on behalf of the New Zealand government in the West Coast and Southland regions to upgrade communication services and expand Ultra-Fast broadband (UFB) connectivity.  
The telco received the nod following a tender process conducted by the government-owned Crown Infrastructure Partners.
The two regional fibre links, funded by the government’s Provincial Growth Fund, will run from Fox Glacier to Lake Hawea for approximately 240km, and from Te Anau to Milford Sound for approximately 120km. 
The new links will generally follow State Highway 6 and State Highway 94, respectively, the government said.
“The upgraded capacity and resilience these new fibre links will provide to the West Coast and Southland are a further example of the government’s ongoing commitment to improving critical telecommunications infrastructure nationwide, as well as specifically boosting investment in the regions,” New Zealand Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones said.
“Investment in high-quality communications infrastructure proved its worth to New Zealand during the COVID-19 lockdown and will also underpin the economic recovery.”
In addition to providing upgraded broadband services, the Fox Glacier-Lake Hawea link will add the Haast township to the government’s UFB rollout and provide an alternative route to existing fibres, which are primarily on the East Coast of the South Island. 
UFB connectivity will be added to Haast after the link is complete, with Chorus to be responsible for building fibre to the home in the township. 
Both of the new links will also provide connections to mobile towers that are being deployed on the Coast and in Milford Sound under the Rural Broadband Initiative phase two (RBI2). According to the New Zealand government, the links will provide connectivity to mobile towers that cover approximately 187km of mobile black spots and 21 total tourism sites in total.
The Fox Glacier-Hawea fibre link will be completed in the first half of 2022 and the Milford link is expected to be ready by the end of 2022. Earlier this year, the New Zealand government invested an additional NZ$15 million into upgrading rural network capacity to help the economy of remote communities recover from the effects of COVID-19. The additional funding was allocated towards upgrading existing rural mobile towers, upgrading wireless backhaul that connects remote sites to central networks, and installing external antennae on households to improve coverage. 
The RBI2 is expected to be complete by the end of 2021 and provide broadband for New Zealand’s rural population. The remaining population — around 87% — are covered by the UFB project, which provides speeds of up to 1Gbps using fibre to the premises.  
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Image: Ekistica Ltd
When the Centre for Appropriate Technology (CfAT) was established in 1980, it set out to help Indigenous people living in regional and remote Australia solve technical problems so they could maintain their relationship with the country.
Based in Alice Springs, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander not-for-profit organisation — which has an Aboriginal workforce of more than 50% — services remote communities around central Australia, Western Australia, the Northern Territory, and Queensland.
“For us, it was important to have the Aboriginal status front and centre in running the organisation, and overseeing the rollout of our programs,” Peter Renehan, an Arrernte man and CfAT CEO, told ZDNet.
“To do that, we link to people on the ground who live in those very remote areas and understand what those needs are. That provides us with an understanding of how to better come up with solutions based around technologies.”
Over the years, the CfAT, together with its wholly-owned subsidiary Ekistica, has worked with Indigenous communities on a range of projects, from improving water accessibility and providing reliable energy, to housing infrastructure, training and skills development, as well as developing a mobile hotspot to provide what Reneham described as a “passive no-electricity boosting system” to improve mobile coverage in remote parts of Australia.
However, these projects came to a grounding halt when the federal government cut funding to the organisation in 2015, leaving it high and dry.
“In the end, all of that stopped. We really had to change our business model and think about how we could be more sustainable and more efficient in our processes, and how to operate as a business, rather than as an NGO. That was a big change and transition for our board,” Renehan said.
Despite the setback, Renehan said the CfAT was optimistic about the prospect of new business opportunities. It wasn’t long after when US satellite company Viasat and the Indigenous Business Alliance (IBA) both came knocking on the organisation’s door to help with the development and construction of a pair of commercial satellite ground stations in Alice Springs, the first of its kind on Aboriginal-owned land.
Renehan said being part of the project not only helped put central Australia on the map, but also Aboriginal people too.

The hotspot works by focusing the phone signal towards the cradle. It is therefore only usable by a single handset at a time.
Image: CfAT
“For us, it’s not just a rental or leasing of our land, it provides us the opportunity to do the ground maintenance on the site … for us, there’s a broad spectrum of benefits for Aboriginal people through these projects,” he said.
“This opportunity shows Aboriginal can be front and centre — we’re not just passive end users. It’s an industry that can help grow the Northern Territory. We’re uniquely located in Alice Springs, we get 250 days of sunshine, we’ve got all the infrastructure underground to support it, and the land asset as well to continue to grow.
“It’s new to us as we’re not used to dealing with major multinational companies from around the world, but it puts us at the table when these discussions are happening.”
See also: Why rural internet programs bring new opportunities for remote workers and businesses (TechRepublic)
The satellite systems will be used to track low-earth orbit satellites, provide real-time earth observation, and improve disaster management such as dealing with cyclones and bushfires, as well as aid border protection, search and rescue operations, and environmental monitoring.
Renehan is hopeful the Viasat satellites can also be used to support local Indigenous ranger programs, particularly around bushfire management and carbon farming,  
“With the application of the Viasat ground station placed here with an Aboriginal organisation on Aboriginal land, we’re hoping … to come up with better technology solutions that will make their jobs easier,” Renehan said.
Renehan explained the way these satellites will be used will not be too dissimilar to the Aboriginal way of life.
“If I look at Aboriginal art, if I look at the way Aboriginal people manage their land, it’s generally about tracking land or telling a story about the land they belong to,” he said.
“Similarly, the work on a satellite being done from above looking down on the ground, providing information around monitoring and land management, it’s quite easy for Aboriginal people to understand that because a lot of that technology is made up in the DNA of Aboriginal people.”
But the Viasat deal is not the only one that CfAT has managed to score. It’s also working with European aerospace company ArianeGroup to build a new geotracker station featuring an optical telescope that will be able to automatically track satellites.
“Once we developed the relationship with Viasat on our side, ArianeGroup were quite willing to develop a relationship with us,” Renehan said.
Looking ahead, Renehan said the CfAT is confident that it will remain a key link between Indigenous Australians, particularly the younger generation, and new technology through collaborative projects.
“I think there’s a romantic view across Australia that don’t understand Aboriginal people or the context, or the issues that are affecting them, and believe that they’re still living in systems that are very old, dated, and aged, when really Aboriginal people move very quickly with technology, and they find ways to use those technologies to their advantage,” he said.
“So, I think there’s a real opportunity for organisations like CfAT to help those Aboriginal communities link in with those technologies, no matter what those technologies are.
“I think Australia needs to be mature enough to understand that there are linkages into those remote Aboriginal community that can enhance the Australian experience. We need to come up with solutions that can enhance those Aboriginal people and the culture they bring to the Australian context. Hopefully, over the years they become key players in the economic development in Australia, rather passive end-users.”
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I’ve been using Mozilla’s Firefox browser since it was still in beta. In 2004, for a while, it was my favorite web browser. Not because it was open-source, but because it was so much better and more secure than Internet Explorer. That was then. This is now. Firefox is in real danger of dying off. 

Open Source

Firefox had a great run, but beginning in 2012 with Firefox 11, the once innovative browser began a sharp decline in quality. Over the years, things continued downhill. 
Oh, Mozilla and Firefox still produced important work. You need to look no further than the JavaScript, Rust, and WebAssembly languages. They were also champions of security and privacy. Projects such as embracing DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) and overall security improvements were great, but users didn’t care.
With the arrival of Google’s Chrome browser, users turned from Firefox to Chrome as their favorite browser. Every year or so, I look at web browser popularity, and every year, Firefox’s market share shrinks. By July 2012, Firefox was retreating from its all-time high mark of 23.75%. By March 2020, according to the US federal government’s Digital Analytics Program (DAP), which gives us a running count of the last 90 days of US government website visits, Firefox had dropped to a mere 3.6%. As of Aug. 14, 2020, only a few months later, it’s shrunk down even more to a paltry 3.3%.
Firefox is on its way to irrelevance. 
Making matters even worse, Mozilla’s just had its second round of layoffs. First, Mozilla laid off some of its most senior staffers. These weren’t office drones. They were top developers. Then, in August, Mozilla laid off almost a quarter of its staff.
As technology writer Matthew MacDonald put it, “Mozilla has gutted the MDN [Mozilla Developer Network] team.” Firefox’s security and development teams have also been hard hit.
This is bad. In January. Mitchell Baker, Mozilla Corporation CEO and Mozilla Foundation chairperson, said it let people go because of declining interest in Firefox, and thus reduced earnings, and that Mozilla was looking for more revenue from “sources outside of search” but “this did not happen.”
It still isn’t happening. According to Mozilla’s latest annual report, the majority of its revenue is still generated from global browser search partnerships. This includes the deal negotiated with Google in 2017. 
In the most recent layoff, Baker blamed the coronavirus pandemic. I suspect it has far more to do with the continued decline of its search partnership. 
True, Mozilla has just admitted that its new Google search partnership will give it from $400 million to $450 million per year. In return for the cash, Google search remains Firefox’s default search engine provider until 2023 at an estimated price tag. 
But will Mozilla actually make that much dough? I doubt it. According to its last publicly available numbers, in 2018, the Mozilla Corp made  $435.702 million from royalties, subscriptions, and advertising revenue. 
Almost all of that is from its Google search deal. I can’t believe, though, that Google is paying Mozilla a flat fee. It must be tied to some sort of performance metric. And with Firefox’s market share growing ever smaller, Mozilla’s revenue must be shrinking. Otherwise, why would it let go of so many of its staffers?
Despite this, Baker assured onlookers that Mozilla would “ship new products faster and develop new revenue streams.” These include its bookmarking app Pocket; its virtual rooms Hubs; and its $4.99-a-month Firefox VPN.
Excuse me if I don’t buy any of these new revenue sources. There are already many successful bookmarking programs (Evernote, Flipboard, and Instapaper), virtual meeting rooms (Zoom, Slack, and Teams); and VPNs (NordVPN, PureVPN, and Hotspot Shield). Do you see any room there for a new money-making service? I don’t. 
Firefox will live on in one way or the other. It’s open source after all. But Firefox as an important browser, or Mozilla as a significant open-source developer hub? No. I can’t see it. Those days are done. Firefox is officially on my endangered species list. 
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An Optus 5G installation on a power pole in Sydney.
Image: Chris Duckett/ZDNet
Telstra has taken out Opensignal’s first 5G user report in Australia, with the incumbent telco offering better speeds on 5G, although the perennial bridesmaid of Australian telcos was able to top it in coverage numbers.
Download speed purely on the competing 5G networks was blitzed by Telstra, which recorded 232Mbps compared to the 170Mbps on the Optus network.
Telstra’s lead was further backed up in the download experience test, which takes into account an operator’s 3G and LTE networks since 5G coverage is rather lacking at this point in time. In this test, Telstra recorded 52.5Mbps while Optus posted 46.7Mbps.
For the coverage numbers, Optus users had a 5G connection 8.6% of the time, edging out Telstra users on 8.2%. Opensignal said the results were statistically equivalent, but it had plaudits for the Singaporean-owned telco.
“This is an impressive achievement for Optus, given that its commercial 5G launch took place in early November 2019, roughly five and a half months after Telstra’s,” it said.
As Australian telcos continue to deploy 5G networks, Opensignal said it expects download numbers will become dominated by the speeds available on 5G networks, particularly with standalone 5G, which replaces the 4G core used on non-standalone 5G with a 5G core.
Telstra said in May its network was already able to support standalone 5G.
“The 5G experience in Australia is already many times faster than 4G, and we are only at the very beginning of a 5G era that will likely last a decade or more,” Opensignal said.
A global Opensignal report in July last year showed Australia was the only country where 4G speeds were better than the much-hyped speeds of 5G.
According to the report, Australia’s maximum 4G network speed was 950Mbps, while 5G topped out at 792Mbps.
Tests of Telstra’s 5G network conducted in June last year by ZDNet found the network rarely cracked the 300Mbps barrier.
In the period since, repeated 5G tests by ZDNet have failed to impress, but Opensignal said it has seen Telstra’s network improve from 157Mbps in May, to 232Mbps in this report.
“It should be noted that 5G availability is not the same as the percentage of Australia’s population or geography covered by 5G, given that initial 5G deployments tend to be focused in city centres and the COVID-19 pandemic is encouraging users to spend more time in residential areas,” the report said.
On Thursday, the Australian government announced that bidders in the upcoming 26Ghz spectrum auction would be limited to an allocation of 1GHz.
“I have directed the Australian Communications and Media Authority to set allocation limits of 1GHz,” Communications Minister Paul Fletcher said.
“Success in the mobile market ultimately depends on access to spectrum. Applying allocation limits means that the 26GHz spectrum cannot be monopolised by any one operator.”
The 26GHz band, from 25.1GHz to 27.5GHz, is set to be allocated by the ACMA in 29 areas across the country, while the 28GHz band, from 27.5GHz to 30GHz, will be restricted to apparatus licences. The former band will be allocated via an auction and administrative process, while the latter band will only be allocated by an administrative process.
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Minister for Communications, Cyber Safety and the Arts Paul Fletcher announced on Thursday he has directed the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) to set limits on the upcoming millimetre wave auction due in March.
“I have directed the Australian Communications and Media Authority to set allocation limits of 1GHz,” Fletcher said.
“Success in the mobile market ultimately depends on access to spectrum. Applying allocation limits means that the 26GHz spectrum cannot be monopolised by any one operator.”
The 26GHz band, from 25.1GHz to 27.5GHz, is set to be allocated by the ACMA in 29 areas across the country, while the 28GHz band, from 27.5GHz to 30GHz, will be restricted to apparatus licences. The former band will be allocated via an auction and administrative process, while the latter band will only be allocated by an administrative process.
“The 26GHz band is the first high-band spectrum earmarked internationally for 5G deployment to be allocated in Australia,” the ACCC said in February when releasing a consultation paper.
“The propagation characteristics and large bandwidths of high-band spectrum, such as 26GHz and 28GHz, favour densely concentrated, small cell deployment models that support high-capacity broadband services. However, some network operators may adopt less dense deployment models with larger coverage areas per cell, especially for fixed broadband networks.”
Fletcher said the government has plans to introduce legislation into Parliament that will “modernise the spectrum management framework” and be more flexible.
In April, NBN said it had tested using millimetre wave spectrum with propagation distances of over 10 kilometres.
“Our studies, and those of our technology partners provide high levels of confidence that the long-range use would allow NBN to have significant flexibility to maximise our deployment and upgrade options,” NBN said.
“This long-range approach is enabled by our unique network topology with 100% external CPEs (consumer premises equipment), and largely line of sight deployment in regional and rural areas”
The current NBN fixed wireless network uses 4G LTE and has a propagation limit of 14 kilometres.
Telstra previously said it should get at least 1GHz of contiguous spectrum, equal to 42% of the spectrum available in the 26GHz band.
“A low (sub 1GHz) allocation limit which restricts operator optionality during the auction could therefore constrain or disincentivise future 5G deployment, investment and development,” Australia’s incumbent telco said. “A higher (at least 1GHz) limit reduces this risk.”
“At the same time, in the longer term, other mmWave bands may become available, expanding the range of potential 5G deployment options open to operators.”
Should the ACCC accept Telstra’s arguments, clearly, one of Australia’s three mobile network operators would be left with the rough end of the spectrum pineapple, potentially holding only 16% of the spectrum on offer.
Conversely, and much more mathematically equal, Optus put forward the idea of setting the allocation limit at 800MHz instead.
“An allocation limit of 800 MHz will allow networks to deliver peak speeds greater than 20Gbps, consistent with ITU 5G specifications; while ensuring the market would see at least three mmWave networks,” the Singaporean-owned telco said.
“Importantly, it would ensure that no single operator can be dominant in the deployment and establishment of 5G services in this band.”
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Since launching its new 100/20, 250/25, and 500-1,000/50Mbps speed tiers in May, in the intervening month, NBN retailers were able to get 45,000 customers onto the new plans, according to figures released by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) on Thursday.
Over 38,000 premises took on the lowest tier of the new plans — 100/20Mbps, dubbed as Home Fast — which consisted of over 10,000 on HFC, over 9,400 premises having fibre to the premises (FttP), fibre to the curb (FttC) contributed over 8,330 premises, fibre to the node (FttN) accounted for 7,770 premises, and premises with fibre to the basement (FttB) made up just over 2,000.
For the higher pair of plans, only premises with FttP or HFC are eligible to make the switch. Home Superfast, which is 250/25Mbps, has just over 2,000 premises, with HFC making up 1,535 of that number. For the fastest plan, Home Ultrafast, that sees customers officially get a download speed between 500Mbps-1,000Mbps, FttP accounted for 4,427 premises with the added benefit of the technology being capable of 1Gbps. For HFC, where NBN has said the plan is only available on an initial 7% of its footprint, 220 hardy souls took the plunge.
The ACCC Wholesale Market Indicators Report said all but 400 of the Ultrafast customers were with Aussie Broadband, which jumped quickly onto offering the new plans.
“We think that the plan should achieve off-peak speeds of up to 80-90%, depending on the technology type,” Aussie Broadband managing director Phil Britt said in May.
The company also added 50 pure 1000/400Mbps plan customers in the quarter to June 30.
Over the period, the number of activated connections on the NBN increased by 5.4% to 7.4 million, and with purchased capacity lagging behind with a 3.5% increase to 18.4Tbps, the average capacity per user decreased 1.8% to 2.5Mbps.
In the previous quarter, the report CVC usage had jumped by 40% and average CVC per user had increased by 31%.
The CVC spike arrived after NBN offered a free 40% capacity boost for retailers to handle with pandemic-induced traffic increases.
See also: ACCC report and COVID-19 highlight how CVC is an artificial handbrake on the NBN
NBN has extended the CVC holiday until September 19, but it has warned that this will be the final extension.
The government-owned broadband wholesaler has faced criticism for wanting to return to regular pricing once the CVC holiday passed, with Britt saying in July that traffic patterns of Australians have changed.
“NBN’s extra 40% CVC bandwidth to cope with peak demand during COVID certainly cushioned the impact, but once it’s gone, we don’t believe traffic levels will return to original forecasts,” Britt said at the time. “Given that telcos pay overage for CVC usage above the amount bundled into their NBN wholesale products, this puts them in a difficult situation.
“They will either need to raise retail prices to keep the service levels the same in peak time speeds, or lower peak time speeds to maintain at least some level of margin — which is almost non-existent as is.”
Speaking on Thursday while handing down Telstra’s full-year results, CEO Andy Penn said the profitability of reselling NBN products was barely there.
“NBN wholesale pricing remains the largest negative impact on our fixed business,” Penn said.
“Without some sort of long-term change leading to improvement in RSP economics, the risk of retail price increases, reduced customer experience or customers moving onto other networks such as 5G will increase.
“In Telstra’s case, the profitability of reselling the NBN is negligible at best — that is not sustainable.”
Across the NBN for the quarter to June 30, an extra 80,000 25/5Mbps connections were activated, an extra 2,000 premises opted for 25/10Mbps, over 255,000 jumped onto a 50/20Mbps plan, and 43,500 opted for a 100/40Mbps plan.
79 premises dropped off 250/100Mbps plans, while 64 customers went for 500/200Mbps connections.
NBN reported its full-year earnings on Tuesday, with revenue growing by 36% to AU$3.8 billion and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation halving last year’s loss to be AU$648 million in the hole for the year to the end of June.
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Telstra CEO Andy Penn with a mmWave hotspot
Image: Telstra
It is unsurprising that Telstra has labelled 2020 a challenging year, in fact, to say 2020 is challenging might be one of history’s great understatements.
For Australia’s largest telco, 2020 saw reductions in revenue, earnings, and profit as well as a reduction in expenses to offset the declines somewhat. For the 2020 full year, Telstra reported a 6% drop in total revenue to AU$26 billion, operating expenses fell 14.5% to AU$17 billion to give earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of $8.9 billion, which represented an increase of 11.5% and a rare bright spot on Thursday’s earnings.
With increased depreciation and amortisation, the company went on to record a 14% drop in net profit to AU$1.8 billion.
The company also revealed in its results that its Belong brand has been driving many of its customer gains over the past year, which is likely to continue into the future with Telstra increasing the prices on its flagship plans at the end of June.
Across the year, Telstra added 240,000 postpaid mobile services, of which, 154,000 were on Belong, as well as 171,000 prepaid mobile services, 347,000 wholesale services, and 652,000 Internet of Things services.
“In FY20, we added 80,000 broadband subscribers, with Belong accounting for all the growth,” CFO Vicky Brady said.
Belong now has 400,000 mobile services and 330,000 fixed services around Australia. For its flagship brand, Telstra said it had decreased its number of consumer and small business plans from 1,800 to 20.
For its mobile segment, the company reported a 4.4% revenue decrease to AU$10 billion, with EBTIDA down 6.7% to AU$3.5 billion, and average revenue per user falling 8.2% to AU$50.29 each month. The company also experienced a AU$75 million drop in international roaming due to coronavirus travel restrictions.
It was a similar case of decreases in the fixed segment, with revenue dropping by 12% to AU$4.6 million and bundle and standalone data average revenue per user dropping 4.4% to AU$71.75 each month.
Data and IP recorded a 13% plunge in revenue to AU$2 billion, with EBITDA crashing 17.5% to AU$1.3 billion, while its network applications and services segment recorded an EBITDA increase of almost 65% to AU$593 million from revenue of AU$3.4 billion.
After it became a standalone business unit in the fiscal year, InfraCo saw 10.6% drop in revenue to AU$4.4 billion and an 11.7% drop in EBITDA to AU$2.8 billion.
Telstra also announced it was extending its job cuts pause until February next year for permanent staff.
“As we approach the end of that pause, it is clear that the impacts of COVID-19 will be with us for some time,” CEO Andy Penn said.
“We know many are doing it tough at the moment and we hope this decision will give some certainty to our people in what is a very challenging time for Australia — and many of the countries in which we operate.
“There will be some roles that finish in the interim where projects have come to an end or work is no longer required, volumes have declined, or fixed-term contracts end particularly related to our involvement in the construction of the NBN. However, for the majority of our teams this will continue to give them some certainty at least until the new year.”
Penn added the company would need to return to the cuts and make tough decisions next year to hit its T22 goals.
Telstra’s workforce is 5,700 employees smaller than it was two years ago, the company said, and its indirect workforce had 12,000 fewer jobs.
In March, the company needed to recruit 1,000 temporary call centre workers in Australia, after its overseas call centres were shut down due to coronavirus. This shifted the company’s thinking, Penn said, and the company will be pushing digital channels of interaction even more as it aims to reduce inbound call centre volumes by two-thirds as part of its T22 plans.
“This means that over time we will need a smaller call centre workforce for our consumer and small business customers and our aspiration is that by the end of our T22 program all inbound calls from these customers will be answered in Australia,” Penn said.
“Today we are already at more than 60%.”
The company has also set aside AU$50 million for penalties related to selling practices that took advantage of vulnerable people, especially Indigenous Australians, as well as cut the pay of some executives, including the CEO.
“We are also cooperating with an ACCC investigation into our sales, complaint handling, and debt collection practices to resolve their concerns about potential misleading or deceptive conduct, unconscionable conduct, or false or misleading representations at a small number of our partner stores — stores that are operated by licensees,” Penn said on the matter.
“The board has also reduced the variable remuneration outcome for certain executives by 10%, not because they did anything wrong, but because they were accountable for the areas of the business where these failures happened. This includes me because ultimately as the CEO there is not a part of the business for which I am not accountable.
Elsewhere in its results, Telstra said it was 75% through its NBN headwinds, with an AU$830 million hit to its earnings that are pinned on the existence of the government-owned broadband wholesaler for this year. That total is said to be AU$2.6 billion since the 2016 fiscal year.
“NBN wholesale pricing remains the largest negative impact on our fixed business,” Penn said.
“Without some sort of long-term change leading to improvement in RSP economics, the risk of retail price increases, reduced customer experience or customers moving onto other networks such as 5G will increase. In Telstra’s case, the profitability of reselling the NBN is negligible at best — that is not sustainable.”
Telstra also took a AU$308 million impairment on its Foxtel stake and said it had 10,000 people working in agile teams.
For the year ahead, Telstra is expecting total income to be between AU$23 billion to AU$25 billion, with underlying EBITDA to be between AU$6.5 billion to AU$7 billion. The company also expects to spend AU$200 million either side of AU$3 billion in capital expenditure, with NBN headwinds to account for a AU$700 million hit to earnings, and coronavirus impacts hitting it for another AU$400 million.
The telco wants to cut another AU$400 million in costs during fiscal year 2021.
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