Networking

Image: TPG Telecom
The company responsible for the National Broadband Network said on Tuesday it would spend AU$750 million to get its fixed wireless network 5G-enabled at over 2,200 sites and 22,000 cells. As part of the upgrade, all users will be able to get up to 100Mbps speeds with 85% of the network capable of 250Mbps, have busy hours at minimum speeds of 50Mbps, 120,000 homes will shift from satellite to fixed wireless coverage, and those left on satellite will see off-peak quota-free window expanded from midnight to 4pm each day by mid-year. The program is expected to take two and a half years, at which point satellite users will see data quotas boosted to 90GB. “By using the latest 4G and 5G wireless technology, this upgrade will extend the coverage range from a tower, and allow higher speed services to everyone served by the tower,” Minister for Communications Paul Fletcher said. “The upgrade will expand the fixed wireless footprint coverage by up to 50%.” The government funding is set to be part of the upcoming federal budget. Speeds on fixed wireless connections have been heading backwards compared to a year ago, according a recent Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) report, with only 49% of plan speeds able to be attained, and upload speeds continuing to be awful. According to the ACCC’s report from December, users on 25/5Mbps plans could only average 4Mbps uploads during busy periods. “Consumers on the NBN Fixed Wireless Plus plan are experiencing relatively low upload speeds,” ACCC Commissioner Anna Brakey said at the time. “A typical video conference will require 2Mbps of available upload, which means some consumers might have trouble achieving high quality while video conferencing, particularly if there are multiple conferences occurring.” Related Coverage More

Are you lost? Do you now know where you are? Don’t know how to get to where you’re going? Well, if you’re using Google Maps or a navigation service that depends upon it, you’re in good company. Earlier today, just before noon Eastern time, according to Down Detector, Google Maps started messing up. 

Users began reporting that while you could still get text directions, reviews, and recommendations, you couldn’t get the directions on the maps themselves. The problem, by the reports on Google Maps Platform Status Dashboard, is with the directions and several other Maps-related application programming interfaces (APIs). As of 3 PM Eastern, all these services were in a Service Outage state. Shortly, thereafter, Google announced, “Multiple Geo Enterprise services [were] experiencing high rates of error.” It is being worked on though: “Mitigation work is currently underway by our engineering team.” As of 3 pm Eastern, Google reports that “Maps API Services are starting to return to normal.”Hang in there. You should soon be able to find your way around with a friendly helping app soon.

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After Russia invaded Ukraine, Ukraine asked the internet governing groups to cut Russia off from the internet. These bodies, including the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), refused. Two of the main backbone internet providers, Lumen Technologies and Cogent, indicated they would sever Russia’s internet ties. Their actions speak louder than their words though. Internet analysis company ThousandEyes has shown that Russia’s backbone Internet connectivity remains pretty much the same as ever. In other words, Russia has not been disconnected from the net. 

Ukraine Crisis

Ironically, the most significant interference with Russians reaching the world via the internet doesn’t come from outside Russia but from within Russia itself. Russia has blocked Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Russia is also trying to set up its own alternative to the Domain Name System (DNS). This is the internet’s universal address system. Russia is also attempting to create its own TLS certificate authority (CA). These certificates are essential for ensuring there are secure connections between web browsers and sites. Russian companies and agencies, however, can’t renew CAs now from Western countries. The rub, however, is that CA certificates must be trusted to work. And the only web browsers that regard these new CA certificates as trustworthy are Russia’s Yandex browser and Atom products. Good luck getting these to work with Chrome, Firefox, or Edge.But, as for Russia’s actual major internet connections, they’re still working just fine. According to ThousandEyes, “Russia’s connection to the rest of the world via these vital networks remains intact, with major Russian ISPs, such as JSC Rostelecom, continuing to peer with global transit providers outside of Russia, just as they did long before recent events. As a result, the Russian people continue to have access to the global Internet — at least at an infrastructure level.”That’s not to say that Russian internet sites haven’t been hit by distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. They have been. But, Russian sites have largely remained up in the same way that they stay up in the West when they’re attacked: By using content delivery networks (CDN)s such as those from Cloudflare and Akamai. These CDN companies continue to operate in Russia because, as Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince wrote, “Russia needs more internet access, not less… we’ve seen a dramatic increase in requests from Russian networks to worldwide media, reflecting a desire by ordinary Russian citizens to see world news beyond that provided within Russia.”Russian sites are also protecting themselves from attacks by ISP traffic blackholing. As the name suggests, this works by routing potentially malicious network traffic into a “black hole.” If you’re outside Russia trying to reach a Russian site, you’re more likely to have trouble connecting. Within Russia, working with Russian websites continues pretty much as normal. But, for the million-ruble problem of Russians connecting to the outside world, despite what’s been said, the backbone connectivity is still up and working. That’s because Cogent and Lucent, along with many other global transit providers, such as TeliaNet and Telstra, continue to peer with major Russian Internet Service Providers (ISP)s via transit points outside Russia proper.  That said, at ThousandEyes points out, “just because network connectivity persists between Russia and the rest of the world, as it does with China, that doesn’t mean that the Internet experienced by Russian users mirrors that of the rest of the world — or that users outside of Russia have unfiltered access to websites served from inside of Russia.” The Russian government ultimately controls much of Russian citizens see, and don’t see, on the net. In effect, it is creating a virtual internet prison. 

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More and more, remote work and home offices are becoming common fixtures in our careers, with either permanent work-from-home options available or hybrid flextime models. What was once a rapid response to a global pandemic may lead to permanent, long-term changes in how we work and what we will expect our employers to offer in the future.  According to a Salesforce survey on the future of work, 64% of employees still want to spend some time in a traditional workplace environment, and 74% of Generation Z — soon to become the majority of the labor pool — is interested in hybrid work practices, splitting time between home and the office. However, such a change in the foundation of our workday will create a tradeoff: some of the resource requirements will move from employer to employee.  If you want to take advantage of the quality of service that any potential future hybrid work offers, companies may require you to show you have the equipment at home to work. While a comfortable desk, chair, Alexa smart speaker or other smart home devices, a camera and microphone for remote meetings, and simply the space to concentrate and knuckle down are necessary, hybrid and fully remote roles demand one critical component: connectivity.  While you might already have internet connectivity and a wireless router good enough to support mobile devices, smart home products, and content streaming services such as Netflix, you may need to add work-related systems, Wi-Fi extenders, and software to the mix to make a high-end network with minimal dead spots. If this sounds like what you are looking for, then think about getting a new router or modem to keep up with the square footage of your home. The more connections there are the greater the risk of bottlenecks and connectivity drops. Basic routers supplied by your ISP and older models may not be enough now we spend more time at home and connect to even more devices and services, and so without a quality Wi-Fi router, work productivity and performance can be impacted. Some of you at home may only need a Wi-Fi router able to generate a strong signal in one or two areas of your home to prevent dead zones, or you may want additional ports, security controls, and child locks. Others may opt for mesh Wi-Fi, which while often a more expensive option, can improve coverage over larger areas and extend connectivity to home offices located away from your main house.  ZDNet has listed our top picks for Wi-Fi routers suitable for different budgets and needs. Here are a few of the best Wi-Fi routers and best wireless routers on the market today.

Google Nest Wifi

Best for Google ecosystem users

One of the most suitable devices on the market for Google ecosystem users is Google Nest Wifi. This router option aims to keep things easy to set up with “Network Assist,” a system that works in the background to automatically select the best channels for your connected devices. The Wi-Fi router offers coverage of up to 2,200 sq ft. However, as a mesh Wi-Fi device, the more access points you add to the router system, the better the blanket coverage on your home network. You can select a single pack that comes with one router and one additional Wi-Fi access point, or Google also offers a two-pack option, with an estimated coverage area of up to 4,400 sq ft. Google Nest Wifi is capable of managing roughly 200 connections per access point and also two Gigabit Ethernet ports are included with each router. Each point has an integrated smart speaker with Google Assistant. Pros:Blanket coverage for small and medium-sized homesScalable with additional routersBluetooth & voice compatibilityCons:The cost can add up in larger propertiesSome users report setup problems

Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX11000

Best for gamers

Best Buy

If Google’s Nest WiFi router does not provide enough streaming power for you — whether for gaming or online work systems that require quick and stable connectivity — the Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX11000 is a tri-band router for heavy use and gamers who require high levels of bandwidth.  The Asus ROG Rapture AX11000 is a 10-gigabit, Wi-Fi 6 router. It comes with a 1.8Ghz quad-core processor, 2.5G gaming port, port forwarding, 256MB NAND flash, 1GB RAM, and a range of up to 2,500 sq ft. It is possible to select an option to prioritize gaming traffic, which may be a useful feature for those employed in the gaming or review sector. Asus has also implemented dynamic frequency selection (DFS) to automatically select the least-congested 5GHz bands for streaming. A VPN and support for ASUS AiMesh are included for expanded home coverage.Pros:Automatic boosts for 2.4GHz and 5.0GHz connectionsUp to 11000 Mbps data transfer rates802.11ax WiFi standardCons:ExpensiveThe design won’t appeal to everyone

Synology RT2600ac

Best for remote workers who want a VPN option

If your employer requires a Virtual Private Network (VPN) while you work remotely, the Synology RT2600 Wi-Fi router may be a suitable option. A VPN makes internet connections more secure by encrypting communication between browser sessions and servers — and can also be used to mask your original IP address — and so if workers are asked to connect to corporate resources, a VPN can keep access secure.To take the guesswork out, the Synology RT2600 is a dual-band, MU-MIMO router already equipped with a VPN option, VPN Plus, to act as a VPN server or client, and support is also available for Synology SSL VPN, PPTP, OpenVPN, and L2TP/IPSec. To facilitate the use of VPN servers and clients, the router is powered by a 1.7Ghz dual-core processor, as well as 4×4 802.11ac wave 2 radios.The router is capable of speeds of up to 2.53Gbps. In addition, this product has a useful feature for streaming: The option to connect SD cards or USB 3.0 attached storage to stream content to TVs and other devices.Pros:VPN option — VPN Plus — acts as a VPN server or clientUpgradable with mesh optionsUp to 3,000 sq ft coverageCons:Mesh upgrades for larger homes are expensive

Netgear Orbi

Best for those with larger homes and big families

Mesh home Wi-Fi networks are increasing in popularity as we adopt smart, connected devices and streaming services in our homes. Mesh topologies can increase the stability and interconnections between IoT devices by working with ‘nodes’ placed around the home, reducing blind spots and buffering issues. While mesh Wi-Fi devices do not always offer the same advanced settings or features as some traditional routers, mesh devices can suit those who have a home office in an area with a weak Wi-Fi signal, for example, or who are competing for streaming capacity. The Orbi’s strength is its coverage — up to 5,000 sq ft, with support for up to 25 devices. The tri-band, MU-MIMO router offers decent Wi-Fi speeds on the 2.4GHz (400Mbps) + 5GHz (866Mbps) bands — and is powered by a quad-core ARM processor and comes with 512MB RAM on Wi-Fi 6. The included Ethernet port provides 1GB connectivity. The Netgear Orbi can be picked up with standard specifications or you can upgrade to the premium “Ultra Performance” range, which extends coverage and the number of devices connected via satellite bolt-ons; each of which expands coverage by up to 2,500 sq ft. See the review: Netgear Orbi Wi-Fi 6 AX4200 hands-onNetgear Orbi should be considered when more than one person is fighting for broadband resources, such as when multiple occupants are all working from home and children need stable connections for learning.Parental controls and the option to adopt Netgear Armor are included.Pros:An excellent option for home setupsScalableModern, clean designCons:Add-on satellites are costly Netgear Armor is a subscription service

TP-Link Archer AX6000

Best for those who want to future-proof their home

The TP-Link Archer AX6000 is a high-performance router that shines as a Wi-Fi 6  model. Picking up a Wi-Fi 6 device now is an investment for future-proofing your home connectivity, as this standard provides the capacity for devices to send more data during transmissions, increasing speed.For those working from home for the foreseeable future, the TP-Link Archer AX6000 is a worthwhile option. The dual-band device supports 2.4GHz/5.0GHz frequency and is equipped with 128MB flash memory, 1GB RAM, and a 1.8GHz CPU. In speed tests conducted by CNET, it was top of the class, coming in at an average wireless network download speed of 1,523 Mbps at 5ft, with a strong performance recorded even at distances of up to 75ft.WPA2 encryption, Ethernet connectivity, and parental controls are also included. Pros:8 Ethernet ports, 1 WAN portWorks with Amazon AlexaSimple user interfaceCons:Bulky design

How did we choose these Wi-Fi routers?

ZDNet examined popular and new options on the market and selected our products with budgets and intended use in mind. With hybrid and remote working practices now becoming a permanent feature of day-to-day activities for many of us, dedicated and solid routers are now a necessity for both business use and home life.We also chose to include both traditional and mesh products, despite the recent changes in work environments, we can’t forget that family and friends also need stable connections for entertainment, education, and gaming.

What is the difference between a traditional router and mesh Wi-Fi?

Traditional Wi-Fi routers provide a single access point for your broadband/fiber connections. However, if there are too many connections made at the same time, this can cause bottlenecks and may impact the reliability of a connection. It is often the case that standard routers offer improved power and speed when the number of connections is manageable in comparison to mesh, but mesh offers extended, blanket coverage and more access points. As a result, wired and traditional routers are often better for gaming and streaming, whereas mesh is a solid option when you have multiple people and connections in a home. 

Is it worth upgrading from Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) to Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax)?

In short, yes, if you can and you are willing to front the expense for a better connection. With our world now dominated by smartphones, IoT devices, and streaming services, an upgrade to Wi-Fi 6 gives you access to more streams and potentially faster services. 

Which is the right Wi-Fi router for you?

When you decide to either upgrade your existing router setup or replace the bog-standard device your ISP gave you — which are often poor and don’t allow consumers to enjoy the full potential of the speed they are paying for — you first need to decide what your connection priorities are. If you’re at home with multiple occupants and many devices, a mesh network is probably the best way to go, especially if you are on a large property. However, if it is more important to you to have speed and reliability over coverage potential, then a traditional router might be the best option. 

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Recently, Ukraine asked the official internet governing bodies for Russia to be booted off the net. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and related organizations rejected Ukraine’s request.  But, that didn’t stop major internet backbone providers, Lumen and Cogent, from cutting Russia from the world internet. It now appears, however, that Russia may sever its ties from the internet all on its own. 

Networking

NEXTA, a free Belarusian news service based in Warsaw, Poland, released a purported Russian internet policy document. This stated that by Friday, March 11, all Russian websites must be switched to the Russian Domain Name System (DNS) service. DNS is the internet’s master address list. It translates from human-readable internet addresses, such as zdnet.com, to an Internet Protocol (IP) address. By forcing all Russian connections to use the Russian DNS zones, people in Russia could only reach sites recognized in the Russian DNS. This isn’t new. Russia has been trying for years to gain the power to unplug from the internet. This would make it trivial to block social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, and news sites including the New York Times, the BBC, and NEXTA. This would be all in a piece with Russia shutting down effectively all independent Russian media.  This would also make it easier for the Russian government to surveil its citizens.For years, Russia’s laws have required that all local Internet Service Providers (ISPs) must route traffic through special servers managed by the Roskomnadzor, the country’s telecoms regulator. These servers can act as kill switches and disconnect Russia from external connections while rerouting internet traffic inside Russia’s own internet space. This Russian-only internet is called RuNet.Russia claims that RuNet has been tested and works. It’s not clear, however, that Russia was successful. Russian ISPs have many connections to the outside world beyond the government-controlled switches. However, if Russia’s government is successful in forcing everyone to use its DNS, it’s another story. Andrew Sullivan, CEO and President of the Internet Society, worries Russia may go even further.  Sullivan believes Russia’s government is “asking all sites to move to Russian-hosted servers and services.” This will ensure that Russian “government websites can continue to operate should more companies decide to stop providing services.”Sullivan also notes that “Russia’s government has been trying for years to disconnect from the global Internet, but they have been unsuccessful because their Internet infrastructure is actually quite robust.” If Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is successful, people in Russia will only get their information from state-sponsored propaganda. Sullivan believes “restricting Russia’s Internet will have disproportionate impacts on ordinary citizens, cutting off the average person from the outside world while sparing elites … who will always find the means to remain connected.”Related Stories:

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The internet’s governing bodies dismissed Ukraine’s requests to cut Russia off from the internet. But now, two of the main backbone internet providers, Lumen Technologies and Cogent, have severed Russia’s ties to the internet. 

Ukraine Crisis

Lumen, formerly CenturyLink, operates one of the world’s largest Internet backbones. Effective immediately, Lumen declared it couldn’t continue to operate in Russia and stopped all routing traffic for Russian organizations. Lumen’s decision comes mere days after Cogent bid the Russian market adieu.Oddly, Lumen tried to say this really didn’t make that much of a difference because the “business services we provide are extremely small and very limited, as is our physical presence.” And besides, “We do not have any consumer customers in Russia, but for the extremely small number of enterprise customers we have, this means we will no longer provide local Lumen services.”It’s actually a much bigger deal than Lumen lets on. According to Doug Madory, Director of Internet Analysis for network observability company Kentik, Lumen was the top international transit provider to Russia state telecom Rostelecom and all three of Russia’s major mobile operators: MTS, Megafon, and VEON.There will also be downstream problems from these actions. Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan will lose some connectivity. In addition, the internet in Iran, Azerbaijan, Belarus, and Russian-occupied Crimea and Abkhazia will also be affected. In the meantime, Russia has been cutting its own ties to major internet services. Russia has blocked Facebook and Twitter. To access these and other Western services now, people living in Russia must use illegal Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) or TOR routes.Of course, as the internet backbones are cut, connecting to outside resources will grow ever more slowly. As Madory explained, “Disconnecting their customers in Russia will not disconnect Russia… This reduction in bandwidth may lead to congestion as the remaining international carriers try to pick up the slack.”While many people welcome Russia losing the internet, this is also a mixed blessing. As Internet Society President Andrew Sullivan wrote in his essay, Why the World Must Resist Calls to Undermine the Internet, “without the Internet, ordinary citizens of many countries wouldn’t know what was being carried out in their name.” Sullivan continued. “Cutting a whole population off the Internet will stop disinformation coming from that population– but it also stops the flow of truth.”See also

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For about 10-million people, work got off to a rocky start on the US East coast morning of March 9th when they were unable to use Slack. The problem wasn’t on the internet or their computers; Slack itself was suffering from a series of problems.

The trouble began at 5:49 a.m. Eastern Standard Time when Slack reported that “We’re receiving reports around trouble with uploading files and other features. We are truly sorry for this inconvenience, and we will keep you posted with further details.”Any hopes that this would be a mere glitch vanished as hours went by and the problems continued to mount. New issues popped up. These included –deep breath–“calls, huddles, email processing, file uploads, emoji reactions retention, new DM groups retention in the sidebar, Search, Workflow Builder, Workflow pop-out windows, Channel creation, API errors, webhooks, and Slack Connect invites.”In short, everything and the kitchen sink was going wrong.By 10:57 a.m. Eastern, Slack finally had “identified the issue causing disruption.” But that’s not the same thing as a fix. “Our team is continuing to work on a solution.” Slack asks for your patience as they continue to work on a fix.As of noon Eastern, Slack disruptions are still happening. The service does not appear to have ever gone down completely despite all this. Finally, Slack found a fix at 12:18 PM. But you may still see trouble. Slack advises you to refresh your workspace. If you continue to have problems, please e-mail feedback@slack.com.Slack has been suffering from outages all too often. This includes system failures on February 22nd and January 4th, 2021. Slack’s current woes have nothing to do with yesterday’s Google Cloud networking problems that led to Spotify and Discord going down for several hours. None of these problems, despite online rumors to the contrary, appear to have anything to do with Russian hackers. That said, everyone should still be on the alert for hacking attacks because of Russia’s attack on Ukraine. These are not safe times.See also

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Security researchers from Akamai, Cloudflare, Lumen Black Lotus Labs, Mitel, Netscour, Team Cymru, Telus, and The Shadowserver Foundation have disclosed denial-of-service attacks with an amplification ratio that surpasses 4 billion to one that can be launched from a single packet. Dubbed CVE-2022-26143, the flaw resides in around 2,600 incorrectly provisioned Mitel MiCollab and MiVoice Business Express systems that act as PBX-to-internet gateways and have a test mode that should not be exposed to the internet. “The exposed system test facility can be abused to launch a sustained DDoS attack of up to 14 hours in duration by means of a single spoofed attack initiation packet, resulting in a record-setting packet amplification ratio of 4,294,967,296:1,” a blog post on Shadowserver explains. “It should be noted that this single-packet attack initiation capability has the effect of precluding network operator traceback of the spoofed attack initiator traffic. This helps mask the attack traffic generation infrastructure, making it less likely that the attack origin can be traced compared with other UDP reflection/amplification DDoS attack vectors.” A driver in the Mitel systems contains a command that performs a stress test of status update packets, and can theoretically produce 4,294,967,294 packets across 14 hours at a maximum possible size of 1,184 bytes. “This would yield a sustained flood of just under 393Mbps of attack traffic from a single reflector/amplifier, all resulting from a single spoofed attack initiator packet of only 1,119 bytes in length,” the blog says. “This results in a nearly unimaginable amplification ratio of 2,200,288,816:1 — a multiplier of 220 billion percent, triggered by a single packet.” Thankfully, it turns out the Mitel system can only process a single command at a time, so if a system is being used for DDoS, actual users may wonder why it is unavailable and the outbound connection is being soaked, the blog states. Besides updating the systems, Mitel users can detect and block inappropriate incoming traffic on UDP port 10074 with standard network defence tools, it adds. Those on the receiving end of the attack are advised to use DDoS defences. The first attacks using the exploit began on February 18, these were reflected mainly onto ports 80 and 443, and targeted ISPs, financial institutions and logistics companies. Related Coverage More