Networking

Verizon-certified IOT devices can now access Verizon’s 5G Nationwide network, the company announced Tuesday. The network is accessible via compatible data plans in Verizon’s ThingSpace IoT Marketplace. 

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Verizon’s “5G Nationwide” network leverages Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS) technology on a low-band spectrum, which lets customers jump to 4G LTE or 4G in areas where 5G service isn’t available. By bringing IoT devices onto the network, Verizon Business is aiming to be a “single-provider destination for IoT, with solutions spanning broadband and narrowband, 5G and LTE… for applications across industries,”  TJ Fox, SVP of Industrial IoT and Automotive for Verizon Business, said in a statement. The company on Tuesday also announced new analytics and IoT management tools for Verizon customers, as well as a Verizon-certified, low-cost device that should make IoT more accessible to more users and more use cases. Verizon said more 5G Nationwide-compatible hardware and plans will be available later this year. Next year, Verizon plans to open up its 5G Ultra Wideband network to compatible IoT devices and plans. While “5G Nationwide” leverages 5G and 4G, the “Ultra-Wideband” network uses a high-band, ultra-wide millimeter wave spectrum to deliver high-speed 5G. At its Investor Day presentation back in March, Verizon said it plans to build another 14,000 millimeter wave sites this year, offering what Verizon CFO Matthew Ellis called “the ultimate experience of 5G.” The company is also making significant investments to expand C-Band 5G, which will bolster its network-as-a-service strategy. Verizon’s larger 5G strategy involves melding 5G with edge computing and IoT, as well as creating an ecosystem with tech giants such as AWS and Microsoft Azure.The new analytics tools will be part of the Verizon ThingSpace Intelligence suite, which includes a bundle of existing IoT services, such as Intelligence Analytics Dashboard, SIM Secure, Device Diagnostics and Location Services. Its new capabilities include Wireless Network Performance, Anomaly Detection, Network-coordinated firmware-over-the-air (FOTA) management, and the ThingSpace Analytics engine. The suite is available for customer trials now and should be commercially available next year. As for the new low-cost IOT module, it comes from Quectel with a Qualcomm chipset. At less than $4, Verizon said it should make it easier than ever to deploy industrial sensors. Its low power consumption makes it suitable for applications that expect to operate for 15 or 20 years without being touched, such as smart meters, HVAC units, air and water quality monitors, manufacturing controls, smart lighting nodes and municipal smart infrastructure.

The BC660K-GL module is certified with Verizon, making the carrier the first in the US to enable the module on its nationwide narrowband IoT network. Connectivity plans from Verizon will start at less than $1. More

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Verizon and Amazon’s Project Kuiper are teaming up to combine Amazon’s low Earth orbit satellite network with the wireless carrier’s network. While bringing connectivity to rural areas is a win the enterprise potential is what’ll make the partnership run.At a high level, the Verizon and Amazon partnership rhymes with Elon Musk’s Starlink service and satellite broadband network. Amazon’s Project Kuiper will deliver cellular backhaul service to extend Verizon’s 4G and 5G reach. The two companies will also develop technical specifications and define commercial models for a bevy of connectivity services in the US for consumers and global enterprises. The latter customer base is what’ll carry the day. Keep in mind that Amazon and Verizon have strong partnerships and mutual customers. Verizon and AWS outlined a partnership at re:Invent 2019 and has expanded it since. The two companies are already launching edge computing services that combine Verizon’s local reach and cellular network with Amazon Web Services.According to the companies, Verizon and Project Kuiper will examine low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite use cases for agriculture, energy, manufacturing, education, transportation and emergency response. In other words, the LEO partnership can connect a lot of smart farms, plants and edge compute in addition to rural consumers with a 3,236-satellite network. Here’s a look at some of the goals for the LEO collaboration:Expand Verizon’s data networks using cellular backhaul from Project Kuiper. Define technical requirements to extend fixed wireless coverage to rural and remote areas. Leverage antenna development from Project Kuiper.Create wireless, private and edge networks for enterprises working in remote industries.A bit of recent history in the satellite broadband race:

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Time seems to speed up as we reach the end of the year, so it’s not too early to think about your goals for 2022. If switching to a new, more lucrative career is one of them, now would be a great time to start training for it. The CompTIA Network+ Certification Training Course is perfect if you already have intermediate-level tech skills, since it prepares you for an exam that — when passed — gives you a new certification that’s sure to make your resume stand out.

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The vendor-neutral CompTIA Network+ certification is internationally recognized as proof that you have the skills required for installing, maintaining, and troubleshooting computer networks — regardless of the platform. In 65 lectures across 19 hours, you will learn all aspects of how to create and maintain a network, including both practical and conceptual skills.You’ll discover how to design a resilient network and segment its traffic, using devices like switches and routers. You will also learn how to identify the advantages and disadvantages of an existing network configuration. By the course’s end, you’ll know how to implement network security, protocols, and standards.GreyCampus, a respected e-learning platform, created this course. And students have been more than satisfied with it, awarding the course a 4.5 out of 5-star rating.If there is any chance you’ll be accessing this course over public networks, you should make sure that you’ve got access to powerful VPN protection. In fact, you should really have that any time you are online.Don’t miss this chance to become a computer networking expert, grab The CompTIA Network+ Certification Training Course while it’s on sale for only $19.99.

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Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s networking arm, Aruba, has revealed that it has partnered with the John Chambers-backed startup Pensando for a new switch. The Aruba CX 10000 Series Switch aims to reinvent conventional data center switching by creating a distributed services fabric in which network, security, and layer 4 to 7 services become ubiquitously available across the network. The heart of the new Aruba switch is the Pensando Elba data-processing unit (DPU). Traditional networks were designed for data centers where the majority of traffic moved in a “north-south” direction. That is, it would come into the data center, travel through three or more tiers, pass through a core, and then “trombone” back out (meaning through a circuitous, latency-causing path). This made the placement of infrastructure, such as load balancers and security devices, relatively straightforward because they could all be deployed in the core. Data centers are evolving to distributed architectures As data centers evolved to disaggregated infrastructure, the volume of east-west traffic exploded, creating performance problems. This gave rise to spine-life architectures that used a much flatter network design. Today, the data center is in the midst of another transition – to a cloud architecture, where containers and microservices are driving the need to have security and layer 4 to 7 services everywhere. The current leaf/spine design would have firewalls, application delivery controllers, and other infrastructure centrally deployed, meaning every container that needs securing would have to traverse through a handful of leaf-and-spine switches – to the tools and back – creating an east-west “trombone” problem.One solution would be to deploy firewalls, NATs (network address translation), intrusion prevention systems, encryption tools, and other infrastructure at every network junction point, but this would be expensive and unmanageable. The Aruba-Pensando solution embeds those capabilities in the switch via the DPU. Vendors have tried to do this before in software and have the central CPU handle the processing, but network silicon from vendors such as Broadcom was designed for layer 2 to 3 network traffic and not security and application layer services. The Aruba switch is able to offload all the processing of those services to the DPU so network performance is not impacted. Pensando DPU offloads heavy lifting from network switches The Pensando DPU includes a wide range of services, including firewall, NAT, DDoS, encryption, load balancing, and telemetry. The concept of the DPU is easy to understand if one looks at different markets. For example, CPUs don’t process high levels of graphics well, so computer manufacturers use graphics processing units (GPUs). Similarly, network security vendor Fortinet provides its own security processing unit (SPU) to optimize the performance of its products. The Pensando DPU handles those CPU-crushing data center services. Aruba customers should see a significant performance jump in many data center services. For example, a standard traditional switch can handle about 8,000 ACLs before performance is impacted. An access-list (ACL) is a set of rules defined for controlling network traffic and reducing network attacks. ACLs are used to filter traffic based on the set of rules defined for the incoming or outgoing of the network. The Aruba CX 10000 can handle about 1 million of them. Similarly, traditional switches can be provisioned for about 10,000 IPSec tunnels, while the new Aruba box can process about 200,000. Aruba also can bring some new capabilities. Standard switches can’t be used as firewalls, but the Aruba product can provision about 1 million rules. One of the big benefits Aruba brings is manageability as network, and security engineers can administer the switches using Aruba’s widely deployed Fabric Composer. All network and security policies can be managed through the product. One of the more progressive attributes of Fabric Composer is that it’s designed for organizations in which the security and network teams have been brought together, but it also provides configuration options if the organization has split SecOps and NetOps groups.Interoperability: Core attribute for Aruba 

As is the case with all Aruba products, the CX 10000 was built with interoperability in mind so third-party ecosystem partners can access data in different ways. The box itself provides streaming real-time telemetry. Also, Fabric Composer has an exportable syslog that can be used. Other vendors will choose to integrate using the available APIs. At launch, the company announced a wide range of partners, including Fortinet, Palo Alto, Crowdstrike, Splunk, Netscout, Tufin, and Guardicore, to name a few. For Aruba, partnering with Pensando should bear significant dividends. While former Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers is an investor and chairman, the engineering team at the startup is about as good as there is. The company was founded by the highly successful “MPLS” quartet (Mario Mazzola, Prem Jain, Luca Cafiero, and Soni Jiandani), who built multiple billion-dollar products at Cisco, including its current ACI (Application Centric Infrastructure), which was done via the “spin-in” of Insieme. Historically, changes in compute have always driven network evolution. Compute is shifting from a centralized cloud model to a highly distributed design based on cloud-native technologies, necessitating network change. The new Aruba CX 10000 is ideally suited for modernized data centers in which performance is critical but can’t come at the expense of agility. More

I am really impressed with the Rockspace AC2100 Wi-Fi extender. Take it out of the box, plug it in, walk though two configuration steps on your browser, and reposition the AC2100 to your desired area. That is practically all that you need to do to extend your Wi-Fi network beyond its current range. But its simplicity belies its technology. This Wi-Fi extender will deliver up to 300Mbps at 2.4GHz and 1734Mbps at 5GHz to ensure that all areas of your space has Wi-Fi connectivity.

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When correctly situated with a good connection to your main router the AC2100 will  deliver Wi-Fi signal coverage up to 1292 sq. ft. of space. In the box, there is the Rockspace AC2100 extender and a user guide. The AC2100 is not too big and cumbersome at 6 x 4.5 x 4.2 inches and light too at about 13 ounces. The plug is nicely integrated into the body of the AC2100 so there are no trailing wires — a nice touch. The AC2100 has four antennas that sit flush along the sides of the body, but can be moved to get the best connection to your router.

The front of the Wi-Fi extender has three indicator lights for signal strength, WPS, and power, and there is a WPS button in the unit. The bottom of the unit has a network Gigabit port and a hole to reset the unit with a paperclip.

It uses 4T4R MU-MIMO (multiple input multiple output) multi-user technology using four PCB antennas which operate on both 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequencies. This enables the AC2100 to communicate with multiple points at the same time to improve wireless throughput — especially where there is a large amount of concurrent traffic from several users in the space.If your broadband is sufficient the router will support up to 2100Mbps if you use the Gigabit port on the bottom of the unit. I did not need to use the WPS button to connect to my existing Wi-Fi router — I was too lazy to go upstairs and push the button on my main router. I know my complex WI-Fi router password by heart as I connect and disconnect a variety of different devices to the router on a regular basis. Setup was so quick and easy that I had to reset the router using a paper clip so that I could capture the steps I took to initialise the AC2100 and extend my Wi-Fi network. It really is that simple. All you need to do at setup is to plug in the router and connect to it via Wi-Fi. This opens up a browser window on your device so you can create a password.
Eileen Brown
Then connect to your router name and give the extender network a name.
Eileen Brown
The third and final screen shows that your network has extended successfully. You can then connect to the extended network like any other access point.
Eileen Brown
After set up, you can move the WI-Fi extender to a preferred space further away from the main router. If you move the AC2100 too far from the router, the signal light changes from blue to red. Move it to a closer power point and the signal will change to blue again. It just works — and that is good for peace of mind. All in all, for under $75 the Rockspace AC2100 Wi-Fi extender is simple to use, seamless in operation, and will extend your Wi-Fi coverage to reach the areas you need. Affordable and unobtrusive, the AC2100 should be on your list of must-haves for your Wi-Fi enabled home. More

A majority of companies that shifted to remote work in Latin America are planning to stick to the format in a post-pandemic scenario. That’s according to a new study carried out by venture capital firm Atlantico with decision-makers and HR leaders in 524 firms in the region. Some 64% of Latin firms will continue to operate on a remote basis after the pandemic, according to Atlantico’s report titled Digital Transformation in Latin America. This is a change from the 9% of companies that implemented the format prior to the pandemic.

Prior to the emergence of the crisis, 69% of the companies operated mostly out of physical environments, while 25% operated in a hybrid format — whereby employees split their time between the workplace and working remotely — and only 9% operated fully remotely.When employers adapted to the changes brought on in Latin America by the pandemic, they also began to accept hybrid working. According to the study, 31% of companies in the region are operating that way, and only 5% have resumed working fully at the office. Some 13% of the respondents working in a hybrid format stated they need to work 3-5 times a week from a physical company office, while 21% have to come in 1-2 times a week. Only 4% of those polled said they were not working remotely since the emergence of COVID-19. Within those operating remotely, 40% stated they only need to attend some external meetings and conferences in person, while 22% said they need to come into the office only a few times a month. Remote working was not possible for the vast majority of the workforce in Brazil, the largest Latin American economy, according to a separate study on the uptake of the home office format across the country in 2020. The research carried out by the Institute for Applied Economic Research (Ipea) published in September noted that 74 million people were employed in Brazil in 2020, of which 8.2 million (11%) in total worked remotely.

Another report, published in March 2021, suggests that remote working was not a reality for the majority of the lower middle class and working-class poor population in Brazil. Only 17.5% of the Brazilians from those socioeconomic segments who maintained their jobs over a year-long period have claimed to be able to work from home through the crisis. More

Jio Platforms’ Q2 net profit grew almost 25% year-on-year to ₹3,728 crore, around $502 million, with the company saying customer demand is slowly returning to pre-COVID levels. “As the pandemic retreats, I am pleased that Reliance has posted a strong performance in 2Q FY22. This demonstrates the inherent strengths of our businesses and the robust recovery of the Indian and global economies. All our businesses reflect growth over pre-COVID levels,” Reliance Industries chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani said. The holding company for India’s biggest telco, Reliance Jio, also reported gross revenue was ₹23,222 crore, $3.1 billion, which is around 15% higher than last year’s performance. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) rose 16.6% to ₹9,294 crore, or $1.3 billion.As of the end of September, Jio Platforms said it has just shy of 430 million users. Of that customer base, almost 23.8 million are new users. The monthly average revenue per user during the quarter was ₹143.60 per subscriber, with total data traffic increasing by almost 51% to reach 23 billion GB and voice minutes increasing by 17.6% to 1.09 trillion minutes. On a per-user basis, this translates to monthly data usage of 17.6 GB and 840 minutes.Jio Platforms added that JioFiber now has over 4 million connected premises, with Jio’s optical-fibre network now physically present outside of 16 million premises.In providing its Q2 financial results, Jio Platforms said the JioPhone, which it is working to create alongside Google, is still set to be released during Diwali. The JioPhone’s release date was originally set to be launched earlier, but the company said last month it was facing semiconductor supply issues. Related Coverage More

South Sea Island in Fiji, looks nice, but the internet is not.
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Telstra announced on Monday morning it would be acquiring Digicel Pacific, ending months of speculation that a deal between the telco and the Australian government was in the works. For a total cost of $1.6 billion, Telstra said it would be contributing $270 million, with the Commonwealth to stump up $1.33 billion via “combination of non-recourse debt facilities and equity like securities”. Telstra said it would have 100% control of the entity. Telstra said the Commonwealth made the initial approach. See also: Blaming China is handy when trying to keep telco infrastructure away from Beijing “The Australian government is strongly committed to supporting quality private sector investment infrastructure in the Pacific region. We previously said that if Telstra were to proceed with a transaction it would be with financial and strategic risk management support from the government,” Telstra CEO Andy Penn said. “We also said that in addition to a government funding and support package, any investment would also have to be within certain financial parameters with Telstra’s equity investment being the minor portion of the overall transaction. I am pleased that we have been able to achieve both of those outcomes.” Under Telstra’s proposed restructure, Digicel Pacific would be under Telstra International when the deal closes in three to six months. The telco said it would not exit the deal for at least six years, and has bought political risk insurance for “certain political and regulatory interventions for six years”.

Digicel Pacific has 2.5 million customers and 1,700 employees, with $431 million in service revenue for the year to March 31, the majority of which location-wise comes from Papua New Guinea, with prepaid mobile being its best selling product. For its fiscal year, the company reported earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation of $233 million. Average monthly revenue per user sits at $11.20. Current Digicel owner Denis O’Brien will remain on a Telstra-controlled board. Related Coverage More