Networking

The Australian Labor Party has said that should it win government at the next election, it would be spending AU$2.4 billion to extend the existing NBN fibre to the node (FttN) upgrade plan to a further 1.5 million premises. Opposition leader Anthony Albanese told the ABC that 660,000 of that number would be in regional Australia. “It will cost AU$2.4 billion. That will be provided for the National Broadband Network. This is an investment. It’s an investment that will produce a return. It’s an investment in our future. And it’s an investment in equity as well,” he said. “Why is it that some communities and some places are just missing out? I can’t, from my office in Marrickville, I can’t upload and film from there through the NBN system, because it just isn’t up to the task. But in regional Australia, it’s worse.” Albanese said the commitment would see 90% of the fixed footprint able to have access gigabit speeds by 2025, and create 12,000 jobs. “We know that we have a big technological repair job as a result of the negative policies of this government, who, when they came to office, of course, said that high-speed fibre was a waste,” he said. “They thought it was all about downloading videos. We know that it’s not.”

Labor also said it would be keeping the NBN in public hands to ensure there are “divides between haves and have nots”. “If you privatise the services, we don’t want to see what happened with Telstra, which was a privatisation that led to monopoly power, privatisation that required Labor, as part of our NBN policy, to introduce the structural separation that was necessary to introduce competition into the sector,” he added. In response, Communications Minister Paul Fletcher trotted out his well-worn trainwreck trope that Labor only connected 51,000 premises when in government, before striking on the nub of Labor’s announcement. “Nothing in what Labor is now proposing adds to our existing commitment before 2023; NBN is fully committed to delivering the existing upgrade,” he said. “At least Labor has now accepted the Coalition’s efficient model of fibre on demand — abandoning its previous signature policy of fibre to every premise, regardless of whether it is wanted or not.” Fletcher then asked for Labor to explain where the funding for its plan would come from, before deeming it to be “wasteful spending”. The government, of which Fletcher is a part, currently resides over the largest deficit in the nation’s history, but continues to look for more ways to shrink its taxation base. Telco analyst Paul Budde said, overall, Labor’s plan is a continuation of a decade’s muddling on the NBN. “It is not revolutionary, nothing dramatically different or extra from what the government is doing after it backflipped and started to upgrade FttN connection to full fibre. The AU$2.4 billion that they are putting on the table for it is in line with the sort of ongoing extra investments the government had to make over the last decade — amounting to AU$28 billion — so the extra AU$2.4 billion is not outside the ordinary,” he said. “A can-do strategy that slowly but surely will see Australia entering the leagues of countries with top quality broadband access.” Budde added that the poor fixed wireless connectivity in regional Australia still needed looking at, and the proliferation of services like Starlink in Australia could be the next stage in the NBN saga. Related Coverage More

Another day, another major internet outage. This time around, Google reported that it had experienced a global issue with its Google Cloud Platform (GCP) networking at 12:53 PM US Eastern time. The result? Many of us have seen 404 errors when trying to get to some of our favorite web pages, such as Spotify, Facebook, and ZDNet. Indeed, according to DownDectector, there appears to be more major sites having problems than not. According to internet managers on the Outages mailing list, the specific problem seems to be with the GCP load balancers. These, working with Google’s Cloud Delivery Network (CDN), provide high availability web servers. This is designed to stop website failures and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks by putting your website behind a single anycast IP and then scaling your resources up or down with intelligent autoscaling. But, with a global problem, Google was unable to keep the sites up.While at times your website may come back up, since it’s only the load balancers and CDN that’s having trouble as this is written, 1:42 PM Eastern, Google is still reporting, “We do not have an ETA for full resolution at this point.”However, by 1:59 PM, Google stated, “The issue with Cloud Run has been resolved for all affected users.” Users, however, are still reporting some website outages. More

According to a survey of 294 UK estate agents, carried out by Omdia and commissioned by networking company Huawei, one in three said owners of houses with broadband speeds of at least 300Mbps could expect their homes to be valued at £5,000 more than if it didn’t have high-speed broadband. Broadband quality was considered by 20% of estate agents as the single most important factor to homebuyers, just behind the size of a property, which 23% of agents said was the key factor. Indeed, estate agents thought broadband was more important than the number of bedrooms, the age of a property, and access to transport. The relative importance of fast broadband may have gone up since the pandemic began almost two years ago, with people working, learning, meeting and viewing entertainment at home on the same network, often at the same time. “Since the start of the COVID-19 crisis, 69% of agents have witnessed an increase in queries about the quality of the broadband connection at a property they are marketing,” said Huawei. Of agents that said an existing 300Mbps broadband added value to a property, 9% estimate such speeds would increase the value by over £10,000.Estate agents reported that they’d had more queries about the broadband quality since the pandemic began, most of which concerned the availability of full fibre connectivity. Some 90% of estate agents said their clients wanted properties with speeds over 100 Mbps, while 34% were looking for speeds above 300Mbps. 

The findings aren’t particularly surprising and line up with other parts of the world, including the US, that discovered the need for faster broadband during the pandemic.Quite a few homes in the UK do have at least 300 Mbps. As the BBC notes, recent Ofcom research puts that figure at 62% or roughly 18.2 million homes in the UK. Ofcom in December reported that 96% of homes had at least 30 Mbps speeds, but that only 60% of premises (or 11 million) had taken up this level of service. Perhaps attitudes have changed since then though after a year more of remote working.  The UK last year announced plans to bring gigabit speeds to all households by 2025 but later wound that back to 85% covered by 2025.  

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Basslink announced on Friday that it has entered into voluntary administration and appointed EY to oversee it. The company said the move was a result of ongoing disputes with Hydro Tasmania, and an unsuccessful sale. CEO Malcolm Eccles said administration was the “best way to effect change while protecting all stakeholders”. “Regrettably, against the backdrop of many issues and having exhausted options, Basslink needed to take proactive action to put Basslink in the best possible position to navigate forward through these challenges,” he said. “We know this is a challenging time for our small team and their wellbeing will continue to be at the front of our minds throughout the voluntary administration process.” Last month, the Tasmanian government kicked off legal action to have Basslink pay AU$70 million it was owed for outages that occurred to its Bass Strait cable in 2015 and 2016. In December 2020, the arbitrator between the government and Basslink said the December 2015 outage was not a force majeure event, and hit Basslink with AU$38.5 million in damages.

In March 2018, the Tasmanian government sought AU$122 million in compensation due to the Basslink cable to the mainland, which carries electricity and data, being down for six months. The outage began in December 2015, with Basslink finally completing its cable jointing repairs in June 2016 following months-long delays due to excess water damage and inclement weather. The outage lasted so long that the Tasmanian government got involved, with then-Minister for Information Technology and Innovation Michael Ferguson also reprimanding TPG for not buying additional capacity on Telstra’s alternate cables during the outage. Basslink and the government then engaged in a war of duelling reports, with the government-owned Hydro Tasmania saying the outage was caused by the operating limits of the cable being exceeded, while a Basslink report put forward dismissed the claim was a result of a force majeure event. “The Basslink Interconnector continues to operate efficiently and reliably, connecting Tasmania to the national electricity market. We continue to serve the communities of Tasmania and Victoria, providing a reliable and sustainable source of energy,” Eccles added on Friday. KPMG has been appointed as receivers and managers by Basslink’s lenders Previous Coverage More

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I think it’s fair to say that most Facebook users have a love/hate relationship with the social network. Facebook makes it incredibly easy to stay in touch with old friends and family members around the world while making new friends with complete strangers in Facebook Groups. But the giant network has made some serious mistakes over the past few years, prompting some to swear off (and probably at) the social network for good. But before you dive into your account settings and delete your account, there are a few housekeeping items you need to do to ensure things like retaining a copy of your personal data, such as pictures you’ve shared on the network, or moving away from Facebook’s login service for apps and websites. It’s also important to note that deactivating your Facebook account doesn’t actually delete it. Also: Why I will never use Zuckerberg’s metaverseThe differences between deactivating and deletingSometimes you just need a break from Facebook. In those instances, deactivating your account is a better option than completely deleting it. Before taking either approach, let’s take a quick look at the differences.Deactivating your Facebook account means you can reactivate it in the future, restoring your account exactly as it was. People won’t be able to search for you, or see your Facebook timeline, while your account is deactivated. Any Facebook Pages you’re in control of will also be deactivated, so make sure you assign admin rights to someone else if it’s critical the Page remains active. A deactivated account will still allow you to access Facebook Messenger. 

Deleting your Facebook account is a permanent option. Your account and all associated data will be removed from Facebook’s servers within 90 days. If you log back into your account in the first 30 days following your deletion request, however, the request will be canceled and your account will be fully restored. But after that 30-day period, there’s no way to reverse your deletion request; your account and all information will be lost. Deleting your account also removes your access to Facebook Messenger.One more important note: Until Facebook transitions its Oculus platforms away from requiring a Facebook login, deactivating or deleting your account will prevent you from using your Oculus headset. What to do before you delete your Facebook account
Screenshot by Jason Cipriani/ZDNet
If you’re set on deleting your Facebook account, take a few minutes to ensure the process goes as smoothly as possible. Facebook has become so intertwined with our online lives that losing your account can lead to some issues. For example, if you use Facebook’s Login service to sign in to apps or services, such as Spotify, you’ll need to edit your login settings to prepare for no longer having access to your Facebook account. In addition to account logins, you’ll want to download a copy of all of the personal data linked to your Facebook account. Start by signing into your Facebook account on a computer and going to your account Settings. Find that by clicking on the down arrow in the top-right corner > Settings & Privacy  > Settings. Using the menu on the left side of the screen, find and select Apps and Websites. You’ll see a list of apps and services that you’ve linked to your Facebook account. If you’re struggling to figure out how to move away from a Facebook login for a specific account, I suggest reaching out to the company’s support department for further instructions. Next, request and download a copy of your Facebook account data. You can do that by visiting this page or manually navigating there by clicking on the arrow at the top of the website followed by Settings & Privacy  > Settings  > Your Facebook Information find the Download Your Information option and click View.Also: Facebook whistleblower: ‘Morally bankrupt’ social giant will have to ‘hook kids’ to growThe next page will present you with a calendar to select the date range of your request. There is an option for All Time if you want all the data associated with your account from the day it was created until the present day. Leave the media quality option set to High, and I suggest leaving the format as HTML. Below the calendar, there will be a list of the various types of information you can request. All of the categories are selected by default — again, I suggest leaving this section as is. Finally, click Create File to send the request to Facebook. Facebook doesn’t provide an estimate on how long it takes to process your request, but I imagine it can take a day or two, depending on how much data you’ve requested. I’m basing that off of my experience when requesting similar information for an old Google account. Once your information is ready, you’ll receive an alert from Facebook telling you know how to download it. You’ll only have a few days to complete the download. Another step you’ll want to take a few days before you delete your account is to let people know you’re leaving Facebook. You can either create a post for your friends to see, or reach out privately to some of your Facebook friends, and let them know of an alternative way to stay in touch with you. Remember, once you delete your account, you’ll also lose access to Facebook Messenger. How to delete your Facebook account
Screenshot by Jason Cipriani/ZDNet
Once you’ve received a copy of your information and feel comfortable with your loved ones knowing you’re leaving the site, it’s time to actually do the deed.Visit this page on your computer and login to your Facebook account. Facebook will present you with a list of stuff you need to know. Such as suggesting you deactivate your account instead of deleting it in order to retain access to Messenger, and a reminder to download your information — as well as a list of any Facebook Pages that will also be deleted if you delete your account. Take just a few extra seconds to read through all of that to double-check, and then click on the Delete Account button when you’re ready and enter your password when prompted. Remember, you have 30 days to change your mind. Just login to your account and click on the Cancel Deletion button to restore your account. After 30 days, your account is gone forever.

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Meta outlined its next-generation network hardware and said its data centers have migrated to the Open Compute Project (OCP) Switch Abstraction Interface (SAI). The move was announced at the Open Compute Project’s annual conference. Meta, formerly known as Facebook, outlined the following on its open networking gear advances. Wedge 400/400C top-of-rack switches. Meta collaborated with Broadcom and Cisco to deploy two top-of-rack switches called Wedge 400 and 400C. The Wedge 400 uses Broadcom’s Tomahawk 3 ASIC and 400C uses Cisco’s Silicon One. Celestica makes the networking equipment for Meta. Key points:Both switches have more front panel port density for AI and machine learning applications.The systems have 12.8 Tbps switching capacity, four times the capacity of the Wedge 100S. Both switches have a field replaceable CPU system.Meta’s FBOSS network operating system for its network switches now is using OCP’s SAI at scale. The move will allow Meta to work with more chip vendors. Also see:200Gbps/400Gbps data center fabrics. Meta has deployed 200G optics in its data centers and plans to deploy 400G in the future. Meta developed two next-gen 200G fabric switches with the Minipack2, a modular network switch, and the Arista 7388X5 with Arista Networks.Meta’s Minipack2 modular switch. Overall, Meta is making the argument that its open compute data center improvements will advance its plans to build out AI and its metaverse in a disaggregated model.

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Comcast Xfinity customers across the US are reporting widespread outages, with internet, phone and TV services reportedly down. 

Both DownDetector and Netblocks reported massive outages across New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Los Angeles and the Bay Area. Subscribers in Indiana, Rhode Island and South Carolina also reported issues with internet and TV services. Of the 54,000 reports of issues, DownDetector found total blackouts for 64% of those reporting issues and 24% affected by landline issues. In a statement to ZDNet, a Comcast spokesperson said, “Earlier, some customers experienced intermittent service disruptions as a result of a network issue.””We have addressed the issue, and service is now restoring for impacted customers as we continue to investigate the root cause. We apologize to those who were affected,” the spokesperson added. 
DownDetector
On Twitter, Comcast Xfinity also responded to a message asking about the outages. “Thank you for reaching out! I do apologize you are experiencing a service interruption in your area. We are currently having connection concerns around the nation; our network team is working hard toward a resolution. Thank you for your patience!” a spokesperson said. 

In New Jersey, multiple outlets are reporting outages with phone services at police departments and local governments. By 9 am, some police departments said their 911 services were back, but others are still struggling to recover. Around midnight on Tuesday, users began reporting issues with their internet, phone and TV services across the Bay Area, and Netblocks said that since then, there have been “at least two distinct outage episodes observable at national scale.”
NetBlocks
Some news outlets have reported that Comcast is telling customers specific times for when services will be restored. For parts of the Bay Area, customers have been told service will return around 11:10 pm. For some, accessing the company’s service outage page has been a struggle as well. 

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nbnNBN has laid out the areas that will be available for the testing of its fibre-to-the-node (FttN) upgrades ahead of its general release and users being able to place orders with ISPs in March. Released today, Castle Hill in Sydney, and Salisbury, Golden Grove, and Osborne in northern Adelaide are the initial service areas for upgrades of FttN to full fibre connections. Additional areas in Castle Hill will be made available at the end of November, before Elizabeth in Adelaide, Holsworthy and Liverpool in Sydney, and Lyndhurst in Melbourne are added on January 27. In February, Berwick South in Melbourne is set to be added, as well as Gepps Cross and Croydon in Adelaide. The final batch pencilled in for 20 February 2022 are service areas in Cannington and Girrawheen in Perth. For fibre to the curb (FttC), a single batch of service areas is due to be available for testing on March 14. In Adelaide, this will be Elizabeth and Croydon; Kogarah, Springwood, and Revesby in Sydney; as well as Seaford and Coburg in Melbourne. Testing for FttN will run until March 21 next year, with the last order able to be placed on March 14, and until 9 May 2022 for FttC, with last orders called on April 28. NBN said it wouldl not be accepting test orders over the holiday period between December 20 and January 10. The test agreement [PDF] states that a limited number of spots are available under it. “For reference, NBN presently expects that the maximum aggregate number of test orders that will available under this test that must be shared by all participating RSPs will be: For the FTTN Network: 500; for the FTTC Network: 25,” the agreement says.

NBN later clarified it kicked off its testing in September with a small number of retailers, and would allow retailers to place an order to connect 6,000 premises in November, with around 25,000 to be eligible in total throughout the trial. It added that it has completed deploying new fibre to 17,000 premises in New South Wales, Queensland, and South Australia, with another 325,000 premises around Australia having construction of local fibre extensions started.The company said it has so far rolled out 3,100 kilometres of new fibre.While FttN users need to order a plan faster than 100Mbps to receive an upgrade, FttC users need to place an order for a plan over 250Mbps to get a full fibre connection. On Monday, NBN announced the next 200,000 premises that would be able to upgrade from FttN, leaving only 400,000 premises remaining to be announced to complete the company’s two million premises able to upgrade target. “We are on track to achieve our goal of enabling around 8 million premises or up to 75 per cent of homes and businesses on the fixed line network to access NBN’s highest wholesale speed tiers, on demand, by the end of 2023,” NBN COO Kathrine Dyer said on Monday. Updated at 17:36pm AEDT, 9 November 2021: Additional information from NBN.Related Coverage More