Networking

(Image: Shutterstock)When I first started using the Internet, it wasn’t that far removed from its Arpanet ancestor. When I was at school, I could connect with it at a blazing fast 10 Megabits per second (Mbps) over Ethernet. From home or on the road I could only hook up at 300 bits per second (BPS) using both a TI Silent 700 paper terminal with its acoustic coupler or from a CP/M computer using a Hayes Smartmodem 300. It was great in its day, but it was never fast enough. Today, I have a cable internet connection that, in theory, can get up to 1 Gigabit per second (Gbps). It’s still not fast enough.That’s because back then all I was working with was text and even that was limited to 25 lines with 80 columns per line. It’s a different story now. Today, I do video conferencing, watch 4K TV shows and movies, and pour gigabytes of data across the net. I really can use a Gbps connection. But what about you?

What internet speeds are recommended?

Your local Internet service providers (ISP) will happily give you recommendations on their websites, but keep in mind they want to sell you more bandwidth. ISPs can also mislead you about what they can actually deliver. Over the years, I’ve been told by ISPs they could hook me up with connections they literally physically couldn’t deliver. And let’s not even talk about their speed guarantees, which more often than not are wishful thinking. So, here’s a good list of what you’re probably doing on the net and how much bandwidth you need to do the tasks without wanting to tear your hair out.That’s fine as far as it goes, but it’s not enough. For example, even if you only have one or two people in your home, there are more than 10 internet-connected devices in the average US home. Besides the ones you first think of — computers, streaming devices, and gaming consoles — there are also smartwatches, Internet of Things gadgets, and even pet-tracking devices. If you’re using these devices all the time, then you’ll want to have enough bandwidth to power all of them.For example, in my computer-happy home office I have over 30 internet-connected devices. If you’re a regular ZDNet reader, chances are you too have a house filled with net-connected devices. 

How many devices are you using?

For example, right now, my partner is streaming the 4K TV show Shadow and Bone. I’m backing up my video archives, which run to terabytes of data, to my remote Nextcloud server while checking e-mail in the background and looking at websites. In a few minutes, I’ll be on a work video conference. So, altogether, I’m currently using 100Mbps. When my grandsons are over, they go to school virtually, love to stream Paw Patrol, and love their online games, so we can easily crack 200Mbps. 

What is your situation?

Now think about your situation: Are you working from home? Do you have a large family with several TVs? Are your kids going to school online? Chances are you’re closing in on 100Mbps at any given time. 

Do upstream speeds matter?

Another factor that didn’t use to matter to most people but does now is your upstream speeds. Except on fiber internet connections, most internet technologies offer far lower upstream speeds than down. For example, my Gigabit plan gives me in real life no more than 800Mbps down, but only 40Mbps up. Yes, that still sounds fast to most of you, but if you’re doing a lot of online classes or video-conferencing you can run right into those limits and end up with a bad connection. 

Will you get advertised speeds?

You must also keep in mind that what ISPs promise they’ll deliver in the way of bandwidth often isn’t what you get. For example, the Federal Trade Commission, along with law enforcement agencies from six states, recently sued Frontier Communications, alleging that the company didn’t provide many consumers with the internet speeds it promised them. And, adding insult to injury, the company charged many of them for more expensive and higher-speed service than was actually provided.  In my experience, this is all too common. According to AllConnect, a company that helps users find the best telecommunication deals, “15% of internet users, or 45 million people, are getting less than their advertised speeds.” Of those, “Fiber and cable internet have the biggest gap – with most people getting, on average, about 55% of the speeds they pay for.” Now if you could simply shop for an ISP that wouldn’t be so annoying. You’d just go with the ISP that actually delivers the broadband goods. Unfortunately, as the non-profit Institute for Local Self Reliance points out, “83.3 million Americans can only access broadband through a single provider.” 

Are you a heavy internet user?

Even if you are paying for high bandwidth, you may not always get it. ISPs often throttle your service if you’re a “heavy” internet user or during “times of high traffic.” To see if this is happening to you, run a speed test, and note the results. Then download and turn on a good virtual private network (VPN). Usually, your numbers will be less when you’re running a VPN. Security comes at a performance cost. But, if you get better speed with a VPN, odds are you’re being throttled.Finally, if you really aren’t getting enough bandwidth with your current plan and you have no other options, I hate to say it, but you can always pay for a higher-level plan to get the speed you really need.  

What are the different types of ISPs available?

If you do have a choice of ISPs and internet delivery technologies, I recommend, in this order, the following connection types: Fiber, the fastest of the fast; cable, can be good on downstream speeds, but tends to be much slower on upstream; and LEO satellite and 5G internet are both good, but they’re still in their teething stages and their performance can be erratic. Then, there are the connections I can’t recommend, but if you have no other choice in the matter, well then you have no other choice. DSL, when you can still get it, is decent with real-world speeds in the double-digit Mbps down and single-digit Mbps up. But AT&T is getting out of the DSL business so you can no longer get it. If your DSL connection goes out, I’ve had AT&T customers tell me Ma Bell won’t fix it. Traditional satellite internet companies, HughesNet and Viasat are better than nothing if you live out in the country. But their download speeds max out, in my experience, at 30Mbps. Upload speeds are stuck around 3Mbps. The real killer though is the latency. With 300 to 500 milliseconds between pressing a key and seeing a result, video gaming and conferencing are next to impossible to pull off. Both services have data caps that will slow your down speeds to about 3Mbps if you use too much data.Finally, if you’ve got nothing else, believe it or not, dial-up modem ISP services still exist. These are cheap but at a top speed of 56 Kilobits per second (Kbps) no one will want to use these today unless they literally have no other choice.

Ready to look for another, better ISP or at least a better connection? I wish you luck. Me? I’m trying to find my way to a 10Gbps home-office connection.

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Aruba on Tuesday announced it’s rolling out a set of enterprise-grade Wi-Fi 6E devices, starting with the 630 Series campus access point (AP). The devices mark the first enterprise-grade Wi-Fi 6E devices, which are designed to operate in the newly-available 6 GHz band.  Last year, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to open up the 6GHz spectrum band to unlicensed use, making room on the valuable mid-band spectrum range for Wi-Fi routers and other devices. The move amounted to the largest expansion of W-Fi capacity in nearly two decades. Aruba’s new Wi-Fi 6E devices allow organizations to take advantage of the increased capacity and wider channels in 6 GHz. Users can leverage up to seven 160 MHz channels in 6 GHz. The devices offer tri-band coverage spanning 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz, with with 3.9 Gbps maximum aggregate throughput for reduced signal interference. A new ultra tri-band filtering capability also minimizes interference between the 5 GHz and 6 GHz bands. All of these features should help support high-bandwidth, low-latency services and applications like HD video, videoconferencing, AR and VR or IoT. This kind of support is growing more critical for enterprises, now that the Covid-19 pandemic has sped up digital transformation efforts. Meanwhile, the market for Wi-Fi 6E devices doesn’t just include the US. Aruba notes that since the FCC decision to open the 6 GHz band, 38 other countries have done the same. Market intelligence research firm 650 Group predicts that more than 350 million Wi-Fi 6E devices will enter the market next year. It expects expects over 200 percent unit growth of Wi-Fi 6E enterprise access points in 2022.The Aruba 630 Series APs will be available in in the third quarter of this year. The new devices are part of Aruba’s ESP (Edge Services Platform), an AI-powered, cloud-native platform for automating and securing edge operations. More

Image: Getty Images
Ericsson provided an update to its risk factors on Monday, with the company issuing a €500 million unsecured 8-year bond. In October last year, Sweden banned Huawei and ZTE from the nation’s 5G rollouts and said telcos needed to phase out the use of any existing equipment by 2024. Due to this, Ericsson previously said there was a risk of “collateral damages from a weakened Swedish-Chinese relationship” and retaliatory actions from Beijing. In an update on Monday, Ericsson said it expected some of those risks to become real. “While Ericsson is invited to various ongoing tender processes in China, the final outcome remains uncertain and it is the company’s current assessment that the risk has increased that Ericsson will in those tenders be allocated a significantly lower market share than its current market share,” it said. The carrier equipment manufacturer added several countries have disaggregated radio access networks and were supporting “national communication network infrastructure champions” instead of choosing one of the usual suspects like Ericsson. “The geopolitical situation can have consequences on the entire industry, with an increased likelihood of further industry split, separation of global value chains, and separation of global standards for mobile telecommunications,” it said. On the other side of the fence, Reuters reported that Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei has pushed the company to lead in software as it was outside of US control.

In June last year, Huawei and ZTE were officially designated as national security threats by the United States Federal Communications Commission, and was added to the US Entity List, thereby preventing access to hardware containing US technology and banning the buying of parts and components from US companies without government approval. “Once we dominate Europe, the Asia Pacific, and Africa, if US standards don’t match ours, and we can’t enter the US, then the US can’t enter our territory,” Reuters reported a memo as saying. In its recent first-quarter missive, Huawei said sales were down 16.5% compared to last year, but that this result was expected after it sold off the Honor brand. “2021 will be another challenging year for us, but it’s also the year that our future development strategy will begin to take shape,” Huawei rotating chair Eric Xu said at the time. “No matter what challenges come our way, we will continue to maintain our business resilience. Not just to survive, but do so sustainably.” For the full year, Huawei posted net profit of 64.6 billion yuan, but its growth in markets outside of China grounded to a halt. Earlier this month, the company revealed the extent to which it had taken a battering in Australia due to bans. For the year to 31 December 2020, the Australian arm of Huawei reported revenue almost halving from the AU$658 million posted last year to AU$356 million. Broken down, the company saw its carrier business continue to fade away, falling from AU$460 million to AU$217 million, its consumer business plummeted from AU$148 million to AU$84 million, while its enterprise revenue was a rare bright spot, increasing by AU$5.5 million to AU$55 million. Related Coverage More

The company responsible for the National Broadband Network has told the Senate it has replaced approximately 47,700 NBN Co Connection Devices (NCD) used on fibre-to-the-curb (FttC) connections, with New South Wales having the largest impact. NBN said the main areas where lightning and floods resulted in NCD replacement were Penrith, Miranda, Frenchs Forest, Rockdale, Grafton, Mosman, Peakhurst, Glebe, and Campbelltown. The company further said, during 2020, it swapped 57,000 NCDs and so far this year it has replaced 44,300 NCDs. In March, the company said it was looking for a long-term solution to lightning frying FttC equipment, which was highlighted in the Blue Mountains area of NSW. Of the 19,300 FttC premises in the region, NBN said it swapped out 5,507 NCDs last year, and 4,570 NCDs this year. NBN added it replaced around 31,000 FttC distribution points so far, with 14,900 distribution points replaced in 2020 representing 2.14% of its FttC footprint, has replaced 13,000 or 1.3% of FttC lead-ins so far, and remediated 3.7% or 36,800 FttC lead-ins. Earlier this month, NBN said it would look to upgrade FttC users to full fibre if they wished to receive speeds over 250Mbps.

On its fibre-to-the-node (FttN) technology, NBN said 4.16%, or 123,000 lines, should not hit its mandated 25Mbps download speed, and 2.54% could not hit the 5Mbps upload mandate. The company added some of that number were still in the co-existence period where NBN only guarantees 12Mbps down. As of April 21, 37.4% of nodes in the FttN had exited co-existence. For the 2021 fiscal year, NBN had an average fault rate of 0.77 faults each month per 100 active premises, or almost 566,000 faults for the 12 months. By technology, NBN had almost 222,500 faults on FttN and fibre-to-the-basement connections, 150,000 on FttC, 120,000 on cable, 51,000 on full fibre, 16,000 faults on fixed wireless, and almost 7,000 on satellite. NBN did not answer a number of senator questions based on the concept that forecasting items such as operating expenditures and profitability could harm the company since it has entered private debt markets and because it was not in the interest of Australian taxpayers. “Extending into debt capital markets brings a new suite of obligations and limitations. Publicly stating forecasts exposes NBN Co to potential risks of liability to debt investors and also to higher than necessary borrowing costs,” it said. “Forecasts or revised forecasts could be used by investors to drive up the price of the credit and force NBN Co to lock in higher than necessary borrowing costs. This is not in the interests of NBN Co, the Australian taxpayers, or our commercial partners.” The company also said because it is borrowing from overseas as well, it could be subject to foreign securities laws. “Continuing to publish or discuss long term forecasts could expose NBN Co to liability if investors allege that they relied on forecasts. This is irrespective of the rigour of NBN Co forecasting or the company’s belief that what is published is the best possible estimate at the time,” it said. “Taking these considerations into account, NBN Co determined that it would not be commercially prudent to release some information that may have been provided in previous Corporate Plans.” The company also said that as of April 21, it had 5,261 staff, of which 656 worked in its IT department, and 92 in its corporate affairs and public relations unit. The company said as of April 16, it had no workers in its internal field workforce that were “on visa or skilled migration”. NBN said it updated its standard contracts in 2020 with an explicit “no sham contracting” obligation. NBN contractors recently walked off the job in protest over the “NBN Co’s shambolic management and pyramid contracting scheme”. In its third-quarter earnings, NBN said its residential average revenue per user remained stuck at AU$45. It told Senate Estimates that it still expects that number to hit AU$49 across the period of its current corporate plan. NBN said it would hit peak debt of AU$27.5 billion in the 2024 fiscal year. Related Coverage More

Cisco continues to grow, even in an economic downturn, so its future looks bright for those looking for tech careers well into the future. And now, network administrators looking to level up in their careers can get all the training they need to compete in the constantly-changing network technologies industry with The Complete 2021 Cisco Certification Training Bundle.

The previous CCNA certification became obsolete in February 2020. Instead of having to take several exams in various subjects, you can take one exam that includes several of them for the current 2020 CCNA certification. CCNA 200-301 is now the industry standard for networking certification and the “Cisco CCNA 200-301” course will help you to achieve this top certification without becoming overwhelmed.While not designed for the complete beginner in networking, the “Cisco Certified Technician (CCT) Routing & Switching” course is meant to raise the level of competency in Cisco systems and devices field technicians need in order to help clients with their networking equipment. The instruction should be sufficient for students to pass the 100-490 Exam.Once you’ve completed CCNA certification, you can move on to specialized areas. The “Cisco CCNP Enterprise ENARSI” prepares you for Exam 300-410 by covering how to implement and troubleshoot advanced routing services and technologies. While the “Cisco CCNP Enterprise ENSLD” course provides the information you will need on design network architecture that is required for Cisco enterprise networks to pass Exam 300-420.You will learn all you need to know to pass Exam 350-401 in the “Cisco CCNP Enterprise ENCOR” course, which covers implementing technologies in enterprise networking. As a bonus to exam prep, the “Hands-On with CISCO Modeling Labs 1 & 2” will teach you how to create models and what-if scenarios for networks in the real world and for the future, whether you are familiar with VIRL 1.x or completely new to it.The courses in this bundle have all achieved a rating of 4.47 out of 5 stars from previous students, so there is no question about their effectiveness. Move up in your career as a network administrator by learning at your own pace everything you need for official Cisco certifications. Get The Complete 2021 Cisco Certification Training Bundle while you can get these 75 hours of lessons for only $69.

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Image: ACCC
When it comes to users jumping between NBN plans in the quarter to the end of March, there is one telco that stands above all others, TPG Telecom. For the three-month period, the telco reported 468,000 fewer users on 100Mbps speed plans, but it saw an extra 335,000 premises move onto 250Mbps, and 113,000 extra 50Mbps plans. The end result meant instead of being TPG’s most popular tier in December, the 215,000 users on the 100Mbps now trail behind the 663,000 50Mbps connections, 426,000 on 12Mbps, 336,000 on 250Mbps, and 311,000 on 25Mbps plans. At the same time, the number of TPG users on the 500-100Mbps Home Ultrafast shot up in the quarter from 352 to almost 63,000 users. Across all NBN retailers, 100Mbps plans had 464,000 fewer users, as Telstra was the only other major retailer to see a drop of 11,500 plans while Optus connected almost 8,800 premises to 100Mbps, Aussie Broadband recorded 7,000 extra users, and Vocus raised its 100Mbps connection number by 5,400. On the 250Mbps tier, Optus connected an extra 89,000 users, Telstra saw an extra 45,000 connections, and in combination with TPG’s 335,000 number, the total rose by 477,000 across the quarter. The only other major telco to cross the four-figure threshold for Home Ultrafast plans was Aussie Broadband, which signed up an extra 2,300 users on that tier. The total across all retailers sat just short of 73,000 connections.

Overall, the 50Mbps tier saw an extra 71,000 users, 25Mbps recorded 40,000 new connections, while the number of 12Mbps users dropped by 32,000. ACCC commissioner Anna Brakey pinned the customer shift on NBN ending its 100Mbps promotion. “New incentives offered by NBN Co have enabled retailers to allow consumers to trial or shift to higher speed services, particularly services with very high speeds of 250Mbps or above,” Brakey said. “Before moving to higher speed services, the ACCC recommends that consumers consider the value of new promotions, how long they run for, and how they align with their particular needs. “Many consumers will continue to be adequately served running multiple devices on plans with speeds of 50Mbps or below.” Looking at the customer shifts by connection technology, an aggregate 146,000 full fibre customers left the 50Mbps tier and 67,000 moved from 100Mbps plans, as a total of 189,000 additions were made to 250Mbps plans, and 55,000 jumped on Home Ultafast plans. For fibre to the node, 233,000 customers left the 100Mbps tier, and the 50Mbps tier recorded 268,000 additions. A similar pattern was seen in fibre to the curb, with 106,000 fewer 100Mbps connections recorded against 158,000 extra 50Mbps connections. For hybrid fibre-coaxial, the 50Mbps tier saw 240,000 connections drop off, and 289,000 jump onto 250Mbps. On satellite, there was no good news for NBN as 2,400 connections left the network. Related Coverage More

Your information technology gear is going to get more expensive due to component shortages, supply chain woes and a demand spike. Cisco Systems’ third quarter results tell the tale. The company is a bellwether for IT demand and typically is an early indicator of what other tech suppliers will see in the future. Gartner has projected that the global semiconductor shortage will run through the second quarter of 2022. Keep the comments from Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins in mind as Dell Technologies, Lenovo and Hewlett Packard Enterprise all report earnings next week. Component inflation is real, and enterprises may accelerate buying to get ahead of rising prices. US inflation grew at a 4.2% rate in April over the last 12 months, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.While Cisco’s quarter was solid, inflation worries lingered over the company’s outlook. Cisco projected fourth quarter revenue growth of 6% to 8% with non-GAAP gross margins of 64% to 65%. Non-GAAP earnings in the fourth quarter will be 81 cents a share to 83 cents a share. Wall Street was modeling non-GAAP earnings of 85 cents a share and gross margins pushing 66%. Cisco executives said the company has locked in supply and pricing with component makers, but shortages will be an issue through the end of 2021. Robbins also acknowledged that the supply chain issues may push prices higher amid strong demand for networking and return to work software. Robbins said:What we do know is that if we come to the conclusion that any of these cost increases or this inflation are going to be more sustained then we will look at strategic price increases where we have to. That work is already underway. There are already some decisions that we’ve made. So, we will do that. It’s a pretty dynamic situation. It’s going to be pretty obvious that if a customer has extended lead times, they’re probably going to place order sooner than when they would. That just makes sense.Later, Robbins was asked to elaborate on price increases. He added:On the pricing front, I think we have made some decisions on certain products that we will be making price increases on, and we’re looking surgically at the rest of the portfolio based on where we have costs that we believe are going to be sustained. But we’re erring hard right now on taking care of our customers and trying to get, optimize our ability to deliver to them right now because we think that improves our relationships and it improves our position over the long term with these customers. Indeed, Cisco is No. 1 in Gartner’s supply chain ranking for 2021.

Cisco is seeing industries like hospitality bounce back, strong demand for 5G networking gear and multi-cloud deployments. Toss in security technology and software like WebEx and Cisco is seeing a demand spike just as component costs have surged. “If we didn’t have the supply chain challenges, we would have been guiding higher on revenue,” said Robbins. The comments from Cisco are the most direct about component inflation in tech gear and how those costs may be passed along. Cisco is one big player, but inflation is going to impact a wide range of technology gear. Last month, enterprise technology suppliers noted shortages and supply chain issues, but stopped short of predicting a margin hit or price increases. For instance, Juniper Networks CEO Rami Rahim said the company had long-term pricing contracts, but the company would see some impact. However, Juniper, which said it was working to fortify its supply chain, stuck to its full year gross margin target of 60%.Arista on May 4 also cited supply chain woes on its first quarter earnings conference call. Arista CEO Jayshree Ullal said:The supply chain has never been so constrained in Arista history. To put this in perspective, we now have to plan for many components with 52-week lead times. COVID has resulted in substrate and wafer shortages and reduced assembly capacity. Our contract manufacturers have experienced significant volatility due to country specific COVID orders. Naturally, we’re working more closely with our strategic suppliers to improve planning and delivery.Customer demand and visibility, though, has improved in the past few months. We are working with our customers to understand the timing of their deployment needs. We do not believe at this time that our customers are pre-ordering. However, we do think they’re exercising prudent planning for second half of 2021 and even into 2022. With this as a backdrop, we believe supply chain will remain a pain point for the balance of this year as a result of all these shortages.Add it up the component squeeze is challenging three large networking giants. Next week, we’ll get the server and storage side of the equation. It’s highly likely that supply chain issues, strong demand and potential price increases will be a hot topic. More: More

The future Australian telcos dream of
Image: Optus
Optus has announced it has hit 1 million devices capable of using its 5G network, and that 80% of its handset sales are now 5G-capable devices. At the same time, the telco announced it has switched on its first six millimetre wave (mmWave) sites. Optus said the sites made use of the 800MHz spectrum it recently purchased in the mmWave auction for AU$226 million. The six sites are at Kings Cross, Surry Hills, North Ryde, and Optus HQ in Sydney, as well as Huntingdale in Melbourne and Strathpine in Brisbane. The telco added it would be switching on more mmWave at its 1200 5G sites in the coming weeks. “We’ve been testing mmWave for many months, harnessing and pushing its capabilities so that once commercial devices enter the market our customers will truly be able to benefit from the capacity and speeds that this incredible technology delivers,” Optus managing director for networks Lambo Kanagaratnam said. “In fact, mmWave is set to blow current mobile and home internet speeds out of the water, with the potential for multi-gigabit speeds which is much faster than what Australians are used to getting today.” Earlier this month, Optus introduced the ability for customers with an eSIM device to switch to the telco through the My Optus app for those signed up to its pre-paid Flex plan, and forgo a trip to a store or having to purchase a physical SIM.

“Finding ways to practice sustainability and being environmentally friendly is of the utmost importance for our customers,” Optus managing director of marketing Matt Williams said. “We are keen to make these changes as simple as possible to integrate into their everyday lives, and by selecting to activate digitally, customers can save another bit of plastic from our oceans and another delivery truck on our busy roads.” Last week, Telstra announced it was increasing the number of invites to trial its 5G fixed wireless service. The telco said it was seeing typical evening speeds sit between 50Mbps and 600Mbps, with a speed test average of 378Mbps. It also said it was doubling the data quota on 5G fixed wireless plans to 1TB, after feedback from users. Telstra said it was working with Casa Systems on a mmWave-capable 5G modem for fixed wireless, and was working on switching on mmWave at “selected sites in 5 capital cities”. Related Coverage More