Networking

Ofcom has ruled that network providers will be able to charge more for full-fiber connections.  
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Millions of households in the UK could soon be upgraded with faster full-fiber connectivity as telecoms providers prepare to significantly ramp up the deployment of the technology, pushed by new business-friendly rules announced by regulator Ofcom. Ofcom has ruled that network providers will be able to charge more for full-fiber connections, which is expected to encourage private telecoms companies to invest more aggressively in the technology, as they eye more generous profits. 

Digital transformation

The decision is part of new regulation published by Ofcom to guide the telecoms market for the next five years, at a moment of deep change. The UK’s copper telephone network, some of which was installed over 100 years ago, is currently helping deliver broadband to 96% of homes in the country – but the service is now being replaced with next-generation connectivity in the form of full-fiber networks. The average 30 Mbit/second delivered by copper-based technology is sufficient to meet the current needs of most users, but demand for data is skyrocketing: UK households are already using 40% more data every year through applications like streaming TV shows, video calls and online gaming. With the new needs created this year by the COVID-19 pandemic, including remote working and online schooling, the need for faster networks is only set to further increase. This is why network providers have started building up full-fiber connectivity to replace copper-based technology. Ultimately, the objective is to remove the UK’s copper network entirely: Ofcom’s new regulation states that where new fiber is laid, existing copper lines will be removed. The process will happen over several years, and customers will be protected to make sure that they can still access network services. Currently, only 18% of the country has access to full-fiber speeds (about five million homes), but the government’s objective is to expand next-generation connectivity to the vast majority of the country. This will require digging up roads across the UK and building brand-new infrastructure to support the new network – in other words, significant investment from network providers will be necessary.  

Ofcom’s new set of rules was, for this reason, hotly anticipated. The regulator’s decisions, which set the conditions under which network providers can carry out their operations, are key to determining how much return private companies can expect from their investment in deploying full-fiber technology. The new regulation focuses specifically on leading telecoms provider Openreach, owned by BT, which Ofcom labels as having a “significant market power” in the provision of physical telecoms infrastructure – meaning that the company needs to be kept under a close watch to ensure competition against rival businesses, but also to protect customers from unfair prices. For example, for the past few years, Ofcom has placed price caps on BT’s charges for copper-based “superfast” data speeds (which reach 40 Mbits/second); those caps will remain in place, according to the regulator’s latest announcement, along with the prices of slower copper broadband packages. When it comes to full-fiber connections, however, the regulator has decided to keep the prices charged by network providers unregulated. The business case for the technology seems to have been successfully made: BT responded enthusiastically, confirming that the rules will allow the company to earn a fair return on its investment in full fiber. “This is good news for all fiber providers in the UK,” said Philip Jansen, chief executive of BT Group. “For us, it is the greenlight we’ve been waiting for to get on and build like fury.” BT expects to now be able to connect up to three million households per year to full-fiber connectivity, and to have upgraded 20 million premises by mid-to-late 2020s. Ofcom’s decision to not impose price controls on BT’s fiber product for the next few years, however, might not be welcomed as warmly by other players in the telecoms market. Internet service providers (ISPs) that buy the use of full-fiber networks, for example, might be facing higher costs – and in turn, this could translate in a price hike for paying customers. “There hasn’t been any reaction yet from ISPs, although it is fair to say that they may have expected Ofcom to go a little bit harder on BT,” Kester Mann, director of consumer and connectivity at analysis firm CCS Insight, tells ZDNet. “We may hear some more downbeat assessments in terms of Ofcom having sided more with BT on this one. If there is no price control for years, that could potentially raise concerns over costs and competition.” Ofcom’s new rules include a number of provisions to sustain network competition despite BT’s market size. For example, Openreach will continue to be required to open access to the company’s physical infrastructure, including ducts and telegraph poles, to other network providers. This could halve the upfront cost of connecting a home – a key factor in an industry where the barrier to entry for new players is elevated by the prohibitive cost of network infrastructure.  In addition, Openreach will be prevented from offering discounts to ISPs if it is found that slashing prices might threaten competition by discouraging investment from rival network providers. According to Ofcom, the new rules are set to significantly boost the deployment of full-fiber across the country. Mann concurs: for the analyst, the regulator managed to strike the right balance in what was widely seen as a delicate equation to solve. “Ofcom was treading a fine line between protecting customers and supporting the deployment of broadband,” he says. “Overall, this is good news, even for customers. If Ofcom has been more stringent on BT, it would have hindered broadband roll-out. The UK has been on the backfoot in terms of full-fiber deployment, and this sets the wheel in motion to accelerate that.” The UK government previously pledged to bring next-generation connectivity to the whole of the country before 2025 – a target that has since been revised to covering only 85% of the UK. Although there are other technologies capable of accelerating broadband speeds, much of the success of the project rests on the deployment of full fiber. It is expected that private investment will upgrade 80% of the UK’s premises, and the government will subsidize the roll-out of faster connectivity to the remaining “harder-to-reach” areas.  “The government’s targets – even if they have been downgraded – are very ambitious,” says Mann. “And in that respect, Ofcom’s new regulation is good news. The target needed this outcome. It will be interesting to see how the government hooks on to that.” Recent reports have raised doubts that official targets will be met on time, highlighting that this would require speeding up the rate of network building three-fold, while working with only a fraction of the necessary budget.  More

I’ve long used Netgear Nighthawk Wi-Fi routers. They’ve proven to be good solid, small office/home office (SOHO) network gear. But, with the rise of mesh networking, I, and a lot of other people who work at home moved off to mesh-compatible equipment like Netgear’s own Netgear Orbi Whole Home Tri-Band Mesh Wi-Fi 6 system. But now Netgear is revitalizing its Nighthawk line with the new Nighthawk Tri-band Mesh WiFi 6 System (MK83).

Let’s start with the basics. The new Nighthawk comes with a tri-band Mesh WiFi 6 System 3.6Gbps Router + 2 mesh satellites. Netgear claims it can cover up to 4,500 square feet. I’ll soon be putting it to the test in my not yet finished new office. While it’s only 1,000 square feet, I hope to cover the 2,700 square feet main house with one Wi-Fi system. In the past, I used Ethernet and Powerline networking to extend my office network, but I’d love it if I could use Wi-Fi instead. Wi-Fi bridges can be difficult to set up; powerline networking has trouble in buildings with older electrical wiring; and separate Wi-Fi access points require their own management and service set identifier (SSID).Also: How to optimize your network for remote work and learningTo cover all that ground with mesh WiFi 6, mesh uses the IEEE 802.11s standard. This sets the rules so that the main router and its satellites can work in concert with each other and all your equipment. The result is you’ll have far fewer dead spots. What Wi-Fi 6, also known as 802.11ax, brings to the table is not so much great Wi-Fi speed as it does a much better job of distributing your network’s broadband across multiple devices. Back when we used to do a lot of business travel you saw this problem all the time in large hotels and event venues. When people were still coming in you had lots of bandwidth. But, as the space is filled up, your bandwidth drops to a slow crawl for an arthritic snail.

Sure, part of the problem is you’re sharing the backbone internet connection with more people, but another major part of it is that the older generation of Wi-Fi routers couldn’t handle connecting well to four or more devices at once. WiFi 6 doubled that to eight simultaneous connections by making better use of Multi-User-Multiple Input, Multiple Output (MU-MIMO) technology than earlier standard devices.Wi-Fi 6 also uses Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (ODMFA). With earlier approaches, a Wi-Fi channel is kept open until your data transmission is completed. This left many devices sitting around waiting for their chance. With OFDMA, these channels are divided up into many smaller sub-channels. The net result is instead of lingering around for the next available channel, 30 clients can share a channel instead of taking turns. Now, you may think, “That’s nice, but what does it have to do with my small office or my home office?” Lots. These days it’s not just our computers and smartphones hooking on to our local network. It’s also our TVs, our smart speakers, and security cameras. According to a 2020 Statista survey, the average American had over ten connected devices in their household. And, that I might add, was before many of us were sent home to work or to go school. The average number of Wi-Fi devices must be much higher by now. To manage all those connections, the Nighthawk units use a 1.5GHz quad-core ARM processor. This enables the mesh network to keep up with your streaming, gaming, and video conferencing networking needs. Netgear claims that it can deliver a combined Wi-Fi speed of up to 3.6Gbps. In my experience, you’re much more likely to see about a  gigabit of speed at most, but most of your high-demand systems, say a 4K TV and two simultaneous Zoom video conferences will have more than enough bandwidth to keep going so long as your main internet can keep up.It also helps that the new Nighthawk can let you easily set up virtual Wi-Fi networks. So, for example, you can hook up always-connected smart home devices, such as thermostats, locks, lights, garage door openers, and other Internet of Things devices, to their own low bandwidth WiFi connection while computers, smartphones, and bandwidth-hungry TVs, and game consoles are assigned to a different high-speed Wi-Fi network. This segmenting maximizes your network speeds to the gear that needs the speed the most. It also automatically prioritizes video streaming, gaming, and video conferencing applications, such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams with the dynamic Quality of Service (QoS) feature to ensure a seamless experience. I’ve always been able to optimize my networks, but then I’m also a network administrator. Chances are, you aren’t. This will make getting the most from your SOHO network much easier.The prices for the Nighthawk Mesh WiFi systems start at $229.99 with dual-band WiFi.  The Nighthawk Tri-band Mesh WiFi 6 system is available now for $499.99 for the router and two satellite kit. If you want even more range and speed, check out the Orbi WiFi 6 Mesh systems for coverage of up to 7,500 square feet. The Orbi models range from $549.99 (RBK753) to $999.99 (RBK853) for Netgear’s premium network gear.Is this cheap? Heck no! But, if you want the most from your network — and these days with many of us working from home we do that’s exactly what we want — based on my experience with earlier Netgear networking equipment, it’s worth the money.Related Stories: More

The next big battleground for AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon will revolve around 5G for business, enterprise, and edge computing. And each wireless giant has its own spin and strategy. Here’s a look at how the big three wireless carriers in the US plan on tackling the business markets. Like the consumer market, T-Mobile sees itself as a disruptive force to incumbents AT&T and Verizon, two carriers that dominate business accounts today.

T-Mobile plans to run the Uncarrier playbook in the enterpriseT-Mobile CEO Michael Sievert laid out the stakes on the wireless carrier’s investor day. Another space that’s ready for real competition and disruption is enterprise and government. For example, remember shared data plans that were so common in consumer postpaid until we forced AT&T and Verizon into unlimited about four years ago? Well, guess what, they’re still doing that to business customers. After having successfully redefined consumer wireless for good over the past 8 years, it’s time that we bring that freedom to businesses as well.Our Un-carrier value proposition has performed well with small businesses in recent years. And of course, we’ll look to continue to grow and support that part of the market. However, our share in the large enterprise and government space is less than 10%, and it’s a space where we’re winning. There are over 50 million corporate liable lines today and growing. That is a big opportunity.He added that T-Mobile sees room to run to about 20% market share over the next five years. For smaller companies, T-Mobile plans to enter the home broadband market, which will also double as connectivity for home-based businesses. Michael Katz, executive vice president of T-Mobile for Business, said the company is looking to target enterprise, public sector, and SMBs. Katz added that T-Mobile is looking to gain share in corporate-liable smartphone plans as well as adjacent services. Must read:

Katz highlighted the following:T-Mobile home office Internet product is designed so enterprises can provide employees with in-office connectivity when working remote. Private networks for various business use cases in banking, automotive, and manufacturing. Enterprise unlimited plans to simplify purchasing.”We will invest in making sure that T-Mobile is not just on the map, but we’re on the top of mind for every CIO across America, opening up more of the market to us. And like I mentioned, we plan to win with the best team, including expanded and specialized sales in dedicated care,” said Katz. He added that T-Mobile will expand its sales teams to focus on verticals as well as technologies. T-Mobile executives said 5G will also drive IoT, mobile edge computing, and private network opportunities, but those emerging markets aren’t baked into the company’s outlook.
T-Mobile
Verizon melds 5G with edge computing, IoT

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While T-Mobile aims to add mobile enterprise accounts and move up the stack, Verizon is all about melding 5G with edge computing and creating an ecosystem with tech giants such as AWS and Microsoft Azure. Verizon’s investor day last week featured a heavy dose of 5G as well as enterprise partnerships. Must read:Tami Erwin, CEO of Verizon Business, said:We’ll serve customer segments, small and medium, global enterprise and our public sector. And we’ve continued to do that. We have never been better positioned to meet the needs of our business customers. And the ability to clearly articulate and deliver, not only network products but above network on platforms and solutions, whether it’s mobile edge compute, whether it’s private networks, what we’re doing around real-time enterprise solutions. We had 10 million new machine-to-machine connections last year alone. And as you think about mobile edge compute, the sensors that go out, the sensor densification, the ability to really be there for our customers, small and medium, global enterprise, public sector, not only with connectivity but really winning above connectivity.Erwin said Verizon’s partnerships with AWS and Microsoft Azure on cloud and edge computing give the company a line into edge computing market share. Erwin said Verizon is also gunning for the applications market as well as 5G, Internet of Things, and edge computing. We have a direct line of sight to the applications and solutions marketplace, another $12 billion addressable opportunity by 2025 that we will commercialize through our growing partner ecosystem. And we’re not wasting any time. We’ve already started developing enterprise solutions with IBM, Cisco, Deloitte and SAP across many industry verticals, including manufacturing, retail, distribution and logistics. Verizon Business is well positioned to capture significant edge compute share through our existing assets. We are in market today with leading cloud providers and expect to continue growing our roster of market making partnerships. The upshot from Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg is that enterprise and business use cases will expand the company’s market. “Whether it is through 5G mobility, fixed wireless access or mobile edge compute or any of these other technologies we are looking at breakthroughs that both solidify and expand the total addressable market that Verizon serves,” said Vestberg. Must read:Not surprisingly, Verizon also plans on using 5G to keep broadband customers with fixed wireless services. Verizon 5G Business Internet will continue to expand too, but the wireless carrier is looking to play higher in the networking stack.
Verizon
AT&T’s business play: Combining 5G with fiberAT&T’s investor day revolved around HBO Max as well as 5G and consumer businesses. However, enterprises matter to AT&T too. AT&T’s spin on 5G for business includes a heavy dose of last-mile fiber. Jeffery Scott McElfresh, CEO of AT&T Communications, said the company is looking to grow both its fiber and wireless businesses. He said:While both mobile and fixed broadband usage is growing, we’re actually seeing an increased dependence on the fixed network as it provides the performance and capacity customer applications require. And while this trend has been recently influenced by COVID-19, as employees work from home and students learn from home, it’s a trend that we expect will continue. This increased dependence on the fixed network gives us confidence that AT&T’s hybrid fixed, and mobile networks are well positioned to capture growth in this environment.According to AT&T, the hybrid approach to 5G and fiber is critical because customer segments have different demand curves. “Businesses need a combination of fast, reliable, and secure fixed and wireless solutions for their distributed workforce. Students are highly mobile, preferring the flexibility of remote education offered over wireless platforms. The performance, capacity, and cost advantages make the fixed network relevant to serve all of these customer segments,” said McElfresh.AT&T’s business portfolio includes 5G, secure fiber, private networks, and value-add efforts to support voice and collaboration. FirstNet is AT&T’s primary play for the public sector with customers including police departments, fire departments, FEMA, FBI, and the Coast Guard. Like Verizon, AT&T is also focused on the enterprise ecosystem and edge computing. AT&T counts IBM, Accenture, Google, and Deloitte as partners. Key verticals for AT&T’s 5G enterprise efforts include:Sports and venues.Retail.Gaming.Travel and transportation.Education.Healthcare.Edge computing.And security, public sector, and public safety.  
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Queensland Minister for Agricultural Industry Development and Fisheries Mark Furner examines an IoT-enabled weather station at the launch of the project.
Image: Telstra
Telstra has teamed up with the Queensland government and the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) to run an Internet of Things (IoT) pilot program to help local farmers gain access to more accurate weather forecasts so they can manage the effects of weather and climate change on their farms.As part of the pilot’s first phase, 55 IoT weather stations will be deployed to existing Telstra mobile network sites, private farms, and at the Department Agriculture and Fishers’ research facilities in the Lockyer Valley, Esk, Gatton, Toowoomba, Cecil Plains, and Darling Downs areas, to gather “hyper-local” weather data. Once the data is collected, Telstra Technology Development and Solutions executive Channa Seneviratne said it would be checked, cleaned, and organised before it’s passed on to BoM to develop hyper-local weather forecasts for the region. The data collection and trial phases will run until late 2021, with Telstra saying the data will be freely available to project participants via the Telstra Data Hub.  “Our hope is that the trial can develop an economically sustainable service that helps Queensland agribusiness, and also enable us to develop a sustainable and equitable partner model to eventually deploy the thousands of IoT weather stations to enhance our regional economy and international competitiveness,” Seneviratne said. Queensland Minister for Agricultural Industry Development and Fisheries Mark Furner added more accurate weather forecasts and localised weather observations will help farmers better manage their farms. “Access to better local weather data will support improved management decisions on crop production, labour and the supply chain,” he said.

“Agribusiness is a weather-dependent business. Access to highly localised weather observations and forecasts will give agribusiness improved insights to the local weather.”Back in 2018, Telstra partnered with “major water utilities” on its Digital Water Metering IoT solution in an effort to prevent water wastage and bring down customer bills. Telstra launched its NB-IoT network in January during CES 2018, with the company touting at the time the NB-IoT network would provide connectivity for IoT devices with smaller packets of data being sent, such as sensors in the mining, agricultural, transport, logistics, manufacturing, and industrial IoT industries.  Related Coverage More

Nokia plans to cut up to 10,000 jobs and take the savings to invest in its 5G networking business. The restructuring, announced by Nokia Tuesday, will save EUR 600 million by the end of 2023. According to Nokia, the savings from the restructuring will gradually be reinvested in new products and research and development. Nokia plans to outline its strategy and long-term outlook during its Capital Market Day on Thursday.Target markets for Nokia will be 5G, cloud and digital infrastructure. Nokia added that it will take charges of EUR 600 million to EUR 700 million with 50% of that hit to land in 2021. The remainder of the charges will be taken in 2022 and 2023. The company added that the total amount of job cuts will be determined by market conditions. Ultimately, Nokia expects to have a workforce of 80,000 to 85,000 down from 90,000 today.As for the restructuring, Nokia will form three business groups.

Mobile Networks will focus on 5G and wireless mobility networks. Nokia plans to streamline its portfolio in mature and declining markets such as 4G. Cloud and Network Services will move to more of an as-a-service model and refocus on emerging growth opportunities. To that end, Nokia announced partnerships with AWS, Microsoft and Google Cloud on March 15. Network Infrastructure will remain largely unchanged but spend on advancing Nokia’s portfolio via more R&D. In February, Nokia reported better-than-expected fourth quarter results with sales of €6.6 billion and €0.14 a share. In 2020, Nokia delivered sales of €21.9 billion. Related: More

Cisco has appointed a new vice president for Latin America as part of a strategy to accelerate the uptake and evolution of the company’s networking systems in the region in a context of digital transformation.The new incumbent is Laércio Albuquerque, who started yesterday (15) in the new role after leading Cisco’s operations in Brazil over the last five years. According to the firm, Albuquerque’s promotion will see the executive “leading sales in the region and helping customers digitize faster to achieve social and economic impact. The previous VP, Jordi Botifoll, has retired.

Networking

According to Cisco, the company is currently searching for a new leader for its Brazilian subsidiary. The company will not appoint an interim country head, but a transition leader in place until a permanent replacement is found. Cisco is not disclosing the name of the temporary leader.”[Albuquerque] is the right leader for Cisco Latin America. His sharp focus on growth, culture and digital transformation will be fundamental as our clientes and partners move towards resuming their businesses strategies”, said Jeff Sharritts, senior Vice President for sales at Cisco Americas. During his stint as president for the company’s Brazilian market, Albuquerque led various initiatives around digital transformation engaging the private sector and governments, as well as projects geared around building local technology skills through the company’s Cisco Networking Academy. Albuquerque’s 35-year career prior to Cisco included a number of leadership positions in Brazil and Latin America at CA Technologies, where he worked for two decades. More

New Zealanders increased their broadband usage at the peak of the pandemic last year, with the average fixed broadband usage rising to 284GB in June 2020, which was a 37% uptick from the year prior.
“Our 2020 monitoring report includes the first COVID-19 lockdown period and it shows that changes in the way Kiwis worked, learned, and played led to significant growth in fixed broadband usage,” said Telecommunications commissioner Tristan Gilbertson.
Mobile data usage also increased by 22% year-on-year to 3.3GB per month during that same period.
The data usage trends were released by New Zealand’s Commerce Commission (ComCom) as part of its annual telecommunications monitoring report [PDF], which also unveiled total industry and connection metrics.  
Despite the increases in data usage, government testing showed that copper and fibre download speeds stayed fairly steady for most households. On average, download speeds for copper and Fibre 100 plans were largely unaffected while average download speeds for Fibre Max decreased by about 4%, the report said. 
Fixed wireless performance decreased by around 25% during April last year, however, which the report said was a reflection of the susceptibility of performance dips of these services.
For the year to June 2020, New Zealand’s telecommunications retail industry saw revenue decline by NZ$200 million when compared to the previous year, while investment dipped NZ$100 million.

Gilbertson said the drop in investment during the year was primarily due to the Ultra-Fast Broadband network now being 93% complete. Specifically, copper access investment decreased by 19% in 2020 to NZ$269 million, with Chorus to start cutting its copper connections in September.
Despite revenue and investment dipping due to the pandemic, more Kiwis continued to shift to fibre connections, with over 1 million Kiwis now using this type of connection, a 20% year-on-year increase. By comparison, copper broadband only comprised of 487,000 connections as of June 2020.
“Total copper broadband connections dropped 24% to 441,000. This drop occurred across all variants, including higher speed VDSL. This continues the trend seen in 2019 when copper broadband connections dropped 23%,” the report said.
In total, there were 1.79 million fixed-line connections in the country as of June 2020.
Households also continued to move away from landlines for calling with residential landline connections down 12%. Over half of household fixed-line connections now have no voice service, according to the report.
Spark continued to be the biggest fixed broadband retailer for the year to June 2020, holding 40% of the market. This was followed by Vodafone with 21%, Vocus with 13%, and 2degrees 7%.
2degrees overtook Trustpower to become the fourth largest provider with its 7% market share.
While major fixed broadband retailers continued to hold the lion’s share of the market during the year, smaller telecommunications providers continued to grow their market share in the fixed-broadband market, upping their share from 11% to 13% in 2020.
Looking at mobile, there were 6.2 million mobile connections as of June 2020, with 51% of these connections comprised of pre-paid plans.
Border closures restricting travel led to total mobile roaming revenue dropping 15% to NZ$96.6 million in the year to 30 June 2020. Revenue from domestic customers roaming overseas also fell by 20%.
“The impact of COVID-19 travel restrictions can be seen in the decline of mobile roaming revenue for mobile network operators, with revenue from New Zealanders roaming overseas falling by 20%”, Gilbertson said.  
Vodafone and Spark both took 40% of the mobile market each. 2degrees’ share of the market, meanwhile, was down from 22% to 19% this year. MVNO subscribers made up the final 1.4% of the mobile market.
Last week, 2degrees, Spark, and Vodafone committed to providing more information and tools to support consumer choice before the end of the year, following calls from ComCom to address transparency and inertia issues regarding retail service quality.
According to ComCom, the telcos have jointly agreed to provide at least 12 months’ usage and spend information to customers; provide customers with an annual summary of their usage and spend along with a prompt to consider alternative options; and promote the development of tools to enable more effective comparison and choice for telco consumers through the nation’s Telecommunications Forum.
As part of developing the comparison tools, the telcos will also develop a prospective CDR to make it easier for customers to compare plans and providers. 
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When Jason Cipriani and I interviewed Tobin Richardson, president of the Zigbee Alliance, last week about the Alliance’s involvement in NASA JPL’s Mars 2020 mission, I didn’t think I would be applying its technology to my own personal use anytime soon. I had just finished converting my home to Lutron’s Caseta lighting system, which (currently) uses a different wireless standard. I also have a handful of Philips Hue bulbs that I use in various lamps around my home.
Last night, at around 11 pm, my wife told me that Alexa was no longer able to switch off any Hue lights. There happen to be a pair in use in my main bedroom as bedside lamps. Sure enough, after investigating the issue, it turned out that Philips Hue’s cloud service and Alexa skill got disconnected from my system. 
After attempting to reset the skill and reconnect it to my Alexa, I saw this message:

The dreaded disconnection. 
Jason Perlow/ZDNet
This is, of course, extremely frustrating when you’ve integrated all your lighting into a smart home system. Not being able to turn off your lights unless being done manually entirely defeats the purpose of that.
So, this morning, I dug into this a bit more. I opened up the Hue app on my iPhone, which I haven’t used in a very long time, only to set the bulbs up. Under the Hue app’s software version, I noticed that the Hub reported a Zigbee version number. 

It suddenly dawned on me that if Hue hub is communicating via Zigbee, then, in theory, I should be able to natively connect the Hue bulbs to my Echo Gen 4 smart speakers — which, it turns out, you now can do. Eero Pro 6 Wi-Fi access points (as well as the Echo Show series of devices) also have Zigbee transceivers built into them, bypassing the need to use Hue’s app and hub entirely and without the need for additional cloud service integration.
Go native Zigbee on Alexa
To migrate your Hue bulbs (and smart plugs) to Amazon Alexa’s native Zigbee, you’ll want to open up the Hue app and remove your bulbs and other devices from the app. This will cause them to blink momentarily and put them in a factory reset mode. If you have another brand of Zigbee-compatible bulb, a smart plug, or other smart lighting device and are using them with another manufacturer’s Zigbee hub and cloud service, you’ll want to do the same thing and remove the bulbs from their app and set them back to factory settings.

Next, open the Alexa app on your smartphone or tablet and go through the “Add Device” procedure. Then, pick “Light,” “Plug,” or any other type of Zigbee-compatible device you want to add. If you have older models of Echo that do not have Zigbee built-in, such as a Gen 3 or Gen 2, or even a Gen 1, you also have the option of adding the vendor’s hub (providing it is one of the supported brands) to the Alexa network, bypassing the need for an additional cloud service. Hue’s hub can also be directly connected to Alexa if you choose to do so.

Use the “Add Device” sequence to add your Hue and other Zigbee-compatible bulbs to Alexa.
Image: Jason Perlow/ZDNet
The Alexa app will ask you to choose which vendor of device you want to add. If the manufacturer is listed, such as Philips, you can directly choose that brand. Otherwise, pick “other,” and Alexa will automatically recognize it after completing the discovery process.

You can directly add any number of Zigbee-compatible devices to the Alexa network without needed additional skill service integration, including control hubs for Philips Hue.
Image: Jason Perlow/ZDNet
After the discovery process is complete, you can now add the smart home devices to groups of your choosing, as well as disconnect the vendor’s hub from your network.

A Philips Hue lightbulb connected to Alexa via native Zigbee.
Jason Perlow/ZDNet
For folks like myself who have fairly normal needs with smart lighting — I only really turn them on and off and dim them as needed — this is an excellent way to simplify the device integration with your smart home system and gives you improved flexibility on buying new bulbs and devices provided they are native Zigbee supported. Be advised that while Alexa does support color modes and other scene controls, it may not be as granular or as sophisticated as what Philips and other vendors can do with their native apps and hub connectivity. So, your mileage may vary.

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