Networks

Predictions for a Post-COVID-19 World

While it might still be too early to make predictions, there are dozens of articles on the web predicting how the COVID-19 pandemic might change our long-term behavior. Here are some of the more interesting predictions I've seen that involve broadband and telecom... Millions of people were sent home for work or school to homes that didn't have good broadband. These folks have been telling the world for years that they don't have good broadband... more

Internet Evolution: Moore’s Law, Addressing Architectures, and the Future of Internet Scale

The Internet has evolved from a scarcity-driven system into one defined by abundance, reshaping infrastructure, governance, and economic models while challenging long-held assumptions about addressing, network roles, and the future of protocol design. more

RIPE 86 Bites: Encryption and Active Network Management

Change is hard, and the larger the system, the slower the pace of change. There are just so many systems that need to change their behaviors, and the motivations of users, vendors, service providers, content generators and many others all vary. Getting all of us to change some aspect of our technology, platform or application set is hard, if not impossible, to orchestrate such that it happens at the same time. more

MANRS Observatory: Monitoring the State of Internet Routing Security

Routing security is vital to the future and stability of the Internet, but it's under constant threat. Mutually Agreed Norms for Routing Security (MANRS) is a global initiative, driven by the networking community and supported by the Internet Society, aiming to reduce the most common threats to the Internet's routing system through technical and collaborative action. more

A New Busy Hour – One of the Many Consequences of the COVID-19 Pandemic

One of the many consequences of the coronavirus is that networks are going to see a shift in busy hour traffic. Busy hour traffic is just what it sounds like -- it's the time of the day when a network is busiest, and network engineers design networks to accommodate the expected peak amount of bandwidth usage. Verizon reported on March 18 that in the week since people started moving to work from home that they've seen a 20% overall increase in broadband traffic. more

Reframing the Infrastructure Debate

Fast and reliable infrastructure of any kind is good for business. That it's debatable for the Internet shows we still don't understand what the Internet i -- or how, compared to what it costs to build and maintain other forms of infrastructure, it's damned cheap, with economic and social leverage in the extreme. Here's a thought exercise... Imagine no Internet: no data on phones, no ethernet or wi-fi connections at home - or anywhere. No email, no Google, no Facebook, no Amazon, no Skype. That's what we would have if designing the Internet had been left up to phone and cable companies... more

Give Network Administrators a Zero-Impact Firmware Update Solution

Struggles with the firmware update process are well known by Network Administrators in the cable industry. The copious tasks required to complete an end-to-end firmware update are painstaking and error-prone, often making the investment not worth the time it takes to complete the work... imagine doing these manual tasks over and over for hundreds to thousands of devices, many from different vendors, each with its own unique device update path! Clearly, this complex challenge needs a solution. more

Major International Botnet Disabled Says U.S. Department of Justice

The U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI announced on Wednesday that they have taken actions to disable an international botnet of more than two million infected computers responsible for stealing corporate data including user names, passwords and financial information. more

Happy Birthday, Backbone

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the decommissioning of the NSFNET backbone on April 30 1995, an important milestone in the development of the commercial Internet. The NSFNET was set up by the US National Science Foundation in 1985 to enable university researchers access to five supercomputer sites across the United States, using Internet Protocol technology. In stepping back, the NSF supported a transition to an Internet shaped by market forces, and the explosion of commercial use soon followed. more

Russian Central Bank Announces Mandatory Cyber-Security Regulations for Domestic Banks

"Russian banks will be faced with a whole range of new regulations, and penalties for non-compliance, when it comes to cyber-security, according to the country's Central Bank," Eugene Gerden reported today in SC Magazine UK more

China Nearing Full Mobile Broadband Coverage

China’s mission to put its entire population on the internet is almost complete, as analysts predict full mobile broadband network coverage in the world’s second-largest economy within the next few years. more

Canadian Energy Firms at Bigger Risk of Cyberattack

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) is reported to have warned companies about an increasing risk of cyber espionage and attacks on pipelines, oil storage and shipment facilities. more

Highlights from SCTE Cable-Tec EXPO

As a product manager and engineer, I really enjoy attending the technology-oriented Cable-Tec Expo each year. It has a stronger technology focus than many other industry trade shows and it's always a good opportunity to talk to the engineering teams from all of the operators and vendors. more

Internet Society Applauds Plan to Transition Oversight of Key Internet Resources

The Internet Society (ISOC) Board of Trustees today passed a resolution to strongly support the plan developed by the global Internet community presented to the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration to transition oversight of key Internet resources. more

RIPE 86 Bites: What’s the Time?

A little appreciated aspect of our digital infrastructure is just how dependent we are on access to time. Disrupting the time base can not only lead to disruption in communications but can result in various forms of compromise of the integrity of communications. Accurate time was all but unobtainable for centuries, and then, as we spent significant sums devising even more accurate timekeeping instruments, accurate time became a specialized service. more