Category: Internet Access And Service

Articles

What You Need To Know About IPv6 – PCWorld

My Comments

There has been a lot of talk about IPv6 as becoming the next major change for the Internet ecosystem.

This talk increased since late 2010 with the fact that the Internet is running out of globally-assignable IPv4 addresses, which are used to identify Internet services to other endpoints on the public Internet. There would then be the requirement to frequently reuse these addresses which can lead to a confused Internet setup.

It has also been augmented by the “World IPv6 Day” taking place on June 8 2011 where most of the popular sites had to run a dual IPv4/IPv6 setup to test whether IPv6 is ready for prime time. This test passed with flying colours for all of these sites and some of them still run with IPv6 compatibility in one form or another,

It is a technology that will be put on the map more so with the arrival of next-generation broadband setups, either as a way of opening up more IP addresses or as a statement to say the these services are all about “next generation Internet”,

What does IPv6 offer?

Greater number of IP addresses

There is a greater number of unique IP addresses available in the IPv6 Internet than there would be for the current-technology IPv4 Internet.

This requires the use of long address strings that may be hard to understand. For example, a typical IPv4 Internet address would be something like 211.234.5.1 whereas the IPv6 Internet address would be something like 2001:0530:ac12:2333:03aa:12f3:fe21:53f2 . This is why some shorthands have been introduced like the one mentioned in the next paragraph.

If an address had four zeros in it like 0000, the shorthand for this would be two colons as in fe80::ac12:2333:03aa:12f3:fe21:53f2 being equivalent to fe80:0000:ac12:2333:03aa:12f3:fe21:53f2 . It is worth noting that any IPv6 address that starts with fe80:: (fe80:0000: in longhand) is a stateless link-local address that would be “worked out” between network devices unless there is an IPv6 router that has a DHCPv6 server handing out the addresses.

Different network addressing setup

In the current IPv4 world, an ISP would allocate each customer’s network an outside IP address like 211.234.5.1 with a netmask of 255.255.255.0 . All devices within the network would be allocated a site-local IP address and it would be the job of the router to map through using Network Address Translation a “port number” to an inside device’s address. This has often caused problems for network setup whenever a device had to receive information from the Internet, an activity that is becoming more common with applications like Internet gaming and IP telephony.

An ISP can now issue a network prefix to a subscriber like this: 2001:0530:ac12:2333 and the DHCP server in an IPv6 router can allocate a unique “full” IPv6 address for each of the network devices. There isn’t even the need for netmasks anymore because a network can be singled out by the use of the IPv6 prefixes.

It will also therefore provide for proper direct access to each unique node on an IPv6 network.

Therefore, you will end up with more unique IP addresses for your home or small-business network than the whole of the current-generation IPv4 Internet.

Different take on network security

The fact that each network device in an IPv6 network can be globally accessible requires a rethink of the role that the network-Internet “edge” device provides.

The role of these devices in a small IPv6 network will typically be to work as a security firewall for the logical network that is behind it. It will also be asked to work as a bridge between the IPv4 network, the IPv6 network and Internet services that work purely with IPv4 and IPv6. It will be augmented with Improved designed-in security with IPSec secure-network support.

What is the reality with IPv6

Most of us may think that our small networks in our homes, shops and small offices won’t touch IPv6. But there is a strong likelihood that it will be part of next-generation broadband Internet sometime in the near future.

Compatibility setups

The dual-stack network

The fact is that some of the devices you use for the Internet may be infact ready to work with the IPv6 Internet. They will typically work with the IPv6 Internet in a “dual-stack” form where they can support IPv6 or IPv4 network traffic over the same interface. This means that each device will be known on the network via an IPv4 address and an IPv6 address. It also leads to the fact that the network will work as though it is two different networks – an IPv4 network and an iPv6 network with the same physical infrastructure.

If you establish a network with two or more dual-stack IPv4/IPv6 devices with the IPv6 function enabled, you will end up with a dual-stack network with each device being known by a stateless IPv6 address. This is even though the network has a router that can only support IPv4 network setups and hand out IPv4 IP addresses from its DHCP server.

Inter-protocol tunnelling

As well, most routers that support IPv6 will implement tunnel setups that interlink data between regular IPv4 host systems and IPv6 host systems both within and outside the network. These are typically in the form of ISATAP or 6to4 protocols which manage this process automatically. Here, the routers will set up VPN-like tunnels between IPv4 networks over the IPv6 networks to link the resources that are behind these networks.

Who’s ready and who isn’t

Standard computers, tablets and smartphones

The regular computer and the smartphone will be ready for IPv6. This has been achieved with inherent operating-system support in the newer versions of the popular desktop and smartphone operating systems.

For example, Windows has inherent support from Vista onwards and has a “kludged-in” support arrangement for Windows XP. Macintosh users will have IPv6 support from at least MacOS X Snow Leopard onwards.

The two popular smartphone platforms, iOS (iPhone) and Android have inherent support in their current versions. This is because some of the mobile carriers run IPv6 networks for their wireless-broadband services.

Network-enabled equipment

Most small-business printers that are released by the big names over the past two years are IPv6 ready.This doesn’t hold true for consumer network printers or most consumer network media hardware for that matter. It also holds true for network-capable consumer electronics like the Internet radios that I have reviewed.

A selection of high-end consumer and small-business routers do support IPv6 in some way; usually in a dual-stack method  and/or providing IPv6/IPv4 routing functionality according to one or more common algorithms like 6to4 or ISATAP. It is still worth checking with your router vendor whether there will be IPv6-capable firmware available for your existing equipment or equipment that you plan to buy.

What I will be doing at HomeNetworking01.info is that when I review network-enabled equipment and find that it has IPv6 capability, I will identify it as being IPv6-ready in its connectivity list. This will allow users to know that the equipment they plan to buy or specify can he ready to work in the IPv6 age.

Internet services

At the moment, nearly all residential and small-business Internet services aren’t running IPv6-compliant Internet services. They may run an IPv6 network as part of their backbone or own-office infrastructure bot won’t enable IPv6 with their customer-facing services or the network links that reach their customers.

This situation may change with ISPs that are part of a next-generation broadband service or who provide “geek-friendly” Internet service with the latest and the greatest technology. But I would suspect that most ISPs will provide a dual-stack Internet service when they get around to providing the customer-facing IPv6 service.

Access to and hosting the Web

If you do set up a Web page with a service provider, you may have a different IPv6-readiness issue. Most Web hosts will run IPv6 on their backbone networks and may run IPv6 as a beta-testing service which isn’t all that “polished”; but they won’t have fully-functional IPv6 for their customer-facing Web sites or the sites that they host. This is because, at the moment,  most systems and networks won’t cope properly with “dual-stack” (IPv4 / IPv6) Web-host setups because of the primary reliance on IPv4 infrastructure.

After “World IPv6 Day”, most of the big sites like Google and Facebook had found they could operate as a dual-stack arrangement without "keeling over” or having negative impact on the end-user experience. This is even though most traffic that visits these sites originates from IPv4 networks. Therefore some of the major sites are still running dual-stack or maintaining their test IPv6 site as a separate subdomain.

What will this lead to

It may lead to the ability for many devices to be globally addressed in a small network and this may be of importance if these devices are to be directly accessible from the Internet. This will be of importance with gaming and remote-access applications, and may encompass the ability to have networks addressable through a premises-unique easy-to-remember subdomain.

It could also allow for multi-premises setups to be easier to establish and maintain due to the fact that a logical network can be set up to cover the different locations. This is as long as they work on one service account. It may not hold true of portable devices that are typically serviced by different providers’ accounts.

It may yield some controversies concerning individuals’ privacy and security because of the ability to provide globally-unique addressability for each device. This is along with the arrival of cost-effective network-based monitoring setups that could track every individuals’ movements.

Conclusion

This article is informing you about what is to be expected out of the IPv6 technology that is being highly talked about through this year. It also may be of relevance as we move towards households and small businesses being served by next-generation broadband services such as the many fibre-optic networks.

Article

BT: Tests using white space for rural broadband are ‘very encouraging’ – FierceWireless:Europe

My Comments

There have been a few tests taking place in various countries to use bandwidth vacated by TV stations when they gone digital for use as the wireless last-mile in broadband service delivery. This application of the “white space” will be used primarily to deliver real high-speed broadband in to households and small businesses in rural and remote communities.

The BT Openreach tests that occurred recently and were cited in this article were performed on the UHF TV band and were covering the Isle Of Bute in Scotland. This exploited the ability for this band to be received on indoor antennas (aerials) like the typical “rabbit’s ears” used on portable TVs, as well as outdoor aerials.

A good question that may be worth raising with a UHF-based “white space” setup may be whether such setups may cause digital-TV reception problems for stations broadcasting on that band. This is more so in areas where the UHF band is being used as a “repeater” / “translator” broadcast band to fill in reception black spots in a TV broadcaster’s market area. In a rural area, there will be these transmitters being used for each TV broadcaster that is to be received in the area alongside any “white-space” Internet-delivery setup.

Other questions worth asking include whether such a setup will use “fibre-to-the-transmitter” or other high-speed wired backbones, what kind of bandwidth is available to the customer and whether it will be a “shared bandwidth” setup like DOCSIS cable-modem setups or a “dedicated bandwidth” setup like what Ethernet and DSL setups can provide.

Article

BBC News – Devon, Norfolk, Somerset and Wiltshire get faster broadband

My Comments

There have been a few efforts to deploy broadband Internet service into rural Britain that matches or betters the similar service available in urban Britain as I have covered previously on HomeNetworking01.info. Some of these have been underpinned primarily by local private companies with, in some cases, help from local government.

Now, London has come to the fore through the establishment of Broadband Delivery UK and the national funding of rural broadband projects. Four of the first few projects that have been started on under this funding are in Devonshire, Somerset, Norfolk and Wiltshire.

The funds allocations are GBP30m for Devon and Somerset; GBP15m for Norfolk and GBP4m for Wiltshire. Of course, the local councils and private investors in all these areas will provide supporting finance to the broadband provisioning effort in their areas.

An example of this is the Devon County Council pledging GBP22m towards the effort in their area. Here, their goal is to have at least 85% of Devon’s residents having access to the superfast broadband Internet service with a rated speed of 16-20Mbps at the end of the project.

The rhetoric put forward by the UK’s Cultural Secretary is that broadband Internet service is to be a common utility for homes and business in the same vein as mains electricity and telephone. They even have a goal to have the United Kingdom to be known for super fast broadband Internet service in Europe by 2015.

There was no talk about what kind of technology was going to be used to provide the service “to the door”. It then opens questions on whether a particular area was being provided with fibre technology or wireless technology; or whether the “last mile” to the customer’s door was to be copper, fibre or wireless links.

Of course it is so easy to think about whether an area will be covered by a broadband improvement drive but it is worth making sure that the service arrives at the customer’s door at the proper standard. This includes questions about how farms and similar properties are to be covered and the issue of older telephone wiring in rural areas, a factor that is increasing real when deploying cheaper “copper-in-the-last-mile” setups like VDSL2 FTTC systems.

Articles

Fibre Optique : 11 zones labellisées Zone d’activité Très Haut Débit – DegroupNews.com (France – French language)

www.labelzathd.fr – Home site for the ZA THD logo program (France – French language)

My comments

It is so easy for land and building developers to hawk the possibilities of new technology like fibre-optic communications when they sell their properties. This was increasingly done through the 1970s to the 1990s as a way of stating that the development was “ready for the future” and is still practised today with some residential-commercial developments. In a lot of these cases, there really isn’t a way of benchmarking the quality and capacity of the fibre-optic technology that goes in to these locations and knowing whether they really live up to the expectations.

The French government have taken a step in the right direction with the “Zone d’Activité Très Haut Débit” (Very High Bandwidth Business Zone) where there is a particular logo for fully-qualified developments.

Here, they required the following standards of the infrastructure for the development to be “logo-compliant”:

• Next-generation broadband to be delivered by optical fibre to every property
• A minimum service bandwidth of 100Mbps symmetric “to the door” 
• Provision for the competitive delivery of next-generation broadband by several retail providers.

This was to be supervised by SETICS in order to assure throughput and competitive-service compliance.

The current shortcomings that I find with this project is that it doesn’t qualify residential developments or the provision of next-generation broadband to the tenancy units (offices, shops, apartments) in a multiple-tenancy building like an office block, shopping centre or block of flats. These kind of developments are where there is the likelihood of hyping-up broadband infrastructure that falls short of the mark.

What needs to happen with this is to extend the logo standards to residential developments and multiple-tenancy buildings owned or managed by a particular entity. As well, local government should be involved in the promotion of the minimum-standard next generation broadband service so that if they have a logo like the “ZA THD” logo, they can become attractive to the “switched on” residents and businesses.

Article

Australian Communications Consumer Action Network – National Broadband Network: Guide for Consumers

My comments

After reading this article, I have made a few comments in a manner that isn’t intended to “dig at” the National Broadband Network and its operations but intended to provide level-headed service information about this next-generation broadband service. This may also be similar to other deployments where an FTTH next-generation broadband service is intended as an upgrade over an existing-technology communications service.

The connection will be delivered free of charge while the fibre-optic system is being rolled out in your area and you will receive notice of this from your service provider or NBN Co as it rolls out in your area.

The cabling will be similar to what is used for the current telephony cabling in that area. For most cities, this will be underground fibre-optic cabling, but for outer-urban areas, regional and rural areas, this will be overhead fibre-optic runs on existing telegraph poles.

Tenants and Multi-Tenancy Units

An issue that may arise with rental premises and multi-tenancy units (apartment blocks, shopping centres, office blocks) is that you may have to seek permission from your landlord, body-corporate or building manager to have the fibre-optic wiring done in the building. Your telecommunications / Internet service provider or the National Broadband Network Company will have procedures and forms in place for liaising with these people

Multi-Tenancy Unit / Multi-Dwelling Unit Buildings

The National Broadband Network will be a full “fibre-to-the-premises” deployment with a fibre-optic run to each unit (apartment, house, shop, office space) in the building. Here, the NBN may have to install extra equipment in the building’s wiring closet which may be in the basement or an auxiliary passageway of the building.

Post-changeover

For most people, the telephony and Internet service that you will benefit from will be similar to what you are getting for your current service. There may be revisions to the Internet service concerning download allowances as you benefit from bigger download bandwidths.

Customer Premises Equipment

The device illustrated in the article may be a proof-of-concept article, prototype or pre-production sample that wouldn’t be supplied to customers as part of the NBN rollout. As well, there may be variations in the device’s functionality for the final-issue device. It is also worth knowing that the information that is provided is for the average “Joe Six-pack” who would be running just one classic phone service and one broadband Internet service.

The customer premises equipment will be an “optical network terminator” (ONT) which is a fibre-optic modem that has handset connections for 2 phone services, and four Ethernet ports with 1 port for each Internet service. There is no knowledge of the port speed available through these ports but they may be Gigabit Ethernet ports.

Because there is no power transmitted through the fibre-optic cable, the exchange won’t provide the required power for “lifeline” telephony service. Instead, the power supply that comes with this box will have a backup battery that works in a similar way to an alarm system’s backup battery. Here you will be able to place and receive calls for a certain amount of time when the power goes down.

Of course, this device will be managed by NBN Co and end up being seen by them as a demarcation point for service responsibility.

Customers who have wireless and satellite services will have different CPE requirements but they will have a similar form of connectivity.

Connectivity issues

The home network

Of course, you will have to use an Ethernet-WAN broadband router as your Internet-network edge and there will be the high-end units on the market that will have the Gigabit Ethernet connections on the WAN and LAN Ethernet sockets. For Wi-Fi, these units will need to work with full 802.11n wireless and for HomePlug you would have to use HomePlug AV or HomePlug AV2 setups.

IPTV and IP Telephony

There was nothing mentioned about how one should connect IPTV or IP Telephony equipment; whether via the “edge” router or direct to this ONT box? As well, there wasn’t mention about use of other VoIP hardware like IP telephone to provide the voice telephony service that is normally provided to the telephony ports on this box? This will become more interesting as people consider the use of enhanced IP-telephony technology for their regular telephony services.

Three or more phone services

Similarly, the device doesn’t cater for households with 3 or more classic phone lines such as a business operated from home with the need for a fax service or individuals like elderly relatives residing in the house but wanting the responsibility and dignity of their own phone service under their control. As well, a larger house may be split in to two or more smaller residences and let as such as a way of keeping it viable but may be amalgamated to the larger house for use as a “family house”. Here, there should be support for two or more ONTs in these situations.

This may be rectified through the use of IP telephones that are connected in to the home network and associated with one or more of the phone services; and really shouldn’t be of concern when we move towards full IP telephony.

Modem-to-modem communications

As far as I know, the NBN setup should work with G3 fax, all “human-response dial-out” alarm systems, or most modem-driven monitored-alarm systems connected to the telephony sockets but you will need to check with system provider in the case of your security setup. You may have to scale your fax machine’s throughput to lower “G3” speeds like 14400bps for reliable transmission for reliable operation. I have written further on faxing and monitored alarms in the IP Telephony age in a special article which should be read by customers and industry alike as the National Broadband Network nears.

Small businesses

THe four Ethernet ports may be of benefit to the small-business owner like a cafe operator who wants to run a public wireless hotspot as a separate Internet service. Here, one port can serve a dedicated broadband router like a hotspot gateway for the public Internet service while the other port can serve the business’s “line-of-business” network.

For some other businesses like bars where online vending or amusement machines that are managed by third parties are the order of the day, the separate Ethernet ports can be used to provide an Internet service under the control of the machine’s operator.

Conclusion

This is not simply NBN “spin” but issues that may be of concern whenever an imminent conversion to FTTH technology ins in place for established telecommunications networks.

Telekom startet FTTH-Ausbau für VDSL in Potsdam – VDSL.de (Germany – German language)

My comments

The fat pipe is becoming fatter in Germany

Deutsche Telekom are intending to roll out FTTH (fibre-to-the-home) next-generation broadband into Potsdam, Germany. This is although there is a great penetration of VDSL-driven FTTC (fibre-to-the-curb / fibre-to-the-cabinet) setups in most of Germany, including this capital city of Berlin-Brandenburg.

They intend to have this fibre infrastructure pass at least 21,000 households in the southern and western areas of this city. Building owners will need to give Deutsche Telekom a permit to give the “go-ahead” for the fibre-optic installation work to start in their building, as would be required for most telecommunications works in these buildings; but this could be simply a formality as they realise the benefits of this technology for their tenants.

The deployment pricing will be similar to what has been called for Australia’s National Broadband Network where the installation will be free when the service is rolled out to the area but will cost more for installations commenced after the rollout.

As well, Deutsche Telekom do have a long-term intent to roll out FTTH next-generation broadband to Germany’s major cities.

Moving from FTTC to FTTH

What has interested me about this work is that it is an example of being able to move from an FTTC or FTTN setup with a copper run from a street box to the customer’s door; to an FTTH / FTTP setup which has fibre-optic all the way to the customer’s door. Thi is done while reusing existing fibre-optic cabling infrastructure rather than laying down new infrastructure.

Some of the FTTC or FTTN setups like a few of the deployments occurring in rural Britain are being designed with support for migration to the all-fibre layouts. So anyone who does want to advocate for a part-fibre part-copper setup for a next-generation broadband rollout would need to factor in a future-proof arrangement for FTTH/FTTP all-fibre setups down the track. As well, this approach can cater for environments where some buildings like offices or educational facilities could have an all-fibre rune but as needs change, other buildings could have the all-fibre run. Similarly, it can allow reuse of existing head-end equipment used for the copper deployment like DSLAMs on newer extensions of the part-copper part-fibre setup such as entry to new neighbourhoods for example.

So this setup means that even a part-copper part-fibre setup like an FTTC setup could benefit from higher throughput speeds by moving towards an all-fibre setup while retaining the existing fibre-optic backbone infrastructure.

Customers please note with these conversions

When these networks switch over from a VDSL2-based part-copper part-fibre network to an all-fibre network, you will have to move from a DSL modem router to a broadband router with an Ethernet WAN (Internet) port.

Some high-end modem routers will have a dual-WAN setup which uses an Ethernet port as a secondary WAN port and this may be in the form of a LAN port that can become a WAN port or as a dedicated WAN port. It is worth checking if your modem-router has this setup by referring to its instruction manual or manufacturer’s Website.

Labor backflips on its NBN promise to regional Australia | The Australian

My comments

Rural and regional Internet users are being short-changed again by a backflip that Labor has done with the National Broadband Network.

The kind of treatment rural and regional users receive

This is an example of continual second-rate treatment of rural and regional citizens when it comes to telecommunications.

Here, I remember living in the country in the 1980s when there was continual poor-quality telephone service. Here there was a poor signal-to-noise ratio with the phone line to where I lived at and this usually manifested in a lot of crackling through the call as well as frequent incidents of crosstalk which we often described as “crossed lines”.

As well, if rural users want to contact services in metropolitan areas, they have to pay long-distance telephone rates for these calls. This is unless the service provider sets up a freecall or local-cost telephone number for people to ring in on.

Continuously, country users are limited to dial-up Internet and this is often at a substandard rate with slower-than-standard data speeds and longer connection-establishment times.

As well, country users cannot benefit from broadband because they are usually out of the proper “range” for ADSL services. Therefore they end up on the substandard dial-up services. If they are in “range” for ADSL service, they end up with substandard ADSL service.

What is happening with NBN

The Labor federal government had built their election campaign on the back of the National Broadband Network. This was to have the same cost of service across all of Australia even though the service will be provided “to the door” using fibre, wireless or satellite technologies.

Now they have done a backflip on this promise by not guaranteeing a price structure that requires the Internet service on this network to be the same for metropolitan, regional and rural areas. This is based around the excuse that the wireless technology that would be needed for the regional and rural areas will cost more to set up, especially in licensing costs.

I have seen some successful operations in the UK where next-generation broadband services have been rolled out to some rural villages in a cost-effective manner by local companies. Here, they had worked on the local deployments using technologies like VDSL-driven fibre-to-the-cabinet yet allowed the systems to be future-proof for fibre-to-the-premises.

The use of “anti-competition” measures in the NBN legislation would make it hard for a “go-getter” company to do what companies like Rutland Telecom have done in enabling rural towns with next-generation broadband.

Supporting the rural Internet needs properly

What needs to happen is for these measures to be adjusted to expedite service delivery to rural areas and facilitate the NBN or government to support local entities in deploying such technology to rural and regional areas. Then could then be able to provide retail service in to these towns or lease-back the infrastructure to the NBN for wholesale service provisioning.

As well, if there is an easement required on a property for running fibre trunks in the NBN infrastructure, the issue of fibre branches connecting “to the door” of the affected as well as adjacent properties from this trunk should be looked at.

The NBN doesn’t even look at the issue of a genuine “universal service obligation” concerning broadband and there needs to be activity concerning this issue. This includes a minimum standard or service and a maximum price for the service similar to what is being prescribed in Europe. The costs could be offset via a universal service fund which could be supported either through line spending or a direct levy like one on service-provider turnover.

Conclusion

It therefore seems to me that the Australian government have lost the plot when it come to assuring competitive Internet access and a universal standard of Internet service in the country. They need to look at what other established countries are doing for when it comes to these factors and implement these issues effectively.