Category: Network hardware design

Freebox Ultra now the technical hallmark for home broadband routers

Article

Freebox Ultra router and extender press image courtesy of Iliad Free

Freebox Ultra Wi-Fi 7 router being defined as the cutting-edge for carrier-supplied customer-premises equipment for home networks

The Freebox Ultra’s First Test: Wi-Fi 7 Surpasses Expectations – GAMINGDEPUTY

French language / Langue française

Freebox Ultra : pourquoi elle est devenue rapidement une référence technique | Freenews.fr

Test de la Freebox Ultra : notre avis complet sur la box Internet de Free (frandroid.com)

My Comments

The competitive telecommunications and Internet market in France has led towards some exciting equipment being offered has led to the local telecommunications providers offering customer premises equipment way above the average for this class of equipment.

One firm I have given space to a lot on this site is Iliad who run their “Free” Internet service in France as something that raised the bar for value there. They ended up offering a highly capable piece of equipment in the form of the Freebox Révolution with a highly-capable router / NAS unit / DECT cordless-telephone base station in one Phillippe-Starck-designed box and a “décodeur” set-top box with Blu-Ray player in another similarly-designed box. It even ended up with features like “box-to-box” or “client-to-box” VPN support, software-defined Wi-Fi 5 support and a gyroscopic remote control and both devices benefited from continual firmware upgrades that offered new functionality.

Freebox Révolution - courtesy Iliad.fr

Previously, the Freebox Révolution was defined as the cutting edge for this class of hardware

Now Iliad have taken things further with the Freebox Ultra which is usurping the role of the Freebox Révolution. This, like the Freebox Révolution uses fibre optic as the WAN connection but can work at 10 Gigabit speed, allowing for a competitive 10G Internet service courtesy of Free.

There is an extraordinary local network offering with a Wi-Fi 7 4-band access point with two streams for all of the bands. This media network is protected using the latest WPA3 security specification and there is the ability to steer client devices to the best band to work with. As for the wired network, this Freebox is about multi-gigabit Ethernet all the way with a 10 Gigabit SFP connection and four 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet sockets as a switch.

The CPU in this Freebox Ultra is an ARM Cortex A73 RISC CPU, something that wouldn’t look out of place in smartphones, tablets or the connected car. Here it is about using less power to handle a lot of data and offer a rich user interface. A user can install a NVM3 2280 SSD stick in to this router to have this work as a NAS the Freebox way with support for UPnP AV / DLNA, Apple Time Machine and other common standards. The other approach for connecting storage to this device is to use a USB-C socket with 60W PowerDelivery power for a USB hard disk or SSD of some sort.

Like the recent Freebox setups since the Révolution, this unit works on the Freebox OS which has a user interface that wouldn’t look out of place on a recent consumer or small-business network-attached storage device  or a desktop operating system’s GUI. Here, I wouldn’t put it past Free to add more functionality with a Freebox OS firmware update, even have it work with newer Wi-Fi or other network standards.

This device even comes with an extender known as the Freebox Répéteur 7 which works on Wi-Fi 7 to cover larger French homes like the “mas en Provence” so you can have continual Wi-Fi coverage through them. There is even an Ethernet connection so you could connect a wired Ethernet device to the extender or, perhaps, run a wired backhaul to the Ereebox 7.

Due to this connectivity and these capabilities, it bas been realised that the Freebox Ultra is about achieving a future-proof home network for your French home. This device is typically offered for EUR€49.99 per month with a fibre-optic broadband service that offers Internet, TV and fixed-line telephony of the kind expected in a French competitive telecommunications market.

Once you have the French telecommunications providers and AVM continually offering cutting-edge consumer-premises network equipment, it wouldn’t take long for these firms to compete with Silicon Valley and become an “Airbus” or “Arianespace” equivalent.

An unmanaged Ethernet switch engineered for media streaming now available

Article

English Electric 8Switch audiophile Ethernet switch press picture courtesy of The Chord Company

English Electric 8Switch audiophile Gigabit Ethernet switch

English Electric’s NEW 8Switch Audiophile Ethernet Switch | Audio Bacon

From the horse’s mouth

English Electric

8Switch (Product Page)

My Comments

I have covered on HomeNetworking01.info the fact that the home network is being considered part of the home audio and video scene, even in the context of high-end applications where excellence is considered paramount. This is due to the rise of  audio-video content-streaming services including Spotify and Internet radio; along with the use of DLNA/UPnP-AV to facilitate the use of network-attached storage devices to share multimedia with dedicated home AV equipment. Have a look at these articles, and this one highlighting the Naim NDX audiophile network media player in order to see what I am about with this trend.

Naim NDS network audio player

… fit or audiophile network media players like the Naim NDX and NDS network media players

In the UK, where there is a significant small industry around esoteric hi-fi, a company has come forward with an unmanaged Gigabit Ethernet switch optimised for streaming multimedia, especially high-end music content. It is one of the first network-infrastructure devices targeted to the home or other small networks that is optimised for this purpose.

English Electric, a historic electrical-engineering brand resurrected by the Chord audiophile hi-fi connections brand, has answered the reality of the home network being part of a hi-fi setup. This is due to streaming content services like Internet radio, Spotify and Tidal along with the use of NAS units and DLNA-compliant network media players to play master-quality audio files through hi-fi setups.

Dish Joey 4K set-top box press picture courtesy of Dish Networks America

or set-top boxes and smart TVs associated with Netflix and similar online video services

This switch, known as the 8Switch, has been engineered for high data-packet reliability and resistance to electrical noise and mechanical vibration.

It uses a power supply of a similar standard to what would be used to power medical equipment in a hospital which is about providing clean reliable smooth power to the device while keeping AC-borne electrical interference out of the circuitry and network. The aluminium housing is designed to isolate the circuitry from surrounding mechanical vibration to assure reliable operation. Even the Ethernet sockets are optimised for high reliability and low noise in order to satisfy demanding audiophile/multimedia applications.

The clock circuitry that sequences the flow of data through the switch is specially optimised for real-time media streaming. This is thanks to a highly-optimised custom-designed crystal oscillator that assures high accuracy and reduced electrical noise, which yields reduced jitter and packet loss.

At the moment, the English Electric 8Switch is available in the UK for GBP£450 and is being sold through some UK-based hi-fi boutiques who sell Chord high-end audio cables. They will even throw in one of Chord’s audiophile/multimedia-grade Ethernet patch cords so you can connect it to your home network or a network AV component with the right cable.

Chord initially pitches the English Electric 8Switch being pitched to be used as a regional switch to interlink a cluster of network-enabled AV components include a NAS like a ripping NAS used primarily for storing multimedia content. It would be uplinked to your existing home-network router for Internet access when it comes to using streaming services or the rest of your home network.

I also see it of benefit for small-business and community-organisation audio/video setups that are heading towards using IP networks as an interconnection method. This would include those churches heading towards online livestreaming of services or small production teams using the latest network-based audio-video technology. It can even appeal to broadcast-LAN subsystems like Sat>IP where you are using multiple devices and want assured reliability for your devices’ network connection.

The English Electric 8Switch is another example of a home-network Ethernet switch that has been designed for a specific niche and devices like this could pave the way for companies to design network-infrastructure hardware that answer these specific needs.

The NAS as an on-premises edge-computing device for cloud services

QNAP TS-251 2-bay NAS

QNAP TS-251 2-bay NAS – units like this could become a capable edge-computing device

The high-end network-attached storage system is a device able to augment the cloud computing trend in various forms. This is by becoming a local “edge processor” for the cloud-computing ecosystem and handling the data that is created or used by end-users local to it.

High-end network-attached-storage systems

We are seeing the rise of network-attached-storage subsystems that are capable of running as computers in their own right. These are typically high-end consumer or small-business devices offered by the likes of QNAP, Synology or NETGEAR ReadyNAS that have a large app store or software-developer community.

The desktop variants would be the size ranging form half a loaf of bread to a full bread loaf, with some rack-mounted units about the size of one or two pizza boxes.This is compared to servers that were the size of a traditional tower computer.

But some of the apps work alongside public cloud-driven online services as a client or “on-ramp” between these services and your local network. A typical use case is to synchronise files held on an online storage service with the local storage on the NAS unit.

These high-end network-attached-storage devices are effectively desktop computers in their own right, with some of them using silicon that wouldn’t look out of place with a traditional desktop computer. Some of these machines even support a “local console” with a display connection and USB connections that support keyboards and mice.

Cloud computing

Cloud computing takes an online-service approach to computing needs and, in a lot of cases, uses multiple computers in multiple data centres to perform the same computing task. This is typically to host the data in or close to the end-user’s country or to provide a level of scalability and fault-tolerance in the online service approach.

Lot 3 Ripponlea café

A cafe like this could benefit from big-business technology without paying a king’s ransom thanks to cloud computing

Small businesses are showing an interest in cloud-driven computing solutions as a way to come on board with the same things as the “big end of town” without paying a king’s ransom for hardware necessary for an on-premises computing solution. In some cases, it is also about using different endpoint types like mobile-platform tablets for daily use or as a management tool, underscoring such concepts as low cost or portability that some endpoints may offer.

Typically, this kind of computing is offered “as a service” where you subscribe to the service on a regular, usually monthly or annual, basis rather than you spending big on capital expenses to get it going.

But, due to its nature as an always-online service, cloud computing can cause reliability and service-availability issues if the Internet connection isn’t reliable or the service ends up being oversubscribed. This can range from real-time services suffering latency towards a cloud-computing experience becoming unresponsive or unavailable.

Then there is the issue of privacy, data security, service continuity and data sovereignty which can crop up if you change to a different service or the service you use collapses or changes hands. It can easily happen while cloud-computing faces points of reckoning and the industry goes in to consolidation.

Edge computing

But trends that are being investigated in relationship to the “Internet Of Things” and “Big Data” are the concepts  of “edge” and “fog” computing. It is based around the idea of computing devices local to the source or sink of the data that work with the locally-generated or locally-used data as part of submitting it to or fetching it from the cloud network.

It may allow a level of fault-tolerance for applications that demand high availability or permit scalability at the local level for the cloud-computing application. Some systems may even allow for packaging locally-used data in a locally-relevant form such as for online games to support local tournaments or an online movie service to provide a local storage of what is popular in the neighbourhood.

The ideas associated with “edge” and “fog” computing allow for the use of lightweight computer systems to do the localised or distributed processing, effectively aggregating these systems in to what is effectively a heavyweight computer system. It has been brought about with various early distributed-computing projects like SETI and Folding@Home to use personal computers to solve scientific problems.

What is serving the edge-computing needs

Qarnot Q.Rad press image courtesy of Qarnot

This Qarnot Q.Rad heater is actually a computer that is part of edge computing

Some applications like drones are using the on-device processing to do the local workload. Or we are seeing the likes of Qarnot developing edge-computing servers that heat your room or hot water with the waste heat these computing devices produce.  But Amazon and QNAP are working on an approach to use a small-office NAS as an edge-computing device especially for Internet-Of-Things applications.

The NAS serving this role

Here, it is about making use of these ubiquitous and commonly-available NAS units for this purpose as well as storing and serving data that a network needs. In some cases, it can be about the local processing and storing of this locally-generated / locally-used data then integrating the data with what is available on the cloud “backbone”.

For some applications, it could be about keeping enough data for local needs on the NAS to assure high availability. Or it could be about providing scalability by allowing the NAS to do some of the cloud workload associated with the locally-generated data before submitting it to the cloud.

Netgear ReadyNAS

The NETGEAR ReadyNAS on the right is an example of a NAS that is capable of being an edge-computing node

This may be of importance with IT systems that are moving from a totally on-premises approach towards the use of cloud-computing infrastructure with data being stored or processed online. It is where the focus of the cloud infrastructure is to make business-wide data available across a multi-site business or to provide “portable access” to business data. Here, a NAS could simply be equipped with the necessary software to be a smart “on-ramp” for this data.

For small and medium businesses who are moving towards multiple locations such as when a successful business buys another business in another area to increase their footprint, this technology may have some appeal. Here, it could be about doing some pre-processing for data local to the premises before submitting to the cloud as part of an online management-information-system for that small effort.  As well, it could be about keeping the business-wide data “in-sync” across the multiple locations, something that may be important with price lists or business-wide ledgers.

This kind of approach works well with the high-end NAS units if these units’ operating platforms allow third-party software developers to write software for these devices. It can then open up the possibilities for hybrid and “edge” computing applications that involve these devices and the network connectivity and on-device storage that they have.

Conclusion

What needs to happen is that the high-end network-attached-storage systems of the Synology or QNAP kind need to be considered as a hardware base for localised “edge computing” in an online “cloud-computing” setup.

This can be facilitated by the vendors inciting software development in this kind of context and encouraging people involved in online and cloud computing to support this goal especially for small-business computing.

Could a NAS be relevant to console gaming?

QNAP 2-disk NAS

Could a NAS like this QNAP 2-disk NAS – be used as storage for a games console?

The games console that connects to your TV is still relevant to video gaming, especially where the idea is to be able to lean back during gameplay or have a dedicated games machine to use in the living room or recreation room.

The key trends affecting video gaming

Video gaming is becoming a data-thirsty activity where there is emphasis on having a large amount of data being available to the players as they continue to play these games.

Download rather than packaged media

But there are key directions that are affecting video and computer games, especially those targeted towards games consoles. Primarily, they are being made available to download from online storefronts rather than being sold as packaged media or the packaged media is sold as a “get-you-going” option.

A continual supply of extra content available for download

Game players for all game classes are being able to benefit from free or premium downloadable content that is being continually authored by the game studios. This continued availability of extra content is providing for continued playability beyond the first rounds or sessions of the game. In some cases, some studios are even providing time-limited bonus missions or seasonal content in order to keep the players interested.

It extends to most of the games studios working on a high-quality-control regime which includes the supply of frequent updates for each of these games.

Games needing extra data as they go

Sony PS4

Games consoles like the Sony PS4 will need to benefit from extra storage offered by a NAS

More games are requiring extra data as you keep playing them. Typically with games of the “open-world” kind, some strategy games or adventure / role-playing games, this is about loading extra scenery, missions or other data that facilitates further game play. In some cases, you completing a mission in a game brings down extra data.

The best example of this would be Forza Horizon 4 which is set in the UK. Here, players complete race challenges to buy individual cars, or they could buy a property to gain access to further challenges and further vehicles. In some cases, they may have access to so-called “barn-find” cars that are discovered when they visit particular buildings and they have to restore these vehicles so that they can be used as competition vehicles. The game even adds seasonality with particular

USB portable hard disk

These portable USB hard disks are seen as a way to expand storage capacity on a games console

vehicles, areas and challenges available during particular seasons.

What is being done to answer the problem

USB hard disks or aftermarket hard-disk upsizing

But most setups are requiring the connection of USB hard disks to these consoles as a way to offload extra game data from the console’s hard disk. Or third-party repair shops simply upsize games consoles with newer larger-capacity hard disks and solid-state drives to improve performance or create extra storage space.

A problem that will easily surface with USB hard disks or aftermarket hard-disk upsize installations is the maximum capacity that a games console’s firmware can address for any mass-storage device that the console can handle. In the case of USB hard disks, there will be an expectation that these disks are a single logical volume, something that is common with consumer-electronics and similar devices that use USB mass-storage.

What could be done here

Use of network-attached-storage devices

But games-console manufacturers could look towards using network-attached storage devices as another way of storing extra game data. Here, the NAS system could be about “parking” games data if a game isn’t being played including data for missions and levels yet to be played, to share common data across games machines on the same network for multiple-player multiple-machine gameplay.

It could be feasible to share common data between a regular computer and a games console if the data is the same format for both devices. This would appeal to platforms like the XBox One where there is a strong effort to maintain a common codebase and common data between regular computers and games consoles to avoid duplication of effort in a game’s lifecycle. It is important where the goal is to port a game to as many platforms as possible.

Here, this may be about keeping player-specific data like gameplay-specific data or common data like game assets relating to a specific game. But some game assets such as games or premium downloadable content may be particular to a player or console as a way of binding it to a player who had bought the game or DLC or won the bonus content.

The advantage that a NAS can offer is that the NAS simply defines the maximum storage capacity available to the client device such as through an account-specific quota or a maximum volume offered by that device.

The main problem associated with games consoles and NAS units

Onboarding games consoles to NAS units

Integrating a NAS device may be about a difficult path with the use of the SMB data-sharing protocol being supported in these consoles. It will then require users to supply share names and username / password credentials to their consoles to make use of these network shares. In some cases, the player may have to create a player-private user account on the NAS for player-specific data.

An easier path that the games-console industry and NAS vendors could work towards is a simplified provisioning and device-discovery setup protocol. This could allow for the creation and allocation of player-specific and common data space on a NAS device for storing game data over the network.  Such a protocol could be based on the UPnP AV / DLNA protocols for device and content discovery. As well, it could be facilitated on existing equipment through firmware updates or add-on apps for both the NAS and the games consoles.

Other uses

Of course, there is the issue of being able to draw upon one’s own multimedia content library which would be hosted on at least one DLNA-compliant NAS. This could come in to its own with, for example, open-world car-racing games where you can equip your in-game car with a “virtual car radio” that plays audio content from different online or network content sources.

Another direction that may be looked at with higher-performance NAS units of the QNAP or Synology ilk would be to run them as games servers for LAN-based multiplayer multi-machine gaming. The idea may be about a purely local game that is independent of an Internet-hosted online service or it could simply be about creating localised competition elements in addition to the Internet-hosted online competition elements.

Conclusion

A network-attached-storage device can be considered a relevant device for console-based video gaming as an approach towards offloading or backing up video-game data. It can also be used as an approach for sharing common game data amongst multiple consoles or other devices that are playing the same game.

NETGEAR offers an affordable 8-port Gigabit unmanaged switch with Power Over Ethernet Plus on all ports

From the horse’s mouth

NETGEAR GS108PP ProSafe Gigabit Unmanaged 8-port Switch with Power-Over-Ethernet Plus press picture courtesy of NETGEAR

NETGEAR GS108PP ProSafe Gigabit Unmanaged 8-port Switch with Power-Over-Ethernet Plus

NETGEAR

GS108PP 8-port Gigabit unmanaged switch with Power Over Ethernet Plus

Product Page

Special Offer

MWAVE deal on this switch for AUD$169

Related Coverage

Understanding Power Over Ethernet

My Comments

Power Over Ethernet concept

Power Over Ethenrt concept

Increasingly Power-Over-Ethernet technology is being offered as a product-differentiating feature for small-business and installer-grade Ethernet switches. This is where these switches are able to supply power to network devices using the same blue wire that connects them to the wired Ethernet network.

The feature is appealing towards Wi-Fi access points, VoIP desk telephones and IP-based videosurveillance cameras as a way to power them without having to locate a power outlet near these devices. It also provides a form of central power control for such devices such as assuring access to battery backup for a cluster of devices or to allow a managed Ethernet switch to provide programmatic power control from its user interface.

But a lot of them offer this technology to some, usually half, of the ports available on them. TrendNET previously offered to the American market an eight-port Gigabit unmanaged switch with Power-Over-Ethernet Plus on all ports for US$280 when it came out.

But NETGEAR are offering the GS108PP switch which is a similar device with Power-Over-Ethernet Plus on all eight Gigabit ports for AUD$219 recommended retail price. MWAVE, an independent online computer dealer serving the Australian market. has put downward pressure on the price of this device class offering this Netgear unit with a 123W total power budget for a street price of AUD$169. As well, this model can be mounted on a desktop or a wall thanks to keyhole slots on the side but also comes with a set of rack ears to permit installation in a standard equipment rack.

It has been something associated with NETGEAR where they have offered affordable network-infrastructure hardware fit for small networks. This was primarily in the form of highly-compact affordable five-port and eight-port Ethernet switches with the basic expectations of their era. Gradually as newer network standards came along, NETGEAR would eventually be the first to roll them in to these affordable five-port or eight-port devices. Let’s not forget that they offered managed Ethernet switches that implement Web-based management and “automatic-transmission” operation for quality-of-service management when it comes to voice or video traffic. There was even the Nighthawk S8000 Gaming and Multimedia Switch with the same abilities as one of these business-grade switches but in a housing that would please gamers or not look out of place in a home-entertainment centre.

The next step for NETGEAR to take with some of these technologies is to package and present them to appeal to home users and small businesses while making them affordable. It can also be about endorsing and supporting connectivity and management standards that permit simplified setup of Ethernet-based network infrastructure.

Setting up a mobile NAS to work with your home network

WD MyPassport Wireless mobile NAS

The WD MyPassport Wireless mobile network-attached storage – can offer data to the host Wi-Fi network when set up in hotspot mode

Increasingly, data-storage device manufacturers are adding to their mobile network-attached storage devices the same kind of network-based data storage and access features typically offered with a standard desktop NAS device. This is rather than these devices just being a lightweight file server for smartphones and tablets connected to the device’s own Wi-Fi access point.

I had previously reviewed one of these devices in the form of the WD MyPassport Wireless mobile NAS which demonstrated this kind of functionality. In the review, I had called out the DLNA-compliant media server that was part of that mobile NAS’s feature set, where you had the ability to show your photos and videos on one of the latest Smart TVs via the home network the TV is connected to.

Mobile NAS with hotspot mode set for “secure” or “private” mode

As well, some of the increasingly-sophisticated devices like the WD MyPassport Wireless Pro also are offering the same kind of Samba-based (SMB / CIFS) file transfer method that you can do with other NAS devices so you can transfer resources to these devices using your regular computer’s operating-system’s file manager and its network file transfer protocols. Similarly, the devices may implement FTP, WebDAV or other common network-file-transfer protocols primarily to allow you to upload photos and footage from your Wi-Fi-capable digital camera or camcorder to the mobile NAS if the camera honours these standard protocols.

How to have this work properly?

Here your mobile NAS unit needs to be set up for connection to an existing small Wi-Fi network as a client device of that network. It also needs to be set up to share its resources to that client network in addition to the network it creates using its own wireless access point.  Most of this configuration that I would be talking about here would be something you would do using the vendor-provided native mobile-platform app or, perhaps, a Web page that the mobile NAS creates as its management page.

Mobile NAS with hotspot functionality set up for file sharing mode

Typically, you may set this up as part of enabling a “Share Wi-Fi Connection”, “Wi-Fi Hotspot” or similar function that effectively shares a logical network connection between multiple devices that connect to the portable NAS’s access point. This function is similar to what most travel routers offer as a way to share the one logical (and usually permitted) connection to a hotel’s guest-access Wi-Fi service amongst the personal computing devices you and your travelling companions own. Similarly, this same function creates a “trust circle” between multiple devices connected to the mobile NAS’s access point allowing them to be discovered by each other even if the public-access Wi-Fi network that the NAS is connected to is configured properly with client isolation enabled.

When you enable the “hotspot” function on a sophisticated mobile NAS like the WD MyPassport Wireless / Wireless Plus series or the Seagate Wireless Plus, you will have an option to set this function to work in a “private” or “secure” mode or a “sharing” mode.  In the “private” mode, the data held on the NAS becomes available only to devices on the Wi-Fi network created by the mobile NAS’s access point. Conversely, the “sharing” mode will make the data available to devices on the network which has the Wi-Fi segment you connected the mobile NAS to as part of the “hotspot” mode.

Availability of data held on mobile NAS Sharing mode Secure / Private mode
Host wireless network Yes No
Wireless network created by mobile NAS’s access point Yes Yes

To allow the mobile NAS to share its resources on your home network, you need to enable the “sharing” mode or disable the “secure” or “private” mode while setting up the “hotspot” functionality. It is a wise practice not to use the “sharing” mode on a Wi-Fi network used as a public-access network and this function wouldn’t work with these networks that are properly set up with client isolation enabled.

What can the manufacturers do to improve the Wi-Fi bridging functionality on these devices?

The “Wi-Fi hotspot” or “Shared Wi-Fi” functionality could be improved upon by allowing users to create preset operating modes for particular Wi-Fi networks. This would work in a similar way to the way Windows allows the user to classify each network they connect to as being a “home”, “work” or “public” network, causing it to adopt an exposed persona suitable for your home or office network or a private person for that public-access Wi-Fi network. Such parameters could be to determine whether to share resources with the host network or to always clone the client device’s MAC address when connecting along with remembered Wi-Fi network passwords.

Here, as a user connects the mobile NAS to a Wi-Fi network for “Shared Wi-Fi” operation, they are invited to save the configurations they have established for that network. Then, when they reconnect to that network, the mobile NAS assumes the operating modes that the user previously defined. These details can be referenced by the host network’s ESSID or a user-defined name for that network.

Conclusion

Once you know how to set up that highly-capable mobile NAS device and exploit the “private” or “shared” operating modes that these devices offer with setting up the “Shared Wi-Fi” or “hotspot” mode, you can then use them to make resources held therein available to other small networks you connect them to.

Passive Wi-Fi–a new trend for battery-operated Wi-Fi network devices

Articles

‘Passive Wi-Fi’ researchers promise to cut Wi-Fi power by 10,000x | PC World (IDG)

New “Passive Wi-Fi” Could Drastically Cut Power Needs For Connected Devices | Fortune

Passive WiFi – 10,000 times less power consumption than trad WiFi | Telecom TV

US engineers unveil Passive Wi-Fi, which consumes 10,000 times less power | Android Authority

Video (Click / Tap to play)

My Comments

A new direction that is being looked at for the Wi-Fi wireless-network ecosystem is the use of “passive Wi-Fi”. This is where Wi-Fi endpoints will not be needing the use of analogue RF amplification circuitry and can simply reflect these wireless signals back to access points or routers.

Traditional active Wi-Fi setups work analogously to a torch (flashlight) that is being used where it is actively putting out the light thanks to its batteries. But passive Wi-Fi works in a similar vein to a mirror that simply reflects the light without using any energy.

The advantage here with passive Wi-Fi is that devices implementing that technology don’t need to draw lots of current for them to operate on the network. This is so appealing towards mobile devices implementing it as a battery-saving measure.

But it also appeals towards how devices related to the smart home or Internet-Of-Things will be designed. This is because these devices can be designed to work for a long time on up to three AA or AAA Duracells or a coin battery, or could use energy-harvesting technologies like solar power or kinetic energy but work with a Wi-Fi network rather than the Bluetooth LE, Zigbee or Z-Wave networks that are optimised for low energy.

Here, it may be feasible to directly connect these devices to your home network and the Internet without the need to use bridge devices to achieve this goal. This is although it can be feasible to integrate Bluetooth LE, Zigbee and/or Z-Wave bridging functionality in to a Wi-Fi-capable router or access point, especially if there is a market expectation to have these devices also serve as “smart-home” or “IoT” hubs.

At the moment, passive Wi-Fi can work between 30-100 feet on a line-of-sight or through walls while passing a bandwidth of up to 11Mbps. The prototypes have been demonstrated with traditional Wi-Fi network equipment including a router and smartphone and this has proven that they can work in a standard Wi-Fi network. But there have been issues raised about requiring routers and access points to broadcast a “wake-up” call for these devices to report their presence and status.

A question that can be asked as this technology is designed is whether it could be feasible to design a Wi-FI front-end to switch between active and passive mode. Here, it could appeal to devices that enter passive mode simply to save energy but “go active” while in use with obvious use cases being mobile devices or Wi-Fi-based handheld controllers.

What it could lead to is that the goal to optimise all of the building-wide wireless-data technologies for low-power use has been nearly completed with the ability to have devices that exploit these technologies able to run for a long time on ordinary batteries.

QNAP releases an ultra-compact SSD NAS

Article – From the horse’s mouth

QNAP QNAP logo courtesy of QNAP

TBS-453A NASBook Ultra-Compact SSD NAS

Product Page

My Comments

QNAP has just lately offered the TBS-453A NASBook which is an ultra-compact 4-drive NAS that is designed to work with solid-state drives rather than hard disks,

But this solid-state-drive NAS is a different breed to the portable NAS units offered to mobile users who exchange data between laptops and tablets. This is about Ethernet rather than Wi-Fi connectivity along with a 4-disk RAID array for performance or data safety, and increased functionality thanks to a desktop-grade NAS app store offered by QNAP.

The drives that are preferred for this device are the M.2 type that are typically used for Ultrabooks and 2-in-1s with this device being about the size of a B5 notebook. As well, it is powered by a 19-volt power brick but can accept voltages between 10 volts and 20 volts DC. This makes it suitable for a wide range if industrial and similar uses and could appeal to automotive and marine use, if there was a way to support externally-switched power control expected for such use.

It also has a 4-port Ethernet switch for one network along with a single Gigabit Ethernet socket for another network and this can be set up to work effectively like a router or to serve its own network.

As well, like other QNAP NAS units, this implements the QTS operating system with an increasing array of apps for business and personal use. But it also can be set up as a Linux computer by implementing a virtualised dual-operating-system setup and has the necessary “console” connections for this purpose. That is HDMI for display and audio connection along with USB connections for keyboard and mouse purposes. Like some recent QNAP NAS units, it also has its own audio interface which makes it appeal as a multimedia computer in its own right.

You can also expand this book-size NAS to work with a regular disk array by installing UX-800P and UX-500P multi-disk expansion modules this allowing you to create RAID disk arrays with these disks.

Tool or toy?

This kind of “far-fetched” cutting-edge network-attached-storage device could be easily dismissed as a toy rather than a tool, but there are some applications where it could earn its keep as a tool.

One would be to exist as a highly-capable Ethernet-connected portable NAS or server device that you use in a “mobile-office” setting. Similarly, you could see this being used with a home network where you want the multimedia functionality like DLNA Network Media Server functionality looked after but without dealing with a noisy or power-inefficient device. This would also win favours with home-AV manufacturers and distributors who are showcasing their network-capable hi-fi and home-theatre equipment at the hotel-based hi-fi shows like what the Chester Group are running. As well, QNAP are pitching this device in the Internet Of Things and building-security applications scenarios where this NAS could record data from sensor-type devices or visual images from network cameras yet be able to work with low power demands.

QNAP could see the TBS-453A as an effort to approach vehicle and marine applications for NAS devices along with courting mobile workgroups, remote data collection or other setups where portability, low power consumption or reduced operating noise are highly valued.

Another effort towards a more secure home-network router

Linksys EA8500 broadband router press picture courtesy of Linksys USA

A step towards a secure home network from Czech Republic

Article

This crowdfunded router updates its own security | Engadget

From the horse’s mouth

Project Turnis

Home Page

Crowdfunding page (Indiegogo)

My Comments

A constant thorn in the side of the secure-home-network effort is the network-infrastructure equipment. This is more so with the router which stands between the Internet connection and the home network.

There have been issues where the firmware on the typical home-network router hasn’t been updated or is riddled with software exploits and bugs that can make it attractive to cyber-criminals. It is in addition to these devices being configured poorly, typically running “out-of-the-box” default configurations like “admin/admin” management passwords or default ESSID names and passwords for their Wi-Fi wireless-network segments.

AVM took a bold step towards this goal by supporting automatic software updating for their Fritz!Box routers. But now a Czech effort, spearheaded by the Czech Republic’s domain-name registry, has taken place to facilitate an open-source router design that also supports automatic software updates and enhanced networks security.

The Project Turnis effort is based around a multi-computer effort which keeps track of security threats that can affect home and small-business networks and uses this to amend firewall rules to protect your network better.

The router supports Gigabit Ethernet for WAN and LAN connections and 802.11a/g/n dual-band for Wi-Fi wireless LAN connections and can even support USB-based failover functionality with a USB mobile-broadband modem. It also has native IPv6 capability which makes this unit futureproof and able to work with next-generation broadband. There is even a view to have this router designed to work with the Internet Of Things as a hub device or to store data.

All of the software and even the hardware design is open-source with the software being a “fork” of the OpenWRT open-source router firmware effort, which can allow for further examination and innovation. This can lead towards more vendors offering home and small-business routers and gateways that are designed for security which would lead to a breakthrough for an affordable secure Internet service for consumers and small businesses.

The router is also about supporting other “central data server” roles such as being a NAS once coupled with a USB external hard disk or even a DVB-T broadcast-LAN server when DVB-T USB tuner sticks are connected. But I would expect a lot more from these devices like VPN endpoints, public hotspot functionality and the like. Who knows what could come about?

A set-top box could aggregate the Internet Of Things

Article

Set top boxes could work as the hub of an "Internet Of Things" network

Set top boxes could work as the hub of an “Internet Of Things” network

The cable box might solve the Internet of Things’ biggest problem | Engadget

My Comments

This article suggested that a set-top box or PVR could do more than select channels or be a customer interface to a pay-TV system.

There is a problem that exists with the Internet Of Things where manufacturers herd their smart-home devices in to “silos” that are controlled by the apps they develop or work on a particular physical link like Z-Wave, Zigbee, Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. This makes it hard to create a heterogenous system based around these devices and either requires many apps on your smartphone or requires many gateway boxes to be connected to your home network.

Draytek Vigor 2860N VDSL2 business VPN-endpoint router press image courtesy of Draytek UK

.. as could modem-routers

But it suggested that a cable box or similar device could do a better job by aggregating the different “silos” that exist in the Internet Of Things. They even suggested that an advanced set-top box could work as a control/display surface such as to pause what you are watching and throw up a video of whoever is in the garage, courtesy of a security camera installed therein, when your garage door opener is actuated. Another application I could think of would be that if you start your kettle boiling or coffee dripolator making coffee, you could then start watching your favourite show knowing that a message would pop up on the screen letting you know that the kettle or coffee pot is ready. You could even use the TV remote to adjust the heat or air-con to your liking with the current setting appearing as a pop-up message.

This has been highlighted in the concept of cable companies and telcos offering “multiple-play” services with fixed-broadband Internet, fixed-line telephony, pay-TV and/or mobile telephony in the one package, encouraging customers to have all their “eggs in one basket”. The telco or cable company would then be able to realise that Integrating a home-automation / security service in to their service mix is another way to keep customers loyal to them. This is even if a customer dispenses with a service like pay-TV or fixed-line telephony. Here, a set-top box for their pay-TV and/or an Internet-gateway device like a modem-router that they lease or sell to customers could be the actual device that does the bridging.

A data-security advantage has been found where all bridging functionality is confined to one device because that device can be hardened against cyber attack. But I also look at the fact that two “hub” devices can work in tandem, offering some functionality to each other. In this case, the aforementioned set-top box could work as a rich control / display surface for the modem-router and other devices in the IoT ecosystem as well as serving as a repeater or secondary access point for wireless systems that support this functionality.

At least the idea has been thrown about regarding adding functionality to existing devices like set-top boxes and modem-routers rather than having a home network riddled with dedicated-function devices.