Article

Colorado Voters Shoot Down State’s Awful Broadband Law | Broadband News & DSL Reports

Voters Quiet the Drums At the Polls in Colorado | Community Broadband Networks

My Comments

This Election Day has yielded a break for community broadband infrastructure and real broadband competition in the USA.

This has occurred in Colorado which is one of many states that  enacted protectionist legislation written by incumbent telcos and cable-TV operators to prohibit local governments from setting up broadband infrastructure for community-broadband efforts. These laws are written with a veil of preventing mismanagement of public funds by local government when it comes to creating broadband infrastructure or municipal wireless broadband setups, but are really to protect the likes of Comcast in operating broadband-service cartels.

The law that was in place in Colorado required a ballot measure to be put to referendum by the local government if that government wished to set up broadband infrastructure that had any sort of public funding. 43 of these communities ran referenda about this topic on this year’s Election Day and the results turned up in the favour of the local government wanting to establish a community broadband service in these areas.

The victory was driven because CenturyLink and Comcast were suffocating the quality of broadband service that was offered in that state as is common in must of the USA. Citizens were seeing a reality that a high-quality broadband service that is value for money can only be achieved with real competition as has been noticed when competitive deployments like Google Fiber were rolled out.

Such laws were also found to be suffocating economic development and private investment because of the inability for public-private broadband infrastructure projects to go ahead. As well, it would be hard to do business in areas affected by these laws because today’s business operations are relying on information to be provided at the speed of light. This is more so with small and medium business who is after a decent broadband Internet service that doesn’t stifle them financially.

The community broadband services, which typically are maintained by the electric utility ran by the local government can also allow for a European-style shared-infrastructure model where retail broadband operators can rent bandwidth on the infrastructure to facilitate their Internet services This is in addition to the local government providing broadband to schools and libraries, covering their Internet-service needs and even being in a position to sell broadband service to the community.

As well, this competition can effectively give CenturyLink and Comcast the “kick in the pants” they need to raise their game when it comes to value for money and customer-service attitudes. Who doesn’t want all their customers churning to better service?

At least this Election Day in the US represented a step towards real competition for that country’s broadband Internet services.

Article

A tight healthy operating software update cycle can keeep routers and other devices from being part of botnets

Hacked Shopping Mall CCTV Cameras Are Launching DDoS Attacks | Tripwire – The State Of Security

My Comments

What is being highlighted now is that devices that are normally dedicated-purpose devices are becoming more sophisticated in a way that they are effectively computers in their own right. This was highlighted with some network video-surveillance cameras used as part of a shopping mall’s security armour.

What had happened was that these cameras were found to be compromised and loaded with malware so that they also are part of a botnet like what comonly happened in the 2000s where multiple computers loaded with malware were used as part of zombie attacks on one or more targets. In a similar way to a poorly-maintained computer, they were found to run with default passwords of the “admin – admin” kind and were subject to brute-force dictionary attacks.

AVM FRITZ!Box – self-updating firmware = secure network infrastructure

The article’s author highlighted that there need to be work done concerning dedicated-purpose devices, whether they are the network-infrastructure devices like routers or devices that are part of the “Internet Of Everything”.

Here, the devices need to run constantly-updated software, which is something that is considered necessary if the device is expected to have a long service life. The best example would be some of the routers offered to the European market like the Freebox Révolution or the AVM Fritz!Box where they receive constantly-updated firmware that at least can be downloaded at the click of an option button or, preferably, automatically updated like what happens with Windows and OS X and what is done with recent iterations of the AVM Fritz!Box firmware.

As well, a device’s setup routine should require the user to create secure credentials for the management interface. In some cases, if a device is part of a system, the system-wide management console could exchange system-specific access credentials with the member devices.

What has commonly been said is that the Internet of Things needs to face a severe security incident as a “wake-up call” for such devices to be “designed for security”. This is similar to incidents involving desktop computing, the Internet and mobile computing have served a similar purpose like the way Windows implemented privilege escalation on an as-needed basis since Windows Vista.

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Article

Gibson Wants Your Desktop Mic To Sound Better and Look Sleeker | Gizmodo

From the horse’s mouth

Neat Mics (Gibson)

Product Page

My Comments

Gibson, associated with making and enjoying music in many ways has brought out a colourful high-quality USB microphone which is pitched as a companion to your desktop or laptop computer or Android tablet.

This company, known for the Les Paul electric guitars has encompassed many music and audio brands like Baldwin pianos; TEAC, TASCAM, Onkyo and Integra audio equipment, Epiphone guitars and Wurlitzer juke boxes. They also integrated Neat Microphones who focus on microphones pitched for computer use.

The Neat Widget range of desktop microphones are built around a stylish retro-future look but are also about a high-quality sound for that podcast or Skype videocall. These microphones implement pop filters to handle sudden volume jumps and connect to your computer via a USB cable or your Android phone or tablet via the USB cable and a USB OTG adaptor, presenting itself to your device as a USB Audio device. This avoids the need to mess with many different preamps and cables to get them running.

The Neat Widget microphones come in green, red and blue and sell for US$99 from the “usual suspects”. They can be of benefit of you are wanting something better than a laptop’s or tablet’s integrated microphone or want to kit out your traditional desktop computer with a microphone other than the condenser microphone built in to that Webcam.

Articles

Google Fiber Hiring Employees for Portland Launch | Broadband News & DSL Reports

Google Fiber Eyes Oklahoma City, Jacksonville, and Tampa | Broadband News & DSL Reports

Google Fiber Announced for Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (Updated: Jacksonville and Tampa Too) | Droid Life

My Comments

Google Fiber have put their foot in the Portland soil by opening some local customer-service jobs in that Oregon City. This is also in addition to liaising with the city’s local government regarding the placement of fibre-optic huts. These are effectively the hubs that can provide the fibre-optic service to neighbourhoods of 40,000 households and businesses.

The Oregon state government are making this easier by working on nearly-complete legislation that provides various state-level tax breaks for Gigabit next-generation broadband deployments. I see this as a state-level proactive step to open up real competition for broadband and allied telecommunications services.

But Google are also eyeing bring real competition to Oklahoma City in Oklahoma along with  Jacksonville and Tampa in Florida. These cities have signed up because they have a strong business and technology-driven economy that will benefit from the Google Fiber service.

Google have placed some requirements on the local governments to make the path clear for deployment of the fibre infrastructure including sharing city-infrastructure details. But they also have to deal with state governments that have passed legislation that prohibits the availability of Internet service that competes with local cable TV and “Baby Bell” interests.

As I have noticed from previous accounts, the arrival of Google Fiber in a US community has caused the local “Baby Bell” or cable-TV company to raise the bar as far as pricing and customer service goes. This is because they fear that customers in their locality will churn to Google Fiber as quickly as possible because of the improved value.

Similarly, Google have also used these deployments as a way o build up computer and Internet literacy in disadvantaged communities in some of the cities they touch like what has happened in Austin, Texas. This is because most business is being transacted online and some users like older people and blue-collar workers may find themselves floundering with this new life.

Keep up the work, Google!

Article

Australia’s nbn preps G.Fast launch | Advanced Television

My Comments

NBN are considering implementing G.Fast technology in to their fibre-copper “multi-technology” mix for Australia’s next-generation broadband network. This is in addition to VDSL2 for “fibre-to-the-node” and “fibre-to-the-building” , fibre-to-the-premises and HFC coaxial deployments for fixed-line setups.

But what is G.Fast?

G.Fast is a DSL-based broadband technology that uses phone wires. Yet it has a faster throughput than VDSL2 that is currently used for fibre-copper setups. Here, the local copper loop between the customer’s premises and the DSLAM can be less than 500 metres for a 100Mbps link speed but can achieve a link speed of 1.3Gbps for a 70-metre loop.

It is capable of symmetrical operation which can please business deployments where a lot of data is uploaded as part of cloud computing and remote storage requirements.

Where would an infrastructure provider deploy this technology?

This would be deployed to a “fibre-to-the-distribution-point” setup where the fibre-copper interface is a distribution box that covers a residential street or block and any cul-de-sacs that run off that street, or a small strip of shops typically this side of 50 premises.

Similarly, most multi-tenancy units like apartment blocks or shopping centres would benefit from this kind of technology for their fibre-copper needs.

But there is a setup that appeals to the infrastructure providers where they could service a single premises by having fibre to the pole or pit outside the premises and using the telephone cabling to provide the copper link. This has a strong appeal when it comes to a “self-provisioned” Gigabit service where the service provider doesn’t have to interact with landlords or schedule installation appointments with householders to get the household on board.

There is the appeal that the technology can allow the DSLAM to be “reverse powered” – powered by the customer’s modem router or a power-injector that the customer installs at their premises.

One major current problem with deploying G.Fast, especially in a self-install setup is that, at the moment, there isn’t much support for this technology as far as customer-premises equipment is concerned. Most likely, this will be rectified as more countries roll out G.Fast deployments and manufacturers offer DSL modem routers that support G.Fast alongside VDSL2 and ADSL2; and this will initially appeal to carriers and service providers who want to provide the equipment rather than have customers buy their own equipment.

NBN’s trial deployment

NBN ran their first trial in a Melbourne office building which was wired up with 20-year-old Category 3 cabling and provided with a VDSL2 “fibre-to-the-node” service. But they nailed a throughput of 600Mbps with the VDSL2 service operating and found that they could achieve 800Mbps in that same development without VDSL2 running.

They realised that they would need to complete more trials in conjunction with the retail ISPs who are using this infrastructure through 2016. This is more to test the waters with different operating environments and to identify whether it is the technology that can be used.

As an infrastructure provider, they were drawn to the G.Fast concept due to the idea of providing Gigabit service to most urban premises on a self-install basis rather than messing with truck rolls, landlords and owners corporations.

The burning question that will come across NBN deploying G.Fast is knowing whether the wiring at the consumer premises is up to the task for transferring high-speed data. It is because of the fact that there are older deployments that may be victims to poor connections including wiring short-cuts that may hamper the throughput needed for today’s needs.

Article

Cotswolds – part of the big 10000 for Gigaclear

From the horse’s mouth

Gigaclear

Press Release

My Comments

I have been following Gigaclear’s efforts in making sure that rural areas in Britain have access to real broadband. Think of places like Epping Forest, the Cotswolds, Underriver in Kent along with a few Oxfordshire villages gaining real broadband that attracts city dwellers wanting to “get away from it all”.

This effort started off in 2010 when Gigaclear was founded by Matthew Hare in 2010 with a focus towards real broadband in rural areas. The first effort was in Lyddington, Rutland where there was a VDSL2-based fibre-to-the-cabinet setup serving that village, then there was a fibre-to-the-premises setup in Hambledon shortly after that.

I did a Skype interview with Matthew Hare regarding the impact these broadband developments had on these towns in the early days of Gigaclear’s existence.  Through the interview, I had found that there was real interest in rural broadband with at least a third of Lyddington subscribing to the fibre-to-the-cabinet rollout and two-thirds of Hambledon pre-contracted to the fibre-to-the-premises rollout at the time of the interview.

As well, these deployments were satisfying business reality by allowing a “country-house” hotel in Hambledon to put forward a fully-functional public-access Wi-Fi Internet service as a drawcard feature; along with allowing small businesses to think of cloud-based software as a way of feeling “grown up”. It also encompassed the fact that an increasing number of villagers were using their computers for some form of income-generating work, whether to telecommute or to run a business or practise a profession from home. This underscored the need for reliable Internet service.

The interview also underscored Gigaclear’s rural-broadband effort as being a real commercial effort in a competitive market rather than philanthropic effort. This is because Gigaclear were coming through as an infrastructure competitor to BT Openreach for these rural areas.

Gigaclear found that the symmetrical FTTP technology was found to be more scalable than other technologies and this led to future-proof setups which can come about as a village or town grows. I would see this underscored more when the same village or town or one nearby acquires a larger employer and more people move in to these communities to work for the employer or work for new shops, schools and other employers that come on the scene to support a larger community.

There has been 40% takeup across the 36 communities in 5 different counties where this service has been deployed with a focus on the slower underserved communities. For that matter, construction activity surrounding a fibre-to-the-premises rollout piques interest because of the impending arrival of an Internet service that realistically serves local needs.

Keep up the good work with covering more villages, hamlets and small towns with real broadband Internet service, Gigaclear!

Lenovo Yoga 900

Articles

Lenovo’s flagship Yoga 900 laptop is an improvement in every way that matters (Review) | Engadget

Lenovo Yoga 900 takes the Microsoft Surface Book | ZDNet

Lenovo’s 360-degree Yoga 900 laptop answers the Surface Book’s challenge | PC World

From the horse’s mouth

Lenovo

Press release (also covers the Yoga Home 900)

Product Page – Buy here (US,  Australia)!

My Comments

Lenovo Yoga 900 as a tablet

The premium end of the laptop market is starting to see some very strong competition with Lenovo trying to answer Microsoft with their Yoga 900 premium convertible laptop,

The Lenovo Yoga 900 was initially to be an update and refresh for the previously-reviewed Yoga 3 Pro, courtesy of Windows 10 and Intel Skylake horsepower. But with Microsoft blindsiding everyone else in the “open-frame” computer market with their Surface Book which is both a convertible and detachable, the computer press have seen it as close competition.

The newly-refined watchband hinge on the Lenovo Yoga 900

The Lenovo Yoga 900 has provided some aesthetic and build improvements over the Yoga 3 Pro such as a slimmer chassis with the computer being rated as being the slimmest 13” convertible to date. The watch-band hinge has been refined in order to provide for a smooth switch between laptop and tablet operating modes. Even a six-row keyboard allows quick access to adjustments like brightness or flight mode courtesy of a single button push. Of course, this convertible notebook will exploit Windows 10’s Continuum feature right out of the box, automatically switching the display between Desktop Mode with the Start Menu and the touch-friendly Tablet mode when you fold it over and back.

As I have said before, this computer implements Intel Skylake processors, either an i5 or an i7 depending on the package rather than the previous Core M horsepower. As for RAM and storage, the baseline option is available with 8Gb RAM and 256Gb solid-state storage while the top-shelf models come with 16Gb RAM and 512Gb solid-state storage.

What ZDNet and others were saying was that the baseline for the Yoga 900 (i5 processor, 8Gb RAM, 256Gb solid state storage) has an ask for US$1199 while the top shelf model (i7 processor, 16Gb RAM, 512Gb solid-state storage) could be bought fur US$1499. This is with the Surface Book costing around US$1000 more for similar specifications.

But the more expensive Surface Book is a convertible and detachable computer, comes with a stylus and has discrete graphics in some of its option levels. The Surface Book also offers 128Gb solid-state storage rather than 256Gb solid-state storage in its baseline package

Let’s not forget that Lenovo added the “champagne gold” finish to the list of finishes that the Yoga 900 can came in, as well as the silver finish and the orange finish that was common with the Yoga 3 Pro. The “champagne gold” look will have some of us think of that similar finish appearing on some premium consumer electronics especially Marantz hi-fi equipment.

As with VAIO coming back to the fore and Microsoft releasing their Surface Book, the Lenovo Yoga 900 indicates that there is still interest in premium-grade ultraportable computers as a distinct market segment. This is in a similar way to how vehicle builders developed the “personal luxury car” product segment which was based around vehicles, especially 2-door coupes, which were designed with a focus on luxury and style where you arrived at the destination “ready to impress”.

Who knows what the other computer manufacturers will come up with to satisfy this product, especially when the idea is to compete against Apple.