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Tag: Network

  • Nokia Signs Five-Year Deal With AT&T For C-Band 5G Equipment

    Nokia Signs Five-Year Deal With AT&T For C-Band 5G Equipment

    Nokia has scored a big win, signing a five-year deal with AT&T to provide 5G equipment for the carrier’s C-Band spectrum rollout.

    AT&T recently spent $23,406,860,839 at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) auction for C-Band spectrum. C-Band is mid-band spectrum, ideal for 5G. The company has turned to Nokia for the equipment necessary to deploy its spectrum, signing a five-year deal.

    “AT&T is committed to bringing the power of 5G to businesses and communities across the nation, and our C-Band deployments with Nokia will help add 5G capacity where it’s needed,” said Igal Elbaz, Senior Vice President of Wireless and Access Technology AT&T. “Nokia has been our trusted collaborator for more than 20 years as we’ve rolled out each generation of wireless technology, and its C-Band portfolio brings the right capabilities to help enable AT&T to deliver an exciting and powerful 5G experience that our subscribers have come to expect from us.”

    “Nokia is ready to support the launch of 5G services into this valuable new spectrum on our customers’ timelines by leveraging our powerful portfolio of C-Band solutions and by being the first to demonstrate a live C-Band network in the U.S. in 2020,” said Ed Cholerton, President of Nokia North America. “Our flexible and comprehensive portfolio will enable AT&T to enhance its 5G services in areas across the nation.”

    Last year Nokia was considering a merger or asset sale, and more recently indicated it was facing “meaningful headwinds” in 2021. Earlier this week, the company announced it is cutting 10,000 jobs. The AT&T contract is a welcome win for Nokia, at a time when its needed most.

  • Ericsson Beats Forecast On Strong 5G Demand

    Ericsson Beats Forecast On Strong 5G Demand

    Ericsson has reported its quarterly results, beating forecasts on increasing 5G demand.

    Ericsson is one of the main network equipment providers, and has been a leader in the 5G rollout around the world. The company is in a strong position, with Huawei being banned by multiple countries, and Nokia facing challenges in its efforts to be competitive.

    In its quarterly results, Ericsson reported 69.6 billion Swedish crowns, surpassing estimates of 68.35 billion crowns. In addition, the company’s gross margin increased to 40.6%, up from 36.8% a year ago.

    “Networks sales grew organically by 20%, reporting a gross margin of 43.5% (41.1%) for Q4,” said Börje Ekholm, President and CEO. “This reflects continued high activity levels in North America and North East Asia, and also in Europe where we further increased market share. Networks delivered an operating margin of 19% for full-year 2020 – well above the 15%-17% target. Investing in R&D is fundamental to our strategy. Since 2017 we have increased R&D investment by SEK 10 b. and delivered SEK 16 b. of improved operating income. Our growth during 2020 is built on a strong and competitive 5G portfolio.”

    While the company warned there may be exposure as a result of Sweden’s decision to exclude Huawei from its 5G network. China has never been shy about warning of retaliation against countries that exclude Huawei. Nonetheless, the company’s 180 markets should help insulate it.

  • East Coast Outage Impacts Google, Slack, Verizon, Zoom, AWS

    East Coast Outage Impacts Google, Slack, Verizon, Zoom, AWS

    A major outage is impacting customers on the East Coast, with some of the most critical companies being affected.

    Users of Google, Slack, Verizon, Zoom, AWS and others began reporting issues around 11:00 AM Tuesday. According to DownDetector, the issues seem to be localized to an area ranging from Washington, D.C. up the cost to Boston.

    Replying to one customer on Twitter, Verizon seemed to indicate the issue was the result of a fiber line being cut in Brooklyn, NY.

    https://twitter.com/phuhcue1/status/1354116168324415493?s=21

    As Verizon says, there is no estimated time for repair. Needless to say, in the meantime, the issue is wreaking havoc on remote workers and schoolchildren.

  • 19 Devices Will Stop Working on T-Mobile’s Network

    19 Devices Will Stop Working on T-Mobile’s Network

    T-Mobile has confirmed that 19 devices will stop working on its network at the end of the month.

    Wireless carriers routinely push out software and network updates to connected devices. In the case of some older devices, however, they are not always compatible with these updates.

    The carrier has a planned update on January 29, 2021 that will render 19 such devices obsolete.

    As a result of the network update going into place on 1/29/2021, we identified a small number of older devices that are not able to receive a manufacturer software update and as a result, these devices will be unable to establish a network connection.

    While most of the devices in question are at least five years old, the company is trying to minimize disruptions, and is touting new offers that will help those impacted.

    T-Mobile has some exciting new offers that will be available for some impacted customers. To see what offers are available, reach out to your Team of Experts.

    Check out the list of impacted devices here.

  • Huawei Opening First Factory Outside of China

    Huawei Opening First Factory Outside of China

    Huawei is preparing to open its first network equipment factory outside of China, as the company works to address security concerns.

    Once one of the dominant network equipment providers, Huawei has been under pressure as a result of its close ties to the Chinese government. The US has led a campaign to convince countries to ban the company from participating in their networks, with many doing just that.

    The company is taking great pains to prove it can be trusted. Its latest effort is plans to open a factory in France, near the border of Germany, the first of its kind outside of China.

    “With this factory built at the crossroads of Europe, Huawei will enrich its already rich presence on the continent with 23 research and development centres, more than 100 partner universities, more than 3,100 suppliers and an effective supply chain,” the company said in a statement, according to International Business Times.

    Manufacturing key equipment outside of China may help the company dispel concerns about potential backdoors the Chinese government could exploit.

  • FCC Opens Auction for Mid-Band 5G Spectrum

    FCC Opens Auction for Mid-Band 5G Spectrum

    The FCC has started its auction for 3.5 GHz mid-band spectrum for 5G.

    Many experts consider mid-band spectrum to be the sweet spot for 5G, offering the best compromise between speed and building penetration. Many international carriers have focused primarily on mid-band spectrum as they have rolled out their own 5G networks.

    In the US, however, carriers’ efforts have largely focused on the low and high-band (mmWave) varieties. All three carriers have deployed some mmWave offerings in cities, but mmWave requires repeaters and base stations every couple hundred meters and has very poor penetration. These factors mean it will likely never be used as a nationwide option.

    As a result, T-Mobile and AT&T have both rolled out low-band networks to provide nationwide 5G coverage. Low-band, while offering excellent range and penetration, is only marginally faster than 4G. Verizon, on the other hand, does not have enough low-band spectrum to roll out a dedicated, nationwide 5G network and will have to rely on switching technology to allow 4G and 5G to be served from the same towers, using the same spectrum.

    T-Mobile currently is the only one of the three carriers that has a wealth of mid-band spectrum, thanks to its Sprint acquisition. T-Mobile’s spectrum is in the 2.5 GHz range, and should offer speeds in the 600 – 700Mbps range.

    The FCC is auctioning spectrum in the 3.55 to 3.65 GHz range, which should offer slightly higher speeds than T-Mobile’s mid-band, although slightly less range and penetration as well.

    “5G is critical to America’s global economic and technological leadership, and the start of the 3.5 GHz auction today is a key milestone in our work advancing this national priority,” said FCC Chairman Ajit Pai.

    It’s a safe bet this will be one of the most important spectrum auctions in recent years, with Verizon and AT&T eager to flesh out their 5G networks. It remains to be seen if T-Mobile will purchase some of the spectrum, or if they are content with the mid-band they already have.

  • UK Reverses Course, Bans Huawei

    UK Reverses Course, Bans Huawei

    In an about-face, the UK has announced it is instituting a complete ban of Huawei equipment from its networks.

    The US has engaged in a campaign to gets its allies to ban Huawei, as it has done. There are widespread concerns about national security risks, as Huawei has much closer ties to Chinese intelligence than many firms. As a result, it is believed the company is a spying and surveillance threat.

    Initially, the UK had opted to include Huawei in its networks, albeit in a lesser role. The company’s equipment was restricted from the more sensitive core network, and could comprise no more than 35% of the UKs’ 5G equipment. In addition, no Huawei equipment could be used near nuclear sites or military bases.

    Even that compromise solution was not popular, however, with both US officials and many in Prime Minister Johnson’s own party urging Downing Street to reconsider. Adding further pressure, the US has been ramping up restrictions on Huawei, including cutting it off from one of its main chip suppliers, TSMC.

    It appears the combination of factors have led the UK to reverse course, as it has announced a total ban on Huawei equipment. According to the government’s statement:

    “Huawei will be completely removed from the UK’s 5G networks by the end of 2027, the government has announced, following new advice produced by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) on the impact of US sanctions against the telecommunications vendor.

    “Ahead of this there will be a total ban on the purchase of any new 5G kit after 31 December 2020.”

    This is sure to hurt Huawei, as the UK was one of the first countries in Europe to welcome the Chinese firm years ago. It also remains to be seen what repercussions there will be, as China has a history of threatening countries over Huawei.

  • T-Mobile Explains Outage: ‘We Didn’t Meet Our Own Bar For Excellence’

    T-Mobile Explains Outage: ‘We Didn’t Meet Our Own Bar For Excellence’

    T-Mobile experienced a major outage Monday, impacting thousands of customers around the world as voice and text services were down.

    The issues began around 12:00 PM Monday, with users having trouble making and receiving calls and texts. President of Technology Neville Ray took to Twitter to reassure users the company’s engineers were working on the issue.

    Despite their efforts, however, the problems continued for roughly 12 hours. They were so widespread that users of other networks reported having issues as well, as we reported. FCC chairman Ajit Pai even got in on the action, tweeting that T-Mobile’s “network outage is unacceptable,” and vowing the FCC would demand answers.

    It appears T-Mobile is providing those answers, with Ray explaining what caused the issue, as well as what the company is doing to make sure it doesn’t happen in the future.

    “The trigger event is known to be a leased fiber circuit failure from a third party provider in the Southeast,” writes Ray. “This is something that happens on every mobile network, so we’ve worked with our vendors to build redundancy and resiliency to make sure that these types of circuit failures don’t affect customers. This redundancy failed us and resulted in an overload situation that was then compounded by other factors. This overload resulted in an IP traffic storm that spread from the Southeast to create significant capacity issues across the IMS (IP multimedia Subsystem) core network that supports VoLTE calls.

    “We have worked with our IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) and IP vendors to add permanent additional safeguards to prevent this from happening again and we’re continuing to work on determining the cause of the initial overload failure.”

    Ray personally apologized for the problem, while acknowledging T-Mobile and his team did not meet their own bar for excellence.

  • T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T Experiencing Outages

    T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T Experiencing Outages

    All three of the nation’s largest wireless carriers are experiencing technical difficulties Monday, with customers reporting outages across services.

    T-Mobile’s Neville Ray took to Twitter to acknowledge the issues, while at the same time recommending alternate, data-based services that are not impacted.

    Teams continue to work as quickly as possible to fix the voice & messaging problems some are seeing.

    Data services are now available & some calls are completing. Alternate services like WhatsApp, Signal, iMessage, Facetime etc. are available. Thanks for your patience.

    — Neville (@NevilleRay) June 15, 2020

    Neither Verizon nor AT&T have issued a similar statement. However, a look at Ookla’s Downdectector service shows a spike in complaints for both companies coinciding with T-Mobile’s issues. In the case of Verizon, 79% reported an issue with their mobile phone, 16% with mobile internet and 3% with landline internet service. In the case of AT&T, 79% reported an issue with the internet, 11% with their phone and 8% reported no network reception.

    The fact that all three carriers started experiencing major problems around the same time would seem to indicate an issue with a shared network backbone, although no further details were available at time of writing.

  • Huawei Losing Ground as Deutsche Telekom and Bell Canada Choose Ericsson

    Huawei Losing Ground as Deutsche Telekom and Bell Canada Choose Ericsson

    Huawei has been shut out of some high-profile 5G contracts, as both Deutsche Telekom and Bell Canada have gone with Ericsson.

    Huawei has faced increasing pressure worldwide as the US has led a campaign to shut the Chinese firm out of the 5G market. Huawei is already banned in the US, and officials have been working to get their allies to follow suit.

    Australia and New Zealand have similarly banned Huawei from participation in their 5G networks. The UK initially decided to allow the company to participate in a limited role, although recent events are forcing the British government to reconsider. Canada, on the other hand, has remained largely undecided.

    Bell Canada, however, has decided to exclude Huawei, inking a deal with Ericsson instead.

    “Ericsson plays an important role in enabling Bell’s award-winning LTE network and we’re pleased to grow our partnership into 5G mobile and fixed wireless technology,” said Stephen Howe, Chief Technology Officer, Bell Canada. “5G’s high-capacity and near-instant connections will enable next-generation applications like mobile 4K video and immersive augmented reality, connected vehicles and industrial IoT automation on a massive scale, and our plan is to deliver the benefits of the 5G wireless revolution to cities and rural locations alike.”

    Similarly, Deutsche Telekom has also selected Ericsson for its network in Germany.

    “We listened to Deutsche Telekom and understood their urgency to have 5G-ready infrastructure in order to stay at the forefront of customer service in Germany,” said Arun Bansal, President and Head of Ericsson in Europe and Latin America. “We can run multiple standards on the same baseband hardware and a 5G upgrade will be able to be performed by a simple software download to the radio sites. And, during these deliveries, we will use the experience from our 5G activities around the world to be sure that Deutsche Telekom has the most advanced hardware and software in the industry.”

    These are undoubtedly big losses for Huawei and further isolates the company in its efforts to be a leader in the 5G market.

  • U.S. Taking Measures to Limit Huawei’s Chip Supplies

    U.S. Taking Measures to Limit Huawei’s Chip Supplies

    U.S. officials are moving forward with plans to cut off Huawei’s chip supplies in an effort to blunt the company’s 5G dominance.

    The U.S. has banned Huawei and is pressuring allies to do the same. Officials claim the company serves as an arm of the Chinese government’s spying operations and opens countries that use the company’s equipment to spying by Beijing. Huawei has vehemently denied the claims, but that hasn’t stopped U.S. officials from taking almost every opportunity to target the company.

    Several weeks ago, officials began considering altering the Foreign Direct Product Rule to make it difficult for the Chinese firm to access the chips it needs. Now, according to Reuters, the U.S. is moving forward with those plans.

    “The decision came when U.S. officials from various agencies met and agreed on Wednesday to alter the Foreign Direct Product Rule, which subjects some foreign-made goods based on U.S. technology or software to U.S. regulations,” Reuters’ sources said.

    Only time will tell how much of an impact the change will have, but U.S. officials will likely consider any impact a win.

  • Akamai Throttling Game Download Speeds to Ease Network Congestion

    Akamai Throttling Game Download Speeds to Ease Network Congestion

    Amid the coronavirus pandemic, Akamai has announced it’s going to start slowing down video game downloads during peak times.

    As millions of people shelter in place and work from home, networks are being tested like never before. Internet providers, social media platforms and wireless companies alike are having to make adjustments to ensure their infrastructure can keep up with demand.

    Akamai, as the world’s largest content delivery network, is working with major video game distributors, such as Microsoft and Sony. Since a single video game download can be the equivalent of 30,000 web pages worth of traffic, game downloads during peak times can have a crippling effect. As a result, Akamai will begin throttling game downloads during peak times, resuming normal speeds late at night when traffic is less.

    “Playing video games enables people all over the world to connect with friends and family and enjoy much needed entertainment during these uncertain times. Our goal is to partner with other leaders in the industry to help ensure gamers are able to enjoy engaging experiences,” said Jim Ryan, President and CEO, Sony Interactive Entertainment.

    “As people look to gaming for play and social connection, we’re seeing record engagement across Xbox Game Pass, Xbox Live, and Mixer. We’re actively monitoring usage and making temporary adjustments as needed to ensure the smoothest possible experience for our gamers. We appreciate the collaboration with partners like Akamai to deliver the joy of games in these unprecedented times,” said Dave McCarthy, Corporate Vice President, Xbox Product Services.

    While gamers may not be happy with Akamai’s announcement, it’s understandable given the challenge the pandemic is posing for internet companies around the world. Akamai’s main goal is to make sure critical network infrastructure remains fully functional and performs at the necessary level.

    “It’s important to note that Akamai fully expects to maintain the integrity and reliability of website and mobile application delivery, as well as security services, for all of our customers during this time,” writes CEO Tom Leighton. “In particular, Akamai customers across sectors such as government, healthcare, financial services, commerce, manufacturing, and business services should not experience any change in the performance of their services.”

  • Nokia May Consider Merger, Asset Sale As Pressure Mounts

    Nokia May Consider Merger, Asset Sale As Pressure Mounts

    Once the darling of the mobile industry, Nokia has struggled to compete in recent years and may be considering drastic action to remain competitive.

    In the ‘90s and early 2000s, Nokia was the dominant mobile phone maker, at one point achieving over 40% market share worldwide. As touchscreen smartphones, such as iPhone and Android became more popular, Nokia’s mobile business collapsed, leading the company to sell it to Microsoft and focus on network equipment.

    With the roll out of 5G, Nokia is one of the three main companies providing the equipment for wireless carriers, along with Huawei and Ericsson. Despite the prospects, Nokia has warned it will not return to profitability until at least 2021 and its shares have lost a third of their value over the last year.

    As a result, Bloomberg is reporting that Nokia is considering more drastic measures, including possibly selling off some of its assets or even merging with another company. One of the most likely scenarios would be a merger with Ericsson although, as multiple outlets have pointed out, such a deal could create as many problems as it solves.

    Even so, a merger with Ericsson could potentially help both companies better compete with Huawei, who is widely seen as having a significant advantage in technology and scale in the race to 5G. U.S. Attorney William Barr even proposed the idea of the U.S. investing in Nokia and Ericsson, acquiring an ownership stake in the two companies, to help them better compete with China-backed Huawei.

    At this stage, there is no definitive plans for Nokia, and Bloomberg’s private sources say the talks may ultimately come to nothing. Either way, we will continue to update as the story develops.

  • U.S. Reveals Evidence on Huawei’s Spying Risk

    U.S. Reveals Evidence on Huawei’s Spying Risk

    According to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), U.S. officials are finally disclosing the basis of their claims that Huawei poses a significant security risk.

    U.S. officials have been claiming for some time that Huawei represent a fundamental security risk for network operators and their countries, opening them up to spying by Beijing. The U.S. has engaged in an aggressive campaign to pressure its allies to ban Huawei from their networks. In spite of this, the U.S. has never officially said what it based the accusations on—until now.

    According to the report, U.S. officials say that Huawei is exploiting a legitimate backdoor that is reserved for law enforcement. Network equipment manufacturers are supposed to build backdoors in their equipment that carriers can use to grant access to law enforcement when required. Manufacturers, however, are supposed to build the backdoors in such a way that they are not able to access them, leaving only the carrier and law enforcement with access.

    In Huawei’s case, however, U.S. officials claim the company has built the backdoors in its equipment in such a way that it maintains access, without the carriers being able to detect it.

    “We have evidence that Huawei has the capability secretly to access sensitive and personal information in systems it maintains and sells around the world,” said Robert O’Brien, national security adviser.

    The U.S. has known of this capability for at least a decade, but has kept the information strictly classified until late last year, when the information was shared with Germany and the U.K. With these new revelations, it remains to be seen if countries will start taking a stronger stance against the Chinese firm, as the U.S. has been campaigning for.

  • Austria Will Work With EU Partners On Huawei Decision

    Austria Will Work With EU Partners On Huawei Decision

    As Britain and Germany consider whether to ban Huawei, Austria has said it will collaborate with EU partners on a decision, according to Reuters.

    The U.S. and Huawei have been engaged in a war over the company’s role in helping build out 5G networks around the world. The U.S. has already banned the Chinese telecommunications company as a result of allegations it provides a way for Beijing to spy on governments and corporations.

    The U.S. has also engaged in a campaign to convince its allies of the danger of relying on Huawei, even threatening to ban intel sharing with countries that use the company. For its part, Huawei has denied the allegations, while network operators have lamented that any attempt to avoid Huawei equipment will add time and expense to 5G deployments.

    Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz would not rule out using Huawei, but said the country would work with EU partners on a decision.

    “We want to be technology-neutral and at the same time guarantee maximum safety,” Kurz said at a news conference in Vienna. “We are in close coordination with our European partners and also with the European Commission.”

  • Senators Propose Over $1 Billion To Fund Huawei Alternatives

    Senators Propose Over $1 Billion To Fund Huawei Alternatives

    CNBC is reporting that a bipartisan group of senators has introduced legislation to spend more than $1 billion to fund 5G alternatives to Huawei.

    Huawei is currently the number one provider of 5G equipment around the world. In spite of that, the company has faced ongoing criticism and accusations that it represents a risk to other countries’ national security because of its close ties to Beijing. All Chinese corporations are required to cooperate with the Chinese government and intelligence agencies, but Huawei is believed to have closer ties to Beijing than most.

    Even so, carriers have warned their governments that going with non-Huawei alternatives could add years of work and billions in cost. Huawei is also seen as having some of the best 5G technology on the market. This puts carriers in the unenviable position of choosing between inferior technology or inferior security.

    Now a group of bipartisan senators wants to address that, with legislation that would allocate over $1 billion to leveling the playing field. According to CNBC, “Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Richard Burr, R-N.C., is a co-sponsor of the bill, alongside Republican Senators Marco Rubio of Florida and John Cornyn of Texas. Democratic Senators Bob Menendez of New Jersey and Michael Bennet of Colorado are also co-sponsors alongside Warner.”

    The bill would authorize the Federal Communications Commission to “direct at least $750 million or up to 5% of annual auction proceeds from new auctioned spectrum licenses to create an open-architecture model (O-RAN) research and development fund.”

    In addition, “another $500 million would become a Multilateral Telecommunications Security Fund, which would be available for 10 years ‘to accelerate the adoption of trusted and secure equipment globally and to encourage multilateral participation.’”

    If the bill gets passed into law, it could finally help create viable alternatives to Huawei in the U.S. market.

  • Verizon On Track For 5G In 30 Cities In 2019

    Verizon On Track For 5G In 30 Cities In 2019

    CNET is reporting that Verizon has turned on its 5G network in Los Angeles, Des Moines, IA and Hoboken, NJ, putting the carrier on target for 30 cities in 2019.

    According to CNET, “Verizon’s 5G network is already live in Dallas, Omaha, Atlanta, Detroit, Indianapolis, Washington, DC, Chicago, Denver, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Providence, Boston, Houston and Sioux Falls.”

    Verizon is taking a different approach than T-Mobile and AT&T, as it has been focusing heavily on the faster, short-range mmWave 5G spectrum. T-Mobile, in contrast, recently activated its nationwide 5G network—based on the slower, but longer-range low-band spectrum—while slowly rolling out mmWave in select cities.

    Charlotte, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Little Rock, Kansas City, Memphis, San Diego and Salt Lake City are all slated to receive Verizon 5G before the end of the year, leaving the company just under two weeks to meet its goal.

  • T-Mobile Delivers 5G Network Days Ahead of Schedule

    T-Mobile Delivers 5G Network Days Ahead of Schedule

    T-Mobile originally announced it was unveiling its nationwide 5G network on December 6. It seems the carrier has beat expectations, unveiling 5G today, four days ahead of schedule.

    According to Engadget, the network T-Mobile has turned on is its 600 MHz low-band spectrum. Unlike millimeter wave (mmWave) 5G, which offers speeds measured in gigabits instead of megabits, low-band spectrum offers speeds similar to 4G LTE.

    The benefit of low-band spectrum is that it has far better range and building penetration. In contrast, mmWave 5G has extremely limited range and doesn’t penetrate windows or buildings very well. While T-Mobile’s new network doesn’t offer the speeds of Verizon’s, it will have far better coverage.

    Coinciding with the network’s launch, TechCrunch is reporting T-Mobile has opened pre-orders on two 5G-capable phones.

    “The OnePlus 7T Pro 5G McLaren Edition, at least, is a T-Mobile exclusive here in the States.

    “It’s a premium as far as OnePlus goes, but still arrives at the (relatively) low price of $900. Compare that to the $1,300 Galaxy Note 10 Plus 5G. Both are officially going on sale on Friday, and should be able to connect to the new network at launch.”

    As the 5G battle heats up, it will be interesting to see what advantages—speed vs coverage—customers prefer.

  • Oracle Releases Tool to Help Improve Internet Routing Security

    Oracle Releases Tool to Help Improve Internet Routing Security

    In a blog post, Oracle announced the release of IXP Filter Check, a security tool designed to monitor route filtering at internet exchange points (IXPs).

    Oracle has partnered with the Internet Society in an effort to improve internet security. IXPs are what’s responsible for connections between different networks, but they also represent a vulnerable point, where connections can be routed incorrectly—either by mistake or maliciously.

    According to Oracle, “implementing route filtering at IXPs offers the opportunity to make real progress in the improvement of internet routing hygiene. IXPs serve a vital role in the infrastructure of the internet by facilitating thousands of connections between the networks of telecoms, content providers and other major businesses.

    “However, the implementation of route filtering can be complicated and to date there has been no way to independently and programmatically verify whether an IXP was appropriately filtering its routes. Using data graciously published by Packet Clearinghouse (PCH) and data processing supported by Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, the Oracle Internet Intelligence team developed IXP Filter Check to analyze route filtering at nearly 200 IXPs around the world.

    “By monitoring the routes passed by route servers at these IXPs, and identifying those routes that should have been filtered, IXP Filter Check identifies gaps in route filtering and aims to assist in technical compliance of MANRS IXP requirements.

    “In the course of its development, IXP Filter Check has identified major filtering misconfigurations at three IXPs including a month-long RPKI filter outage at one of the world’s largest IXPs. By detecting these problems, IXP Filter Check enabled cooperating route server administrators to fix their route filtering and also validated the need for third party technical review of route server filtering.”

    With IXP Filter Check system admins will have one more tool in their arsenal to protect networks and improve the security of the internet.

  • VMware CEO: Why Can’t We Build the Telco Network Like the Clouds?

    VMware CEO: Why Can’t We Build the Telco Network Like the Clouds?

    VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger suggests that with the advent of 5G the telco network should be built like the clouds. “Why can’t we build the telco network like the clouds have been built for with scalability, flexibility, efficiency, and agility?” says Gelsinger. “That’s really the idea of the telco cloud. As people go to what’s called NFV, network function virtualization, and as they’re looking ahead to 5G services, can’t we have a new architecture for building the telco cloud? But it also is flexible and scalable and helps them do services between 4G and 5G.”

    Pat Gelsinger, CEO of VMware, discusses 5G and building the telco network like the clouds in an interview at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona with CNBC:

    Building the Telco Network Like the Clouds

    What it really is about it’s saying that over the last decade and a half we’ve gotten pretty good at building clouds. Why can’t we build the telco network like the clouds have been built for with scalability, flexibility, efficiency, and agility? That’s really the idea of the telco cloud. As people go to what’s called NFV, network function virtualization, and as they’re looking ahead to 5G services, can’t we have a new architecture for building the telco cloud? But it also is flexible and scalable and helps them do services between 4G and 5G. It also helps them bridge so as they build these new services they can run them on the old as well as prepare services for the new.

    The telco market is like 80 percent the size of the data center and cloud market. This is big. It’s a huge adjacent market that largely we’ve never touched before. We’re really excited about that. If you think about what we’ve done, it’s about building this rock-hard infrastructure that never goes down. Data centers, businesses, and banks running it told the telco networks that they need rock-hard never-goes-down infrastructure. We really find a huge opportunity there.

    2020 is the Year for 5G

    I’ve said for a few years that I think 2020 is the year (for 5G implementation). I think when you when you see a show like this everybody’s starting to really gear up. The trials are underway. I really see 2020 as really where it’s going to happen. Right now the national anthem is playing and next year the game gets started. If you’re going to be a cloud you’ve got to be efficient. That helps the bottom line by building more cost efficiency and operational efficiency. You have to do that. But ultimately, it’s about the new services that 5G is going to introduce.

    It’s hard to say how much Huawei (potentially being banned in Europe) is going to impact. Obviously, people who have large positions with Huawei today, it becomes easy to add 5G onto it. It is somewhat dependent on carrier and market. Our view of what we’re trying to do with virtualization is to minimize unique dependencies on any particular hardware market. Part of our value proposition exactly helps customers navigate through the 4G to 5G transition as well as picking different key hardware vendors. That’s what that virtualization layer does so we think we actually help customers.


  • One of the Largest DDoS Attack Ever Seen Kills Krebs Security Site

    One of the Largest DDoS Attack Ever Seen Kills Krebs Security Site

    One of the largest Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks ever seen on the internet has caused Akamai to dump a site it hosted, KrebsOnSecurity.com. The DDoS attack was apparently in retaliation for journalist Brian Krebs‘ recent article about vDOS, which is allegedly a cyberattack service. According to BI following Krebs reporting two Israeli men were arrested. and the site was taken down.

    One Twitter post noted the irony in a security expert having his site taken down because of a DDoS attack. “Brian Krebs, the man who gives cybercriminals nightmares, has been hit with a Godzilla-sized DDoS attack,” noted cybercrime researcher, blogger and speaker, Graham Cluley, “Sad news, hope he’s back soon.”

    The Attack Was Huge

    Before his site was take down Krebs posted about the attack on his website saying that KrebsOnSecurity.com was the target of an extremely large and unusual distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack designed to knock the site offline. “The attack did not succeed thanks to the hard work of the engineers at Akamai, the company that protects my site from such digital sieges. But according to Akamai, it was nearly double the size of the largest attack they’d seen previously, and was among the biggest assaults the Internet has ever witnessed.”

    Later Akamai did take down the site and Krebs was understanding:

    “The attack began around 8 p.m. ET on Sept. 20, and initial reports put it at approximately 665 Gigabits of traffic per second,” writes Krebs. “Additional analysis on the attack traffic suggests the assault was closer to 620 Gbps in size, but in any case this is many orders of magnitude more traffic than is typically needed to knock most sites offline.”

    Krebs said that Martin McKeay, Akamai’s senior security advocate, told him that this was the largest attack that they had seen. Earlier this year they clocked an attack at 363 Gbps, but there was a major difference: This attack was launched by a “very large” botnet of hacked devices, where typical DDoS attacks use the common amplifying technique that bulks up a small attack into a large one.

    Krebs last tweets about the attack: