Networking - Page 4

If you thought your home networking setup rocking Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) was fast, then you would think that 10 GbE is even faster. 10 GbE networking can handle around 1GB/sec transfer speeds, but you'd need some serious slick hardware to achieve this speed. Well, IEEE is not happy with the current Ethernet standard, and is pushing for much higher speeds.

Internet providers and many more who depend on high-speed computing networks for a living, are on the rise. Users are streaming more video, and doing more things at once, and the quality of streaming and data is only going to get better, and bigger, respectively. IEEE is worried that large-scale networks will require an insane 10Tbps of total bandwidth to not hit a brick wall by 2020. IEEE have now formed a Higher-Speed Ethernet Consensus group that is looking at creating a new format that would see speeds reach 400Gbps or 1Tbit, depending on which approach is better.

There's a meeting set for late-September in Geneva to start talking about the details. But, you won't be seeing this type of insane connectivity in your house anytime soon. The first to get this type of tech would most likely be the big players such as Google, and co. Hopefully YouTube are on the first adopters list, and we don't get that nasty buffering crap when watching a video from a high-speed connection.

Over the weekend, Broadcom unveiled its latest and greatest consolidated multi-wireless chips, which use a combination of Bluetooth 4.0 and the 802.11ac, which sports up to double the speed of existing 802.11n technology, and can be up to six times more power-efficient, even while handling the same amount of data.

Broadcom's new chips can handle FM and conventional 802.11 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, and are expected to arrive in early-2013 to be used in smartphones and tablets. Broadcom's new chip uses a 40nm CMOS process and integrates a full Wi-Fi system, including MAC, PHY and RF. Like Bluetooth 4,0, the system can go into a low-power mode, as well as come out of it, virtually instantly, which provides some serious power savings when the system isn't being stressed.

The range of chips is also said to be much better than current 802.11 tech, with throughout hitting 1Gb (gigabit) per second. While the tech would hit smart devices, it will be mostly used at high speeds for home routers, future portable systems, and 2013-onward devices. Broadcom isn't the only company to promise "5G Wi-FI" (which is the consumer name of 802.11ac) chips, which should provide users with more choice, and thus, should keep costs lower.

Optus have today announced that their 4G network will go live across Sydney and Perth, and have promised that Melbourne will receive the same 4G treatment once the company's spectrum refarming operations of their new 3G Plus network are completed.

Optus' 4G network is available as of right now for small-to-medium businesses, as well as corporate customers. No consumer-based plans are here yet, but the company has plans to roll it out "shortly". Business customers can grab a 4G data card or 4G Wi-Fi hotspot from today, with an offer of 10GB per month for $40 per month, full pricing is said to be coming soon. Optus have also said that it won't be charging a premium for its 4G network at the moment.

Coverage-wise, 4G will blast over Sydney and Perth spans a 20km radius around the respective CBDs, with Melbourne's network (when it goes live) set to span 30km east-to-west, and 16km north-to-south. Melbourne misses out for now as the telco needs to complete their 2G refarming operations for the creation of the enhanced 3G Plus network before it flicks the switch on 4G for Victoria. As soon as the refarming to 3G Plus is complete, Melbourne will have 4G from Optus.

Comcast have just confirmed that they are set to offer 305Mbps cable broadband, which they have called "Xfinity Platinum". Xfinity Platinum is currently being rolled out to "many major markets" according to the company.

Comcast have also said they'll be doubling the speeds of their current 25Mbps and 50Mbps offerings for existing subscribers, best of all, at no additional cost. The new Xfinity Platinum services come at an insane (well, to me) 305Mbps down and 65Mbps up, but at the time of writing there is no pricing details.

Verizon currently offers its 300Mbps FiOS service for about $210, so there's expectations that Comcast should float somewhere near that price. "Blast" and "Extreme" subscribers who have been up until now enjoying their respective 25Mbps and 50Mbps speeds, will be doubled to 50Mbps and 105Mbps at no cost.

Infortrend have just announced the North American availability of two new product lines in their EonNAS family, the EonNAS Pro and EonNAS 1000 Series. Infortrend note that while NAS' are getting more popular for the SOHO and SMB markets, data protection offerings on other brands "come up short".

This is where Infortrend's new EonNAS Pro and EonNAS 1000 Series come into play, running a ZFS file system, Infortrend fill this voice by offering an "unprecedented collection of advanced data protection features", including data deduplication, corrupt data self-healing, snapshot and pool mirror - bringing enterprise-level data protection and storage features to the SOHO and SMB markets.

Infortrends' NAS' definitely deliver on the performance side of things, too, offering performance of more than 100MB/sec, and in FTP environments, it can ramp up to a respectable 180MB/sec. Director of the EonNAS product line for Infortrend, William Chen, says:

An exciting new technology to expand network connectivity in older homes was shown at E3. Entropic demoed a technology that is similar in function to Ethernet-over-power, but higher performance and more reliable. The technology involves using the existing Coaxial cable (common TV, cable wire) that is in almost every house.

Most people don't have the luxury of having Cat5e wired throughout their house, so this allows them to obtain higher, more reliable speeds than wireless without having to run new wire. "MoCA is the universal standard for home entertainment networking and can support multiple streams of HD video content while delivering up to 175 Mbps net throughput at less than 4.5ms of average network latency. MoCA has more than 100 certified products, which can give gamers:"

The technology is already in use in cable modems and other adapters on the market, so it isn't exactly new technology. At the same time, however, it isn't exactly well known. I can see the promise in this technology and wouldn't hesitate to use it in my own home if the need arose.

Verizon's 4G LTE service is available in 230 markets across the United States, and today the company has launched something quite different: HomeFusion Broadband. HomeFusion Broadband is available nationwide, or the two-thirds that are already covered.

The service will pump out transfer rates somewhere between 5 and 12Mbps for downloads, with uploads sitting between 2 and 5Mbps. The average DSL speed or basic cable Internet connection is around that speed, but HomeFusion is going to be much more expensive.

Why does it still sound good? Well, Verizon is mainly aiming for rural areas that are covered by its LTE network, but not by a cable broadband provider. The installation of a cylindrical antenna is required, and will cost you $200 from the get-go. Plans then begin at $60 per month for 10GB of data, $90 for 20GB and if you want 30GB, you'll be spending $120 per month. For every GB you go over your plan, Verizon will slap you with a $10 fee.

The Wi-Fi (802.11x) has been revised multiple times over the years, where we've seen 802.11b, g, n and smaller changes like 802.11a, but the IEEE standards committee is now looking at a pretty major revision to the standard dubbed 802.11-2012.

802.11-2012 is said to stand out from the 802.11x crowd by operating within a range of 3.65 and 3.7GHz. At the moment Wi-Fi usually operates at around 2.4GHz or 5GHz frequencies. With the 2.4GHz frequency absolutely saturated by most consumer devices, and 5.8GHz becoming more and more popular, using a new area of the spectrum will give customers not only the change to avoid interference, but a serious injection of speed.

802.11-2012 is expected to hit 600Mbps throughout, with the PHY (physical layer) and MAC (software layer) components of the new wireless standard to be reworked in order to provide that insane speed. These changes will allow allow for new additions such as "mesh" networking, direct-link setup, changes in security, broadcast/multicast/unicast data delivery and additional network management features.

Netgear are ready to pull the curtain from their latest networking product, its first 802.11ac-compatible Wi-Fi router, which is capable of pushing out gigabit speeds up to three times faster than current 802.11n routers. The Netgear R6300 router would top out at 1300Mbps in 5GHz mode and 450MHz in 2.4GHz and will launch next month for $199.99.

Apple are rumored to be close to introducing support for faster technology in their AirPort range of products, so this will come as a note to Apple observers. Broadcom have already launched their first set of 802.11ac 5G Wi-Fi chips, even though the standard probably won't be finalized until the end of this year.

I'll be thinking of picking one of these bad boys up, Netgear. 1300Mbps in 5Ghz is insane, and I look forward to Wi-Fi everything being upgraded over time.

Qualcomm Atheros has released two new networking devices today which promise to provide "unprecedented performance and advanced control for a superior online gaming experience." These two new devices are the Qualcomm Atheros Killer Technology E2200 and Wireless-N 1202. The former is an Ethernet controller and the latter a wireless adapter that has Bluetooth built in.

I am a fan of online gaming, so anything that can give me an edge when playing is definitely appreciated. If these cards can lower my ping, or provide a better, uninterrupted connection, I'll take them. According to the press release, which is in full-text below, the chips "prioritize gaming, video and audio network data." Only reviews and user experience will tell if this makes a difference.

Softbank, Japan's third-largest mobile carrier is set to enable a new high-speed mobile data service this week, with a portable Wi-Fi router capable of download speeds of 76Mbps. Softbank have also stated that its 4G network will eventually support devices with speeds of up to 110Mbps.

The official launch of Softbank 4G will be held this Friday, where the first 4G-capable Wi-Fi router will reportedly be the size of a "soap-bar", and is from Seiko Instruments. This device will allow up to 10 Wi-Fi users to share the mobile connection, with the aforementioned download speeds of up to 76Mbps down, and 10Mbps up.

Softbank's high-speed network is based on a format called AXGP, which is an advanced version of an older Japanese standard, Personal Handy-phone System (PHS). Softbank has said that they are "highly compatible" with TD-LTE, a Chinese standard otherwise known as LTD TDD, which is growing in popularity throughout Asia. There are also reports floating around that Apple are said to be baking in support for the standard in future devices.

Optus have just announced they've acquired Vivid Wireless for a tidy little sum of $230 million, with full intent on using Vivid's existing spectrum to boost its 4G network using LTE-TDD. The full announcement is below:

So, Optus, you'll be delivering 4G services "twice as fast as existing competitive 4G services", such as those with Telstra? We'll see just how fast your 4G download speeds are when you deliver it. I could almost put money on it not beating Telstra. But, here we have it, folks. 4G is coming from Optus.

Internode have today begun its first program to rent industry-leading FRITZ!Box broadband routers and accessories to customers, and at the same time, have slashed pricing across its range of FRITZ!Box equipment. Internode customers can save themselves up-front costs from the AVM FRITZ!Box 7270 and 7390 routers, and FRITZ!Fon DECT handsets, by opting to pay a monthly rental fee within a 24-month contract.

Internode will then rent customers the 7270 for $9.95 per month, the 7390 for $14.95 per month, and the DECT handset for $4.95 per month. If customers choose to purchase the equipment outright, Internode has slashed pricing of the two FRITZ!Box routers by $50, and taken $20 off the FRITZ!Fon handset.

Internode product manager, Philip Dempster has said:

CES 2012 - Newer Technology, part of the MAC Sales clan which includes OWC SSDs displayed a product I'm sure everyone reading this can appreciates. USB ports built into power sockets aren't anything new but all of them we've seen continually power the USB ports. This is a big waste of power since you don't have devices connected all of the time to the USB ports.

Phantom power draw is a big issue when you are paying the electric bill but Newer Technology has come up with a simple solution to turn the ports off when not in use. The USB ports provide up to 2 amps of power when the USB door opens. A micro switch gets activated and your iPad, iPod, cell phone or other device gets the juice.

The Newer Technology Power2U is currently available at MACSALES.com for less than 30 Dollars.

QNAP Systems, Ind. have just announced V3.6 Beta NAS management software for its Turbo NAS series, which provides some highly anticipated features such as a VPN Server, LDAP Server, and Proxy Server, cloud music and photo sharing with a web browser, enhanced backup features, and more. Firmware V3.6 beta also includes a new version of MyCloudNAS 1.2, QPKG center and more compatible IP camera.

Firmware V3.6 beta also bakes in some new business-class features, such as VPN Server. VPN Server offers businesses with a cost-saving way to create a secure and private network. LDAP Server simplifies mass account management and saves business' IT hardware expenditure, time, and stress. The Proxy Server provided with the "Squid" QPKG provides the IT administrator a great solution to manage network loading, yet maintain network security.

Jason Hsu, product manager for QNAP says:

American internet users rejoice! YouTube requests might get delivered faster today with Google, OpenDNS and several content delivery networks announcing the Global Internet Speed Up effort. Finding ways to speed up the internet and deliver ever-increasing high quality streaming and downloads to users across the globe is getting harder. The Speed Up effort tries to dodge around this by making sure a user's request for content goes to a server near it, making delivery faster and more efficient from a bandwidth perspective.

At the center of this new wonderful speed up is the creation of a standard that attached location data to a DNS request so a user's request for content goes to a server nearby. This is definitely an upgrade as usually the content comes from the address of the DNS server and not the user's location. For example, an Austin, Texas-based customer who types in the URL for a YouTube video will share part of his IP address as part of the DNS request.

This way, the domain system server can route the request to a Google data center in Dallas, as opposed to one in Ireland. A simple solution, but would net great gains for people who have servers close to them. The new code goes into effect on Tuesday with 30 million OpenDNS users and Google's Public DNS service users visiting content hosted on the participating CDNs will immediately benefit.

Internode have announced their retail pricing for the NBN-based phone and broadband bundles packages, with prices ranging between $59.95 and $189.95. If you'd like the 100MB speeds, it will cost you a minimum of $100 per month. Internode were quick to say that the pricing for broadband could easily escalate, this is because of the flaws in NBNCo's wholesale charging model, compounded by the ACCC's "121 points of interconnect" decision.

Managing director of Internode, Simon Hackett, has criticised the NBNCo's wholesale fee of $20 per megabit per month, which is charged at the point where retail service providers physically connect to the NBN. He says: