tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/internet-speeds-37535/articlesInternet speeds – The Conversation2023-12-06T15:53:38Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2180622023-12-06T15:53:38Z2023-12-06T15:53:38ZRural communities are being left behind because of poor digital infrastructure, research shows<p>In an era where businesses and households depend on the internet for everything from marketing to banking and shopping, the lack of adequate digital access can be a significant hurdle. And our recent research shows that many <a href="https://research.aber.ac.uk/en/publications/the-socio-economic-impact-of-the-covid-19-pandemic-on-ceredigion-">homes</a> and <a href="https://research.aber.ac.uk/en/publications/the-economic-impact-of-the-covid-19-pandemic-on-ceredigion-busine">businesses</a> in the UK are being left stranded in the digital age.</p>
<p>Our two studies focused on a rural county in Wales, Ceredigion, where the lack of reliable digital infrastructure worsened the impacts of the pandemic on families and businesses. Poor digital accessibility and connectivity exacerbated the stress levels of families who were already having to juggle home schooling and working from home. </p>
<p>Similarly, businesses had to struggle with issues around internet provision, availability of effective digital infrastructure and digital proficiency while working and running businesses from home. </p>
<p>Our research involved two online surveys. One focused on households and the other on businesses and the self-employed between April and June 2021. The survey questions were designed to address the challenges and opportunities brought about by the pandemic. </p>
<p>Some important themes emerged in the responses we received to both surveys. These were insufficient digital accessibility and connectivity, lack of digital skills and training opportunities and the cost of broadband and mobile access.</p>
<h2>Household experiences</h2>
<p>Our research showed that 12% of homes did not have enough digital equipment for their needs during the pandemic and 76% of these included children who were being home schooled. Schools and some workplaces provided equipment in some instances, but 18% of households had to borrow equipment. </p>
<p>Despite that ability to borrow, many homes found themselves juggling equipment between homeworking adults and children learning online. Many pupils relied on small mobile devices to access lessons, while others lacked access to equipment like printers.</p>
<p>These problems were compounded in rural and remote areas, where slow broadband speeds and a lack of reliable mobile signal were cited as the biggest issues. Other issues included the cost of broadband and mobile access, the lack of digital skills or training opportunities to improve digital skills, poor customer service from broadband providers and issues with connectivity.</p>
<h2>Business and self-employed experiences</h2>
<p>The pandemic brought similar challenges to businesses. The closure of non-essential firms during the pandemic led to a <a href="https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/e-commerce-in-the-time-of-covid-19-3a2b78e8/">surge</a> in e-commerce. Companies that could embrace online sales were able to continue operating despite lockdowns and restrictions. </p>
<p>But businesses that were slow to adopt e-commerce or lacked the necessary infrastructure struggled to adapt. In fact, our research found that 47% of businesses faced difficulties with digital access and connectivity during the pandemic. Some of the other issues faced by businesses included:</p>
<p>• a lack of reliable broadband or mobile (37%)</p>
<p>• slow broadband speed (29%)</p>
<p>• poor mobile signal (26%)</p>
<p>• lack of digital skills or access to training schemes (16%)</p>
<p>• the cost of access (13%)</p>
<p>People working from home in rural locations also had problems due to a lack of digital infrastructure, poor connectivity and a lack of digital skills. </p>
<h2>Bridging the gap</h2>
<p>In the future, an increased reliance on online work, education and public services, such as online health and welfare support, will further disadvantage those without adequate internet access. The digital divide is widening between those with higher incomes and those with lower incomes. </p>
<p>For example, households with higher incomes were <a href="https://www.scirp.org/reference/referencespapers?referenceid=3051117">more likely</a> to have had access to technology for home schooling and remote working during the pandemic, unlike those with lower incomes.</p>
<p>The gap in access to digital technology is often determined by location too. Remote and sparsely populated areas often lack adequate broadband and mobile signal coverage. Bridging this digital divide is crucial for economic growth, social inclusion and access to essential services. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-teachers-supported-children-and-parents-through-covid-19-school-closures-181380">How teachers supported children and parents through COVID-19 school closures</a>
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<p>To address the digital divide, the UK and devolved governments need to invest in digital infrastructure in rural areas to ensure that everywhere has at least a minimum quality coverage. Local authorities could introduce schemes that enable people to gain access to cost-effective computer devices and internet access.</p>
<p>Expanding digital literacy and empowering businesses in rural areas is also crucial. Enhancing digital skills training would better prepare future generations for the digital world. </p>
<p>Additionally, businesses in rural areas require tailored support, such as funding for digital infrastructure upgrades, training opportunities and guidance on consumer privacy and protection, to enable their digital growth and sustainability.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218062/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aloysius Igboekwu currently volunteers for a Childcare charity as a Trustee. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maria Plotnikova and Sarah Lindop do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>New research reveals the digital divide that was exposed by the COVID pandemic.Aloysius Igboekwu, Senior Lecturer in Finance, Aberystwyth UniversityMaria Plotnikova, Lecturer in Economics, Aberystwyth UniversitySarah Lindop, Senior Lecturer in Finance, Aberystwyth UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1759812022-02-08T11:25:56Z2022-02-08T11:25:56ZFour reasons your fibre internet could be slow – and five tips to speed it up<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444583/original/file-20220204-17-ektcqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C7483%2C4991&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/front-view-serious-troubled-caucasian-mature-2092377379">Inside Creative House/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Internet use has increased significantly over recent years, and through the pandemic, we have become <a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0013/220414/online-nation-2021-report.pdf">even more dependent</a> on online services.</p>
<p>To meet this demand, the <a href="https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-8392/CBP-8392.pdf">UK government and service providers</a> have fast tracked the expansion of the high-speed internet infrastructure known as “fibre to the premises” (<a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5465583">FTTP</a>).</p>
<p>FTTP connects homes and offices directly to fibre optic cables which, using light pulses as signals, can carry data very quickly. This compares to traditional broadband internet, which relies on “fibre to the cabinet”, meaning the high-speed fibre optic connection is delivered to local cabinets. From there, electromagnetic signals carry the data along copper wires into homes and workplaces. But FTTP’s light signals enable faster data transmission.</p>
<p>Though internet speeds are increased significantly with FTTP, people are <a href="https://www.ispreview.co.uk/talk/threads/my-bt-900-fttp-as-slow-as-fttc.36833/">still reporting</a> they are facing a slow or unstable internet connection. So given FTTP promises to be the fastest internet infrastructure yet, if it has recently been installed in your area, you might be wondering why you’re still experiencing an inconsistent connection.</p>
<h2>Four possible reasons</h2>
<p><strong>Bandwidth competition</strong></p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-bandwidth-2625809">bandwidth</a>, which refers to the maximum amount of data that can be transmitted over an internet connection within a given period, is shared by all internet users in a particular area. This is true even with FTTP.</p>
<p>So if your neighbours are using the internet in ways that consume a lot of data – such as streaming movies, playing video games, having Zoom meetings, and so on – this can affect the stability of the internet speed in your area.</p>
<p><strong>Device interference</strong></p>
<p>Although FTTP-enabled internet transmits data to your wifi router using light signals, your devices, such as computers and smartphones, still use electromagnetic signals to communicate with your router.</p>
<p>These electromagnetic signals operate in wireless transmission channels, sometimes called bands, or frequencies. Notably, many internet-connected devices in your home or office will use the same wireless transmission channels or channels quite close to one another. This causes <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9317700">interference</a>, resulting in unstable internet speed on your devices.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/dodgy-internet-connection-heres-what-might-be-behind-it-156617">Dodgy internet connection? Here’s what might be behind it</a>
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<p><strong>Incompatible router</strong></p>
<p>Switching to an FTTP-enabled internet connection without a compatible router means you won’t experience the full benefits of the upgraded internet infrastructure. Most <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6416675">traditional routers</a> support FTTP-enabled internet connection, but cannot efficiently handle the high-speed data transmission of fibre optic technology. You can request a compatible router from your internet service provider.</p>
<p><strong>Computing capability</strong></p>
<p>Your device’s computing capability is one of the major criteria for realising the high-speed benefits of an FTTP-enabled internet connection. Devices with average computing power, such as smartphones, tablets and laptops, cannot process fibre’s <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9178413">high-speed internet data</a>. So you may not experience speeds as high as you’d hoped on your devices, despite using an FTTP-enabled internet connection. </p>
<p>Some newer computers with enough memory (16-32GB of RAM) will allow you to experience the speed benefits of FTTP-enabled internet connection at optimal levels.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A young woman looks at her smartphone." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444878/original/file-20220207-23031-1gsnz7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444878/original/file-20220207-23031-1gsnz7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444878/original/file-20220207-23031-1gsnz7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444878/original/file-20220207-23031-1gsnz7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444878/original/file-20220207-23031-1gsnz7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444878/original/file-20220207-23031-1gsnz7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444878/original/file-20220207-23031-1gsnz7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">There can be several reasons why your FTTP internet connection isn’t as fast as you imagined it would be.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/serious-focused-black-millennial-business-woman-2111421215">fizkes/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<h2>Five tips to improve things</h2>
<p><strong>Close unnecessary apps</strong></p>
<p>Before you begin investigating the reasons for your unstable connection, start by closing any unused software or apps on your computer. These are likely to be eating up the internet connection speed in the background.</p>
<p><strong>Disable automatic updates</strong></p>
<p>When you need a stable internet connection, disable automatic updates of the software on your computer. These updates can also occupy a considerable amount of internet speed in the background, leading to a slower internet connection.</p>
<p><strong>Disconnect unused devices</strong></p>
<p>Disconnect from wifi any internet-connected devices in your home, such as your smart TV, if they are not in active use. This will improve the internet speed for active devices such as your computer while reducing any possible interference.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/working-from-home-the-uks-broadband-and-wifi-will-be-put-to-the-test-133875">Working from home? The UK's broadband and wifi will be put to the test</a>
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<p><strong>Change your wifi channel</strong></p>
<p>A wifi router has a limited number of channels for transmitting and receiving internet data. When you’re experiencing slow internet, you can try changing your wifi channel by restarting your router. </p>
<p>This can be very useful if the internet connection is slower due to the competition for wifi channels among other wifi routers in your neighbourhood. A wifi router automatically selects a less congested wifi channel when it restarts.</p>
<p><strong>Add a wifi repeater</strong></p>
<p>You can buy and install a wifi repeater to increase the coverage and stability of your wifi connection. This will provide you with faster and more reliable internet in places where the reception of the signal may not be as good.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175981/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There are a few factors that might explain why your internet connection isn’t as consistently fast as you’d hoped. But there are some things you can do.Omprakash Kaiwartya, Senior Lecturer in Connected Systems, Nottingham Trent UniversityMufti Mahmud, Associate Professor of Cognitive Computing, Nottingham Trent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1739772022-01-19T13:45:52Z2022-01-19T13:45:52ZState efforts to close the K-12 digital divide may come up short<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439860/original/file-20220107-12389-11c5ir9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=42%2C8%2C5651%2C3782&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Students and teachers alike struggle with digital connectivity – but education is just one area in which technology matters.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Biden-Broadband-Explainer/229742288a5a489fb47d8fbefc43ec08/photo">AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 2021, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy announced that education officials in his state had “<a href="https://www.nj.gov/governor/news/news/562021/20210310c.shtml">closed</a>” the digital divide by ensuring that every public school student had a laptop or tablet and internet access. </p>
<p>“Closing the digital divide wasn’t just about <a href="https://nj.gov/governor/news/news/562021/approved/20210312b.shtml">meeting the challenges of remote learning</a>,” Murphy, a Democrat, said at the time. “It’s been about ensuring every student has the tools they need to excel in a 21st century educational environment.” </p>
<p>While the Murphy administration was successful in giving <a href="https://www.nj.gov/education/grants/digitaldivide/techsurveys.shtml">358,212 students</a> access to critical education tools they previously lacked, <a href="https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/household-pulse-survey.html">the digital divide remains a problem</a> in New Jersey as well as throughout the nation.</p>
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<h2>Federal data</h2>
<p>A U.S. Census Bureau survey <a href="https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/household-pulse-survey.html">undertaken during the pandemic</a> found that not all families with school-age kids had internet access or computers. The levels varied by race and family income.</p>
<p>For instance, whereas 84% of Asian families said they always had a computer on hand for educational uses, only 72% of Hispanic or Latino families did.</p>
<p>And 87% of Asian families said they always had internet access available for school-related activities. But just 68% of families that were biracial, multiracial or in a group labeled “other races” – meaning not white, not Black, not Asian and not Hispanic or Latino – said the same.</p>
<p>Families with higher incomes were more likely to have both internet access and digital devices always available for education. But even the highest-income households didn’t have 100% availability of either. And only about two-thirds of families with incomes below $35,000 did.</p>
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<h2>State and local efforts</h2>
<p>Different communities took different approaches to handling the digital divide before and during the pandemic. A <a href="https://www.nga.org/news/commentary/governors-prioritize-expanding-internet-access-for-k-12-students/">National Governors Association review</a> showed that some education leaders sought to address the immediate needs of students, such as access to computers at home, while others explored long-term broadband solutions. </p>
<p>Some states partnered with <a href="https://www.allconnect.com/blog/organizations-addressing-the-digital-divide">internet service providers or nonprofit organizations</a> with a specific focus on digital access or inclusion, or other organizations with broader missions, such as local libraries. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/progress-closing-digital-divide-20211229.html">Philadelphia</a>, the city worked with the school district, foundations and local cable providers to make sure all public school students have access to <a href="https://www.phila.gov/programs/phlconnected/">free and reliable internet at home</a>. Chicago did <a href="https://www.cps.edu/strategic-initiatives/chicago-connected/">something similar</a>.</p>
<p>In October 2021, New York City announced an initiative to build a <a href="https://www1.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/724-21/new-york-city-close-digital-divide-1-6-million-residents-advance-racial-equity">publicly owned, open-access broadband system</a> to provide affordable internet access across the city.</p>
<p>Partnerships like this have resulted in the delivery of mobile hot spots, <a href="https://www.nj.com/education/2020/09/organizations-donate-1200-hotspots-to-trenton-public-schools-to-close-digital-divide.html">free internet subscriptions</a> and digital literacy courses. Other local efforts, including from municipal governments and nonprofit organizations, sought to improve public Wi-Fi service and get computers or tablets to people who needed them.</p>
<h2>A lasting problem</h2>
<p>A 2021 report from New America and Rutgers University shows that, while internet access has greatly increased since 2015, <a href="https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/reports/learning-at-home-while-underconnected/">1 in 7 children</a> still do not have high-speed internet access at home.</p>
<p>One reason for this may be the focus on temporary solutions to deeper social issues. A device and hot spot issued for one year does not permanently address problems as complex as the digital divide.</p>
<p>Another factor may be the ability to identify those in need. New Jersey’s survey didn’t ask families about their devices and connectivity. Instead, state officials asked local school districts and <a href="https://www.nj.gov/education/grants/digitaldivide/techsurveys.shtml">took their word without double-checking their reported results</a>.</p>
<p>At the federal level, similar attempts to measure the digital divide have also come up short, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/technology/digital-divide-us-fcc-microsoft.html">overestimating the numbers of people</a> who have a computer and internet service. The Federal Communications Commission has also <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/technology/digital-divide-us-fcc-microsoft.html">overstated the degree to which high-speed service</a> is available to internet customers.</p>
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<span class="caption">Many rural students don’t have any internet service available, and many urban students’ families can’t afford it.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/EducationNavajoInternet/526fc11fe7ac4eb4b8b4b78a6a0e39fb/photo">AP Photo/Cedar Attanasio</a></span>
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<h2>Federal funding</h2>
<p>The federal <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3684/text">infrastructure package</a> seeks to tackle the digital divide more directly than ever before in the U.S. The law’s text says high-speed internet access is as essential as running water and electricity to “<a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3684">full participation in modern life in the United States</a>.” The package included <a href="https://nebsa.org/index.cfm/nebsa-spotlight/digital-divide-needs-to-receive-record-2-75-billion-in-grants/">US$2.75 billion</a> to fund an effort to improve online accessibility for social services.</p>
<p>Whether the equitable delivery of digital access is achieved will depend on implementation. Studies of national broadband efforts in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8500.12323">Australia</a> and <a href="https://www.thehinducentre.com/the-arena/current-issues/article32444675.ece">India</a> show it isn’t always easy. They also find that the programs don’t make up for existing social inequities. For instance, in Australia, poorer communities got worse internet service than wealthier places. In the U.S., past broadband initiatives <a href="https://www.commoncause.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/CCBroadbandGatekeepers_WEB1.pdf">have not provided equitable service</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3684/text">infrastructure law</a> has the potential to ensure that digital access becomes a higher government priority. But experience shows fully closing the digital divide will require much more.</p>
<p><em>Jessica Cruz, a Rutgers master’s student in public informatics, contributed to this article.</em></p>
<p>[<em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173977/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephanie Holcomb is a researcher with organizations that receive funding from the State of New Jersey, federal agencies, and several foundations including the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrea Hetling receives funding from the US Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the New Jersey Office of the Secretary of Higher Education, and the New Jersey Department of Human Services Division of Family Development. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gregory Porumbescu receives funding from the New Jersey Office of the Secretary of Higher Education and the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vishal Trehan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Claims the digital divide has been ‘closed’ don’t include the full picture of internet inequality in the United States.Stephanie Holcomb, Ph.D. Student in Planning and Public Policy, Rutgers UniversityAndrea Hetling, Professor of Planning and Public Policy, Rutgers UniversityGregory Porumbescu, Associate Professor at the School of Public Affairs and Administration, Rutgers University - NewarkVishal Trehan, Ph.D. Student in Public Affairs and Administration, Rutgers University - NewarkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1673622021-09-17T03:55:26Z2021-09-17T03:55:26ZWhy does my internet connection feel slow and jumpy, even when my internet speed is high?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421759/original/file-20210917-27-slj4h3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C40%2C5472%2C3530&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jeshoots.com/Unsplash</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Of the 8.2 million homes and businesses active on Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN) in July 2021, 77% are now <a href="https://www.nbnco.com.au/corporate-information/about-nbn-co/updates/dashboard-july-2021">reported</a> to be on a broadband plan that delivers speeds of at least 50 megabits per second (Mbps). This is plenty to accommodate a typical household’s needs for video streaming (Netflix high-definition resolution, for instance, uses about 3Mbps and ultra-high definition about 12Mbps), video conferencing (2-3Mbps), gaming (less than 1Mbps) and general web browsing. </p>
<p>So why do we still experience video freeze, game lag spikes, and teleconference stutters? The problem is not speed, but other factors such as latency and loss, which are unrelated to speed.</p>
<p>For more than three decades we have been conditioned to think of broadband in terms of Mbps. This made sense when we had dial-up internet, over which web pages took many seconds to load, and when DSL lines could not support more than one video stream at a time. </p>
<p>But once speeds approach 100Mbps and beyond, studies from the <a href="https://www.broadband-forum.org/an-economic-argument-for-moving-away-from-mbps">Broadband Forum</a> and others show that further increases are largely imperceptible to users.</p>
<p>Yet Australian consumers fear being caught short on broadband speed. More than half a million Australians moved to plans delivering <a href="https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/record-number-of-australians-move-to-very-high-speed-nbn-plans">more than 250Mbps</a> in the March 2021 quarter. Indeed, we have collectively bought about 410 terabits per second (Tbps) on our speed plans, while actual usage peaks at 23Tbps. This suggests we collectively use less than 6% of the speed we pay for! </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-boost-your-internet-speed-when-everyone-is-working-from-home-135313">How to boost your internet speed when everyone is working from home</a>
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<p>In contrast to our need for speed, our online time has grown tremendously. According to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), the average Australian household <a href="https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Internet%20Activity%20Report%20%28December%202020%29.pdf">consumed 355 gigabytes of data in December 2020</a>, a 59% increase on the year before. </p>
<p>Our internet usage is like a marathon runner gradually adding more and more miles to their training distances, rather than a sprinter reaching higher and higher top speeds. It therefore makes little sense to judge our multi-hour marathon of video streaming, gaming and teleconferencing by running a connection speed test which is a 5-10 second sprint. </p>
<h2>What do we really need from broadband?</h2>
<p>So what do we need from our broadband for a good streaming, gaming or conferencing experience? A connection that offers low and relatively constant <em>latency</em> (the time taken to move data packets from the server to your house) and <em>loss</em> (the proportion of data packets that are lost in transit). </p>
<p>These factors in turn depend on how well your internet service provider (ISP) has engineered and tuned its network.</p>
<p>To reduce latency, your ISP can deploy local caches that store a copy of the videos you want to watch, and local game servers to host your favourite e-sport titles, thereby reducing the need for long-haul transport. They can also provide good routing paths to servers, thereby avoiding poor-quality or congested links. </p>
<p>To manage loss, ISPs “shape” their traffic by temporarily holding packets in buffers to smooth out transient load spikes. But there’s a natural trade-off here: too much smoothing holds packets back, leading to latency spikes that cause missed gunshots in games and stutters in conferences. Too little smoothing, on the other hand, causes buffers to overflow and packets to be lost, which puts the brakes on downloads.</p>
<p>ISPs therefore have to tune their network to balance performance across the various applications. But with the ACCC’s <a href="https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/internet-landline-services/broadband-performance-data">Measuring Broadband Australia (MBA) Program</a> predominantly focused on speed-testing, and with a 1% margin separating the top three ISPs all keen to claim the top spot, we are inadvertently incentivising ISPs to optimise their network for speed, rather than for other factors. </p>
<p>This is a detrimental outcome for users, because we don’t really have quite the need for speed we think we do.</p>
<h2>How can we do better?</h2>
<p>An alternative approach is possible. With advances in artificial intelligence (AI) technology, it is now becoming possible to analyse network traffic streams to assess users’ experience in an application-aware manner. </p>
<p>For example, AI engines trained on the pattern of video “chunk” fetches of <a href="http://www2.ee.unsw.edu.au/%7Evijay/pubs/conf/19tma.pdf">on-demand streams</a> such as Netflix, and <a href="http://www2.ee.unsw.edu.au/%7Evijay/pubs/conf/21iwqos.pdf">live streams</a> such as Twitch, can infer whether they are playing at the best available resolution and without freeze. </p>
<p>Similarly, AI engines can <a href="https://www.ausnog.net/sites/default/files/ausnog-2019/presentations/2.1_Vijay_Sivaraman_AusNOG2019.pdf">analyse traffic</a> throughout the various stages of games such as CounterStrike, Call of Duty or Dota2 to track issues such as lag spikes. And they can detect videoconferencing stutters and dropouts by analysing traffic on Zoom, Teams, and other platforms.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-my-ip-address-explaining-one-of-the-worlds-most-googled-questions-167316">'What is my IP address?' Explaining one of the world's most Googled questions</a>
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<p>Australia has made significant public investment into a national broadband infrastructure that is now well equipped to provide more-than-adequate speed to citizens, as long as it runs as efficiently as possible.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167362/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>In addition to his academic appointment, Vijay Sivaraman is co-founder and part-time CEO of Canopus Networks, which develops network traffic analytics software. He has received funding from many organisations including Google, Cisco, HPE, Optus, Telstra, NBN, Canopus and ACCAN. He is affiliated with the IEEE.</span></em></p>You can measure the speed of your broadband connection, but that’s not the whole story. Your network provider also has to manage factors such as data loss and latency to ensure a smooth connection.Vijay Sivaraman, Professor of Telecommunications and Internet Technologies, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1673162021-09-14T20:52:19Z2021-09-14T20:52:19Z‘What is my IP address?’ Explaining one of the world’s most Googled questions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421006/original/file-20210914-27-1tpy7ey.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>What is my IP?</em> It’s an odd question in most people’s minds, yet it’s one of the <a href="https://www.semrush.com/blog/most-searched-keywords-google/">top ten most-searched</a> questions on Google. </p>
<p>Those who know what an IP address is will already know most of these searches are coming from people who understand what they’re searching for. But for the rest of us a more relevant question might be: <em>what is an IP address?</em></p>
<p>Across the globe there are billions of computing devices that connect to the internet. To communicate, each device needs an address, just like our homes. </p>
<p>Our home address is typically structured along the lines of “number, street, city, postcode, country”. And our entire postal delivery network is based on this system.</p>
<p>Our digital world is similar, and has an address system that allows network traffic to move around the internet. So, an IP (internet protocol) address — which also has its own implicit structure — is fundamentally a numeric address for an endpoint on the internet.</p>
<h2>An online content delivery system</h2>
<p>Akin to postal addresses, IP addresses are assigned to each recipient in a worldwide infrastructure. The recipient could be a single device such as a laptop, phone, tablet or even your air-conditioner controller — but could also be a network entry point to a large organisation.</p>
<p>Since its inception, IP was designed with simplicity and efficiency in mind. That’s why it has remained effective at handling internet traffic, starting on a network with four nodes in the late 1960s, to billions of devices today.</p>
<p>An IP address is a number in binary format, which means it has 32 digits (or bits) comprising 1s and 0s. The address is typically grouped as four 8-bit numbers, so each number is eight digits that are either a 1 or 0. </p>
<p>But we usually view IP addresses in a decimal format, wherein the value between 00000000-11111111 becomes a number between 0 and 255. So the complete IP address space ranges from 0.0.0.0 through to 255.255.255.255. </p>
<p>See an example below, using the IP address of one of the servers that hosts theconversation.com.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420143/original/file-20210909-23-51710p.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420143/original/file-20210909-23-51710p.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=91&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420143/original/file-20210909-23-51710p.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=91&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420143/original/file-20210909-23-51710p.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=91&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420143/original/file-20210909-23-51710p.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=115&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420143/original/file-20210909-23-51710p.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=115&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420143/original/file-20210909-23-51710p.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=115&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Examples of the same IP address in three different notations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>IP addresses are centrally managed by the <a href="https://www.iana.org/">Internet Assigned Numbers Authority</a>, which delegates to one of five regional registries: Africa, America, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Europe-West/Central Asia.</p>
<p>Not all addresses are available for use by anyone. Many are <a href="https://www.arin.net/reference/research/statistics/address_filters/">reserved</a> for specific purposes. For example, three ranges of addresses (10.0.0.0—10.255.255.255, 192.168.0.0—192.168.255.255 and 172.16.0.0—172.31.255.255) are reserved for private networks such as your home.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420142/original/file-20210909-23-1mp476r.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420142/original/file-20210909-23-1mp476r.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=235&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420142/original/file-20210909-23-1mp476r.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=235&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420142/original/file-20210909-23-1mp476r.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=235&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420142/original/file-20210909-23-1mp476r.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=296&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420142/original/file-20210909-23-1mp476r.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=296&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420142/original/file-20210909-23-1mp476r.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=296&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">For an IT geek, <em>there’s no place like your local loopback address</em>.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other large blocks of addresses are <a href="https://www.pingdom.com/blog/where-did-all-the-ip-numbers-go-the-us-department-of-defense-has-them/">assigned to specific organisations</a>. The US Department of Defense “owns” the “6” prefix (6.x.y.z), as well as 11 others.</p>
<h2>IPv6: a new frontier</h2>
<p>IPv4 (version 4) is the most widely used version of IP in the world right now. Dating <a href="https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc791">back to the 1980s</a>, it has a capacity of more than four billion unique addresses — which was considered enough back then.</p>
<p>But a combination of wasteful use (such as organisations being allocated larger IP address spaces than they need), and the exponential increase of users, is causing this space to run out.</p>
<p>For now, IPv4 is still here. But its demise has long been <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/07/the-internet-is-running-out-of-addresses-but-dont-worry/60242/">predicted</a> and it will eventually no longer be fit for purpose. There are technical solutions, however. </p>
<p>The most useful ones are Network Address Translation (more on this later) and a newer version of IP: version 6. Although IPv6 is newer than IPv4, it isn’t really “new”. It was originally proposed some <a href="https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc1883">25 years ago</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/heres-why-the-internet-will-always-have-enough-space-for-all-our-devices-122559">Here's why the internet will always have enough space for all our devices</a>
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<p>The shift to IPv6 brings a range of benefits, even if they are basically transparent as far as consumers are concerned. The most significant change with IPv6 is the increase in the size of IP addresses from 32 bits to 128 bits.</p>
<p>Version 6 also boosts the total number of unique IP addresses on offer, up to some 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456. Even with the rapid rise in device usage, this address pool should <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-end-of-the-internet-ipv4-versus-ipv6-145">last us a long time</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420149/original/file-20210909-13-1ooar7o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420149/original/file-20210909-13-1ooar7o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=204&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420149/original/file-20210909-13-1ooar7o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=204&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420149/original/file-20210909-13-1ooar7o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=204&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420149/original/file-20210909-13-1ooar7o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=256&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420149/original/file-20210909-13-1ooar7o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=256&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420149/original/file-20210909-13-1ooar7o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=256&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">While IPv6 contains an unimaginable number of assignable addresses, as technology evolves we may well reach address exhaustion again!</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">xkcd</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Making efficient use of addresses</h2>
<p>As mentioned above, private addresses can be used for individual devices inside an organisation (or home). But private addresses can’t be used on the internet, so these devices “hide” behind one public/external IP address.</p>
<p>This public address is capable of supporting up to hundreds of thousands of devices for a large organisation. But a router is needed to connect the network to the internet. The router translates the many internal private addresses which are hiding behind the public IP address (or several of them).</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420148/original/file-20210909-26-mw8wyj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420148/original/file-20210909-26-mw8wyj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420148/original/file-20210909-26-mw8wyj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420148/original/file-20210909-26-mw8wyj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420148/original/file-20210909-26-mw8wyj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420148/original/file-20210909-26-mw8wyj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420148/original/file-20210909-26-mw8wyj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Private address spaces often use the 192.168 prefix. You cannot trace an address to this network remotely!</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">xkcd</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When data is delivered to a private organisation or home network, the router forwards the traffic to a specific internal computer using that computer’s private IP address. </p>
<p>The process of routing many devices through a single IP address is called “nesting” networks. And the technique it uses is referred to as Network Address Translation (NAT). </p>
<h2>IP and download speeds</h2>
<p>You probably won’t be using IP addresses in your daily life. But in order to access a website our computers need to “look up” the IP address for that site. This all happens in the background.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420141/original/file-20210909-21-15xill5.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420141/original/file-20210909-21-15xill5.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=227&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420141/original/file-20210909-21-15xill5.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=227&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420141/original/file-20210909-21-15xill5.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=227&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420141/original/file-20210909-21-15xill5.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420141/original/file-20210909-21-15xill5.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420141/original/file-20210909-21-15xill5.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An example DNS lookup, the web address ‘www.theconversation.com’ is converted to the shorter form ‘theconversation.com’ and returns four distinct IP addresses.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Once our computer has retrieved the website’s IP address, our browser will connect to the address, request the website data from the server and load the page. </p>
<p>In the image above, you’ll notice four different addresses. This allows the servers delivering the content to distribute the workload between four servers. Some websites go further and use Content Delivery Networks (CDNs). </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fastly-global-internet-outage-why-did-so-many-sites-go-down-and-what-is-a-cdn-anyway-162371">Fastly global internet outage: why did so many sites go down — and what is a CDN, anyway?</a>
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<p>CDNs host copies of web content in servers around the globe. This means the content requested can be delivered from a location that is geographically closer to the user trying to access it. This reduces the time it takes to load the page. </p>
<h2>The future of IP</h2>
<p>IPv6 may be slowly rolling out in ISP networks and large organisations, but home users and smaller companies will still be using IPv4 for the foreseeable future.</p>
<p>The increased number of devices connected to the internet will certainly test our home routers – with predictions of <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1183457/iot-connected-devices-worldwide/">25 billion</a> devices expected globally within the next decade. Fortunately, even with this predicted explosion, IPv4 at home will be able to cope.</p>
<p>In the meantime, if you want to know your public IP address, simply search “<a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+my+IP+address">what is my IP address</a>” and Google (as well as several other search engines) will deliver your public IP address. If you want to check your private IP address, this will take a <a href="https://www.howtogeek.com/236838/how-to-find-any-devices-ip-address-mac-address-and-other-network-connection-details/">little more effort</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167316/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>IP addresses serve a similar function to postal addresses. Postal addresses allow our mail to circulate, while IP addresses allow network traffic to move around the internet.Paul Haskell-Dowland, Associate Dean (Computing and Security), Edith Cowan UniversityBogdan Ghita, Associate dean (International), Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of PlymouthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1623712021-06-08T12:33:25Z2021-06-08T12:33:25ZFastly global internet outage: why did so many sites go down — and what is a CDN, anyway?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405062/original/file-20210608-23-zjvohu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C696%2C5000%2C3046&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you were having difficulty accessing your favourite website on Tuesday evening Australian time, you’re not alone. A jaw-dropping number of major websites around the globe <a href="https://californianewstimes.com/twitch-pinterest-reddit-and-more-go-down-in-fastly-cdn-outage-techcrunch/384198/">suddenly became unavailable</a> with no immediately obvious explanation — before <a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/technology/reddit-down-is-amazon-twich-guardian-websites-internet-503-error-fastly-outage-explained-1040594">reappearing an hour later</a>.</p>
<p>It’s disconcerting when the sites we rely on suddenly become inaccessible, and even more so when it happens on <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2021/06/08/numerous-popular-websites-are-facing-an-outage/">such a vast scale</a>. This outage saw seemingly unrelated sites go dark, including the BBC, Pinterest, the Financial Times, Reddit and even The Conversation.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1402211722715447305"}"></div></p>
<p>How can so many sites, from so many different organisations, all be affected by the same incident? To understand the answer, you need to know what a CDN (<a href="https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/cdn/what-is-a-cdn/">content delivery network</a>) is and how crucial they are to the smooth running of the internet.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/remember-apple-airtags-and-find-my-app-only-work-because-of-a-vast-largely-covert-tracking-network-160781">Remember, Apple AirTags and 'Find My' app only work because of a vast, largely covert tracking network</a>
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</em>
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<h2>What happened and what’s a CDN?</h2>
<p>While it’s too early to provide a comprehensive diagnosis of the incident, the internet (once it was accessible again) quickly pointed to the culprit: Fastly.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1402205996387389441"}"></div></p>
<p>Fastly is a cloud computing company that provides CDN services to a <a href="https://www.fastly.com/customers/">range of websites</a> including Amazon and Deliveroo. But how can a single company bring down a noticeable proportion of the internet?</p>
<p>When we access a website, we might assume our browser goes off to the internet, talks to the remote site, and then presents the page on our screen. While this is in essence what happens, it masks a much more complicated process, which can include CDN services.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Bsq5cKkS33I?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">What is a CDN?</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A CDN is a service that allows popular websites to keep copies of their pages closer to their customers. </p>
<p>For example, if we want to browse the BBC website, we could talk directly to a server in the United Kingdom. While the internet is perfectly capable of transferring the web page from the UK to Australia, there is an inevitable delay (perhaps a few hundred milliseconds). And nobody likes delays.</p>
<p>The experience for the user can be up to ten times quicker if a copy of the page (or elements of its content) can be held in Australia and delivered on demand.</p>
<p>Of course, accessing a version of the page held in Australia would work great if you’re in Australia but not so much if you’re in, say, Los Angeles. So, to ensure fast content delivery for everyone around the world, CDNs usually work on a global scale. </p>
<p>A CDN service provider will typically operate data centres around the world, holding copies of popular content in major population centres to deliver content in each region.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1402216123102343170"}"></div></p>
<p>The speed of delivery of a single image or page element may not be noticeably faster coming from a CDN — the difference between 200 milliseconds and 20 milliseconds isn’t discernible to most users. </p>
<p>However, modern websites often contain many elements, including images, videos and so on. When combined, the speed improvement through CDNs can be significant.</p>
<h2>So, why did so many sites fail?</h2>
<p>CDN services provide a valuable service to improve our web browsing experience — but at a cost. </p>
<p>When a major CDN provider such as Fastly experiences a failure, it doesn’t affect just one website; it’s likely to impact every website they support.</p>
<p>In Tuesday’s example, sites across the world suddenly went offline as requests for the CDN-hosted content were not serviced.</p>
<p>This incident demonstrates how reliant we are on technology — and on the specific implementations of technology in our modern lives. </p>
<p>If each website we visit hosted its own content exclusively, we would not be facing these issues. However, our web browsing experience would be much slower, reminiscent of the days of dial-up modems (well, perhaps not quite that bad).</p>
<p>Despite the global outage, it was resolved within about an hour. That would <a href="https://status.fastly.com/">seem to indicate</a> it’s unlikely to have been a security- or hacking-related issue. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1402215984354803719"}"></div></p>
<p>It was more likely due to a short-term failure in Fastly’s infrastructure, or a misconfiguration that spread through its systems.</p>
<h2>Could it happen again?</h2>
<p>Fastly is not the only CDN provider. Other high-profile services include Akamai and Cloudflare. Outages are <a href="https://www.catchpoint.com/blog/cloudflare-outage-2019">not uncommon</a>, but they are usually short-lived.</p>
<p>Readers can be assured (assuming you haven’t lost internet again) that service providers are closely watching this incident to ensure lessons are learned for next time.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-boost-your-internet-speed-when-everyone-is-working-from-home-135313">How to boost your internet speed when everyone is working from home</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162371/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Haskell-Dowland does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>To understand what happened, you need to know what a CDN (content delivery network) is, and how crucial they are to the smooth running of the internet.Paul Haskell-Dowland, Associate Dean (Computing and Security), Edith Cowan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1566172021-03-17T15:57:56Z2021-03-17T15:57:56ZDodgy internet connection? Here’s what might be behind it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389692/original/file-20210315-21-1mjo6ww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=49%2C0%2C5456%2C3632&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/loading-icon-rolling-on-video-online-728322229">Tero Vesalainen/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For most people, diagnosing a dodgy internet connection is nigh on impossible. After all, the internet is a complex hodgepodge of hardware and software, and the odd jumpy Zoom call is often accepted as an inexplicable feature of a network we don’t well understand. </p>
<p>But internet connection issues are actually quite easy to explain. They arise when the flow of data along internet cables is interrupted, most frequently when demand to use the cables is very high. That’s why your connection seems worst during “<a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/latest/features-and-news/lockdown-leads-to-surge-in-tv-screen-time-and-streaming">peak TV viewing</a>” hours, when everyone’s trying to stream videos using the same cables at the same time. </p>
<p>And while modern fibre-optic cables lead to faster internet speeds, it’s likely that we’ll always experience frustratingly slow internet from time to time. It’s a byproduct of a network that’s built to be flexible – and the finite load of the cables that support it.</p>
<h2>The physical network</h2>
<p>The internet is a network of cables which send digital data across vast distances at close to the speed of light. Between countries and continents, the internet is distributed via a <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/internet-net-neutrality-russia-gchq-telecommunications-undersea-cables-worldwide-web-a8181906.html">vast series of undersea cables</a>. Within countries, smaller cables run underground until they eventually branch into each of our homes.</p>
<p>In the UK, BT and Virgin Media are the major cable infrastructure providers. It’s they who physically plug the internet into UK homes, and they’re also responsible for <a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-internet/advice-for-consumers/broadband-uso-need-to-know">laying and updating</a> the underground cables that carry your data around the country or to the undersea cables to go further afield. </p>
<p>Some homes have “fibre to the premises” (<a href="https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2020/09/openreach-confirm-67-uk-areas-for-next-fttp-broadband-rollout.html">FTTP</a>) connections, connecting homes directly to fibre optic cables which can carry digital data incredibly quickly. But most UK homes have “fibre to the cabinet” (<a href="https://www.cable.co.uk/broadband/guides/fttc-vs-fttp/">FTTC</a>) connections, which are a little slower. </p>
<p>These deliver a high-speed fibre optic connection to local <a href="https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2019/12/identifying-bt-and-virgin-medias-uk-broadband-street-furniture-2019.html">internet cabinets</a>, from where slower copper wires run the “final mile” to surrounding homes. Copper <a href="https://www.foa.org/tech/fo-or-cu.htm">can only</a> carry analogue signals, so digital data has to be continually converted to analogue in homes that are connected to the internet via copper wires. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A green internet cabinet on a grassy verge next to a pavement." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389536/original/file-20210315-13-1ov3rgj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389536/original/file-20210315-13-1ov3rgj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389536/original/file-20210315-13-1ov3rgj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389536/original/file-20210315-13-1ov3rgj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389536/original/file-20210315-13-1ov3rgj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389536/original/file-20210315-13-1ov3rgj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389536/original/file-20210315-13-1ov3rgj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In the UK, internet ‘cabinets’ like this one are used to distribute internet connection to local homes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/woodbridge-uk-october-18-2019-green-1609411870">collins photography uk/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A recent report suggests that citizens of Liechtenstein enjoy the fastest internet in the world, at <a href="https://www.cable.co.uk/broadband/speed/worldwide-speed-league/#highlights">229.98Mbps</a>. The UK is ranked 47th in the world, with speeds averaging out at only 37.82Mps. Regional differences in internet speed are largely dictated by the quality of internet cables. Faster regional networks tend to experience less disruption, because they’re better equipped to handle high demand, just as high-speed motorways handle more traffic than slower roads.</p>
<h2>Cable logjams</h2>
<p>When your internet noticeably slows, it’s likely because your local cables are so busy with traffic that they’re close to being overwhelmed. In these common scenarios, your <a href="https://www.ispreview.co.uk/review/top10.ph">internet service provider</a> (ISP), which is the company you pay to supply your internet connection, steps in to artificially slow your regional internet network. This gives everyone a minimum, slower level of service in order to prevent a few heavy users from hogging the space on the cables.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man connects wires into the back of a computer." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389693/original/file-20210315-13-pu34cv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389693/original/file-20210315-13-pu34cv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389693/original/file-20210315-13-pu34cv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389693/original/file-20210315-13-pu34cv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389693/original/file-20210315-13-pu34cv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389693/original/file-20210315-13-pu34cv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389693/original/file-20210315-13-pu34cv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The cables that carry data across the internet can only handle a certain volume of traffic.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/side-view-portrait-young-man-connecting-725384896">SeventyFour/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If your ISP failed to intervene, internet cables could become overloaded, and packets of information would fail to make it through them, resulting in data loss. ISPs would rather have your internet data load slowly than see it get lost and fail to load entirely.</p>
<p>Artificial network slowing by ISPs will continue for as long as the physical internet cables in your local area are <a href="https://www.circleid.com/posts/20201215-understanding-broadband-oversubscription/">oversubscribed</a>, which happens when ISPs sell more internet packages than could technically be supported if every user was maximising their internet use at once. </p>
<p>Oversubscription is common, and because people rarely max out their internet use, it’s not an issue. It just means ISPs are forced to slow the internet when many users decide to stream and download large files at the same time. </p>
<h2>Hogging bandwidth</h2>
<p>This means that on wet and windy weekends, when a large number of people have decided to sit back and stream a film at the same time, it’s likely your ISP will cut your internet speed. </p>
<p>When updates are released for the world’s most popular video games, like <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-54917363">Call of Duty</a>, the sudden rush by players to download them also forces ISPs to slow the internet in your home – whether you have a games console or not.</p>
<p>Streaming services have even taken matters into their own hands to ensure their customers can keep enjoying their content during periods of peak demand. In March 2020, as Europe locked down for the first time, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-51968302">Netflix</a> and <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/24/21192384/youtube-video-quality-reduced-hd-broadband-europe-streaming">YouTube</a> both reduced the default quality of their video streams to help more people access and view videos on their platforms during a surge in demand.</p>
<p>Sometimes you’ll barely notice the speed change, while other times it might feel like you’re using dial-up internet again. It all depends on the number of people in your area who are trying to use the internet at once, and how much they’re demanding of the local cables that link your area to the wider internet.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/156617/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>You may have video gamers and binge watchers to blame when your internet’s on the blink.Andrew Moore, Lecturer Practitioner in Cyber and Networking, Anglia Ruskin UniversityAdrian Winckles, Senior Lecturer, School of Computing and Information Science, Anglia Ruskin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1467492020-09-23T08:03:32Z2020-09-23T08:03:32ZNBN upgrades explained: how will they make internet speeds faster? And will the regions miss out?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359501/original/file-20200923-24-1mjhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=86%2C51%2C3748%2C2103&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The federal government has announced a A$3.5 billion upgrade to the National Broadband Network (NBN) that will grant two million households on-demand access to faster fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) internet by 2023. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-23/nbn-to-be-extended-to-millions-under-$3.5bn-fttp-plan/12692082?nw=0">Reports from</a> <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-23/nbn-upgrade-is-your-internet-about-to-get-faster/12692854">the ABC</a> suggest the plan would go as far as to upgrade the FTTN services to fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) – although this wasn’t explicitly said in Minister for Communications Paul Fletcher’s <a href="https://minister.infrastructure.gov.au/fletcher/media-release/45-billion-nbn-investment-bring-ultra-fast-broadband-millions-families-and-businesses-and-create-25000-jobs">announcement</a>.</p>
<p>The minister said the upgrade would involve expanding current FTTN connections to run along more streets across the country, giving people the option to connect to broadband speeds of up to one gigabit per second. Improvements have also <a href="https://www.paulfletcher.com.au/media-releases/joint-media-release-45-billion-nbn-investment-to-bring-ultra-fast-broadband-to">been promised</a> for the hybrid fibre coaxial (HFC) and fibre-to-the-curb (FTTC) systems.</p>
<p>Altogether the upgrade is <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-23/nbn-co-shake-up-upgrade-network-millions-more-access/12691782">expected to</a> give about six million households access to internet speeds of up to one gigabit per second. But how will the existing infrastructure be boosted? And who will miss out?</p>
<h2>Getting ahead of the terminology</h2>
<p>Let’s first understand the <a href="https://www.aussiebroadband.com.au/blog/fttp-vs-fttn-connections-national-broadband-network-explained/">various terms</a> used to describe aspects of the NBN network. </p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.nbnco.com.au/learn/network-technology/fibre-to-the-premises-explained-fttp">Fibre to the Premises</a></strong> (FTTP)</p>
<p>FTTP refers to households with an optical fibre connection running from a device on a wall of the house directly to the network. This provides reliable high-speed internet.</p>
<p>The “network” simply refers to the exchange point from which households’ broadband connections are passed to service providers, such as Telstra, who help them get connected. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359514/original/file-20200923-20-vo71bm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359514/original/file-20200923-20-vo71bm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359514/original/file-20200923-20-vo71bm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359514/original/file-20200923-20-vo71bm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359514/original/file-20200923-20-vo71bm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359514/original/file-20200923-20-vo71bm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359514/original/file-20200923-20-vo71bm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359514/original/file-20200923-20-vo71bm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In an FTTP network, fibre optic connectors in the back of distribution hub panels connect homes to broadband services.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.nbnco.com.au/learn/network-technology/fibre-to-the-node-explained-fttn">Fibre to the Node</a></strong> (FTTN)</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nbnco.com.au/content/dam/nbnco2/2019/documents/media-centre/corporate-plan-report-2020-2023.pdf">The FTTN</a> system serves about 4.7 million premises in Australia, out of a total 11.5 million covered under the NBN.</p>
<p>With FTTN, households are connected via a copper line to a “node” in their neighbourhood. This node is further connected to the network with <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2010/10/21/3044463.htm">fibre optic cables</a> that transfer data much faster than copper cables can.</p>
<p>With FTTN systems, the quality of the broadband service depends on the length of the copper cable and the choice of technology used to support data transmission via this cable. </p>
<p>It’s <em>technically</em> possible to offer high internet speeds when copper cables are very short and <a href="https://www.nbnco.com.au/blog/the-nbn-project/nbn-co-plugs-in-first-gfast-units-across-Australia">the latest data transmission technologies</a> are used. </p>
<p>In reality, however, Australia’s FTTN speeds using a fibre/copper mix have <a href="https://www.speedtest.net/global-index">been slow</a>. An FTTN connection’s reliability also depends on network conditions, such as the age of the copper cabling and whether any of the signal is leaking due to degradation.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359509/original/file-20200923-20-1kf94wy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Illustration of fibre optic cables." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359509/original/file-20200923-20-1kf94wy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359509/original/file-20200923-20-1kf94wy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359509/original/file-20200923-20-1kf94wy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359509/original/file-20200923-20-1kf94wy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359509/original/file-20200923-20-1kf94wy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359509/original/file-20200923-20-1kf94wy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359509/original/file-20200923-20-1kf94wy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fibre optic cables use pulses of light for high-speed data transmission across long distances.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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</figure>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.nbnco.com.au/learn/network-technology/fibre-to-the-curb-explained-fttc">Fibre to the Curb</a></strong> (FTTC)</p>
<p>The limitations of FTTN mentioned above can be sidestepped by extending fibre cables from the network right up to a curbside “distribution point unit” nearer to households. This unit then becomes the “node” of the network. </p>
<p>FTTC allows significantly faster data transmission. This is because it services relatively fewer households (allowing better signal transmission to each one) and reduces the length of copper cable relied upon.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.nbnco.com.au/learn/network-technology/hybrid-fibre-coaxial-explained-hfc-3">Hybrid Fibre Coaxial</a></strong> (HFC)</p>
<p>In many areas, the NBN uses coaxial cables instead of copper cables. These were <a href="https://www.nbnco.com.au/blog/the-nbn-project/hfc-everything-you-need-to-know">first installed</a> by Optus and Telstra in the 1990s to deliver cable broadband and television. They’ve since been modernised for use in the NBN’s fibre network. </p>
<p>In theory, HFC systems should be able to offer internet speeds of more than 100 megabits per second. But many households have been <a href="https://www.itnews.com.au/news/telstra-stops-offering-100mbps-services-for-nbn-fttn-b-c-users-538601#:%7E:text=Telstra%20has%20stopped%20offering%20100Mbps,plan%20when%20connecting%20through%20Telstra.">unable to achieve</a> this due to the poor condition of cabling infrastructure in some parts, as well as large numbers of households sharing a single coaxial cable. </p>
<p>Coaxial cables are the most limiting part of the HFC system. So expanding the length of fibre cabling (and shortening the coaxial cables being used) would allow faster internet speeds. The NBN’s 2020 <a href="https://www.nbnco.com.au/content/dam/nbnco2/2019/documents/media-centre/corporate-plan-report-2020-2023.pdf">corporate plan</a> identifies doing this as a priority.</p>
<p>Minister Fletcher today said the planned upgrades would ensure all customers serviced by HFC would have access to speeds of up to one gigabit per second. Currently, only <a href="https://www.itnews.com.au/news/nbn-co-limits-gigabit-services-to-just-7-percent-of-hfc-footprint-548704">7%</a> of HFC customers do.</p>
<h2>Mixing things up isn’t always a good idea</h2>
<p>Under the <a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id:%22media/pressrel/PS8T6%22">original NBN plan</a>, the Labor government in 2009 promised optical fibre connections for 93% of all Australian households. </p>
<p>Successive reviews led to the use of multiple technologies in the network, rather than the full-fibre network Labor envisioned. Many households are not able to upgrade their connection because of limitations to the technology available in their neighbourhood. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-nbn-how-a-national-infrastructure-dream-fell-short-77780">The NBN: how a national infrastructure dream fell short</a>
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<p>Also, many businesses currently served by FTTN can’t access internet speeds that meet their needs. To avoid internet speeds hindering their work, many <a href="https://www.business.org/services/internet/business-internet-speed/">businesses need</a> a minimum speed between <a href="https://www.business.org/services/internet/business-internet-speed/">100 megabits and 1 gigabit per second</a>, depending on their <a href="https://www.whistleout.com.au/Broadband/Guides/broadband-speeds-how-fast-do-you-need">scale</a>. </p>
<p>Currently, no <a href="https://www.whistleout.com.au/Broadband/Guides/broadband-speeds-how-fast-do-you-need">FTTN services</a> and <a href="https://www.itnews.com.au/news/nbn-co-limits-gigabit-services-to-just-7-percent-of-hfc-footprint-548704">few HFC services</a> can support such speeds.</p>
<p>Moreover, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s <a href="https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/MBA_Report%209.pdf">NBN monitoring report</a> published in May (during the pandemic) found in about 95% of cases, NBN plans only delivered 83-91% of the maximum advertised speed. </p>
<p>The report also showed 10% of the monitored services were underperforming – and 95% of these were FTTN services. This makes a strong case for the need to upgrade FTTN. </p>
<h2>Who will benefit?</h2>
<p>While the NBN’s most <a href="https://www.nbnco.com.au/content/dam/nbnco2/2019/documents/media-centre/corporate-plan-report-2020-2023.pdf">recent corporate plan</a> identifies work to be done across its various offerings (FTTN, FTTC, HFC, fixed wireless), it’s unclear exactly how much each system stands to gain from today’s announcements.</p>
<p>Ideally, urban and regional households that can’t access 100 megabits per second speeds would be prioritised for fibre expansion. The expanded FTTN network should also cover those <a href="https://thenewdaily.com.au/life/tech/2020/05/12/nbn-regional-broadband-tax-gig-state/">struggling to access</a> reliable broadband in regional Australia. </p>
<p>Bringing fibre cabling to households in remote areas would be difficult. One option, however, could be to extend fibre connections to an expanded network of base stations in regional Australia, thereby improving the NBN’s <a href="https://www.itnews.com.au/news/nbn-co-starts-testing-feasibility-of-mm-wave-for-future-fixed-wireless-546603">fixed wireless connectivity</a> capacity. </p>
<p>These base stations “beam” signals to nearby premises. Installing more stations would mean fewer premises covered by each (and therefore better connectivity for each). </p>
<p>Regardless, it’s important the upgrades happen quickly. Many NBN customers now working and studying from home will be waiting eagerly for a much-needed boost to their internet speed.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-boost-your-internet-speed-when-everyone-is-working-from-home-135313">How to boost your internet speed when everyone is working from home</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146749/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thas Ampalavanapillai Nirmalathas receives funding from the Australian Research Council through its competitive grant schemes (Discovery Projects, Linkage Projects, and Linkage Infrastructure and Equipment Facilities). He has also received funding from the State Government of Victoria for initiatives he has provided leadership. He has also collaborated with industry partners such as AT&T, Ericsson, Nokia, Google, NBN, InstaWireless, Digital Falcon, and Transurban and received industry research funding to research projects. </span></em></p>Millions of households are expected to gain access to upgraded internet connections, with speeds of up to one gigabit per second (if you’re willing to pay for the plan).Thas Ampalavanapillai Nirmalathas, Group Head - Electronic and Photonic Systems Group and Professor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1353132020-04-02T04:55:17Z2020-04-02T04:55:17ZHow to boost your internet speed when everyone is working from home<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/324803/original/file-20200402-23115-17am6p0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=34%2C8%2C5699%2C3807&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>With #StayAtHome and social distancing now becoming a way of life, an increasing number of people are relying on the internet for work, education and entertainment. This has placed greater demand on our network infrastructure, reducing the <a href="https://www.nbnco.com.au/utility/glossary-of-terms">bandwidth</a> available for each user, and is leaving people frustrated at seemingly slow internet speeds. </p>
<p>While internet service providers such as TPG or Telstra may not be able to instantly respond to these changes, there are a few tricks you can use to boost your home internet’s speed.</p>
<h2>Why is your internet slow?</h2>
<p>There may be many reasons why your internet speed is slow. Internet use requires a reliable connection between your device and the destination, which may be a server that is physically located on the other side of the world.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/324804/original/file-20200402-23121-12pnqu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/324804/original/file-20200402-23121-12pnqu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/324804/original/file-20200402-23121-12pnqu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/324804/original/file-20200402-23121-12pnqu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/324804/original/file-20200402-23121-12pnqu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/324804/original/file-20200402-23121-12pnqu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/324804/original/file-20200402-23121-12pnqu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/324804/original/file-20200402-23121-12pnqu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Did you try turning your router off and on again? Tip: make sure it’s turned off for at least ten seconds.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Your connection to that server could pass through <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_to_live">hundreds</a> of devices on its journey. Each one of these is a potential failure, or weak point. If one point along this path isn’t functioning optimally, this can significantly affect your internet experience.</p>
<p>Web servers in particular are often affected by external factors, including <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-botnet-to-malware-a-guide-to-decoding-cybersecurity-buzzwords-77958">Denial of Service (DOS)</a> attacks, wherein an overload of traffic causes congestion in the server, and impedes proper functioning.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/mygovs-ill-timed-meltdown-could-have-been-avoided-with-elastic-computing-134665">MyGov's ill-timed meltdown could have been avoided with 'elastic computing'</a>
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<p>While you may not have control over these things from your home network, that doesn’t mean you don’t have options to improve your internet speed. </p>
<h2>Wifi signal boost</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://kb.netgear.com/235/What-is-a-wireless-access-point">access point</a> (wireless router) in your home network is used to connect your devices to your internet service provider. Most access points provide a wireless signal with limited channels, which can suffer interference from nearby signals, like your neighbour’s. A “channel” is a kind of virtual “pipe” through which data is transferred.</p>
<p>Although your devices are designed to avoid interference by switching channels automatically (there are usually 14 available), it may help to check your router settings, as some are set to a single channel by default. When trying different options to reduce interference, it’s advisable to select <a href="https://www.metageek.com/training/resources/why-channels-1-6-11.html">channels 1, 6 or 11</a> as they can help to minimise problems (for 2.4GHz wireless).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/324761/original/file-20200401-23130-molfs4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/324761/original/file-20200401-23130-molfs4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/324761/original/file-20200401-23130-molfs4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=245&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/324761/original/file-20200401-23130-molfs4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=245&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/324761/original/file-20200401-23130-molfs4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=245&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/324761/original/file-20200401-23130-molfs4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=308&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/324761/original/file-20200401-23130-molfs4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=308&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/324761/original/file-20200401-23130-molfs4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=308&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This diagram shows the frequency and channel distribution for 2.4GHz.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/344491/an-update-on-creative-commons-licensing?cb=1">Rob/Stack Exchange</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>What else can you do?</h2>
<p>There are further things you can try to improve your wifi signal. If your router supports 5GHz wifi signals, <a href="https://www.techadvisor.co.uk/how-to/network-wifi/how-change-wi-fi-channel-3325316/">switching to this</a> can provide a faster data rate, but over shorter distances. Reposition your router for best coverage (usually a central position). </p>
<p>The difference between 2.4GHz and 5GHz wifi signals is they have different data transmission speeds. While 5GHz can transfer data faster (with 23 available channels), 2.4GHz provides a wider range. If you want speed, go for 5GHz. For better coverage, choose 2.4GHz.</p>
<p>Some domestic appliances can cause interference with your router. It’s worth checking if using your microwave oven, cordless phone or baby monitor affects your connection, as they may be using the same frequency as your router. </p>
<p>Using a <a href="https://www.pcmag.com/news/wireless-witch-how-to-place-a-wireless-extender">wifi extender</a> can help with coverage by boosting or extending the signal.</p>
<h2>Viruses and malware</h2>
<p>To avoid computer viruses, make sure you regularly check for updates on your devices and use antivirus software. It’s also worth rebooting your router to clear specific malware (malicious software designed to damage your device or server), such as <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-actions-disrupt-advanced-persistent-threat-28-botnet-infected">VPNFilter</a> – a malware that <a href="https://blog.malwarebytes.com/cybercrime/2018/06/vpnfilter-malware-still-making-waves/">infects more than half a million routers</a> in more than 50 countries.</p>
<p>You should also check the following:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>does your router need to be replaced with a newer model? This may be the case if it has been used for many years. Newer models support enhanced functions and faster internet speeds</p></li>
<li><p>is the <a href="https://techterms.com/definition/firmware">firmware</a> of your wireless router <a href="https://windowsreport.com/update-router-firmware/">updated</a>? You can do this by visiting the device manufacturer’s website. This will help fix problems and allow additional functionality. It’s unlikely this update is done automatically. </p></li>
</ul>
<h2>Planning your internet usage</h2>
<p>If multiple people are streaming video at your home, which often requires <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/mar/13/covid-19-could-cause-permanent-shift-towards-home-working">ten times the daytime demand</a>, a limited internet connection will soon be fully used.</p>
<p>Try to plan your and family members’ online activities around peak times. Before the pandemic hit, most internet usage was likely oriented around the early evenings, after close of business. With the shift to remote working and schooling, more internet access is likely during the day, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/mar/13/covid-19-could-cause-permanent-shift-towards-home-working">with a 10% usage increase overall, and a 30% increase at peak times</a>.</p>
<p>Outside your home, connectivity is likely to be on a “best effort” plan, which shares a fixed bandwidth with other users. In other words, your mobile internet bandwidth is shared with others in your area when they access the internet at the same time. A shared bandwidth results in slower individual speeds.</p>
<p>You can’t control how many people access the internet, but you can manage your own internet activity by downloading large files or content overnight, or outside of peak hours (when there is less traffic).</p>
<h2>How to improve your ISP’s network issues</h2>
<p>While you can try to fix issues and optimise the setup inside your home, unfortunately you can’t really influence network performance outside of it. Thus, contacting your internet service provider’s call centre and seeking support is your best option.</p>
<p>All of the above considered, it’s important to remember that when using the internet, we’re sharing a limited resource. Just like buying pasta or toilet paper, there are many who need it just as much as you, so use it wisely.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/vital-signs-nbns-new-price-plans-are-too-little-too-late-123750">Vital Signs: NBN's new price plans are too little, too late</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/135313/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Your mobile internet bandwidth is shared with others in your area. That’s why many people trying to access the iternet at the same time results in slower speeds.James Jin Kang, Lecturer, Edith Cowan UniversityPaul Haskell-Dowland, Associate Dean (Computing and Security), Edith Cowan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1337782020-03-24T05:12:37Z2020-03-24T05:12:37Z‘Click for urgent coronavirus update’: how working from home may be exposing us to cybercrime<p>Apart from the obvious health and economic impacts, the coronavirus also presents a major opportunity for cybercriminals. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/life/coronavirus-covid-19-mental-health-working-from-home-advice/12062284">staff across sectors</a> and <a href="https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/uq-suspends-teaching-for-one-week-amid-escalating-coronavirus-concerns-20200316-p54ada.html">university students</a> shift to working and studying from home, large organisations are at increased risk of being targeted. With defences down, companies should go the extra mile to protect their business networks and employees at such a precarious time. </p>
<p>Reports suggest hackers are already exploiting remote workers, luring them into <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2020-03-23/coronavirus-phishing-scams-emails-texts-australians-vulnerable/12079486">online scams</a> masquerading as important information related to the pandemic. </p>
<p>On Friday, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s <a href="https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/news/warning-on-covid-19-scams">Scamwatch reported</a> that since January 1 it had received 94 reports of coronavirus-related scams, and this figure could rise.</p>
<p>As COVID-19 causes a spike in telework, teleheath and online education, cybercriminals have fewer hurdles to jump in gaining access to networks.</p>
<h2>High-speed access theft</h2>
<p>The National Broadband Network’s infrastructure has afforded many Australians access to higher-speed internet, compared with <a href="https://computer.howstuffworks.com/dsl.htm">DSL connections</a>. Unfortunately this also gives cybercriminals high-speed access to Australian homes, letting them rapidly extract personal and financial details from victims. </p>
<p>The shift to working from home means many people are using home computers, instead of more secure corporate-supplied devices. This provides criminals relatively easy access to corporate documents, trade secrets and financial information.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-your-it-departments-role-in-preventing-a-data-breach-25821">What's your IT department's role in preventing a data breach?</a>
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<p>Instead of attacking a corporation’s network, which would likely be secured with advanced cybersecurity countermeasures and tracking, they now simply have to locate and attack the employee’s home network. This means less chance of discovery. </p>
<h2>Beware cryptolocker attacks</h2>
<p><a href="https://usa.kaspersky.com/resource-center/definitions/cryptolocker">Cryptolocker-based attacks</a> are an advanced cyberattack that can bypass many traditional countermeasures, including <a href="https://www.techradar.com/au/best/best-antivirus">antivirus software</a>. This is because they’re designed and built by advanced cybercriminals. </p>
<p>Most infections from a cryptolocker virus happen when people open unknown attachments, sent in malicious emails.</p>
<p>In some cases, the attack can be traced to nation state actors. One example is the infamous <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/12/wannacry-two-years-on/">WannaCry cyberattack</a>, which deployed <a href="https://www.avg.com/en/signal/what-is-malware">malware</a> (software designed to cause harm) that encrypted computers in more than 150 countries. The hackers, supposedly from North Korea, demanded cryptocurrency in exchange for unlocking them. </p>
<p>If an employee working from home accidentally activates cryptolocker malware while browsing the internet or reading an email, this could first take out the home network, then spread to the corporate network, and to other attached home networks. </p>
<p>This can happen if their device is connected to the workplace network via a <a href="https://computer.howstuffworks.com/vpn.htm">Virtual Private Network (VPN)</a>. This makes the home device an extension of the corporate network, and the virus can bypass any advanced barriers the corporate network may have. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hackers-are-now-targeting-councils-and-governments-threatening-to-leak-citizen-data-126190">Hackers are now targeting councils and governments, threatening to leak citizen data</a>
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<p>If devices are attached to a network that has been infected and not completely cleaned, the contaminant can rapidly spread again and again. In fact, a single device that isn’t cleaned properly can cause millions of dollars in damage. This happened during the <a href="https://www.csoonline.com/article/3233210/petya-ransomware-and-notpetya-malware-what-you-need-to-know-now.html">2016 Petya and NotPetya malware attack</a>. </p>
<h2>Encryption: not a cryptic concept</h2>
<p>On the bright side, there are some steps organisations and employees can take to protect their digital assets from opportunistic criminal activity.</p>
<p><a href="https://medium.com/searchencrypt/what-is-encryption-how-does-it-work-e8f20e340537">Encryption</a> is a key weapon in this fight. This security method protects files and network communications by methodically “scrambling” the contents using an algorithm. The receiving party is given a key to unscramble, or “decrypt”, the information. </p>
<p>With remote work booming, encryption should be enabled for files on <a href="https://www.pcworld.com/article/2858642/you-can-encrypt-your-hard-drive-but-the-protection-may-not-be-worth-the-hassle.html">hard drives</a> and <a href="https://us.norton.com/internetsecurity-how-to-encrypt-a-flash-drive.html">USB sticks</a> that contain sensitive information. </p>
<p>Enabling encryption on a <a href="https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/4028713/windows-10-turn-on-device-encryption">Windows</a> or <a href="https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204837">Apple</a> device is also simple. And don’t forget to backup your encryption keys when prompted onto a USB drive, and store them in a safe place such as a locked cabinet, or off site. </p>
<h2>VPNs help close the loop</h2>
<p>A <a href="https://us.norton.com/internetsecurity-privacy-safe-vpn.html">VPN should be used</a> at all times when connected to WiFi, even at home. This tool helps mask your online activity and location, by routing outgoing and incoming data through a secure “virtual tunnel” between your computer and the VPN server.</p>
<p>Existing WiFi access protocols (<a href="https://www.tutorialspoint.com/wi-fi/wifi_access_protocols.htm">WEP, WPA, WPA2</a>) are insecure when being used to transmit sensitive data. Without a VPN, cybercriminals can more easily intercept and retrieve data. </p>
<p>VPN is already functional in <a href="https://www.windowscentral.com/how-manually-configure-vpn-windows-10">Windows</a> and <a href="https://support.apple.com/en-au/guide/mac-help/mchlp2963/10.15/mac/10.15">Apple</a> devices. Most reputable antivirus internet protection suites incorporate them. </p>
<p>It’s also important that businesses and organisations encourage remote employees to use <a href="https://www.pcworld.com/article/3219792/best-antivirus-for-windows-pc.html">the best malware and antiviral protections</a> on their home systems, even if this comes at the organisation’s expense. </p>
<h2>Backup, backup, backup</h2>
<p>People often backup their files on a home computer, personal phone or tablet. There is significant risk in doing this with corporate documents and sensitive digital files.</p>
<p>When working from home, sensitive material can be stored in a location unknown to the organisation. This could be <a href="https://computer.howstuffworks.com/cloud-computing/cloud-storage.htm">a cloud location</a> (such as iCloud, Google Cloud, or Dropbox), or via backup software the user owns or uses. Files stored in these locations may not protected under Australian laws.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-we-can-each-fight-cybercrime-with-smarter-habits-36686">How we can each fight cybercrime with smarter habits</a>
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<p>Businesses choosing to save files on the cloud, on an external hard drive or on a home computer need to identify backup regimes that fit the risk profile of their business. Essentially, if you don’t allow files to be saved on a computer’s hard drive at work, and use the cloud exclusively, the same level of protection should apply when working from home. </p>
<p>Appropriate backups must observed by all remote workers, along with standard cybersecurity measures such as firewall, encryption, VPN and antivirus software. Only then can we rely on some level of protection at a time when cybercriminals are desperate to profit.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/133778/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Craig Valli works for Edith Cowan University and Cyber Security CRC. He has received project funding from the European Union FP7 and H2020 programs and from Australian Government programs. Craig is also a Fellow of the Australian Computer Society and member of AISA, IEEE and HTCIA.</span></em></p>Instead of going after large corporate networks, which often have multiple defenses, cybercriminals can now simply target people’s home networks.Craig Valli, Director of ECU Security Research Institute, Edith Cowan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1339052020-03-18T03:05:20Z2020-03-18T03:05:20ZCoronavirus: telcos are picking up where the NBN is failing. Here’s what it means for you<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321204/original/file-20200318-37392-1yb6ry3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=105%2C81%2C5320%2C3538&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> </figcaption></figure><p>Telecommunication providers are taking positive steps to meet consumers’ demands in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, the National Broadband Network (NBN Co) is being urged to reduce its wholesale broadband charges for these providers. </p>
<p>Companies such as Telstra and Optus offer broadband plans over the NBN, purchasing broadband data from the NBN at wholesale prices, which they then distribute to customers. In this time of crisis, the NBN should slash its wholesale prices. This will enable providers to purchase the extra data needed to meet demand as the country adopts widespread social-distancing.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/nbn-urged-to-intervene-as-pandemic-tests-broadband-connections-20200316-p54ain.html">Several</a> <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/technology/unprecedented-demand-for-nbn/news-story/753610eb604595b878cd8880739d4618">media</a> <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/nbn-braces-for-increased-load-as-covid-19-keeps-people-at-home/12062128">outlets</a> have covered how data usage over the NBN is expected to boom as more people self-isolate, and start working and studying from home. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, at a time when Australians are depending on the NBN for high speeds and reliable connections for telework and remote education, many people may be let down. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1239366108450189312"}"></div></p>
<h2>Expect strain</h2>
<p>Communications representatives from <a href="https://www.paulfletcher.com.au/media-releases/media-release-telco-industry-roundtable-on-covid-19">both</a> <a href="https://www.michellerowland.com.au/news/media-releases-communications/media-release-temporary-capacity-relief-for-telcos-should-be-considered-if-nbn-becomes-congested-16-march-2020/">sides</a> of government have acknowledged the virus’s spread will lead to hordes of people becoming reliant on the web for work and study. </p>
<p>This will lead to increased online traffic, slower internet speeds and higher wholesale costs for providers serviced by the NBN, limiting the amount of extra data these providers can purchase.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/working-at-home-to-avoid-coronavirus-this-tech-lets-you-almost-replicate-the-office-133350">Working at home to avoid coronavirus? This tech lets you (almost) replicate the office</a>
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<p>On Monday the <a href="https://www.paulfletcher.com.au/media-releases/media-release-telco-industry-roundtable-on-covid-19">federal government</a> reported the NBN had experienced a “modest increase of around 6% throughout the day and at peak times” in comparison to figures predating COVID-19’s spread.</p>
<p>Looking forward, the network expects busy-hour traffic, typically between 6pm and 9pm, to <a href="https://minister.infrastructure.gov.au/fletcher/media-release/telco-industry-roundtable-covid-19">increase by up to 40%</a>, in line with other countries’ experiences. In Italy, data shared with NBN by <a href="https://www.telecomitalia.com/tit/it.html">Telecom Italia</a> showed Italy’s busy-hour traffic had increased by about 26%.</p>
<h2>A second-rate system</h2>
<p>In Australia, the Coalition government’s 2013 decision to move to a copper-based multi-technology-mix NBN, instead of Labor’s all-fibre network with fibre to the premises (FTTP), has seen Australia fall down the global broadband rankings. Fibre to the premises is when fibre-optic lines run from the nearest available node directly to a premises.</p>
<p>Currently, low-quality streaming over the NBN occurs for two reasons. Firstly, because of the NBN’s high data charges for service providers, and also because of the second-rate multi-technology-mix infrastructure. And this will only worsen as more people adhere to social-distancing and isolation measures.</p>
<p>Entertainment and sport are often streamed over the NBN at a resolution of 576p rather than the high-definition 1080p or 4K. Frustrated viewers are left watching media at a quality similar to old analogue television, due to the NBN’s use of obsolete, slow and unreliable technology since 2014, under the Coalition government.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-could-spark-a-revolution-in-working-from-home-are-we-ready-133070">Coronavirus could spark a revolution in working from home. Are we ready?</a>
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<p>Media streaming companies including <a href="https://www.foxtel.com.au/whats-on/foxtel-insider/foxtel/iq4k/satellite-vs-internet.html">Foxtel</a> have also complained their poor streaming quality is a result of this.</p>
<p>With COVID-19 causing mass disruptions, Comcast-owned media and entertainment company NBCUniversal recently <a href="https://corporate.comcast.com/press/releases/comcast-nbcuniversal-moves-to-make-current-movies-available-in-the-home">announced</a> it will end the practice of delaying online film releases to streaming companies like Netflix for several months after the film’s cinema release. </p>
<p>NBCUniversal said, in reference to social distancing and smaller audiences expected at cinemas: “Current circumstances have made it more challenging to view our films.”</p>
<p>Unfortunately for Australians, even if we can get new movies over the NBN the same day they’re released, we could be stuck with poor quality and congestion during peak times. </p>
<h2>Our neighbours set an example</h2>
<p>In New Zealand, an FTTP rollout has been progressing since 2012. Connections to Chorus <a href="https://www.chorus.co.nz/">UFB broadband</a> (New Zealand’s NBN equivalent) cost a flat monthly fee for service providers, don’t incur a data usage charge and have no data usage limits. </p>
<p>This has allowed companies to quickly respond to the pandemic, and they have begun offering extra content free of charge. For instance, <a href="http://itwire.com/entertainment/nz-s-spark-sport-channel-offers-free-viewing-until-may.html">Spark Sport</a> is providing its six sports channels and on-demand offerings at no charge for existing and new customers until May.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.nbnco.com.au/corporate-information/media-centre/media-statements/increase-in-residential-data-demand">statement</a>, NBN Co chief executive Stephen Rue said the company was working with retailers to “do everything possible to optimise the NBN to support the expected increase in residential use”.</p>
<p>On Tuesday, when asked if there would be cost subsidies for retailers or consumers, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/nbn-braces-for-increased-load-as-covid-19-keeps-people-at-home/12062128">Rue told the ABC</a> the NBN was working with retailers, to ensure they would be provided with “the capacity they need”.</p>
<p>The NBN published a guide on <a href="http://www.nbn.com.au/workingfromhome">working from home</a> during the pandemic. It highlights the need for broadband consumers to purchase an NBN plan that offers the right speed necessary for their internet activities. </p>
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<h2>NBN, now’s the time to show-up for Australians</h2>
<p>While the NBN is set to benefit from the extra data usage during the pandemic, Telstra and Optus have taken a <a href="https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/technology/telstra-optus-offer-free-internet-access-during-coronavirus-pandemic-calls-for-nbn-to-follow/news-story/06d4540a20b35a9ba358807dfa29c14e">positive step</a> by offering customers additional broadband data and internet access, free of charge.</p>
<p>During April, <a href="https://www.optus.com.au/for-you/support/answer?id=20065">Optus will provide an additional 20GB for postpaid mobile customers and 10GB for prepaid</a> customers. <a href="https://exchange.telstra.com.au/supporting-our-customers-during-covid-19/">Telstra has gone one step further to provide an extra 25GB for postpaid mobile customers</a>, if they apply for it through <a href="https://www.telstra.com.au/my-account/telstra-24x7-app">the Telstra 24x7 app</a>. </p>
<p>Moreover, Telstra home broadband users will have unlimited data from this Thursday until April 30. Telstra will be paying NBN a potentially huge amount for this extra data deployment. </p>
<p>For the sake of the public, the NBN should reduce its wholesale data charges during this pandemic. It could look to move to a flat monthly access fee with no data usage charges, similar to the approach taken in New Zealand.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/telecommuting-could-curb-the-coronavirus-epidemic-133308">Telecommuting could curb the coronavirus epidemic</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<p>The good news is the NBN will probably eventually heed calls to action and lower these charges. </p>
<p>The network is already a lemon, and it’s unlikely the NBN Co board will risk the public backlash it will receive if it’s seen trying to shore up its weak bottom line at a time of national crisis.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/133905/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark A Gregory does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Telstra and Optus have already made arrangements to support customers with extra, free data during the COVID-19 pandemic. But what is the NBN doing?Mark A Gregory, Associate professor, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1233592019-09-17T04:25:01Z2019-09-17T04:25:01ZApple Arcade and Google Stadia aim to offer frictionless gaming, if your NBN plan can handle it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292734/original/file-20190917-19059-xioc33.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C21%2C2035%2C1339&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Google's Stadia will be available through the Google Chrome web browser, on smartphones, smart televisions, tablets, and through Chromecast.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stadia_Cloud_gaming_Gamescom_Cologne_2019_(48605890597).jpg">dronepicr/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Two of the biggest tech companies in the world, Apple and Google, are launching cloud-based gaming services this year. </p>
<p>Apple Arcade, due for release in two days, will ultimately go head-to-head with Google’s Stadia when the latter launches in November. And both will also be battling a surprising foe: friction.</p>
<p>In this context, “friction” means anything that increases inconvenience for the user. Friction makes you take extra steps, think more than necessary, or work harder to get the service you want. In designing a gaming platform, friction is bad. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/gaming-through-the-ages-older-australians-are-embracing-video-games-44899">Gaming through the ages: older Australians are embracing video games</a>
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<p>Both companies will attempt to reduce friction by using <a href="https://azure.microsoft.com/en-au/overview/what-is-cloud-computing/">cloud technology</a> to store digital resources and services on their own servers, and deliver them to clients through the internet. </p>
<p>The game files will thus be stored and shared in much the same way that documents or photos are currently handled via DropBox, Google Drive, and Apple’s iCloud.</p>
<p>Specifically, Apple Arcade will use a model called “infrastructure as a service”. As long as you have an Apple device, you can play hundreds of games at any time, from any location, including offline (once you’ve downloaded the game). </p>
<p>This model outsources the problem of data storage to remote data centres around the world. The user’s device remains responsible for the operating system, maintenance of the software (such as <a href="https://www.techopedia.com/definition/24537/patch">patches</a> and graphics drivers) and real-time processing of data.</p>
<p>Google Stadia is planning to use a slightly different model, called “platform as a service”. This means Google will take care of all the maintenance and processing requirements too, so the user’s device acts only as a receptacle for hosting the application and user data.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292149/original/file-20190912-190031-15mafrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292149/original/file-20190912-190031-15mafrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292149/original/file-20190912-190031-15mafrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=295&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292149/original/file-20190912-190031-15mafrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=295&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292149/original/file-20190912-190031-15mafrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=295&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292149/original/file-20190912-190031-15mafrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292149/original/file-20190912-190031-15mafrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292149/original/file-20190912-190031-15mafrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Google’s Stadia has a ‘platform as a service’ model which requires the user to maintain only certain aspects of data and the application on their device.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Laura Bernheim / Author provided</span></span>
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<h2>Budget-friendly gaming?</h2>
<p>Both services will use a flat rate, monthly subscription model to let users play a multitude of games that would otherwise cost hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars. </p>
<p>For Apple Arcade all games are included in this fee, but you need suitable Apple hardware. </p>
<p>Ambitiously, Google’s Stadia promises to eradicate the limitation of hardware cost. Google will handle the hardware requirements, software processing and maintenance. </p>
<p>Instead of needing an expensive PC with the latest hardware and software, or dedicated gaming console, Stadia users simply need an inexpensive computing device such as a phone, Chromecast, or smart TV. All of the heavier processing requirements will be handled by Google, and the games simply beamed to your device. </p>
<p>However, unlike Apple Arcade, Stadia requires payment for individual games (neither of the services will have in-app purchases requiring additional payment).</p>
<p>When it comes to mobility, both Stadia and Apple Arcade will offer gameplay across multiple devices, from any location with all progress saved. </p>
<p>Sounds great right? What could possibly be the downside of these services?</p>
<p>We should heed culture critic Neil Postman’s <a href="https://mcluhangalaxy.wordpress.com/2012/03/04/neil-postman-on-technologys-faustian-bargain/">warning regarding technology</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>New technology is a kind of Faustian bargain. It always gives us something, but it always takes away something important. That’s true of the alphabet, and the printing press, and telegraph, right up through the computer.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Faustian bargain in this context involves privacy and data, connectivity, and user control. </p>
<h2>Privacy and data</h2>
<p>As with any network technology, as soon as you opt into Apple Arcade or Google Stadia, your data becomes part of their system. </p>
<p>In digital games, it’s possible to track all kinds of user behaviour as you play. </p>
<p>While this might not lead to the building of psychological profiles and user manipulation on the scale of the Facebook <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/17/facebook-cambridge-analytica-kogan-data-algorithm">Cambridge Analytica scandal</a>, Google and other Silicon Valley giants have <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/should-big-tech-own-our-personal-data/">an awful record of respecting user privacy</a>.</p>
<h2>Network connectivity</h2>
<p>Bad internet connection? Sorry, you’re out. </p>
<p>If you opt for Apple Arcade, this is less of a problem as you can download the game and play offline, but depending on your connection it can take minutes or hours before you can start playing - and let’s hope you don’t have a monthly data limit.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, to achieve 4K resolution streaming using Stadia, you require a steady flow of 20 megabits per second (Mbps). This will require a National Broadband Network (NBN) connection, but the <a href="https://www.whistleout.com.au/Broadband/Guides/what-nbn-speed-do-you-need">entry-level NBN plan achieves a meagre 7Mpbs average</a>.</p>
<p>Even for 720p resolution, <a href="https://www.videosolo.com/tutorials/screen-resolution-comparison.html">which barely qualifies as high-definition</a>, you need 10Mbps. Simply put, you’re going to need to pay for an upper-tier NBN plan, assuming that’s even possible in your area.</p>
<h2>Mods and extras</h2>
<p>Apple Arcade and Google Stadia also remove the potential for mods in gaming. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.pcgamer.com/au/a-beginners-guide-to-mods/">Mods</a> (an abbreviation of “user modification”) are extensions that offer new levels, items, quests, or characters. These are made by amateur game developers and made available, generally for free, across the internet on various platforms such as Valve’s Steam.</p>
<p>The mod scene has had an <a href="https://www.polygon.com/2013/9/2/4672920/moba-dota-arts-a-brief-introduction-to-gamings-biggest-most">enormous influence</a> on gaming culture. The World of Warcraft 3 mod, Defense of the Ancients (DotA), popularised the now enormously successful Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) genre. Counter-Strike began as a mod for Half-Life.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/gamers-use-machine-learning-to-navigate-complex-video-games-but-its-not-free-114906">Gamers use machine learning to navigate complex video games – but it's not free</a>
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<p>Both Apple Arcade and Google’s Stadia operate as closed systems, not allowing user modification in any substantial way. Any mod scene for these services is, at the moment, impossible by design.</p>
<p>And although Google is an enormous company, if the Stadia service is cancelled, all of its users will lose their individual game purchases.</p>
<h2>A frictionless bargain?</h2>
<p>We all want less friction in our lives. </p>
<p>We want things to be easy and accessible. In this sense, cloud technology offers a seductive bargain, encapsulated in one of Apple’s slogans: “it just works”. </p>
<p>Yet, in pursuit of things “just working”, we make sacrifices. We offer up our privacy, data and control.</p>
<p>The question becomes, what are we willing to lose in striking this bargain? Because, as Neil Postman reminds us, we will always lose something.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123359/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Conway does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Google’s Stadia and Apple Arcade will rattle the gaming world this year. Both aim to solve current limitations, but as user experience improves, issues around connectivity and cost arise.Steven Conway, Senior Lecturer - Games and Interactivity, Swinburne University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/895212018-01-05T16:05:10Z2018-01-05T16:05:10ZNet neutrality may be dead in the US, but Europe is still strongly committed to open internet access<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200885/original/file-20180105-26151-sgjya7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/475354096?size=huge_jpg&src=lb-59856941&sort=newestFirst&offset=3">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The belief that unrestricted internet access is vital to modern life is not necessarily a view held by all businesses that provide internet services. And now that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/dec/14/net-neutrality-fcc-rules-open-internet">net neutrality</a> – the equal treatment of all data sent and received without differential charges and service quality – has come to an end in the US, how will this affect the rest of the world?</p>
<p>The idea that all internet service providers (ISPs) treat all data and users equally is, in theory, the best deal for customers as well as for businesses. Net neutrality allows businesses to compete on service quality, and provides users with a choice across the range of all providers.</p>
<p>But on December 14, 2017, the US <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/about-fcc/what-we-do">Federal Communications Commission</a> (FCC) effectively <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/after-fcc-vote-net-neutrality-fight-moves-to-courts-congress/">reneged</a> on its own 2015 <a href="https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-15-24A1.pdf">Open Internet Order</a>, which was devised to allow open and fair access to the internet. This decision was made even though users and many technology companies and content providers such as Google, Facebook and Netflix <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-42096185">remained strongly in favour</a> of net neutrality.</p>
<h2>The loss of net neutrality</h2>
<p>At the time, pioneering internet tech experts <a href="https://pioneersfornetneutrality.tumblr.com">warned against</a> removing net neutrality rules, effectively accusing the FCC of not understanding how the internet works. This ruling means that in the US, providers will be able to slow down data traffic to and from certain websites, give preferential treatment to other websites and charge differently for different types of content, such as web access, video streaming, social media and so on.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200887/original/file-20180105-159080-71jn97.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200887/original/file-20180105-159080-71jn97.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=727&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200887/original/file-20180105-159080-71jn97.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=727&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200887/original/file-20180105-159080-71jn97.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=727&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200887/original/file-20180105-159080-71jn97.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200887/original/file-20180105-159080-71jn97.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200887/original/file-20180105-159080-71jn97.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Former counsel for communications giant Verizon, Ajit Pai is now Chairman of the FCC which voted in December to abolish net neutrality in America.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajit_Pai#/media/File:Ajit_V._Pai_headshot.jpg">Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With net neutrality gone, there are fears that some content, services and applications may be completely <a href="https://www.tomsguide.com/us/net-neutrality-free-speech,news-18792.html">blocked</a> by some ISPs. <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/reports-research/reports/broadband-progress-reports/2016-broadband-progress-report">Not everyone</a> in the US has a wide choice of broadband providers, so it is not easy for some citizens to “take their business elsewhere” if they are not satisfied with their provider.</p>
<p>Among other things, supporters of net neutrality fear a <a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/gop-net-neutrality-bill-would-allow-paid-fast-lanes-and-preempt-state-laws/">loss of consumer protection</a>. However, supporters of the FCC ruling say that it could encourage ISPs to <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/internet-isps-competition-net-neutrality-ajit-pai-fcc-2017-4">invest in new infrastructure</a> by allowing them more flexibility in the services they offer. This could enable improved access for many, as well as increased competition that would benefit users.</p>
<h2>Impact beyond the US</h2>
<p>So how does this decision in the US affect the UK and continental Europe? In the UK, net neutrality is currently protected by <a href="https://publications.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/8fdf5d08-93fc-11e5-983e-01aa75ed71a1/language-en">EU policy 2015-2120</a> in support of a <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/open-internet-net-neutrality">Digital Single Market</a> – Brexit fallout aside. Potentially, after Brexit, the UK government could choose to revoke this policy, although this is unlikely because it has already committed to a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/broadband-universal-service-obligation-consultation-on-design">Universal Service Obligation</a> (USO), effectively making broadband access a legal requirement, as it has been <a href="https://www.lvm.fi/en/-/more-speed-for-broadband-universal-service-796925">in Finland</a> for many years.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200886/original/file-20180105-26154-pmy3ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200886/original/file-20180105-26154-pmy3ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200886/original/file-20180105-26154-pmy3ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200886/original/file-20180105-26154-pmy3ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200886/original/file-20180105-26154-pmy3ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200886/original/file-20180105-26154-pmy3ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200886/original/file-20180105-26154-pmy3ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">OFCOM has announced proposals to issue considerable fines to internet companies providing poor service.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/no-internet-webpage-design-concept-vector-682027510">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Additionally, ISPs are held to account by the UK communications regulator <a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/what-is-ofcom">OFCOM</a>, which is tasked with ensuring fair play and protecting consumers from poor service. There has been widespread criticism that OFCOM has been <a href="https://diginomica.com/2016/07/26/bt-wins-uk-loses-as-spineless-regulator-ofcom-fails-to-force-openreach-split/">slow and ineffective</a> in persuading big players such as <a href="https://www.homeandbusiness.openreach.co.uk/about-us">BT/Openreach</a> to act responsibly in the past, though it has made <a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/consultations-and-statements/category-3/delivering-a-more-independent-openreach">progress</a> recently.</p>
<p>OFCOM also has proposals for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/mar/24/broadband-users-in-line-for-millions-in-ofcom-compensation-plan">punitive fines</a> for those who provide poor service. Meanwhile, OFCOM’s own December 2017 <a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/latest/features-and-news/connected-nations-digital-divide">report</a> states that millions of UK households and businesses still lack decent broadband access.</p>
<hr>
<p><em><strong>Read more: <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-internet-is-giving-a-voice-to-those-on-the-margins-losing-net-neutrality-will-take-it-away-89259">The internet is giving a voice to those on the margins – losing net neutrality will take it away</a></strong></em> </p>
<hr>
<p>Even with the EU policy and OFCOM in place, many users in the UK and continental Europe experience huge variation in broadband access speeds, quality of connection and customer service. Various providers also have preferential deals already in place with specific content providers, such as the recent <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42364401">deal</a> between BT and Sky for certain TV channels. Which goes to show that the existence of net neutrality does not stop content providers and ISPs making mutually beneficial business arrangements.</p>
<p>However, current EU policy does prevent blocking and slow-down of any content, services and applications. Now, hot on the heels of the FCC ruling, there are <a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/gop-net-neutrality-bill-would-allow-paid-fast-lanes-and-preempt-state-laws/">calls</a> in the US for “no blocking, no slow-down” regulation to counter the loss of net neutrality rules.</p>
<p>But there is concern that the FCC ruling in the US could pave the way for similar moves in other countries. The greatest negative impact could be on those who are already digitally impoverished, with poor access to knowledge and information, or where governments could impose <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2017/12/what_the_internet_is_like_in_countries_without_net_neutrality.html">access restrictions</a> more easily.</p>
<h2>Taking a lead from Finland</h2>
<p>But while things look encouraging with the UK government’s Finnish-style commitment to a Universal Service Obligation, access speeds will need to keep increasing. While Finland’s groundbreaking national USO was a great step forward, the requirement is for only a <a href="https://www.simplifydigital.co.uk/news/articles/2013/11/ofcom-suggests-2mbps-is-too-slow-for-even-basic-broadband/">2Mbps</a> service. Most people would consider that inadequate for modern uses, especially for streaming video.</p>
<p>The UK’s USO aims for at least <a href="http://www.techradar.com/news/10-mbps-broadband-will-soon-be-a-legal-right-in-the-uk">10Mbps</a> for all citizens by 2020 which, considering the <a href="http://www.wired.co.uk/article/uk-broadband-speed">current average</a> UK internet speed is 16.51 Mbps, seems a bit paltry. Of course, we shall have to wait and see how far the UK actually progresses towards rolling out 10Mbps for the entire country.</p>
<p>Given the demand for net neutrality among users, as well as support from many technology companies and content providers, there would seem to be a business opportunity for ISPs to offer a net-neutrality service to attract customers, as much as there might be to make deals with content providers.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200883/original/file-20180105-26163-81wjyi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200883/original/file-20180105-26163-81wjyi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200883/original/file-20180105-26163-81wjyi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200883/original/file-20180105-26163-81wjyi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200883/original/file-20180105-26163-81wjyi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200883/original/file-20180105-26163-81wjyi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200883/original/file-20180105-26163-81wjyi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">B4RN is a local initiative in the north of England that seeks to bring high-speed internet to rural areas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://b4rn.org.uk/">www.b4rn.org.uk</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Users’ need for global and open access is clearly visible. Currently there is a <a href="https://irtf.org/gaia">global research community</a> promoting access for all, as well as initiatives by users themselves in local communities. These are cooperative schemes facilitating high-speed, unconstrained internet access like <a href="https://b4rn.org.uk">B4RN</a> in the north of England and <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/good-practice-remix-distributed-internet-exchange-remote-and-rural-networks-scotland">RemIX</a> in the Scottish Highlands and Islands.</p>
<h2>The global view</h2>
<p>In terms of global scope, the UN has recognised that internet access is a vital <a href="http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2015/12/countries-adopt-plan-to-use-internet-in-implementation-of-sustainable-development-goals/">enabler</a> for realising its own <a href="http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/">Sustainable Development Goals</a>, designed to address inequality and improve the everyday lives of millions around the world.</p>
<p>So, while the FCC ruling may be a blow for those wanting unrestricted access to the internet in the US, there is plenty of activity worldwide which supports users of open internet access. But complacency would be unwise; it would be preferable to have net neutrality support from national governments, and there are many parts of the world – the US and the UK included – where internet access could be improved.</p>
<p>However, one of the most attractive attributes of internet access – empowerment – means that the internet itself remains the most effective platform for users to communicate, coordinate and pursue improved open access to information, now and for the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89521/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Saleem Bhatti is member of the Global Access to the Internet for All (GAIA) Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) Research Group (<a href="https://irtf.org/gaia">https://irtf.org/gaia</a>). </span></em></p>The end of net neutrality in the US does not mean the rest of the world will follow – and there’s plenty of evidence that demonstrates continued commitment to open access.Saleem Bhatti, Professor of Computer Science, University of St AndrewsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/813342017-07-26T06:27:50Z2017-07-26T06:27:50ZAustralians left to monitor their own NBN broadband speeds<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179739/original/file-20170726-23211-1v16yni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A simple broadband speed test from speedof.me</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock/garagestock/Screenshot from http://speedof.me</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has pledged to <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-accc-threatens-to-take-telstra-and-other-isps-to-court-over-misleading-nbn-speeds-81360">get tough on any Internet Service Providers</a> that mislead consumers about National Broadband Network speeds.</p>
<p>But how do you know if you’re getting a good deal when you connect to the NBN? How do you know if you’ll be getting the high-speed connection you were promised?</p>
<p>NBN Co is building the infrastructure, with <a href="http://www.nbnco.com.au/corporate-information/media-centre/media-releases/one-in-two-australians.html">5.7 million premises</a> now able to connect to the network via fibre, hybrid cable, wireless or satellite. To make that connection though, you have to deal with one of <a href="http://www.nbnco.com.au/connect-home-or-business/information-for-home/how-to-connect/service-provider-list.html">almost 150 listed ISPs</a>.</p>
<h2>Customers are ‘confused’</h2>
<p>The ACCC’s chairman Rod Sims <a href="https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/accc-on-changing-telecommunications-market-dynamic">says</a> we should expect a healthy and competitive sector. But <a href="https://www.accc.gov.au/speech/communications-at-the-turning-point">he also says</a> many consumers are “confused about broadband speed advertising” and the industry has been “inconsistent in making clear, accurate information available”.</p>
<p>So it is crucial for the ACCC to <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-20/accc-warns-big-four-telcos-over-failure-to-deliver-on-nbn-speeds/8726268">ensure that companies do not mislead consumers</a> about the speeds offered by their ISP.</p>
<p>The Australian market is different to that in the United Kingdom, where the regulator <a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/latest/media/media-releases/2017/helping-people-to-shop-around-and-secure-the-right-deal">Ofcom</a> actively provides accurate information to consumers to enable a comparison of services.</p>
<p>Australia takes a different approach, relying on protections available via consumer law, and encouraging industry self-regulation to provide the right information to the consumer.</p>
<p>The experience you get really depends on a range of factors relating to transmission quality, reflected as speed of connectivity and latency (delays) in exchanging information across the internet. Key factors include:</p>
<ul>
<li>how you connect to the internet router in your house (such as by Wi-Fi or ethernet)</li>
<li>the transmission quality from home to the Point of Interconnect (where the ISP’s network connects to the NBN) </li>
<li>transmission quality within the ISP network </li>
<li>transmission quality of the content delivery network. </li>
</ul>
<h2>Measuring the speed of your internet connection</h2>
<p>A basic speed test of any internet connection is a measure of the time it takes to transfer a fixed file from a server. The result is usually given in <a href="https://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/46647/mbps">Mbps</a> (Megabits per second).</p>
<p>Many ISPs, such as <a href="http://speedtest.telstra.com/">Telstra</a>, <a href="http://speedtest.syd.optusnet.com.au/">Optus</a> and <a href="https://www.iinet.net.au/internet-products/broadband/speed-test/">iiNet</a>, currently provide internet speed tests for their customers.</p>
<p>But speeds measured this way tend to reflect the connectivity from the ISP to the consumer. The speeds you experience in general use can be significantly lower than the “peak” speed advertised by the service provider. </p>
<p>To get a better idea of the real speed of your internet connection you should use <a href="http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/speed_tests">another speed testing service</a>, in addition to the one recommended by your ISP. </p>
<p>You should also repeat this measurement at various times of the day and keep detailed notes of any results. Some typical speed tests are:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.ozspeedtest.com/">Oz Broadband Speed Test</a></li>
<li><a href="http://speedof.me/">Speed of Me</a></li>
<li><a href="http://beta.speedtest.net/">Speedtest.net</a></li>
<li><a href="http://testmy.net/">Testmy.net</a></li>
</ul>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VTIaKt69O-o?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Speeds can change over time for even the fastest NBN connection.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Currently most ISPs offer a higher speed for downloading and lower speed for uploading. As many users often download the same content, the network can be optimised to take advantage of this and offer higher speeds. </p>
<p>But users also upload unique content, such as photos to social media accounts or files to cloud storage. This does not have the advantage of scale and thus speed of access could be lower. </p>
<p>As cloud-based storage and content-delivery networks – such as Netflix, Foxtel and others – become more highly trafficked, our requirements are changing. Many users now prioritise more symmetrical internet connectivity, with similar download and upload speeds. </p>
<h2>How fast should the internet be in Australia?</h2>
<p>In Australia, premises with fibre connections to the NBN can theoretically get a peak rate of 100Mbps. In fact, in Australia there are <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-choose-the-best-nbn-plan-for-your-needs-68424">5 tiers of NBN connections</a>, varying between Tier 1 (12Mbps download/1Mbps upload) to Tier 5 (100Mbps download/40Mbps upload). </p>
<p>But the measured speeds can often be slower than promised by your provider.</p>
<p>There are various reasons for this. It could be that there is a problem between the premises and the NBN network, or there could be delays or oversubscription within the ISP network. </p>
<p>There can be congestion and delays in national and international networks due to inadequate investment by various stakeholders to keep the capacity of the network in scale with the increasing number of customers. </p>
<p>Your experience can also vary across the day and from one service to another. As the number of users varies quite markedly over 24 hours, the state of the network (NBN, ISP network, Content Delivery Network) can change with various levels of congestion. </p>
<p>This leads to different speeds of connectivity at different times when accessing different types of services. For example, web access might be slower given the location of a server, compared with an internet video streaming service that might be optimised to deliver the most popular content within the region. </p>
<p>While many internet service providers advertise a typical speed, in Australia there is no expectation that they should indicate the variability (the range of minimum and maximum speeds).</p>
<h2>When so slow is too slow</h2>
<p>If you think your NBN connection is too slow and not what you were promised, you should raise the problem with your ISP. If they fail to resolve the issue you should report it to the ACCC.</p>
<p>To improve information about broadband speeds, the ACCC is currently running a <a href="https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/accc-calls-on-australians-to-sign-up-for-broadband-speed-testing">A$7 million trial of NBN speed monitoring</a> and it wants consumers to be part of it.</p>
<p>Australia could have anticipated these speed issues and established a broadband performance reporting framework as part of access to the NBN infrastructure by providers.</p>
<p>The Australian Communications Consumers Action Network (ACCAN) has been <a href="http://www.news.com.au/technology/online/nbn/do-we-need-a-broadband-monitoring-program/news-story/e42d0ed0f523c1fb044c4a8902440fb5">crying out</a> for a scheme to monitor the performance of ISPs.</p>
<p>But this hasn’t happened yet. So for now it’s left to you as a consumer to monitor your NBN connection speeds, and report any ongoing problems to the ACCC which hopes to start publishing speed and performance data later this year.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81334/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thas Ampalavanapillai Nirmalathas receives funding from the Australian Research Council, Nokia Bell Labs, Google and the Victorian government and leads an interdisciplinary institute – Melbourne Networked Society Institute – that has received funding from both state and federal governments as well as a range of industry partners.</span></em></p>Tough action is promised against companies that offer faster internet speeds than they can deliver over the NBN. But it’s up to consumers to monitor and report on any speed issues.Thas Ampalavanapillai Nirmalathas, Director - Melbourne Networked Society Institute, Professor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Co-Founder/Academic Director - Melbourne Accelerator Program, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/777802017-06-04T20:24:21Z2017-06-04T20:24:21ZThe NBN: how a national infrastructure dream fell short<p>Eight years into the Australian government’s National Broadband Network (NBN) project, the nation has an <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/australias-internet-speeds-lag-behind-world-20170315-guyh4u.html">average internet speed</a> – <a href="https://www.akamai.com/us/en/multimedia/documents/state-of-the-internet/q1-2017-state-of-the-internet-connectivity-report.pdf">50th in the global rankings</a> – that lags <a href="https://www.akamai.com/us/en/about/our-thinking/state-of-the-internet-report/state-of-the-internet-connectivity-visualization.jsp">well behind many advanced economy countries</a>. </p>
<p>Ongoing <a href="https://www.pcauthority.com.au/News/449632,nbn-watch-when-reality-and-transparency-is-the-enemy-of-marketing.aspx">secrecy around the NBN</a>, a project that’s likely to <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-will-the-nbn-really-cost-51562">cost more than A$50 billion</a>, makes it impossible for the public in most cases to know when and what quality service they will receive. Further, new research shows the NBN rollout was <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308596116301677">politically motivated</a> and <a href="http://www.inderscienceonline.com/doi/abs/10.1504/IJCIS.2015.072156">socioeconomically biased</a> from the beginning. </p>
<p>It is perhaps time to remind ourselves of the ups and downs of the project that was once announced as a dream national infrastructure project for the 21st century. This requires a ten-year journey back in time, before we can figure out what needs to be done next.</p>
<h2>The ups</h2>
<p>In November 2007, after 11 years of Coalition government, Labor was elected on a policy platform that <a href="http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22library%2Fpartypol%2F1024541%22">promised a national broadband network</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://ministers.treasury.gov.au/DisplayDocs.aspx?doc=pressreleases/2009/036.htm&pageID=003&min=wms&Year=&DocType">NBN company was announced</a> in April 2009 to provide terrestrial fibre network coverage for 93% of Australian premises by the end of 2020. Fixed wireless and satellite coverage would serve the remaining 7%. </p>
<p>Looking back, it’s hard to deny the influence the NBN has had on Australian politics. Perhaps the peak influence was when three independent MPs cited the NBN as <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-09-07/the-deal-that-secured-blokes-from-the-bush/2251896">one of the key reasons</a> why they supported a Labor government over the Coalition when the 2010 federal election produced a hung parliament. </p>
<p>The final 60 <a href="http://www.nbnco.com.au/corporate-information/media-centre/media-releases/nbn-co-releases-12-month-national-rollout-plan.html">early NBN rollout locations</a> were then announced. The plan was for the first stage of the large-scale rollout to follow, connecting <a href="http://www.nbnco.com.au/corporate-information/media-centre/media-releases/nbn-co-announces-three-year-rollout-plan.html">3.5 million premises in 1,500 communities</a> by mid-2015.</p>
<h2>The downs</h2>
<p>The early NBN rollout experienced significant delays. This attracted a great deal of “<a href="https://www.itnews.com.au/news/public-perception-of-nbn-very-positive-study-371751">overwhelmingly negative</a>” media coverage. Public opinion polls reflected growing dissatisfaction with the national project. </p>
<p>This dissatisfaction and the September 2013 federal election result <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-12/braue-the-inconvenient-truth-for-the-coalition-nbn/5152800">changed the fate of the NBN</a>. In 2013, the new Coalition government suspended the first stage of the large-scale fibre-to-premises NBN rollout to reassess the scale of the project. </p>
<p>In 2014, the government <a href="http://www.minister.communications.gov.au/malcolm_turnbull/news/nbn_co_to_roll_out_new_multi-technology_mix#.WS9mnhOGPUJ">announced</a> that the NBN rollout would change from a primarily fibre-to-premises model to a multi-technology-mix model. The technology to be used would be determined on an area-by-area basis.</p>
<p>This change of direction resulted in a prolonged state of uncertainty <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07293682.2015.1019754">at the local government level</a>. As it was rolled out, the NBN was widely criticised for being <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-nbn-why-its-slow-expensive-and-obsolete-47191">slow, expensive and obsolete</a>.</p>
<h2>Current state of play</h2>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/election-factcheck-qanda-has-the-nbn-been-delayed-59906">Delays continue</a> in the construction of the Coalition’s NBN. What can only be described as a downgrade of the original national project is now seriously <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-01/manning-what-went-wrong-with-the-nbn/7210408">over budget</a>. </p>
<p>In September 2016, a <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/National_Broadband_Network/NBN">joint standing committee</a> of parliament was established to inquire into the NBN rollout. The inquiry is continuing.</p>
<p>The bleak status quo only gets worse when the on-the-ground reality of the NBN rollout is considered. While fibre-to-premises rollout is supposed to be limited in the Coalition’s NBN, disturbing examples of misconduct in the NBN installations are highly concerning. </p>
<p>The image below shows one example of many in which heritage-listed buildings (in this case also public housing) are disrespected to the point that suggests an absolute lack of communication between NBN contractors, local government, or heritage agencies.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171251/original/file-20170529-6367-ez3j2i.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171251/original/file-20170529-6367-ez3j2i.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171251/original/file-20170529-6367-ez3j2i.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171251/original/file-20170529-6367-ez3j2i.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171251/original/file-20170529-6367-ez3j2i.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171251/original/file-20170529-6367-ez3j2i.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171251/original/file-20170529-6367-ez3j2i.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171251/original/file-20170529-6367-ez3j2i.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">One heritage-listed house with two NBN installations (Judge Street, Woolloomooloo, NSW).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image: Stacey Miers</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Who misses out?</h2>
<p>In the Coalition’s NBN, the provision of universal high-speed capacity – as envisioned in the original NBN – has been transformed into a <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1329878X1415100116">patchwork of final speeds and different quality of service</a>. This leads to an important question about equity. It also puts the 60 early rollout locations in the spotlight as these could potentially be the only ones across the nation that enjoy fibre-to-premises NBN.</p>
<p>My <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308596116301677">new research</a> points to the political motivations in the selection of these lucky 60 sites. Voting patterns in these locations were compared with all electorates in the federal elections from 2007 to 2013. The analysis shows the selections were skewed for potential political gain.</p>
<p>ALP-held seats were the main beneficiaries of the early NBN rollout; safe Coalition-held seats were the least likely to receive the infrastructure. </p>
<p>Tony Windsor, one of the three influential independent MPs in 2010, famously said of the NBN:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.computerworld.com.au/article/359747/updated_do_it_once_do_it_right_do_it_fibre_-_nbn_survives/">Do it once, do it right, and do it with fibre</a>. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>He secured priority access for his regional electorate to the early NBN. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BBHJo4HPTGY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Tony Windsor: ‘Do it once, do it right and do it with fibre.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, most regional localities were not that lucky. Indeed, research on the <a href="http://www.inderscienceonline.com/doi/abs/10.1504/IJCIS.2015.072156">sociospatial distribution of the early NBN rollout</a> shows the limited share of regional Australia.</p>
<h2>What to do?</h2>
<p>It is convenient to blame one political party for the state of chaos that the NBN is in right now. However, politicisation of the project has been part of the problem since day one. </p>
<p>Instead, we call for telecommunication infrastructure to be considered for what it really is: the backbone of the fast-growing digital economy; the foundation for innovation in the age of smart cities and big data; and a key pillar of social equity and spatial justice.</p>
<p>In reality, however, in the age of big data and open data, the <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/National_Broadband_Network/NBN/Interim_Report/c04">lack of transparency</a> around the NBN is shocking. In <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=6310e714-d472-44d5-9edc-619582250f24">evidence to the parliamentary committee inquiry</a> in March 2017, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission expressed concern about the lack of transparency on NBN performance. </p>
<p>Policing the <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/federal-police-to-raid-parliament-house-over-nbn-leaks-labor/news-story/fb9f4c34a78174db7b61ca924ff92b0a">leaks of NBN data</a> is not going to clean up the mess. Quite the opposite: the Australian government needs to share the NBN data, so the exact nature and scale of the problems can be determined. Only then can we talk about finding a way forward in this long journey.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77780/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tooran Alizadeh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The highly politicised nature of the NBN has led to a lack of transparency that makes it even harder to fix the mess that has been made of this vital national infrastructure.Tooran Alizadeh, Senior Lecturer, Director of Urban Design, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/778562017-05-29T04:34:48Z2017-05-29T04:34:48ZNot dead yet: how MP3 changed the way we listen to music<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170905/original/file-20170525-13228-1m1ll0b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">MP3 compression of digital audio files made music more portable.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock?Roger Jegg Fotodesign Jegg.de</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>First developed almost three decades ago, the MP3 format made large digital audio files relatively small and easy to pass across an internet that was largely accessed via a very slow (by today’s standards) phone dial-up connection.</p>
<p>Now the companies behind the file compression format, <a href="http://www.technicolor.com/en/who-we-are/press-news-center/press-releases/technicolor-and-fraunhofer-iis-announce-licensing-program-mpeg-h-audio-alliance-tv-system">Technicolor</a> and <a href="http://www.audioblog.iis.fraunhofer.com/mp3-software-patents-licenses/">Fraunhofer IIS</a>, have decided to end their support for the licensing program for MP3. The last patent for the tech format is due to expire at the end of the year.</p>
<p>So the MP3 is dead. Again. Or is it?</p>
<h2>What is MP3?</h2>
<p>MP3 is a form of <a href="http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/39939/codec">codec</a>, a way of compressing (co) and decompressing (dec) the data in audio files.</p>
<p>The organisation responsible for defining the standards for audio and video compression and decompression is the Moving Picture Experts Group (<a href="http://mpeg.chiariglione.org/">MPEG</a>), a working group of several authorities. So MP3 is just short for <a href="http://mpeg.chiariglione.org/standards/mpeg-1/audio">MPEG-1, Audio Layer 3</a>.</p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The development of MP3.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Full resolution digital audio files are relatively large, around <a href="http://www.audiomountain.com/tech/audio-file-size.html">10MB per minute</a> of stereo, CD-quality sound. Today, streaming 10MB/minute might seem trivial but in the early days of digitally transferred data it was a lot. </p>
<p>MP3s were initially developed with the goal of a 12:1 compression ratio achieving acceptable sound quality. A 60MB song could therefore be compressed into a 5MB file. Other compression ratios can be used, with higher ratios yielding more obvious sonic artefacts (unwanted sounds) and lower ratios resulting in higher file sizes.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/53tdYmJuUmM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Hear the quality (or not) of MP3 compression at different bit rates.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A “lossy” compression codec works on the theory that, as the human ear is already discarding a lot of information in the perception of sound, you might as well simply not encode this redundant information. </p>
<p>The term lossy comes from the fact that this data is lost, discarded and gone forever. MP3 and rivals AAC (<a href="http://mpeg.chiariglione.org/standards/mpeg-4/audio">Advanced Audio Coding</a>) and WMA (<a href="http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/54808/wma">Windows Media Audio</a>) are all lossy formats.</p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The audio that gets edited out in MP3 compression, in this case from Suzanne Vega’s version of Tom’s Diner.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Conversely, lossless compression reduces file sizes, but does not reduce quality. Something like a compressed zip file is an example of lossless compression. Uncompressed files are a straight 1:1 transfer of the digital file.</p>
<h2>MP3: dead or alive?</h2>
<p>Developed in the late 1980s and standardised in the early 1990s, MP3 was first pronounced dead in 1995 and <a href="http://stephenwittbooks.com/books/how-music-got-free-tr/how-music-got-free-hc">nearly abandoned as a technology</a>. It was deemed commercially unsuccessful despite heavy investment from the Fraunhofer institute and a decade’s development by the project’s leader <a href="http://internethalloffame.org/inductees/karlheinz-brandenburg">Karlheinz Brandenburg</a>.</p>
<p>It was the <a href="https://medium.com/@pattyjburns/a-few-things-i-learned-from-how-music-got-free-cedf5326ba6c">victim of a format war</a>, led by Dutch manufacturer Philips. Fraunhofer’s MP3 was consistently overlooked in the early 1990s by the MPEG standards group in favour of Philips’ <a href="http://mpeg.chiariglione.org/standards/mpeg-2/audio">MP2</a>.</p>
<p>The MP3 format only found early commercial success in the <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=NK4CDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA87&lpg=PA87&dq=mp3+zephyr+telos&source=bl&ots=7plN_OCngj&sig=JFJAdaJb2l00nVyb3BFQnmU1TYY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjbnazP6ozUAhUBGJQKHZEiC2oQ6AEITDAH#v=onepage&q&f=false">sports broadcast market</a>, with the compressed digital audio saving broadcasters thousands in satellite transmission costs. </p>
<p>So deeply unpopular was MP3 in commercial music applications that the developers effectively <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=NK4CDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA55&lpg=PA55&dq=L3ENC&source=bl&ots=7plN_OEjgn&sig=X_EaGyMHBkLSD3rM1LIKkjhathU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiS9onM8IzUAhUCI5QKHYIhAyU4FBDoAQgiMAA#v=onepage&q&f=false">gave it away for free</a>.</p>
<p>As a result, the format was close to being abandoned by its developers again towards the end 1996, in favour of the AAC format still patented and supported today. </p>
<p>The AAC format was developed initially by the same team behind the MP3, in part as a way to circumnavigate technical limitations imposed by Phillips on the MPEG-1 standard.</p>
<p>AAC generally performs better than MP3 at higher compression ratios, and the patent does not require a user to obtain a license to stream or distribute AAC encoded audio.</p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Listen carefully to the cymbals.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It was only the proliferation of filesharing internet sites, built around the distribution of pirated content, that revived interest in the MP3, first as isolated “<a href="http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/54211/warez">warez</a>” sites, and then as peer-to-peer networks such as <a href="http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/47626/napster">Napster</a>.</p>
<p>Stephen Witt’s 2015 book <a href="http://stephenwittbooks.com/books/how-music-got-free-tr/how-music-got-free-hc">How Music Got Free</a> (a source for much of this history) says that the first time the term MP3 was used by mainstream press was May 1997, with a USA Today article detailing how college students were uploading bootlegged albums onto university servers via file sharing sites.</p>
<p>By this stage, the first time most people had even heard of the MP3 format, the horse had already bolted, and the music industry would never be the same again.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/10/ft_first_mp3_player/">first portable MP3 player</a>, the <a href="http://www.mpmaneurope.com/en/content/4-about-us">MPMan</a>, debuted less than a year later, and Apple’s move into the market in 2001, through the release of iTunes and the iPod, cemented the ubiquity of both compact music players and compressed digital formats.</p>
<h2>Music sharing</h2>
<p><a href="http://ryanmaguiremusic.com/theghostinthemp3.html">Early MP3s didn’t sound great</a> and were generally disliked by audiophiles and record producers alike.</p>
<p>But they allowed consumers to stockpile music to an extent that had not been possible before, heralding a new relationship between digital information and ownership.</p>
<p>A market model based on scarcity had been turned on its head. While copying music had been around for decades, each copy was physically coupled to the medium – a vinyl record or magnetic tape cassette, for instance. </p>
<p>The rise of peer-to-peer file sharing networks, most famously Napster, meant that now anyone with a computer and internet connection could access another person’s entire music collection. A single file could by copied by thousands, all at the same time. </p>
<p>This changed listening patterns: instead of buying perhaps one album per month (depending on what you could afford), and then listening to it several times, music fans could constantly scour the internet for new music. Some would even stockpile music that they would never even listen to.</p>
<h2>From share to stream</h2>
<p>Today, playing MP3 files is increasingly being superseded by the ubiquity of streaming services. With fast and cheap access to mobile internet, services such as <a href="http://www.canstarblue.com.au/phone-internet/which-music-streaming-service-is-best/">Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play and others</a> now all offer extensive music libraries that can be accessed for a subscription fee.</p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Just one of several online music options.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Presciently, Brandenburg’s mentor, Dieter Sietzer, had <a href="http://techcabal.com/2015/10/22/a-brief-history-of-digital-audio-and-other-stuff/">suggested as early as 1982</a> that the most effective delivery of digital audio was through streaming, as a way to make use of Germany’s new digital telephone lines. His patent was refused.</p>
<p>If it was the increase in portable MP3 players and the proliferation of pirated content that cemented the role of the MP3 in youth culture, it is the rise of streaming services that define current habits. </p>
<p>Despite Fraunhofer’s <a href="https://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/en/ff/amm/prod/audiocodec/audiocodecs/mp3.html">termination of its licensing program</a> for the MP3 format, the MP3 file will continue to live on, unsupported by the developers, but now unrestricted by patents or licences.</p>
<p>While better codecs now exist for compressing digital music files, it’s interesting to note the revival of the old format of vinyl.</p>
<p>Today, events such as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/may/09/in-full-on-vinyl-no-chatter-have-we-lost-the-art-of-listening-to-music-">Classic Album Sundays</a> are emerging as an attempt to reclaim focused listening experiences through the use of analogue technologies that have been nominally obsolete since the late 1980s. </p>
<p>I believe it very unlikely that similar listening parties will develop in an attempt to celebrate the early MP3.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77856/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yanto Browning does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The MP3 audio file transformed the way we accessed music online. So what does it mean now that licensing and support for the popular format is to end?Yanto Browning, Associate lecturer in Music and Sound, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/757802017-04-11T00:59:22Z2017-04-11T00:59:22ZThree charts on Australia’s growing appetite for fast broadband<p><em>This piece is part of our new Three Charts series, in which we aim to highlight interesting trends in three simple charts.</em></p>
<p>The Australian Bureau of Statistics’ latest figures on <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/8153.0Main+Features1December%202016?OpenDocument">internet activity in Australia</a> show a huge jump in the number of people with advertised speeds of greater than 24 Mbps (that’s megabits per second, a measure of data transfer speed).</p>
<p>That trend is significant because it suggests that Australia’s appetite for faster broadband is growing apace, and that the NBN may be helping to drive adoption of higher speed internet.</p>
<p>Starting from Dec 2014, the number of subscribers in Australia with internet advertised as being capable of 24 Mbps or greater <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/subscriber.nsf/log?openagent&81530do001_201612.xls&8153.0&Data%20Cubes&C835E0DF404B850ECA2580F8001DEB95&0&December%202016&05.04.2017&Latest">rose from 2.3 million to 7.8 million.</a> Or, expressed another way, from 19% of all internet subscribers to 58% of all subscribers. </p>
<p>(It’s worth noting that the growth is in people who have signed up to packages that advertised internet speeds <em>capable</em> of reaching 24 Mbps. That’s not to say that speed is <em>actually</em> delivered all of the time; there is variation and one doesn’t always get the advertised speeds.)</p>
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<p>This increase is due, in part, to the roll-out of the national broadband network (NBN) and access to broadband at higher speeds – but that’s not the whole story.</p>
<p>True, the number of NBN subscribers over the same period rose rapidly from 322,000 to 1.7 million but that doesn’t explain the other 5.5 million subscribers who moved to faster broadband in that time. </p>
<p>Looking at the types of connection, there was an increase in the number of subscribers using internet delivered by fibre and fixed wireless. This tallies with what NBN data show.</p>
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<p>It’s likely that with the advent of the NBN and its standardised speed tiers, internet service providers started offering services that were on a par or better than those being offered on the NBN. Competition may be at work, and the technology itself is improving. </p>
<p>However, data reported by cloud computing services firm Akamai in their <a href="https://www.akamai.com/us/en/about/our-thinking/state-of-the-internet-report/">State of the Internet</a> reports – frequently <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-21/fact-check-australias-internet-speed-rank/7509352">cited</a> by the press – showed Australia’s broadband to be woefully behind most other developed countries. </p>
<p>Indeed, in the same time that Australia saw a huge increase in subscribers on internet speeds of 24 Mbps and above, Akamai was reporting that average internet download speeds had increased by a mere 27%, an increase to an underwhelming 10.1 Mbps. That puts Australia down the list in terms of average speeds.</p>
<p>With ABS data showing that 58% of the population is now on plans capable of delivering speeds of 24 Mbps and above, such a paltry rise in the average internet speed is somewhat surprising. </p>
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<p>It is, of course, possible that the advertised speeds of Australian internet plans are, too often, misrepresenting the true speeds available.</p>
<p>The way that Akamai calculates its figures is not spelled out in its report – it <a href="https://www.akamai.com/us/en/multimedia/documents/state-of-the-internet/q4-2016-state-of-the-internet-connectivity-report.pdf">says</a> that it “includes data gathered from across the Akamai Intelligent Platform”. So perhaps it would be wise to take claims about Australia’s rank in the world on internet speeds with a hefty grain of salt. Things may be better than we are being told. </p>
<p>More data is needed to make sense of the impact of the shift of subscribers to higher speed internet. Projects like the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s <a href="https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/accc-to-monitor-australias-broadband-performance">plan</a> to “test and report on the typical speed and performance of broadband plans provided over the NBN” will help build a more accurate picture.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75780/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Glance does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>ABS figures show that Australia’s appetite for faster broadband is growing apace.David Glance, Director of UWA Centre for Software Practice, The University of Western AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.