Networking

A broadband speed war is emerging as cable operators raise data rates in regions where Verizon Communications is selling its Fios fiber-to-the-home service.

In the past two months, cable operators have begun increasing download speeds on their broadband networks. It's little coincidence that these higher speeds are being rolled out in regions of the country where Verizon has begun offering its Fios service, which runs over a fiber network that reaches directly into people's homes.

One of the fathers of the internet wants to be a daddy again.

Internet service providers as well as various enterprises were advised this week to update
their Internet communications infrastructure. This was advised after the discovery of a
vulnerability affecting a raft of major suppliers including Cisco, Juniper, Microsoft and
IBM. Security researchers have discovered that multiple TCP/IP implementations fail to adequately validate Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) error messages. As a result, hackers could reset or slow an established connection using spoofed ICMP error messages.

WHEN US universities connected themselves with a superfast private Internet2 network, they failed to see the obvious – building such a structure would get them into trouble with the music and film industry.

The network is so fast that your average college kid can send a movie to his friend in another part of America in 30 seconds in comparison to a few hours for the regular interweb. Not surprisingly this is what they are doing, bless.

For nearly a decade, the next generation protocol to improve the Internet has been "just two years away." Finally, the future has arrived. Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is ready, it works, and its momentum is starting to build. With huge numbers of users in Asia preparing to go online--along with new Internet enabled devices such as cars and refrigerators--the current, 20-year-old IP protocol is straining under the weight. IPv6 software has begun to ship with operating systems and routers, and anyone who runs a network needs to learn how to deploy it.

Three Japanese consumer electronics giants have created a new technology to transport Internet and media signals around the home via the electricity network, Panasonic said on Thursday. Sony (6758.T), Mitsubishi (6503.T) and Matsushita-owned (6752.T) Panasonic have set up the SECA powerline alliance. They have developed a system to transfer 170 Megabits per second of data through the power lines of a home, Panasonic researcher Ingo Chmielewski told journalists at the electronics trade fair CeBIT.

Several of Australia's largest ISPs are saying that Telstra could give up to 8Mbit/s ADSL speeds to broadband consumers right now, and could have 5 years ago when ADSL was first introduced. But Telstra says there's no demand for higher speeds.

Five companies officially announced this week their bids to win the contract to operate the master database for .net domains, a job currently performed by VeriSign.

Is Google planning to build a global fiber optic network from scratch? And, if so, why?

The question has cropped up in light of a recent job posting on the search engine giant's Web site seeking experts in the field.

"Google is looking for Strategic Negotiator candidates with experience in...(i)dentification, selection, and negotiation of dark fiber contracts both in metropolitan areas and over long distances as part of development of a global backbone network," the posting reads, in part.

Gambling is hugely popular, especially with tech-savvy criminals.

Many extortionists are targeting net-based betting firms and threatening to cripple their websites with deluges of data unless a ransom is paid.

But now deep defences are being put in place by some of the UK's biggest net firms to stop these attacks.

Increasing numbers of attacks and the huge amounts of data being used to try to bump a site off the web are prompting firms to adopt the measures.