It’s been a little while! After a hiatus due to some unfortunate personal issues, I’m back with some exciting news to report. My first book is available now in both hardback and eBook, courtesy of Lulu. Network Horizons: Emerging Technologies and Applications, 2018 – 2019 edition is written for a range of people from technologists and managers to network operators, investors and business owners who are interested in the changing landscape of the computer networking and telecoms industries, as well as the technologies used within them. It’s intended to be approachable for readers from a variety ..read more

It’s been a little while since I’ve found the time to write up a blog post, so I wanted to give everyone an update on what I’ve been up to and what you can expect to see from me and from Network Architecture 2020 during 2018. I can’t believe it’s near the end of January already! Wow. For the past few months, most of my writing time has been taken up with finishing my first book. It’s called Network Horizons: Emerging Technologies and Applications, 2018 Edition and the idea behind it is to identify and explain the what, why and when of 10 key areas of development in computer networking and tele ..read more

When cellular networks first emerged, the measuring stick was voice calls. The quality of the network was judged by the availability and quality of the voice calls that users were able to achieve, and a bad score in either of those areas quickly led to users looking to switch to a better-performing alternative. As the capacity of cellular networks and the capabilities of mobile devices have both grown exponentially since their inception, so too has the proportion of cellular network traffic used to transmit voice calls dramatically reduced. This change began with SMS, or text messages, followe ..read more

I have a confession to make, one that is hard at times to admit. Okay. Deep breath, here goes. I’ve spent far too much time messing about with the command line interface on networking equipment in an inefficient, error-prone attempt at network management. I know, it hurts to admit it. It’s okay, we’ll get through this together. If you’re a network engineer by training like me, this may be hard to accept. After all, mainly through the long-running certification programs of Cisco as well as other vendors who followed their example, we’ve become intimately familiar with the deepest depths and tin ..read more

From the perspective of a network engineer, a wireless network connection can be distilled down to a network path of variable performance attributes, likely to change at any given point in time based on unpredictable environmental conditions. For those of us more familiar with wireless networks, indoor and outdoor, short and long, this assessment may seem rather bleak; but, compared to more predictable wired networks, especially those confined to a single building, this is a fair judgement, of course with the frequency and severity of these changes depending on the characteristics and quality ..read more

Every so often, usually after a national security event, prominent political voices in many countries will emerge to decry the availability of encryption software and its uses for nefarious means. They reason that as such software could be used to hide the movements of those wishing to commit crimes, that the concept of cryptography which law enforcement does not have ready access to should be banned, forcing all users to utilise insecure platforms with backdoor access built in. On many levels, this is a reasonable assertion; ignoring the sizeable challenge it represents to the concept of priv ..read more

Networks are systems of devices talking to other devices, and much like in human communication, they need to use the same language to achieve anything meaningful. Try having a conversation with someone who has the opposite idea of what half the words in the English language mean than yourself, and you’ll quickly get an idea what it’s like when two incompatible network devices meet. The same applies to other devices, such as PC software talking to hardware. Compatibility is the key. Let’s be honest, though – compatibility isn’t very interesting. Few consumers, engineers and marketers will get v ..read more

Recently there have been headlines in the security and tech press on an effort by some in the U.S Senate to introduce a set of security requirements for IoT devices purchased and operated by the U.S Government. Some have heralded this as the dawn of a new age of network security, where all of our many, many problems with insecure IoT devices will be solved. It’s a nice idea – and certainly better than no action – but I’m afraid it’s a bandage on the wound at best, and far from a real solution. Why? There’s a few reasons why: 1.       It only applies to devices pur ..read more

When it comes to network security, one debate that still occurs now and then is the age-old question of whether to use a whitelist or blacklist to block unwelcome traffic from entering the network, such as known malware or phishing attacks delivered through email or other means. To break this decision down, consider that at the edge of the network are a set of rules. These can be known under a number of names; from firewall rules to Access Control List entries (ACL), to spam rules, these may all address different types of data or do so at different points in the network, but they are all attem ..read more

Wi-Fi is a funny thing. Like few other technologies before or after, it’s shot into the common consciousness with such widespread recognition that there is almost nobody who doesn’t recognise it as a, or often the only, way to get online today. Its ease of use and near-universal implementation, coupled with an easy to remember name and simple branding have made it instantly recognisable across the globe, with nearly everywhere being connected today using the technology. So, if it’s available at your home, office and local coffee shop, what about when you’re traveling? For many years, hotel Wi ..read more