Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
The Internet

Submission + - World Internet Traffic to Top 966Exabytes in 2015 (ispreview.co.uk)

Submitted by
Mark.JUK
Mark.JUK writes: "Networking giant Cisco has released its latest annual Visual Networking Index (VNI) today, which forecasts that world internet traffic will quadruple by 2015 to reach 965.5 ExaBytes per year (up from 242.4 ExaBytes in 2010); when 40% of the world's population will be online (i.e. 3bn Internet users). Internet video will account for 61% of all consumer traffic in the same year, while P2P (File Sharing) will decline significantly to just 16%.

Meanwhile the average fixed line broadband ISP download speed, which stood at 7Mbps (Megabits per second) in 2010, will increase four-fold to 28Mbps in 2015, at which point an estimated 40% of broadband connections will be faster than 10Mbps (up from 24% today). Western Europe will have the fastest speeds, promoting a headline figure of 36Mbps for 2015."
The Internet

Submission + - Single Laser to Push Internet Speeds of 26Terabits (nature.com) 1

Submitted by
Mark.JUK
Mark.JUK writes: "A group of international scientists working at the Sydney University based Centre for Ultrahigh bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems (CUDOS) have successfully managed to use a single laser to transfer data at speeds of up to 26Terabits per second (Tbps) via 50km of fibre optic cable. The feat, which many had previously thought to be impossible, was achieved by adapting Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (OFDM) technology from wireless networking solutions to work with a fixed-line laser based solution.

OFDM effectively allowed the scientists to split a single laser down to 325 optical frequencies and over a narrow spectral band of wavelengths (from 1,533–1,565.5nm). The data could then be broken up and sent in parallel streams via the different frequencies. The result could lead to a cheaper and significantly more energy efficient way of transferring even larger amounts of internet data around the world."
The Internet

Submission + - Climate Change Poses Danger to UK Wi-Fi Networks (ispreview.co.uk)

Submitted by
Mark.JUK
Mark.JUK writes: "The UK government has issued a new report that calls for "ugent action" (Defra's Climate Resilient Infrastructure Report PDF) to be taken in order to mitigate the potential damage that could be caused to the country's national infrastructure by global Climate Change and the expected rise in wet and stormy weather conditions. In particular the Environment Secretary, Caroline Spelman, warned that signals from Wi-Fi networks could be disrupted by "intense rainfall or high temperatures" and that new fibre optic broadband and older copper telecoms infrastructure would be at heightened risk from flooding and related erosion.

Sadly the report itself does not appear to make any practical recommendations for resolving such problems and simply leaves it up to the telecoms industry to decide whether or not it needs to act."
The Internet

Submission + - UK Law Firm Moots New Broadband ISP Music Tax (ispreview.co.uk)

Submitted by
Mark.JUK
Mark.JUK writes: "A UK based law firm called New Media Law has managed to gain some political support for its proposal to help solve the country's allegedly rampant "illegal" internet copyright infringement (piracy) by broadband ISP customers — a GBP1 per month music tax on almost every internet connection. This would raise at least GBP50 Million per month in the UK alone, plus of course a further GBP10 per month in Value Added Tax (VAT) to help keep the government happy.

Revenue from the tax would then be distributed amongst the copyright holders, based on a statistical assessment of what music is being streamed or downloaded via the internet. It's unclear how this data would be gathered, although potentially intrusive Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technologies, which identify customer traffic types and usage, could be one solution.

It's understood that New Media Law will be meeting with Lord Clement-Jones (a Liberal Democrat party peer) at the House of Lords on April 26th, where they will present their concept of a “music charge” to the UK Government."
The Internet

Submission + - UK ISPs Moot Voluntary Block of 100 Piracy Sites (ispreview.co.uk)

Submitted by
Mark.JUK
Mark.JUK writes: "Internet access providers in the UK are working to develop a new voluntary code with Rights Holders, which could initially result in 100 websites that "facilitate" internet copyright infringement (piracy) being "blocked" from view. The effort would block sites like The Pirate Bay, as well as several newsgroup index services (NewzBin2) and even some potentially quite legitimate cyberlocker file storage websites (Rapidshare).

However, aside from the fact that such blocking would still be easy to circumvent (VPN, Proxy etc.), the proposal faces many stumbling blocks. ISPs in particular are concerned over the costs and who would carry legal responsibility, they also want an impartial judge to asses each request."
The Internet

Submission + - UK ISPs to Make Voluntary NetNeutrality Commitment (ispreview.co.uk)

Submitted by
Mark.JUK
Mark.JUK writes: "A UK government advisory body, the Broadband Stakeholders Group, has confirmed that most of the major fixed line internet providers in the country will next week sign-up to a new Voluntary Code of Practice on Traffic Management Transparency. Recently everybody from the European Commission to the UK government has called upon ISPs to be more "transparent" with their traffic management policies, which until now have been too vague and often fail to inform customers about any background restrictions that might be being imposed upon their services.

The new code is likely to surface as a result of last year's Net Neutrality consultation — the principal of treating all internet traffic as equal — by the country's communications regulator. Ofcom is not expected to enforce any tough new rules, largely due to a lack of evidence for market harm, but will recommend greater transparency from ISPs. However, to most providers, transparency usually means yet more unreadable small print."
The Internet

Submission + - BitTorrent Moots World ISP P2P Speed Report (ispreview.co.uk)

Submitted by
Mark.JUK
Mark.JUK writes: "The San Francisco-based inventor of the hugely popular peer-to-peer (P2P) internet file sharing protocol, BitTorrent, has revealed that it is considering whether or not to release the broadband performance (speed) data for more than 9,000 ISPs around the world. The technology company claims that the data forms part of its new project, which is sadly still in the very early stages of development, but could one day give consumers a near real-time perspective of how their ISP is performing. It wouldn't just cover P2P traffic either, with BitTorrent also tracking general HTTP transfers too.

BitTorrent claims that its service can, for example, display that most UK ISPs "aggressively throttle BitTorrent traffic after 6 p.m. at night", with speeds suddenly going "off a cliff". Suffice to say that such information could prove to be very useful for consumers and advocates of Net Neutrality (the principal of treating all internet traffic as equal)."
The Internet

Submission + - UK Develops 100 Times Faster Fibre Optic Broadband (ispreview.co.uk)

Submitted by Mark.JUK
Mark.JUK writes: The UK governments Minister for Science, David Willetts, has awarded £7.2 million to help support the University of Southampton's newly rebuilt Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) and the development ('Photonics HyperHighway') of new technologies that would be capable of making broadband internet access over fibre optic cables 100 times faster than today. Professor Payne, Director of Southampton’s ORC, said: "Traffic on the global communications infrastructure continues to increase 80 per cent year-on-year. This is driven by rapidly expanding and increasingly demanding applications, such as internet television services and new concepts like cloud computing. What this project proposes is a radical transformation of the physical infrastructure that underpins these networks. ... Our ambition is nothing less than to rebuild the internet hardware to suit it to the needs of 21st-century Britain."
The Internet

Submission + - UK ISPs Moot VPN to Avoid Piracy Crackdown (ispreview.co.uk) 1

Submitted by Mark.JUK
Mark.JUK writes: Broadband internet providers in the UK are considering whether or not to follow the example of a Swedish ISP, Bahnhof, which recently put all of its customers behind a secure Virtual Private Network (VPN) in order to circumvent new European Data Retention and Internet Copyright Infringement laws. By doing this is makes their logs less useful to outside forces (e.g. Rights Holders) and allows customers to use the internet anonymously.

However several UK ISPs, including business provider AAISP (Andrews and Arnold), have suggested that there may be better solutions than sticking everybody behind a costly VPN. AAISP's boss, Adrian Kennard, claims, "something ISPs will be doing anyway, carrier grade NAT, will create a similar anonymity as there is no requirement to log NAT sessions".

Meanwhile Timico's CTO, Trefor Davies, warns, "It would be a pretty costly project for all ISPs to implement such a system. It would also bring with it risks – suddenly it becomes a lot easier for governments to start monitoring all your traffic because it all goes through a single point (or at least a few points) on the network."
The Internet

Submission + - IANA to Allocate Last IPv4 Addresses This Week (ispreview.co.uk)

Submitted by Mark.JUK
Mark.JUK writes: The internet's last remaining normal IPv4 addresses could be gone by the end of this week after a UK ISP revealed that APNIC, one of the five Regional Internet Registries (RIRs), would ask the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) for its two remaining /8 blocks of IPv4 addresses. At present just two /8 blocks remain to be distributed along the normal method. Global policy says that once the IANA free pool is reduced to five /8 blocks (as will happen if APNIC's request is granted), they will all be simultaneously distributed to the five RIRS.

An IPv4 address is assigned to your computer each time you go online (e.g. 85.23.56.198). These are a bit like the online equivalent of your home phone number, except now only a few million out of roughly 4.5 Billion addresses remain. However its replacement, IPv6 (e.g. 2ffe:1800:3525:3:200:f8ff:fe21:67cf), which is longer and more secure by design, still isn't fully supported by all world ISPs, router manufacturers or even software developers. This could lead to some teething problems, such as connectivity problems, although hopefully most end-users will not notice the gradual transition.
Censorship

Submission + - ISPs Warn Europe - Website Blocks Don't Work (ispreview.co.uk)

Submitted by Mark.JUK
Mark.JUK writes: The European Internet Services Providers Association (EuroISPA) has today warned the European Union (EU) that plans aimed at tackling online child sexual abuse content, which propose to force ISPs into adopting mandatory website blocking (censorship) technology, will not work because such methods are easy to circumvent; an ISP might cover your eyes but anybody can still take the blindfold off. Instead the EuroISPA has called for MEP's to consider permanently removing internet based child sexual abuse content at source, although this also runs into problems when the servers are based outside of your jurisdiction.
The Internet

Submission + - World Broadband Internet Subscribers Reach 509M (ispreview.co.uk)

Submitted by Mark.JUK
Mark.JUK writes: The latest statistics released by the Broadband Forum and analyst firm Point Topic today have revealed that, by the end of Q3-2010, the world was home to 508,761,837 broadband internet lines, which represents a growth of +2.88% (14.3 Million lines/subscriptions) over the previous quarter; the overall year-on-year growth rate was 6.7%. The first three quarters of 2010 are characterized by uneven growth patterns, although China and India reported their second best quarters ever and other developing broadband markets showed over 20% growth in the last 12 months (Russia, Vietnam, Ukraine and the Philippines). The USA continues to hold a commanding 2nd place worldwide, behind China, and is home to well over 80 Million+ lines.
The Internet

Submission + - Liverpool UK Trials 200Mbps Powerline Broadband (ispreview.co.uk)

Submitted by Mark.JUK
Mark.JUK writes: The United Kingdom (UK) city of Liverpool has announced new plans to trial a superfast version of Powerline Communications (PLC) technology, which makes use of a country's national power grid to send electricity and broadband internet access along the same cables. The new service claims to offer download speeds of up to 200Mbps (Megabits per second) and its trial by Scottish Power should reach 1,000 homes.

However PLC is a notoriously expensive solution and often suffers from regulatory hurdles. The UK government recently expressed concerned about, "the potential impact this may have on radio users, with interference a possibility at higher frequencies. This could include interference to broadcast radio, aeronautical radio and navigation services."
The Internet

Submission + - Content Providers Ask UK to Protect Net Neutrality (ispreview.co.uk)

Submitted by Mark.JUK
Mark.JUK writes: A significant group of 19 internet content providers and consumer groups, which includes Skype, Yahoo! and eBay, has written an open letter to the UK government that calls upon the country's political leaders not to abandon the principal of Net Neutrality (i.e. treating all internet traffic as equal). The group suggests a series of new measures that could be put in place to prevent broadband ISPs from abusing their position by using "discriminatory business practices" that might damage innovative development of new online services and content. Some of the measures include requiring the national regulator, Ofcom, to closely monitor the market and demonstrate that effective and timely enforcement processes are in place if needed.

However the government recently (last month) warned internet providers to ensure that "consumers [could still] access any legal content or service" and later threatened tighter regulation if the market developed in an anti-competitive way. It also called on ISPs to ensure that any restrictions they impose "should [be] set out in detail" (transparent).

Slashdot Top Deals

"Can you program?" "Well, I'm literate, if that's what you mean!"

Close