Tid Bits and Bytes in Networking

AlterNet: MediaCulture: Turning a Blind Eye to Wi-Fi

2006-01-25T11:19:00.000-06:00

AlterNet: MediaCulture: Turning a Blind Eye to Wi-Fi: "Broadband internet is the electricity of the 21st century -- and the rest of the world is poised to leave America in the dark."

I almost didn't want to post this from a leftest site like alternet.org, but it was too well writen. So read this article (kinda long) then setup a host file entry that points alternet.org to 127.0.0.1 to avoid coming back to this site.

Full Disclosure: Please ignore the moveon.org banner at the top of the site. Sorry again. But it is a well writen article.

Cisco 7200 Simulator - IPFlow Netflow Collector

2006-01-25T08:46:00.000-06:00

Cisco 7200 Simulator - IPFlow Netflow Collector

Yeah, Yeah I know my blog is slowing down, but I just found this 7200 simulator. Not really clear on the legaity of such, but cool just the same.

Forget IPv6. We are running out of copper.

2006-01-18T16:44:00.000-06:00

Measure of Metal Supply Finds Future Shortage

Forget IPv6. We may run out of copper for our Cat5 and 6 before we run out of IPv4 addresses.

Full Disclosure: I will be working for a firm that specializes in Wireless soon, to help the world lessen its depenance on Copper. More on that later.

Optimus keyboard

2006-01-03T15:48:00.000-06:00

Optimus keyboard: "Every key of the Optimus keyboard is a stand-alone display showing exactly what it is controlling at this very moment."

This is really cool, but I don't see the need really. Who's keys change function so much that it would be worth the extra cost other then the cool factor?

The Young and the Restless: Ep. #8294 - TV.com

2006-01-03T15:35:00.000-06:00

The Young and the Restless: Ep. #8294 - TV.com: "Nikki is surprised to see Brad's ring on Victoria's finger, and Sharon is furious to learn that Brad and Victoria are engaged. Scott wants to become the bait to catch Sheila, but Michael insists that Lauren wouldn't want that. J.T. is upset to find Mac and Kevin sleeping on the couch, with Kevin's head in Mac's lap. Brad is shocked to learn Ashley has been arrested for Tom Fisher's murder. John finally wakes up"

Did anybody really expect to see Brad and Victoria together? Did they even consider Sharon and Nikki feelings? And what is the deal with JT Mac and Kevin? Are Mac and Kevin really an item? But I was glad to see that John after all this time Finally woke up. He's presence was really lacking fromt the show. I sure hope he can set Brad and Victoria stright.

BGP Soft Reset Enhancement

2006-01-03T13:56:00.000-06:00

BGP Soft Reset Enhancement

Here is a tid bit I didn't know till now. If you have a newer IOS (and I pertty sure JunOS) on both side of your BGP peering, you don't have to (and probably shouldn't) configure:
neighbor soft-reconfiguration

RFC 2918 fixed this, and this is good thing since the old way of doing 'soft-reconfiguration' wasn't very friendly to memory use.

Slashdot | Microsoft's Big Bet on Online Gaming

2005-12-30T17:25:00.000-06:00

Slashdot :

And games designed for multiple players have a mixed record of attracting customers.' Says analyst Michael Pachter, 'At the end of the day, we don't play games for social interaction ... We play games to escape.' Microsoft's strategy is 'absolutely flawed,' he added.""

Is online gaming a wasted investment for MS and Sony? I know I tend to shy away from online opponents. Even in a simple game of chess. When I play games I do it for my entertainment, not to socialize. I don't want to bother other people and I don't want other people to bother me. If I do want to play aginst someone I want to know who the person is. I don't trust strangers. But I'm not much of a people person. Are most people like me, problably not. I'm sure MS and Sony have done research and are on the money on this one. Online gaming is going to drive broadband to the home, just like gaming drove pc devlopment over the past 15 years.

More Black helicopter stuff: NSA Caught With The Cookies

2005-12-29T10:39:00.000-06:00

Slashdot : “"The associated press is reporting that the NSA is putting cookies on visiting computers. Apparently it is unlawful for the government to put anything but a session cookie out unless it's expressed in the site's privacy policy." From the article: "Don Weber, an NSA spokesman, said in a statement Wednesday that the cookie use resulted from a recent software upgrade. Normally, the site uses temporary, permissible cookies that are automatically deleted when users close their Web browsers, he said, but the software in use shipped with persistent cookies already on. ... In a 2003 memo, the White House's Office of Management and Budget prohibits federal agencies from using persistent cookies _ those that aren't automatically deleted right away _ unless there is a 'compelling need.' A senior official must sign off on any such use, and an agency that uses them must disclose and detail their use in its privacy policy."”

Full Disclosure:I Don't know if my site gives cookies and I don't care.

Will ISPs Quarantine You From the lnternet?

2005-12-28T09:45:00.000-06:00

Andy Dornan :

A greater threat is that ISPs may try to restrict the customer's side by denying access to machines based on their hardware or software configuration. And far from banning that, the government may be encouraging it. Back when he was head of cybersecurity, White House terrorism advisor Richard Clarke even said it should be made mandatory to quarantine malware.

The black helicopters are coming, the black helicopters are coming!

Here is the deal. People fear what they don't understand. People don't understand the Internet and they fear it. People don't understant it isn't cost effective for ISP's to be proactive about the security state of their customers. They would have to monitor 100% of the connected computers on the off chance that 2% (my guess) of them are infected to the point such that it cost something. It will always be cheaper for ISP's to be reactive and shut down ports for free if they become such a problem.

Full Disclosure: It looks like the artticle is from the furture. Check the date under the auther's name. So maybe Andy Dorman knows something from the furture that we who are stuck in the present don't understand. Yet...

Ethernet Switch Market Share numbers

2005-12-27T16:47:00.000-06:00

Around the office we have be talking ethernet market share numbers, and I've finally found some numbers from a trusted source online. The numbers are interesting. If someone better at math could help me reverse engineer some more cool info from this please let me know.

No supprise that Cisco is a the top of both revenue (75.7%) and ports (40.6). The wired thing is the differance between the two. Cisco has over 3 quarters of the switching revenue with only 2 fiths of the ports. That's amazing, and features/reliability aside it shows that people do pay a premium for Cisco switches.

Odder still Notel shows up as number 2 under Revenue but doesn't even make the top 5 under ports. I guess people (although fewer) are also paying a permium for Nortel switches.

Here is what my elementry math tells me based on the numbers from this report:

Cisco average cost per port sold:
$118

HP average cost per port sold:
$31

3com average cost per port sold:
$17

Industry average cost per port sold:
$63

Now keep in mind that this is all types of ports PoE 10G GigE etc. Cisco's higher price per port is in part justified buy the fact they sell more of these higher end ports.

Free McAfee Internet Security Suite 2006

2005-12-27T14:55:00.000-06:00

Buy.com - McAfee Internet Security Suite 2006 v 8.0 Minibox - MIS80EMB1RAA

Just found this. If you are like me and havnen't ever gotten around to updating the free virus software that came with your home pc and were waiting for the right price. Here it is. Free after rebates if you ever owned anything McAfee or Norton. Just $30 bucks if you don't own either.

Full Disclosure:This isn't an ad/referal scam. Just a good deal I found and wanted to share.

Why do they keep trying to reinvent the key board?

2005-12-22T16:04:00.000-06:00

Sure it's ugly. Sure no one is really going to buy it. So why make it? Does this guy think he is going to change the world with this keyboard?

I don't really have a problem with my keyboard. I don't know any one who works on one all day like me that wants a different keyboard. If we could turn back time, and layout the keys differently..... but alas we can't. So we are stuck with qwerty.

Are their people or bosses that are looking to get that .01% extra productity out of keyboard users? Why do we need to type faster?

Where are the numbers on this keyboard? Having to shift for numbers would slow me way down.

And who says abcdef is better then qwerty?

Full Disclosure: I nearly flunked typing in high school. But that wasn't because of the keyboard/typewriter, but because I'm tottaly unconcordaited. In H.S. band I wasn't allowed to march and play at the same time. I'm a good enough typiest now. Now all I need is a keyboard with spell check.

Juniper sues 10 John Doe's

2005-12-22T15:02:00.000-06:00

Techdirt:Suing For Libel Isn't Always The Right Decision

From Tech Dirt:

They [Juniper] were apparently so upset by some random messages on Light Reading's message board that they've filed lawsuits against 10 unidentified users who posted disparaging remarks concerning the company. Not to knock Light Reading -- which is a fantastic resource for telecom news, by the way -- but it's quite unlikely that any random message board postings on Light Reading are taken seriously enough to really matter. The audience isn't tremendous, and most readers there probably know enough to recognize that a random anonymous posting is, well, less than trustworthy. In fact, Light Reading removed the comments soon after they were posted for violating forum rules. So, until now, almost no one even knew about these postings that called the company unethical and accused execs of various scamming activities. However, now that the story is news -- a lot more people are hearing about the accusations, whether or not they're true. In posting about the lawsuits, Light Reading itself quotes a lawyer who points out that these moves "say as much about the company suing as it does about the message board users."

Festivus - The Holiday For The Rest of Us

2005-12-22T13:37:00.000-06:00

Since I know you all will be busy tomorrow celebrating Festivus, and not reading my blog. I wanted to take a moment and which everyone a happy Festivus Eve.

For those unfamilar with the holiday here are some more links to bring you up to speed.
http://festivusbook.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festivus
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2005/dec/18/festivus_rest_us/

Full Disclosure: I'm not sure where my Festivus pole is.

Deploying IPv6 in a datacenter

2005-12-22T11:26:00.000-06:00

Kevin Day:

Getting your network running IPv6 doesn't seem to be the challenge anymore. None of our L2 devices cared at all. Our L3 devices took some configuration, but moved pretty easily. it's the server and application software that needs a lot more work. I don't think we're even close to the point where an end-user can go to their provider and say "IPv6 me!" and get it working for more hassle than it's worth to them. [Click here for his full post]

Here is a great post about 1 man's experince trying to move to IPv6. The moral of his story is that getting the network IPv6 ready is the easier part (but not easy), getting applcations to work with IPv6 just isn't worth the trouble.

Anybody else have stories about deploying IPv6?

Full Discloseure: If you too would like this IPv6 headache for yourself and are a OneNet customer, give us a call and we can set you up :)

House backs compromise digital TV plan

2005-12-20T14:21:00.000-06:00

yahoo news:

Some of the airwaves freed up by broadcasters would be given to public safety groups like police, fire and rescue workers who have had trouble communicating with each other during major crises like the September 11, 2001, attacks and Hurricane Katrina.

If we let people stay on analog tv, the terriost win

Might Microsoft Want Sci-Atlanta?

2005-12-19T10:33:00.000-06:00

Light Reading :

"After Cisco Systems Inc. announced plans to buy Scientific-Atlanta Inc. speculation bubbled over someone else stepping in to spoil the bid.

Consumer electronics types such as Sony Corp. were the favorites, and Alcatel got a mention as possibly looking to defend its turf against Cisco. And there's been talk that at least a couple of these parties were prepared to bid more than Cisco.

But how about Microsoft Corp.? The New York Post reported early this week that the Redmond empire was mulling its own bid for Scientific-Atlanta."

I think there isn't much fact to this, but interesting rumor none the less. Both have tons of cash. This may be a trial balloon sent out some some other non-micosoft 3rd party to see if Cisco is willing to get into a bidding war for SA. I don't think Cisco is willing to do that, but I could be wrong.

From the enemy of my enemy Dept. AOL to stick with Google and drop talks with Microsoft

2005-12-16T14:25:00.000-06:00

ZDNet:

Google may pay $1 billion for a 5 percent stake in America Online as part of an exclusive deal with Time Warner that would strengthen ties with the search giant instead of dumping Google for Microsoft.

If 1 Billion = 5% of AOL and my math is corrrect, that would mean AOL is worth $20 BILLION ! I find that way to high.

Full Disclosure: My math is often wrong.

Cutting and Pasting config via Hyperterminal

2005-12-16T11:33:00.000-06:00

Many times I tried to paste a large block of config into hyperterm, and it fails. Now I know why, and how to fix it thanks to this tip from Cisco's Packet mag.

Suhail Kulasi, Ashurst, London, England :

If you cut and paste your config onto an IOS-based switch using Hyperterminal, it breaks down about midway. This occurs because Hyperterminal sends the text too quickly for the switch, particularly if a command returns a message, such as portfast. To avoid this, in Hyperterminal, select File – Properties; click the Settings tab, click the ASCII button, and add a character delay of 5 milliseconds. You should now be able to cut and paste your config successfully.

In the "My CEO can beat up your CEO" department

2005-12-16T11:16:00.000-06:00

EFY Times:

Narayana Murthy ranks eighth on the 15-strong list of CEOs. Nearly 700 leading business people in 65 countries took part in the survey. India's only CEO to list in the top 15 CEOs is also ahead of GE's Jeffrey Immelt and Cisco's John Chambers.

Light Reading - BellSouth Cuts 1,500 - Telecom News Wire

2005-12-16T10:28:00.000-06:00

Light Reading :

In an ongoing effort to better position the company for success in the competitive broadband marketplace, today BellSouth (NYSE:BLS) announced a management reduction of approximately 1,500 employees

"Marry Christmas" I mean, "Happy Holidays," I mean "Holidays," I mean "Un-plaid long term vaction," I mean "You're Fired"

From your friend and and employer,
BellSouth

Gmail Mobile

2005-12-16T09:33:00.000-06:00

Gmail Mobile

If you a like me and you carry a phone that has web access and have a gmail account. Google has slimed down their gmail for moblie phones. just go to http://m.gmail.com

If you don't have a gmail account. Let me know I'll send you a referal.

6500/7600 IOS Command cheat-sheet

2005-12-15T16:52:00.000-06:00

I haven't posted a helpful tip recently so I figure it is time to do so. Here is a list of IOS commands I found posted on Puck that are particlar to the 6500 switch and the 7600 router (same thing). Thanks to Hank Nussbacher and Florian Weimer on the cisco puck list

show catalyst [Catalyst 6000 info]
show cwan [Catalyst WAN info]
show fabric [Crossbar switching data]
show inventory [Equipment inventory including Serial Numbers]
show mls [Multilayer switching]
show mls statistics
show mls netflow ip nowrap
show mls status [undocumented]
show module [Linecard info]
show power [Power info]
show tcam [TCAM info]
show tcam detail [ actual TCAM contents ]
show fm inter nnnn [Feature Manager]
show fm features [displays L4OPs utilization]
show idprom module n [IDPROM info]
show upgrade fpd [Field Programmable Device upgrade]
attach n [Connect to SUP]
remote command switch sho xxxx [execute a command on the SUP]
remote login switch [Connect to SUP]
ipc-cons n [Connect to Flexwan - undocumented]

Is Google the best search engine?

2005-12-15T13:31:00.000-06:00

The Search Engine Experiment

Try this blind 'taste test'

at&t shouldn't have it both ways on 'IPVT'

2005-12-14T10:40:00.000-06:00

Techdirt:

They claim that they don't need a cable license, because what they're offering is "different" -- a claim that would be a lot more credible if they didn't make their IPTV offerings look so much like cable offerings.

If at&t doesn't want to do the cable franchise thing, then they need to have a product that doesn't look so much like a cable tv franchise. And of course I mean real VoD.

Full Disclosure: Mama told me, I couldn't eat my cake and have it too.

Top 10 System Administrator Truths

2005-12-13T13:47:00.000-06:00

The Search for A Good Story: Top 10 System Administrator Truths: "."

Worth the read.

They were not kidding folks, they really want to create a 2 tiered Internet.

2005-12-13T13:32:00.000-06:00

Boston.com Business:

AT&T Inc. and BellSouth Corp. are lobbying Capitol Hill for the right to create a two-tiered Internet, where the telecom carriers' own Internet services would be transmitted faster and more efficiently than those of their competitors.

I sure hope google with all their IPO money can stop this.

Cisco CRS-1 and Nortel DWDM Score Comcast Wins

2005-12-13T09:32:00.000-06:00

I wonder why Cisco didn't win the DWDM part of this deal, which has to be the bigger piece. I can't see Comcast needing more the 4 or so CRS-1 routers. I wonder if Comcast will use Cisco's new DWDM optics in the CRS-1 router, and just use Nortel for the ROADMs and OA's.

Could a U.S. Shift to IPv6 Cost $75B?

2005-12-13T09:22:00.000-06:00

Internet.com:

"Can IPv6 aid in achieving the organization's strategic vision and mission?" the report asks. "The answer is 'yes' if agencies understand its potential and the new communications paradigm it creates."

Can someone explain to me this paradigm shift? How is IPv6 so much different from IPv4, and is that differance worth $75 Billion?

Cisco set to take on network and application performance management

2005-12-12T11:57:00.000-06:00

NetworkWorld:

Cisco next week is set to roll out a suite of products that will help network managers better pinpoint the source of application performance problems

Cisco needs to get Network management under control before it starts application management. CiscoWorks 2000 (CW2k) is bulky and arkward, and lacks many key features. Cisco has other network management tools, but none work together to give one a good view of their network, and most are over priced IHMO.

BellSouth offers VoIP

2005-12-12T09:46:00.000-06:00

Light Reading :

And that BellSouth name adds a premium. 8x8's Packet8 Freedom Unlimited plan, with unlimited local and long distance calling to the U.S. and Canada, costs $19.95 a month. But BellSouth customers will initially pay $29.95 a month for BellSouth's rebranded version

Who would pay $10 for the BellSouth name? They are idots

The New Air Force Mission to include Cyberspace?

2005-12-09T09:52:00.000-06:00

The New Air Force Mission?: "-- to fly and fight in Air, Space, and Cyberspace"

How does one fly and and fight is 'cyberspace'? Who says cyberspace anymore? I guess someone needs to proctect us from Lawnmower Man

Alltel to spin off local-phone unit and Merge with Valor

2005-12-09T09:44:00.000-06:00

Alltel to spin off local-phone unit

Have the mico-mega mergers of the ILEC's begun? Will this echo what is happening with the baby bells?

CIDR Report

2005-12-09T08:56:00.000-06:00

CIDR Report

This is a great site if you are looking to 'rank' AS numbers and such.

Full disclosure:This airs everyones dirty laundry, and I need to find some soap. ;)

Mike Lynn says: Firm Allegedly Hiding Cisco Bugs

2005-12-06T10:44:00.000-06:00

Wired News: Firm Allegedly Hiding Cisco Bugs: "Mike Lynn"

Mike Lynn: " Wait, Wait, my 15 minutes of fame isn't over.."

Free Wi-fi Prompts BellSouth to Withdraw Donation

2005-12-06T10:11:00.000-06:00

From Slashdot ::

"Shortly after learning of the New Orleans plan for free city-wide wireless internet, Bellsouth Corp. withdrew an offer to donate a damaged building to be used for police headquarters. According to the Washington Post, 'Bill Oliver, angrily rescinded the offer of the building in a conversation with New Orleans homeland security director Terry Ebbert.'"

What can I add, telco's are evil

Juniper's Secret

2005-12-01T15:16:00.000-06:00

From Light Reading :

Juniper doesn’t have an acquisition strategy. It is a tactic to capitalize on our opportunities. Organic innovation is our primary focus... Juniper doesn’t necessarily NEED anything that we don’t currently have. That said, we watch the markets and if there are opportunities in the market to realize the potential our traffic processing strategy we will make acquisitions.

duh?

Executive Wants to Charge for Web Speed

2005-12-01T13:39:00.000-06:00

Executive Wants to Charge for Web Speed:

William L. Smith, chief technology officer for Atlanta-based BellSouth Corp., told reporters and analysts that an Internet service provider such as his firm should be able, for example, to charge Yahoo Inc. for the opportunity to have its search site load faster than that of Google Inc

He's an idot.

Full disclosure: He's a big dumb telco idot.

Is Limited Unlimited Service False Advertising?

2005-12-01T11:39:00.000-06:00

Is Limited Unlimited Service False Advertising?:

Just last month, we wrote about people getting kicked off Verizon Wireless' high speed EVDO network for using the "unlimited" network too much -- raising the question of how you could use too much of something that was being advertised as unlimited?

I was reading this article, and agreeing with it. Thinking about my Treo 650 I'm about to get and if I could be ding'd for using too much. Then I realized that this would be yet another post that need a Full disclosure.

Full Disclosure: OneNet offers "Unlmited Email and Web hosting" for all cirucit customers. The problem is that we have, like the companies in this article, "got on" to heavy users, and asked them to delete some things. 99% of the time it isn't a problem. (The truth is that it is easier to offer 'unlimited' then to work out the mechanism that would limit users and the policy that goes along wth it. But, you didn't here me say that)

Is ICANN cybersquatting?

2005-11-30T13:33:00.000-06:00

A.com, B.com, C.com on the way?

Can they do this? Can they hold on to these addresses then sell them for millions of dollors? Why not hold on to news.com shopping.com?

Isn't it funny though that most of the big internet players have 'madeup' names for their domains? yahoo google ebay skype vongae cisco None of these were words until they got their domain names.

UPDATE:
It looks like Yahoo wants y.com

Did Ebay over think and over pay for putting customers and sellers together?

2005-11-30T10:42:00.000-06:00

Google Tests Pay-Per-Call Ads

This seems simple enough. Why didn't ebay do this, instead of paying 2.6 Billion for skype? Not software to load, no hardware to install.

Good for google. When google really shines is when they put out something that is smiple and useable.

Another Case of Telco's draging their feet and VoIP getting the bad wrap because of it

2005-11-30T09:55:00.000-06:00

FCC May Block Vonage From Signing Users

SBC, now at&t, gave us the run around when we installed E911 for our phone system, and we are no real threat to them. Just imagne how much run around they have Vonage.

The e911 system is odd. Did you know that no additonal infomation is sent durring the call? That is what they lead you to believe happens. However what really happens is that your PBX of VoIP server must dial in (Yes, that is right it must have a modem and dail up) to a central e911 server for your region on a regualr basis, and transfer a file that corasponds phone numbers with data about the location of the call. We asked again and again if we could transfer the file over the internet and they said it couldn't be done.

Full disclosure: I first said SBC (now at&t) were the devil when they let Vonage and VoIP get a bad wrap with someone died in TX because 911 didn't work. Vonage has been getting trying to do e911 for a long time, but the telcos have been unwilling to work with them. SBC would reather Vonage get blamed for deaths then work with them to help everyones safety. That is devilish
Not long after that they threatend to sue my friends chruch over a yellow page ad that they didn't want or sign up for.

Do you want a la carte pricing for Cable/Sat ?

2005-11-30T09:20:00.000-06:00

New FCC report advocates a la carte TV pricing

Well it seems the readers of this blog like to talk about TV and where TV is going. Thanks for all the post :D

I can see both sides of this issue, I understand that people want more options in how they order cable tv.
But could they really save any money. Most of the per customer cost of cable is in the infastruture settop boxes. It cost them the same to deliver 100 channels as it does 20. So they will have to make that cost back some how. And with basic digital cable around 30 or 40 bucks I don't see much room for cost cutting if someone wants fewer channels.

Also all TV's and setup boxes have vchips in them now, so if you don't want your kids seeing a channel you can 'turn it off'

But the truth is, This is old school thinking. Purching Video should be more like getting internet access.
1. I buy a pipe, and with that pipe comes some basic exclusive content. With Internet it currently is email, a homepage and maybe some space to host a website. With video it could be basic local channels and public access stuff.

2. With that pipe I can view some other content for free that is ad supported or a retale stie. This is most of what is available on the wild wild web, like tidbitsandbytes.blogspot.com dilbert.com and ebay.com With video this could any video content someone want to produce and host, but would be mostly like what comes on non-premium cable, abc, nbc, discovery etc. but it won't be limited to big networks. Any one with a video camera and a hard drive could host content.

3. If I want premium content I will pay the content owner or their representive directly, not the pipe ower (I'm talking you you at&t). Currently websites like this are wsj.com and I'm guessinig xxx.com. Here is where the HBO's and Showtimes of the world would sell their content. And their will be bundle providers that will package lots of content for 1 price on 1 bill.

4. I will use search engines like google to find what content I want.
The search engines could also be the bundlers metioned is point 3.

5. My home device is a standerd customizable box that can be purched from multiable providers. For the internet that is my pc. But the setup box needs to be more like a pc. I think set top boxes have lagged behind because cable subscribers are locked into the box they get from their cable co. There has been no reason to inovate.

Thats my dream VoD/TV world. a la carte channels are just a distraction from getting truely customizeable TV.

Cyber Monday, Marketing Myth

2005-11-29T11:17:00.000-06:00

Cyber Monday, Marketing Myth

I thought it was odd that I had never heard of this before Wed. of last week.

Are Telcos Being Too Conservative With Their TV Plans?

2005-11-28T10:48:00.000-06:00

You know when I think about it, Tivos (and other DVR's) are really just a band-aid for what people really want. They want VoD (video on demand) They want to watch what they want to watch, only what they want to watch, and when they want to wach it. I'm sure it will come someday, but why does it seem that day is further and further out?
Why do we keep with this same old broadcast TV model?
Do people really like 'live' taped TV?
Is there something about watching the last episode of Friends at the same time as everyone else, even though you are with them?

I don't think so, I think that change is hard, and it will be on hard on everyone, Content producers(ABC,CBS,HBO...), Advertisers (Tide, GM, Wal-Mart...) and Pipes (at&t,Version,Cox). Do we the public have to wait on these guys, or will some one be able to become the Vonage of VoD? Can someone make a new set-top box that is network enabled, that can also line up the content that people want to see?

I would like to see Tivo try. They need to reform themselves as not a digital video recorder, but a digital video provider.

1. A box that can get any video anywhere and line up the targeted ads to go with it. A box that talks to the fridge, knows that I'm running low on x brand of butter, but shows me an ad for brand y butter, with a coupon. I think people are ok with ads that are relevant, not too intrusive.

2. A box that can become the free market of video. Anyone anywhere could produce video content and choose to any number of options, from giving it away, to allowing the box to add relevant ads, to charging per viewing, or any combination of these.

Google should really be looking about buying TiVo. Google knows how to show relevant non-intrusive ads that work, and with TiVo they could add that to TV.

House Proposal Would Bring Broadband Into USF Loop

2005-11-23T15:03:00.000-06:00

Ok, maybe my blood pressure can't take this site. I read the first full artical and to hear some of these crazy ideas coming out of Washington, and I'm already upset.

Here is a quote from the article:
...recipients of USF monies would have to offer broadband at download speeds of at least 1 megabit per second within five years.

1 Mbit, 5 Years !!! Do these guys even know how little 1 Mbit is now days, and how long 5 Years are in tech? Words can't even begin to express how inadequate this is.

At 1Mbit it will take 4 minutes to download iTunes, today. I'm sure in 5 years the iTunes download will be much larger and take even longer to download.

1 HDtv channel is 32 Mbit. So rual america just hold tight, in five years you'll get 1/32 the bandwidth need to watch 1 HD channel. Hope it will be worth the wait.

Full Disclosure:Phil, where ever you are out there in rual Americal, this rant is for you.

Keeping track of USF and Telecom Act news from Washington.

2005-11-23T14:47:00.000-06:00

National Journal's Insider Update: The Telecom Act

I just found this site that looks to be a good way of keeping track of what washington is doing Tech/Telecom/Internet wise. If this is of intrest to you (and it should). you probably want to follow this page.

Full Disclosure: I'm not sure what slant/point of view this site has. It could be SBC (I mean AT&T, uuuah I mean at&t) backed. I'll read more and do some research and let you know.

Wild-Card mask for access-list in IOS

2005-11-23T10:19:00.000-06:00

For what ever reason, IOS want the mask for access-list to be the inverse. Most (if not all) people who work with IOS regularly, make some sort of mistakes now and again. So here is good link to put in your bookmarks if you're having trouble doing the math in your head.

Subnet Mask tool for Access-List

----------------------------
Also a tip I found in Packet

A fast and easy way to obtain the inverse or “wildcard” mask is
to subtract the known subnet mask from the broadcast or “all
1’s” address. The inverse mask of a /21 would be as follows:

..255.255.255.255 <- broadcast address
- 255.255.248.0 <- subnet mask for /21
....0...0...7.255 <- inverse mask for /21

---------------------------

Then there is the old CCIE lab trick. (I've heard people who practice for the CCIE lab use this) If you have a router that you can configure an extra OSPF routing process on you can add a network to that OSPF process:
router ospf 1
network 1.1.1.0 255.255.255.192 area 0

Then look at the config:
sho run | inc 1.1.1.0
network 1.1.1.0 0.0.0.63 area 0

Here IOS magicly reverses the mask for you. Why this isn't an option with ACL mask I'll never know.

New at&t logo

2005-11-22T09:50:00.000-06:00

Does this look a cartoonish mummy head to anyone else?

Full Disclosure:Thanks Troy for pointing this out.

Full Disclosure2:Are they the walking dead?

bgp bestpath as-path multipath-relax

2005-11-22T09:19:00.000-06:00

Here is a hidden IOS command, in newer IOS's.
bgp bestpath as-path multipath-relax

This will allow the router to load-share across multiple BGP paths even if the as-path is different. If you run BGP between multiple ISPs and you are looking for better load sharing between your connections this may help you out.

Warning I'm not sure this will work well with jitter sensitive apps like VoIP.

Free movie preview for TiVo users | PVRblog

2005-11-18T15:19:00.000-06:00

Looks like tivo has been reading my blog!

Also see:
TiVo to put CNET back on the air | PVRblog

New taxes could run rural broadband | CNET News.com

2005-11-18T15:12:00.000-06:00

I don't agree with taxing VoIP, but I don't think it would be a bad idea to tax 'Broadband'. We did this for Phones, and I think we should do this for Broadband.

The problem with taxing VoIP is that it isn't mature yet, and it isn't infrastructure. I think it is only fair to tax infrastructure to build infrastructure. That is also why I'm not a huge fan of E-rate. It is a tax on infrastructure to pay for service.

Full Disclosure: OneNet receives E-rate funds, and thus it great idea.

IPv6 Forum chief: the new Internet is ready for consumption

2005-11-18T11:19:00.000-06:00

Crazy talk.

Here is a qutoe:
The Internet was not designed like this. It was designed to enable peer-to-peer and VoIP.

WHAT? No one even knew what p2p or VoIP was in 1978. I'm pretty sure the internet was designed so the President could control the missles if USSR attacked us.

To say that the intent of the design was some open any to any utopia is just false. And to suggest that any to any isn't available now is false. Even he states that 70% of Internet traffic is peer-to-peer.

Then he states that he doesn't want the walled garden of the Telco's, and blams NAT for that. (I'm not sure how one is tied to the other) Last I checked if I NAT, I have control over my private IP addresses and can easily move from ISP to ISP. This is NOT true with IPv6. You have to get your IP addresses from your provider, and if you want to switch providers you have to renumber your whole network.

IPv6 is a solution looking for a problem. I'm sure someday we will need more addresses, but that is far far way. My best guess is that only 10% of Intenret connected devices need public addresses.

This guys whole argument is aginst NAT. The problem is that NAT works, it cheap, and already deployed and understood. None of that can be said of IPv6.

Full Disclosure: If you want IPv6 today OneNet is happy to provide it, just give us a call ;)

Cisco to Acquire Scientific-Atlanta

2005-11-18T09:49:00.000-06:00

Can Cisco do it? Chambers has always said he/they shy away from big acquisitions.

From Aug 10th:
"It is extremely unlikely for us to ever do a large acquisition. My view is, most all of them fail," Chambers said.

To be fair this was inrelation to rummor of a Nokia acquistion, which is problaly 10 times the size of S-A. But S-A is 10 times the size of most of Cisco's acquistions.

Can they incorparate at 50+ year old company, with 6,500 employees? Is Cisco testing the waters? could even bigger deals be down the line?

I think they can, and hope they do. But is Cisco is going to trip up it will be with something like this.

Telstra Selects Cisco CRS-1 Carrier Routing System for its Next Generation Network Core

2005-11-16T14:18:00.000-06:00

This story has many twist and turns so follow me here

January 2004 AARnet (Australia's Ed/Research Network) chooses Procket, an strat-up router company.

June 2004 Cisco buys what is left of Procket but doesn't continue the Hardware.

Cisco figures it will be a shoe in to replace the Procket routers with CRS-1s

But Cisco forgets that the Research folk don't care to much for "the establishment "

AARNet picks Juniper to replace Procket.

But after licking it wounds over that lost Cisco's Australia team scores a bigger win with Telstra. Getting a research net is ok, but winning a major commercial ISP much better.

SBC won't repeat DSL goofs in Project Lightspeed, exec says

2005-11-16T09:34:00.000-06:00

This just in:
SBC will try harder not to sell what it can't deliver.

Quote:
SBC is now putting the customer's perspective first,

Oh now you do that. Good plan SBC. Where did you come up with this bit of wisdom? Was #!@#ing over your customers not working for you?

Full Disclosure: I did at one point in my past have SBC DSL, and it did work well for the most part.

Next Generation Ethernet News: Ethernet over MPLS specification

2005-11-15T13:45:00.000-06:00

"I'm glad to see progress being made, but I wonder have we forgoten about the payload? I mean, if we have IP over Ethernet over MPLS over ATM over Sonnet, are we starting to run out of room for the payload, the reason for the packet anyway? Or is bandwidth and cpu cycles getting so cheap that we can afford fragmented payloads and High header to payload ratio's?"

Enterasys agrees to be bought out by two private investment firms

2005-11-15T13:32:00.000-06:00

Juniper missed their chance to buy this on the cheap. This company will be on the autcion block is 12 to 24 month, but at a much higher price. It is my understanding that these investment firms buy mis-managed companies on the cheap, replace all the managment and resale after the company turns around.

What is Juniper going to do for an Ethernet solution? Enterasys is off the table. That leaves foundary, extream, 3com, and force10. Or they can build inhouse, but if they were going to do that why haven't they yet?

Citrix, Force10, acquire security start-ups

2005-11-15T13:25:00.000-06:00

I had no idea that Citrix even had a switch. Man they are all over the map they also are behind GoToMyPC.com

Looks like Citrix has a Content switch group they bought in June, and Teros will become part of that group.

I won't even bother to coment on Force10, other then to say "Who has a Force10 switch?"

Is this odd to anyone else?

2005-11-14T16:26:00.000-06:00

Juniper Gets Into $122M Funk

I just don't know what to say about this one. I don't see the fit. The only guess I have is that they are trying to replace all the Netscreen Engineers that I've heard rummors of leaving. But these are not the same type of engineers. But that doesn't make any sence either, because they'll need to continue to support Funk's software.

Juniper keepsing trying to get into the enterprise market, but unwilling to go with the lower margin answer, ethernet switches. I'm sure for every router/firewall/aaa server a company buys they buy 10 switches. Ethernet is the key and Juniper doesn't want to go there. If Juniper want to survive the enterprise market they are going to strart selling switches even if they have to sell them at a loss. Enterprises want a complete solution / partner. Juniper is still not there yet.

Full disclosure: Cisco is having the same growing pains trying to get into the SMB maket. See LinksysOne

Cisco and IPSec Vulnerabilities

2005-11-14T14:49:00.000-06:00

Cisco Security Advisory: Multiple Vulnerabilities Found by PROTOS IPSec Test Suite

I find this weird that it affects most all Cisco's IPSec code, from IOS to PIX to VPN Consentrators. Does Cisco Share IPSec code between platforms? Is this something that is unique to Cisco or are other vendors effected too because it is something wrong with IPSec itself. (Remember the SNMP issue a year ago?)

Anyway Check your code see if you are up to date, esp. if you run IPSec. I know I'll be checking our stuff.

Full Disclosure: I'm pretty sure IPSec is Vodoo (I'm still trying to find hard evidence) You think I'm lying? You try to find someone who can explain in detail how it works. I'm still looking. If you are that preson let me know. Until then IPSec will remain in my vodoo column.

UPDATE

It Looks like it isn't just Cisco.

Tivo needs to move on this now, and not get behind on this treand

2005-11-14T14:31:00.000-06:00

TV Experiments Just Keep Coming

Can I get a Amen from all the Tivo users in the house?

All these offerings are kinda cool, but on most of them you end up watching on either your PC or iPod. People want to watch TV (guess what?) On their TV. This is Tivo's advange. Your Tivo is already hooked up to the TV and the Internet. Tivo, where are you? Give people what they really want true VoD. The bandwith is there for most customers. What are you waiting for Tivo?

Instead Tivo seems to going the wrong direction.

Full disclosure: I'm a DirecTivo user, it has no internet Access. I would be willing to give up my dual-tuner'ness for Netflix on my Tivo.

Broadband states all vote Democrat, dial-up states vote Republican

2005-11-14T11:05:00.000-06:00

Broadband states all vote Democrat, dial-up states vote Republican

Interesting, but not suprising. I think this speaks more to the fact that we (U.S.) are way behind in getting broadband out of the cities and into the rual areas. And I don't see this treand abiding anytime soon.

Full disclosure:I went against this treand. I'll leave it you to figure out which way.

I this really news?

2005-11-14T09:55:00.000-06:00

McCartney in live space broadcast

We, as a planet, have been broadcasting video to Space for quite some time. It is just that most of the time the signal gets sent back to earth. Paul McCartney should know better.
See here:

June 25, 1967 - The Beatles star in "Our World," a two-hour satellite television program transmitted live by satellite to five continents and 24 countries. They perform "All You Need is Love." This was the first live television satellite program to air worldwide.

I guess maybe this was the first unicast to space of a beatle.

Full disclosure: I've been suspect of such space signals for some time that is why I've installed a space signal demultiplexer / decoder / recoder

AT&T is dead

2005-11-11T15:39:00.000-06:00

SBC Brass Dominates the New AT&T

Only James Cirroni a lawyer from AT&T will remian from ATT's management team. This rest will be SBC folk. I was hoping that there would a fusion between the two, and maybe something better then the some of the parts would result. But this will be the same old SouthWestern Bell/SBC. The just don't have a customer driven mindset. The have an intitled mindset.

Even though the company will have the AT&T name, this won't be AT&T. Sad because I believe AT&T is was the lesser of two evils. But I guess that has something to do with outcome and why AT&T isn't buying SBC. It is hard to be less evil and win in the old telco world.

Computer glitch turns 911 calls into headache for dispatchers

2005-11-11T14:35:00.000-06:00

Computer glitch turns 911 calls into headache for dispatchers

Another case of PSTN/ TDM failing. This would be all over the news if it were a VoIP system. But since it is tradtional telephony, it just gets glossed over. Vonage recived so much bad press over their 911 issues , where is the outrage over this? I don't know how it happens but somehow the press is POTS friendly.

If you have older 7200 routers watch out

2005-11-11T14:19:00.000-06:00

[c-nsp] Re: cisco 7200 battery

The NV-RAM is really sram + battery. Cisco says the battery is a 10 battery, but that's not guarantee. I'm going to see if I can find out more on this.

Experts at odds over relevance of IPv6 --- me too

2005-11-10T15:52:00.000-06:00

Experts at odds over relevance of IPv6

I agree with most of the anti-IPv6 points is this article. But there is one statement stated as fact that just isn't completely true and is at the root of the problem.

Quote:
Internet Protocol Version 6 is a backwards-compatible replacement for the current Internet protocol, and which boasts inbuilt mobility, quality, manageability and security.

So many parts of this are wrong I don't know where to begin.
1st IPv6 is not truly backwards compatible. If I have a host that only runs IPv6, that host can NOT talk to any IPv4 host, and vicea versa.

It is true that IPv6 " boasts" lots of things. However, the truth as far as I can tell most of those things are no better then IPv4. QOS is handled the same and is more dependent on the hardware then on the IP version. Security will still have it's +'s and -'s. On the plus every device can have a universally unique address. On the minus every device MUST have a unique address. IPv6 has no NAT. Say what you want NAT is the best security most people have. Until host OS systems become more secure by default out of the box for grandma web surfer, I would rather live in world with NAT than 1 without.

Something not brought up by the article is routing table size. How big can it get? Right now the only solution be spoken about is limiting who can be dual homed to Multiple ISPs. Is this really a good idea? It should be come easier for business to multihome not harder.

I'm sure someday we'll all run IPv6 or something like it, but no time soon.

Full disclosure: OneNet offers IPv6 to its customers. Never mind IPv6 is WAY COOL and everyone should run it.

Dynamic Policy Based Routing PBR

2005-11-10T14:42:00.000-06:00

PBR Support for Multiple Tracking Options [Cisco IOS Software Releases 12.3 T] - Cisco Systems

Dynamic PBR used to be an oxymoron. No more. This is way cool. I plan to use this to along side a Cisco Clean Access (CCA) solution we are putting in. We want to force some select traffic through a CCA box. However, for fiscal reasons we don't have a backup CCA box (Cisco does have a fault tolarant solution at this time we couldn't offord it) and we didn't want CCA box to be a single point of failure.

Enter tracking support for PBR. Now we can fail open, which is fine for now for us.

Cisco also supports tracking for HSRP and I may use that aswell.

Just too cool.

2 bgp tips

2005-11-10T10:20:00.000-06:00

What I learned Today about networking

This is a repost from my old blog, but I think they are good tips that I don't want to lose, so I'm reposting them here:

Tip 1 BGP community Best Practice
It is better to set bgp communities on a inbound route-map(or on the redistrabute command) than on an outbound route-map. When you set the communities on the inbound, you know more about the route. For example was this route learned via ebgp or ibgp.

Exception:
Doing an outbound route-map are good if you need to send different cummunities to different peers. Even in this case it may make since to do both inbound and outbound route-map in order not to lose the info about where the route came from.

Tip 2 A eBGP no-no
When you do ebgp multihop toward your peer, and ibgp internally you need to make you sure you don't advertize back to your ebgp peer's addresses back to them.

For example if you redisrabute static routes of your peers networks into your ibgp, then do ebgp multihop else where, they will get their own routes back if you don't use a route filter toward them.

But I thought TDM / PSTN was so reliable.

2005-11-10T09:55:00.000-06:00

WSJ.com - Phone Outages Grow More Severe

This artical just boggles my mind. Telco service is getting worse, and they blame it on Fiber?

SBC = Slow Big Clueless
ATT = Antiquated technology today

I know I often seem like a Bell/Telco basher, but with stuff like this, and the quote for SBC last week, I feel that I must say something.

Good news is that they are slowing dying. I just hope that Congress or the FCC don't put them on life support.

Full disclosure: I hate SBC, and they are the devil.

You don' thave to use Cisco Gbic if you don't want to.

2005-11-10T09:19:00.000-06:00

Elemental Network Consulting - Undocumented Cisco Commands

Here is a IOS command you might find helpful if your budgets are tight:
service unsupported-transceiver

You will get this warning how ever
Warning: When Cisco determines that a fault or defect can be traced to the use of third-party transceivers installed by a customer or reseller, then, at Cisco's discretion, Cisco may withhold support under warranty or a Cisco support program. In the course of providing support for a Cisco networking product Cisco may require that the end user install Cisco transceivers if Cisco determines that removing third-party parts will assist Cisco in diagnosing the cause of a support issue.

Not bad though, just keep a few Cisco gbics around for troubleshooting.

Full disclosure: Haven't tried this (yet). All our gbic's are 100% Cisco. And by that I mean, Cisco bought gbic's from the same company that you would (if you wanted to save $) and they put their Cisco logo sticker and idprom on them, then sold them to us for much more. But I'm sure the sticker makes them better some how.

Proxy ARP

2005-11-09T15:49:00.000-06:00

Proxy ARP [IP Addressing Services] - Cisco Systems

Proxy arp is a stupid feature that is only a band-aid to fix poorly designed or misconfigured networks and should be avoided at all cost.

It is a shame that Cisco's default is still to have proxy arp on. :(

Full discolsure: OneNet probably has proxy arp on some of it interfaces. But I still blame Cisco, it is hard to work against a default ;)

Google let me down after Microsoft let me down

2005-11-09T15:29:00.000-06:00

KB896424 - Google Search

For some reason when I try to install the MS update KB896424 it failed and Microsoft Update (formally Windows Update) was no help in telling me why it failed.

So I thought I would google search for what the update was supposed to fix. and I get:
Your search - KB896424 - did not match any documents.

Suggestions:

- Make sure all words are spelled correctly.
- Try different keywords.
- Try more general keywords.

No help.

I've installed customize google, and it gives we a quick like to the yahoo search. That gives me usefull results.

Score: Mircosoft -1, Google -1, Yahoo 1.

Full discolsure: This blog is hosted by Google

Juniper Hating

2005-11-09T15:21:00.000-06:00

Juniper's Ethernet Strategy Emerging

Here is a thread on Light reading if want to read some Juniper and Alcatel bashing.

I hope Congress pays attention

2005-11-09T09:01:00.000-06:00

Here Vint Cerf talks about keeping the Internet open. The Internet is not the PSTN (Public switched telephone Network) and I hope Congress doesn't treat it that way. We (OneNet) operate network that is more eyeballs then content. However, I would rather be limited on what I can do on the network at work, then what I could do on my broadband connection at home.

Full disclosure: I'm a Vonage user.

Better then OSPF areas

2005-11-08T11:12:00.000-06:00

This is just a thought I had durring a conversation today. Instead of doing OSPF areas to grow a OSPF network beyond Area0 try running 2 different OSPF processes on what would otherwise be your area border routers, then redistbute routes between those 2 processes. Route redistrabution offers you the ability to set your own rules about what goes between areas instead of be stuck with the rules of OSPF.

This may not work for every situation, but should work on Stubby and Not So Stubby Areas.

Full disclosure: I haven't tried this in a live network (yet) Right now, we only have Area 0 in our ospf network. I am considering doing this soon with a couple of routers I'm adding in what would be a NSSA.

If you have tried this, let me know.

To try and try again

2005-11-07T16:05:00.000-06:00

I've tried a blog before, and didn't keep up. I'm guessing that isn't too uncommon. Well, I'm trying again. Maybe this time I'll do better, but don't count on it.

My previous blog is here:
http://whatjohnlearned.blogspot.com/

I just looked at it again today and decided I didn't like it much and didn't remember my username and pw so I started to start anew.

This blog servers two purposes. 1) to post what I hope are neat networking tid bits and 2) help me keep up on the whole blogging thing. Everyone else is doing it so why not me, sigh.

Well here it goes, lets see if I keep up this time.