Wi-Fi & Networks
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Reviews
Netgear Orbi Wi-Fi router review: It’s not a mesh network, but it’s good enough you won’t care
Orbi satellites communicate with the router, not with each other; but 4×4 backhaul enabled best-in-class performance in most of our benchmarks.News
Fragmentation nixed a Cisco-Android network partnership
Cisco Systems tried to give Android devices the same kinds of integration it later provided for iPhones and iPads but gave up because the Android ecosystem was too fragmented.
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Cisco’s Spark Board looks like an iPad — and acts like one
The Spark Board meeting device that Cisco Systems introduced on Tuesday is not so much a whiteboard or a videoconferencing screen as a giant tablet that everyone in the room can share.
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If we show you how to back up your PC for free, will you finally do it?
What's it gonna take? These free backup tools are a good start.News
Avaya says bankruptcy is a step toward software and services
Networking and collaboration vendor Avaya declared bankruptcy on Thursday, calling the move part of its transition from a hardware to a software and services company.News
Switches coming out this year will drive open networking forward
Two moves by open networking vendors this week are likely to chip a little bit more off the monolith of proprietary, appliance-like equipment that still moves most packets around enterprise data centers.
News
This Wi-Fi alternative wants you to create your own LTE-like wireless networks
On Tuesday, the MulteFire Alliance announced MulteFire Release 1.0, which defines an LTE-like network that can run entirely on unlicensed spectrum like the frequencies Wi-Fi uses.News
Critical flaw lets hackers take control of Samsung SmartCam cameras
The popular Samsung SmartCam security cameras contain a critical remote code execution vulnerability that could allow hackers to gain root access and take full control of them.News
Is this the year IoT standards will finally make sense?
A few brave souls predict IoT standards will start to gel this year, but making all those connected things work together still looks like a long shot.
News
Now it’s AT&T’s term to talk jobs, investment with Trump
AT&T chief executive Randall Stephenson met with President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday to talk jobs and investment but the company's multi-billion takeover of Time Warner was not on the table.
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FCC chief accuses AT&T and Verizon of violating net neutrality—but it probably doesn’t matter
The FCC believes that AT&T and Verizon are probably engaging in unfair practices, but don't expect the government to do anything about it.
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EU wants to regulate WhatsApp and Skype like carriers
The European Commission wants to extend electronic communications privacy legislation to include Internet-based communications services such as Skype, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Google Duo, Apple iMessage, and Viber.News
AT&T raises unlimited data pricing as carriers push users away from grandfathered plans
AT&T is increasing the price of its grandfathered unlimited data plans by $5—just like it did in 2016.
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The FTC accuses D-Link of manufacturing insecure routers and cameras
A Federal Trade Commission attempt to rein in a poorly secured IoT device is raising questions over whether the U.S. regulator has the power to crack down on vendors suspected of shoddy practices.
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A new Wi-Fi spec will help smart homes run like clockwork
On Thursday at CES, the Wi-Fi Alliance announced Wi-Fi Certified TimeSync, a specification for precise time synchronization among Wi-Fi devices.
News
Xiaomi launches a new media router and an updated Mi TV 4, but just for China
Chinese consumer electronics company Xiaomi launched a new media router and an upgraded modular TV, but just for the Chinese market.News
Bitdefender’s second Bitdefender Box sniffs your home’s network to detect hackers
Bitdefender’s new Bitdefender Box protects your home devices from being used in DDoS attacks as well as being remotely hacked.News
ZigBee’s Dotdot language is the latest bid for IoT harmony
As consumers watch another wave of home IoT devices emerge from CES this week, they’ll still be waiting for one technology that can make all those products work together. The ZigBee Alliance made a bid to provide that unifying technology right before the annual consumer electronics gathering kicks off.
Reviews
Linksys Velop Wi-Fi router review: One of the best mesh network systems to date
It might be a little late to the mesh-networking party, but Linksys is showing a winner at CES.News
New year’s resolution for IoT vendors: Start treating LANs as hostile
Insecure default configurations are prevalent in the IoT world, but many of them could be easily avoided if device manufacturers would include LAN-based attacks in their threat modelling.News
Worm on the sensor: What happens when IoT data is bad?
Bad data is common in IoT, and though it’s hard to get an estimate of how much information streaming in from connected devices can’t be used, a lot of people are thinking about the problem.News
Nokia to buy network analytics vendor Deepfield to fight DDoS attacks
Cloud providers and large enterprises don't know enough about what's going on in their networks, according to Nokia.
News
Jury rejects Cisco’s damages claim against Arista
Cisco Systems suffered a major defeat in its long legal fight against rival Arista Networks on Wednesday when a federal court jury rejected its demand for damages.News
Netgear starts patching routers left vulnerable to hacking by a critical flaw
Networking device manufacturer Netgear released firmware updates for several router models in order to patch a critical vulnerability that's publicly known and could be exploited by hackers.News
Nasty unpatched vulnerability exposes Netgear routers to easy hacking
Several models of Netgear routers are affected by a publicly disclosed vulnerability that could allow hackers to take over those devices.News
Bluetooth 5 is out: Now will home IoT take off?
Bluetooth is aiming straight for the internet of things as the fifth version of the wireless protocol arrives with twice as much speed for low-power applications. Bluetooth Low Energy, which gains the most from the new Bluetooth 5 specification, can now go as fast as 2Mbps (bits per second)
News
Cisco Meraki sees the hotel of the future in its new Wi-Fi gear
A new access point for the hospitality industry from Cisco’s Meraki division can work with Bluetooth beacons so hotels know where guests are on the property.
News
2016 will be 1 second longer: Google can help you cope
Like a man eager to show off his new watch, Google is encouraging anyone running IT operations to ask it for the time. The company will let anyone use its NTP (Network Time Protocol) servers, a move to help IT shops cope with the next “leap second,” which will be tacked onto 2016.News
Raspberry Pi 3 snags LTE support with help of new add-on chip
Raspberry Pi 3 today has only Wi-Fi connectivity, but you'll be able to add low-throughput cellular connectivity in the future.News
One million broadband offline in Germany; ‘external influence’ blamed
Almost one million Deutsche Telekom customers have been struggling to get online since Sunday afternoon.Tip
How to monitor websites visited on a home network
OpenDNS can help control access to objectionable websites.News
IoT gear will need better security to win a Z-Wave badge
Tighter security will soon be mandatory for IoT devices that use the popular Z-Wave wireless protocol. Starting next April, the Z-Wave Alliance will require all products to include its S2 (Security 2) framework before they can be certified as Z-Wave compliant.News
DoS technique lets a single laptop take down an enterprise firewall
Researchers have found a new attack technique in the wild that allows a single laptop to take down high-bandwidth enterprise firewalls.News
Facebook hits 20Gbps in testing for internet drone data transmission
Facebook has succeeded in transmitting data at almost 20Gbps between two towers in Southern California in tests of a technology key to its plans to deliver internet service to rural areas using drones.News
Hacker shows how easy it is to take over a city’s public Wi-Fi network
An Israeli hacker found a vulnerability in routers that could have allowed him to take over the public Wi-Fi network of an entire city.News
Carriers are going virtual to give enterprises more freedom
On Monday, the French global carrier Orange launched its virtualized network services program, called Easy Go Network. It joins AT&T, Verizon and other operators that are selling or developing such programs.
News
5 key things you need to know about VPNs
A VPN is a secure tunnel between two or more computers on the internet. Here's everything you need to know.
News
Cloud-based network analysis drills down to users and apps
Nyansa, a startup that launched earlier this year with a cloud-based service to pinpoint the sources of enterprise network problems, is now adding a tool to analyze how individual applications are performing.News
5 ways enterprise networkers can – and can’t – be like webscale stars
In networking these days, big cloud companies like Google and Facebook are at the top of their game. Here are five things that most enterprises can’t do to become like the Internet giants, followed by five things they can.News
Thread Group aims its IoT mesh network at enterprises
The still-fragmented internet of things is slowly converging on protocols that may someday work in both homes and enterprises. The latest move to standardize how IoT devices talk to each other is a push by the Thread Group into industrial and commercial systems.News
Broadcom bids billions for Brocade in order to break it up
Chip maker Broadcom wants to buy storage vendor Brocade Communications Systems, stripping out its Fibre Channel business and selling the rest.News
Cisco says it’ll make IoT safe because it owns the network
Cisco Systems is making a play for the fundamental process of putting IoT devices online, promising greater ease of use and security as enterprises prepare to deploy potentially millions of connected objects.News
Cisco pits modular storage servers against public clouds
Cisco Systems is finding its way into storage through its successful server business. On Tuesday, it’s introducing modular systems that can be deployed with many different combinations of computing and storage capacity.News
CenturyLink will acquire Level 3 Communications in $34B deal
CenturyLink is to acquire Level 3 Communications in a cash and stock deal that aims to consolidate the networks and customers of the two companies.News
For cordless VR and more, WiGig may be worth the wait
On Monday, the Wi-Fi Alliance launched a certification process for WiGig products, which will go as fast as 8Gbps (bits per second) and could include virtual-reality headsets and high-speed office Wi-Fi zones.News
AT&T will acquire Time Warner for $85.4B in content play
AT&T said it will acquire Time Warner for US$85.4 billion, reflecting a continuing trend for the consolidation of communications and media companies.News
An IoT botnet is partly behind Friday’s massive DDOS attack
Malware that can build botnets out of IoT devices is at least partly responsible for a massive distributed denial-of-service attack that disrupted U.S. internet traffic on Friday, according to network security companies.News
Netgear Nighthawk X10 AD7200 Smart WiFi Router goes all the way to 11
The new router sports 802.11ac and 802.11ad, a built-in Plex server, 10Gbps networking, and bonded gigabit Ethernet.News
Cisco revs up storage connections for data centers and WANs
Cisco is boosting the speed of its long-distance storage links for disaster recovery and business continuity. It’s also introducing higher speeds for IP (Internet Protocol) storage networks in data centers and rolling out software to simplify storage management.News