Network management

Cisco announced the debut of its cloud-native broadband router, which is a containerized, software reboot of traditional converged cable access platform (CCAP) hardware.  The new cloud-native broadband router is notable on several levels, the first being that it's further proof that Cisco has moved beyond its roots as just a vendor of hardware boxes. With cloud-native, carriers can split disaggregated systems into even smaller, independent microservice functions that can scale up or down as needed.

[Commentary] A federal push to expand access to high-speed internet is incongruous with and state and local governments increasing their taxes on that service. Our federal government does not think this is desirable and is prepared to make a sizeable expenditure to increase access to high-speed broadband. To turn around and have another government entity tax the service it is subsidizing--and to use the money not to fund internet access in its community but treat it as general revenue, as Eugene (OR) does--defeats a rare bipartisan goal.

It's been a tough slog for cities and towns that want to build ultra-fast fiber internet networks to benefit residents, businesses and their local economies — so tough, in fact, that virtually none has managed to do it. In May, a ruling by the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority further diminished their odds.  PURA's May 9 decision, which may end up in state court, blocks municipalities from using their legally reserved space on utility poles to build fiber networks that offer broadband internet service to residents and businesses, including through contracts with third-party developers.

As we work to cement our vision of the Internet around the world, we’re also focused on getting everyone in the United States connected. A key part of the administration’s strategy for expanding broadband deployment is removing barriers that slow or block new projects. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration is working to improve federal coordination around this goal through an interagency working group that we co-chair alongside the Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service. Our group is focusing on three areas. The first is federal permitting.

On April 30, 1993, CERN—the European Organization for Nuclear Research—announced that it was putting a piece of software developed by one of its researchers, Tim Berners-Lee, into the public domain.  That software was a “global computer networked information system” called the World Wide Web, and CERN’s decision meant that anyone, anywhere, could run a website and do anything with it. In an era when online services were still dominated by proprietary, for-profit walled gardens such as AOL and CompuServe, that was a radical idea.

As part of the working group efforts within the Federal Communications Commission's Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC), one subcommittee has collected data on telecommunication pole attachment rates and published the information along with some very early data analysis.

On Tuesday, April 17, the House Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Communications and Technology will hold a hearing –  entitled “From Core to Edge: Perspective on Internet Prioritization” – to  better understanding of how network operators manage data flows over the Internet and how data is prioritized from the network core to the edge.

INCOMPAS, the internet and competitive networks association (formerly COMPTEL), wants the House Communications Subcommittee to know just where it stands on paid prioritization: firmly against it. INCOMPAS said paid prioritization, an umbrella term that covers a variety of business plans involving charging for prioritizing web traffic, gives internet service providers the incentive to "monetize network congestions," leading to a world of fast and slow lanes where ISPs pick the winners and losers.

[Commentary] Cisco Systems Vice President Jeffrey Campbell highlighted that paid prioritization is “one of the most misunderstood issues” in the telecom policy space. There's a growing realization that prioritization can play a positive role in network traffic management. But to understand why, we need to get beyond the “fast lanes, slow lanes” metaphor that has too often dominated the net neutrality debate. All internet traffic on a network moves at the same speed — the speed at which the electrons propagate on the wire.