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Articles

Can 1Velocity see under your clothes?

In Expert Articles on November 23, 2010 by Nate Rosenberg Tagged: body scanner, ethernet, internet, millimeter-wave, spectrum, tsa

Millimeter-wave Body Scanner (tsa.gov)

What do the TSA’s new body scanners and 1Velocity have in common? Both use millimeter-wave spectrum.

The news this week is filled with stories about new body scanners at airport security that can see through passengers’ clothes. Those scanners use the same millimeter-wave spectrum 1Velocity uses in its Gigabit Ethernet backbone ring.

Does that mean 1Velocity can see under your clothes?

Millimeter-wave Spectrum

A spectrum is a range of light frequencies. Millimeter-wave is a spectrum not visible by the human eye.

A rainbow shows the visible spectrum, from the red frequencies all the way to the purple (Ever seen a double rainbow?). But there many spectrum that we cannot see with the naked eye.

Millimeter-wave, X-rays, gamma rays, microwave, and infrared are each different spectrum of light above or below what we can see with our eyes. And each spectrum has its own characteristics, useful for multiple applications.

Your TV remote and night-vision goggles both use infrared spectrum in different ways. Radar and microwave ovens use microwave in different ways.

Does your TV remote give you night-vision?

Like infrared and microwave, millimeter-wave has multiple uses.

While the TSA scanners send broad beams like a flashlight, 1Velocity uses targeted beams like a laser.

Using pencil-thin beams, 1Velocity can provide business Internet and metro Ethernet at a rate up to 1 gigabit per second (Gbps). With a much-broader beam, the TSA body scanners to scan under passengers’ clothes for guns, knives, and explosives.

Since your TV remote doesn’t give you night vision, you have probably already guessed that 1Velocity’s pencil-thin beams cannot see under your clothes. All we can do is provide high-speed data connections across town or to the Internet, which is still pretty cool.

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Articles

Why Ethernet is Better for Business

In Expert Articles on November 3, 2010 by Nate Rosenberg Tagged: carrier, ds3, ethernet, internet, lan, tdm, wan

In the past, most businesses used TDM (T1, DS-3, OC-x) instead of Ethernet for WAN and Internet connectivity. Today, businesses are increasingly choosing Ethernet instead.

Why?

Ethernet has been used on corporate networks for decades because it is reliable, scalable, and cost-effective. Why have businesses only recently started using Ethernet for wide-area networks and Internet?

A Quick History Lesson

Back in the day, the only network in town was the telephone network. Corporate LANs spoke Ethernet, but the telephone networks did not. Engineers had to figure out how to transmit packetized data (Ethernet) over a circuit-switched telephone network.

The solution? Use a router to encapsulate packets into telecom protocols like TDM.

TDM: Inefficient, Costly, and Inflexible

As you can guess, there are a few problems with using a telephone network to route data.

Overhead: putting IP packets over TDM carries significant overhead. Keeping data packetized throughout the network would be more efficient.
Costly and Inflexible: to provide a 10 Mbps connection over copper, a carrier had to provision an entire 45 Mbps DS3; for a 100 Mbps connection, a fiber 155 Mbps OC-3.
Inefficient: Unlike a phone call, data comes in bursts. On a voice network, unlike an Ethernet LAN, the bandwidth is always dedicated to that line, and the time between packets cannot be used for other packets.

The Switch to Carrier Ethernet

As data traffic overtook voice traffic, carriers found increasingly affordable ways to transmit packetized data on the phone networks.

Finally, some new carriers like Yipes, Cogent, and Telseon built end-to-end Ethernet long-haul fiber networks dedicated exclusively to data. Ironically, now that data traffic has far-surpassed voice traffic, many providers now send voice traffic over data networks using voice over IP (VoIP). In fact, AT&T has begun lobbying Congress to do away with the old telephone network.

Ethernet: Better Network, Better Costs

Ethernet has become the de facto standard for most corporate data networks thanks mainly to its affordability, scalability, and flexibility. Using Ethernet for Wide Area Networks (WANs) has many advantages:

Scalable: you don’t have to pick 1.5, 45, or 155 Mbps. Most Ethernet carriers allow you to choose, 10, 50, 100, 500, or 1000 Mbps. And the leading Ethernet carriers allow you to scale in 1 Mbps increments.
Flexible: configure point-to-point, point-to-multipoint, or (with the leading Ethernet carriers) any-to-any Ethernet virtual private LAN service (VPLS) networks. Ethernet can be used for private networks, Internet access, business continuity, and storage area networks (SANs).
Affordable: Ethernet is more efficient, so it’s more affordable.
Resilient: one of the best advantage of SONET is that failover is accomplished in under 50 ms. With Ethernet, failover can happen in as little as 15 ms.
No Equipment: because packets no longer needs to be encapsulated, you can plug right into a firewall or switch.
No Training: you already know how to use Ethernet. If you can setup a LAN, you can setup an Ethernet WAN.

What’s the Catch? The Fiber Gap

Historically, Ethernet has required a fiber-optic connection; efforts to put Ethernet over copper lines have been mixed.

Despite all the fiber installed over the last few decades, three out of four U.S. commercial buildings still only have copper cabling and cannot get Ethernet. Most businesses cannot afford the tens of thousands of dollars required for a fiber build.

Carriers such as 1Velocity have been bridging this fiber gap by using millimeter-wave and microwave wireless to build dedicated wireless Ethernet connections to business.

Summary: Use Ethernet for Data Networks

Telephone networks speak a different language than corporate Ethernet LANs. In the past, the phone companies developed technologies like T1, DS-3, and OC-x to transmit Ethernet data over the telephone networks, but these methods were inefficient, costly, and inflexible.

As data traffic overtook voice traffic, some new carriers built Ethernet networks dedicated exclusively to data. Many organizations have switched to Ethernet MANs and WANs for better scalability, affordability, simplicity, flexibility, and resiliency.

But the costs of fiber builds have limited the availability of Ethernet to businesses. Wireless providers like 1Velocity are helping to bridge that gap and bring the benefits of Ethernet to businesses at a reasonable price.

Download as PDF: The Switch to Ethernet – 1Velocity Tips

Internet Redundancy with BGP

In Expert Articles on October 28, 2010 by Nate Rosenberg Tagged: bgp, cloud, internet, las vegas, microwave, redundancy, reno, router, routes, wireless fiber

BGP with Multiple Internet Providers

Microwave Internet Redundancy Maximizing uptime requires multiple Internet carriers. The Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) allows companies to use two or more Internet connections at the same time and maintain connectivity during an outage without having to change IP addresses.

BGP has many options, but here are the basics for using BGP with multiple Internet providers.

Three Types of Routes

BGP tells your router where to send outbound traffic. When you connect your network to an Internet provider’s network using BGP, your router can receive three different routes: Default Route, Full Routes, or Partial Routes.

1. Default Route: failover but no optimization

Configuring BGP for each Internet connection using a default route allows a company to have automatic failover between two providers should one provider go down. However, BGP will not load-balance and will send all outgoing traffic to only one ISP. Default routes are often used on routers with less than 512 MB RAM.

2. Full Routes: failover plus optimization

Using full BGP routes with multiple Internet providers allows a company to:

Optimize: Automatically optimize outbound traffic to choose the provider with the shortest path (shortest AS number, by default) to each destination.
Failover: Have auto-failover should one of the ISPs go down. BGP tries to find the shortest path from your gateway to a destination IP address. If one of the carriers is down, the router simply chooses a path from the other carrier.

However, Full Routes typically require a router with minimum 1 GB RAM. Advertising full routes requires keeping all the Internet’s available paths in your router’s memory. As of 2010, there are over 280,000 routes on the Internet, so having two ISPs means you’ll need to store over 560,000 paths. A router with 1 GB memory typically starts around $25,000, depending on the vendor.

3. Partial Routes: optimizing a subset of designated paths

What if your router does not have 1 GB memory? You do not have to store all the paths. With Partial Routes, you configure the router to receive only certain routes. You could ask the ISP to only send some routes, but filtering routes yourself allows for more control and the ability to receive full routes if you upgrade your router.

Typically, you would designate a default route for each provider, plus some specific routes through each provider to frequently-accessed IP addresses (web apps, frequently-used web sites and services, off-site servers, etc).

Getting Started with BGP

Regardless of whether you choose default, full, or partial routes, you will need the following:

Advertisement Authorization from Both Carriers: BGP only routes outgoing traffic. To failover incoming traffic, you need permission from both carriers to advertise the other’s routes.
AS Number: if you have multiple Internet providers, you need an Autonomous System Number (AS Number, $500 from ARIN). As long as you can show you are using multiple Internet carriers, you qualify for an AS number, no matter what size your organization.
/24 Subnet: Most ISPs require that you have at least a /24 set of IP addresses for them to advertise your subnet. You can buy one from your ISP, or you can buy one directly from ARIN.

Download as PDF: Internet Redundancy with BGP

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Articles

“Can I run VoIP over 1Velocity Ethernet?”

In Expert Articles on February 19, 2010 by Nate Rosenberg Tagged: ethernet, qos, video conferencing, vlan, voice, voip

Many people ask, “Does VoIP run well over 1Velocity?

Absolutely! 1Velocity customers use a variety of VoIP systems on our network (Cisco, Shoretel, Mitel, Polycom, etc.) with great call quality. And we are cross-connected to multiple hosted VoIP providers.

Two keys for top-notch call quality are a low latency connection and separating VoIP traffic from the rest of your data.

Latency is the time it takes for voice or data packets to get from one location to the next. If the latency is too high, your phone conversation slows down and you can get echo. For a phone conversation, you usually need less than 150 ms latency one way. Latency across the valley on 1Velocity is a screaming 1 ms, more than fast enough for real-time voice or video conferencing.

The other important task is separating voice traffic from other traffic. If voice and data share the same bandwidth, voice quality will suffer as the line gets congested. Virtual LANs (VLANs) and Quality of Service (QoS) allow you to virtually carve out separate lines for voice and data and prioritize the voice traffic, so that call quality on the voice VLAN stays consistent no matter how much data there is on the data VLAN.

Since 1Velocity’s network is Layer 2 at all points, you can set up multiple VLANs to separate different types of traffic and run QoS.

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Articles

Solving The Mobile Backhaul Bottleneck

In Expert Articles,Mobile Backhaul on October 14, 2009 by Nate Rosenberg Tagged: 3g, 4g, at&t, backhaul, clear, ethernet, millimeter-wave, Mobile Backhaul, sprint, verizon

The mobile telecommunications industry is rapidly changing. The move to 3G and 4G is rapidly expanding the speeds of mobile phones, but the lines that connect cell towers to the Internet are being overwhelmed by the ever-expanding traffic.

With ninety-percent of cell sites without fiber connectivity, many mobile carriers are beginning to look at also using point-to-point wireless for backhaul. 1Velocity believes that mobile backhaul networks will soon be a mixture of landlines (copper and fiber) and point-to-point wireless (microwave and millimeter-wave).

Mobile Data Traffic is Exploding

In September 2009, AT&T revealed that data traffic had increased 5,000 percent over the last three years. They also announced that AT&T would skip 3.5G HSPA+ (7.2 Mbps) and go straight to 4G LTE (10 Mbps+) to keep up with demand.

Source: Cisco

AT&T is not alone. Verizon has the nation’s largest 3G network and will launch 4G LTE in 20-30 markets in 2010 with speeds up to 8-12 Mbps. And Sprint joint-ventured with Clear, which has already launched 4G WiMax in 14 markets with speeds up to 10 Mbps. (LTE and WiMax are two competing standards for achieving 4G speeds.)

“The popularity of new 3G devices such as the iPhone and BlackBerry 3G has increased the use of data, putting the backend networks under strain.”

How the iPhone is Driving a Wireless Bandwidth Boom, GigaOm

The Data Traffic Boom is Overwhelming Mobile Backhaul Networks

In the past, a cell phone call was transmitted from the cell phone to the cell tower wirelessly, and the signal then traveled over T1 landlines from the cell tower across town and out to the world.

A single T1 has 24 channels for phone calls, but that’s only 1.5 Mbps of bandwidth. A single 3G smartphone can transmit 3.6 Mbps of data all by itself.

That means a cell tower needs at least two T1s for every 3G user. And 4G smartphones are expected to transmit more than 10 Mbps. Much like a highway, when there is too much traffic on the backhaul network, everything slows down and users cannot get on.

Backhauling data traffic to the Internet has rapidly become the most expensive part of a mobile network, accounting for as much as 30 percent of operating costs. There are only so many T1s a carrier can connect to a cell tower. 4G provider Clear already requires 30-100 Mbps at each cell site. That would take twenty to seventy T1 lines!

“For mobile carriers, the largest network expense is backhaul…

The conversion to an-Ethernet-based IP-enabled network architecture is inevitable. This will occur not only to handle an increase in new applications and mobile users, but to drive down the rapidly rising cost of backhaul.”

—xchange

Bandwidth above 10 Mbps typically requires fiber, but ninety-percent of U.S. cell sites are without fiber>. And after permits and trenching, bringing in fiber usually costs tens of thousands of dollars per site.

“For many copper-fed cell sites today, operators need to integrate a platform into their network that supports IP services without requiring them to forklift upgrade to expensive fiber infrastructure.

Service providers are searching for technologies that provide lower cost and more effective ways to meet the demand for bandwidth capacity while lowering both capex and opex.”

—xchange

Backhauling Data with Point-to-point Wireless

In some ways, Clear/Sprint has been dealing for years with the issues with which AT&T and Verizon are now grappling. Although Clear is using WiMax instead of LTE and does not transport phone calls on its network (or deal with synchronization issues), they are still the first national carrier to deploy a mobile wireless network with 4G speeds.

Clear’s CTO recently stated that Clear requires 30-100 Mbps backhaul at each cell site. And Clear prefers Ethernet over legacy TDM. But the real news was that Clear backhauls 90 percent of its traffic using point-to-point wireless links.

Point-to-point wireless can be deployed more quickly and cost-effectively than ground fiber. And though microwave is typically limited to 155 Mbps, Clear has also begun using millimeter-wave licensed links for backhaul capacity up to 1 Gbps. In fact, Clear is the largest licensee of millimeter-wave spectrum in the United States.

Millimeter-wave Wireless Fiber

Also known as wireless fiber, millimeter-wave spectrum (71-95 GHz) can transport 1 Gbps Ethernet over distances of a few miles. Millimeter-wave can be used for the last-mile or as a middle-mile solution to backhaul lower-bandwidth microwave.

After Clear, the second largest licenseee of millimeter wave spectrum among U.S. carriers is 1Velocity, a metro Ethernet carrier based in Nevada. Since 2006, 1Velocity has licensed millimeter-wave links to build its own self-healing metro Ethernet rings in Las Vegas and Reno.

Encompassing over 100 locations in Las Vegas and Reno, 1Velocity’s metro Ethernet network provides carrier backhaul, Ethernet private lines, and Internet access from 8 Mbps to 1Gbps to other carriers, public safety, government, healthcare, gaming, transportation, financial, and professional services organizations.

Millimeter-wave and microwave are line-of-sight technologies, so 1Velocity can often provide service to locations other carriers cannot. And since 1Velocity is completely physically diverse from the LECs, carriers can get best-case redundancy with a combination of point-to-point wireless fiber and ground fiber.

Summary

Source: GigaOm

Mobile bandwidth demand is growing at an incredible rate. Companies are investing today to catch-up and prepare for the future. The growth will continue as wireless 4G replaces home Internet and IP video matures. Cisco estimates mobile data will double ever year through 2013. NPRG forecasts double-digit CAGR through 2013 for the mobile backhaul market.

AT&T is investing billions to expand their fiber backhaul, as is Verizon. But while cell towers have traditionally been backhauled by T1 landlines, 3G and 4G networks will likely be backhauled by a combination of Ethernet over fiber and Ethernet over point-to-point wireless.

Clear today is seeing the traffic demands that the other carriers will begin to see starting in 2010. Clear has chosen Ethernet over wireless (microwave and millimeter-wave) point-to-point links for 90% of its backhaul. 1Velocity believes that mobile backhaul networks will soon be a mixture of landlines (copper and fiber) and point-to-point wireless (microwave and millimeter-wave).

Point-to-point wireless over microwave and millimeter-wave spectrum can reliably deliver up to 1 Gbps of bandwidth to locations without fiber. With point-to-point wireless, carriers can obtain a second path that is completely diverse from ground infrastructure to get bandwidth where they need it and improve reliability.

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