Latest from Next TV in Need-to-know

Need to Know: IoT Poses New Cybersecurity Threats for Cable

garyarlen@gmail.com (Gary Arlen) — Mon, 02 Jul 2018 12:00:00 +0000

As cybercrimes and incidents of institutional hacking increase, cybersecurity is a critical concern for big TV distributors that give consumers access to the internet.

It’s also a strange topic for cable operators, though, because it’s rarely discussed in public, beyond the chorus of concern from consumer data watchdogs.

The Federal Communications Commission, whose leaders have made lofty speeches about the importance of cybersecurity, offers a perfunctory summary of its cybersecurity objectives, with few details about its cable or telco initiatives, in describing the FCC Cybersecurity and Communications Reliability (CCR) Division.

Need to Know:Cybersecurity

NCTA–The Internet & Television Association and the American Cable Association emphasize that “the entire cable industry takes cybersecurity very seriously” and back security and risk management practices. But details about those efforts — or the failures in the system — are scant.

Still, the scale of cyber-threats to the cable industry is significant and growing. In Akamai’s Summer 2018 State of the Internet/Security: Web Attack report, the firm measured a 16% increase in the number of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks recorded since last year globally, with new and more devious attack methods noted.

There are also constant reminders of new threats. This past May, researchers found that U.S. customers’ WiFi connections could be harvested from a cable operator's bill or email. Comcast said it quickly disabled the vulnerability in its activation portal, established an additional layer of authentication and that no personal user info was ever accessed.

Steve Goeringer, principal security architect at CableLabs

Steve Goeringer, principal security architect at CableLabs, said cable has been “at the forefront of cybersecurity of broadband” thanks to the DOCSIS cable-modem specification, which has employed strong encryption and authentication since its version 1.1. Subsequent updates have created further barriers to DoS and DDoS, he added.

“Delivering services the way they were intended, including protecting customer privacy, is always critical,” Goeringer said. He cited pirated over-the-top content, which aside from being illegal, also exposes consumers to malicious software and theft of personal information, and the growing presence of Internet of Things devices, which are often insufficiently protected and can bring malicious software into the system.

Kyrio, a CableLabs subsidiary that provides technology services, has been focusing on Internet of Things security. “Companies that can provide strong security at scale will be able to use that as a key differentiator for their products, protect their brand and future-proof their products,” Ron Ih, the company’s director of business development, said in a June 4 blog post. Putting an emphasis on cable’s growing involvement with wireless services, he observed that, “expanded wired and wireless connectivity accelerates the need for a more scalable security solution for these networked devices” in the IoT value chain.

CableLabs vice president of technology policy Rob Alderfer recently acknowledged the need for government/industry cooperation, especially in the fast-emerging IoT category.

“With the constant barrage of new cyber incidents, often driven by IoT devices vulnerable to exploitation, governments at all levels are taking notice and grappling with the rapidly evolving threat,” according to a CableLabs summary of his remarks at a IoT workshop. “Cybersecurity is no longer the domain of the IT department, but rather a key area of governance for all enterprises.”

Need to Know:Cybersecurity

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Have a burning question about cybersecurity — or maybe request for a different topic you’d like to see us tackle? Email us at needtoknow@nbmedia.com and we’ll put our top minds on it!

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Need to Know: 5G — Riding Wireless’s Next Wave

Jeff Baumgartner — Mon, 04 Jun 2018 12:00:00 +0000

The race to build out “fiber in the sky” is on.

The next-generation mobile standard known as 5G, the fifth generation of the technology, is poised to create a new platform that is not just faster, but is much more agile than today’s state-of-the-art 4G (also known as Long Term Evolution, or LTE) networks.

Expected to debut wide in the next two years, it’s the latest in the continuum of every innovation in wireless technology, and it promises to disrupt — if not complement — many industries with lightning-fast communication speeds.

5G and Cable: Click here to find out what 5G means for the media industry.

5G will roll out as a network of cell sites offering Gigabit-level speeds (rivaling speeds offered via today’s wireline broadband) over the airwaves, with lower latency. (No more hourglass or beach ball icons!)

The technology will also underpin a vast array of fixed (non-mobile) and mobile devices, services and applications across an array of industries, including entertainment, education, music and medicine. Consumers need only a 5G-capable device to connect.

Deployments of 5G are already underway using pre-commercial technology by the usual suspects — the incumbent mobile network operators — but there are a host of new providers, including cable operators, who have become increasingly eager to add mobile and wireless to their service arsenals.

The first anticipated types of 5G-based services will be fixed wireless data offerings that can deliver speeds in the neighborhood of 1 Gigabit per second to the home or business. The implications for the Internet of Things, in a world where every home appliance and gadget is dependent on robust wireless connections, are enormous.

Blazing Fast Internet

For traditional services, imagine downloading a full two-hour movie, or an entire semester of classes to a student, in mere seconds — while also supporting the massive data rates that will be required by new virtual reality and augmented reality services.

Further out, 5G will also be mobile, with sub-millisecond latencies that greatly cut down the time it takes for data to be transferred after it is requested. That will be a major requirement, for instance, for mobile networks that can ensure that self-driving cars stay connected and can navigate the streets safely.

For now, despite its futuristic reputation of sensors everywhere, 5G is saddled with technical hurdles. For example, 5G signals, particularly when delivered in the upper, millimeter-wave frequency bands, will need a clear path, as their performance is vulnerable to obstacles such as trees and buildings.

For the cable industry, 5G is viewed as a threat and an opportunity. While 5G could create a new speedy broadband rival, it will also require the deployment of millions of dense, high-capacity small cells that are in stark contrast to the macro-cell networks used by today’s 4G services. And it so happens that cable’s fiber-rich network is well positioned to provide those critical backhaul and powering requirements. That could be a major moneymaker for the cable guys.

Not-Ready-for-Primetime Player

Startup Starry is among the companies working toward deploying 5G-based fixed wireless services.

When will all of the pieces fall into place? Though some 5G-based fixed wireless services will take hold in 2018, the big ramp for the technology isn’t expected to emerge until 2020.

Several mobile service providers, cable operators and startups such as Starry are already well downstream with 5G-based fixed wireless tests and deployments. The mobile aspects of 5G aren’t expected to take hold in a big way until 2020.

In the meantime, initial 5G-based fixed wireless deployments could put some pressure on wireline ISPs.

“The use case [for 5G] I get most excited about is the opportunity to have a nearly nationwide broadband footprint,” Randall Stephenson, AT&T’s chairman, president and CEO, said on the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call, expressing confidence that 5G could serve as a fixed-line replacement for both business and residential customers.

“The capacity is there; the performance is there,” he said. “There’s going to be full Gigabit throughput.”

Mobile Making a Move

But that work isn’t stopping progress on mobilized 5G even before there are smartphones and other mobile devices that will support it. AT&T, for example, plans to launch a mobile form of 5G by the end of 2018 in about a dozen markets. However, the initial deployment won’t involve direct integration with laptops, smartphones or tablets, but instead rely on a smaller router-like device that can connect other devices to the 5G network.

“Think of this as a puck,” Stephenson said of the new device. He wants AT&T to push mobile 5G forward before handsets that support the next-generation wireless technology become available.

T-Mobile will be keying its 5G strategy on spectrum in the lower spectrum bands. While that will address the mobile opportunity, “it will also open up this massive set of opportunities on 5G in the Internet of Things space, where you can connect everything that can be connected,” Neville Ray, T-Mobile’s chief technology officer and executive vice president, said on the company’s Q4 2017 earnings call in February.

And the phone company plans to be aggressive. John Legere, T-Mobile’s CEO, said that 5G, when fully deployed, “will be in every spectrum band, and we will be participating in a lot of ways either through acquisition of spectrum, acquisition of companies, mergers and consolidation.”

But T-Mobile’s focus on the wide-area benefits of the 600 MHz band for its 5G rollout underscores a critical factor in that deployment: Not all spectrum is created equal. Millimeter wave signals don’t propagate well over long distances, have difficulty in the presence of trees and buildings and require an almost perfect line of sight.

“They hardly like air,” Robert Howald, Comcast’s vice president of network architecture, said at an industry event last year. He was making a joke, but he also made an important point — it’s unlikely that any 5G strategy will be able to live successfully on millimeter wave spectrum alone.

There is much to be worked out, but 5G is poised to be a game-changer for anything that is connected, streamed or downloaded.

Need to Know More?

Have a burning question about 5G — or maybe request for a different topic you’d like to see us tackle? Email us at needtoknow@nbmedia.com and we’ll put our top minds on it!

5G and Cable:Click here to find out what 5G means for the cable industry

More From NewBay on 5g:

Need to Know: Cable Is Wired for 5G

Jeff Baumgartner — Mon, 04 Jun 2018 12:00:00 +0000

5G may be the hottest thing in wireless and mobile technology, but the new standard needs one thing more than any other: wires, and lots of them.

For the cable industry, 5G offers a huge opportunity for new fixed and mobile wireless services, using cable’s core asset: endless miles of wires in the form of hybrid fiber/coax (HFC) architecture and a growing mix of fiber-only pipes. Optical fiber cable are thin strands of glass that carry massive volumes of data with light signals and minimum loss, and coaxial cable is the traditional lines cable operators use to deliver video, voice and data services to most customers.

Need to Know:5G — Riding Wireless’s Next Wave

HFC “is an excellent vehicle for that because it provides power, right of way and backhaul for all of that small-cell radio equipment,” Craig Cowden, vice president of wireless technology at Charter Communications, said during a recent webinar on the topic hosted by CableLabs. “Whether we’re talking inside the home or outside the home, we believe cable is going to be the first truly scalable fixed mobile convergence platform.”

In other words, it may be a wireless network, but it’s going to need a lot of cells, and those cells need to be connected a wired network, including the kind that cable can provide.

Low Latency Needed

But in order to make that work across cable’s mix of fiber-only and HFC networks, operators need a low-latency solution. The cable industry is taking aim at that with a proposed technique called the “Bandwidth Report” (BWR), which aims to deliver super-low latencies by extending a technical bridge between cable’s high-speed DOCSIS network (used today for cable modem service) and 4G/LTE and “pipelining” the upstream packet schedulers of both sides.

Recent trials of BWR conducted by CableLabs and Cisco Systems showed that “DOCSIS is well positioned as a viable backhaul technology for LTE,” John Chapman, a fellow at Cisco and chief technology officer of the company’s Cable Access unit, proclaimed.

Cable operators are particularly interested in a 150 Megahertz-wide batch of spectrum known as Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS), which resides in the historically underutilized range of 3.55 Gigahertz to 3.7 GHz.

“The 3.5-GHz band remains an important component of Charter’s wireless strategy,” the MSO told the FCC in a recent filing. Charter noted that it has been able to produce speeds of at least 25 Megabits per second downstream and 3 Mbps upstream in the so-called CBRS band tests being conducted in rural areas.

“Charter is certainly looking at that [CBRS] as a potential small cell technology that we would deploy both in the home and outdoors,” Cowden said on the CableLabs webinar.

Samsung, whose 5G gear has received FCC approval, is working with Charter on trials.

Charter Communications is testing 5G-based technology in at least six markets with technology partners such as Samsung Electronics: Orlando, Fla.; Reno, Nev.; Clarksville, Tenn.; Columbus, Ohio; Bakersfield, Calif.; and Grand Rapids, Mich.

Comcast, meanwhile, has also asked the FCC for permission to conduct tests using the CBRS band in the Philadelphia area.

Other rival 5G tests underway:

• AT&T has been testing pre-standard 5G fixed wireless in Austin and Waco, Texas; Kalamazoo, Mich.; and South Bend, Ind., and intends to introduce mobile 5G-based service in 12 markets by late 2018.

• Verizon Communications plans to launch 5G-based residential broadband service in four markets in 2018, including Los Angeles and Sacramento, Calif. Verizon estimates that the markets included in that initial launch will span some 30 million homes.

• T-Mobile is accelerating its 600 MHz rollout this year, setting the stage for initial launches in 2019 and a nationwide 5G network by 2020.

• Sprint plans to launch a mobile 5G network in the first half of 2019 leaning on its portfolio of 2.5 GHz spectrum.

• Starry is using millimeter wave spectrum to deliver an uncapped, symmetrical 200 Mbps service in parts of Boston, with beta offerings available in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. Other markets on Starry’s launch list include New York, Cleveland, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Denver, Seattle, Detroit, Atlanta, Indianapolis, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Miami and Minneapolis.

Need to Know:5G — Riding Wireless’s Next Wave

Need to Know More?

Have a burning question about 5G — or maybe request for a different topic you’d like to see us tackle? Email us at needtoknow@nbmedia.com and we’ll put our top minds on it!

More from NewBay on 5G:

Need to Know: 5G — Riding Wireless’s Next Wave

Jeff Baumgartner — Sun, 03 Jun 2018 17:28:52 +0000

The race to build out “fiber in the sky” is on.

The next-gen mobile standard known as 5G, the fifth generation of the technology, is poised to create a new platform that is not just faster, but much more agile than today’s state-of-the-art 4G (also known as Long Term Evolution, or LTE) networks.

5G and Cable: Click here to find out what 5G means for the media industry.

5G will roll out as a network of cell sites offering gigabit-level speeds (100X faster than today’s highest speeds) over fiber lines, and lower latency (no more hourglass or beachball icons!)

The technology will also underpin a vast array of fixed (non-mobile) and mobile devices, services, and applications across an array of industries, including entertainment, education, music, and medicine. Consumers need only a modem to connect.

Deployments of 5G are already underway using pre-commercial technology by the usual suspects — the incumbent mobile network operators — but there are a host of new providers, including cable operators, that have become increasingly eager to add mobile and wireless to their service arsenals.

The first anticipated type of 5G-based services will be fixed wireless data offerings that can deliver speeds in the neighborhood of 1 gigabit per second to the home or business. The implications for the Internet of Things, in a world where every home appliance and gadget is dependent on robust wireless connections, are enormous.

Blazing Fast Internet

Further out, 5G will also be mobile, with sub-millisecond latencies that greatly cut down the time it takes for data to be transferred after it is requested, and will be a major requirement, for example, for mobile networks that can ensure that self-driving cars stay connected and can navigate the streets safely.

For the cable industry, 5G is viewed as a threat and an opportunity. While 5G could create a new speedy broadband rival, 5G will also require the deployment of millions of dense, high-capacity small cells that are in stark contrast to the macro-cell networks used by today’s 4G networks. And it so happens that cable’s fiber-rich network is well positioned to provide those critical backhaul and powering requirements. That could be a major moneymaker for the cable guys.

Not-Ready-for-Primetime Player

When will all of the pieces fall into place? Though some 5G-based fixed wireless services will take hold in 2018, the big ramp for the technology isn’t expected to emerge until 2020.

Several mobile service providers, cable operators, and startups like Starry are already well downstream with 5G-based fixed wireless tests and deployments. The mobile aspects of 5G aren’t expected to take hold in a big way until 2020.

In the meantime, initial 5G-based fixed wireless deployments could put some pressure on wireline ISPs.

“The use case [for 5G] I get most excited about is the opportunity to have a nearly nationwide broadband footprint,” Randall Stephenson, AT&T’s chairman, president and CEO, said on the company’s Q4 earnings call, expressing confidence that 5G could serve as a fixed-line replacement for both business and residential customers.

“The capacity is there, the performance is there. There’s going to be full gigabit throughput,” he said.

Mobile Making a Move

But that work isn’t stopping progress on mobilized 5G even before there are smartphones and other mobile devices that will support it. AT&T, for example, plans to launch a mobile form of 5G by the end of 2018 in about a dozen markets. However, the initial deployment won’t involve direct integration with laptops, smartphones, or tablets, but instead rely on a smaller router-like device that can connect other devices to the 5G network.

“Think of this as a puck,” Stephenson said of the new device. He wants AT&T to push mobile 5G forward before handsets that support the next-gen wireless technology become available.

But T-Mobile’s focus on the wide-area benefits of the 600 MHz band for its 5G rollout underscores a critical factor in the rollout of 5G: Not all spectrum is created equal. Millimeter wave signals don’t propagate well over long distances, have difficulty in the presence of trees and buildings, and require almost perfect line of sight.

“They hardly like air,” Robert Howald, Comcast’s VP of network architecture, said at an industry event last year. He was making a joke, but he also makes an important point — it’s unlikely that any 5G strategy will be able to live successfully on millimeter wave spectrum alone.

There is much to be worked out, but 5G is poised to be a gamechanger for anything streamed or downloaded.

Need to Know More?

Have a burning question about blockchain — or maybe request for a different topic you’d like to see us tackle? Email us at needtoknow@nbmedia.com and we’ll put our top minds on it!

5G and Cable: Click here to find out what 5G means for the cable industry

More From NewBay on 5g:

5G and Television [TV Technology]
5G and Retail [TWICE]
5G and Video Production [Creative Planet Network]
5G and Radio [Radio World]
5G and AV [AVNetwork.com]
5G as a Platform [Sound & Video Contractor]
5G and Residential Integration [Residential Systems]
5G and Pro Audio [Pro Sound News]
5G and Education [Tech & Learning]