Archive for April 14, 2023

TELUS Named Western Canada’s best broadband network

Posted in Commentary on April 14, 2023 by itnerd

Today, TELUS is proud to announce its industry-leading results from Opensignal’s April 2023 Canada Fixed Broadband Experience Report, bringing home top honours in Canada’s two westernmost provinces. TELUS received outright wins for Consistent Quality, Video Experience and Upload Speed in B.C. and Alberta, as well as took first place in B.C. for Broadband Success Rate. It also tied for first in B.C. and Alberta for Peak Download Speed, and tied for first in Alberta for Broadband Success Rate. These results demonstrate TELUS’ network dominance in Fixed Broadband in Western Canada, solidifying TELUS’ position as the home Internet provider to beat when it comes to network quality, experience and speed.

This latest recognition from Opensignal complements the countless accolades TELUS has earned over the years for its world-leading networks, including TELUS’ most recent recognition from PCMag as Canada’s best mobile carrier. TELUS has also previously been recognized by other independent industry-leading experts, including US-based Ookla, building on an outstanding record of achievement with respect to network excellence.

TELUS’ PureFibre network is built with state-of-the-art fibre optics, right up to the connection point at the home or business, ensuring customers have the fastest most capable network available. With the only true all fibre network in Western Canada, TELUS delivers the best network performance available anywhere in the world, including the fastest upload and download speeds. This infrastructure not only offers unparalleled connectivity, but also delivers significant sustainability benefits. The fibre optic technology used in TELUS’ PureFibre network is much more energy-efficient compared to traditional copper-based networks. Fibre optic cables transmit data using light signals over glass strands, which require less energy to transmit data compared to copper cables. This translates into a lower carbon footprint, as TELUS’ PureFibre network requires less electricity to operate, resulting in reduced greenhouse gas emissions.

Since 2000, TELUS has invested nearly $220 billion in network infrastructure, spectrum, and operations, and plans to invest $70 billion overall across Canada by 2026 to enhance the coverage, speed, and reliability of its global-leading networks and connect customers from coast to coast. TELUS also has a longstanding commitment to strengthening relationships with Indigenous Peoples, including First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities, acknowledging that its work spans many Traditional Territories and Treaty areas. Through public-private partnerships, 504 rural communities and 577 Indigenous lands have been enabled with TELUS’ advanced broadband connectivity, positively impacting 360,000+ rural and Indigenous households and businesses.

To learn more about TELUS’ network coverage visit telus.com/network

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Hyundai France And Italy Pwned… And Personal Details Were Exposed

Posted in Commentary with tags on April 14, 2023 by itnerd

Hyundai has disclosed a breach impacting Italian:

And French car owners. Including those who booked a test drive.

The letter shared on Twitter states that the bad actor did not steal financial data or identification numbers and that the incident has exposed the following types of data:

  • E-mail addresses
  • Physical addresses
  • Telephone numbers
  • VIN numbers

Hyundai says the impacted systems are currently offline until additional security measures are implemented.

Hyundai has had numerous cybersecurity issues just in the last few months. In February, there was a USB cable hack, and in December bugs in the Hyundai app allowed attackers to unlock and start cars and steal car owner information. So this isn’s a good look for the carmaker.

Ted Miracco, CEO, Approov had this to say :

   “Automobile manufacturers rely on one of the most complex networks of suppliers, and any vulnerability in the supply chain can be exploited by cybercriminals to gain access to sensitive data.

   “As modern vehicles become increasingly electronic-based products, they are both more connected and more software-driven. These trends make all automotive companies much more vulnerable to cyberattacks, particularly those emanating from mobile apps or devices. Hyundai isn’t alone in falling victim to the vulnerabilities in the software or systems used in a vehicle, however they have been a frequent target and attackers have gained access to sensitive data. This is certainly problematic for Hyundai and something that needs to be addressed to rebuild consumers’ confidence in their products.“

The thing is, this isn’t just a Hyundai problem. Every car maker needs to be serious about cybersecurity. Otherwise threat actors will have a field day finding vulnerabilities that could put lives at risks seeing as cars are rolling hunks of metal moving at significant speeds.

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Review: EnGenius ECW130 Indoor Wireless Access Point

Posted in Products with tags on April 14, 2023 by itnerd

EnGenius has always been good at coming up with easy to deploy and easy to manage WiFi, PoE, and networking products. And the EnGenius ECW130 Indoor Wireless Access Point certainly fits that bill. But what makes this a bit different is the price. I found it online for $214 CDN per access point which makes it more than affordable. And if you combine that with the features that I am about to talk about, this access point is a winner in my eyes. Let’s start with what this access point is capable of:

  • Fast and reliable AP utilizing 4 spatial streams and MU-MIMO for any professional office 
  • Supports up to 1,733 Mbps in 5-GHz band & 800 Mbps in 2.4-GHz band
  • 802.11ac wave 2 compatible with ax/ac/a/b/g/n client devices

One thing to note is that while there is an AC adapter plug as you will see in a moment, there’s no AC adapter in the box. Thus you have to be running Power over Ethernet or have an adapter like this one .

As for the physical aspects of the access point:

This is a ceiling mounted access point, and other than the LEDs at the top, there’s not a whole lot here to see. Speaking of being ceiling mounted, all the hardware you need to mount it is in the box.

You’ll note that there are two Ethernet ports. The main one is the one on the right which supports Power over Ethernet. The second one is to be used if you want to bring even more bandwidth to the access point. Or put another way, this access point supports link aggregation. You’ll also see the DC IN plug for power.

I should also mention the box that it came in. The box is made of recycled materials and has a pair of QR codes. One to allow you to download the mobile app, and one that gives you access to the quick start guide. That should help people to install this easily. Speaking of which, once you download the mobile app, it’s laughably easy to set up. As in scan a barcode on the back of the housing and spend a few minutes getting settings that work for you configured. You might also want to check for a firmware update to make sure that you’re good to go. And one other thing that I have to say is that the EnGenius cloud management is amazing. I’ve put their access points into a number of my commercial clients and being able to manage them from anywhere is a huge productivity boost as you can update firmware from your smart phone, or reboot a problematic access point from your living room while watching a Formula 1 race. And it doesn’t cost you anything to use.

So, how about the speed from this access point? Since it doesn’t do anything more than WiFi 5, I wasn’t expecting blazing fast speeds. But it doesn’t suck. Doing file copies, I registered an average of 100MB/sec at close range. When I move to the other end of my condo which I measured to be about 10 meters, the speed dropped to 75MB/sec. These are all respectable speeds and won’t cause complaints from anyone.

Now who would I recommend this access point for? A small business who needs WiFi, but doesn’t need the fastest WiFi because price matters more than speed to them. Alternatively a home user could put commercial grade WiFi into home at a low price point. And if either use case really needs WiFi 6, EnGenius will happily sell you their ECW230 which has everything that you just read about, but brings WiFi 6 to the party.

The ECW130 from EnGenius has a great price point and a lot of features packed in with a healthy amount of performance. This is an access point that’s worth your time to look at as long as you absolutely don’t need WiFi 6 in your life.

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Elon Musk’s Desperation For Twitter To Make Money Shows As New Features Come To Twitter Blue And Super Follow

Posted in Commentary with tags on April 14, 2023 by itnerd

I really get the sense that Elon’s product strategy with Twitter is to keep throwing stuff at the metaphorical wall and hope and pray that something sticks so that he can make money. And I say that based on the fact that in the last few hours, Elon has made two changes. Let’s start with the Super Follow feature. To be frank, it’s never been that popular amongst creators. But Elon hopes by rebranding it Twitter Subscriptions, it will become popular. And Elon has quite the deal for you if you sign up:

Let’s see how long it takes before he starts taking a cut of the revenue because he is so desperate for Twitter to make money.

I’ll point out one other thing. As is typical for anything that Elon does with Twitter, this change is a bit of a train wreck next to a dumpster fire. Apparently this was actually rolled out months ago, and Elon for whatever reason seems to be bringing it to light now. And apparently people have applied for this months ago when it first surfaced…. But:

Another #Fail for Elon? I think so.

Let’s move on to his other brainwave shall we? And that’s Twitter Blue. He’s tweaked the offering:

Keep in mind that Twitter has already increased the character count in Tweets for Twitter Blue subscribers to 4000 and very few people have signed up. And to be honest, I for one would not read a Tweet that long. Thus I have to wonder what effect will adding 10000 characters along with bold and italic formatting will do. Likely nothing from where I sit. That’s on top of the fact that this isn’t going to be a mobile friendly experience which will disincentivize people from using this feature as nobody is going to type out 10000 characters on their iPhone. As always, I am free to be surprised, but I suspect I won’t be. And it looks like I am not the only person who feels that way:

And speaking of that mobile friendly experience, none of this works on mobile apparently:

Another #Fail for Elon. The latest of many #Fails for Elon. I wonder how his rather fragile ego survives all this failure with Twitter?

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