Archive for September 26, 2008

| September 26, 2008
Comments Off on 25% of Workers’ Time On Internet Is Personal

25% of Workers’ Time On Internet Is Personal

25% of Workers' Time On Internet Is PersonalSlashdot has a post about employee use and abuse of corporate Internet access, from Voco, an IT consultancy. While network abuse is not a new issue, (I worked on Acceptable Use Policies in 2000), some of the firm’s findings show the change in the size of Acceptable Use Policies (AUP) violations.

According to Voco’s data, for example, many of the pre-release downloads of the movie Hellboy: The Golden Army were over corporate networks. Voco points out that not only does this consume bandwidth meant for business; it also opens up corporate networks to spyware, adware, and other challenges for network security. And, of course, it could pose a legal issue for the company in question as well. “If investigators were tracking who was downloading, then the company address would turn up and the company would be the one facing legal implications,” Voco consultant Paul Hortop said in a statement.

The age-old challenge for firms is to balance staff “personal” and “corporate” use of the resources. Mr. Hortop asks, “Is it more time-efficient to let staff do their banking online than having them leave the office for half an hour?”

This is not a new issue, a CNN poll in 2005 found that 93% of all US employees admitted to using their employer’s Internet access for personal reasons as well as business ones, and 52% said they would rather give up coffee than their Internet connections at work.

 

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| September 22, 2008
Comments Off on Broadband Reach Grows

Broadband Reach Grows

Broadband Reach GrowsA recent Gartner report was cited in a Network World article that claims Broadband to reach 77% of U.S. households by 2012. Gartner states that U.S. Broadband penetration will increase to 77% of U.S. households by 2012. The market research firm is basing this projection on emerging 4G wireless services as WiMAX and Long Term Evolution (LTE). Both technologies are expected to be launched over the next four years.

Based on Gartner’s projections, the U.S. will be in a 5th place tie worldwide with Japan for broadband penetration. The 2012 leaders will be South Korea (97%), the Netherlands (82%), Hong Kong (81%), and Canada (79%).

According to the Network World article, the current U.S. broadband services subscription rate is just above 50%.

 

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| September 22, 2008
Comments Off on IPv6 anyone?

IPv6 anyone?

Updated 03-10-09 The web monitoring company Pingdom says that IPv6 traffic at the Amsterdam Internet Exchange (AMS-IX), the Internet’s biggest exchange, accounted for just 0.25 percent of total Internet traffic.

rb- Who says IPv6 isn’t coming? This study shows a 250% increase in IPv6 use from the data reported by Arbor Networks in September 2008.

Arbor Networks released a study The EIPv6 anyone?nd is Near but is IPv6? which says the adoption of IPv6 has been very slow thus far. The network security vendor produced the study along with the University of Michigan and about 100 ISPs and content companies. It suggested that IPv6 adoption is growing but currently amounts to less than one-hundredth of 1% of Internet traffic.

As has been pointed out in this blog IPv4 addresses are running out, but IPv6 is still trying to gain some traction.

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| September 13, 2008
Comments Off on Gigabit Wi-Fi

Gigabit Wi-Fi

Gigabit Wi-FiDespite the fact that IEEE 802.11n 100Mbps wireless LAN standard has not been approved yet, the IEEE Very High Throughput (VHT) Study Group is about to launch a new project, gigabit Wi-Fi.

The study group is looking at gigabit Wi-Fi in two frequency bands, high-frequency 60GHz for relatively short ranges and under-6GHz for ranges similar to that of today’s WLANs in the 5GHz band, 802.11a and 11n. The IEEE proposal suggests a completion target date of 2013 for the standard. Big wireless players such as Atheros, Broadcom, Intel, Marvell, Motorola, and Nortel are reported to be active in the study group.

In a Network World article, IEEE readies launch of gigabit Wi-Fi project “The basic idea right now, and that’s subject to change, is that the ‘maximum mandatory mode’ on a single link would be [at least] 500Mbps,” says Tushar Moorti, director of systems architecture for chipmaker Broadcom‘s (AVGO) WLAN Business Unit. “But the further requirement is that [an access point] device that supports VHT would be able to sustain multiple links, so the aggregate would be over 1Gbps.”

“It’s the next-generation technology for wireless LAN, in the same sense that 11n was the follow-on to 11a/b/g,” says Broadcom’s Moorti.

According to the proposal, VHT “will allow a corporate or home user to roam from high-throughput dense cells to wider area networks in a seamless manner, while maintaining full support for the installed base security, management, diagnostics, and backbone infrastructure.” VHT will also be backward compatible with the full range of existing and emerging 802.11 standards, such as 11i for security, and 11s for mesh networking.

 

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| September 5, 2008
Comments Off on Time to Rethink Off-Shoring

Time to Rethink Off-Shoring

Time to Rethink Off-ShoringMcKinsey Consulting published an article, Time to Rethink Off-Shoring in the September 2008 edition of the McKinsey Quarterly that may be a silver lining in the current U.S. economic recession. McKinsey identifies three factors in the current economic conditions that may cause firms to re-evaluate off-shoring practices. The consultants believe that energy costs, wage inflation, and the weakness in the US dollar are factors that firms should evaluate as part of their off-shoring analysis.

Energy costs According to the article, CIBC World Markets estimates that in 2000, when oil prices were near $20 a barrel, the costs embedded in shipping were equal to a 3 percent tariff on imports. Today, that figure is 11 percent, representing a threefold increase in shipping costs since 2000. The article goes on to point out that increasing energy costs not only impact exports but also increases the price manufacturers pay for raw materials. As an example, McKinsey points out that it now costs about $100 to ship a ton of iron from Brazil to China-more than the cost of the mineral itself.

Wage inflation McKinsey states, that in dollar terms, annual wage inflation in China has averaged 19 percent since 2003. An average production worker paid $1,740 a year in 2003, makes $4,140 today. By contrast, wage inflation in the United States has averaged only 3 percent.

McKinsey suggests that the combination of increased shipping expenses driven by higher energy costs, wage inflation in off-shore countries, and the weak U.S. dollar has eliminated the cost benefits that many firms sought by off-shoring jobs.

 

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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