You are here: Home / Archives for Timo

Telecom Fraud in the time of Covid19

March 29, 2020 By
Photo Credit ; Carmi Levy, @carmilevy more at http://writteninc.blogspot.com/

You are all well aware of the unusual times we are living through. Our national resolve is strong and it is impressive and gratifying to see people all over our land pulling together and doing what is necessary for us to manage through this crisis. Telecom service providers are no exception and our networks have proved to be reliable and robust enough to meet the challenges.

Self isolation has led to a boom in international telephone traffic as people check in on their family, friends and loved ones, especially ones who are overseas as the virus is a global pandemic.

These times have also led to a dramatic increase in telecom fraud of all kinds. Yes, spoofing and fake emails and phishing online is exploding, but so also is wangiri fraud, PBX hacking and International Simple Resale Fraud.

Take extra precautions to guard your voice networks for fraud, as the hackers of the world like to operate when they think network supervision may be low such as now when people are working remotely, and otherwise occupied with providing service. At AurorA, we will remain vigilant on your behalf as well.

Stay safe. We will get through this together.

Filed Under: Fraud

Cellphone Competition Coming ?

March 4, 2020 By
Left is MNO Rogers – right is the MVNO Ting – from Twitter user YOZZO

Last week the CRTC finished up two weeks of hearings as a Review of Mobile Wireless Services. The subject of the 9 days of hearings were whether to mandate (ie force) the current mobile network operators (ie Bell/Telus/Rogers, Big 3, Goliaths) to provide wholesale MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) access to their networks to smaller carriers (ie Davids). In short to open the market up to competition.

There were many parties giving evidence and opinions. The Big 3 are very against being forced to sell access to their networks. Very against. They cite that the market is already competitive, that mandating MVNO’s would curtail their ability to spend on network expansion (both to rural/remote areas and upgrading to 5G). And they point to a submission from the Competition Bureau that pro-MVNO regulation would harm smaller facilities based competitors like Videotron, Shaw, Eastlink and Xplornet. Telus CEO Darren Entwistle even threatened to cut $1 billion in network investment, 5,000 jobs and philanthropic giving if CRTC dared to mandate MVNOs.

Telus threatens to euthanize animals if CRTC approves mobile virtual network operators – from The Beaverton

Is the Canadian mobile market really competitive ? The reason this procedure was even going on was due to the outcry from Canadians about their cellphones! It seems self evident that Canadians view the current situation as unfair and that the Big 3 are acting as an oligopoly. They hate their current providers (see here) This came up more than once in various submissions, including co-ordinated rate plans (one moves they all move), the smoke-screen of flanker brands to confuse the market etc.

There were other parties like TekSavvy, Distributel, Tucows, CNOC, Ice Wireless (Iristel) and others arguing in favour of MVNO’s. They argued that as Full MVNO’s they would not own spectrum or operate their own radio access network, but purchase that from the Big 3 . Except for the operation of such a radio access network, they would be responsible for all other aspects of their operations such as sales, marketing, billing and the operation of a core network. From there they could increase competition in the marketplace to provide more services to Canadian consumers and businesses.

Twitter commentary on competition from MVNOs being more than “resale” or a free ride

We won’t know the outcome from these hearings for a while, maybe not until 2021. I am watching this process carefully; not because AurorA plans to become an MVNO. Almost my entire 35 year career has been on the competitive side of the industry, competing against the various incarnations of the Big 3. And they are formidable competitors indeed who do not cede an inch of any markets that they consider as theirs. My rooting interest naturally falls to the underdogs, the Davids competing against Goliaths.

If MVNO’s are mandated though, it could also open up a raft of new mobile competitors . Those competitors would need premium quality termination for their overseas calls. Mobile calls originate on cellphones and already undergo compression just to reach the core; from there you want to ensure premium quality so that the caller gets through perfectly. An LCR here makes zero sense; if the caller wanted a cheap call they would use a free app on their phone like Skype or WhatsApp. If they use the phone it has to be high quality. And I know just who has the best quality international voice termination !

Filed Under: Competition, Mobile, Oligopoly, Quality, Regulatory

Celebration

January 26, 2020 By

As Canada is a multi-cultural nation, many of you are probably aware of the two big celebrations going on.

For much of the Asian world, Saturday Jan 25 began the Lunar New Year or as some would call it, Chinese New Year. This year is the “Year of the Rat”. It is a time of family and feasting, a fifteen day long celebration. The Chinese diaspora tries to travel to return home, but sometimes that is not possible.

In India, Jan 26 is Republic Day, a national holiday. It honours the date on which the Constitution of India came into effect on 26 January 1950, turning the nation into a newly formed republic.

Therefore expect to see a boost in telephone traffic to India, China and other Asian nations on your networks from this weekend until around Feb 10.

Take precautions as well to guard your networks for fraud, as the hackers of the world like to operate when they think network supervision may be low such as during holidays.

Kung Hei Fat Choy !

Filed Under: Fraud

Networking Pendulum

January 15, 2020 By
What was once old, is new again


One of the benefits of age is perspective. You notice that many of the “new” ideas are simply old ones that have come back into vogue, like the swing of the pendulum. The aptness of the metaphor is clear, as history demonstrates a tendency for human events to swing back and forth from one extreme to another.

We see this in politics (conservative vs liberal), we see this in fashion and in telecom networking. Early in my career, while still a systems engineer, I remember one of my first published articles being about the swing from companies using public networks based on X.25 packet protocol (like Datapac) to private networks using their own multiplexors and leased lines. (Note I had just moved from Bell Canada where I supported Datapac to General DataComm where we were selling muxes)

We’ve seen this pendulum swing between using public and private networks for a company WAN many times over the years. Leased private lines gave way to X.25 packet networks, which ceded ground to T1 or T3 networks (or fractional T1 like Megastream). Frame Relay, ATM and then the rise of MPLS, “Multiprotocol Label Switching”. Now we are seeing a challenger in the corporate networking world, SD-WAN, which uses the public Internet and extensive software to try to mimic and replace MPLS.

MPLS can be slow to implement, especially internationally, as it takes time to order and connect all of the connections, especially the final local Ethernet connections at each country. MPLS can also be expensive compared to DIA, Direct Internet Access. In MPLS’s favour, as with most private networks, is it’s inherent security, consistent latency, and guaranteed service levels and Quality of Service (QoS). For overseas voice circuits and critical enterprise data that is essential.

SD-WAN, based on the now ubiquitous public Internet, is now widely available, quickly deployable and seemingly less expensive. By using multiple business grade Internet connections (DIA which should be contention free) and some fancy software , it can approach the level of consistency of MPLS. Is it less expensive ? Well, vendors will make that case based on pure network costs, but soft costs of running and maintaining the equipment and connections have to be factored in.

The tension between secure and reliable private networks and less expensive shared public networks (like X.25, Internet and cloud) is one that has been going on for years, and watching this pendulum swing back and forth is something I find fascinating.

Filed Under: Cloud, International, MPLS

2020 Vision

January 5, 2020 By
Photo Credit ; Carmi Levy, @carmilevy more at http://writteninc.blogspot.com/

The world does not need another blog post about predictions or trends for the coming New Year. Or another Top 10 list. Those are far too common and overdone. For this years first blog post, I thought I would instead focus on a few topics that I see becoming of increasing importance, especially to service providers in the competitive space against Big Telco. You can read about 5G, AI, IoT and other acronyms elsewhere.

Telecom Fraud
The last few years have seen a dramatic increase in fraud on our networks. Hacking by criminal networks is easier than ever and they avoid prosecution by doing it across international borders. The migration to IP networks and softswitches have opened up new avenues fro the bad actors to attack. This trend shows no signs of abating, meaning that as an industry we must put more time, effort and manpower into safeguarding our networks and businesses to avoid catastrophic losses.

The Decline of Voice
Worldwide voice revenues continue to decline. We have highlighted this trend before here. Silicon Valley giants like Microsoft (Skype), Facebook (WhatsApp, Messenger), Apple (FaceTime) and Google have sucked away a lot of the consumer voice and messaging traffic from worldwide networks. As service providers we need to look for other sources of revenue rather than trying to compete for a slice of an ever shrinking pie.

This is where looking at other market sectors such as Enterprises and SMB for growth that are underserved or poorly served by Big Telco come into play. Or looking for markets like International MPLS data circuits or cloud connectivity where Big Telco does not have 90% market share. Finally, the best way to compete against “free” services is not to offer low cost service; rather it is to offer premium, high quality services that Silicon Valley and Big Telco are not equipped to provide. (more on quality here)

Recession is coming
We are now in one the longest, if not the longest, economic expansions in the history of the United States. History has shown that this cannot keep going indefinitely, a recession is coming soon. When the US gets a recession, Canada gets an even bigger one. As competitive service providers we must be prepared for this on two key fronts; expenses and top-line revenue.

Now is the time to tighten the screws on your organization from top to bottom. Examine all costs, especially all S,G & A line items to see where savings can be had. Billing systems, payment services, any form of overhead costs should all be examined and cost savings sought wherever possible.

Top-line revenue ? Here is a counter-intuitive tip from a veteran of many boom-bust cycles. Times of recession can often be times of the best top-line growth for companies like ours. During hard times, business customers are more receptive to moving away from their current providers to be able to save money. This is when they will look to competitive suppliers. So have your marketing and especially your front line sales staff prepared for this opportunity.

I hope these topics gave you few ideas for your business for the coming year. As always, Amitel and AurorA are here to help. Reach out to me to have deeper discussions on the above, or any other pain points you may be experiencing. Looking forward to growing together with you in 2020.

Your Friend in Telecom

Timo

Thanks again to Carmi Levy, @carmilevy for use of his superb photograph. Follow his work at http://writteninc.blogspot.com/

Filed Under: Competition, Fraud, Merchant Services, MPLS, OTT Apps, Quality

Arctic Fiber Optic Cables

December 29, 2019 By
Sea ice melting in the Arctic

A week before Christmas, I shared a story on Twitter from Capacity (here) magazine about a new 2,000 km submarine cable linking Oysanden, Norway (just south of Trondheim) and Killala Bay, County Mayo in the Republic of Ireland. The cable will be called Celtic Norse and will make northern Norway an international hub and very attractive for large data centres. Norway has plenty of land and vast amounts of renewable power and a climate that makes it attractive for hyper scale data centres. The cable will cut the latency to Eastern USA by 30%, effectively making Northern Norway a thousand miles closer to New York than routing south through Oslo and the European continent.

Reading it made me wonder why we cant build more submarine cables in the Canadian Arctic ? Our population in Nunavut is entirely dependent on satellite services. There are some terrestrial cables in the Yukon and Northwest Territories but still large parts of all the three territories are woefully underserved. Resource development such as mines and oil and gas projects need access to modern telecommunications. The people living in the North deserve access to modern telecom as well to thrive and prosper.

If you look at the map of the worlds submarine cables regularly put out by Telegeography, you can see that Iceland is served by multiple fiber optic subsea cables. Greenland is served from Iceland and also from Newfoundland. Even the Svalbard Islands halfway between continental Norway and the North Pole is served by two cables. Why can’t we build them here in Canada ?

One of the most publicized effects of climate change is that the Arctic ice is melting. The ice cover is not as extensive, nor for as long a period. As the ice is receding, new passageways have emerged for laying subsea fiber optic cables. It is a golden opportunity for Canada to better serve our population, businesses and government in the North. It could also be an modern opportunity for the NorthWest passage.

There is a company in Finland, Cinia Group Oy that is building a Northeast passage cable, Arctic Connect, that would stretch from Helsinki to Tokyo. It would run along the Russian Northern Sea route and cut latency between Europe and Asia dramatically. So why cant we in Canada build a route through our NorthWest passage to connect London, U.K. and Tokyo ? Surely financial traders would love a new route that also cut latency.

These are questions that I will be exploring in AurorA in the coming months. You will see new sections coming on this website devoted to Remote Communications. Arctic cables, satellite systems for both voice and Internet and Global IoT machine to machine systems. Connectivity in some of the remotest and harshest environments in the world is an area AurorA will be exploring.

Stay tuned and contact me if you have any interest in these areas as well.

Filed Under: Arctic, International
« Previous Page
Next Page »