It’s time to speak up
No doubt the drums will be beating ...
02 November 2009
Paul Gordon, Voco
"A major new report co-authored by the chair of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand says that independent data from over 6,000 New Zealand businesses shows no positive productivity impact when they adopt high speed broadband services." Communications Day - Monday 2 November 2009.
Although rather dense reading, this report available here, assesses a large amount of data and finds that while there is a definite productivity shift moving from no broadband to some level of broadband, there is little material benefit shifting from slow to fast broadband.
No doubt we can expect this report to be widely (mis)quoted and used as firm evidence by vested interests.
We would encourage those wanting to understand what this may all mean to pay close attention to the final section of the report, where the authors note the finding that a move from fast broadband (cable) to another form of broadband has no estimated effect, should be interpreted with care. One of the four reasons they give includes the explanation that the full future benefits may not be apparent in the existing data.
This reflects our view, that in itself broadband in an enabler. Business must change in order to realise the potential benefits. Without business change we will simply do the same things - faster, but without any significant productivity benefits (beyond a point, the speed of email has no impact on real productivity).
There will be a tipping point and critical mass where enabled groupings of organisations are able to do new work, in new ways. Studies that use historical data will always be looking at existing business models.
But, the point of the report is very salient - if we simply do the same things using faster broadband, then we will not realise true productivity growth. Sector change needs strong leadership to drive.
No doubt the drums will be beating ...Check Point sponsor 1st Tuesday Club in November
28 October 2009
The next 1st Tuesday Club is on Tuesday 3rd November.
Hamish Soper, Check Point's country manager, will be covering what Check Point is doing to secure your virtual environment and virtualise your firewalls. You'll also have the chance to test Wellington's Check Point expert, Dan Swan, with your technical questions.
What is the 1st Tuesday Club?
The 1st Tuesday Club NZ was founded in 2008 by Paul Hortop, Security Consultant from Voco and Kendra Ross, Director at Duo, as a strictly no sales, informal gathering for NZ’s senior professionals in Information Security, IT Risk, IT Audit and law enforcement.
Complimentary tapas, wines, beers and soft drinks are served throughout the evening courtesy of our sponsor, who this month is Check Point.
Admission to the 1st Tuesday Club is by invitation only so if you know of someone who should be invited along, please let Paul Hortop know.
Check Point sponsor 1st Tuesday Club in NovemberRural Broadband Symposium - Interesting Split of Subjects
28 October 2009
Next month Voco will be attending the TUANZ Rural Broadband Symposium in Rotorua, and we're looking forward to hearing from a range of speakers.
What will be very interesting to see is how the apparent split between the supply and demand sides plays out. Those who promote a solution, or those who are looking to understand what can really be done with this stuff. It looks like the days are divided nicely between the two.
Our view is that the real value will come from service / demand aggregation and that we must, as a country, remain focussed on the bigger picture. Broadband is a constraint, but not the answer.
Watch this space for an update after the symposium.
Rural Broadband Symposium - Interesting Split of SubjectsInfluence; Let him that would move the world, first move himself (Socrates)
09 October 2009
Michael Foley, Director, Voco
I really enjoyed being on the panel assessing the Top 40 Influencers in New Zealand Telecommunications, published by TR last month. Now one has to understand that this is not an empirically judged awards process, but rather an exercise in educated subjective assessment. But, that said, it's reasonably well educated and representative of the balancing of views from four quite different perspectives - the Corporate User, the Telco Industry Lobby and the Independent Consultant (that'd be me ...).
So, whilst to an extent this should be considered a bit of fun, on reflection it afforded us the opportunity to stand back from what is truly a fascinating time in the evolution of the telecommunications industry in this country. Some might say, it's "a coming of age". So I thought I'd wrap the exercise this year with my own reading of how we saw the cards falling ...
Click here to read the entire article
Influence; Let him that would move the world, first move himself (Socrates)The straight talk on DNSSEC
06 October 2009
The DNS (Domain Name System) is a key building block of the Internet. The technology's most important task is translating host names (for example www.google.com) to IP (Internet Protocol) addresses (for example 74.125.45.100).
DNS is used by almost all IP applications such as web browsing, email and file sharing. Applications will forward DNS requests to the DNS server they've been configured to access, typically the one provided by your ISP ....
Click here to read the full Opinion Piece
The straight talk on DNSSECCool heads to prevail? - Part II
06 October 2009
Of concern in the emerging discussion / consultation round on state sector productivity is Treasury's apparent focus on having ICT for the same things better-reflected in the subsuming of ICT under "Administration and Support".
Private sector productivity improvement caught the attention of No. 1 The Terrace and arguably kicked off this current initiative. One of the drivers of this productivity improvement is using ICT for competitive advantage, which means it becomes the way business is done, not just the way it is supported and administered. Keep the brief wide Treasury and reward innovation!
Cool heads to prevail? - Part IICool heads to prevail?
05 October 2009
The Treasury-lead state sector productivity initiative has garnered some controversy, but administration and ICT optimisation in the public sector is not before time. Past government shared services have failed due, in large part, to insufficient translation of intent into commitment by agencies.
This is reflective of the Public Service Management system we have in NZ which institutionalises 'sovereign state' behaviour by departments.
Recession aside, demographics demand smarter, more efficient government at lower cost as Health, Welfare and Superannuation are set to consume an ever larger slice of the pie.
Let's hope for all our sakes that Treasury can build a powerful constituency of committed Agencies, starting with their own. And draw on NZ Inc for the design, implementation and operations stages.
Cool heads to prevail?Ultra-Fast Broadband viewed as a utility
01 October 2009
It is clear from the government's recent Ultra-Fast Broadband (UFB) proposal that it wishes to treat the Local Fibre Companies (LFCs) like utilities, preserving their interests and the LFC's operations in potential adverse business conditions with what are effectively step-in rights, by being able to "act decisively and, if necessary, take control of the LFC business".
The government has the right to do this currently with organisations that operate critical infrastructure, and even where this right doesn't exist explicitly, they have come to the aid of organisations it views as nationally important, such as Air New Zealand and BNZ in recent history.
This is going to be fairly unpalatable to many private sector investors, particularly those who wish to retain control, and/or those who have been burned in the past in their dealings with government. An early focus of the dialogue between potential investors and MED (and its successor Crown Fibre Holdings (CFH)) will need to be on how they propose achieving this objective, and whether their proposal is acceptable to the would-be LFC partners.
This issue is a potential major hurdle for many and is a key area requiring certainty as soon as possible to ensure the opportunity remains attractive to potential investors and the UFB and its associated economic benefits are realised.
We are actively engaging with government on this and other issues associated with the UFB initiative, if you share our concerns, send us an email via this website.
Ultra-Fast Broadband viewed as a utilityChange of stance by Government on possible UFB network over-build
29 September 2009
It is interesting that government has relaxed its previously stated principle of ensuring there is minimal over-build in its latest UFB overview document. Over-build is essentially the duplication of existing networks, and an outcome the government is now almost admitting as inevitable, certainly given that one of the strategic objectives of the UFB initiative is to remove the country's reliance on the legacy copper and cable assets of the incumbents.
In the short to medium term, a degree of over-build definitely will be necessary in some areas to achieve the minimum performance levels of uncontested 100 Mbps downlink and 50 Mbps uplink, with a future upgrade path to 1 Gbps.
They (and we!) do not want the new networks to become isolated islands or have unnecessary commercial or technical complexity due to efforts to avoid over-building. This suggests the gauntlet has been thrown down to the incumbents, but the last outcome the nation wants is trench warfare, street by street - New Zealand is just too small to sustain that level of competition.
Despite potential over-build becoming less of an issue, the government will not want the new network(s) to have to slug it out with incumbents, so the large centres of Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, where many providers have focussed to date, may have to wait a little longer than some of the other regions for the brand spanking new UFB network and its associated benefits.
Change of stance by Government on possible UFB network over-buildHow to Detect and Defeat Greynets
28 September 2009
Recent improvements in network monitoring capabilities have allowed organisations to identify an increase in so called Greynet activity on company networks. This activity consists in the main of peer to peer (P2P) file sharing, instant messaging (IM) and adware, spyware or malware.
This activity should concern CEOs/CIOs because:
- It consumes bandwidth. This is an additional cost and Greynets can reduce the availability of resources.
- It results in systems working slowly or becoming unusable. The cost of rebuilding systems is high.
- Any questionable activity is directly attributable to the company thereby affecting its reputation.
- Systems are being compromised and may be part of a botnet.
- This activity is providing an attack vector directly into the heart of company networks potentially leading to the loss of important data.
This activity can be greatly reduced by:
- Developing a Greynet policy and having users adopt it.
- Removing administrative rights from users.
- Configuring firewalls, Internet proxies and web filters to only allow Internet browsing.
- Deploying a networking monitoring capability to detect and prevent breaches of policy. One of the simplest ways of doing this is to use the Emerging Threats snort rule sets.
The measures suggested here will help:
- Manage the use of legitimate applications.
- Block the use of P2P networks that could breach company security policy.
- Prevent malware from being accidentally or intentionally downloaded by users.
- Compliance with data privacy and information security legislation.
It may be easier than you think. You can find out more in our white paper .
How to Detect and Defeat Greynets
