Enable move sees Christchurch join 300 mbps party
More New Zealanders will get a fast fibre upgrade as Enable joins Chorus in moving base speeds to 300mbps.
Christchurch users to get fibre speed bump
Enable, the fibre company serving Christchurch, is following Chorus and upgrading customers to 300mbps. The company says the upgrades could start on December 1 although that depends on retail service providers.
The upgrade could affect up to 90,000 homes in the Enable fibre area. That’s the number that are currently on 100 or 200mbps plans.
Customers on upgraded plans will be able to upload data at 100mbps.
Enable Chief Executive, Johnathan Eele says his company’s customers use around 500GB of data each month. That’s a rise of 33 percent from a year ago.
In August Chorus announced it would replace 100mbps lines with 300mbps lines at no additional cost to customers. The company is still working through the process with retail service providers but expects some upgrades to happen before Christmas.
The move will help shore-up fibre’s competitive position against fixed wireless broadband and low earth orbit satellite services in areas where the technologies compete.
Fewer telco complaints in early 2021
A report from the Telecommunications Dispute Resolution service says it received fewer customer complaints and enquiries in the first half of 2021 compared with a year earlier.
The number of complaints was down 24 percent to 935. Almost all these cases (98 percent) were resolved or closed directly after initial assistance from the TDR. The remainder either went to facilitation and mediation or required the organisation to make a decision.
Pace, sophistication of cyber attacks increasing
The National Cyber Security Centre's annual Cyber Threat Report for 2021 says the number of serious online attacks continues to grow. At the same time the NCSC reports the attacks are increasing in frequency and sophistication.
It says there were 404 incidents affecting nationally significant organisations in the last year. That's a 15 percent increase year-on-year.
NCSC points out its focus is on New Zealand's larger organisations. This means its numbers represent a small fraction of the total number of incidents affecting New Zealand.
The growth is in line with overseas trends and squares with anecdotal evidence from New Zealand businesses that they are now constantly under attack.
While the proportion of state-linked malicious cyber activity was down slightly from last year's 30 percent, this was because of the greater proportion of criminal incidents recorded.
Lines blur between gangs and government-backed cybercrime
NCSC Director Lisa Fong says: "It is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between state and criminal actors, particularly in cases where we are able to intervene early, but also because the line between state and criminal is becoming increasingly indistinct.
"State actors sometimes work alongside or provide havens for criminal groups, and we are increasingly seeing criminal groups now using capabilities once only used by sophisticated state actors."
When it comes to government and large scale business systems, it is likely the attackers are already inside the systems waiting for an opportunity.
Everyday crime rates are dropping in most rich countries like New Zealand. There's a clear switch from activities such risking your life with weapons to rob a physical bank and getting online to steal money. Computer fraud is on the rise everywhere and online crime is up since the start of the Covid pandemic.
Cryptocurrency enable online crime
Technology doesn't help. Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency, may not have been invented to smooth the way for criminals, but it is used by the underworld to move money around. Drug gangs are carrying fewer suitcases full of banknotes and dealing with more crypto transactions. Encrypted messaging services are used to communicate.
While these tools have legitimate uses, criminals have embraced them and depend more on them.
Ransomware remains the biggest threat. Criminals lock up data or disrupt systems until victims pay them, almost always the transaction is in Bitcoin.
At first ransomware gangs targeted small business. It turns out that was all about learning their trade. Today they target government departments, a DHB in New Zealand, police departments overseas.
Industrial scale
They operate on an industrial scale and there are well established digital underworld supply chains.
We know most of the gangs are based in a small number of countries. Officials don't like to talk about this because of diplomatic niceties. As a journalist I can tell you that Russia, other parts of eastern Europe and China are the main sources. We also know some states turn a blind eye to the activity so long as the gangs focus on foreigners. There's evidence criminal gangs and state hackers co-operate.
Governments have been slow to focus on fighting cybercrime. We can expect that change, but don't expect a let up from the gangs.
Worldwide cloud revenue surging thanks to pandemic
The company says the Covid pandemic and booming digital services put the cloud at the centre of digital experiences.
Milind Govekar, a Gartner vice-president says:“The adoption and interest in public cloud continues unabated as organisations pursue a cloud first policy for onboarding new workloads.
“Cloud has enabled new digital experiences such as mobile payment systems where banks have invested in startups, energy companies using cloud to improve their customers’ retail experiences or car companies launching new personalisation services for customer’s safety and infotainment.”
UFB uptake hits two-thirds milestone
In its latest quarterly broadband update Crown Infrastructure Partners reports UFB uptake is now 66 percent. The fibre network now covers 327 towns and cities. The average speed of UFB services is now 277mbps.
CIP says the UFB programme is now 98 percent complete with 85 percent of New Zealanders now able to connect to fibre.
In other news
A Reseller News story from Rob O’Neill says the partnership between Spark and Auckland based managed services company IT360 has helped the smaller company extend its reach beyond the North Shore and Waitakere areas.
Catalyst Cloud has appointed Doug Dixon as its new CEO. Dixon joins Catalyst Cloud from the ANZ where he was practice lead for services and integration. He has previously worked in technology roles for Kordia and ACC.
The Download 2.0 is a free weekly wrap up of New Zealand telecommunications news stories published every Friday.
All it requires is an email address. Your address is only used to send out the newsletter. It will not be sold to anyone.
I’m not collecting the data for anything other than sending out the newsletter. You name isn’t going to be sold anywhere.
Member discussion