Day: May 6, 2016

Categories
Wireless WISP

LigoWave APC Button First view

Ligowave has recently launched a small form factor 802.11N radio. This is one of the growing number of devices designed for the SOHO and small and medium enterprise installs. You can read the full data sheet here. https://www.ligowave.com/public/downloads/APC%20button.pdf

IMG_2890

IMG_2891

One of the first things I do with a unit like this is login and look at the existing firmware.  My unit came with Version 5.95 and the latest available was 7.02.  Since this is a new platform for me, I can’t speak to the in the firmware, other than what I saw on the surface.

I noticed some cool things about this unit, which some other vendors are lacking at the moment

Spectrum Analyzer
The spectrum analyzer under tools loaded very quickly.  No complicated Java or slow load times.  The following is a screenshot from it sitting on my desk.

.Screen Shot 2016-05-06 at 12.15.49 AM (2)

Site Survery
Just like the spectrum scan the site survey was quick and trouble-free. It picked up everything I expected it to see. It is very handy to just pop into a unit and see what it sees.

Screen Shot 2016-05-06 at 12.15.32 AM (2)

SNMP and SMTP traps
Something that is very handy for the small office or small deployment was under services…System alerts. You can have the device send an e-mail or SNMP trap based upon some things most folks would really like to know about. For example, if the noise floor gets greater than a certain DB it will let you know.  Pretty cool

Screen Shot 2016-05-06 at 12.23.21 AM (2)

These have a street price in the $40-50 range. This has just been a quick overlook.  I hope to get into some real world uses of these in the near future for a followup to this.

Categories
Data Center Networking WISP xISP

Helpful outages web-site for network admins

http://www.outages.org/

Direct from their web-site.

How to Report
By sending a tweet with any of the following hashtag/s:
#outages
#outage
#cablecut
#fibercut
#undersea

when reporting for a service outage. Once verified we will plot it on tracker.

For e.g. #outage #loc (street, city – location name) #start (time), followed by #back (time)#planned or #unplanned (if its a planned or unexpected outage).

Download the iOS/iPhone/iPad App “Ushahidi” and add http://tracker.outages.org/ to “Settings” to start reporting.
Download the Android App “Ushahidi” and add http://tracker.outages.org/ to “Settings” to start reporting.
By sending an email:
outages@outages.org
Click to View Reports

Send comments/feedback/feature requests tovirendra[dot]rode[at]outages.org

Follow us on Twitter @outagesdotorg

Help spread the word!
Categories
Networking Security WISP xISP

Calea and the ISP

The Communications and Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) passed in 1994 is a piece of legislation every U.S. ISP should know about and be in compliance with.  If for the simple fact the government can levy heavy fines if you aren’t compliant.

For those of you wanting some background please follow these links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_Law_Enforcement_Act

https://www.fcc.gov/public-safety-and-homeland-security/policy-and-licensing-division/general/communications-assistance

First of all CALEA isn’t simply sticking wireshark onto your network and sending a packet dump to a law enforcement agency. It is much more complicated than that. You have several things which the CALEA standard addresses.

1.The ability to send multiple streams, in real time, to different law enforcement agencies.
2.The ability to not interrupt the connection to a person of interest.  In other words you don’t want to interrupt their connection to insert a piece of hardware.
3.The ability to provide just the information on the warrant.  Too much information can actually violate the court order.
4.There is a difference between a typical “request for information” warrant and a CALEA request.  These are not the same.  CALEA almost always comes from a federal agency. They are expecting you to be compliant with CALEA.

Now, here is where things get a little subjective.  The FBI has https://askcalea.fbi.gov/ which is linked from the above fcc.gov web-site.  The askcalea web-site has not been updated since 2011.  The service provider login and service provider registration simply does not work. The information about CALEA is pretty outdated.

So what does this mean for you as a small ISP? Stay tuned for more information.