Many "Speed Test" tools available on the Internet are easily run in a web browser. Should you trust those tools?

Not really. The popular speed testing tools provide a very narrow and limited measure of network "speed". It is quite possible that a network that is rated as "fast" could actually deliver poor results to many applications …

A SonicWall user recently came to us for help; the user felt the problem was within SIP and UDP. Here are some thoughts and ideas we provided to help him with his SIP diagnosis.

SIP is a somewhat troublesome protocol. The basic SIP transactions flow with a well known UDP port number. That makes it relatively easy for a firewall to allow (or disallow) the SIP protocol itself …

We read Damien Garros' blog post -- Introduction to Network Emulation and Requirements for Virtual Network Devices with great interest as Mr. Garros takes an unusual view of networking. Our thoughts and comments follow …

IWL Chief Technical Officer Karl Auerbach delivered the Keynote speech at NANOG 77 in Austin, Texas on Tuesday, October 29, 2019

“Network Operations On A Public Utility Internet” ...

It was 11:10pm on the night of October 9, 2019. Here along the Monterey Bay the weather was calm, cool, and a bit damp. The lights were on, the internet was working, the car was charging; everything was normal.

At 11:11pm things suddenly changed…

IWL has its offices at the Kings Village Center in Scotts Valley, California. This morning we noticed construction in the parking lot. A bit of inquiring revealed that Tesla is installing a new Supercharging station here in the Kings Village Center of Scotts Valley. Rumor is that it is one of the new Level 3 designs…

Prior to planning or funding 5G rollouts, technology implementers must rigorously question 5G claims and look for substantiated evidence. IWL issued a caution today that some of the claims made by investors in 5G technology are exaggerated or lead to overly-naïve conclusions …

Customers abandon apps that are not responsive, according to recent studies. Two key mistakes are testing only over the local area network and having no test methodology…

5G is the latest technology for cellular mobile communications. Deployment is expected to take place sometime between late 2019 and mid 2020. The benefits of 5G will be available to new, 5G-enabled devices. However, developers who need to know what kinds of hurdles to expect for their applications may be disappointed …

While many open source TCP/IP implementations are available via standard operating system distributions, some applications require changes and customization to TCP/IP. Hence, the requirement to track best practices and the current status of the protocol’s evolution. What has changed? A lot, really! …

Info Security recently published an article about the Payment Card Industry's final push to force the adoption of TLS 1.1 or higher. This article provides a good summary of the evolution of SSL/TLS, the pitfalls of earlier versions, and advantages of the most recent standards …

The state of California has enacted a new law that affects the way that initial passwords are established on network attached devices TITLE 1.81.26. Security of Connected Devices. It is a sensible law that will improve the security of devices on the internet. As a consequence of these new requirements IWL is making a few changes to KMAX …