The problem is that these are cable/DSL routers, designed to connect to a cable modem such as those supplied by Virginmedia, and cable networks use DHCP to assign IP addresses. This is fine, and is a standard that has been around for almost as long as there have been IP addresses, but there was a small bug in the DHCP client in Dynamode’s firmware which meant that it keeps rejecting the IP’s it is offered and requesting new ones. This seriously buggers up a DHCP, which would cause slowdowns on the network and a problem for other users of the DHCP as there are no IP’s available for them and the DHCP is running slowly.

Fortunately there is an easy solution: updating the firmware on the Dynamode BR-6004 W-G1 router will fix it for you and other Virginmedia customers. However, finding instructions online is nigh on impossible – which is why I have now created a site to provide the firmware and guide you through the process of upgrading your router’s firmware. Just pop along to http://alonline.eu and follow the instructions there.

Currently Internet traffic is reaching the point where even backbones are starting to struggle; and as traffic is still increasing to reach the ceiling of available bandwidth, then so data carriers are having to invest more money to prevent utilisation and congestion from slowing everything down and causing unreliable connections. Which seems like a perfect time for Internet2 to be reaching it’s official launch in January next year.

Internet2 uses different wavelengths of light to form separate data channels through one piece of fibre. This allows multiple 10Gb/s links to be run down one cable, and currently there are 100Gb/s links between over 200 universities in the US. That’s a lot of bandwidth, and should hold off any congestion problems for a while. We’ll have to wait and see whether Internet2 grows to run alongside our current Internet, or maybe even to replace the current infrastructure.

The idea itself is simple, yet clever – which is often one of the best litmus tests for success. Each broadband customer gets a FON wireless router which provides 2 separate networks: one for the customer, and one for any external FON user. The external network provides Internet access, but with bandwidth limitations (to prevent the customer’s connection becoming unusable) and is secured so that the external user cannot gain access to the customer’s local network. Each FON router acts as a wireless hotspot and all other FON users can connect through it for free, and non-FON users can connect for a small charge. This provides the possibility of massive coverage for the ISP in question, and could also be a new source of revenue with the small charges levied against non-FON users.

In the UK, BT are the first to embrace this idea, and they will be offering FON routers to their customers shortly. I rather hope that Virginmedia decide to do the same thing as I hardly use any of my 20Mb/s connection, and I’d be happy to make some of that bandwidth available to others, providing there was some good security in place. And security may well be the rub, as I would imagine that as FON hotspots grow then more people will become interested in gaining access to this bandwidth for free: I wonder how long it would be before someone announces some form of crack to allow connection to FON routers without having to give anything back.

In such a short space of time, it is almost unbelievable that one company can come to dominate the entire of the Western Internet (with the Eastern Internet user still remaining loyal to their own search providers – although it’s more a matter of having to do so with Baidu in China), and it’s hard to see how any of the other major players can find a way back now. Google had the great advantage of being THE search engine during the time the Internet exploded into a mass market, and as such these new users became used to relying and trusting Google. Whether Yahoo, Ask, or MSN can regain these users is debatable.

Facebook have just come up with a new advertising model that involves them providing almost all the data you have given them to their advertisers: where you were born and went to school is not that important, but where you now live, what your interests are and what you have planned for the next couple of weeks is. I’m not too happy with this information being passed on to third parties, and so I’m thinking that leaving Facebook might well be the best course to take. Google, and many other web companies already track my browsing, but they don’t know details of my private life. Facebook, and other social applications, are designed to investigate your private life and then disseminate that to your friends and contacts, and soon to third party advertisers. It’s time to make a choice about whether you value privacy above social networking.

These two pieces of the puzzle alone would suggest a move into the telecommunication business, however I believe they will head into providing their own backbone in the US, and probably Europe and the more industrialised sections of Asia. Once they have done so then they can provide telephony, as well as ISP, services to everyone within their cachement area, and also provide a method of serving the huge amounts of data their apps require without incurring charges from the current data carriers. Once they are an established data carrier, they will probably start to charge ISP’s to use their network, when this provides better routing and capacity, and so will begin the acquisition of ISP’s and telecom firms into the Google family. I doubt whether Google would ever become a monopoly, controlling both voice calls and data access, howeve they will probably become a strong player in this field, and would probably be able to offer the customer more than any existing provider. It’s time for existing telecom companies to start feeling afraid, very afraid!