Network

T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon stock dropped when SpaceX purchased T-Mobile's former 800 MHz spectrum batch. This has been hyped as the last critical piece for Starlink Mobile becoming a rival fourth carrier, but T-Mobile isn't buying it.

Starlink is expanding its referral program, making it all the more enticing for subscribers, local installers, and dish dealers. It works globally, too, and the amount of cash payments depends on the country.

Ubiquiti Networks introduces a new series of robust industrial switches for critical infrastructure. The series consists of three new USW models. Alongside the switches, Ubiquiti has also announced the U7 Industrial AP with very distinct features.

The FCC has approved SpaceX’s application to launch and operate 15,000 next-generation satellites for Starlink Mobile and granted a waiver that lets the company sell satellite wireless service without leasing spectrum from a terrestrial carrier. SpaceX says the constellation will deliver 5G speeds of up to 150Mbps per user.

Huawei and Qualcomm have signed a multi-year agreement that cross-licenses their 5G, compute, AI and networking patents and includes Qualcomm’s purchase of certain Huawei US patents, pending regulatory approval. Huawei expects the deal to take the total value of its patent licensing contracts past $6.9 billion.

Besides the 25% price cut of the Starlink Mini dish ahead of an expected battery-powered Gen 2 launch, SpaceX sells the equipment on monthly installments. The Starlink Mini payments are at 0% APR.

Qnap is launching three new NAS systems in its TS-hx56X series that can also function as direct-attached storage for fast local data transfers via two USB4 ports. Two E1.S bays accommodate high-speed SSDs.

After launching a new compact power bank for the Starlink Mini, PeakDo is teasing a new product. A teaser for the new power bank has revealed it will have a semi-solid-state battery instead of a lithium battery like in its other products.

SpaceX promised gigabit satellite Internet speeds by the end of 2026, and it will seemingly be able to deliver. The gigabit speeds are coming to existing Starlink users, too.

IceWhale, together with OpenClaw, AdGuard, and other partners, has declared September 25 as Self-Hosting Day 2026 and is inviting the community to showcase its projects and share experiences. Participants have a chance to win Zimaboards and other prizes and awards.

SpaceX appears to be expanding eligibility for its Starlink Mini rental program in the US, allowing more residential subscribers to claim the portable satellite dish at no upfront hardware cost. Previously limited to Residential Max customers, the offer is now reaching users on lower-tier plans, including the standard Residential 100Mbps tier.

The FCC has granted SpaceX global facilities-based and resale authority, clearing Starlink Mobile to offer telecommunications services beyond the US. The company plans next-generation direct-to-cell satellites promising 5G-level speeds of up to 150 Mbps and has recently partnered with Japan's KDDI to launch Starlink Mobile V2.

SpaceX has scheduled the 14th test flight of its Starship rocket for September 22, 2026, targeting its first successful Earth orbit insertion. The mission will also serve as a commercial payload delivery, deploying 26 next-generation Starlink V3 satellites.

Munich security firm nebty has documented 119,012 near-identical fake shops. They copy the photos, text and prices of real retailers and even republish the brand’s own support address. FRITZ!, Dreame, EcoFlow and Roborock are among them. The checkout sends the card data field by field as you type.

SpaceX warns in its Starlink satellite Internet terms of service that 'excessive' users will be penalized by throttling their connection. That Starlink data cap threshold seems to have been 5 TB of monthly downloads.

The Starlink Router 4's PoE compatibility makes wiring a NAS box or mesh extenders tucked in awkward corners of the house easier. All those peak Wi-Fi 7 speeds, however, are dependent on SpaceX's gigabit satellite constellation launch.

We recently reviewed the Oppo Pad 6, and just like its predecessor, it has Wi-Fi issues: Despite supporting Wi-Fi 7, data rates are low and fluctuate. We’ll take a closer look at the issue and possible causes.

A new series of enterprise switches from Ubiquiti Networks will allow enterprise deployments in high-availability scenarios. They offer a high switching capacity along with redundancy features, including MC-LAG.

It may still be some time away, but Devolo is planning to enter the multigigabit segment with 802.3bz. The company has already confirmed that a compatible switch is in the works. That device would also complement the new BE9300-series of mesh routers that is scheduled to launch soon.

Ubiquiti has released the new UniFi Travel Router Long-Range. Thanks to its foldable antenna, the router can keep even weak connections alive or improve the range. Buying it will be difficult, though.

After teasing its ROG Rapture GT-BN98 router back at the Computex expo, Asus has now released it in North America at a price nearing a grand. This makes it the world's first commercially available Wi-Fi 8 router ahead of the standard's IEEE approval.

Ubiquiti Networks has just announced a new home WiFi and router solution. Whole Home WiFi can be considered an AmpliFi successor, built with 5 GHz and 6 GHz meshing. The system is also part of the UniFi ecosystem and can be combined with Ubiquiti's travel router.

The TP-Link Deco 8 Ultra and Archer 8 Ultra have been formally introduced. These are among the first consumer WiFi 8 routers, and the company is promising up to 22Gbps of aggregate wireless speeds and wide coverage.

On 10 August TP-Link reported five vulnerabilities in routers that internet providers hand out to their customers. One model on the list is rented out in Germany. The worst flaw walks straight past the router password. You cannot repair it yourself, and there is no firmware to download. Whether your particular variant is affected is something the maker deliberately does not say.

Google is promoting four network protections in Android 17. The most important one, Encrypted Client Hello, hides the websites and apps you open from your carrier. Google's own developer docs show it only kicks in for apps built against the new API level, and without encrypted DNS it does nothing at all.

D-Link is expanding its enterprise lineup with the new DAP-E3620 access point series. The three BE3600 Wi-Fi access points bring Wi-Fi 7 with MLO and 4K-QAM to ceiling-mounted, wall-mounted and outdoor installations, with 2.5Gbps PoE connectivity included.

Germany has no legal waiting period before a disconnected mobile number is handed to someone new. Deutsche Telekom itself describes cases where numbers are released after 30 days. Whoever gets that number also receives the one-time codes for the previous owner's accounts. The US regulates this. What you should clear out today.

While Ethernet cables now come in all sorts of hues, their OG coloring was all bright and flashy in wild yellow. The color was chosen to both match the standard co-creator's furniture preference and prevent potential electric hazard.

Extremely fast: Xiaomi’s new router is now available in additional markets and also doubles as network storage, with high-speed wireless and wired connectivity.

Data congestion in a company network does not have to end in expensive rewiring. The new TPE-BG350 multi-gigabit switch gets up to 2.5 Gbps out of existing Cat5e cables, delivers up to 135 W PoE, and costs just under $150.

ShadPS4 is adding ShadNet, an open-source custom server system designed to let PS4 emulator users access online multiplayer without PSN or PlayStation Plus.

ChatGPT’s share of the AI assistant market has fallen below 50% for the first time, as rivals Google Gemini and Anthropic Claude gain ground. The report suggests users are increasingly willing to switch platforms based on trust, integration and productivity strengths.

With the Vectron X, Siemens Mobility aims to bring a more heavily digitalized locomotive to market, featuring a CarPlay-like user experience complete with an App Store for third-party providers. Those operating a fleet of Vectron X locomotives are expected to benefit from increased efficiency.

Microsoft has unveiled MAI-Thinking-1, its first in-house advanced reasoning model trained from scratch. While Microsoft claims the system outperforms Claude Sonnet 4.6 in blind human evaluations, the results have not been independently verified.

QNAP is planning a particularly compact desktop NAS system that still offers a great deal of flexibility. A total of ten drives can be installed, ranging from hard drives, M.2 SSDs to the practical E1.S blades. The system can even be expanded via an SFF-8088 cable.

With UniFi 5G Backup, Ubiquiti Networks is introducing a new solution that quickly adds a fallback option for external connectivity to any of the manufacturer's gateways. All it requires is a PoE port.

The FCC has extended a waiver allowing software and firmware updates for existing foreign-made routers and drones, including TP-Link routers and DJI drones, until January 1, 2029. The decision, framed as a public safety measure, preserves security patches and bug fixes for millions of devices while broader national security restrictions and legal challenges continue.

Several new D-Link industrial switches are now shipping in Europe other markets. The DIS-100E is particularly affordable and compact and is designed for harsh environments. However, it does not set any speed records.

Amazon content restricted, no access to the home server: geoblocking can quickly become annoying while on vacation. That’s why, before leaving, I installed Tailscale on my small home server/NAS and on the devices I take with me. Together, they form a network that lets my travel devices browse through my home network and its German IP address.

Ubiquiti has introduced a new EAV series. It is a lineup of enterprise switches designed primarily to keep network latency as low as possible. A total of four devices are planned, with a launch scheduled for May.

Besides the powerful AMD Strix Halo APU, Minisforum plans to include 64 GB of LPDDR5X RAM, a maximum of 200 TB storage space via 5x HDD and 5x SSD slots, USB4 v2 connectivity and dual 10 GbE NICs. The chassis would also integrate an advanced multi-fan cooling system. Full specs expected to release on April 23.

Asus has introduced a new, high-performance router. It supports the latest WiFi 7 standard, though it is worth taking a very close look at the spec sheet in this regard. It comes with five separate antennas, which should help improve transmission quality.

Cloudflare’s new closed beta lets Magic Transit customers upload custom eBPF-based logic to detect and filter DDoS traffic aimed at specialized UDP protocols such as gaming, VoIP, telecom, and streaming.

While the state sector has long restricted the use of foreign networking equipment, the Federal Communications Commission’s recent actions mark a significant escalation. Now, "all consumer-grade routers produced in foreign countries" are banned from being imported to the US.

UniFi 10.2 brings new features to the controller from Ubiquiti Networks. A feature called Time Machine can track disruptions on a timeline, for example. And a troublesome device in the announcement video is cheering up the Ubiquiti community that has been dealing with issues related to Sonos.

If you want to replace your Vodafone router with your own OpenWRT or x86-based router, the first step is enabling bridge mode. Only then does the Vodafone Station act as a pure modem, passing the internet connection directly to your new router without interference. In part 4 of my “Unbloated Network” series, I walk through how to enable bridge mode in the Vodafone account portal—and why the Homespot feature often prevents it.

Security Onion 2.4.210 is back with major improvements for the Onion AI Assistant, as well as local model support for Onion AI. Several system components of this platform that performs threat hunting and enterprise security monitoring were updated. This new version also comes with the usual set of minor tweaks and fixes.

In time for MWC, Ubiquiti Networks has unveiled the first devices of its new Wi-Fi 7 Mesh generation. The U7 Mesh devices offer the new Wi-Fi standard, but come with a slight disadvantage compared to the U6 Mesh.