A fiber-optic cable strung across the Drake Passage could pull Antarctica's research bases off satellite links and hard-drive shipments and onto the global network after Chile's finalized feasibility study concluded last week that the crossing is technically viable. Salience Consulting and Pioneer Consulting ran the study for telecom regulator Subtel, and development bank CAF financed it, with partial support from the China-initiated MCDF Finance Facility. It recommends an instrumented cable carrying a dedicated fiber pair to each Antarctic landing, naming two Chinese firms among the six suppliers Subtel canvassed. Antarctic research data still leaves the continent physically, on hard drives ferried out by ship and plane "in suitcases full of hard drives," said Juan Pablo, a team leader in the pre-feasibility study.

The study weighs a minimum configuration serving three facility groups around King George Island and the northern Antarctic Peninsula against an optimal configuration with nine Antarctic landing points, an option that Reports 2 and 3 recommend. The nine-landing version would connect research bases run by Chile, Argentina, Brazil, the United States, and the United Kingdom, all fed from landings at Punta Arenas and Puerto Williams in southern Chile and routed across the Drake Passage. Reporting from The Maritime Executive puts the minimum build near $370 million and the optimal build at roughly $620 million.

The study lists four features that separate the project from a commercial cable: Drake Passage weather, ice scour at the Antarctic landings, installation methods uncommon in Antarctica, and a plan to embed SMART sensors that measure ocean-bottom temperature, pressure, and seismic acceleration for climate and tsunami monitoring.

Each Antarctic landing would get a dedicated fiber pair rated at 15 to 30 Tbit/s through space-division multiplexing, with each base free to pick its own transmission equipment. To clear ice scour to about 340 meters of depth, the design calls for horizontal directional drilling at the Antarctic landfalls and double-armored cable, with installation spread across three austral summers inside the December-to-January weather window.

Subtel's request for information went to Alcatel Submarine Networks of France, Japan's NEC, U.S.-based SubCom, the UK's Xtera, and two Chinese firms, HMN Technologies and FibreHome. HMN Technologies is the former Huawei Marine Networks, sold to Hengtong after U.S. sanctions and placed on the Commerce Department's Entity List in 2020, and Washington has spent years working to keep it off Pacific cable routes. The study acknowledges this, listing the geopolitics of project financing and procurement restrictions among its critical risks and recommending "neutrality by design," dark fiber, and user-controlled transmission gear so no operator can read another's traffic.

As for financing, that also carries a Chinese link through the MCDF Finance Facility, a Beijing-based mechanism tied to the Belt and Road Initiative. That backdrop runs into a Western push to strip Chinese firms and money out of subsea cable infrastructure on security grounds, the same pressure reshaping projects such as a Black Sea cable routed to bypass Russia.

The study stops short of recommending construction, calling instead for a phased path that resolves the financing and political questions before the expensive supply contracts are signed. Chile has sent the reports to its Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which is expected to bring them to the country's Antarctic Policy Council, and any build would need agreement from the other Antarctic states whose bases sit on the optimal route.

TP-Link has a rather expansive family of Wi-Fi 7 mesh routers, and it can often be confusing to keep up with the growing assortment. We’ve tested several Deco Wi-Fi 7 mesh routers over the past three years, and they’ve offered class-competitive performance and a well-designed app for controlling all aspects of the network.

Today, we’re taking a look at the Deco 7 Pro BE13000, which is one of TP-Link’s tri-band “whole home mesh Wi-Fi 7” systems. It’s also a rather interesting option, as it’s exclusively available at Costco as a 3-pack. With a selling price of $399 and coverage for up to 8,100 square feet, the Deco 7 Pro BE13000 has stiff competition among the best Wi-Fi routers.

Design of the TP-Link Deco 7 Pro BE13000

Like all other members of TP-Link’s tri-band Wi-Fi 7 mesh family, the satellites on the Deco 7 Pro BE13000 are white cylinders measuring 4.23 inches in diameter and 6.93 inches in height. A stylized “7” is molded into the plastic, and the top of the unit features the TP-Link logo under a clear circular cover. Looking down, the molded concentric circles give the impression that the logo suggests a splash in a puddle of water.

Beneath the stylized 7 on the front of the satellite, there’s “deco’ branding, and below it is a status LED. It blinks blue during setup, is solid green when the satellites are online, and stays solid red if there’s a connectivity problem. Out back is where things get a bit interesting. The slightly lower-positioned Deco BE63 features four 2.5 GbE LAN/WAN ports. The Deco 7 Pro BE13000, on the other hand, only has three LAN/WAN ports, and they’re oddly spec’d. You get one GbE, one 2.5 GbE, and one 5 GbE port.

Personally, I would have preferred four LAN/WAN ports: two 2.5 GbE and two 5 GbE. At the very least, the single GbE port should have been replaced with a 2.5 GbE port. In addition to the LAN/WAN ports, there’s also a USB 3.0 port for storage. The port allotment is the same across all three wireless nodes.

TP-Link Deco 7 Pro BE13000 Wi-Fi 7 Mesh Router Specifications

Setting up the TP-Link Deco 7 Pro BE13000

The setup process for the Deco 7 Pro BE13000 is rather straightforward and is accomplished solely via the TP-Link Deco smartphone app for iOS or Android. Before getting started, you'll need a TP-Link account, which enables remote management of your network when you're not at home.

I started the setup regimen by placing the three wireless nodes throughout my house, trying to keep them as evenly spaced as possible. Next, I plugged each node into power. Since all of the wireless nodes are identical, the first one that you plug into your modem will serve as the main router. In this case, I plugged the node in my office into my fiber modem. The setup program asked me to bring my phone close to the router, and it was quickly found; then the configuration process began.

For simplicity, I created a single network, using Deco 7 Pro as the SSID. This single SSID encompasses 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz bands. You can also enable MLO, Guest, and IoT networks with further granular controls for the bands that you want to make available. For example, you can limit the Guest network to just 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz traffic (or, only one of the two) at any time. If you want to give guests access to the 6 GHz band, you can do that as well.

After completing the setup (which took under 5 minutes), the network was fully operational. I then went into the advanced settings to check for any firmware updates. One was available, so I downloaded it and installed it across the three wireless nodes.

TP-Link Deco 7 Pro BE13000 Software

TP-Link’s Deco and Tether apps continue to be among the best thought-out and well-rounded apps for wireless routers. And that’s a good thing, because the Deco 7 Pro BE13000 cannot be configured using a traditional desktop web browser – it’s exclusively controlled via the app.

The router homepage provides relevant at-a-glance information about your network. Front and center are your main router and its two satellite nodes. The diagram also shows how the satellites are connected to the main router, which, in this case, is via a 5 GHz/6GHz wireless backhaul. Current upload/download activity is shown, along with a green status light indicating “Everything looks good.” If there were an issue with your network, there would be a red status light and an explanation of what was amiss. You can also see how many devices are actively connected to the network.

The Security tab offers some basic features without requiring the paid Security+ subscription. However, these are simply quick links to features that are buried in the Advanced settings tab. For example, you can control network access on a per-device basis with Network Access Control and Device Isolation. Camera Security lets you limit internet access to your smart cameras.

Upgrading to the Security+ subscription services gives you more features, including Web Protection, Intrusion Protection, Antivirus, VPN access, and password management (among other security-related features). Security+ costs $35.99/year, while the Total Security Package is $129.99/year. As I've mentioned ad nauseam, I have to applaud Asus for providing most of the features (minus the VPN) for free with its AsusWRT platform.

TP-Link offers parental controls that let you create individual profiles for your children's devices. For $17.99/year, you can enable Advanced Parental Controls, including SafeSearch, YouTube restrictions, bedtime controls, offline control, and more. However, all of these subscriptions seem a bit much for a consumer router. We should note that the Total Security Package includes Advanced Parental Controls. The More tab opens access to the full complement of network settings, from Wi-Fi settings to WPS control, firmware updates, VPN access, and Network Optimization (for optimizing your mesh network to avoid household radio interference).

TP-Link Deco Pro 7 BE13000 Performance

Our wireless client system consists of a Windows 11 Home desktop system with an MSI Herald-BE Wi-Fi 7 adapter. Our testing server was a Windows 11 Professional desktop with a 10 GbE network card connected to the 5 GbE port on the main Deco 7 Pro BE13000 router.

The iPerf3 tests are conducted at six feet and 25 feet (from the main router), with and without traffic across the network. In the congested traffic tests, we add six wireless clients streaming 4K YouTube videos evenly across all bands.

The Deco 7 Pro BE13000 proved to be the best performer on the 6 GHz band in both uncongested and congested testing. The router reached 2,200 Mbps at 6 feet and pulled roughly half that at 25 feet, with no additional traffic on the network. This put it comfortably ahead of the MSI Roamii BE Pro and just ahead of the Deco BE63. It was a similar situation with congested traffic, as the Deco 7 Pro BE13000 was still able to maintain over 2,100 Mbps at close range and nearly 1,100 Mbps at 25 feet.

During testing on the 5 GHz band, the Deco 7 Pro BE13000 couldn't quite keep up with its two rivals. We saw 1,113 Mbps at six feet and 701 Mbps at 25 feet during the uncongested test. That put it in third place at close range and second place at long range. Those rankings held firm with congested traffic, with the Deco 7 Pro BE13000 still pulling over 1,000 Mbps at six feet.

The Deco 7 Pro BE13000 once again found itself in last place during the 2.4 GHz band testing, falling roughly 15 Mbps shy of the Roamii BE Pro and Deco BE63 at close range with uncongested traffic. Things were a bit closer when we moved out to 25 feet, with the Deco 7 Pro BE13000 nearly matching its Deco BE63 sibling (53 Mbps versus 54 Mbps). With increased network traffic, the performance differential between the routers narrowed, although the Deco 7 Pro BE13000 still lagged slightly.

Bottom Line

The Deco 7 Pro BE13000 is a bit of an odd duck in the TP-Link mesh router family. While its 6 GHz performance is commendable and superior to that of the cheaper Deco BE63, it couldn’t quite reach its more affordable rivals on the 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz bands. With that said, the Deco 7 Pro BE13000 is by no means a poor performer – it just isn’t a standout across the board.

A bit more confounding is its port layout. Although it’s higher-positioned than the Deco BE63, it comes with one fewer LAN/WAN port. And while you do gain a 5 GbE LAN/WAN port, what you’re left with is a GbE LAN/WAN and a 2.5 GbE LAN/WAN. At this price point, TP-Link shouldn’t be putting GbE LAN/WAN ports on its mesh routers.

Finally, we come to the subscription services required to enable features such as web protection, intrusion protection, and antivirus. You’re looking at upwards of $129.99/year for the Total Security Package. Other router manufacturers like Asus give you those tools for free, which should definitely factor into the pricing equation for the Deco 7 Pro BE13000.

If the extra security protection isn’t appealing to you (or if the built-in tools are sufficient for your needs), the $399 price tag for three nodes is a good value, especially given the 8,100-square-foot coverage.

With the pervasiveness of Flock cameras and the public’s backlash against surveillance technology that can track their movements under seemingly lax oversight, Comcast hopes consumers will be more receptive to monitoring activities inside the home. This week, Comcast announced Xfinity Shield, which it claims offers first-of-its-kind “intelligent home protection” courtesy of your seemingly mundane Wi-Fi router.

While the best Wi-Fi routers on the market are supposed to give you higher connection speeds, extended coverage, and enough capacity to handle all of your wireless devices, Comcast is tapping into a little-used aspect of Wi-Fi signals. Called Wi-Fi Motion, it monitors the signal strength and interference between your Wi-Fi router and connected devices. By measuring these frequency signals, it can detect if someone is moving around in your house. When unauthorized activity is detected, the router can instantly send an alert to your phone.

You could achieve the same intruder detection using traditional motion sensors in your home, or even an off-the-shelf security camera, but Wi-Fi Motion doesn’t require you to purchase additional hardware to function. However, since it’s only relying on changes in frequency signals, we’d imagine that it won’t offer as much granularity in motion detection, and it could even be more prone to false positives.

This isn’t exactly new technology, as we reported on Wi-Fi routers being used to detect humans in a room over three years ago. At the time, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University used a TP-Link Archer AC1750 router to track human movement and positions in a room.

With that said, we must be clear that this feature is opt-in by default. You will need to use the Xfinity app to enable Wi-Fi Motion, then enable alerts to monitor for suspicious activity. The app also provides three protection modes for monitoring: Home Watch, Away Watch, and Dark Watch.

Wi-Fi Motion is just one pillar of Wi-Fi Shield, which is a subset of Xfinity Shield. The other two pillars are Xfinity CyberSecure, which provides automatic protection for devices against phishing attacks and malware, and Family Settings, which allows you to manage screen time for individual devices. Wi-Fi Shield is available free of charge to Comcast customers with Advanced Xfinity Gateways. If you want additional protection, Comcast offers Shield Select for $15/month. Shield Select includes an indoor camera, a window/door sensor, cloud storage for captured video footage, and 24/7 emergency response support.

Are you perturbed by the hectic pace of modern life and the attention-seeking immediacy of instant messaging (IM) platforms? Do you even find email a bit too high-octane? Developer Noah Larrobino may have the solution you seek with the new Carrier Pidge app for iOS, an app that sends messages at the speed a carrier pigeon would travel.

As outlined by the dev, the key feature of Carrier Pidge is that it slows down electronic communications to a more natural speed. Specifically, any messages you send to other app users will arrive at pigeon speed, based on your respective GPS locations. According to the app store page for Carrier Pidge, that means your messages travel at 110 mph. Not slow, but if one is messaging a contact on the other side of the continent, from LA to NYC, for example, the recipient won’t see the message until 22 hours after it was dispatched.

The carrier pigeon analog is stretched further by some other features of the app’s messaging engine. As your message flies through the ether attached to your virtual bird’s virtual ankle, some birds will get distracted, slowing their progress by as much as 25%.

There’s a real-time flight tracker in the app. In Noah’s tweet, you can see they are tracking a message sent from NYC to somewhere in the UK. The on-screen text suggests the pigeon is still 1 day and 2 hours away from its destination.

Your virtual bird can get lost or die

More hazardous to your messaging hopes is the fact that anytime you send a communication via Carrier Pidge, there’s a 0.2% chance the virtual bird will get lost. So you can’t guarantee your chosen recipient will get the message.

On the other side of the flight path, there are no read receipts generated. This might give Carrier Pidge app users some graceful leeway to ignore messages they’d rather not deal with, while shielded by a little plausible deniability – a much better outcome than seemingly, rudely, ignoring a friend. However, if the dev is serious about extending such comfort to users, they should make sure the real-time flight tracker also has some built-in inaccuracies or foggy areas.

Lastly, Noah says that the virtual pigeon will sometimes just die en route to its destination. That’s another level of realism that elevates this app against its peers, as long as the dev has properly researched and implemented pigeon fatality chances across the routes, environments, and weather systems they would encounter.

While Carrier Pidge has debuted on Apple’s App Store for iOS, Noah says it will “come to Android eventually.” This new messaging app is monetized by allowing users to expand their aviary with as many as 10 extra pigeons.

The founder and CEO of Subco, a company that owns several undersea cables servicing Australia, said that two of its cables — Indigo-West, connecting Perth to Indonesia and Singapore, and Indigo-Central, which has endpoints in Victoria, Tasmania, and New South Wales — reported shunt faults in close succession, with the detected problems also appearing to be in close proximity to each other. According to Bevan Slattery’s LinkedIn post, the errors occurred at around the same time that a vessel was traversing the area. In a statement, Australian Federal Police told Tom's Hardware that it had received a report of a crime and was investigating, strongly hinting the cables may have been cut in an act of sabotage.

“Earlier tonight: Shunt faults on two systems (Indigo West and Indigo Central) straight after each other and in close proximity to each other. Remarkably this also happened in the Submarine Cable Protection Zone off Perth Australia. Coincidently some suspicious/coincidental activity from a vessel near the location and timing of the shunts occurring,” Slattery said in his post. “This is a concerning development. Partially because submarine cables are the digital lifeblood of our nation, but also because this could very well turn out to be the second such incidence in a Federally declared cable protection zone. This maybe a coincidence, but it’s important for the Australian Federal Police (AFP) to investigate the issue urgently.”

"The AFP has received a report of crime in relation to this matter," the force told Tom's Hardware. Further stating, "This report is currently being assessed based on the information provided. Further comment will be made at an appropriate time." 

Australia established the Cable Protection Zone in 2007, with the one near Perth extending 51 nautical miles from the shore at depths of over 6,500 feet (2,000 meters). Despite that, it seems that something has damaged the cables, as they reported shunt faults. A shunt fault is when the insulation of a conductor has been broken, allowing it to unintentionally contact another conductor or the ground, resulting in a short circuit. While there is no proof yet, Slattery shared the track of a marine vessel on his post, which was allegedly within the approximate area of the faults when they happened.

Nation states have been cutting undersea infrastructure as part of gray zone warfare, with Russia and China suspected of sponsoring these activities. For example, Finland has been hit twice by undersea cable disruptions in the past couple of years, which has led to the prosecution of some of the crew members of the suspected vessels. Taiwan has also increased its naval patrols around its undersea cables, especially as a Chinese “research vessel” has been seen lurking above a cable that connects the island nation to the U.S. It’s unclear what caused the shunt faults in two of Australia’s undersea cables, but the incident happened at around the same time that the National Security College of the Australian National University released a report highlighting the growing threat that submarine cables face in the modern world.

The Greenlink Connector, which costs $580 million (GBP 430 million) and connects Ireland to Wales via an undersea power cable, was rerouted after scores of Harry Potter fans complained that it would go through the grave of the beloved house elf “Dobby.” According to The Guardian, project manager Simon Ludlam pointed out in a BBC interview that the cable would transition underwater at Freshwater West. Unfortunately, Ludlam was unaware that this was the filming location for the site where the Harry Potter character was buried in the movie franchise. When the BBC aired the clip, the project began receiving hundreds of calls about the site.

Ludlam recounted to The Guardian a discussion with a colleague when they told him, “Apparently, we’re going to go straight through Dobby’s grave.” He answered, “Dobby? Who’s Dobby? I don’t know Dobby.”

It seemed that the project manager was in disbelief when it was finally explained that Dobby is the freed house elf who was killed in the process of rescuing Harry Potter and his friends in the last book. “He is a fictitious character in a fictitious book — the whole thing is fictitious. What are you talking about?” Ludlam said, after which his colleague replied, “No, it’s very, very serious.”

In the end, the company working on the project acquiesced to the demands and concerns of the Harry Potter fans and rerouted it. “A lot of people were very happy about that, and the project is now going [ahead], and Dobby’s happy,” the project manager said.

The Shell Cottage, where Dobby is buried, is on the outskirts of the fictional town of Tinworth, in Cornwall, but the original film series shot the scene in Freshwater West. Many Harry Potter fans leave stones marked with “Here lies Dobby, a free elf,” as a nod to the epitaph that the titular hero left on his grave. The National Trust, which owns the land, has previously warned pilgrims not to do so, as the area is ecologically sensitive, but it seems that people still do so.

The fans’ resistance to having Dobby’s “grave” desecrated seemingly prevented the undersea cable from going through the area. It was instead rerouted in an area that was close to some Bronze Age remains and urns, which, ironically, are associated with human burial.

Undersea cables are crucial infrastructure connecting distant locations for sending information, power, and other crucial resources. Many of them face increasing threats, especially in areas that face geopolitical pressure, like Taiwan and the Baltic Sea, which is why companies are creating technologies to help detect intentional tampering. It seems the one thing this particular project's planners did not take into account is the passion of Harry Potter fans.

A new video shared by Newsweek shows Taiwan’s Coast Guard warning a 200-ft long Chinese-flagged research vessel to change course. The Chinese ship was observed “lurking over [a] US-Taiwan undersea cable,” according to the source.

Hovering over these submarine cables is a clear sign of intelligence gathering, according to Windward, a maritime analysis platform that responded to Newsweek’s questions about the Chinese research vessel’s behavior. The particular cable under its bows was the 8,000-mile Pacific Light Cable Network (PLCN) fiber-optic system. This high-speed cable connects Taiwan and the U.S., as well as the Philippines. Interestingly, the same cable was going to connect Hong Kong, but was rerouted because of American fears over Chinese snooping.

While research vessels like the one warned to change direction by Taiwan’s Coast Guard in the video are sometimes described as ‘civilian,’ Beijing’s military-civil fusion policy blurs the distinction. Moreover, this 200-ft Chinese ship has something of a history in disputed waters. Newsweek says the same vessel has been observed around the Paracel Islands (claimed by China, Taiwan, and Vietnam) and the Spratly Islands (claimed by China, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei).

Focusing back on the concerns about internet cable espionage, or even sabotage, Chinese-flagged vessels have been noted for such behaviour before. “Chinese-flagged vessels have been linked to several cable incidents in recent years,” notes Newsweek. Furthermore, incidents aren’t confined to East Asia, with “suspected sabotage in the Baltic Sea and damage to cables around Taiwan.”

China and Taiwan remains a flashpoint on the geopolitical stage, heightened by the island's outsized role in the global technology and semiconductor market, owing primarily to the success of TSMC. Undersea cables have also grown in recent years to become a vital point of infrastructure for nations, and a source of potential weakness against acts of sabotage.

A developer has created a proof-of-concept data transfer system that shuns any dedicated app requirement and neatly sidesteps mandatory networking, pairing, or giving permissions beyond camera access. Instead, the method transmits information between devices by streaming data via rapidly updating QR codes at up to 60 FPS via the browser your smartphone already has. The test info shared by developer bashalarmistalt on GitHub backs claims that these transfers can run at up to 190 KB/s. This low-friction two-device screen-to-camera data transmission technique is dubbed Decimen Optical Transfer: fountain-coded QR file transfer.

The GitHub project is linked to by Redditor Alstroph, who seems to be the same person. We’ve chosen to embed the Reddit post about the Decimen Optical Transfer solution above, as it includes an illustrative video of a QR code-driven data transfer.

Bashalarmistalt/Alstroph says they used Claude Code to build this cached web app, which simply runs on both smartphones within the browser, with camera permissions given. They explain that they came up with the idea behind Decimen Optical Transfer to create “a phone-to-phone file transfer option without requiring the phones to be on the same network.” After a modicum of chin stroking, they settled upon the possibility of using “rapidly flashing QR codes” to brew up this proof-of-concept.

Far more detailed information about the project is available in the GitHub repository, linked above. There we also read that the use of ‘fountain codes’ was instrumental to the technique, ensuring missed frames and retransmission quirks don’t hinder the data transfer process. Also, it is explained that every streamed QR code frame is self-describing, as a “20-byte header carries the session ID, sequence number, block count/size, file length, and a hash.”

Hints are provided for tuning Decimen Optical Transfer performance with the PoC solution. The dev used an iPhone and the Apple ProMotion camera with stacked codes; they achieved ~128 KB/s handheld data transfers. The data rate could climb to ~186 KB/s speeds if both the sender and receiver devices were positioned absolutely stationary.

The Decimen Optical Transfer software is distributed under the generous MIT license. Bashalarmistalt is aware that there have been several prior projects but asserts the concept behind their Claude Code-aided solution was arrived at independently. We’ve also covered QR code-based data storage tech numerous times. For example, Cerabyte famously uses microscopic QR codes for its ultra-long-life ceramic storage.

How cheap can you build a hardware-based ad-blocking DNS filter? "Free," if you're willing to salvage some used hardware that's being thrown away. What if you aren't so lucky? In the era of the RAMageddon, even a Raspberry Pi will cost you a couple hundred bucks. But you know, you don't even need something that powerful. In fact, you can use a $5 microcontroller to build a fully functional ad-blocking filter with over 500,000 domains blocked and around 10ms latency.

We know that's possible because Egyptian full-stack developer ZedAxis (@M-Abozaid on GitHub) has already built one. Using an ESP32-C3 "SuperMini" board, he's created a backup DNS for his home network that still provides ad blocking. His primary router is a Pi-hole, which is a Raspberry Pi running specialized software to manage DHCP addressing and DNS resolution with integrated ad-blocking. The SuperMini serves as a backup when the Pi-Hole is rebooting or otherwise unavailable.

Strictly speaking, we haven't seen ZedAxis' creation in action, but there's no reason to believe it doesn't work. The ESP32 family of embedded Wi-Fi-enabled microcontrollers is a well-known quantity, and this functionality is by no means outside the realm of its capabilities. In fact, this specific trick allows the use of the ESP32-C3, which is a cost-reduced version of the chip that doesn't have the 8MB of PSRAM found on some higher-end models. (There are MANY variants of the ESP32.)

Instead, the ESP32-C3 used by ZedAxis has just 400KB of RAM, and 4MB of flash memory. With these limited specifications, he wasn't able to store a plaintext blocklist of any real size; it's simply too much data. So, he did what any enterprising hacker would do: he started hashing the data to reduce its size. Using 40-bit FNV-1a hashes, because 32-bit would give too many collisions and 64-bit wastes too much space, he can store some 537,000 domains in the flash memory of the device.

The clever part isn't really the hashing, though. Rather than storing the domains themselves, the build process downloads one or more public blocklists, strips out duplicate entries and comments, hashes each remaining domain into a 40-bit value, sorts the resulting list, and writes the finished database into the ESP32's flash memory. When a DNS query arrives, the device hashes the requested hostname the same way and performs a binary search against the sorted hash table. If it finds a match, the request is blocked. Otherwise, the query is forwarded to an upstream resolver. According to ZedAxis, the finished firmware uses only around 50KB of RAM while answering blocked lookups in roughly 10 milliseconds.

There's another neat compromise hiding in the design, too. The ESP32 normally reserves enough flash memory to hold two complete copies of its firmware, allowing over-the-air (OTA) updates without risking a failed flash leaving the device unbootable. If you don't care about wireless firmware updates, you can reclaim that second firmware partition for the blocklist database instead. With OTA support enabled, the project tops out at around 250,000 blocked domains. Give up OTA, and that jumps to roughly 537,000 domains on a microcontroller that you can usually buy for the price of a fast-food lunch. ZedAxis describes the price as $2; I wasn't able to find SuperMini boards any cheaper than about $5 US, but at that price there's not much need to quibble about the difference.

Of course, this isn't meant to replace a proper Pi-hole or AdGuard Home installation. The ESP32 project has a rudimentary dashboard, but it doesn't provide detailed per-client statistics, historical query logs, or all the knobs and dials that make those platforms attractive. Instead, it's designed as a tiny insurance policy. It sits quietly on the network, sips only a few dozen milliamps of power, and if the primary DNS server disappears for a reboot or a power outage, clients still get filtered DNS responses instead of falling back to whatever resolver the router happens to have configured.

My favorite detail is that ZedAxis powers the whole thing from the USB port on the back of his ISP-provided fiber gateway, a Huawei OptiXstar home fiber gateway. The USB connection isn't carrying any data; the totality of the integration is the router saying "here's 5 volts" and the ESP32 replying "thanks." It's just that the port is a convenient power source for a device so small it practically disappears behind the router. All communications are carried out through the ESP32's integrated Wi-Fi adapter.

I have no idea whether projects like this will ever become common. Probably not, because most people who want network-wide ad blocking will still buy a Raspberry Pi, a used mini PC, or run AdGuard Home in a virtual machine. Still, it's refreshing to see somebody look at a $5 microcontroller with 400KB of RAM and decide, "Sure, that'll do."

The SpaceX satellite internet service Starlink has just introduced its latest residential kit, letting users connect to the satellite network using a smaller and lighter terminal. The company announced the Starlink V5 on X, saying that it could hit up to 375+ Mbps for “streaming, video calling, gaming, and more.” It’s currently available in select areas only, though, with wider availability expected later as the company ramps up production.

The new unit is significantly smaller and lighter than the Standard 4 used in most home deployments, and brings it close to the Starlink Mini, which is designed for both fixed and portable use. However, the Starlink V5 still requires a router (included), whereas the Mini can work without one, providing a wireless connection using its built-in Wi-Fi antenna. Still, the former is faster, offering speeds of up to 375+ Mbps. Although this is 25 Mbps slower than the 400+ Mbps that the Standard 4 is rated for, it’s still higher than the up to 300+ Mbps that SpaceX has set for the Mini.

The changes that SpaceX made to the Starlink V5 would make it much easier to set up, which is especially helpful for users who prefer to DIY their Starlink setup. Another interesting update to the new terminal is that it can handle faster wind speeds while mounted despite being lighter than the Standard 4. This should help it withstand tougher meteorological conditions, especially in areas frequently battered by storms and tornadoes.

The much lower average power consumption, which is just about half of what the previous-generation Starlink terminals consumed, would also help power stations last longer, making it ideal for keeping communications alive, especially during emergencies. This is exactly what Japan is experimenting with, as Tokyo has started putting up Starlink antennas on fire hydrant signs to provide emergency Wi-Fi.

Although SpaceX and its owner, Elon Musk, are no strangers to controversy, Starlink has proven useful in various situations. Aside from being useful for first responders in disaster zones, it also helped Ukraine stay connected during the height of Russia’s invasion of the country in 2024. It has even gotten to the point that China simulated a Starlink blockade over Taiwan because of how useful the service is in keeping a government online and communicating with its allies during times of distress.

The Wi-Fi router market is facing headwinds as consumers pull back on spending. According to a new report from Counterpoint, we’re witnessing a softening in global consumer Wi-Fi router shipments, with a 6 percent YoY decline in Q1 2026. This decline follows an explosion of market growth during the COVID-19 pandemic, when consumers upgraded their Wi-Fi hardware to enhance their work-from-home capabilities.

Counterpoint notes that global Wi-Fi router shipments peaked in 2021, which was at the height of consumer hardware spending during the pandemic. There were some positive points in the report, with Asus and Google seeing global shipment increases of 3.8 percent and 1.2 percent, respectively, during Q1 2026. However, Xiaomi had a 1.3 percent shortfall, Netgear was down 3 percent, while TP-Link fell by 5.4 percent. Counterpoint also notes that “Others,” which includes dozens of other hardware vendors whose sales aren’t significant enough to be broken out individually, fell by 10.4 percent.

Since 2021, global shipments have declined by almost 34 percent, and a couple of factors explain this turn of events. For starters, many people who upgraded their Wi-Fi hardware in 2021 or 2022 simply see no reason to shift to newer technology. Even though the best Wi-Fi routers use the Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be) standard, offering multi-gig speeds across the 6 GHz and 5 GHz bands, those performance benefits are not enticing consumers on the sidelines because of rising costs for more essential goods.

Another reason global shipments of consumer routers have seen a steady decline is that ISPs have become more adept at bundling higher-end networking hardware with their services. Whether you’re signing up for new fiber, cable, or 5G home internet service, ISPs are including routers with integrated Wi-Fi 6, 6E, or 7 wireless connectivity. For customers with non-demanding network needs, this ISP-provided hardware is sufficient. For example, T-Mobile provides a Wi-Fi 7 gateway with its $60/month 5G home internet plan and a Wi-Fi 7 gateway plus a mesh extender with its $70/month plan.

Speaking of mesh systems, this is one of the few bright points for hardware vendors. Counterpoint notes that mesh Wi-Fi systems have seen significant growth as consumers seek to blanket every area of their homes with wireless coverage to support a substantial number of connected devices. Amazon’s Eero and Google’s Nest mesh Wi-Fi router systems were called out specifically for their strong performance (driven in part by high brand recognition and heavy sales promotions). The gaming router segment also bucked the decline in the broader Wi-Fi router market, as online gaming enthusiasts seek a competitive edge with lower latency and higher available network bandwidth.

There’s a possibility we could see a rebound in sales in the second half of 2026 and into early 2027 as the first Wi-Fi 8 hardware enters the market. However, Wi-Fi 8 is seen as more of a quality-of-life upgrade than another leap in performance over previous Wi-Fi generations.

Smart pet technology firm Fi has launched the Fi Ultra Dog Tracker today. This new wearable device is claimed to be “the world’s first consumer wearable powered by T-Satellite with Starlink.” There seem to be a few qualifications in that statement, but they should not be necessary, as, according to our searches, this is indeed the first dog tracking wearable with Starlink integration. To be clear, the dog wears the Fi Ultra, not the owner.

Getting a collar-worn device for your faithful friend, integrating T-Satellite with Starlink, could deliver an important additional layer of security for dog owners. Previous products available in the pet tracker market could be of limited value in areas with spotty or absent LTE or GPS coverage. Satellite-grade dog tracking may therefore be a boon to adventurous dogs and owners who live and explore beyond the reach of traditional networks.

"Fi Ultra has transformed what's possible for dog owners," said Jonathan Bensamoun, co-founder and CEO of Fi. "Our mission has always been to strengthen the human-animal connection via data, to give dogs more freedom while keeping them safe, and with the power of T-Satellite with Starlink behind Fi Ultra, that mission now extends to every corner of the country and soon, every corner of the world."

Fi Ultra also features automatic switching between LTE and satellite coverage for continuous location tracking in remote areas. This new tracker can work in concert with the previously launched Fi Series 3+ and Fi Mini dog tracker devices.

Now, to what some will feel is a drawback, Fi Ultra is bundled with a subscription service. This might be inevitable due to the use of partner satellite and cellular connectivity, though. The scale of the fees is said to be $199 plus a $189 per year membership for new customers. Established Fi tracker customers can buy in for a flat $299 fee. The bottom line is, with a tracker like this, your dog should never have to face the perilous journey dramatized in Lassie Come Home.

Japan’s Fire Hydrant Sign Co., Ltd. has demonstrated an expansive Wi-Fi network that melds its established infrastructure of street signs with Starlink satellite broadband antennas. The big idea is that this network could provide important, if not essential, fallback connectivity in the event of a natural disaster knocking out fiber, mobile masts, and so on. Japan sits on the intersection of multiple tectonic plates and is prone to earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions – as well as some extreme weather.

On Thursday, the Fire Hydrant Sign Co. completed a technical demonstration of a Starlink-supported Wi-Fi network in the vicinity of its Kanagawa Branch. Each sign, a common item of street furniture in residential neighborhoods, can become a dual-purpose emergency water supply sign and ‘communication hub.’ In the top image, you can see two example installations with the Starlink antenna atop a pole beside the traditional circular fire hydrant signage.

One of the key strengths of this initiative is that where the Fire Hydrant Sign Co. has a sign, no extra land or structures are required to set up the pole to host a Starlink antenna. Japan has 120,000 fire hydrant signs nationwide, with the trial taking place near Kanagawa province, near Tokyo.

Somewhat surprisingly, fire hydrant signs are largely maintained by private companies in Japan. They make some money via the advertising space on a sign directly below the one indicating the emergency water source location. Adding Starlink to them could provide the aforementioned disaster relief, as well as other monetization opportunities.

The Fire Hydrant Sign Co. behind this trial says that it will consider collaboration with local governments, regional companies, and related organizations to roll out this initiative, now proven to be useful. It isn’t only going to be useful in the event of a disaster; the company foresees demand during power cuts, local large-scale events, and other opportunities where more Wi-Fi connectivity options are desirable.

In some press release ‘small print,’ the firm says that its successful trial doesn’t mean that a Wi-Fi service will eventually be launched. It was a technical demo, and it also states that Starlink wasn’t a partner or collaborator in any official capacity.

Chinese firm Yangtze Optical Fiber and Cable Joint Stock Limited Company (YOFC) announced on June 16 that it had successfully completed the world’s first field trial of hollow-core fiber (HCF) wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) capable of 1.2 Tb/s per wavelength over an ultra-long unrepeatered span. The trial — conducted in collaboration with state-owned China Telecom and optical equipment maker Dekoli — achieved an unprecedented aggregate transmission capacity of 51.3 Tb/s over roughly 128 miles (206.5 km) without signal regeneration.

These figures, which the collaborators describe as a new world record for unrepeatered WDM capacity-distance performance without remote-pumped amplifiers, were achieved using only erbium-doped fiber amplifier amplification. The demonstration was carried out under the framework of the National Key Laboratory for Advanced Manufacturing and Application Technologies of Optical Fibers and Cables.

The success of this trial marks a major leap forward in optical communications. What separates it from earlier HCF results is the combination of capacity, distance, and amplification approach in a live network rather than a lab. China Telecom had previously demonstrated 1.2 Tb/s over a single wavelength, back in July 2024, but only over a 20-kilometer span.

Elsewhere, researchers have pushed unrepeatered HCF spans past 300 kilometers, but at far lower capacities. Pulling 1.2 Tb/s per channel over more than 200 kilometers on a commercial cable, using only conventional erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) rather than the remote-pumped boosters typically needed to extend unrepeatered reach, is the remarkable new achievement YOFC claims.

Hollow-core fiber is a next-generation optical data transmission medium that is rapidly emerging as a leading candidate for high-capacity, low-latency networking. Unlike conventional optical fiber, which guides light through a solid glass (silica) core, HCF guides light through an air-filled channel. This structural difference offers several advantages. Light travels roughly 1.5 times faster through air than through glass, cutting latency. Furthermore, the air core sidesteps some of the nonlinear distortion and dispersion baked into silica. YOFC has previously claimed that its hollow-core fiber technology can deliver 31% lower latency, 47% faster transmission speeds, and near-zero optical nonlinearity compared with conventional solid-core fiber.

In theory, HCF's air core would enable it to carry far more data over far greater distances with fewer amplification points. The trade-off has always been loss. Commercial hollow-core fiber has historically run at higher attenuation than mature silica fiber, limiting how far a signal can travel before it needs a boost. This limitation has been narrowing, with the trial's 200 km-plus unrepeatered span being the latest milestone.

The collaborators achieved this through two main innovations: one at the system level and the other in the amplifier hardware. At the system level, they used a self-developed optimization scheme for per-wavelength rate and channel power allocation. Rather than pushing every wavelength at the same data rate and power, the system adapted each channel to the link conditions, enabling hybrid transmission across multiple data rates, channel spacings, and power levels. The companies say this helped reduce capacity losses caused by gas-absorption peaks inside the hollow core, a quirk specific to guiding light through air rather than glass.

On the hardware side, the researchers built a high-power amplifier using a cascaded dual-gain-unit architecture and a multi-element doping design, achieving a maximum output of 33.5 dBm (roughly 2.24 W) while maintaining flat gain across the operating band. That higher-power, flatter amplification helped stretch an unrepeatered span without resorting to the remote-pumped amplifiers the team was trying to avoid. Because pushing that much power over a live optical link carries a real risk of failure, the system was wrapped in safeguards, including optical-path power anomaly detection, automatic interlock shutdown, and alarm-linked response mechanisms to catch faults before they damage equipment.

The stakes in this trial, and in HCF more broadly, tie directly to the AI buildout. As hyperscalers race to stand up ever-larger GPU clusters, the network linking those clusters, inside data centers and across the long-haul links between facilities, is fast becoming the bottleneck. HCF's lower latency lets operators site facilities farther from expensive, power-constrained hubs without a speed penalty, while its capacity headroom helps move the enormous traffic AI training and inference generate. The same properties make it attractive for latency-sensitive workloads like financial trading.

That promise is already pulling in serious money, mostly from the West. Microsoft, which moved early via its 2022 Lumenisity acquisition, struck manufacturing deals with Corning and Heraeus in September 2025 to scale production across Azure. AWS has developed its own HCF, claiming a 30% latency improvement over standard fiber, and says it wants more than it can currently get. Corning also has fiber deals with Microsoft, Meta, and Lumen, and is expanding in North Carolina with Nvidia's backing. Trials like YOFC’s are closing existing gaps toward full, widespread HCF deployment, though China's progress largely sits outside the Western supply chain now forming.

Syrian Telecommunications Company (SyTC), the state-owned enterprise that operates the country’s internet infrastructure, said that an undersea cable connecting Egypt and Syria was cut and that it would take time before the “full resumption of services” could take place. While the country hasn’t named any possible culprit, Arab News reports that the Damascus government has blamed a “systematic sabotage campaign” as the cause of damage. It’s now routing data through another undersea cable that connects to Cyprus and through a 1 Tbps overland cable that goes through Turkey. Despite that, the incident is still affecting internet users across Syria.

Undersea cables are crucial infrastructure that allow nations to connect to the rest of the world. Aside from letting you browse the internet and watch cute cat videos, it’s also crucial for trade and market, with billions of dollars’ worth of transactions flowing through these cables at any given time. More importantly, these cables are also used by governments to communicate with their allies and other countries, making them as crucial as sea lines of communications.

But despite their importance, this infrastructure is quite vulnerable — they often only sit on the seabed or, at best, sit 1.5 to 5 feet in the mud. This means that they could easily be damaged, both intentionally or accidentally, by items being dragged on the sea floor, like a trawler net or anchor. It’s also difficult to guard these cables, as they span long distances (with the total deployed undersea cable length estimated to be greater than 32 times the Earth’s circumference at the equator), and no country on Earth has enough resources to patrol every mile of these cables.

Because of this, undersea cables are often seen as soft targets and are frequently the victims of “gray-zone warfare.” We’ve seen several incidents of undersea cables being cut by ships that are suspected of being part of Russia’s shadow fleet, with Finland experiencing several incidents in the Baltic Sea in just two years. The Middle East has also seen its fair share of cable disruptions, especially in the Red Sea, which serves as a bottleneck for connections between Europe and Asia. Taiwan has also increased its defensive patrols around 24 undersea cables, especially as nearly a hundred blacklisted China-linked boats were seen lurking around the island’s infrastructure.

While Syria said that the damage to its undersea cable was part of a “systematic sabotage campaign,” it did not point the blame to a specific state or non-state actor. However, its location between Europe and the Middle East makes it a crucial player for the various regional and global powers with interests in the region. Furthermore, the country also plays host to several Russian bases, allowing it to have access to the Mediterranean Sea.

The Russian captain and Azerbaijani bosun, the most senior unrated crew member, of a cargo ship suspected of cutting two undersea cables between Finland and Estonia at the turn of the year has been charged with “aggravated criminal mischief” and “aggravated interference with telecommunications.” According to The Maritime Executive, the Fitburg, a 9,900 deadweight tonnage (DWT) vessel owned by a Turkish entity with Russian links, allegedly dragged its anchor for over 80 miles (130km) and hit undersea cables operated by Finnish telecom company Elisa and Swedish firm Arelion.

Prosecutors also say that the ship intended to target eight additional subsea cables in the area before it was stopped by the Finnish Coast Guard. Two other crew members of the Fitburg remain in detention in Finland as prosecutors determine if they will be charged in relation to the suspected sabotage. The lawyers of the accused say that Finland does not have jurisdiction over the crew, but the authorities say that it will leave it up to the courts to decide.

This is the second undersea cable-related investigation to reach prosecution, as another Russian-linked ship, the Eagle S oil tanker, was involved in another suspected sabotage on Christmas Day 2024. Three officers of the “shadow fleet” tanker were charged with the same criminal cases that the Fitburg crew are facing, although Finland failed to secure a conviction, as the court said that it did not have jurisdiction over the case because the incident happened outside of Finnish territorial waters. The ruling is currently under appeal, though, with prosecutors arguing that “the effects of the crime materialized here in Finland.”

Undersea cables are crucial infrastructure that connect nations to one another, and it is particularly important for Finland as one of the NATO members bordering Russia. The country’s undersea communications, electricity, and gas connections have been hit multiple times in recent years, which is why it has taken steps to protect its sea-line of communications (SLOC). This includes the deployment of a SOSUS-like system that warns cable operators and the Finnish authorities of suspicious activities near vulnerable infrastructure. The technology, called Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS), integrates sensors into fiber optic cables that detect sound and vibrations, like an anchor hitting the seabed, coming from the sea floor.

However, suspected attacks on undersea cables aren’t limited to the Baltic Sea. Other incidents have been reported in the Red Sea and in the Taiwan Strait — geopolitical hotspots where tensions often run high. Because of this, both firms and countries are exploring alternative routes to make it harder to disrupt communications. The EU is considering going under the North Pole to bypass Russia and the United States for connecting to Asia, while Meta is building a 50,000-km undersea network that connects the U.S. to Brazil, Africa, India, and Australia, which, notably, avoids bottlenecks like the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Strait of Malacca.

Netgear filed counterclaims against TP-Link in federal court in Delaware on June 11, accusing its larger rival of false advertising under the Lanham Act and arguing that TP-Link's 2024 reincorporation as a California company is a deception that conceals ongoing R&D and manufacturing in China. The filing fires back at a lawsuit TP-Link itself brought against Netgear last November, and it came just one day after the U.S. DoD added TP-Link Technologies to its list of Chinese military companies operating in the United States. Netgear is seeking damages and an injunction barring TP-Link from repeating the contested claims, with the case running against the backdrop of an FCC import ban on routers not built in the U.S. that took effect earlier this year.

TP-Link sued first back in November, accusing Netgear of orchestrating a smear campaign and alleging that comments by Netgear's CEO on earnings calls falsely tied TP-Link to cyberattacks attributed to the Typhoon threat groups, and that the statements breached a 2024 settlement under which TP-Link paid Netgear $135 million to end years of patent litigation. The court has since dismissed parts of TP-Link's case that rested on third-party statements.

Netgear's counterclaim denies the smear allegation and goes on the offensive, bringing four of them under the Lanham Act and California and Delaware trade-practice laws, alleging that TP-Link’s claim that it split entirely from China-based TP-Link Technologies and now operates as an independent American company is a false statement that misleads buyers.

According to the counterclaim, TP-Link Technologies “did not fundamentally reorganize its global operations,” instead simply changing its name to Lianzhou and continuing to perform much of TP-Link’s R&D and manufacturing in China under the same cofounder. Netgear states that TP-Link employed more than 13,000 people in China through 2024, including roughly 9,000 in Chinese manufacturing centers, against about 350 employees in the United States. The filing also alleges that TP-Link's "Made in Vietnam" labeling is misleading because the Vietnamese plant serves as a final assembly point, with 99.5% of the components in U.S.-bound products imported from China.

Netgear counterclaim naturally leans heavily on the DoD’s designation describing TP-Link Technologies as “directly affiliated with the PLA” and a contributor to China’s defense industrial base. “TP-Link remains, at its core, a Chinese company selling Chinese-made products,” Netgear states in the filing.

TP-Link rejects the underlying premise, maintaining that it’s a U.S.-headquartered company subject to no foreign government control and that its products are made in Vietnam. The two firms also disagree on what is at stake commercially. Netgear's filing puts TP-Link's share of the U.S. retail router market at roughly 65%, while TP-Link has said its share of the North American residential Wi-Fi router segment sits under 10%. The dispute now runs alongside federal scrutiny from Commerce, the FCC, the FTC, and state attorneys general in Texas and Florida.

Earlier this year, we took a look at Netgear’s Nighthawk M7, which is a 5G mobile hotspot with Wi-Fi 7 connectivity. Today, I’m looking at another 5G mobile hotspot, this time from Travlfi. The formula is similar: combine a 5G cellular modem, a small display, and a battery, and put it all together in a compact enclosure.

The Travlfi JourneyGo 5G is lightweight and is low on added frills. The hotspot has 5G connectivity (with 4G LTE fallback), offers 24 hours of battery life, and can connect up to 16 devices simultaneously at a broadcast range of 75 to 100 feet. Its basic functionality is why it has a relatively low price of $299, compared to $499 for the Nighthawk M7.

Design of the Travlfi JourneyGo 5G

The JourneyGo 5G is quite thin and light, much more so than the Nighthawk M7. The former is just 0.49 inches thick and weighs 0.36 pounds compared to 0.67 inches and 0.57 pounds for the latter. With that said, the Travlfi JourneyGo 5G doesn’t feel as well put together as the Nighthawk M7 – it lacks the rigid, thick plastic and feels almost like the cheap casing that you’d find on a no-name smartphone battery bank.

With that said, the JourneyGo 5G manages to cram in a much larger internal battery (5,000 mAh versus 3,850 mAh) despite its thinner and lighter dimensions.

The JourneyGo 5G is controlled using the small 2.4-inch color touchscreen. You can tap and swipe to access various menus and settings. The included quick start guide for the hotspot says that you can download the Travlfi app for Android or iOS to configure the device, but as of this writing, the app is not available to download (at least from the iOS App Store).

The JourneyGo 5G has a nanoSIM for cellular connectivity located at the top of the unit. A power button is found on the right side, while a USB-C port is at the bottom (a USB-C to USB-C charging cable is included in the box).

Travlfi JourneyGo 5G Specifications

Travlfi JourneyGo 5G Software and Controls

As I mentioned, controlling and configuring the JourneyGo 5G is done solely through the small touch screen (at least until the smartphone app becomes available). Interesting with such a small screen is rather cumbersome, but manageable. The main screen shows your current cellular signal strength, 5G or 4G connectivity, the number of connected devices, and battery status in the top menu bar. The amount of data you have available during your billing cycle is front and center, while your time and current location (country) appear at the bottom of the screen. If you swipe from right to left, you’ll find an expanded look at your remaining data allowance along with the date/time when your plan renews.

Below the data allowance windows, you’ll find Wi-Fi Info, where you’ll see your current Wi-Fi SSD and password. Next, you’ll see TowerSync, which allows the device to scan for a stronger signal from a nearby tower.

Finally, there’s the Menu windows, which give access to a wider range of settings. Wi-Fi Settings let you choose between the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands. Surprisingly, you can’t enable both at the same time. You’ll also find a list of currently connected devices and the ability to switch from an eSIM to a physical nanoSIM (our review unit leveraged the eSIM). There are also more mundane settings, such as language, device information, time format, time zone, and screen brightness.

Despite the use of an eSIM, the JourneyGo 5G lacks an eSIM Marketplace, which is the true “killer app” for the Nighthawk M7. It remains to be seen if that type of functionality will arrive with the unreleased Travlfi smartphone app.

Our review unit came with the 100GB data plan, which costs $89 per month. However, if your mobile hotspot needs aren’t as data hungry, the 2GB plan costs $19 per month. Travlfi also offers an unlimited plan for $129/month, although it’s currently running a promotion that drops it to $99/month.

Travlfi JourneyGo 5G Performance

The JourneyGo 5G uses a MediaTek MT8791 SoC that incorporates two Arm Cortex-A78 cores, six Arm Cortex-A55 cores, an integrated 5G NR sub-6 GHz modem (4G CAT 18), and dual-band Wi-Fi 6. Our review unit is using its eSIM rather than the physical SIM onboard, which is connecting to T-Mobile’s wireless network.

Travlfi claims that the JourneyGo 5G offers typical download speeds of 25 to 150 Mbps with a peak of 180 Mbps using a 5G cellular connection. When connecting to a 4G network, typical download speeds range from 15 to 40 Mbps with peaks reaching 60 Mbps.

However, with a steady 5G connection and connected via the Wi-Fi 6 hotspot, I saw average download speeds of 57 Mbps and average upload speeds of 16 Mbps from my home office on the second floor. Moving outside to my backyard, average download and upload speeds increased to 67 Mbps and 20 Mbps, respectively. For comparison, the Nighthawk M7 averaged nearly 3x the download speeds and over 2x the upload speeds.

The JourneyGo 5G is supposed to support USB tethering directly to a device, but I couldn’t get it to work on a Mac or a Windows device. When plugging the hotspot into a computer using the included USB-C cable, the JourneyGo 5G would confirm that USB tethering was enabled and that a device was connected. However, neither the Mac nor the Windows device would recognize an active internet connection via USB.

It remains to be seen whether the forthcoming Travlfi smartphone app will address the tethering woes, although we can only go off what’s available right now. In addition, it’s frustrating that you can’t change the Wi-Fi SSID or password from the default provided by Travlfi. Again, this is something that could be easily addressed with an app, given the tiny display, which makes input challenging.

Bottom Line

When it comes to pricing, the Travlfi JourneyGo 5G definitely gets your attention at $299. That seems like an absolute steal compared to the Netgear Nighthawk M7's $499 price. And the fact that Travlfi was able to squeeze 20 hours of runtime out of this tiny device is quite amazing.

However, things quickly fall apart from there. All interactions must be performed with the small 2.4-inch touch screen; you cannot change the Wi-Fi SSID or password, and you can’t enable the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands simultaneously. In addition, the promised smartphone app (mentioned in the user manual) is not available for download on iOS or Android. And from a functional standpoint, the USB tether mode didn’t even work. The final blow is that, despite a 5G connection, download speeds were roughly a third of what we saw with the Nighthawk M7.

In its current state, the JourneyGo 5G might be an impulse buy at $299, but it’s not a wise buy.

Finland's National Bureau of Investigation has concluded its criminal investigation into the damage to two undersea telecommunications cables in the Gulf of Finland on December 31st last year, identifying four suspects and referring the case to prosecutors for a decision on charges, according to a police statement. Investigators say the cargo ship Fitburg dragged its anchor across the seabed for several kilometers and severed cables owned by Finnish operators Elisa and Arelion Finland while sailing from St. Petersburg to the Israeli port of Haifa.

The 132-meter Fitburg, flagged in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, was seized on New Year's Eve and held until mid-January while a joint Finnish and Estonian investigation team examined the vessel, the damage site, and devices belonging to crew members. The ship's 14 crew came from Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan.

Damage to the cables occurred in Estonia's exclusive economic zone, with Finland investigating the case as aggravated criminal damage, attempted aggravated criminal damage, and aggravated interference with telecommunications. Finnish customs separately determined that the ship's steel cargo was subject to sanctions against Russia, though no criminal case was opened over it because the goods only entered Finnish waters after authorities ordered the vessel to move.

Elisa said at the time that rerouting kept its services running, consistent with earlier Baltic cuts that Cloudflare found had little observable effect on connectivity thanks to dense route redundancy in the region.

This marks the second time in a year that the Fins have referred a case to prosecutors, having previously charged three officers of the Eagle S oil tanker last August with aggravated sabotage and aggravated interference with telecommunications, alleging the Cook Islands-registered tanker dragged its anchor about 56 miles along the seabed and damaged five cables. Repairs cost two Finnish companies roughly $70 million. The Eagle S is widely described as part of Russia's "shadow fleet" of tankers operating under foreign flags to evade sanctions.

Finland responded to the Fitburg incident by establishing a dedicated Baltic maritime surveillance center, announced in January. NATO's Baltic Sentry operation, launched a year earlier in January 2025, patrols the region with frigates, maritime patrol aircraft, and a fleet of more than 20 uncrewed surface vessels, supplemented by software that flags suspicious ship movements.

None of that stops an anchor drag, however, which requires only a vessel willing to lower its anchor over a cable route. Finland has recorded at least seven major incidents involving ships and subsea infrastructure since 2023.

We are halfway through 2026, and while we aren’t flying across gleaming neon cityscapes in jet-powered cars, birds have been discovered feathering their nests with optical fiber. It definitely isn’t the tech utopia we dreamed about, but the birds might have been colder without this detritus of war. Moreover, our feathered friends are tidying up the miles of fiber waste precipitated by drone warfare, at least a little bit, while making use of what is likely an excellent thermal insulator.

Click 'See more' to see the nests.

Example photos of these optical fiber nests were shared on Twitter/X by a Ukrainian civil society leader and anti-corruption advocate, Olena Tregub. She called the carefully woven avian construction an “apocalyptic bird's nest” and credited Oleg Malchenko as the photographer. We can’t say how widespread such nests are, they are the first we’ve seen, but birds can be quite enterprising when nest building and choosing the best materials.

Some background to the finding was given by Tregrub. “A Russian glide bomb knocks down a tree in Donbas,” said the former Ukrainian government official. “From the shattered branches rolls out a tiny bird’s nest. Made of drone fiber-optic cable.”

Imagery showing acres of fields strewn with wisps of optical fiber are one of the sad signatures of the current Russia-Ukraine war. To make no-fuss jam-proof drones both sides have been using optical fiber tethered drones to target their foes.

In October last year we reported on a Ukrainian invention utilizing rotating barbed wire barriers to snag, rip, and disable any fibers left in the wake of drones flying over them. Another example of ingenuity in this David vs. Goliath conflict.

In December, we reported on the tethered drone range of Russian FPVs being significantly boosted by a grey-zone Chinese partnership. This tech collaboration between communist nations resulted in the production of fiber optic spools delivering as much as 65km (~40.4 miles) of tethered range. That was an advance of previously seen Ukrainian tethered drones reaching 42km (~26 miles).

Now that Wi-Fi 7 has been on the market for a few years and has matured, Wi-Fi 8 is the next logical step in the quest to advance wireless connectivity. TP-Link teased its upcoming Archer 8 Wi-Fi 8 router last week, and now Asus has pulled the wraps off its upcoming ROG Rapture GT-BN98 Pro gaming router.

At first glance, the ROG Rapture GT-BN98 Pro doesn’t look too far removed from the ROG Rapture GT-BE98 Pro Wi-Fi 7 router. They seemingly share the exact exterior design, right down to the eight antennas, front LED panel, buttons, exposed heatsink, and clear ROG panel. However, Asus is using an unnamed Wi-Fi 8 chipset inside.

Asus hasn’t provided any concrete performance figures we can compare to its existing Wi-Fi 7 routers, but it does offer some broad generalizations. It claims that the ROG Rapture GT-BN98 Pro offers up to a 2x improvement in median throughput and 2x greater coverage for IoT devices. Asus also claims that it will provide lower latency via Multi-AP coordination and allow higher performance in crowded wireless environments. These are all enhancements afforded by the Wi-Fi 8 standard, rather than anything that Asus is doing on its own to improve performance.

That’s not to say that Asus has sprinkled its own magic on the ROG Rapture GT-BN98 Pro. Asus has a collection of tools at its disposal that it lumps under the AI Game Boost feature. The ROG Rapture GT-BN98 Pro can automatically optimize and accelerate gaming traffic over the physical LAN ports and via Wi-Fi. There’s also adaptive QoS, which provides on-demand bandwidth allocation and network optimizations for specific online games using GTNet.

While all the major performance benefits come from the wireless side, the ROG Rapture GT-BN98 Pro also has relatively beefy wired networking capabilities. The router includes four 2.5 GbE LAN ports (one of which can be used for WAN), a 1 GbE LAN port, a 10 GbE LAN/Gaming port, and a 10 GbE WAN port. The two 10 GbE ports can be aggregated to form a single 20 Gbps link. In addition, the ROG Rapture GT-BN98 Pro has a single USB 2.0 port and one USB 3.0 port.

Although Asus hasn’t provided any further guidance, we expect the ROG Rapture GT-BN98 Pro to launch in Q4 2026 or possibly Q1 2027.

Amazon has unveiled a new data center networking architecture that it claims delivers up to 33% higher throughput while reducing network power consumption by 40%, marking what the company describes as the first large-scale deployment of a flat network based on random graph theory, Wired reports. The company revealed that it had been quietly deploying the design in its data centers since last year, confirming that it has already become the default data center network for most AWS workloads.

The architecture, called Resilient Network Graphs (RNG), replaces the hierarchical networking structures that have dominated cloud data centers for decades with a flatter, quasi-random architecture designed to move data more efficiently between servers. Amazon says the design uses 69% fewer networking devices than traditional architectures and can reduce infrastructure costs by up to 45%, potentially translating into billions of dollars in savings across its global cloud footprint.

The company first deployed RNG in a Dublin data center in 2024 before expanding the architecture into facilities in Germany and Spain. AWS says the design is now being rolled out across most newly built data centers and will form the foundation of future deployments.

Data center and AI capability conversations typically focus on processing and storage. However, networking is one of the most important aspects of capability. Every request sent from your device to a cloud application, database, AI model, or storage service depends on data moving rapidly across thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of servers. As facilities continue to grow, ensuring information reaches the right destination quickly and efficiently has become an increasingly difficult engineering challenge.

For decades, most large-scale data centers have relied on a hierarchical networking structure known as a "fat-tree" topology. In this design, data travels up and down layers of switches and routers arranged in a tree-like hierarchy. While the approach is proven and reliable, it can create bottlenecks and strain available bandwidth. Traffic can become concentrated at specific points in the hierarchy, even when capacity is unused elsewhere in the network. The approach also requires a large number of expensive networking devices.

Researchers have long theorized that a flatter network based on random graph principles could solve many of those issues. Instead of forcing traffic through predefined layers, routers are connected in a highly distributed mesh-like arrangement that creates numerous possible paths between endpoints. In theory, this will improve resilience, increase utilization of available bandwidth, and reduce the likelihood of congestion.

The challenge was making such a network practical. Although random graph networks have been subject to academic research for more than a decade, major obstacles have prevented their successful deployment at hyperscale. Routing traffic efficiently through such a network is considerably more complicated than routing traffic through a predictable hierarchy, and physically connecting millions of fiber-optic links without creating an operational nightmare presents an entirely different challenge.

AWS says it overcame those obstacles with two key innovations: software and custom hardware. The first is a custom routing protocol called Spraypoint, which distributes traffic across large numbers of available paths rather than relying primarily on the shortest path. The second is a passive optical device called ShuffleBox, designed to organize and standardize the immense amount of cabling required to build the network at scale.

According to Amazon, the resulting architecture not only moves data roughly one-third faster than conventional designs but also requires significantly fewer switches and routers. The company says those reductions lower both capital expenditures and operating costs while simultaneously reducing power consumption.

AI models are growing larger and more capable, and so are their user bases. To sustain this growth, hyperscalers have to continue optimizing the entire technology stack. Faster chips remain crucial, but so are advances in cooling, power delivery, storage systems, optical interconnects, and networking. AWS believes RNG is one such advantage. The company rightly considers the achievement of deploying random graph theory at scale, “a breakthrough that will deliver greater reliability and performance for AWS customers, save billions of dollars in hardware, and lower CO2 emissions.”

Wi-Fi 8 is on the horizon, and the top wireless router manufacturers are already jockeying for position. TP-Link is the top seller of consumer wireless routers in the United States by a large margin, and it announced today the roadmap for its next-generation platform of Wi-Fi 8 (802.11bn) products.

According to the company, the first product to launch will be a standalone Archer 8 Wi-Fi 8 router in October 2026 (tentatively). That will be followed by the company's first Deco 8 mesh router during Q1 2027 and a Roam 8 travel router during Q2 2027. TP-Link hopes to round out its Wi-Fi 8 networking portfolio in Q2 2027 with a line of range extenders and client adapters (likely in both USB and PCIe versions).

Since the Archer 8 is the closest to release, TP-Link has provided some information and teaser images showing what to expect in terms of design. The Archer 8 family will feature a "minimalist architectural form," micro-ridge textures, and RGB lighting up front for some visual flair. Internally, the Archer 8 will benefit from AI assistance to improve network performance and reliability, improved thermal performance, and optimized antenna design.

As we've reported previously, Wi-Fi 8 isn't tasked with bringing another huge leap in theoretical speeds for wireless devices, as were promised with older Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 standards. Instead, Wi-Fi 8 focuses on improving real-world performance and range so that devices can more closely approach the theoretical speeds promised in earlier Wi-Fi iterations.

"For years, Wi-Fi innovation has been measured by peak theoretical speeds," explained Jeff Barney, President of TP-Link Systems Inc. "But what users actually care about is consistency. Archer 8 is designed to deliver exactly that: lower latency, better performance under interference, and more stable connectivity in real-world environments."

Compared to its Wi-Fi 7 products, TP-Link says its Wi-Fi 8 offerings will deliver up to a 33 percent uplift in real-world throughput via enhanced modulation and encoding, and another 15 percent increase in mesh performance under heavy load. The company also quotes a 30 percent improvement in signal performance and a 1-3 dB improvement in receive sensitivity across the 5 GHz and 6 GHz bands.

With that said, while all of these improvements for the upcoming Archer 8, Deco 8, and Roam 8 products are welcome, there's still one big problem – TP-Link has yet to secure approval from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to sell new Wi-Fi products in the United States. TP-Link produces its routers destined for the U.S. market in other countries (such as Vietnam), which runs afoul of the FCC’s edict. The FCC considers these routers a national security risk and requires router manufacturers to apply for acceptance on the Covered List.

While competing manufacturers like Netgear and Amazon/Eero already secured conditional approval on the Covered List to sell future Wi-Fi products in the U.S., TP-Link has yet to receive the same status. The development is not exactly surprising, as TP-Link has been a frequent target of the U.S. government over its complex ties to China.

The creators of the Flipper Zero “portable multi-tool device for geeks” have announced the Flipper One. This new pocketable gadget hugely expands the original's feature set with compute, modularity, and expandability to make what is claimed to be a different category of device. The Flipper One isn’t actually ready yet, though. Instead, the Flipper Devices team is asking for help from the community to help steer and finesse the final stages of Flipper One development to meet their ambitious goals.

“Flipper Zero taught us how much you can do with a tightly scoped, open product and a community that pushes it further than you can,” said Pavel Zhovner, Co-Founder and CEO of Flipper Devices. “Flipper One is what happens when we apply the same approach to a much bigger problem — building a fully open ARM Linux device that doesn't go obsolete the moment it ships. To be honest, it’s hard, and we can't do that alone, which is why we're opening the development process from day one.”

Before we go on, the team wanted to stress that the Flipper One isn’t an upgraded Flipper Zero. They assert that “Flipper Zero and Flipper One are completely different projects built for different tasks.” However, after digesting the announcement material, we’d probably sum up that the Flipper One is a device that adds a very useful chunk of Linux compute to the geek multitool form factor established by the Zero. Whatever the case, the Flipper team has created a side-by-side infographic to compare the two devices, and we’ve embedded that below.

Key to the Flipper One’s expanded abilities are the inclusion of an Arm processor capable of running Linux with about the same performance level as a Raspberry Pi 5, according to the press release, plus the addition of modular M.2 expansion capabilities. These are big additions, and at this stage, the Flipper team openly admits it is still wrangling with getting everything working as intended.

Some important foundational work has been done in preparing Arm Linux for the Flipper One. For example, the team has partnered with Collabora “to push full support for the Rockchip RK3576 SoC into the mainline Linux kernel.” This is a work in progress, though, with current effort focused on power management and USB DP Alt-mode support. Moreover, drivers for the SoC’s NPU, hardware video decoding, and other accelerators aren’t fully upstream yet.

To move forward with the above and related tasks, the Flipper team has created the Flipper One Developer Portal, a public wiki with all the development documentation for Flipper One. Due to the complexity of this new networking and computing multitool, the Wiki houses sub-projects focused on Hardware, Mechanics, Linux software, MCU Firmware, User Interface, Documentation, and Testing. Anyone can join and is welcome to contribute.

It sounds like there’s a lot of work left to do, but there’s a lot of potential in this new computing multitool. Its coprocessor architecture mixes the aforementioned octa-core Rockchip RK3576 SoC, which also packs Mali-G52 graphics, an NPU, and comes with 8GB of RAM. It is partnered by the RP2350 low-power MCU. Importantly, the MCU can work alone, bringing a lot of functionality to Flipper One without even getting into Linux. The CPU and MCU communicate and work together using an interconnect system.

To make the most of the power inside a Flipper One, the OS must be optimized for the task(s). So, the development team is making Flipper OS, based on Debian. A key project in this development is FlipCTL, a framework for interacting with the device on a tiny screen using just a D-pad and a few buttons.

If you have access to a big screen, Flipper One can charge, output video to a monitor, and connect USB peripherals — all via a single USB-C DisplayPort Alt Mode cable. The built-in full-size HDMI port is also envisioned as a big-screen boon, with Flipper One connecting and becoming a “hacker’s TV media box.”

Flipper One’s open hardware module system with a widely compatible M.2 slot and GPIO port also boosts its capabilities beyond the network multitool skills it seems a natural fit for.

Lastly, no new device press release can neglect to mention AI. In this case, the Flipper One is touted as a device with a built-in AI accelerator (Rockchip's integrated NPU, remember) that can run LLMs locally. There are a couple of wrinkles to achieving this functionality right now. However, Flipper One will support external AI agents through integrations when you have internet connectivity.

TP-Link offers a dizzying array of Wi-Fi 7 routers, ranging from entry-level to mid-range to high-end gaming routers, with mesh and travel options sprinkled in between. One of the newer entries from the company is the Archer BE770, a mainstream tri-band Wi-Fi 7 router with an imposing design and a wide range of ports.

While the Archer BE770 isn’t part of TP-Link’s Deco family of mesh routers, it does support the company's EasyMesh capabilities. EasyMesh allows you to link up compatible (and dissimilar) TP-Link networking devices to form a mesh network. TP-Link provides this functionality in a router priced just under $400.

Design of the TP-Link Archer BE770 Router

When the shipping box for our Archer BE770 arrived on my doorstep, I was taken aback by how large it was. This feeling continued when I opened it to reveal the router's retail box, which was equally large. Opening that box allowed me to lay eyes on the Archer BE770, which seems almost comically large compared to most other routers on the market. It’s not just the unit's height that’s imposing, but also its depth – it commands a large footprint on your desk or bookshelf, measuring 4.1 x 11.7 x 10.4 inches (W x D x H). It also looks like a mini desktop computer sitting on your desk.

That said, the Archer BE770's design is attractive, with an hourglass profile when viewed head-on. The fascia is finished in a shiny black plastic, with a narrow horizontal status LED mounted about halfway up; the TP-Link logo is printed near the bottom of the fascia. The sides of the router are finished in silver plastic, while the top is finished in matte black plastic with plenty of holes for ventilation.

All of the Archer BE770’s various ports are found on the back of the device. There you’ll find four GbE ports and two 10 GbE ports (one of which can be used for WAN). While I applaud the inclusion of the two 10 GbE ports, I’m disappointed that the other four LAN ports are limited to 1 Gbps. With a street price of $400, 2.5 GbE should be the norm here. (Or at least make two of the four ports 2.5 GbE.)

On the plus side, TP-Link provides two USB 3.0 ports for network storage, whereas most routers only offer one. Other items of note on the back include dedicated buttons for enabling Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) and turning off the front LED. There’s also a physical power button, a Wi-Fi disable button, and a pinhole button for resetting the router.

TP-Link Archer BE770 Router Specifications

Setting up the TP-Link Archer BE770 Router Software

The initial setup of the Archer BE770 can be completed using the TP-Link Tether smartphone app or a web browser to access the router’s GUI. My personal preference is to use a router’s smartphone app (when possible) for setup, as it’s usually fast and simple. That was definitely the case with the Archer BE770, as I used the Tether app to scan the QR code on the bottom of the router. Within seconds, the router was discovered and the configuration process began.

I was asked to create an administrator password to log in to the router, and then to provide an SSID for the 6 GHz band and a separate SSID for the combined 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands.

Towards the end of the setup process, a firmware update was available for the router, which I applied. The router then rebooted, and the network was fully operational in roughly 6 minutes from start to finish.

TP-Link Archer BE770 Router Software

After setting up the Archer BE770 on my smartphone, I switched to my desktop to check out the router's GUI. The Archer BE770 uses a no-frills desktop GUI with a turquoise, gray, and white color scheme. This is the default look for Archer routers, while the TP-Link’s gaming router uses the same interface with a black theme.

There are five tabs across the top of the GUI: Network Map, Internet, Wireless, HomeShield, and Advanced. Network Map displays pertinent information like your current connection type, internet IP address, and your router's uptime. You’ll also see an overview of the currently enabled SSIDs, CPU/memory loads, and a visual readout of active WAN/LAN ports.

The Internet tab shows your current internet connection type (Dynamic IP in my case) and allows you to clone a MAC address for the router. The Wireless tab provides settings for enabling or disabling Smart Connect. Enabling this feature combines the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands under a single SSID, while disabling it gives each band a unique SSID. You can also enable MLO, Guest, and IoT networks here. You can enable 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz bands with a Guest network, while the IoT network only supports the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands.

The HomeShield tab provides a limited set of features for free. Network Check scans your network to identify security risks and areas to improve overall performance. There is a limited set of parental controls you can implement per device, and QoS settings you can enable to limit download and upload bandwidth for individual devices. If you pay for the “Pro” tier of HomeShield, you can access IoT Protection, intrusion detection, a malicious content filter, DDoS protection, more powerful parental controls, and network usage statistics. TP-Link offers its Security+ for $35.99/year or its Total Security Package for $69.99/year (for the first year, $129.99 starting with the second year).

The Advanced tab is home to more granular controls for folks who like to really tinker with their network. Here, you find EasyMesh network setup, VPN integration, firmware updates, and the ability to back up and restore router settings (among many other features).

TP-Link Archer BE770 Router Performance

I tested the Archer BE770 with our venerable wireless client rig, which features an MSI Pro B650M-A Wi-Fi motherboard, AMD Ryzen 5 7600 processor, 32GB of DDR5 memory, a 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD, MSI Herald-BE Wi-Fi 7 adapter, and Windows 11 Home. Windows 11 has all the latest software updates installed, while the Herald-BE is running the latest drivers available from MSI’s support website. The server is a Windows 11 Home machine with a 10 GbE network card connected to the Archer BE770 router's 10 GbE LAN port.

As always, iPerf3 throughput tests are conducted at 6-foot and 25-foot distances, with and without network traffic. In the congested traffic tests, we include six additional wireless clients streaming 4K YouTube videos across 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz wireless bands.

Overall, the Archer BE770 performed quite well, especially on the 6 GHz and 5 GHz bands. When testing iPerf3 on the 6 GHz band with no additional traffic, the Archer BE770 Hit over 2,700 Mbps at close range (6 feet), putting it just behind the first-place Archer GE800 (a gaming-centric router). When the testing distance was pushed out to 25 feet, throughput fell to 1,813 Mbps. While this was significantly behind the Archer GE800's performance, it easily eclipses the Asus ROG Strix GS-BE18000 (1,467 Mbps) and the Netgear Nighthawk RS600 (956 Mbps).

With congested traffic on the 6 GHz band, we saw similar results: the Archer BE770 nearly matched the Archer GE800 at close range (2,533 Mbps versus 2,566 Mbps) but fell short at 25 feet (1,520 Mbps versus 2,060 Mbps).

Moving to 5 GHz testing, the Archer BE770 again finished in second place, behind the Archer GE800; however, the gap was smaller at 25 feet.

After adding six additional clients to the network for congested tests, the Nighthawk RS600 shot to the top of the charts, reaching 1,610 Mbps at 6 feet, while the Archer BE770 was close behind at 1,520 Mbps. However, the Archer BE770 more than doubled the Nighthawk RS600's performance at 25 feet (991 Mbps versus 483 Mbps).

2.4 GHz performance without added traffic was the Archer BE770's strong suit, as we saw 84 Mbps at 6 feet and 73 Mbps at 25 feet. Both the Archer GE800 and Nighthawk RS600 vastly overperformed in these tests.

However, when additional traffic came online, the Archer BE770 posted more competitive numbers, hitting 82 Mbps at 6 feet and 58 Mbps at 25 feet. However, those numbers were no match for the Archer GE800, which delivered 166 Mbps and 100 Mbps, respectively.

Bottom Line

The TP-Link Archer BE770 is a good all-around tri-band Wi-Fi 7 router, offering strong performance on the 6 GHz and 5 GHz wireless bands that matter most to client devices like desktops, laptops, and smartphones. Its 2.4 GHz performance could be better, but the clients that connect on the band are likely either older or low-speed IoT devices that aren’t starving for insane network bandwidth.

However, I do have a bone to pick with the port layout. With a street price of $400, there’s no reason that we should be stuck with four GbE LAN ports instead of 2.5 GbE.

For equal money, you’d be better served going with TP-Link’s Archer BE800 (which gives you two 10 GbE ports and four 2.5 GbE ports).

If you thought the crisis centered on the Strait of Hormuz couldn’t get worse, think again. The oil and shipping choke point may also soon become a digital pressure point. That’s if Iranian leaders heed the IRGC‑affiliated Iranian news agency Tasnim (via Iran International), which has called for generating revenue by charging fees on the multitude of undersea internet cables that pass through the channel.

Tasnim is regarded as an official mouthpiece for the IRGC (the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps). Those watching the situation in the Gulf may recall that the IRGC often speaks for the government regarding military policy. So Tansim's ideas for extracting value from the $10 trillion of transactions estimated to be pulsing through these cables daily won’t merely be the musings of some journalist.

The Tasnim article was headlined ‘Three practical steps for generating revenue from Strait of Hormuz internet cables.’ In the piece, the writer paints Iran as a nation deprived of any wealth creation from this key infrastructure in a waterway, which, before this conflict, wasn’t seen as Iran’s to rule.

Some of the practical wealth creation steps Iran could take, according to the cited Tasnim post, include:

• Initial licensing and levy of annual renewal fees for foreign cable owners/operators
• Insist that tech companies like Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft, which use the cabling, operate under Iranian law
• Ensure exclusive control and maintenance of the cabling is in the hands of Iranian companies.

Another well-known Iranian news source that is also linked to the IRGC, Fars, has published a similar story, according to Iran International. Fars reportedly floats the idea of disrupting the internet cables in the Strait, causing damage measured in tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars over even just a few days. Such an act would not just hurt the U.S. tech giants, though; local and other global businesses would likely feel the impacts, too.

Threatening the undersea cables in the Strait of Hormuz isn't entirely a new idea, admits the source. It notes that Tasnim mapped the internet cabling in a news report last month. At that time, the IRGC-affiliated media highlighted that the cables running through the strait were of greatest importance to countries to the south, like the western-interest-friendly UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.

Hopefully, these news articles from Iranian agencies close to the government/military are mostly a saber-rattling effort, another bargaining chip held aloft, in the will-they-won’t-they conflict negotiations that have dominated headlines for weeks.

The Federal Communications Commission announced on Friday, May 8, through its Office of Engineering and Technology (OET), that it was extending temporary waivers allowing certain foreign-produced drones, drone components, and consumer routers to continue receiving software and firmware updates in the United States.

In late 2025 and early 2026, the FCC added these categories of equipment to its “Covered List,” which effectively blocked already-authorized devices from receiving post-approval software and firmware modifications. The agency subsequently issued waivers permitting critical security and functionality updates to continue through January 1, 2027, for drones and drone components, and through March 1, 2027, for consumer routers.

Under the updated waiver, manufacturers of affected devices will now be allowed to continue issuing software and firmware updates until at least January 1, 2029, provided the devices had already been authorized for use in the U.S. before being added to the FCC’s “Covered List.” The extension also broadens the waiver to include certain Class II permissive changes involving software and firmware updates intended to mitigate consumer harm.

The decision follows growing concern that a strict enforcement of the restrictions could unintentionally leave millions of existing devices vulnerable to cybersecurity threats, compatibility issues, and operational failures. In practical terms, without the waiver, manufacturers of affected products could have been blocked from deploying even basic security patches and bug fixes once the devices were designated as covered equipment.

The FCC first added foreign-produced unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), UAS critical components, and certain communications equipment to the Covered List in late 2025 as part of broader national security efforts to reduce reliance on potentially risky foreign technology infrastructure. Routers produced in foreign countries were later added to the list in March 2026, except for models that had received conditional approval from the Department of War or the Department of Homeland Security.

The restrictions stem from revisions to FCC equipment authorization rules adopted in October 2025. Those revisions effectively prohibited “permissive changes” to covered equipment — a category that includes software and firmware modifications made after a device has already received certification. While the rules were designed to tighten oversight on high-risk equipment, they also created a difficult dilemma: preventing updates could inadvertently make already-deployed devices less secure over time.

In its notice, the FCC acknowledged that continued software support remains necessary to protect U.S. consumers. The waiver specifically allows updates that maintain device functionality, patch vulnerabilities, and preserve compatibility with changing operating systems and network environments.

The agency argued that the public interest would be better served by allowing these limited updates rather than freezing software support entirely. According to the FCC, the waiver provides regulators time to consider a more permanent framework while avoiding immediate cybersecurity risks to users currently operating affected devices.

Importantly, the waiver does not reverse the broader restrictions or remove the devices from the Covered List. Instead, it applies only to already-authorized products and to software- and firmware-related changes intended to maintain safe and secure operation. Manufacturers must still comply with other FCC requirements governing permissive changes and equipment certification.

The move highlights the increasingly complex balancing act regulators worldwide face as governments seek to secure communications infrastructure without inadvertently creating new cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

Dongyin island, the northernmost part of Taiwan and located barely 30 miles from mainland China, has lost its undersea cable linking it to Beigan Island. These two small islands are part of the Matsu Islands, which sit strategically at the northern part of the Taiwan Strait. According to Reuters, bad weather has caused a shipwreck sitting on the seafloor to shift its location, severing the underwater link. Because of this, the government has activated the island’s backup microwave communications link, allowing the 1,500 people on the island to continue enjoying mobile and internet services, although with some delays, depending on the weather.

Even though the island is small and sparsely populated, the Taiwanese military reportedly has a heavy presence in the area owing to its proximity to China. More importantly, its location close to the Chinese coast and the northern mouth of the Taiwan Strait makes it a strategically important position, as it could serve as a forward operating base to control access to the narrow body of water separating Taiwan and China. Dongyin, notably, does not have an airport and is only accessible via ferry service.

Although this latest incident was caused by natural forces and not an action by a third-party actor, it still highlights Taiwan’s vulnerability in its connection to the rest of the world. This isn’t the first time that the Matsu Islands have lost their undersea cable. Reuters said that in 2023, two undersea cables were cut by Chinese vessels, although it was determined that it was an accident and not a deliberate action.

Nevertheless, there have been recent incidents in which Chinese ships are suspected of deliberately damaging undersea internet cables around the main island. Given the threat to Taiwan, its navy and coast guard have increased defensive patrols on the 24 underwater links around the island. It’s also keeping a close eye on 96 vessels that have been blacklisted and are suspected of have links with China. Taiwanese lawmakers even increased the penalty for those who are suspected of attempting to sabotage undersea cables, with offenders facing up to 7 years imprisonment plus a fine of $325,000.

Undersea cables are crucial infrastructure as they connect nations to the internet. Aside from letting you stream your favorite TV shows and movies and check your emails, undersea links also let governments talk with their allies and allow military units to coordinate their actions. While wireless technologies, like microwave and low-earth orbit (LEO) satellites, can serve as backup, they still do not have the reliability and bandwidth that a physical connection can offer.

If you need to upgrade the wired connectivity in your home, you're going to want to pick up this TP-Link Litewave 5-Port LS1005G Ethernet switch, which has dropped to an unbelievably low £8.59 right now. This switch will unlock an extra four Ethernet ports on your network, using one of the five ports to connect up to your existing router with a standard cable. There isn't a better way to connect to a home network than using a wired connection like this, especially if you're in desperate need to upgrade your bandwidth for gaming or streaming.

● Check out this deal on Amazon

This TP-Link switch unlocks gigabit speeds on your network, which will be a noticeable improvement if you're used to using a slow Wi-Fi connection, letting you ditch the lag and interference immediately. A switch like this will deliver a rock-solid, dedicated connection to any number of devices in your home. The LS1005G model here is unmanaged, meaning you won't need to worry about any complicated setup process. Configuration isn't necessary, either, and you should only need to connect an Ethernet cable between your router or modem and the switch's WAN port to get things started, leaving the other four ports for your PC and other devices.

This TP-Link device isn't huge or heavy to handle, and won't take up a lot of space in your home or office. It measures just 7.12 x 8.89 x 2.2 cm (2.8 x 3.5 x 0.9 inches) across, and will fit neatly close to your existing router or, if you're spreading the connections further afield, in any other convenient location you need. It doesn't need fans to keep it cool, and it won't make any noise, so it shouldn't disrupt your existing setup.

Unmanaged switches like the TP-Link Litewave LS1005G on sale here are suited to just about everyone: technophobes and technophiles alike won't have a trouble using them as a plug-and-play solution for expanding a home network. The only downside, if it is one, is that it won't offer as much customization as a managed switch, but those switches typically cost far more money to purchase (certainly more than a tenner). Most users won't see that as a problem, however, and you won't have any problem using this device with almost any Ethernet-capable device, from PCs and laptops to TVs, game consoles, printers, and even other routers or Wi-Fi extenders.

The £8.59 sale price for this TP-Link Litewave LS1005G gigabit Ethernet switch is a seriously great one for a device that will significantly improve the connections in your home, especially from a top brand. Amazon's sale page is clear: this is a deal that's selling fast, so if you want to grab this epic home networking bargain for yourself, you'd better be quick before the deal (or the stock) runs out.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

Amazon’s Eero is the latest router manufacturer to gain “Conditional Approval” from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to sell its routers in the United States. Netgear was the first to announce that it received the FCC’s blessing last week to bypass the router ban. Router manufacturers have been working around the clock to submit documentation to the FCC and provide assurances regarding the origin of components used in their products and where they're assembled to comply with an increased focus on national security.

In March, the FCC deemed that manufacturers selling routers produced in a foreign country be added to the "Covered List," as they "pose an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States or the security and safety of United States persons.” Moving from the Covered List to Conditional Approval ensures that manufacturers of the best Wi-Fi routers can continue to sell in the United States for a set period.

"As part of this effort, router manufacturers were asked to submit information allowing the government to assess safety risks associated with their devices," the Eero team wrote in a blog post. "We’re pleased to share that the U.S. government has recognized eero as a trusted and secure provider of routers... We remain committed to delivering innovative, reliable products our customers can depend on."

For customers inquiring what this means for the Eero products that they currently own or wish to purchase in the near future, the Eero team continues, "Your experience remains the same. You can continue to use and buy eero products with the certainty that they meet rigorous standards."

According to FCC documentation, the Conditional Approval applies to Eero, Eero Pro, Eero Max, Eero PoE, Eero Outdoor, and Eero Signal. In other words, every product in the Eero/Leo family can be imported and sold without any further interference.

For the Eero products, the Conditional Approval is guaranteed from April 22, 2026, through October 31, 2027, covering the 18-month FCC exemption period. It also covers all previous and current Eero/Amazon Leo products, as well as certifications for new, unreleased products.

Although Eero did not go into any specific details on what documentation it submitted to the FCC, at least one requirement was to provide a “detailed, time-bound plan to establish or expand manufacturing in the United States" and a “description of committed and planned capital expenditures, financing, or other investments dedicated to U.S.-based manufacturing and assembly over the next 1-5 years, including expected timelines and milestones.” Given the substantial capital investment required to build factories in the United States and the need to support a higher-paid American workforce, this part of the plan submitted to the FCC will be the most interesting detail to learn as these discussions proceed.

While Netgear and Eero can breathe a sigh of relief (at least for the next 18 months), TP-Link is still waiting for its Conditional Approval. The company submitted its proposal earlier this week as it attempts to convince the U.S. government that it has divested itself of previously concerning Chinese ownership ties. According to its own internal statistics, TP-Link controls 20% of the U.S. consumer retail router market.

TP-Link, one of the more popular consumer networking brands in the U.S., is currently engaged in discussions with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in a bid to secure a conditional approval to continue introducing new models after the FCC’s blanket ban on imported routers, PCMag reports. According to documents the company filed with the agency, TP-Link argued that it is a U.S. company with a 20% share of the consumer retail market. Furthermore, it said that “TP-Links routers are very positively reviewed by technology reviewers” and that “TP-Link routers are safe and secure.” The company was previously owned by TP-Link Technologies Co., which was based in Shenzhen, China, but it has since separated from its parent in 2022, with the company saying that it’s now an independent entity based in the U.S.

The U.S. government initially wanted to ban TP-Link because of national security concerns, especially with the company’s close ties to China. However, the FCC instead settled for a blanket ban on all imported consumer routers, except for those that can secure a conditional approval. This exemption would allow router manufacturers to continue importing routers until a specific date, provided that they get the nod from either the Department of War or the Department of Homeland Security.

One of the prerequisites to getting approval is for the applicant to show “a detailed, time-bound plan to establish or expand manufacturing in the United States for the router for which the applicant is seeing Conditional Approval in order the that device to qualify for FCC authorization” and “a description of committed and planned capital expenditures, financing, or other investments dedicated to U.S.-based manufacturing and assembly over the next 1-5 years, including expected timelines and milestones.”

It is unclear whether TP-Link had these requirements on hand, especially as its assembly lines and supply chains are still based in China and Vietnam. Still, two other manufacturers have successfully secured conditional approvals — Adtran Inc., which is an Alabama-based telecommunications and fiber-networking company, and Netgear.

There have been questions about the latter’s approvals, especially because it did not publicly release any documents proving that it was bringing back manufacturing capabilities onshore. Despite that, Netgear said in its SEC disclosure, “So long as the conditional approval is maintained, NETGEAR can launch new consumer routers and update the software on existing consumer routers indefinitely.”

TP-Link has since divorced from its Chinese parent, with the process beginning in 2022 and completing in 2024. The company’s website says that it’s headquartered in Irvine, California, and that the U.S. headquarters owns and directs the “global TP-Link business.” It also said that the company is owned by Jeffrey Chao and his wife, who are both Irvine residents. There have also been reports that Chao is applying for fast-track residency under the million-dollar Trump Gold Card visa. Nevertheless, the company’s historical ties to China would likely mean that it would face close scrutiny from U.S. officials, especially regarding Chao’s citizenship.

Amazon’s Eero family has grown to include a diverse set of mesh routers and even a wireless outdoor satellite. Now, Amazon is adding a new member: the Eero Signal. It’s a 4G LTE device that provides backup internet for a compatible Eero mesh network. Like all Eero devices, the Signal is easy to set up. Ot is governed completely by the Eero smartphone app, and it does its job with minimal fuss.

At just $99, the Eero Signal is a relatively affordable failsafe if you live in an area with frequent internet outages.

Design of the Eero Signal

The best way to describe the Eero Signal is that it looks like a shrunken Eero Pro 7/Eero Max 7 satellite. It features the same overall shape, with a single status LED at the top of the front fascia, and Eero branding at the center.

The Eero Signal is made from the same materials as the larger Eero satellites. That means the front features shiny white plastic, while the back is white plastic with a slightly textured surface. The materials have a high-quality feel.

The Eero Signal includes a fixed “Y” shaped power cable. The cable exits from the back of the unit and forms one branch of the Y. The second brach ends in a USB-C connector that plugs into the back of an Eero satellite. The “trunk” of the Y ends in a USB-C receptacle, which accepts the USB-C connector from the wall plug. Once everything is connected, a single USB-C wall adapter powers both the Eero satellite and the Signal.

The device is relatively small, measuring 3.09 x 5.76 x 2.80 inches and weighing 0.65 pounds.

Eero Signal Specifications

Setting up and using the Eero app with the Eero Signal

Once the physical connections have been made, the Signal automatically appears in the Eero app. When you enter the Eero app, it will present you with two options to enable the Eero Signal cellular backup service:

• Eero Plus: You get 10GB of backup data per year for $99/year. Six months of service is included for free for new Eero Plus subscribers who opt for an annual plan.
• Eero Plus 100: You get 100GB of backup data per month. During the first year, you pay just $99/year for this tier, but during the second year, the price doubles to $199.99 year.

If you currently subscribe ot Eero Plus monthly, you are not eligible for cellular data backup service with an Eero Signal. If you live in an area that experiences frequent outages, the base Eero Plus plan, which provides 10GB of data per year, seems like a poor value. $199.99/year for 100GB of data per month seems like a far better value and would provide greater peace of mind.

Our Eero Signal review unit was provided with Eero Plus 100 service, giving us access to 100GB of backup data per month.

From the Eero app homepage, there are only two giveaways that an Eero Signal is connected to your mesh system. The first clue is that the main Eero gateway (in this case, an Eero Pro 7) shows green bars indicating the Eero Signal strength. The second clue is under Security & Privacy, where you’ll notice a green light next to Internet Backup.

If you click the Internet menu from the Eero app home page, it will display available connections. In our case, it confirmed my wired internet connection (T-Mobile Fiber) and that the cellular backup was ready. Clicking the Eero Internet Backup option opens a submenu that lets you turn the feature on or off.

Eero Signal Performance

The Eero Signal serves as an internet backup to your current home broadband connection, e.g., cable or fiber. And before the gears start turning in your head about using the Eero Signal with the Eero Plus 100 plan as your primary internet service, I've got some bad news. The Eero Signal cannot be used as your sole source of internet -- it requires that you have an existing ISP delivering service to your Eero mesh router. The Eero Signal serves only as a backup if your primary ISP goes offline.

I tested the Eero Signal’s primary function as a failover if your primary ISP goes offline. To do this, I removed the cable connecting the Eero Pro 7 to my fiber modem. It took about 20 seconds for the lights on the Eero Pro 7 and Eero Signal to change from white to blue, indicating that the latter was now working as an internet backup. I tested internet connectivity across multiple devices connected to the Eero mesh network, and all remained connected without issue.

However, you must remember that the Eero Signal is only a 4G LTE device, not 5G, unlike some popular home cellular internet plans from companies like AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon. With that in mind, don’t expect to see speeds that approach what those services can provide when operating in internet backup mode.

I saw SpeedTest download speeds of around 600 Mbps and upload speeds of 60 Mbps when I used T-Mobile 5G Home Internet as my ISP. With my current fiber connection, I achieve symmetrical speeds of around 2 Gbps. However, the Eero Signal could only muster a fraction of that, given its 4G LTE bandwidth limitations.

For comparison, I saw up to around 80 Mbps for downloads and 30 Mbps for uploads using the Eero Signal (the device connected to AT&T’s cellular network). Those are not breakneck speeds by any means, but remember that the Eero Signal is only meant as a backup internet service. So if you need to conduct a video call for work, download some essential files for a work project, or even watch some TV in the background, the Eero Signal should have no problem handling your workload.

Another thing to consider is cellular reception. I live outside of a major metropolitan area (Raleigh, NC), so I have solid uptime for my fiber connection and a strong cellular signal. For people who live in areas where their wired ISP might be unreliable, there’s a strong chance that cellular connectivity will be spotty as well. So while a device like the Eero Signal could work in that situation, your performance may vary greatly.

Bottom Line

The Eero Signal offers a lifeline to people living in areas with frequent internet outages. Of course, it is only compatible with Eero mesh routers, so you’ll already need to be bought into that ecosystem to take advantage of the functionality.

The device is easy to set up, doesn’t require user intervention to activate if your primary ISP goes down, and the upfront hardware cost is just $99. The $99 Eero Plus plan only gives you 10GB of backup data to use for an entire year, so that option doesn’t really seem cost-effective for the target audience of the Eero Signal. However, the $200/year Eero Plus 100 plan gives you 100GB of backup data per month, which seems like a much better option.

The IPv6 protocol is among the list of important things that make up the backbone of the internet, and yet barely anyone talks about it. Designed in 1998 as a replacement for IPv4 and its limited number of addresses, IPv6 was dismissed early on as a headache-inducing, hard-to-implement complication that would hardly ever gain any traction — despite offering 2^128 possible numbers, solving all network number assignments in one fell swoop.

That changed over time by force of necessity, and Google's tracking graph shows that for a brief moment in time on March 28, 50% of worldwide users accessed the service over an IPv6 connection, marking a historic first. APNIC's stats show that the protocol is in use by 43% of the world, with Asia and the Americas inching ever close to those 50%. Cloudflare, meanwhile, shows that 40% of traffic is done in IPv6, an actually impressive figure if you consider it's measuring actual transferred packets rather than just counting addresses.

The tried-and-true IPv4 and its well-known 123.456.789.123 format from 1980 offers ~4.3 billion addresses in theory, and around 3.7 billion in practice. That always sounded like a lot, but nobody could have predicted just how rapid the explosion of the Internet would be. IANA, the entity controlling the North-American IPv4 space, ran out of IPv4 addresses around 2011, while its European equivalent RIPE NCC could spare no more four-octet addresses nearly seven years ago in 2019. Asian, African, and Latin-American IP registries equally ran out during that timeframe.

The IPv4 space was exhausted with the big bang of internet-connected devices, with home computers slurping up addresses, quickly accompanied by internet-connected smartphones. In the latest decade or so, the rise of IoT devices and cloud computing ensured that any crumbs left were quickly taken. Back in 2019, IPv4 addresses were trading for $50 a piece, and have continued a rather scarce commodity, with entire blocks being used as loan collaterals.

Most anyone can easily spin up a cloud-hosted server these days, but exposing them to the internet at large requires assigning them a public address. Amazon turned the scarcity into a business model of its own back starting in 2024, charging $0.005 per hour for each IPv4 assignment. Although seemingly cheeky at first glance, this probably spurred more than a few engineers to add IPv6 connectivity to their services to help break the chicken-and-egg cycle of adoption.

There's hardly any technical reason not to use IPv6 nowadays, though engineers sure love to clutch onto long-dissolved pearls. Early on, IPv6-in-IPv4 tunneling solutions were cumbersome and finicky. The rise of the now commonly-used NAT (Network Address Translation) that allows multiple computers to sit behind a single address, like most any home, likewise led detractors to wave the need for IPv6 away.

Some people still think that the additional 20 bytes or so of an IPv6 packet header translates to significant bandwidth losses, higher CPU usage, and hair loss. The reality is that even 11 years ago, Facebook's tests saw that IPv6 connectivity was around 10-15% faster overall, while networking giant Akamai noticed a 5% speedup in mobile page loading. The speedups are almost assuredly due to the fact that with IPv6, there's very little need to do math with NAT, proxies, and other shenanigans, as in most instances, everything can directly connect to everything else.

Probably the biggest reason, though, is simply the old notion that if something isn't broken, it doesn't need fixing, probably coupled with most businesses only being concerned about the next quarter rather than a problem that's expected to only have a material cost months or years down the road.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced that it will not certify every new consumer router not made domestically in late March, essentially banning the import of every new commercial and residential router model into the U.S. The agency made this move in response to the increasing threat of supply chain attacks, which “pose an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States or the security and safety of United States persons.” However, it also said that affected brands can apply for a “Conditional Approval” from the Department of War or the Department of Homeland Security, with Netgear being the first manufacturer to receive this coveted exemption.

According to the FCC’s covered list, the following Netgear models can be imported in the U.S. until October 1, 2027:

• Nighthawk consumer mesh, mobile, and standalone routers (R, RAX, RAXE, RS, MK, MR, M, and MH series)
• Orbi consumer mesh, mobile, and standalone routers (RBK, RBE, RBR, RBRE, LBR, LBK, and CBK series)
• Cable gateways (CAX series)
• Cable modems (CM series)

Some of these are included in our list of the best Wi-Fi routers and best budget routers. Another company, Adtran Inc., also received conditional approval for its Service Delivery Gateway class router.

It’s unclear how Netgear secured this exemption, especially as the DoW or DHS requires “a detailed, time-bound plan to establish or expand manufacturing in the United States for the router for which the applicant is seeking Conditional Approval in order for that device to qualify for FCC authorization” and “a description of committed and planned capital expenditures, financing, or other investments dedicated to U.S.-based manufacturing and assembly over the next 1-5 years, including expected timelines and milestones.”

The Verge notes that when a publicly traded company like Netgear plans a major investment, like constructing a new production line and supply chain, it’s usually required to disclose these plans to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). However, the San Jose, California-based company, which produces routers in China, Vietnam, Taiwan, and Mexico, among other countries, did not mention anything about onshoring its manufacturing operations in its filings, raising questions about what its plans are and how it secured the exemption. Furthermore, the company said in its SEC disclosure that “So long as the conditional approval is maintained, NETGEAR can launch new consumer routers and update the software on existing consumer routers indefinitely.” The FCC cited a "specific determination" from the Pentagon that Netgear's devices were not a risk to U.S. national security. "“We reviewed the FCC's public guidelines for conditional approval, submitted an application that followed those guidelines, and received approval on our application," a Netgear spokesperson told Tom's Hardware.

This does not mean that consumers should replace their existing routers with Netgear-branded ones immediately, especially as the FCC’s ban will only impact new models. While Netgear just happened to be the first company to obtain a conditional approval from the U.S. government, other manufacturers are confident that they can receive that as well. Asus and TP-Link have both released statements to that effect soon after the FCC released its directive, and it just might be a matter of time before they can continue releasing new models for consumers in the U.S., at least for now.

Iran's nationwide Internet blackout has crossed the 1,000-hour mark and is now one of the longest nation-scale shutdowns ever measured, according to connectivity monitor NetBlocks. The site has tracked the disruption since it was intensified on February 28 alongside joint U.S. and Israeli military strikes on the country. Starlink isn't the solution, either, as Iran is actively seeking those who possess Starlink terminals, and if caught individuals are punishable by execution.

Starlink inside the country is reportedly being blocked by “military-grade jamming,” per one researcher who spoke to IranWire back in January. The possession or operation of a Starlink terminal in Iran now carries potential penalties of execution under legislation passed this year, according to the Business and Human Rights Centre. Iran has also made threats to attack infrastructure owned by hyperscalers, including OpenAI, Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, and Google.

NetBlocks marked the grim connectivity milestone on its official accounts on April 11, highlighting that the outage had exceeded 43 days and was still ongoing, with traffic remaining at around 1% of its pre-blackout volumes. According to them, the Iran shutdown has exceeded every comparable incident that it has cataloged. However, the Libya internet shutdown during the Arab Spring went on for six months (likely before NetBlocks started doing its thing).

Cloudflare Radar recorded a near-instant 98% collapse in Iranian HTTP traffic at around 07:00 UTC on February 28, across bytes transferred, HTTP bytes, and request counts simultaneously, with Tehran, Fars, Isfahan, Razavi Khorasan, and Alborz all going dark at the same moment.

Small volumes of web and DNS traffic have continued to move over specific IPv4 routes throughout the blackout, which Cloudflare attributed to a whitelisting system that keeps a limited set of approved users and domestic services online. State-affiliated media in Iran have said access is being routed through the National Information Network, the country's long-running domestic intranet project, with only pre-approved sites reachable.

This near-total Internet blackout follows on from earlier restrictions imposed on January 8 during widespread protests against the Iranian regime. Although the blackout had been relaxed by January 28, restrictions remained in place, and Internet traffic levels had been reduced by around 50% as of February 16. Iranian Minister of Communications Sattar Hashemi has previously acknowledged that the earlier January blackout cost the economy around $35.7 million per day, with online sales falling by as much as 80% during the cutoff.

Human Rights Watch has called the current shutdown a violation of fundamental rights and warned that it was obstructing access to emergency information during active military strikes, and Amnesty International marked the 1,000-hour threshold on April 10 with a public call for Iranian authorities to restore access.

Speaking from personal experience, using a Mac as a server or server-like contraption is quite an interesting proposition, as despite its Unix roots, the operating system isn't exactly designed for unattended, 24/7 usage and is difficult to set up and use as such — fighting words, but I stand by them. While most every user will reboot their Mac at least once in the space of a few weeks, if you happen to leave one running for precisely 49 days, 17 hours, 2 minutes, and 47 seconds, many parts will suddenly stop working as its TCP/IP networking stack dies.

Those are the findings of the folks at Photon, who did some serious sleuthing after encountering a mysterious issue in a fleet of Macs they use to monitor iMessage services. The problem revealed itself when some machines just up and stopped responding to network connections out of the blue, even though they answered ping requests with an "all good here, boss!"

Said machines kept their existing network connections going, making the situation even harder to diagnose, as the failure was unexplainable and otherwise invisible. Not left with much of an option, Photon's boffins had to reboot the machines to clear the issue, something any systems administrator hates as a "solution" to a mystery issue. After all, if it happened once, it'll happen again, and assuredly at the worst possible time.

After the team spotted another set of machines that was reaching the 49.7-day uptime, they set up some scripts to test their theory. Alas, they found that when the fateful moment arrived, the Mac they had continuously creating new connections just stopped doing so without so much as an error.

The team then turned its attention to the root cause, as it was clearly related to a networking-related timer. They found the culprit to be the "tcp_now" internal counter, a figure that was "destined to overflow." The job tcp_now does is to keep track of the current time since boot as far as the TCP stack is concerned, down to the millisecond. tcp_now is represented as a 32-bit unsigned integer, and those have a maximum value of 4,294,967,295 (2^32 - 1) before they wrap around to zero. Since it tracks milliseconds, tcp_now's maximum is 4,294,967 seconds, or 49.7 days.

As defined by standards, operating systems collect and remove closed TCP connections after a short while; 30 seconds in the case of macOS. The result of attempting to clean up these inactive connections when tcp_now is close to or at its limit (and gets stuck there thanks to a bug in Apple's XNU kernel) is that any connection's expiration status is calculated against that frozen number, resulting in a value that always overflows a 32-bit unsigned integer. When the periodic check comes to see whether a closed connection is meant to be deleted, the result is always "no," because the comparison math doesn't work.

The TCP stack then fills up with errantly held ephemeral ports and effectively grinds to a halt when no more are available. How quickly that happens depends on the amount of network activity, but in any server or professional environment that's bound to be a rapid event. This class of problems is hardly known, integer overflows have been the cause of Windows 98's famous 49.7-day crash and the upcoming Year 2038 problem.

According to Photon, the current mitigation is a reboot, although the team says it's working on an alternative solution. They also found this issue to be the source of some bugs discussed online in the Apple Community forums, too. The long-existing RFC 7323 specifies what should happen to the timestamp clock (tcp_now) when it reaches its limit, but Apple's kernel performs an incorrect implementation. It's safe to say this issue will likely be fixed quickly—and hopefully before 49.7 days after the report.

A team of researchers from the Institute of Science Tokyo unveiled a hardened wireless receiver that can withstand prolonged exposure to radiation at the IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in San Francisco, California, last February. According to the IEEE Spectrum, this chip was primarily designed to allow robots to work in contaminated areas for decommissioning nuclear reactors. Regular silicon-based semiconductors used for wireless communication are susceptible to interference from nuclear radiation, meaning robots are limited by the physical cable needed to control them.

This became apparent during the cleanup at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which suffered from a meltdown after the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami knocked out the plant’s backup energy sources required for cooling it. The robots tasked to clean up the contaminated areas required LAN cables to communicate with their operators, leading to tangled wires and making the operation more complicated than it already is.

Now, you cannot just get a consumer-grade Wi-Fi chip, chuck it in lead shielding, and call it a day to address the issue. After all, while shielding will stop radioactive emissions from hitting your chip, it will also block radio frequency signals. And while you might think that an antenna connected via a cable might solve the problem, that’s still not possible, as the antenna itself would be susceptible to radiation. That’s why the researchers decided to build a hardened Wi-Fi chip receiver that can withstand the radiation found in nuclear cores.

To understand how robust the chip needs to be, a robot operating in the environment of a nuclear reactor is exposed to a radiation dose of 500,000 grays (Gy, a unit to measure radiation dosage) over six months — by comparison, electronics installed in spacecraft must only withstand 100 to 300 Gy over a span of three years. The researchers achieved this by reducing the number of transistors inside the chip, as the oxide layer inside these semiconductors is susceptible to gamma rays. They replaced these instead with elements that don’t have an oxide layer, like inductors.

As for the crucial transistors that cannot be replaced with other technologies, the team made their gates longer and wider to reduce radiation-induced degradation, as well as the use of N-type Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (NMOS) transistors, which are less susceptible to radiation damage.

According to their testing, exposing the hardened chip to a total of 800 kGy only resulted in a 1.5-dB gain reduction on the side of the receiver. This means that it could potentially operate for long periods in hostile radiation environments without suffering from significant performance loss. The team is also working on building a Wi-Fi transmitter that can work with massive doses of radiation, which is significantly harder because of the high levels of electrical current needed to emit a signal.

Last week, the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) took the drastic step of banning the future import of consumer-grade Wi-Fi routers manufactured overseas. The announcement rang alarm bells, as nearly all consumer routers available are produced outside the U.S., leaving a potentially vast vacuum for anyone who needs to replace their router in the coming months. We reached out to TP-Link, Asus, Netgear, and Linksys for comment to get the deeper story on the ins-and-outs of the new measures.

What’s the purpose of the FCC’s actions?

So, why is the FCC taking this step? There's no secret that President Donald Trump and his administration have made national security a top priority, and the president's 2025 National Security Strategy determined, “the United States must never be dependent on any outside power for core components—from raw materials to parts to finished products—necessary to the nation’s defense or economy. We must re-secure our own independent and reliable access to the goods we need to defend ourselves and preserve our way of life.”

Now, it's debatable whether a Netgear Orbi 970 mesh router sitting on your bookshelf at home poses a direct threat to national security or the economy at large, but it's clearly on this administration's mind. In last week's announcement, the FCC added that foreign-made routers “pose unacceptable risks to the national security of the United States or the safety and security of United States persons.”

“I welcome this Executive Branch national security determination, and I am pleased that the FCC has now added foreign-produced routers, which were found to pose an unacceptable national security risk, to the FCC’s Covered List,” added FCC Chairman Brendan Carr. “Following President Trump’s leadership, the FCC will continue to do our part in making sure that U.S. cyberspace, critical infrastructure, and supply chains are safe and secure.”

What are the immediate effects on consumer routers?

There are a few things to consider with this new directive, however. For starters, it doesn't affect routers that have already been imported into the U.S. and are currently available for sale (or those that have been sold and are currently in the hands of end-users). So, at least for the near-term, your average John or Jane Doe shouldn't notice any changes in availability when shopping for a wireless router from your favorite brick-and-mortar or online retailer.

However, things could change once the existing stock of routers depletes at various retailers, and even then, only if manufacturers haven’t secured a spot on the Conditional Approval list. If manufacturers aren’t able to secure Conditional Approval and consumer routers are banned from sale, we could see a shortage, which in turn would lead to price increases affecting all consumers. We've already seen what the AI craze has done to the supply of memory, which, in turn, has ushered in significant price hikes over the past year. There’s the potential for this type of scenario to play out in the router market if the U.S. becomes overly stringent with approvals.

These actions would also likely affect ISPs, which provide routers to customers when they sign up for new service. All in all, it’s a tricky situation for all involved.

What do Router manufacturers think of this move?

We reached out to several popular router manufacturers, including TP-Link, Asus, Netgear, and Linksys. Netgear and TP-Link provided statements to Tom’s Hardware on their respective positions. Asus posted a statement on its U.S. website. Not surprisingly, TP-Link, which has already been on shaky ground with the U.S. government in recent years for its ties to China, seemed almost upbeat about the announcement.

"This action from the FCC appears to affect virtually all new consumer-grade routers seeking authorization to be sold in the United States," wrote TP-Link in a statement to Tom's Hardware. "Because nearly every manufacturer in this sector produces hardware abroad or relies on a global supply chain, this new requirement will set a bar for the entire industry. Placing all manufacturers and their supply chains under the same scrutiny is a positive step in the direction of making the router industry more secure."

TP-Link has been singled out in the past by both the Biden and Trump administrations, and it has even established its headquarters in Irvine, California, where it employs several hundred people. However, with this new action from the FCC, TP-Link likely feels that it is no longer solely under the microscope, and all of its competitors will have to play by the same rules to curry favor with the U.S. government.

For its part, TP-Link adds that the majority of the routers sold in the U.S. are not produced in China, but instead in Vietnam. That still doesn't help TP-Link remove the U.S. government’s crosshairs, but the company adds that it "has already been planning to establish U.S.-based manufacturing to complement our existing company-owned facilities in Vietnam. TP-Link is well-positioned — in fact, possibly better positioned than any of its competitors — to succeed under the new guidelines and maintain its position as the leading U.S. vendor of secure network devices."

Netgear also issued a brief, optimistic statement: “We commend the Administration and the FCC for their action toward a safer digital future for Americans. Home routers and mesh systems are critical to national security and consumer protection, and today’s decision is a step forward. As a U.S.-founded and headquartered company with a legacy of American innovation, Netgear has long invested in security‑first design, transparent practices, and adherence to government regulations, and we will continue to do so.”

In addition, Asus struck an upbeat tone, writing, “Asus has proudly served U.S. customers since 1991, with a long-standing commitment to trusted innovation and strong product security. We are confident in the integrity of our supply chain and the security of our networking products. This FCC action has no impact on existing Asus router users, software updates, and customer support.”

FCC action may lead to security headaches for router users

I mentioned earlier that the ban doesn't affect routers already imported into the U.S. and that no masked individuals will show up at your door to take away your routers. However, the FCC has added another poison pill to the situation.

The FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology notes, “All routers authorized for use in the United States may continue to receive software and firmware updates that mitigate harm to U.S. consumers at least until March 1, 2027. These include all software and firmware updates to ensure the continued functionality of the devices, such as those that patch vulnerabilities and facilitate compatibility with different operating systems.”

In other words, if you currently own a router manufactured outside the United States and the company hasn't been added to the FCC "Conditional Approval" list, it would no longer be eligible for firmware updates within a year. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that discontinuing firmware updates would render a huge swath of routers unprotected, leaving them even more vulnerable to DDoS attacks and other serious security vulnerabilities. The very thing that the FCC wants to prevent could become even more problematic with the March 1, 2027, deadline.

What can router manufacturers do?

The administration is offering somewhat of a lifeline to router manufacturers in the form of a Conditional Approval from the FCC. Companies can submit an application, which will be subject to review by the Department of Defense or the Department of Homeland Security.

Companies are asked to submit a wealth of information, including corporate structure, beneficial owners, foreign government interests, the country of origin for all components used in a router's design, and the location of final assembly (among other requirements).

However, one of the biggest and most costly requirements is for companies to provide an "onshoring plan" to "establish or expand" manufacturing capacity in the U.S. for their routers. Companies must also provide "a description of existing U.S.-based manufacturing and assembly for the router including: percentage of components assembled in the United States and current U.S. headcount and facilities (locations, functions, etc.).”

If granted, Conditional Approvals are in place for a team of up to 18 months.

What does this mean for consumers going forward?

In the short term, we don’t expect that the router market will be affected too harshly if you’re looking to purchase from one of the major players (which have significant resources) in this arena. Given the statements from Asus, Netgear, and TP-Link, they all seem pretty confident that it is a welcome development and that they should continue to provide hardware to customers, likely through Conditional Approvals from the U.S. government. This would likely also extend to other big names like Linksys. All of these companies should also be able to grease the wheels to avoid a ban on software updates for their routers.

Where things could get more problematic is for smaller, foreign-based companies that offer budget networking devices and have little to no existing corporate or manufacturing operations in the U.S. We’re talking companies like Cudy, Reyee, and OKN (among others). It remains to be seen how these companies will be able to appease the FCC not only to secure permission to sell within the U.S., but also to provide firmware updates beyond March 1, 2027.

We've reviewed a couple of outdoor-oriented Wi-Fi 7 satellite over the past year, both of which were made by TP-Link. The Deco BE25-Outdoor is a dual-band satellite, while the Deco BE65-Outdoor is its tri-band sibling. We now have a third product to add to the mix: the ZenWiFi BD5 Outdoor.

The ZenWiFi BD5 Outdoor is a dual-band Wi-Fi 7 satellite and, as its name suggests, is designed for outdoor use to blanket your yard with wireless coverage. The satellite is compatible with Asus wireless routers that support AiMesh. It also sells for around $140, making it a relatively affordable way to expand wireless coverage outside your home.

Design of the Asus ZenWiFi BD5 Outdoor

The ZenWiFi BD5 Outdoor has a simple tower design and is constructed of white plastic. There’s an Asus logo at the bottom front of the unit and a single status LED above. On the back of the unit, you'll find a power port and two 2.5 GbE ports that support Power over Ethernet (PoE).

Given that the ZenWiFi BD5 Outdoor is designed for outdoor use, Asus includes a plastic mounting bracket, four mounting screws, and four plastic screw anchors for mounting to drywall. The bracket also features three weather-resistant rubber plugs that can be used to close off ports you aren't using on the satellite. Also included is a single 2.5-foot power cable.

The ZenWiFi BD5 Outdoor measures 7.9 × 4.2 × 4.2 inches and weighs 2.3 pounds.

Asus ZenWiFi BD5 Outdoor Specifications

Setting up the Asus ZenWiFi BD5 Outdoor

For my testing purposes, I used the included bracket to mount the ZenWiFi BD5 Outdoor to the same tree in my backyard that I used for TP-Link Deco BE65-Outdoor testing. The tree is located 25 feet from the main router, with one exterior wall separating the two. Since I already had an Asus ROG Rapture GT-BE19000Ai review unit on my desk, and it supports AiMesh, it served as the main router for this review.

Given the temporary installation for this review unit, I used a 50-foot extension cord plugged into an exterior wall outlet. I then plugged the ZenWiFi BD5 Outdoor’s power plug into the extension cable.

Since the ROG Rapture GT-BE19000Ai was already configured via the Asus Router app on my smartphone, adding the ZenWiFi BD5 Outdoor was a simple affair. From the app home screen, you tap the “+” button in the top-right corner. Then you tap on “Add AiMesh node.” Next, the app will attempt to locate the ZenWiFi BD5 Outdoor, which it did for me in about 30 seconds.

After the ZenWiFi BD5 Outdoor was found, the automatic configuration process took another 5 minutes or so to complete. Once finished, it showed that it was connecting to the main ROG Rapture GT-BE19000Ai router with a 5 GHz uplink.

I also performed separate tests using a 100-foot CAT6e cable, connecting the ROG Rapture GT-BE19000Ai to the ZenWiFi BD5 Outdoor. When the two network devices are connected via a cable, the uplink automatically switches from wireless (5 GHz) to Ethernet.

Asus ZenWiFi BD5 Outdoor Performance

There are two locations I use for our outdoor wireless satellite testing: my back porch and my fire pit, which is 20 feet farther away. I included baseline testing to measure performance when connected solely to the ROG Rapture GT-BE19000Ai. I then performed tests with a laptop, wirelessly connecting to the ZenWiFi BD5 Outdoor using wired and wireless backhauls.

Wireless testing relied on an HP OmniBook X (Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite) laptop with a Qualcomm FastConnect 6900 Wi-Fi 6E wireless card. Our venerable iPerf3 server was connected to the ROG Rapture GT-BE19000Ai via a 10 Gbps Ethernet connection. I will note that Asus claims that the ROG Rapture GT-BE19000Ai offers 3,500 sq ft of wireless coverage, while the ZenWiFi BD5 Outdoor covers an additional 2,500 sq ft.

Baseline performance when connecting the OmniBook X to the ROG Rapture GT-BE19000Ai was 222 Mbps on my porch and 124 Mbps at the fire pit on the 5 GHz band, using our iPerf3 throughput test. Switching over to the 2.4 GHz band, the numbers fell to 34 Mbps and 20 Mbps, respectively.

Interestingly, 5 GHz performance on the back porch was more than cut in half with the ZenWiFi BD5 Outdoor, compared to connecting natively to the ROG Rapture GT-BE19000Ai. The only thing I can think of is that the ROG Rapture GT-BE19000Ai was already providing a good enough signal. Plus, there’s added latency involved in maintaining the 5 GHz uplink between the router and satellite, which can impact client performance. On the positive side, performance was only slightly less (118 Mbps) at my fire pit. Also in the plus column, 2.4 GHz performance was higher across the board, with 39 Mbps on my back porch and 43 Mbps at the fire pit.

Unsurprisingly, I observed the best performance when connecting the ROG Rapture GT-BE19000Ai and ZenWiFi BD5 Outdoor via a CAT6e cable. Using this setup, 5 GHz performance on the porch jumped to 470 Mbps, while I saw 196 Mbps at the fire pit. Performance on the 2.4 GHz band also spiked to an average of 84 Mbps on the back porch.

Bottom Line

Asus’s networking portfolio is vast, and the ZenWiFi BD5 Outdoor is the latest solution to hit the Wi-Fi 7 market segment. Although your mileage may vary with setting it up as a satellite using a wireless uplink to an AiMesh router, wireless performance in my testing was subpar and, in some instances, slower than when connecting directly to the main router (an ROG Rapture GT-BE19000Ai).

However, customers with the wherewithal to install a wireless satellite in their yard and plan to run an Ethernet line using PoE will experience much higher throughput. The ZenWiFi BD5 has an MSRP of $179.99, but it’s currently selling for $139.99 at B&H Photo. With the caveat that you plan on using a wired backhaul, the ZenWiFi BD5 is a worthwhile investment for adding outdoor coverage to your AiMesh network.

NASA’s Artemis II mission blasted off on Wednesday. Now brace yourselves for exciting high-resolution 4K footage live-streamed from the surface of the moon thanks to NASA's laser-based O2O system. The cutting-edge Orion Artemis II Optical Communications system (O2O) will be used to beam 4K moon footage at up to 260 Mbps. We should also be treated to never-before-seen views of “the far side of the Moon, using Nikon digital cameras,” reports The BBC’s Sky at Night magazine.

So, what is O2O? NASA prepared a page dedicated to the technology ahead of the beginning of the Artemis II mission, here. Basically, O2O is a laser-based communications system that will be able to pipe the headlining 4K footage from astronauts on the moon to the Earth. Data rates of 260 Mbps can be achieved by O2O, and it isn’t just for fancy videos; it will also be used for fast and efficient transmission and receipt of procedures, pictures, flight plans, and more.

Meanwhile, on Earth, laser ground stations are situated in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and Table Mountain, California. These locations were chosen for their typically clear skies, important for fast and reliable laser communications.

However, the astronauts will also use traditional radio communications to stay in contact with the ground team via NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN). With prior mention of the potential for cloud interference, this could be an essential backup. DSN was the key communications tech used by Voyager, the Mars rover, and Artemis I.

Losing sight of the Earth on a planned mission to the far side of the Moon will block both laser and DSN comms, notes the source report. NASA is well aware of this ‘dark window,’ which is estimated to last for 41 minutes.

If you aren’t that impressed by the 260 Mbps O2O laser comms terminal's performance, NASA’s page about this laser tech highlights a Lunar Laser Communications Demonstration it has completed that achieved 622 Mbps. Moreover, some nearer-Earth space laser comms projects have reached data speeds up to 200 Gbps.

Russia has at last begun to deliver on its plans to establish a domestic state-funded rival to Elon Musk’s Starlink, reports The Moscow Times. The launch of the first 16 satellites, said to form the foundation of a constellation of 900 by 2035, was supposed to have happened in Q4 last year. The so-called Rassvet system aims to expand to 250 LEO satellites next year, when it will become a domestic commercial alternative to Starlink.

A private aerospace outfit called Bureau 1440 appears to be the key tech partner of the government for this state venture. Scientists/engineers from this company are set to complete system checks on the newly launched 16 orbiters. When checks are finished, they will be moved into their target orbit positions.

So, 16 out of 900 might sound like a drop in the ocean of space, but this first step was probably one of the most difficult. Alexei Shelobkov, CEO of Bureau 1440’s parent company, ICS Holding, said that Rassvet’s deployment is going to see dozens more launches. A quick prod of the calculator suggests that just 15 more launches (with batches of 16 satellites) will be required to hit the 250 constellation target for sometime in 2027.

Did Starlink's new whitelist-only policy accelerate the rollout of Rassvet?

The Russian government has reportedly set aside the equivalent of $1.26b to help develop Rassvet. If you think it is good to see the Russian state investing in non-military infrastructure, remember that it coincidentally lost Starlink access only last month. That’s when SpaceX implemented its new whitelist-only policy to replace the previously ineffectual measures that were in place. Surely that would have put pressure on Rassvet development teams to get on with it.

Clearly, Rassvet, even at its fully fledged 900 satellite target, is going to be dwarfed by efforts from other countries, or groups of countries such as the EU. The U.S. is home to two of the biggest satellite internet firms: the aforementioned Starlink, with roughly 10,000 already in orbit, and a next-gen target beyond 30,000; plus Amazon Leo (the rebranded Project Kuiper) has over 200 satellites launched, but is targeting over 3,200.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which certifies every radio-emitting device (including routers) in the U.S., has announced “the addition of routers produced in a foreign country to the Covered List,” which is composed of equipment and services that “pose an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States or the security and safety of United States persons.” While this is not technically a blanket ban on the sale of imported routers in the U.S., the FCC Public Notice (PDF) effectively has the same impact: The agency says it will not certify a foreign-made consumer router, making it illegal to sell or even import future new models into the country.

The agency said it’s doing this in response to a National Security Determination earlier this month, which says: “Recently, malicious state and non-state sponsored cyber attackers have increasingly leveraged the vulnerabilities in small and home office routers produced abroad to carry out direct attacks against American civilians in their homes. From disrupting network connectivity to enabling local networking espionage and intellectual property theft, foreign-produced routers present unacceptable risks to Americans.”

It also blamed foreign-made routers for the Volt, Flax, and Salt Typhoon cyberattacks that hit critical American infrastructure, adding that “routers in the United States must have trusted supply chains so we are not providing foreign actors with a built-in backdoor to American homes, businesses, critical infrastructure, and emergency services.”

While this might match the context of increasing instability in global geopolitics, it does not specifically address the weakness found in many consumer Wi-Fi routers. Although TP-Link was widely used in recent cyberattacks, cybersecurity experts told CNET that this was because of its ubiquity in the market, and that the exploited vulnerabilities were also present on routers made by American companies. In fact, the U.S. government itself said that the Salt Typhoon attacks often targeted Cisco hardware. Still, this did not deter the Department of Commerce from investigating TP-Link over its close ties to China.

This isn’t the first time that the FCC issued a directive that had a blanket effect on a specific type of device. In late December 2025, the agency made a similar move on foreign-made drones, effectively banning DJI and other imported brands from registering new models in the U.S. Many of the best Wi-Fi routers on sale in 2026 are from foreign companies like TP-Link. The FCC's new measure could, in theory, preclude future new products from these companies from coming to the States.

Nevertheless, this does not mean that foreign router manufacturers will forever be excluded from the U.S. market. The FCC says (PDF) that affected brands can apply for a “Conditional Approval” from the Department of War or the Department of Homeland Security to exempt them from the Covered List before they can build “trusted manufacturing capacity in the United States.” The move also does not affect any routers already on sale in the United States, or indeed any routers previously purchased, which will continue to work as normal.

Network administrators in the audience are advised to grab their unsee juice from the shelf, as today's home project is quite the double-whammy. First, it involves everyone's favorite problem child, DNS. Second, a madlad named Adam Rice has managed to put Doom in it. That's a paragraph I never thought I'd write, but my life choices haven't always resulted in glory.

For the uninitiated, every time you go to tomshardware.com, your device first asks a server what its actual numerical address is. That's DNS, or Domain Name System, and it's the cornerstone of the internet. Rice appears to be an expert at bending DNS into four-dimensional shapes, like abusing its TXT records to deliver malware payloads.

As the acronym implies, a TXT record contains a string of text. They're normally used for domain validation and spam control, and you tend to need maybe a half-dozen for most any domain. The thing is, they can contain arbitrary data by definition. And as Rice points out, where you can store data, you can store a file, and therefore a program like Doom.

TXT records can contain up to 2,000 characters, and any single domain can have thousands of records. And since DNS entries are cached in many layers across the entire internet, that means you can store a substantial amount of data and query it at a relatively decent pace. Developers in the crowd probably already know where this is heading.

Rice first thought of storing a simple file, in this case a picture of a duck, by encoding the binary data into text-readable base64 format, cutting it into many slices as needed, since transforming to text incurs significant overhead. He considering trying a movie next, but even 1 GB of data would take 670,000 records, so he settled on "something that would actually demonstrate how absurd this is": Doom, of course

Rice needed an easy way to de- and reassemble Doom from DNS records into memory, and so he used a C# port of the game called managed-doom. C# is a bytecode language, meaning that the source code is first compiled to a cross-platform binary, which then is run in the .NET engine that does the final translation to the target CPU's instructions; all of this in a manner similar to Java.

Since Rice wanted to completely avoid writing files to disk, he employed the virtual hand of the Claude bot for tweaking parts of the game's loading process to read all data from memory. He deleted the audio files as they took up too much space, but after some compression wizardry, he managed to squeeze the game in about 3.8 MB spread across 2,000 DNS records.

With the hardest work performed, he wrote a loading script in PowerShell that queries one of his domains for TXT records, reassembles the data, and verifies against any corruption. At that point, all the game's contents are in memory, and it's just a matter of starting it like any other .NET program.

Rice describes his projects as "cursed," and I have to concur — Cloudflare's DNS servers are probably going to need trauma counseling afterwards. The project is on GitHub if you want to follow in Rice's footsteps.

Chinese tech giant Huawei has lined up a magical-looking Wi-Fi 7 router featuring the world’s first "metal mesh crystal antenna" (machine translation) on Japanese crowdfunding site GreenFunding. As well as the glowing crystal mountain at the center of the design, the router boasts a ‘shark fin’ heat exhaust system. It might be the nearest a home tech appliance has yet got to the gadget holy grail of combining sharks and laser beams.

The lighting of the router and the mesh nodes can be configured or automatically change according to the time of day. Touch controls on the devices allow quick visual adjustments. A partner app facilitates greater control.

You will have formed your own idea about the visual appeal of the new Huawei WiFi Mesh X3 Pro. Whatever your opinion of its glowing physical presence, it seems like a bold move for Huawei to promote a piece of tech that is usually hidden away into the limelight. Actually, moving the router out of a hidden corner, into a central ornamental statement piece, will probably be good for the Wi-Fi signal in your home.

Beneath the “sophisticated amber glow,” the 10-inch (250mm) tall WiFi Mesh X3 Pro packs in some attractive technology. For example, it supports technologies such as "MLO", "4K-QAM", and "Multi-RU" to stretch its Wi-Fi 7 capabilities. There are also two 2.5 Gbps Ethernet ports on the main unit. All this is driven by the custom Huawei Gigahome SoC.

To maintain the router’s throughput across its six high-performance antennas, the “Shark Fin Heat Exhaust System” comes into play. Huawei boasts it can prevent any thermal throttling affecting which could adversely affect long hours of online gaming or large data transfers.

Huawei has made a matching mesh node/satellite unit, which is included in some of the crowdfunder bundles. This is a truncated but complementary glowing design, again encouraging the owner not to deploy it in a hidden recess.

Seemingly a Japan exclusive for now, the crowdfunding is going very well – raising 8,600% over target – so perhaps Huawei will see fit to roll out the visually appealing WiFi Mesh X3 Pro in more markets. Then we'll be able to check whether it stands up to comparisons with the best Wi-Fi routers we've tested. Converting the (regular non-early bird) Japanese Yen price to USD would suggest a U.S. price of $170 for the main router alone. Not that bad for what Huawei claims is a piece of “art.”

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin has revealed its plans to launch up to 51,600 satellites to create a data center constellation in space. The filing was posted for the public to view by the FCC on Thursday (via The Register), with explanations of Blue Origin’s goals and details of how ‘Project Sunrise’ is of benefit to the public interest.

Blue Origin’s application to the FCC starts by sketching out the scale of the proposed constellation. Project Sunrise “will consist of up to 51,600 satellites operating in circular, sun-synchronous orbits from 500–1,800 km in altitude, with inclinations between 97 degrees and 104 degrees, with each orbital plane containing approximately 300–1,000 satellites,” a rather technical description reads.

The constellation satellites will feature at least three antenna variants to address uniform coverage requirements. But, the filing goes on to elaborate that optical links will be used extensively between the satellites to reduce dependence on radio spectrum, with Earthbound traffic routed through the firm's TeraWave system and other mesh backhaul networks to the ground.

Of course, this colossal project and undoubted billions in investment are destined to complement the insatiable demand for Artificial Intelligence data processing on Earth with space-based data centers. Project Sunrise will “make AI computer more accessible,” argues the FCC filing, by ensuring the “societal benefits of AI” aren’t bottlenecked by terrestrial data centers.

It is hard to deny that the efficiencies of always-on solar power and the removal of land use/costs are attractive aspects of this space-based project. But satellite constellations will have their own uniquely significant costs. Clearly, it will not be cheap to make this complex, custom hardware and send it to space. Then it will require servicing and maintenance – for example.

As this is an FCC filing, Blue Origin also appealed to the regulator by insisting that Project Sunrise will “use spectrum efficiently and operate on a non-interference basis.” In case you are curious about the spectrum, the constellation will use the 18.8–19.3 GHz (space-to-Earth) and 28.6–29.1 GHz (Earth-to-space) bands.

Blue Origin also states that “safety is core” to the project. That’s a little reassuring after reading recent reports about satellite proliferation, density-induced near-misses, and terminal anomalies.

Cambridge scientists have completed the first longitudinal study of Bitcoin’s resilience to network infrastructure disruption, with a particular eye on submarine data cable incidents (PDF paper). The conclusion is that “Bitcoin is highly resilient to random cable failures,” with the scientists saying that between 72% and 92% of the world's submarine cables would need to be severed simultaneously to result in significant mode disconnection. Nevertheless, the research team observed that Bitcoin could be very vulnerable to targeted attacks.

The study took data from 11 years of P2P network traffic and measured the impacts of 68 verified cable fault events (though Bitcoin has been a thing since 2009). As hinted at in the intro, there is a stark contrast between the impacts of ‘random’ cable failure events and what could happen if someone were intent on disrupting this iconic cryptocurrency.

Central to the resiliency report is the application of a Buldyrev‑style cascade model to the data. This helps assess real-world systems full of interdependencies: things like computer networks, power grids, and transportation systems.

Using this math, the Cambridge scientists reckon Bitcoin’s failure threshold for random failures is between 72% and 92%. It is also observed that the adoption of the Tor protocol has proven to be a barrier to disruption. “Bitcoin’s shift to Tor represents a self-organized response to regulatory pressure that simultaneously enhances infrastructure resilience, where censorship resistance and physical robustness are complementary rather than competing properties,” say the Cambridge scientists in their conclusion.

As for targeted attacks on the network, that’s a different story. Bitcoin is “far more vulnerable to targeted attacks,” note the researchers. A malicious actor targeting just five of the largest routing domains (Hetzner, OVH, Comcast, Amazon, and Google Cloud) would cripple the Bitcoin network.

Overall, the study conclusions are quite positive for cryptocurrency fans. However, the resiliency of the networks that crypto needs to be maintained is under more pressure than ever before, with cables in the Baltic, waters around the Middle East, and the Taiwan Strait all attracting unwelcome disruptions in recent months.

Openreach, the operator of the UK’s largest full-fiber network, has announced that it can detect water leaks near its fiber infrastructure by detecting nearby vibrations. According to the company, the BT Group subsidiary is using Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS), a technology developed by Lightsonic, a startup firm developing monitoring technologies using existing fiber infrastructure. DAS analyzes changes in the light beam traveling through a fiber optic cable caused by underground vibrations. It then uses machine learning to find the exact location of the disturbance and differentiate it from background noise and day-to-day traffic.

The infrastructure company said that it’s working with Affinity Water, a water utility provider that delivers drinking water to parts of London, eastern England, and southeast England, serving more than 3.8 million customers, to launch a pilot project in five locations. The tech gave Openreach and Affinity Water 24/7 monitoring capabilities on 650 km or more than 400 miles of water pipes in Walton-on-Thames, Hemel Hempstead, Luton, Chesham/Amersham, and Ware, instead of relying on specialized teams that can only work on a specific section of the water infrastructure at a time.

Affinity Water said that in three months of testing, it detected and repaired over 100 leaks, preventing the loss of over 2 million liters of potable water daily or more than 700 million liters annually — enough volume to supply more than 10,000 people. “The results of our pilot show that our new full fiber infrastructure can deliver value far beyond broadband — and could prove to be a real game changer in solving real-world challenges like water conservation,” says Openreach Director of Network Technology Trevor Linney. Lightsonic CEO Tommy Langnes also said, “Transforming the telecom fiber-optic network into a continuous sensing layer unlocks entirely new ways to monitor utilities. Detecting 2 megaliters per day shows what’s possible when fiber sensing solutions and existing infrastructure are combined at scale.”

An Openreach spokesperson told The Register that DAS does not interfere with its operations as it only uses spare fiber cables for its detection capabilities, and that the company has enough capacity to run the system without affecting its customers. Furthermore, it’s also experimenting with using the technology on lines that carry live internet traffic, allowing them to be used for dual purposes. Lightsonic’s DAS box also easily attaches to the fiber infrastructure at the terminus of a fiber optic line, meaning it’s essentially a plug-and-play device. While Openreach hasn’t determined yet how much it will cost to deploy the system, it estimates that to be negligible since it will use pre-existing fiber optic cables.

This week, AMD, Broadcom, Nvidia, OpenAI, Meta, and Microsoft announced plans to standardize a protocol-agnostic, scale-up interconnect for AI data centers. The Optical Compute Interconnect Multi-Source Agreement (OCI MSA) group is tasked with defining an open connectivity specification for optical interconnections in AI data centers. This would allow for higher domain scale-up sizes, and enable a multi-vendor supply chain for optical interconnects, which the ongoing AI infrastructure buildout demands.

The group's primary goal is to enable data centers to scale by using optical interconnections rather than relying solely on copper, which is currently hitting its physical limits for optimal data transfer speeds and power consumption. Copper is also facing significant supply chain constraints, and an industry-wide shift to optical interconnections would alleviate some of this demand. An optical interconnection would also bolster data transfer speeds, crucial for large-scale AI workloads.

For copper, pushing electrical signals to high speeds results in signal degradation and unsustainable levels of power consumption; the solution is optical interconnects. Copper is inherently a lossy, resistant medium, necessitating huge amounts of power to send data over distances at high speeds. An optical physical layer (PHY) can overcome this electrical resistance challenge, allowing for higher-speed data transmission. The goal of the newly-founded group is to develop a PHY capable of delivering up to 3.2Tb/s and beyond.

Given that power is an ongoing challenge in AI data center buildouts, a solution that not only stabilizes power usage but also increases interconnection speeds seems like an obvious choice.

Optical cables would let more systems be concurrently connected over greater distances, without many of the penalties that come with copper, improving scale-up domains. However, optics also comes with its own downsides: Failure rates, increased heat output, higher overall costs, and overall failure rates. With the technology nascent in its application, new standards must be created in order for it to mature.

Going platform-agnostic

"Optical cables and the silicon photonics technology already exist when it comes to connecting different switches as part of a pluggable transfer ecosystem.” said Vivek Raghunathan, CEO and co-founder at Xscape Photonics, in a recent interview with Tom's Hardware Premium. Indeed, TSMC's COUPE technology is a foundational bedrock for enabling optical and photonics in chips; where the new OCI MSA standard comes in is to enable these physical chips to effectively travel across the same lanes.

The open standard developed by the OCI MSA would allow multiple vendors within the optical supply chain to offer components to a singlular, unified spec. In theory, it should drive down the cost of optics and optical interconnects at scale. Moreover, it divests the sole reliance on TSMC, as the standard would ensure interoperability between products and chips made with COUPE, and those using alternative CPO packaging platforms, effectively de-risking optical supply chains in the process.

If co-packaged optics were introduced into data centers without an effective rulebook or guidelines to govern them, each vendor design would become proprietary, siloed between one another. So for larger-scale data centers that run multiple ecosystems, the OCI MSA's new spec defines a standard to let them drive on the same roads and use the same data pathways. This isn't about hooking together systems and getting them to understand each other via NVLink or UALink, but instead about offering a physical foundation to allow those protocols to travel over fibre connections.

Within a data center, the OCI MSA's newly defined standard would allow a data center to theoretically run NVLink for Nvidia chips and UALink for AMD hardware, while making use of the same underlying optical infrastructure, at higher speeds than copper can realistically allow.

“Fundamentally, the current copper-based interconnects just cannot meet that bandwidth requirement," Raghunathan continued. The OCI MSA's standard supports a range of optical solutions, such as pluggable optical modules, on-board optics, and chips using co-packaged optics. This would effectively break the barriers that copper currently employs.

Getting in on the ground

The companies involved in the newly formed alliance are all of the usual suspects: Nvidia, AMD, Microsoft, OpenAI, Broadcom, and Meta all create their own AI accelerators in some way, shape or form. Letting them assist in defining the new PHY means their products will be supported by it from day one.

"Scale up focused optical technologies, protocols, and switch architectures are foundational to building scalable, multi rack, high performance AI compute domains. The OCI MSA advances this vision with a forward-looking physical layer specification setting the stage for open standards, differentiated implementations and systems architecture innovation.” said Saurabh Dighe, Corporate VP of Azure and Architecture at Microsoft.

From an early deployment at 200Gbps speeds all the way up to the 3.2Tb/s outlined by the alliance, it's becoming increasingly clear that to serve larger frontier models, or build toward vastly more complex AI data centers, optics is no longer an exploratory zone. It must be rolled out and served directly, if hyperscalers and AI model developers have their way.

"By equipping best-in-class compute with state-of-the-art optics, the OCI MSA can deliver the scale and performance required by the next era of super-intelligence." says Gilad Shainer, SVP of networking at Nvidia. With superintelligence on the mind, speed is a non-negotiable, and the standards being drawn up reflect the rapid advancement of data center technology.

Don’t suffer lag or buffering on your home network, because there’s a seriously good TP-Link router on sale right now. The TP-Link Archer BE3600 is on sale for just £59.99, a 31% discount that brings it back down to its lowest ever price on Amazon during its Spring Sale Days event.

• Check out this deal on Amazon

This is already one of the best Wi-Fi routers you could buy on a budget, but the discount makes it even more appealing. As our TP-Link Archer BE3600 review shows, this is a router that is able to add Wi-Fi 7 support to your network on the cheap, with a few caveats, delivering strong performance at 2.4 and 5 GHz at close range.

This is a no-nonsense router with a flat, rectangular shape and four antennas for maximum coverage. It includes one 2.5 Gbps port for your WAN connection, with another 2.5 Gbps port for LAN, as well as three additional 1 Gbps LAN ports. You’ve also got a single USB 3.0 port, which you can use to hook up a printer or USB external drive. Initial setup and configuration are a breeze, too, with users able to set their own config using the router’s web portal.

The main trade-off, however, is that this router doesn’t support the full Wi-Fi 7 spec, so you’re missing the 6 GHz band. That said, performance at 2.4 GHz, which is still the dominant Wi-Fi band and one you’ll need to use to connect legacy devices, is excellent with the BE600 at close range. You'd also be expected to pay a higher price for a router with better specs.

That brings us back to the core of what makes this router so great: the price. This will be a noticeable upgrade over an older or ISP-issued router, and, for the £59.99 sale price on this TP-Link Archer BE3600, you’re getting a serious bargain. Amazon’s sale event is expected to end on March 16th; however, so you’ve not got long to pick up this bargain.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

If you're looking to upgrade your wired network, a network switch like this TP-Link Litewave 5-Port LS1005G model is the perfect option. For only £8.97, thanks to Amazon UK's Spring Sale Days event, you're getting a switch that unlocks five extra Ethernet ports for your network, hooking straight up to your existing router. You simply won't find a better way to connect to your network than a wired connection like this, especially if you're looking to max out your bandwidth for streaming or gaming.

• Check out this deal on Amazon

This is a gigabit switch, too, so not only are you able to ditch the Wi-Fi lag and interference, you're gaining a rock-solid, dedicated wired connection that won't slow you down. The LS1005G is unmanaged, so you don't have to worry about a complicated setup process, either. Configuration isn't necessary here, and you'll just need to connect an Ethernet cable between your router or modem and your switch's WAN port — the other four ports should work with your other devices immediately.

This TP-Link switch is compact, so you don't need to find a lot of physical space for it. It measures just 7.12 x 8.89 x 2.2 cm (2.8 x 3.5 x 0.9 inches) across, so it should easily fit near your existing router, or in a similarly convenient location around your home or office if you're using it elsewhere. It's fanless and completely silent during use, so it won't disrupt your home theatre or gaming setup, either.

An unmanaged switch like this TP-Link Litewave LS1005G is a good option for someone who wants a plug-and-play solution to expand their network without a difficult setup. The downside is that it won't offer the same level of customization as a (typically much more expensive) managed switch. For most users, however, that's not going to be a problem, and it should allow you to hook up almost any Ethernet-capable device in your home, whether it's a gaming PC, laptop, network-attached storage, games console, TV, IP camera, printer, or even another router or WiFi extender to your existing network.

Thanks to Amazon UK's Spring Sale Days event, you can secure a sale price of only £8.97 for this TP-Link Litewave 5-port LS1005G. That's a great price for an unmanaged router from a well-known brand, but expect to see this switch jump back up in price once the Amazon sale events on March 16th. Spending less than £10 to expand your wired LAN connectivity with gigabit speeds isn't a bad option at all, especially if you want to rid yourself of Wi-Fi dropouts or buffering issues, so be quick if you want it.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.