Most people know about Internet Service Providers (ISP). People must subscribe to at least one ISP to connect to the Internet. Operating behind the scenes, specialized network infrastructures play a crucial role in ensuring the Internet works correctly and efficiently. This role is the Internet Exchange Point (IXP). In this post, I will explain in greater depth why we need this new role, and what problem this role solves.
On March 23, 2026, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) of the United States announced, “Covered List to Include Foreign-Made Consumer Routers, Prohibiting Approval of New Models”. When a product is in Covered List, it means FCC will not inspect that product. That is, no permission at all from FCC for us to import, sell, or use that product inside the United States. Effectively, the United States bans that product. That is why most press said, “US bans foreign-made routers.”
FACT SHEET: FCC Updates Covered List to Include Foreign-Made Consumer Routers, Prohibiting Approval of New Models
It looked frightening when I first read it. The impacts are not immediate, however.
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| Jianshan Hill Observation Deck (尖山觀景平台) overlooking Taipei City, New Taipei City, and Tamsui River of Taiwan. |
【 BGP Millionaire】
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| I used this tool to generate this plot. Plot Range: 01-Feb-2025 0001 to 30-Apr-2025 0030. |
Recently I observed and noticed that, global IPv4 BGP table size has already grown over 1 million entries, around February to April time in this year, 2025.
A submarine cable cutting incident happened recently at the Baltic Sea. Another similar incident also happened north of Taiwan.
I wanted to know more about how to repair a broken submarine fiber cable. I did my research on the Internet. I summarize my findings and list the key fixing steps below.
1. The submarine cable was working.
Initially, the working submarine cable was below the sea water and above the seabed. The submarine cable follows and fits the terrain of seabed.
2. A fault happens.
Examples of faults are punctured insulation, fiber core breaks, and cable cut.
Faults could be natural factors, such as the aging of cable itself, earthquakes, falling rocks, and shark bites. Faults could also be human factors, such as fishing nets dragging, anchoring hits, and malicious sabotage.
How many of you are working with BGP in your daily job? Let me know in the comments below this post.
I also created a live demonstration about filtering based on BGP AS-Path with Regular Expressions. I hope it is helpful to you.
I was so amazed about this cooling technology. It is new to me.
Thinking about liquid cooling for servers and networking devices, coming into my mind are tightly sealed water pipes around the circuit boards. This is different. The circuit board and everything simply immerse in liquid.
