Calculating IPv6 subnets outside the nibble boundary

Anurag Bhatia
Often this comes into the subnetting discussion by my friends who are deploying IPv6 for the first time. How do you calculate subnets outside the 4-bit nibble boundary? This also happens to be one of starting points of APNIC IPv6 routing workshop where I occasionally instruct as community trainer. So what is a Nibble boundary? In IPv6 context, it refers to 4 bit and any change in multiple of 4 bits is easy to calculate.

Indian telecom voice market and updates

Anurag Bhatia
Suddenly the voice market in India is becoming very interesting. Earlier it was the case of Jio (and competitors) launching unlimited voice plans and now it’s the case of Govt. of India permitting IP telephony. IP Telephony i.e networks where telephony happens over IP (not to be confused with IP to IP calls but) where IP to PSTN interconnects happen. Till a few months ago IP telephony (or IP-PSTN) interconnection was allowed only under certain conditions like doing it inside a building only for purpose of call centres (with OSP license) or running SIP trunks over private networks.

Legally changing name in India

Anurag Bhatia
Background I got married a while back. My wife and I had a discussion and both were in favour that she changes her surname. This was also based on our discussion with my sister who suggested getting it done instead of keeping different surnames for us. As we were getting married certificate, we both were surprised to find that my wife’s surname cannot be simply updated on various IDs using just the marriage certificate.

Railtel-Google free railway station wifi using 49Gbps!

Anurag Bhatia
Railtel (the telecom arm of Indian railways) is running free wifi hotspots across the country in collaboration with Google. It’s there since last two years and started with the MoU between Railtel and Google (news here) back in 2015. Fast forward to 2018 - the free wifi project railway stations seems to be doing quite well with so many users using it. The project covers 361 stations and is expected to reach it’s target of 400 stations soon.

Connectivity at the office of President of India

Anurag Bhatia
Out of curiosity, I put an RTI asking President of India Secretariat about connectivity at President’s office. Questions I asked and their replies Question 1: Who is the Internet service provider? Reply: National Informatics Centre MEITY is providing internet service at President Office. Question 2: Speed of Internet connection at President’s Office? Reply: Presently the speed is 100 Mbps. Question 3: (And my favourite!) Is IPv6 deployed? Reply: IPv6 supported by most devices.