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  • Human Infrastructure 457: Do We Really Need 6G, Reality-Based NetOps, and More

Human Infrastructure 457: Do We Really Need 6G, Reality-Based NetOps, and More

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Drew Conry-Murray & Ethan Banks
July 30, 2026

THIS WEEK’S MUST-READ BLOGS 🤓

If you’d like to understand why AI isn’t just another application, this is your blog post. Tony Mattke breaks down why AI data centers are driving networking designs that we’ve not seen before. Sure, we’ve seen the topologies, but the particular needs of large language model training are driving packet and frame distribution in ways that are well beyond plain ol’ ECMP. The density of network connections is also intimidating, and is making optics interesting again.

As Tony concludes, AI networking is a separate design problem with separate constraints, and the vendors who treated it that way landed better than the ones who tried to reuse their existing pitch slides. The math is different, the port counts are bigger, the failure modes are categorically new, and the optics situation is wide open.

The question that remains for me--how many network engineers will actually work in an AI environment that will bring these skills to bear? - Ethan

Bruce Davie shares a historical perspective that helps explain why managing networks is the way it is in 2026. Different needs and different solutions have created a multitude of interfaces and approaches. One size does not fit all.

Bruce puts it as follows. So the challenge we face in covering operations for our book is the tension between covering the way we want the world to be versus the way it is. Our current approach, with a focus on OpenConfig and YANG, is much closer to that of hyperscale cloud operators than to the traditional network operators.

To some degree, the hyperscalers can force the world to be the way they want, e.g., by developing their own networking code (see Jupiter, SONiC). This is rarely the case for traditional network operators and enterprises. So a focus on hyperscale practices is less helpful to the practitioners picking up a book wanting to learn something about how their networks of diverse devices, probably from multiple vendors, can be managed.

The network management struggle continues. - Ethan

The article looks at the technology that 6G will supposedly enable, and then wonders aloud whether anyone will care. I know I won’t. I don’t want to be more connected. I want to be less connected. And I want my things to be less connected. I bought into the smart things hype, and most of the tech is kinda crap. Some of it’s amazing--don’t get me wrong. But a lot of it is a bad experience or leads to a lower quality of life. 

If, as the article outlines, 6G is bringing immersive eXtended Reality (XR), remote multi-sensory telepresence, holographic communications, haptic sensors and actuators, and multi-sensory interfaces, then they can keep 6G. While I see those things as having specific use cases, I don’t see the metaverse envisioned in Snow Crash being one of them.

Why, indeed, are we building 6G? If the telcos are all about the bandwidth and capitalizing on their infrastructure, wouldn’t the money be better spent in making 5G ubiquitous? Put another way, in what way will 6G make our world better? - Ethan

After Gabor burned through a pile of AWS credits, he realized he couldn’t justify the API price for access to large models for his own hobby projects. Gabor’s post suggests more cost-effective options, including Kimi, but his big takeaway is not to lock your workflow to a specific model. He writes “Model capabilities, prices, and subscription limits are moving too quickly to assume that today’s setup will still be the right one in six months. For hobby projects and small startups, the economical approach is to use the value already bundled into subscriptions, keep API access as an escape hatch, and choose tools that let you switch providers quickly.”

As a side note, he wonders if the low-cost subscription prices he pays to OpenAI and others are profitable. It’s a question the entire AI industry is asking! - Drew

Angie notes that traditional software testing “...assumes that given the same input, you get the same output. Agents break that assumption immediately.” 

She describes a different test pyramid for AI in which the layers “...represent how much uncertainty you’re willing to tolerate.” Her post walks through the four layers of this pyramid and how they might be used. BTW, Angie was a guest on a recent episode of The Cloud Gambit, talking about the ‘Skills over MCP’ working group (that is, skills delivered via MCP, not skills being prioritized over MCP). - Drew 

Tech journalist Paul Thurrott explains the accounting tricks that Microsoft is using to make its AI-related Capital Expenditures (CapEx) look lower than they actually are. One trick is to declare that short-lived assets, such as CPUs and GPUs, are now longer-lived assets. This allows Microsoft to spread the costs of those assets over a longer period of time. Even with these accounting “adjustments,” Microsoft’s CapEx spending continues to rise every quarter. - Drew 

MORE BLOGS

For Black Hat USA 2026, DYNANIC brings the Suricata IDS acceleration to Mandalay Bay, and we would like you to see it in person. Stop by booth 6215 on August 5 – 6 and meet the team behind it. Whether you are working on deep packet inspection, DDoS mitigation, or CPU offload, they can walk you through what 400G+ performance actually looks like. Book a slot in advance or catch us on the floor.

TECH NEWS 📣

The New York Times uncovers how a Lousiana data center construction deal among Meta, state government officials, and utility executives was put together in secret. The deal allowed Meta to “avoid local opposition and offload financial risk,” including tax breaks worth billions of dollars and the use of public land to build this private project. - Drew 

The HAWK algorithm, which NIST had been evaluating as a post-quantum digital signature algorithm, has been knocked out of contention after a testing round found flaws with help from Anthropic’s Mythos model. The article has more details, and some good reasoning on why this isn’t cause for freaking out. - Drew  

MORE NEWS

FOR THE LULZ 🤣

Found on Reddit at r/ProgrammerHumor

RESEARCH & RESOURCES 📒

Tony Mattke shares several tools he’s made to help you learn subnetting as well as converting to and from binary & hexadecimal.

  • IPv4 Subnet Trainer: type an address, drag the prefix slider, and watch the full 32-bit binary breakdown update live. Network bits, host bits, and the boundary between them, all color coded. Once the picture clicks, flip over to the drill tab.

  • IPv6 Subnet Trainer: the same idea at the nibble level. All eight hextets split into nibbles, a prefix slider that runs from /0 to /128, and a binary zoom on whichever hextet the prefix boundary lands in… which is exactly the spot where v6 subnetting goes sideways for people. Learn and drill tabs here too. (Still need the why-bother case for v6? Nick Buraglio made it at CHI-NOG 13.)

  • Binary Trainer: one byte, eight switches. Flip bits and watch the place values add up, then run bytes through AND, OR, XOR, and NOT one column at a time.

  • Hex Trainer: one byte, two nibbles. Convert hex to decimal and back, toggle individual bits, and keep the 0 through F reference table on screen while you work.

Thanks, Tony! - Ethan

Andy Lapteff from the Art of Network Engineering podcast has started a newsletter. In his LinkedIn post, Andy says, “For a long time, I waited to feel ready. Ready to sit for an exam, to apply for the job, to speak up, to call myself an engineer. Nobody handed me those. I had to build proof. That's what the AONE newsletter is about. The Shortest Path: one idea per issue, pulled from six years of talking to network engineers who took the long way in.”

I’ve subscribed, and maybe you’d like to as well. - Ethan

In this research, Sizhe Wang of Northeastern University summarizes his team’s findings regarding gaps in 5G coverage in the broader United States. There are quite a number of gaps in 5G if you live in a rural area or in Alaska or Hawaii, and many of us look to the skies hoping Starlink et al. will fill in these gaps. According to this research, LEO constellations help, but aren’t quite enough as the quality of experience depends on your latitude and how clear a view of the sky you enjoy. Lots of data and detail on the click.

Even with meaningful obstructions, you have Internet service, but forget about video conferencing. You’ll be talking right along, but then everything freezes. Your browsing experience will feel normal, but then pages will stop loading while waiting for the next satellite to pass by the obstruction. It will work, though.

When there are no obstructions, Starlink is an adequate high-speed Internet experience, although uploads are slow. I’m averaging 200Mbps down and 20Mbps up. That won’t rival a fully deployed 5G service and certainly not cable or FTTH, but it’s absolutely usable. Still, the point of the research is that fixing the 5G coverage problem isn’t as simple as ordering Starlink. - Ethan

MORE RESOURCES

  1. The Delicate Art of Cryptographic Maintenance (ECDSA vs RSA & trust chain problems) - Geoff Huston


Join Drew Conry-Murray and Jennifer “JJ” Jabbusch at Cybr.Sec.Con this September 15 -16 in Houston, TX. While you’re there, you can pick up an exclusive Packet Protector fridge magnet! (The venue doesn’t allow stickers, so we got creative.)

Plus, you can save 15% off the ticket price by using the code CSCPacketPushers-26.

See the full agenda and get more details at https://www.cybrseccon.com/

UPCOMING LIVE EVENTS 🍕🍻

A curated list of near-future meatspace events of interest to network engineers. Sometimes a Packet Pusher or two will be there (noted below).

Subscribe to events.packetpushers.net in your calendar software.

AUGUST 2026

SEPTEMBER 2026

NLNAM Meetup 3 | NL Network Automation Meetup
9 September | Utrecht, Netherlands

Wi-Co Manchester
9 - 10 September | Manchester, UK

2026 Summer Social | TORNOG
10 September | Toronto, Canada

Zeek Workshop
10 - 11 September | Berkeley, California

Cybr.Sec.Con
15 - 16 September | Houston, Texas (Drew and JJ will be there!)

(MO)NUG | Missouri Networking User Group (USNUA)
23 September | St. Louis, Missouri

Wi-Co Cleveland
24 September | Cleveland, OH

Higher Education NETCOMM Workshop 2026
29 September | Denver, CO

OCTOBER 2026

Wi-Co Montreal
7 October | Pointe-Claire, QC

INDUSTRY BLOGS & VENDOR ANNOUNCEMENTS 💬 

NetAlly, which makes a variety of wired and wireless network testing devices, has announced a new expert system called Ally Intelligence. NetAlly claims Ally Intelligence provides step-by-step instructions, right in the testing tool, on how to fix any issues discovered by testing. The press release says “With a single EZ Test, a technician reaches one of two fast outcomes. If the network is proven healthy, NetAlly documents the result so the team can rule it out and move on. If there is an issue, Ally Intelligence delivers step-by-step instructions to fix it in the field, without an escalation or a return trip to the site.”

Remarkably, there’s absolutely no mention of AI or ML in the announcement. Instead, NetAlly says this new feature is “an expert system built on the millions of network tests NetAlly devices have done… .” No AI hype at all, which is refreshing.

Ally Intelligence is available as a free software update for customers with an AllyCare Pro subscription. - Drew 

Checkmarx provides application security software to help developers write and deliver more secure code. The company just announced a new offering called Checkmarx Fusion. 

What is Checkmarx Fusion? The press release says “it combines Checkmarx’s industry-leading AppSec engines and proprietary security context with leading frontier models from Anthropic. The result is the most complete vulnerability detection available, spanning every language, every codebase, and every stage of the software development lifecycle.”  - Drew 

SASE vendor Netskope has released its 2026 AI Report from its threat lab. The report looks at the AI security landscape and addresses issues including data security risks, agentic AI risks, and looks at how adversaries are using AI tools to improve their ability to trick users into downloading malicious code or visiting compromised sites. You can read the entire report at the link above without having to give away any contact details. - Drew 

MORE INDUSTRY NOISES

DYSTOPIA IRL 🐙

TOO MANY LINKS WOULD NEVER BE ENOUGH 🐳

LAST LAUGH 😆

Shared by Anton on the Packet Pushers Community Slack. Join us here!