Brief Summary

I have over 30 years’ experience in the IT industry, most of which has been spent in networking/telecoms in the UK/EMEA and NZ/APAC.  I have worked in varied roles such as technical consulting, network design and architecture, pre-sales support, operational support and software engineering.  I moved to New Zealand in 2008, where I worked in several roles before returning to the UK in 2022.

My experience has been gained in a wide range of organisations, from start-ups, through enterprises and to large service providers and telcos.  I have worked in both team environments and on an individual and independent basis.  In recent years, I have also done a lot of my work in the public sector.

Though performing hands-on work is not as regular as it used to be, it has been a strong element in my previous work, when I gained satisfaction from performing proof-of-concepts before deploying to production environments.  I first started working with Cisco in 1994, and with Juniper in 1999.

I very much enjoy customer-facing roles since no two customers are alike, and so the variety this gives is always a challenge that I am keen to take on.  Taking part in technical discussions with customers forms a key part of being able to fully understand their requirements, which is essential to being able to deliver a successful solution.

Latest News and Useful Articles                — Updated: 26 August 2026 —

• Modbus fundamentals.  [Weberblog]

• AI DC design.  [Network Defense Blog]

• MS Paint embeds hidden IDs in locally generated AI images.  [CyberInsider]

• Multivendor SR-MPLS.  [ipSpace]

• An interactive and non-interactive introduction to STP.  [Vincent Bernat: 1, 2]

• The masochistic urge for, and failing, a second CCIE.  [PacketPushers: 1, 2]

• More incidents of AIs going rogue.  [Schneier]  [AISI]

• Detailed timeline of OpenAI's cyberattack on Hugging Face.  [Schneier]

• Police hiding Flock camera use.  [Schneier]  [404media]

• Exploring BGP neighbour CONNECT state.  [ipSpace]

• The never-ending IPv6 loopback prefix saga.  [ipSpace]

• Hacking public WiFi DNS to steal credentials.  [Schneier]  [Bleeping Computer]

• What the world's oldest telecoms company looks like today.  [Engadget]

• Use this new service to find out who's tracking you.  [Krebs]  [decryptads.com]

A more comprehensive news/article list can be found on my networks sub-domain here.

Click for the latest full version of my CV, or find me on LinkedIn — Credly — X / Twitter.

rob (at) larsenconsulting (dot) net

© Robert Larsen.  All rights reserved.