The City of Chicago asked some researchers at the University of Chicago for help to identify the neighborhoods and the number of households that are not connected to broadband. It's been well known that large numbers of people in cities don't have broadband, but there have been no easy ways to pinpoint where solutions are needed. more
We’ve noted in previous CSC studies that phishing continues to be an extremely popular threat vector with bad actors and shows no signs of subsiding in part, because of the COVID–19 pandemic and the rise in popularity of remote working. Indeed, the most recent figures from the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) show that the numbers of phishing attacks are higher than ever before, with the quarterly total of identified unique phishing attacks exceeding 1 million for the first time in Q1 2022, and over 600 distinct brands attacked each month. more
One of the most interesting aspects of serving broadband from low-orbit satellites is that it brings issues related to space into broadband discussion. Space issues were less important for high earth orbit satellites that sit 20,000 miles above the earth. Other than an occasional impact from sunspots, there wasn't much of note. But there are two recent events that highlight our new focus on low-earth orbit satellites. more
Verisign announced a few days ago a decrease of 0.4 million domain name registrations for .COM and .NET Top Level Domains, a first time in the history of these TLDs. Could this decrease be related to the successive price increases of September 2021 and September 2022? On 28 July 2022, Verisign, the registry for the .COM and .NET TLDs, announced that it would be applying a 10% increase in the price of .NET domains as of 1 February 2023. more
Recently ten Democratic Members of Congress wrote a letter to Alan Davidson, head of the NTIA, requesting that the "NTIA immediately cease the public disclosure of personal information about users of .US" country code top-level domain (ccTLD). This communication highlights a significant concern regarding domain registration data: the need to protect the privacy rights of Registrants. However, an equally significant concern regarding registration data was raised... more
Dinni Jain, the CEO of Google Fiber, posted a blog last week that talks about dramatically increasing the top speeds available on fiber. He says the specific announcement will come in the coming months to dramatically expand Google Fiber's gigabit offerings. The blog gives a hint at what might be coming. Included in the blog is a speed test from the home of a Google Fiber employee in Kansas City who is receiving 20.2 Gbps. more
Internet use has become ever more pervasive. With around five billion global users, it generates an economy of around 15% of global gross domestic product (GDP); that's around $15 trillion and is a figure that's growing 2.5 times faster than GDP itself. This makes the internet an attractive channel for infringers. Phishing and other fraud tactics, selling counterfeit goods online, and digital piracy are primary areas of concern. more
One of the key issues for the Domain industry is how to accurately predict year-on-year how many customers will renew their domain names. It's fairly common that a registry in the first year has around a 60% renewal rate, and following the first year, that increases to around 80 and 85 percent on the remaining domain names. But how can we understand better why this is so, how can this be more accurately predicted, and what can be done to help maximize these opportunities? more
For nearly fifty years now, a significant portion of my professional engineering and lawyering life has been threaded through the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). It has included all of its multiple sectors, working on the inside for two Secretary-Generals and running its Relations between Members and Regulations Division, writing two books including "The ITU in a Changing World" with the late George Codding, representing the U.S. at several conferences... more
There is no single name system that is necessarily bound to the Internet. Unlike IP addresses which are in every IP packet, names are an application construct, and, in theory, applications have considerable latitude in how they handle such names. There could be many name systems that could coexist within the Internet, in theory. In practice, there is strong peer pressure to use a single name system. more
This morning in Bucharest, Doreen Bogdan-Martin was elected by the member nations of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) as its 12th Secretary-General. Of the 164 votes cast, she received 139 -- an overwhelming majority of 85 percent. Only 15 countries voted for her opponent, Rashid Ismailov of Russia, who sought to implement a divisive techno-political agenda. more
Aalyria, a new space Internet company, just burst out of stealth mode. It is based on work done on Alphabet's "moonshot" Project Loon and Alphabet transferred almost a decade's worth of technology IP, patents, office space, and other assets to Aalyria in return for an equity stake in the company. Spacetime is Aalyria's intelligent network orchestration technology, and Tightbeam is its advanced atmospheric laser communications technology. more
Perhaps it's because the death of Queen Elizabeth has been everywhere in the news, but somebody sent me an article from the BBC from 2008 where then Prince Charles warned that the lack of rural broadband in the UK was going to eventually result in broadband deserts. The now King Charles III was quoted as saying that lack of broadband puts too much pressure on the people who live without broadband and that if a solution wasn't found... more
A report from the Center for Data Innovation warns of a new broadband gap they call the data divide, which is when some parts of society are not sharing in the big societal advantages that come from using and understanding the huge amounts of data that are being generated today. The report includes examples of the data divide that make the concept easier to understand. more
One of the discussion topics at the recent ICANN 75 meeting was an old favorite of mine, namely the topic of Internet Fragmentation. Here, I'd like to explore this topic in a little more detail and look behind the knee-jerk response of declaiming fragmentation as bad under any and all circumstances. Perhaps there are more subtleties in this topic than simple judgments of good or bad. more
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