Featured Blogs

Who Broke the WHOIS?

As Internet services go, WHOIS held a lot of promise but has repeatedly failed to live up to its potential; raising the question "is it time to retire WHOIS?" The concept behind WHOIS was simple. For each and every registered domain name, provide the facility for querying details about who owns it, who administers it, when was it created and when it will expire. Unfortunately the service lost its way practically from day one after failing to agree upon or adhere to any formal structure of the content it provides. more

Network Neutrality Becoming a Major Concern for Europe’s Governments

There is no single definition of network neutrality, though generally it is recognised as the principal that there should be no restrictions by fixed and mobile ISPs, or governments and the like, in providing consumers with access to internet networks. Nor should there be restrictions or discrimination against associated content and platforms. A number of European regulators and governments are now making forthright statements defending the principal. more

The User Experience with New TLDs: How to Avoid the Junk Mail File or ‘User Unknown’

As new Top-Level Domains (TLDs) are launched, the industry mustn't overlook the customer experience. A key question is this: Will the software applications we all use, recognize the new TLDs and know what to do with them in a timely fashion? Think email and even form-fill applications. I speak from experience here. In 2006 when we launched the .MOBI TLD, there were arguably only a handful of .MOBI email addresses in existence. To my dismay, I found that often emails sent only from my .MOBI account were not being received at the other end... more

Skype Issues Official Statement About the End of Skype for Asterisk

Before writing my story yesterday about Skype killing off Skype For Asterisk, I had reached out to Skype's PR agency to see if there was any statement from Skype. There wasn't at the time, but today they sent over this statement from Jennifer Caukin, a spokeswoman for Skype... more

Mobile Consolidation - A Threat to Competition

The global financial crisis and the very rapid growth in mobile broadband, thanks to smartphones, have combined to create havoc in the mobile market. On the one hand, we see that customers, especially those in countries seriously affected by the GFC, such as Southern Europe and Ireland, have reduced their mobile use, with the result that there has been a significant drop in Average Revenue per User (ARPU). On the other hand, phenomenal growth has taken place in mobile broadband, but without a significant increase in ARPU... more

Hong Kong is the Fastest Internet Region in the World

In Akamai Technologies' "State of the Internet" report for Q4 2010 Hong Kong (as a region/country) was identified as the market with the fastest average peak internet connection speed in the world. Hong Kong fixed line users can access the internet with an average peak speed of 37.9Mb/s, ahead of South Korea at 32.3Mb/s, Romania at 31.7Mb/s and Japan at 30.5Mb/s. more

Building Caribbean Internet Infrastructure… One IXP at a Time

Encouraging the development of Internet-based services and accelerating the development of local content are often touted as noble objectives. It is also widely acknowledged that reaping the benefits of technology is dependent on reducing Internet connectivity and bandwidth costs, improving infrastructure, and improving quality of service to all Internet users. Yet in a region with over 20 million potential Internet users and great ambitions to create a "knowledge-based society" and develop "technology-driven economies", the cost of access remains prohibitively high and there is a glaring absence of critical Internet infrastructure. more

Internet Service Quality Measured from Thousands of Locations

RIPE Atlas, the new active measurements network maintained by the RIPE NCC, gives you a way to easily measure the quality of your Internet services. RIPE Atlas is designed in such a way that it can collect data for analysis from a great number of locations on the Internet. The actual measurement devices, or "probes", are so small that they can be easily deployed in a home environment. more

New Record Set in Ultra Fast Data Transmission

Scientists led by a team at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have broken a record for data transmission, sending data at 26Tb/s on a single laser beam over 50km. To put this into context, the researchers suggest that this is the equivalent of transferring the contents of 700 DVDs per second, or the entire collection of the Library of Congress in ten seconds.
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Planning for the Ugly End of the Phone Network

Consumers who have a choice are quickly deciding they don't need the old copper-based phone network, often known as POTS for Plain Old Telephone Service. We use our cellphones for talking even when we're not mobile. The cell phones have built in phone directories, easy ways to return calls, the ability to call a number on a web page; and we don't share them with our parents or children... It's a good year for traditional phone companies when they don't lose more than 10% of their POTS lines. more

University of California Identifies the Next Hard Target in a Never Ending War

This is, of course, about the recent NYT article that showcases the results of Prof Stefan Savage and his colleagues from UCSD/Berkeley. As my good friend and longtime volunteer at CAUCE, Ed Falk, points out, this is a great find, but hardly a FUSSP. The nice thing about the fight against bots and spammers is these little victories people on "our" side keep having in an endless series of skirmishes and battles... more

Tucows Comments on ICANN Applicant Guidebook

The latest ICANN Applicant Guidebook was released in mid-April and covers the introduction of new generic Top Level Domains (gTLD). The introduction of new gTLDs has been an ongoing conversation for more than a decade. We have an opportunity to approve the final draft in time for consideration of the new gTLD implementation program during the ICANN Board meeting, which will be held on Monday, 20 June 2011, in Singapore. We submitted our comments yesterday and wanted to share them with you. more

A True Final Ultimate Solution to the Spam Problem?

A common acronym in spam-fighting is FUSSP -- Final Ultimate Solution to the Spam Problem. It's used (usually derisively) to describe the latest proposed scheme to end spam once and for all. Usually these schemes are based on false assumptions or have already been tried with no results. This time - be still, my beating heart - it looks like some researchers at the University of California might really be on to something. more

Facebook vs Google: The Pot Calling the Kettle Black

In case you missed it a few days, a story broke that said that Facebook was caught hiring a PR firm to spread stories about Google about how they invade people's privacy... Even though I work for Microsoft and therefore can hardly be considered unbiased, I think Microsoft would be in a position to call out others for lack of privacy protection. I say this based on the fact that in my division, every new feature that we implement has to go through Privacy reviews... more

EU Approval for 4G Technologies to Use GSM Bands - A Boost to Rural Mobile Broadband

The EC recently approved technical rules on how the 900MHz and 1800MHz frequency bands should be utilised for 4G services, including LTE and WiMAX. National governments have until the end of 2011 to implement the decision into national legislation. Restrictions were initially imposed by the 1987 GSM Directive which limited these bands for 2G. more