Featured Blogs

“One Google, One World; One China, No Google”

China's insomniac twitterati were on fire this afternoon U.S. time, powered no doubt by much caffeine and sugar in the the wee hours of the morning in China. Half an hour before Google's David Drummond posted his announcement that Google.cn is now effectively operating from Google.com.hk, Guangzhou-based open source programmer @LEMONed broke the
news that google.cn was being redirected to the Hong Kong service. Reacting to the news, @wentommy quipped: "One Google, One World; One China, No Google." more

Using Electricity Infrastructure to Roll Out Broadband

The FCC proposal in its recently launched National Broadband Plan to share infrastructure is a very smart initiative indeed. Sharing infrastructure makes a lot of sense. Without it the business model for universal high-speed broadband will not stack up -- the costs of infrastructure is one of the most critical elements in any national broadband plan. Australia is following an identical course with the rollout of their National Broadband Network. In all six current rollout sites utilities are either already involved or are negotiating to become involved. more

Domain Registrars & Registries: Don’t Say You Weren’t Warned

There is an old saying that "bad news comes in threes." Domain name service providers have witnessed two unsettling developments in the past few weeks. The third, still winding its way through the U.S. Congress, could have enormous ramifications. Registries and registrars, in particular, need to speak up or resign themselves to the consequences. more

EoWhy?

I have come to acceptance that the community proposal for Expressions of Interest in new gTLDs (EoI) was removed from consideration during ICANN's March 12th Board Meeting in Nairobi. It should have passed, but it got lobbied into oblivion by some in attendance at the Nairobi meeting. They deserve their say, those who oppose it, but quite frequently the arguments used fail logic once one reflects upon them, or contrast them against the facts. more

Perspectives on a DNS-CERT

Last week at the ICANN meeting in Nairobi, a plan was announced by ICANN staff to create a "CERT" for DNS. That's a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) for the global Domain Name System (DNS). There are all kinds of CERTs in the world today, both inside and outside the Internet industry. There isn't one for DNS, and that's basically my fault, and so I have been following the developments in Nairobi this week very closely. more

“Thin Brand Line” Breaks as Canon Announces Plans for .CANON

Until today's announcement by Canon, no large brand had broken the "thin brand line" by revealing their plan to apply for their own new top-level domain. Now with Canon's announcement, other major companies have been challenged to either announce their TLD plans or else state that they plan to forgo the chance to brand themselves at the top level of the domain name space. more

Mobile Operators and the Broadband Boom

With $72 billion invested in mobile broadband it would be hard to argue that this market is suffering from a lack of investment. More than half of this is taking place in Asia. Over the last two years close to 300 mobile operators in 120 countries have launched mobile broadband networks (using the 3G HSPA technology) and some 70 of these are already planning the next upgrade of their networks using the LTE technology -- the first $5 billion of investment money has been committed to that technology. more

Could This Be the Silver Bullet for Cloud Computing

This article on cloud appeared in the Economist.com on April 12th 2001 titled "The Beast of Complexities" Stuart Feldman of IBM, mentions these examples. Quote 'Picture yourself as the product manager of a new hand-held computer whose design team has just sent him the electronic blueprint for the device. You go to your personalized web portal and order the components, book manufacturing capacity and arrange for distribution. With the click of a mouse, you create an instant supply chain that, once the job is done, will dissolve again." unquote. ...In the same article he also lamented that so far, nobody has found a silver bullet to kill the Beast of Complexity. more

What’s Wrong With the FCC’s Consumer Broadband Test?

The FCC recently published some tools to let consumers measure some internet characteristics. The context is the FCC's "National Broadband Plan". I guess the FCC wants to gather data about the kind of internet users receive today so that the National Broadband Plan, whatever it may turn out to be, actually improves on the status quo. The motivation is nice but the FCC's methodology is technically weak. more

EI, EI - NO!

For those closely following the ICANN Meeting in Nairobi this week, the EOI (Expression of Interest) model seemed like a foregone conclusion. In fact, ICANN had scheduled a webinar on March 18th to explain the process despite the complaints of the community and large-scale disagreement amongst proponents of the EOI. more

Another One (Partially) Bites the Dust

Following in the footsteps of Lethic, Waledac and Mariposa, yet another botnet has been taken offline. Not completely, though, it was only a partial disconnect. The Zeus botnet, also known as Zbot, is a trojan password stealer that captures passwords and sends them to the attacker. more

ICANN Board Meeting Spoiler Alert

For those participants that have been working rearranged hours and participating remotely in connection with ICANN's Nairobi meeting, here is a chance to sleep in. While ICANN Board tea leaf reading is not an exact science, there is a great deal of predictability to ICANN's actions so here are my big three predictions for tomorrow. more

The Free Internet in Jeopardy

The venerated BBC World Service recently commissioned a polled involving more than 27,000 people across 26 countries. The findings are unremarkable: some 87% of Internet users believe that Internet access should be a basic right, and more than 70% of non-users believe that they should have access to it. more

ICANN’s Board Decisions in Nairobi Will Determine Its Credibility and Respect for Years to Come

Today is the morning of the most revered Thursday in the ICANN meetings calendar -- The public forum. It is tradition personified. It is the day when the show and the showcasing really begin. It is the stage and the choreography of the open microphone that can help influence ICANN decisions one way or another and make the supposed bottom up model appear at its best. more

Whither .XXX?

What's going to happen this week on .XXX? Nairobi is the first public board meeting since the independent review panel's nonbinding declaration in February that ICANN acted against its own rules in refusing to go ahead with .XXX. Reports that ICANN is going to 'do something' about .XXX have gone around the world via BBC news, and even surfaced on the radio in rural Ireland. The ICM team are out in force here in Nairobi, and there is endless speculation about what will happen at the Board's meeting on Friday. more