Featured Blogs

U.S. Senate Declares “Internet Governance Awareness Week” Coinciding with ICANN 52 Singapore

On February 5th, while many (including the author) were on route to ICANN 52 in Singapore, the U.S. Senate passed S.Res. 71, a non-binding, "Sense of the Senate" Resolution declaring February 8th–14th as "Internet Governance Awareness Week". Those dates overlap the now ongoing ICANN meeting in Singapore, and the congruence is intentional. more

How Accurate is the Routing Registry?

The Internet Routing Registry (IRR) is a globally distributed routing information database that consists of several databases run by various organisations. Network operators use the IRR to publish their routing policies and routing announcements in a way that allows other network operators to make use of the data. In addition to making Internet topology visible, the IRR is used by network operators to look up peering agreements, determine optimal policies and to configure their routers. more

Bit Caps, Consolidation, and Clearwire

The news that Comcast, Time Warner, and AT&T are all considering capping use of their networks -- so that "overuse" would trigger a charge -- has prompted intense discussion of just why these network operators are moving in this direction. One camp suggests that these operators have to do *something* to manage congestion, and because any protocol-specific discrimination plan raises howls of protest from the Net Neutrality side of the fence adopting bit-usage discrimination schemes is inevitable. It's the least-bad approach, following this view. more

The New gTLD Program Now Needs Momentum and Focus

Once again, and hopefully for the final time, the internet community has an official time-line for the arrival of new generic top-level domains. ICANN's recent decision to publicly name May 30, 2011 as the planned launch date for new gTLD program was courageous, welcome, and absolutely necessary. The ICANN Board and staff alike should be congratulated for their bold commitment to opening the first-round application window less than seven months from now, and for providing the community with visibility into its working plan. more

Hewlett Packard and Other Companies Deploying Zero Carbon Data Centers

I am pleased to see that several companies are starting to recognize that building zero carbon data centers is a more sustainable direction rather than focusing on energy efficiency (i.e. PUE). As China, India and the rest of the developing world starts to deploy data centers, GHG emissions will continue to increase in portion to the number of data centers regardless of the PUE. But building zero carbon data centers powered only by renewable energy means that as the world deploys many more hundreds of data centers, GHG emissions will remain virtually unaltered and close to zero. more

BlackBerry Z10: New Products and Old Domains Don’t Mix

Type www.z10.com into your browser and you'll arrive at an Amazon page on which "Global Mobiles" sells unlocked BlackBerry Z10 phones. What? Did you expect to be directed to a BlackBerry (formerly Research In Motion) site just because the Z10 has been touted as the phone that will help make or break the struggling company? What happened? A savvy domain speculator realized that his or her domain name had become a hot commodity... more

FCC’s Genachowski Promises He’s Not Out to Regulate Net, New Media

We learned from The Wall Street Journal yesterday that "Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski gets a little peeved when people suggests that he wants to regulate the Internet." He told a group of Journal reporters and editors today that: "I don't see any circumstances where we'd take steps to regulate the Internet itself," and "I've been clear repeatedly that we're not going to regulate the Internet." We're thankful to hear Chairman Julius Genachowski to make that promise. We'll certainly hold him to it. But you will pardon us if we remain skeptical... more

The FCC Robocall Proceeding: International Insularity

In March of this year, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted an initial Notice of Inquiry (CG No. 17-59) to mitigate robocalls. In July, it adopted a Second Notice. Mitigating spoofed telephone calls is a global problem which every country in the world has been addressing as part of a global ecosystem for many years in intergovernmental and industry bodies, in academic R&D and patent filings, and industry products with ongoing activity continuing today. more

Working With ICANN’s IRT and Not Against is in Order

ICANN realized during the Mexico City public meeting that its draft proposals for new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) did not take sufficient account of the trademark problems that might arise if the new top level domains become havens for cybersquatters. ICANN sensibly asked the trademark and brand owners to propose rules and procedures that might address these problems... more

Craig Moffett from Wall Street: Wireless Prices Should Go Up Through Mergers

Jules (Julius Genakowski) may soon have a stark choice: should U.S. wireless prices go up or down? Jules talks a good game about wanting more competition and the evidence is overwhelming that going from 6 to 4 majors resulted in higher prices. Merrill Lynch a while back calculated margins went up $billions each year because of the consolidation. You can hire an economist to say almost anything, and two at the University of Chicago happily stretched the truth on this in the past. But the evidence both academic and common sense is clear. more

Republican Presidential Candidate Upset With ICANN CEO

Republican senator and US presidential candidate Ted Cruz is not very happy with ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade. In a letter dated today, Cruz along with two other senators, have dropped some pointed questions for Chehade in relation to his involvement with a recent meeting in China... "As you must know, the World Internet Conference is not a beacon of free speech..." more

Password Leaks

The technical press is full of reports about the leak of a hashed password file from LinkedIn. Worse yet, we hear, the hashes weren't salted. The situation is probably both better and worse than it would appear; in any event, it's more complicated. more

Say ‘Yes to New Top-Level Domains’ at ICANN Singapore

The time for new Top-Level Domains is now! Read the open letter to the ICANN Board and sign the petition calling for the approval of the program... There is less than one week to go until the much anticipated ICANN Singapore meeting where the global Internet community expects the ICANN Board to approve the New gTLD Program and finalise plans for launch. more

Live Today: IXPs and the Relationship Between Geography and Network Topology

Today at 5:10pm EDT the IETF 90 Technical Plenary will be streamed live out of Toronto, Canada... After some initial reports, the technical focus will be on "Network topology and geography." The session will be recorded for later viewing. The slides are online and from what I can see it should be a very interesting talk for those of interested in the underlying infrastructure of the Internet. more

National Telcos Can and Will Change Their Behaviour, Case in Point: Telstra

When discussions with overseas colleagues made it clear to me how fast things are changing here in Australia compared with the rest of the world, I was prompted to write this update about the developments in Australia, particularly in relation to its incumbent telco, Telstra. Most people overseas have not yet fully caught up with the fact that the destructive regime of Telstra's former CEO is well and truly over -- in the past there has been plenty of international reporting of the shocking behaviour of Telstra under Sol Trujillo (former US West) and his persistent attacks on the government included suing Ministers and abusing the Regulator. more