Featured Blogs

The Role of FttH in the Development of 5G

As the roll out of FttH remains a slow process, it is no wonder that more and more people are looking towards mobile as a potential alternative. Obviously, mobile communication has improved over recent years in providing excellent access to broadband; and it has also become more affordable. At the same time, there is the fabulous hype about 5G, and the PR and media machines of the vendors involved make you believe that this will become a real competitor to the slow moving FttH developments. more

The Dotcom Kingdom

What will happen to dotcom once a thousand generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) applications were approved and start to skate around on global cyber platforms? Nothing, firstly, there are over 200,000,000 dotcoms while these 1000 exotic high profile gTLD will not even make a scratch to the dotcom market. Secondly, a dotcom is about $10 plus while gTLD is $500,000 plus... After all gTLD are never supposed to be for everyone, as they can only be fitted to right and very special combinations. more

Out of Office Alerts are So Out of Here

Do Out of Office alerts these days serve a purpose anymore? They seem to work well a decade ago when you were really out of the office and your computer sat under your desk and you couldn't check email till you got to it. Today, we as an industry and as individuals now have laptops, iPads, Smartphones, Wifi, WiMAX, etc. keeping us 100% of the time on the Internet at one time or another. And you know we all at one point throughout our days whether or not on vacation or after 5 PM check email as part of our everyday lives. more

LTE: Another Way to Estimate when It Will Be Real

Hardly a week goes by without a press release touting how soon we'll be using a Long Term Evolution (LTE) wireless network. Verizon has promised a major commercial launch in 2010 and a two-city trial before the end of 2009. Let me show you a little chart I put together for my 3G Tutorial and have repeatedly updated... more

LunaNet – Developing the Internet for the Moon

The NASA-sponsored Artemis program is the first step in the next era of human exploration. Together with a large number of international government and academic partners as well as businesses -- and based on international standards -- NASA will establish a sustainable presence on the Moon. more

Email Delivery Challenges Increasing

Return Path published their most recent Global Deliverability report this morning. It shows that inbox placement of mail has decreased 6% in the second half of 2011. This decrease is the largest decrease Return Path has seen in their years of doing this report... Filters are getting more sophisticated. This means they're not relying on simply IP reputation for inbox delivery any longer. more

At the Start of the NL IGF

At the annual Dutch "delegation" dinner at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Vilnius, Lithuania, I voiced that it may be a good idea to start a Dutch IGF. This followed a discussion in which we discussed the possibilities of involving more people and organisations from the Netherlands in Internet governance. The, now, Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation followed this thought and made it possible for the ECP/EPN foundation to start the NL IGF. more

Observations in and Around the UN Broadband Commission

The 7th meeting of the UN Broadband Commission in Mexico City was again a good combination of announcements about new plans, results of previously undertaken activities, and views on the future of broadband. Very noticeable was the enthusiasm and acknowledgement of the impact of ICT, and of broadband in particular. In September 2012 the Commission launched its working group on gender equality. Research undertaken by the various members of the workgroup provided somewhat similar results. more

IPv6 Enabled Networks Before and After World IPv6 Day

In our last post on CircleID, Measuring World IPv6 Day - First Impressions, we showed exactly when World IPv6 Day participants switched on IPv6 on their networks (by way of announcing DNS AAAA records). Now, a few weeks after World IPv6 Day, it's interesting to see what the longer-term effects have been. more

The Internet Portal Strategy, Circa 2011

Ev Ehrlich over at High Tech Forum wrote an excellent piece yesterday about some recent comments by Google's Eric Schmidt. According to Schmidt there are four megafirms right now executing well on what he calls "platform strategies" - Google (search), Apple (gadgets/ecosystem), Amazon (online retailing) and Facebook (social connectivity). more

The Business Of Domains: Shifting The Paradigm

For a business that started with few competitors and unlimited markets, the domain name registration trade has certainly become quite difficult and price sensitive. As the owner or manager of your firm, you have a basic choice to make: You can pull back and ride out this difficult period, or you can use this disruption to your advantage. Can a savvy owner or manager bring profitable growth to his or her company? One positive answer may not be in familiar spaces, but in new markets. more

Bringing a Responsible Closure to the gTLD Implement Process

Last Friday ICANN released an updated new generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) Applicant Guidebook that appears to have taken a number of positive steps toward closing the divide between the ICANN Board and the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC). One of the more important changes to the Applicant Guidebook was the following text... more

Cuba on Advances in the “Computerization of Society”

A recent televised roundtable enumerated advances in the computerization of Cuban society, including: Telephone density is 58% with 6.5 million accounts, 5.2 million of which are cell phones. 1.5 million people access Nauta mail with cell phones. Over 1.7 million have permanent accounts. There are 1,713 public-access spots: 709 WiFi locations, over 700 at ETECSA premises and the same number in third-party locations (but 709+1400 is 2109, not 1,713). more

IPv6 a Case of Confirmation Bias

Is the glass half full or half empty? The human reflex of selective deafness to information or arguments countering one’s established believes lives on. The ISOC organized lunchtime IPv6 panel at IETF 74 in San Francisco illustrates the point... more

Peering and Interconnection Key to a Competitive American Telecoms Market

Peering has come back in the news with the FCC mentioning it in its set of reviews of the telecommunications market in the USA, following its Network Neutrality decision. The peering and interconnect issues are going to the heart of the telecoms matter in relation to competition, innovation and the Open Network. You don't need Network Neutrality rules, if you have a well functioning, transparent, interoperable and competitive infrastructure environment. more