Featured Blogs

Software-Defined Networking: What’s New, and What’s New for Tech Policy?

The Silicon Flatirons Conference on Regulating Computing and Code is taking place in Boulder. The annual conference addresses a range of issues at the intersection of technology and policy and provides an excellent look ahead to the tech policy issues on the horizon, particularly in telecommunications. I was looking forward to yesterday's panel on "The Triumph of Software and Software-Defined Networks", which had some good discussion on the ongoing problem surrounding security and privacy of the Internet of Things (IoT)... more

The Growing Importance of Language in UDRP Proceedings

An increasing number of domain name disputes are being conducted in languages other than English, a trend that presents a new challenge for some trademark owners. In 2015, 85.77% of all domain names disputes at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) were conducted in English - down from an all-time average of 88.01% and a record high (in 2000) of 99.84% (disregarding 1999, the first year of the UDRP, because only one case was filed - in English -- that year). more

Email Service Providers and the Coming Changes

Yesterday I talked about how I'm hearing warnings of a coming paradigm shift in the email industry. While these changes will affect all senders, Email Service Providers (ESPs) in particular are going to need to change how they interact with both ISPs and their customers. Currently, ESPs are able to act as "routine conveyers." The traffic going across their network is generated by their customers and the ESP only handles technical issues. more

Why Over Compliance With Sanctions at Internet Infrastructure Level Can Have Devastating Effects on Ordinary People

On Friday, Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine's digital transformation minister, asked Cloudflare and Amazon to stop serving Russian web resources and protecting Russian services. He said in a tweet that Ukraine was "calling on Amazon to stop providing cloud services in Russia." He also said that "Cloudflare should not protect Russian web resources while their tanks and missiles attack our kindergartens." more

Time to Regulate Google?

Should Google's provision of information services be regulated? Yes, if the decision is based on Google's own standards for determining whether to regulate tele-information companies. In recent comments to the FCC, Google described "broadband openness" rules, aka net neutrality, as a "fundamental necessity." Without such rules, the search engine giant, aka Big Search, fears that broadband providers would "promote only their own pecuniary interests over the far broader interests of Internet users..." As the Wall Street Journal noted last year, however, Google engages in the same type of discriminatory service practices they want the federal government to prohibit... more

AT&T Says Google Voice Not Neutral

AT&T has turned up the volume on Google Voice in a filing with the FCC. At issue is Google's decision to block calls that are routed to certain rural areas with higher than average termination costs. Google questions regulating its service - a web application - the same as traditional phone services, but AT&T's letter claims that at the end of the day, Google Voice is routing PSTN to PSTN calls. more

Q&A With Rami Schwartz, Founder and CEO of .tube

After its initial launch in 2016 and with over 1,800 domains registered, the .tube TLD recently released over 25,000 previously reserved domains as part of a broader re-launch of its business and brand. I spoke with Rami Schwartz, Founder and CEO of .tube about the journey so far and about what's in store for .tube in the New Year... "We're used to fighting against companies much larger than us and prevailing - our history has seen us come up against the likes of the Mexican Government and Google..." more

Bespoke Processors and the Future of Networks

As I spend a lot of time on Oak Island (not the one on television, the other one), I tend to notice some of those trivial things in life. For instance, when the tide is pretty close to all the way in, it probably is not going to come in much longer; rather, it is likely to start going back out soon. If you spend any time around clocks with pendulums, you might have noticed the same thing; the maximum point at which the pendulum swings is the point where it also begins swinging back. more

The Resurgence of Voice

One of the most interesting outcomes of the COVID-19 crisis has been a huge resurgence of telephone calls. While broadband usage is up 40% or more in some markets, the volumes of traditional voice calls have skyrocketed. Verizon says it's now seeing an average of 800 million calls per day, which is double the number of calls made on the last Mother's Day. Verizon also says the average length of calls has increased by one-third over recent averages. more

Threat Intelligence in Latter 2019: Overcoming the Same and New Challenges

Does threat intelligence (TI) work? I looked into that question last year, exploring the reasons why it actually doesn't and what can be done to remediate the situation. Since then, more companies have incorporated TI into their security processes, and many are still not getting the benefits they expect. What's causing the dissatisfaction? Interestingly, pretty much the same aspects... more

The Rapidly Changing Governance Environment of International Telecoms

Late last year I participated in the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT-2012) in Dubai, organised by the UN agency the ITU. I reported extensively on that event, which was aimed at updating the International Telecommunications Regulations... From the outset there were several reasons WCIT might fail, not the least of which was the fact that the various technological, political and regulatory issues facing the new much broader telecoms environment were not sufficiently separated and so could not be addressed in a rational and systematic manner. more

The Times Stand Still: Internet Shutdowns, the Irony of the Multistakeholder Process and Realpolitik

Governments worldwide increasingly resort to shutting down the Internet as a political tool to control information and silence dissent. This alarming trend is not limited to developing nations grappling with civil unrest or political transition. Indeed, it is gaining traction in developed nations, suggesting a global phenomenon transcending geographical boundaries and socio-economic development levels. more

Latin American and Caribbean TLD Association Politely Smacks ICANN Over Meeting Relocation

Earlier this week the Latin American and Caribbean TLD Association (LACTLD) put out a statement about ICANN meetings. The statement, which is available in both Spanish and English, while very polite and diplomatic, expresses the organisation's concerns with ICANN moving meetings out of Latin America due to health concerns. So far this year the meeting scheduled for Panama (ICANN 56) has been relocated to Helsinki. more

Comcast Streaming of NBC Broadcast Content

NBC soon will join the ranks of content providers offering a streaming option to cord cutters and mobile consumers. This future service warrants special attention, because two corporate affiliates within the Comcast family will participate in many parts of the United States: Comcast as the last mile, "retail" ISP and Comcast the parent of NBC-Universal. Operating as an ISP, Comcast has at least three pricing/interconnection options, each of which raise questions relating to network neutrality... more

Wither WHOIS!: A New Look At An Old System

No, that title is not a typo. The WHOIS service and the underlying protocol are a relic of another Internet age and need to be replaced. At the recent ICANN 43 conference in Costa Rica, WHOIS was on just about every meeting agenda because of two reasons. First, the Security and Stability Advisory Committee put out SAC 051 which called for a replacement WHOIS protocol and at ICANN 43, there was a panel discussion on such a replacement. The second reason was the draft report from the WHOIS Policy Review Team. more