Featured Blogs

The “Kiwi” Way of Interneting

By now, we are all exposed to the narrative of how the Internet is no longer a safe place. It is full of bots, misinformation, abuse and violence; it is a space that has been overtaken by terrorists and extremists. The Internet is weaponized to influence elections, undermine democracies, and instill fear in its users. That's the story we are told. No one can deny the swift change that is taking place in global politics. The "brave new world" that has emerged is, currently, based on isolation and fear. more

Trademark Owner Loses Two Domain Name Disputes - On Same Domain Name

I've said many times that winning a domain name dispute under the Uniform Rapid Suspension System (URS) is much more challenging than under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). But, that doesn't mean trademark owners should take the UDRP for granted. One complainant learned that lesson an especially hard way -- first by losing a URS determination and then by losing a UDRP decision on the same domain name. more

The Second Machine Age Calls for Vision and Leadership

This post I've been pondering on for a long time, but never found the right angle and perhaps I still haven't. Basically I have these observations, thoughts, ideas and a truckload of questions. Where to start? With the future prospects of us all. Thomas Picketty showed us the rise of inequality. He was recently joined by Robert J. Gordon who not only joins Picketty, but adds that we live in a period of stagnation, for decades already. "All great inventions lie over 40 years and more behind us", he points out. more

How the Internet On Cable Became the Internet As Cable

When Rogers Communications began promoting its Rogers@Home high-speed Internet service nearly a decade ago, the company branded it "the Internet on Cable." Years later, their service, as well as those of their competitors, is gradually morphing into "the Internet as Cable" as broadcasters, Internet service providers, and cultural groups steadily move toward the delivery of content online that bears a striking resemblance to the conventional cable model. more

A Case for Regulating Social Media Platforms

There are some who see the regulation of social media platforms as an attack on the open internet and free speech and argue that the way to protect that is to let those platforms continue to self-regulate. While it is true that the open internet is the product of the same freedom to innovate that the platforms have sprung from, it is equally the product of the cooperative, multi-stakeholder organisations where common policy and norms are agreed. more

Tracking Outages

The idea of tracking data outages spawned from an early discussion on the outages forum including feedback from an outages survey about having a status page for (un)planned outages as a central resource. The purpose of such effort is to have a wider focus that one could view as opposed to having to check dozens of provider status pages. There were many ideas put forth but nothing really panned out and things kinda fell on the back burner. more

Is Fiber a Hundred Year Investment?

I think every client who is considering building a fiber network asks me how long the fiber will last. Their fear is having to spend the money at some future point to rebuild the network. Recently, my response has been that fiber is a hundred-year investment -- and let me explain why I say that. We're now seeing fiber built in the 1980s becoming opaque or developing enough microscopic cracks that impede the flow of light. more

FAKE45: Trump Administration Illegitimacy Under International Law

The FAKE45 sign in the photo lower right corner appearing on the front page of today's Washington Post -- ironically in front of the Department of Justice headquarters -- captures a result of yesterday's events that may have far-reaching consequences. About 4.5 million people -- including a million in Washington DC alone -- spontaneously came together from every corner of the nation and world to question the legitimacy of a Trump Administration, express disdain for its actions, and assert the repugnancy of its positions. I was there. more

Cuba Switches on Subsea Cable for Traffic

Cuba has had a troubled history with internet connectivity via submarine cables. The Key West-Havana cable was retired in late 1989, having deteriorated to the point where it was too costly and troublesome to operate. AT&T replaced it with a new cable but the embargo imposed by the US government, compounded by the difficulty in reaching business agreements, meant that the cable remained idle before it too was retired , in 2001. Subsequently, all international traffic has been channelled through a network of satellites. more

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel’s Meeting With Tech Company Executives

While Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel was in New York to address the United Nations, he met with members of Congress and executives from the agriculture, travel and information and communication technology (ICT) industries. The ICT meeting was at Google's New York office and ten other companies attended. In addition to Díaz-Canel the Cuban ministers of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment and Communications were at the meeting. more

Trust Isn’t Easy: Drawing an Agenda from Friday’s DDoS Attack and the Internet of Things

Last week, millions of infected devices directed Internet traffic to DNS service provider Dyn, resulting in a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack that took down major websites including Twitter, Amazon, Netflix, and more. In a recent blog post, security expert Bruce Schneier argued that "someone has been probing the defences of the companies that run critical pieces of the Internet". This attack seems to be part of that trend. This disruption begs the question: Can we trust the Internet? more

Driving Force Behind Mobile Connect Initiative

Increased pressure is being exerted in different parts of the industry to create a more secure and a more private environment for a range of mobile activities. Whether it is women in developing economies who need to be certain that their communication is kept private, especially in relation to their husband and male relatives, or the 100 million users, mainly in developing economies, which rely heavily on mobile payments; there are now 16 countries that have more citizens with mobile bank accounts than the traditional ones. more

The Importance of Contributing to the ITU CWG-Internet Open Consultation by 1 August 2013

The Council Working Group on international Internet-related public policy issues (CWG-Internet) was established as a result of resolutions at the 2010 ITU Plenipotentiary to discuss a wide range of Internet issues that had public policy implications... These are all issues that concern all stakeholder groups in the Internet ecosystem. And, indeed, these are all issues being discussed in varying levels of detail by all stakeholder groups. The difference with the CWG-Internet, however, is that both its documents and meetings are closed to all non-Member State representatives. more

Just One Bit

I'm never surprised by the ability of an IETF Working Group to obsess over what to any outside observer would appear to be a completely trivial matter. Even so, I was impressed to see a large-scale discussion emerge over a single bit in a transport protocol being standardized by the IETF. Is this an example of a severe overload of obsessive-compulsive behaviour? Or does this single bit represent a major point of design principle... more

Geely Geespace Update - Global Centimeter-Level Positioning Services

Chinese automobile conglomerate Geely has made significant strides since I last wrote about their Geesat LEO constellation for mobile vehicle connectivity. They launched the first nine satellites in June 2022 and a second batch of eleven satellites in February 2024. The mass of the first nine satellites was 100 kg, and the mass of the second eleven was 130 kg, so they are not identical. more