Featured Blogs

The Trade War for Undersea Fiber

A recent article by Joe Brock for Reuters describes a new geopolitical battle over undersea fibers. There are about 400 undersea fiber routes that cross oceans and that connect the world with fiber. This is a huge business, and about 95% of all international broadband traffic passes through the undersea fibers. more

Four Crucial Questions to Ask When Considering Telecom M&A

Many industries have gone back to pre-COVID days but not telecom or their supporting technology partners. In fact, the pandemic gave a modern-day meaning to the decades-old iconic long-distance campaign to "reach out and touch someone." With so many months (and even years) of remote and isolated living, telecom audio and voice communications became the heroes of the era, bringing us together and forever changing our options in socializing and doing business. more

ICANN Is Violating Its Legal Agreements with the U.S. Government – Who’s Next?

In April, I published an article, The Multistakeholder Moment of Truth: Will Stakeholders Hold ICANN Accountable?, alerting stakeholders that ICANN is violating its legal agreements with the U.S. Government -- namely the InterNIC licensing agreement and merged Memorandum of Understanding. At that time, I warned that it is essential for stakeholders not to remain silent in the face of this transgression, "hoping that such behavior left unchecked will end of its own accord." more

Fast-Moving Technologies Need Bottom-Up Standards

Technical standards typically are not something we think about: they simply make things work. Credit for this goes to the innovators who ensure that the technical standards needed to make many of our devices work together are robust and effective. Given how central telecommunications and information and communications technologies (ICTs) are to our economies and to how we live, it is crucial that they function as expected. Standards enable interoperability, as well as functionality, reliability, and safety. more

For ICANN to Have a Future, It Needs to Take Human Rights Considerations Seriously

Despite previous attempts1 I think it is safe to say that the discussion about Human Rights in ICANN was, until recently, fairly dead, even taboo. Nowadays, there seems to be a renewed demand for ICANN to have a future, and it needs to take Human Rights considerations seriously. During the ICANN Cancun meeting, representatives from several stakeholder groups mentioned HR and how they might support ICANN by informing its policy-making processes. more

Internet Governance and End-User Engagement

As the digital landscape continues to evolve at an accelerated pace, the role of end-user participation in Internet governance has never been more crucial. With the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) +20 Review on the horizon, it's time to critically evaluate the progress made and the vast terrains yet to be charted. This topic was recently discussed at the EURALO round table moderated by Pari Esfandiari with panelists Sandra Hoferichter, Olivier Crépin-Leblond, and Lucien Castex, delving into the intricacies of fostering a user-centric, inclusive, and development-oriented information society since the inaugural WSIS meetings in 2003 and 2005. more

Key Success Factors for Top-Level Domains: An Evaluation Grid

It isn't always easy to explain the whys and wherefores of domain name market trends. Major indicators such as growth are usually generalised, given that they are based on data common to all stakeholders, but the causes behind fluctuations are hard to pin down. And structural causes need to be separated from cyclical ones, which may be the source of major variations, as was the case with the domaining waves in China, without actually reflecting long-term market trends. more

Can Legislatures Safely Vote by Internet?

It is a well understood scientific fact that Internet voting in public elections is not securable: "the Internet should not be used for the return of marked ballots. ... [N]o known technology guarantees the secrecy, security, and verifiability of a marked ballot transmitted over the Internet." But can legislatures (city councils, county boards, or the U.S. Congress) safely vote by Internet? Perhaps they can. To understand why, let's examine two important differences between legislature votes and public elections. more

Saudi Arabia to Host First-Ever Internet Governance Forum: Paving the Way for Global Digital Dialogue

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) will host the Internet Governance Forum in December. There are four main themes -- innovation and risk; the impact of technology on peace and development; using technology to advance human rights; and improving digital governance. Every IGF is a unique and annual opportunity for thousands of people engaged in key issues to come together and engage. KSA is hosting for the first time, and it is an exciting prospect. more

Civilian Tech Mobilization in Ukraine

As was the case in the US during World War II, civilian volunteers are making important contributions to the Ukrainian war effort. On February 8, 2022, the first truckload of Starlink terminals arrived in Kyiv. A week later they were being used. By April 2022, there were 5,000 terminals in Ukraine, and 42,000 as of April 2023. (At this point, SpaceX and Ukraine have gone silent. Neither ChatGPT4, Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity, nor I could not find a current terminal count). more

Human Rights and the Digital Domain Primer - Part 1

The digital domain encompasses the different spaces and spheres we use to relate and interact with the people and things that surround us using digital technologies. The digital domain is not limited to the technologies itself, but it has an important ethical dimension that encompasses the values, principles and instruments that inform and govern it. Created by humans for humans, our beliefs, cultural backgrounds, and biases are reflected in the codes we write and the algorithms we create. more

The History of Broadband Price Competition

It's sometimes easy to forget that the broadband business is just over twenty-five years old. The telephone companies had a monopoly on copper-based technologies until Congress passed the Telecommunication Act of 1996, which forced the big telephone companies to allow competition for copper-based broadband services. more

Exploring the Domain of Subdomain Discovery

Domain name monitoring - that is, the detection of domains with names containing a brand-term (or other string) of interest - is a very well-established element of brand protection services. Branded domain names are of key importance to brand owners (as the basis for business-critical infrastructure (i.e. 'core' domain names), and as part of a 'tactical' portfolio of strategic and defensive registrations), but also to infringers, who can utilise domains as a means of impersonation, passing off, claimed affiliation, or traffic direction and monetisation. more

Remote Learning and Preschoolers

A recent article in the MIT Technology Review described the benefits that remote learning can bring to preschoolers. The article described a study by the MacArthur Foundation that has not yet been peer-reviewed. The research described the results of bringing preschool to Syrian refugees. more

Expect Big Changes from Streaming Video

One of the biggest uses of bandwidth continues to be streaming video from the many online vendors like Netflix, Disney, Hulu, and many others. Final 2022 earnings reports show that this is an industry segment in crisis. Altogether, the losses for just these four video platforms were almost $11 billion in 2022. There are other big platforms like Apple, Google (YouTube), and Amazon that don't specifically report on the performance of the video streaming segment. more