Featured Blogs

Mobilizing the Internet Community for Coronavirus Pandemic Communications

The Coronavirus pandemic has profound impact on every aspect of every person's life. We all have turned to the Internet to stay informed on this one subject. Unfortunately, the Internet community is not equipped to organize the Internet around one subject. Governments and businesses are reorganizing their websites daily to make new paths to new coronavirus information on many topics suitable for their many audiences. more

IRAN Nuclear Deal; the Flag of Changes? the End of Civil Society Isolation? or What?

The crucial importance of Iran Nuclear Deal and, hopefully, the imminent expectation, for reaching to an indisputable solution and agreement among 5+1+ Iran (as well as the other parties who claim to have interest in this matter) all have created a special climate and proper ground for all the activists and the observers in order to seriously sit and make a review of the actual situation and the potentials of the main player of the field, say Iran, or Civil Society of Iran... more

Technology Vendors Must Be Proactive in Dealing With COVID-19 Problems

Early action now on possible performance issues will "flatten the curve" of customer problems in the coming weeks and months. Here are three things technology and software vendors can do right now to get ahead of problems that may appear (if they are not already) with services such as development, implementation and support... Check your contracts to see whether there are any "material assumptions" that have failed or will fail - perhaps because of some governmental action or unavailability of personnel... more

Unintended Consequences of Satellite Constellations

Astronomy & Astrophysics published a research paper recently that looked at "Unintended Electromagnetic Radiation from Starlink Satellites." The study was done in conjunction with the Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR) telescope in the Netherlands. The LOFAR telescope is a network of over forty radio antennas spread across the Netherlands, Germany, and the rest of Europe. more

China Shows Positive Attitude Towards IANA Transition

Observers of IANA transition may have found a remarkably interesting fact that both supporters and opponents of the transition like citing China, along with a small number of other countries, as evidence in favor of their arguments. For supporters, take Larry Strickling as an example, blocking transition benefits China in that it will "intensify their advocacy for government-led or intergovernmental management of the Internet via the United Nations." On the contrary... more

Building Resilient Broadband Networks: Lessons from the Power Industry’s Transformation

It's almost impossible to talk about broadband at the community level without talking about resiliency and redundancy. It's hard to find rural communities that haven't experienced a broadband outage due to a fiber being cut somewhere. The issue hits the news when there are reports of regional or national broadband outages. more

Broadband Now or Later?

I just heard about a U.S. County that is using its American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to build fixed wireless broadband. This is a traditional fixed wireless broadband technology that will probably deliver speeds of 100 Mbps to those close to the towers, slower speeds to homes further away, and which will not reach all homes in the County. more

Using Bigger Bandwidth Applications

The recent Cisco Annual Internet Report for 2018–2023 had one chart that I found intriguing. The purpose of Cisco's report is to look at the future of broadband usage, and the report included a chart showing the amount of bandwidth needed for various web functions. To me, this list was reminiscent of the list that the FCC made in 2015 when they set the definition of broadband at 25/3 Mbps -- except that all of the items on this list require more bandwidth than the functions the FCC foresaw just five years ago. more

Further Ideas in Mark Similarity Measurement

In the final three articles in my series looking at algorithms for measuring the similarity of marks, I extend the ideas to provide a more sophisticated and adaptable framework. Article 4 introduces a similarity score based on color distance in RGB space, offering a quantitative approach to trademark similarity. Article 5 refines word mark similarity by using the International Phonetic Alphabet to improve phonetic analysis. The final article presents a method for sorting colors by dominant shade, aiding in trademark review and potential guidelines for color mark protection. more

Intentional Disruptions to Internet Access Cost Countries $2.4 Billion Last Year

Around the world, digital technology is seen as vital for economic development. In the U.S. alone, the Internet accounts for about six percent of the entire economy. Digital technology has expanded its role in the global economy in recent years, as both developed and developing nations have become increasingly reliant on the Internet. more

Using 42 GHz Spectrum for Broadband

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission circulated draft rules to govern the lower 42 GHz spectrum (between 42-42.5 GHz). This is within the range of spectrum referred to as millimeter wave spectrum. This is one of the more unusual FCC spectrum deliberations because this spectrum is totally empty -- there is nobody currently authorized by the FCC to use the spectrum band. The FCC is starting this deliberation with a clean slate. more

RIPE 86 Bites: What’s the Time?

A little appreciated aspect of our digital infrastructure is just how dependent we are on access to time. Disrupting the time base can not only lead to disruption in communications but can result in various forms of compromise of the integrity of communications. Accurate time was all but unobtainable for centuries, and then, as we spent significant sums devising even more accurate timekeeping instruments, accurate time became a specialized service. more

Towards a Quantitative Approach for Objectively Measuring the Similarity of Marks

Central to many intellectual property disputes is an assessment of the degree of similarity of two contested marks. A determination of similarity is fundamentally a subjective decision involving a range of relevant tests, which include consideration of the perception of the relevant consumer and recognition of the existence of degrees of similarity within a spectrum (from high to low). more

Broadband Labels are Here

On October 10, all ISPs in the United States were supposed to have implemented and posted broadband labels. The labels were required as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Large ISPs had to post labels six months ago, and now the requirement is for all ISPs. I looked at the ISPs in a few counties I'm very familiar with, and I found a few ISPs in each county that have not posted labels that I can find on their website. more

An Economic Perspective on Internet Centrality

The IETF met in November 2022 in London. Among the many sessions that were held in that meeting was a session of the Decentralised Internet Infrastructure Research Group, (DINRG). The research group's ambitions are lofty: DINRG will investigate open research issues in decentralizing infrastructure services such as trust management, identity management, name resolution, resource/asset ownership management, and resource discovery. more