Featured Blogs

Starlink’s Role in Last Year’s Los Angeles Fires

During California's devastating 2025 wildfires, Starlink, Tesla, and T-Mobile offered vital emergency connectivity. Their improvised response reveals both the promise of satellite-based disaster aid and the need for formalised coordination with public agencies. more

Truth in Broadband Advertising

We're all used to crazy advertising about telecom products that make industry folks shake their heads -- many of the ads about 5G come to mind. Most people don't realize that carriers in the industry routinely challenge the claims made by competitors to force them to modify or drop deceptive ads. Most of the largest corporations in the country belong to the National Advertising Division (NAD), which is part of the Better Business Bureau and arbitrates disputes about advertising between participants in the plan. more

The Unprepared gTLD Applicant of 2026

The gTLD race is not just about technical readiness. Governance strategy, institutional stamina, and adversarial foresight will define success in ICANN's 2026 round, where geopolitical resistance, not DNS errors, threatens survival. more

Keeping Telecom Sales Teams Motivated During Chaotic Times

Across all industries, the supply chain crisis has become a new way of life for companies and consumers. For telecom providers, not only are hardware systems delayed, but furthermore, the worker shortage has played a role in software development and service operations. From a slowdown of new innovation to delays in maintaining existing offerings, telecom sales teams are faced with longer and longer pipelines, leading to delays in commission checks. more

Internet Companies and Government Contracts: Complying with DCAA Regulations

One of the biggest opportunities for Internet companies of all sizes can be to get a U.S. government contracts. This kind of business partnership is highly desirable as the U.S. government spends about $500 billion for contracts annually. The government contracting in an extremely competitive field, as the huge number of businesses bid for the same contracts. After all, there is a lot of money involved here and those are all big jobs that can prove vital for any company. more

The Case Against Regulating AI in One Chart

A three-decade natural experiment suggests America's centralized regulatory review fostered far greater wealth creation than Europe's precautionary principle, raising stark questions about whether importing EU-style AI rules would undermine US innovation and prosperity. more

With Q1 in the Books, the Only Constant in the Domain Industry Is Change

As the first quarter of 2020 ended, the number of new generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) domain registrations reached approximately 33.2 million. We expect to see additional growth through 2020 as TLDs such as .GAY will complete their launches before the end of the year. Meetings and conferences in the domain industry in 2020 are in flux but will go on in new formats, new timeframes and new locations. more

Let’s Get the Politics Out of Infrastructure

I believe the infrastructure of our country, states, and counties is critically important to our future. If we can get focused on infrastructure and global warming, the future for our kids and grandkids will be bright. All it takes is vision, leadership, and investment. Unfortunately, the issues have become politicized. In the case of infrastructure, the politicians have a tough time just defining what infrastructure is. more

You Are Invited to Engage in Project Jake: Shaping the Future of DNS Data Governance

Project Jake invites global DNS stakeholders to test JADDAR, a privacy-respecting framework for secure access to registration data, aiming to reduce regulatory fragmentation and modernise domain governance through collaborative, policy-aligned engineering solutions. more

It’s Time for ICANN to Release a Preliminary Applicant Guidebook

At ICANN's recent virtual meeting, I was fortunate enough to join a panel facilitated by the Brand Registry Group (BRG), an association of organisations promoting the use of brand top-level domains, where we discussed the release of the next round of the generic top-level domain (gTLD) program. The fact that I was participating in a discussion like this is hardly news, as I've been commenting on the policy discussions and debating its role in the digital landscape for years. more

The IRP Docket Speaks Louder Than Theory - A Response to Charles Mok on ICANN and AI Governance

A critique of ICANN's multi-stakeholder model argues that its accountability record, revealed through more than a dozen IRP disputes, shows structural failures that should caution policymakers seeking institutional blueprints for governing artificial intelligence systems globally. more

The Battles in the Online Video Game Streaming Market Are Heating Up

In a previous article, I reported on the problems that Facebook (Meta) is facing – currently betting the house on its Meta service, based on a software platform that will create a virtual reality (VR) networked environment. I mentioned that I was critical about this business model and that I don’t see, at least for the foreseeable future, a platform (based on VR) that would turn the internet or mobile networks into VR environments. I also mention that I do see interesting markets for VR in certain sectors. more

The Benefits of Thinner Fiber

Fiber manufacturers are always trying to make it easier to deploy fiber. One of the most interesting trends is the increasing migration from 250-micron fiber to 200-micron fiber. For those not familiar with the metric system, a micron is one-thousands of a millimeter. A 250-micron fiber has a diameter of 0.25 millimeters, while a 200-micron fiber has a diameter of 0.2 millimeters. more

Enhanced Cooperation v2005 is Dead; Long Live Enhanced Cooperation

The page with the WSIS version of enhanced cooperation of Internet governance, developed in 2005, was turned forever on 30 September 2016 with the expiration of the IANA contract between the NTIA and ICANN. The IANA arrangement was the last issue that remained unchanged since the WSIS Tunis phase where the international community discussed Internet governance related issues for the first time. On 1 October 2016, the concept of enhanced cooperation as defined by the Tunis Agenda ceased to exist. more

A Note on Subscriptions with Introductory Pricing

Over the years, I've kept tabs on residential Internet services in my local area (Vancouver, BC) and noticed that almost all providers have the following "limited time offer"... On the surface, this sounds like a great way to entice users to sign up -- or more importantly, switch over. But are we missing something here? After the initial discounted rate, subscribers receive a friendly reminder of what their subscription actually costs. And chances are, they're not going to be happy with their next bill. more