Many political discussions are taking place all over the world about how to best stimulate national or provincial telecommunications infrastructure investments against the background of current market dynamics. In this context the question often revolves around whether there is a market failure and, if so, does the government have a role to play here to address the matter, or can it be left for the market to sort out. more
As the operator of the registry for the .CA top-level domain and the domain name system (DNS) infrastructure that supports it, I am uncomfortable, though not surprised, with the knowledge that a government is monitoring the activities of Internet users. And while recent reports about the National Security Agency's top-secret PRISM program actively monitoring Internet users in the United States and (by default) citizens of other countries - Canada included - are on the front page of newspapers around the world, Internet surveillance is not exactly new. more
I had the opportunity this week to take part in the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) Cable Show - a traveling show in the U.S. that took place in Washington, DC, this year... In the U.S. capital, it's difficult to avoid the topic of politics and its effects on the telecommunications industry. This was especially true during The Cable Show in light of recent news around communication monitoring, wiretapping, and how far it's going. more
Vectoring is an extension of DSL technology that employs the coordination of line signals to reduce crosstalk levels to improve performance. It is based on the concept of noise cancellation: the technology analyses noise conditions on copper lines and creates a cancelling anti-noise signal. While data rates of up to 100Mb/s are achievable, as with all DSL-based services this is distance related: the maximum available bit rate is possible at a range of about 300-400 meters. more
There are still a number of countries who have Queen Elizabeth as their titular head of state. My country, Australia, is one of those countries. It's difficult to understand what exactly her role is these days in the context of Australian governmental matters, and I suspect even in the United Kingdom many folk share my constitutional uncertainty... In the United Kingdom every year the Queen reads a speech prepared by the government of the day, which details the legislative measures that are being proposed by the government for the coming year. Earlier this month the Queen's speech included the following statement in her speech. more
Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action (NAMA) is a new policy program that was developed at the Bali United Nations Climate Change Conference. As opposed to the much maligned programs like CDM and other initiatives NAMA refers to a set of policies and actions that developed and developing countries undertake as part of a commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Also unlike CDM, NAMA recipients are not restricted to developing countries. more
When Columbus Networks and Cable & Wireless Communications announced the formation of their new joint venture entity at International Telecoms Week 2013, it signaled an important milestone for the telecommunications sector in Latin American and the Caribbean. The development comes at a time when the region's appetite for bandwidth is rapidly rising. The market for wholesale broadband capacity is experiencing solid growth and shows no sign of slowing anytime soon. more
We have reported in the past on the rapid decline of the copper telecoms network in the USA. A decade ago BuddeComm predicted that it would be impossible to move two customer access networks in parallel towards the new fibre future, the one operated by the telcos and the other operated by the cable companies. At that stage we indicated that a possible outcome could be that the telcos would upgrade their networks to FttH and that the cable companies would become the key tenants on that network. more
Following up on my recent post about how solving the Bufferbloat problem could dramatically increase the speed of Internet usage, I recently learned via a Google+ post by Michael Richardson of this video of a presentation by Jesper Dangaard Brouer of Red Hat at the recent DevConf.cz Brno 2013 titled "Beyond the existences of Bufferbloat - Have we found the cure?" more
Fast and reliable infrastructure of any kind is good for business. That it's debatable for the Internet shows we still don't understand what the Internet i -- or how, compared to what it costs to build and maintain other forms of infrastructure, it's damned cheap, with economic and social leverage in the extreme. Here's a thought exercise... Imagine no Internet: no data on phones, no ethernet or wi-fi connections at home - or anywhere. No email, no Google, no Facebook, no Amazon, no Skype. That's what we would have if designing the Internet had been left up to phone and cable companies... more
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