Access Providers

FCC Releases New U.S. Anti-Bot Code

The Online Trust Alliance (OTA) joined a unanimous vote at the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council (CSRIC) meeting today, approving the voluntary U.S. Anti-Bot Code of Conduct for Internet Service Providers (ISPs), also known as the ABCs for ISPs. As a member of the CSRIC appointed by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, the OTA has been working with the FCC and leading ISPs to develop this voluntary Code. more

Uncertain Knowledge

The establishment media frequently attack the Internet as spreading inaccurate, unchecked rumors as news. While that is certainly true, the Internet is also demonstrating that the establishment media is no better. In the past weeks we have been told that the Stuxnet virus was written by US and Israeli intelligence. The evidence? Some un-named Israeli intelligence officers grinned broadly at reporters when the subject was mentioned. Is that what it has come to? more

Comcast Given 30 Days to Disclose Network Management Practices, Says FCC Order

In follow up to August 1st ruling against Comcast, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in a 67 page order released today has given Comcast 30 days "to disclose the details of their unreasonable network management practices, submit a compliance plan describing how it intends to stop these unreasonable management practices by the end of the year, and disclose to both the Commission and the public the details of the network management practices that it intends to deploy following termination of its current practices." more

Connectivity Policy and the Open Internet

The goal of public policy for connectivity should be to assure access to our common facilities as a public good by adopting sustainable business models that don't put owners and users at odds with each other. Such balances are typically difficult to achieve which is what makes connectivity so unusual - we can achieve both once we fund the facilities as a public good apart from the particular applications such as telephone calls and cable content. more

Google’s Loon Announces First Commercial Deal With Telkom Kenya to Provide Internet-by-Balloon

Google's sister-company Loon has announced its first commercial agreement with Telkom Kenya in order to deliver connectivity to the region using a network of giant balloons. more

“Net Neutrality” Protects New Monopolies from Old

Over the next decade which companies do you think will be better able to exercise monopoly power? Amazon, T&T, Comcast, Facebook, Google, Regional phone companies, or Verizon? If you'd asked me this question in 2000, I would've picked AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, and regional phone companies. They are part of local duopolies for wired infrastructure. more

Time to Look Past ‘Net Neutrality’. Let’s Start a Fresh Post-Neutrality Debate…

Yesterday, as many of you heard, the European Parliament voted to reject the 'net neutrality' fundamentalist amendments to the already flawed proposals they had helped to create. That's the good news. The bad news is that the law that we now have is merely ludicrous, rather than insane. Furthermore, it doesn't properly protect end users, hold ISP feet to the service delivery fire, or truly encourage broadband ecosystem innovation. more

Computer Transactions, Not People, Are Driving the Need for All-Fibre Networks

Ever since we first became involved in developing policies and strategies for countries relating to what are now known as national broadband networks, we have argued that those taking part in the strategic decision-making processes of designing these networks should look, not at what broadband can do now, but at what high-speed broadband can do to assist countries to create the best opportunities for future developments. more

Back to the Future for Broadband in America

With countries like Australia and New Zealand implementing infrastructure that can deliver 100Mb/s for their next generation broadband -- and with most Europeans not too far behind this -- it is quite shocking to see that the $7.2 billion economic stimulus package in the USA (under the RUS Broadband Initiatives Program (BIP) and the NTIA Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP)) requires nothing more than 768 kilobits per second (kb/s) downstream and 200 kb/s upstream. more

The State of RPKI as We Enter 2022

Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI) is a method to secure internet routing traffic by cryptographically verifying routes. As we begin 2022, we look back at 2021 and see how the year saw another significant step towards its adoption. High-profile issues with the old trust-based model of Border Gateway Protocol, designed several decades ago, have shown the continued importance of protecting popular networks from mistakes or hackers. more

Improvements in Undersea Fiber

We often forget that a lot of things we do on the web rely on broadband traffic that passes through undersea cables. Any web traffic from overseas gets to the US through one of the many underwater fiber routes. Like with all fiber technologies, the engineers and vendors have regularly been making improvements. The technology involved in undersea cables is quite different than what is used for terrestrial fibers. A long fiber route includes repeater sites where the light signal is refreshed. Without repeaters, the average fiber light signal will die within about sixty miles. more

Apple Rumored Building Its Own CDN, Negotiating Paid Interconnect Deals With ISPs

Apple has reportedly formed a new internal group to work on building out their own content delivery network (CDN) to deliver Apple software updates, apps and other Apple related content. more

Internet Access and the Missing Institutional Design

It's Friday, a day to tie some threads together. There were three announcements/events this week that are connected in a non-obvious way... These three elements go together in creating a picture of US policy towards Internet access at the beginning of 2008. Rather than seeing the Internet as an engine for economic growth, creativity, innovation, and new jobs -- and as the converged communications medium for the next generation -- current policy is to wait for private companies to decide when investment in access makes sense for them. Those private companies have plenty of incentives to shape access to suit their own business plans. more

Cuba’s (Hopefully Limited) ADSL Expansion

In 2015, ETECSA announced/leaked a plan to make ADSL service available in 50% of Cuban homes by 2020. I was skeptical. Doing so would mean investing a lot of money for obsolete technology between 2015 and 2020. They have recently announced the availability of ADSL connectivity at homes in portions of seven cities and, by December, they say some home connectivity will be available in every province. more

New Harvard Study Recognizes Community-Owned Internet Service Providers as Value Leaders in America

Community-owned fiber networks provide least-expensive local "broadband," according to a recent study by Harvard's Berkman Klein Center. more