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SpaceX has unveiled its new "Starlink Direct to Cell" service, aimed at providing cellular connectivity globally via its Starlink satellite network. The newly launched website promotes the service with the promise of "Seamless access to text, voice, and data for LTE phones across the globe." more
The success of the internet demonstrates that we now depend on network operators to assure that services like telephony work. The carriers are pushing back on neutrality because their business model is threatened by a level playing field. We should be encouraging innovative internet-native business models rather than working to preserve an industry threatened by innovation. more
I've been having arguments about Network Neutrality with a lawyer. My position is that you can't adequately regulate ISPs to be neutral, because there's no agreement what "neutral" means in practice. He points out that the courts aren't interested in technical details like what packets are dropped, it's that all traffic has to be treated the same, and ISPs should just figure out how to do that. So I contemplated a city with Plumbing Neutrality with the simple rule that all people must be treated the same... more
The ongoing witch-hunt from the incumbent telcos in the USA against municipalities that are trying to build their own broadband networks is continuing unabated. This is nothing new... With the economic crisis there has been a new focus on regulatory rules and the importance of the common good, next to the free market. However that message has not yet got through to the incumbent players in the USA. more
Washington may be the first state to approve a net neutrality law that applies to all wired and wireless Internet providers in the state. more
A friend who read my Creating Sustainable Network Neutrality paper wrote to say, "Help me understand what is so bad about treating different types of communications differently." That's a really good question! If you want to offer vertically integrated services on special purpose networks, such as video entertainment or pager service or telephony, I do not have a problem with that, provided you don't use your market power to impede Internet applications that offer competing services... more
What do Europeans interested in Internet policy think about cybersecurity, network neutrality, IANA, improving Internet access and other topics? Tomorrow the second day of the European Dialog on Internet Governance (EuroDIG) 2015 in Sofia, Bulgaria, will cover all those topics and many more. I've listed some of the sessions that either I or my Internet Society colleagues are participating in. I will personally be involved as a panelist on the two sessions about cybersecurity. more
Comcast, the largest broadband provider, largest pay-TV company, and third-largest telephone company in the country, distributes communications services to more than a third of the country. Today Comcast's existing overwhelming market power was on display in major public battles with (1) Level 3 and (2) cable modem manufacturer Zoom. The takeaway from today: No market forces are constraining Comcast -- or any of the other major cable distributors, none of which compete with each other. more
Something bad happens online. I can tie that something-bad back to an IP address. Do I know who did the bad thing? According to the Federal District Court in Arizona, I don't. An IP address may identify the owner of an Internet access account; it does not identify who was online at that particular time and who may be responsible for the actions in question. In Breaking Glass Pictures v Does, DAZ 2013, Plaintiff brought a claim for copyright infringement, wants early discovery, but the court is refusing. more
SpaceX is now serving customers (aka beta testers) in the northern United States. They will soon be doing so in Southern Canada and recently announced that Germany, where they have applied for permission and have begun construction on two ground stations, will probably be next. Early customers in the US are paying $499 for their user terminals and $99 per month for Internet service. more
Today's announcement from the Commission that it intends to roll back the exercise of Title II utility-style regulation over "any person engaged in the provision of broadband internet access service" at its 14 December meeting is the right step. As a veteran of 40 years of internet related regulatory wars in the FCC and numerous other venues, the Commission's decision and the actual Rules promulgated in the February 2015 Report & Order stand among the most ill-considered application of authority and regulatory gerrymandering ever witnessed. more
Broadband; we want it, and we all depend on it; but where you live can impact access and adoption of the best that service providers have to offer. The FCC is looking to change both geographic and demographic limitations now plaguing the U.S. in the global race for broadband economic supremacy. Can a combination of a fixed and wireless-mobile strategy improve broadband economic viability by increasing access, adoption, and affordability across the broadband spectrum? more
There was a somewhat unfortunate outage for a major communications service provider in Australia, Optus, in mid-November. It appears that one of their peer Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) networks mistakenly advertised a very large route collection to the Optus BGP network, which caused the routers to malfunction in some manner. more
In August 2010, we looked at the growth in RIPE NCC membership and concluded that the number of new RIPE NCC members is still growing at an amazing pace, even during the recent economic downturn... This time we are looking at the different sizes of RIPE NCC members over time. It is often claimed that there is massive consolidation happening in the ISP community, especially in times of economic difficulties like in the early 2000s and now. We were curious to find out if this is really the case. more
An assignment in a Media and Democracy course I teach at Penn State invites students to select a telecommunications advocacy web site for analysis. I want my students to decode the message and attempt to identify whether a bias exists and who financially supports the site. The exercise typically fails miserably... Most students cannot infer that a site that advertises books by Ann Coulter trends to the right and one that talks about social justice trends to the left. more
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