Access Providers

The Great Internet Transformation? A First Stab

Is it just a coincidence that some of the leading Internet-based application companies are pushing aggressively into network connectivity at exactly the same time the major telephone companies are pushing into content? Or are we witnessing the end of the Internet as we know it? Think back to the online world fifteen years ago. There was AOL, there was Compuserve, there was Prodigy, and there was Apple's eWorld. Sure, there were researchers and students posting to Usenet newsgroups and navigating through Gopher sites, but the Internet was a sideshow for individuals and business users. ...the online world of those days was fragmented and small. Every online service was an island. Are we going back to those days? more

DNSSEC No Longer Pie-in-the-Sky: Time to Develop a Strategy

You may have seen media reports a few weeks ago describing how servers behind the so-called Great Firewall of China were found delivering incorrect DNS information to users in the rest of the world, thereby redirecting users to edited Web pages. Reports indicate that this apparently occurred due to a caching error by a single Internet Service Provider. While the problem was fairly limited in scope, it could have entirely been prevented in a world where DNSSEC was fully deployed. more

2050: The Internet Odyssey - How We Lost It and a Way to Get It Back

The Internet was replaced by a dual system created in 2014: a fiber optic network called "Net2Cash". It has a speed of one hundred Petabits per second (equivalent to 100 million Gigabits per second or 100,000 million Megabits per second). We no longer talk about Megabytes or Gigabytes because that is old school. Nowadays a couple of Exabites store the content of all written by man, from books and newspapers to Sumerian clay tablets; from Inca quipus and Egyptian hieroglyphs to all homework made by kids registered in elementary school. more

Why Isn’t Mobile Malware More Popular?

This is a followup to Wout de Natris' as usual excellent piece on the Enisa botnet report -- pointing out the current state of mobile malware and asking some questions I started off answering in a comment but it grew to a length where I thought it'd be better off in its own post. Going through previous iterations of Mikko's presentations on mobile malware is a fascinating exercise. more

The Ugly End of the Phone Network

I was a little early. "By the end of President Obama's first term, there won't be any more copper landlines left in the country, I blogged just after Obama had been elected. Before that I'd prophesized the end of POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) by 2010. Nevertheless, the end is nigh. And it's gonna be ugly without some planning. more

Google Signs Internet Deal With Cuba

Google has signed an agreement with the Cuban government allowing internet users on the Communist-run island quicker access to its branded content. more

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Industry Soon to Be Largest Source of Co2 Emissions

Although on the production side the tar sands are one of the biggest sources of CO2 emissions, the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) industry, globally is the fastest growing and soon will be the largest source of CO2 emissions on the consumption side of the equation. ICT emissions are produced indirectly from the coal generated electricity that is used to power all of our devices. Currently it is estimated that ICT consumes around 10% all electrical power growing at about 6-10% per year. more

Video: Engineers in Washington Discuss How Pending US Regulations Could Impact the Internet

"What Will the Internet of the Future Look Like?," was the subject of a panel discussion held this week in Washington, DC, organized by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF). The discussion was aimed at examining pending Internet regulations in the U.S. and their impact on packet discrimination, traffic shaping, network management, and carrier business models. The panel, moderated by Robert Atkinson, included: Richard Bennett; Dr. David Farber; Charles Jackson; and Jon Peha. more

Internet Governance Outlook 2025: Unbordered Spaces vs. Bordered Places

At the end of the 20th century, Manuel Castells gave an outlook into the "Network Society" of the 21st century. One of his forecasts was that the world would move from "bordered places" (sovereign nation-states) to "unbordered spaces" (global networks). A quarter of a century later, we see that he was right and wrong. We do now have "unbordered spaces." We can communicate around the globe anytime with anybody, regardless of frontiers. But the "bordered places" did not disappear. More and more states are insisting on their "digital sovereignty." more

Why Vint Cerf is Wrong

At the Internet Governance Forum in Baku, I made an intervention on behalf of NL IGF, reporting on the recommendations given by the participants of Workshop 87... I concluded that more regulatory and law enforcement bodies need to become part of the IGF discussions, as they are an integral part of governing the Internet from a safety and security perspective. Mr. Cerf responded with a one-liner: "I can't help observing, if we keep the regulatories confused, maybe they will leave us alone". more

Dr. Peering Commits Malpractice on Net Neutrality

At Tier1 Research, we hate to call out individuals for wrongdoing, but once in a while, it's absolutely necessary. At the moment, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is in the middle of the rulemaking process for network neutrality, a complex endeavor. While Tier1 is against interference from regulators as a concept, the proposed rulemaking document from the FCC, while vague, is not completely unreasonable... more

Cablecos Continue to Gain Telcom Market Share; Now at 15% and Growing

In a report released today by the research group, TeleGeography, Executive Director, John Dinsdale says, "traditional telcos have been losing substantial market share while leading cablecos have succeeded in transforming their businesses to the point where almost 40% of their revenues now come from telecoms. Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Liberty Global all now feature in the top 15 ranking of broadband internet service providers, and telecoms remains an engine for growth for many cablecos around the world." more

Network Neutrality is the Wrong Fight!

We shouldn't settle for network neutrality. It's a poor substitute for what we had and much less than what we need. Let me explain. There are two topics to discuss. The first is "common carriage," a centuries old legal concept that applied to the US telecom industry throughout most of the 20th century. The second involves communications protocols. Both topics are complex, so I will cover only what's needed to understand why we shouldn't accept network neutrality and why, at a minimum, we should fight for enforcement of existing common carriage rules. more

China Continues to Add 30M Broadband Subscribers Per Year

China continues to add broadband subscribers at a rate of about 30M per year. MIIT puts the January growth at 2.5M to a total of 152.5M. Of those, about 1.5M were DSL. They don't release fiber counts, but Jeff Heynen of Infonetics is reporting tens of millions of lines of fiber gear are in the pipeline. China has been consistently at 2-3M net adds per month. Two key policy moves are likely to maintain or even increase the growth rate. more

Study Reports on Baseline of Global IPv6 Adoption

A new research on native IPv6 traffic across six large providers in North America and Europe suggest that despite fifteen years of IPv6 standards development, vendor releases and advocacy, only a small fraction of the Internet has adopted IPv6. "The slow rate of IPv6 adoption stems from equal parts of technical/design hurdles, lack of economic incentives and general dearth of IPv6 content." more