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FCC’s McDowell Warns of “Irreversible International Regulation”

The stakes of the U.S. communications policy debates are larger than many assume. Subjecting broadband to new and extensive regulation in the U.S., says FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell in today's Wall Street Journal, could invite a regulatory ripple effect across the globe. more

The Broadband Adoption Rate

Yesterday's FCC report estimates that at least 80 million Americans don't have high-speed Internet access - defined as download speeds of at least 4 Mbps and upload 1 Mbps - at home. (Soon the Commission will release another report comparing these results to those in other countries.) This service is completely unavailable to at least 14 million Americans - the FCC estimates that "1,024 out of 3,230 counties in the United States and its territories are unserved by broadband[, and t]hese unserved areas are home to 24 million Americans living in 8.9 million households." more

IPv6 “Ripeness”: The Hard Numbers on ISPs and Deployment Rates

As the unallocated IPv4 address pool runs out, are Internet Service Providers (ISPs) actually deploying IPv6? The graph, first in a series from RIPE Labs, looks at the IPv6 "ripeness" of all ISPs registered as RIPE NCC members. We created a rating system that gives ISPs up to four "stars" for IPv6 services that they provide, based on the following criteria... more

Who is Blocking WHOIS?

On April 16 ICANN issued a breach notice to Turkish Registrar Alantron for not consistently providing access to its WHOIS database via Port 43, a command-line query location that all Registrars are required to supply under conditions of their contract with ICANN under section 3.3.1. Four days later they issued a breach to Internet Group do Brazil for the same problem. ... The WHOIS record, as we all know, is a massive fraud with illicit parties filling records with bogus information and hiding behind anonymity. more

DNSSEC Deployment Among ISPs: The Why, How, and What

It's no secret that Comcast has been leading the charge of DNSSEC deployment among ISPs. For the past couple years, Comcast has been testing and pushing for the widespread adoption of DNSSEC. In the spirit of increasing adoption, I thought I would interview the DNS gurus at Comcast to see what they've learned and what advice they would give other ISPs considering DNSSEC deployment. more

Internet Traffic Growth Rate Falling by Half in U.S. According to Cisco VNI

In 2014, Cisco estimates Internet traffic growth in the U.S. will be less than 18%, far less than most previous estimates. Worldwide, they measure the current rate at 42% and expect that to fall to 30% in four years. Actual numbers at Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) is the definitive source on Internet traffic today because they have direct relationships with carriers from China Telecom to AT&T. Their future estimates are the most carefully done publicly available. more

Genachowski to Broadband: Reduce Prices, Increase Speeds, Increase Access, Embrace Competition

Broadband providers are not taking the recent move by the FCC to reclassify broadband under Title II; i.e., put broadband under its regulation arm along with the likes of telephone companies, very lightly and have come out swinging to stop that effort... Seemingly at issue; an appeal brought by Comcast with the D.C. Court of Appeals and the subsequent defeat of the FCC's perceived role as a broadband regulator, ruling the communication had no authority under current legislation to sanction Comcast over a 2008 Internet throttling incident. more

Resources for Cleaning Your Network

The first step (but certainly not the last) towards saving the internet from spam, malware, and other abuse is to keep your own network clean. A friend of CAUCE, who wishes to remain anonymous, offers these tips and resources to help you identify problem traffic emanating from your network, and clean it up. Though primarily written for ISPs, many of the items below should apply equally well to any network owner. more

China Won’t Repeat Protectionist Past in Digital Realm

Google may have unnecessarily provoked a fight with China, but the Middle Kingdom better keep its wits, lest it repeat a sad protectionist history. Early last millennium China was the world's richest civilization and technology leader. It famously invented gunpowder, iron casting, paper, porcelain, printing, and gigantic nine-masted sailing vessels. Between 1405 and 1433, the great Muslim Chinese explorer Zheng He led seven expeditions in the South Pacific and Indian Oceans, reaching the coast of East Africa. China's naval fleet grew to 3,500 ships... more

Comcast vs the FCC - A Reply to Susan Crawford’s Article

This is a reply to Susan Crawford's circleid article "Comcast v. FCC - "Ancillary Jurisdiction" Has to Be Ancillary to Something". I started writing a reply to her article, adding some comments I had and also reminding her that she'd predicted this herself, in an earlier circleid article, but it turned out long enough that I decided to submit it as a circleid post instead. On the whole, the facts agree with this CNET article. This court decision was correct, and expected... more

Comcast v. FCC - “Ancillary Jurisdiction” Has to Be Ancillary to Something

Big news today - Judge Tatel has written the D.C. Circuit's opinion in Comcast v. FCC, and Comcast wins. Bottom line: The FCC didn't have regulatory authority over Comcast's unreasonable network management practices because it failed to tie that authority to any express statutory delegation by Congress... more

IPv6: Beware of Dirty, Muddy IPv4 Addresses as the Pool Dries Up

Mid March a special plenary session of the Canadian standard committee isacc was convened in Ottawa to review the final report of the Canadian IPv6 Task Group. It was unanimously approved and the essence of its 66 pages are seven recommendations for Government, Industry, Service and Content providers, and the regulator, CRTC to proceed with diligence, even some sense of urgency. One paragraph provides an interesting new twist... more

MIT 2010 Spam Conference Starts Tomorrow…

In January we presented the glorious history of the MIT spam conference, today we present the schedule for the first day. Opening session will be from this author, Garth Buren with a topic entitled The Internet Doomsday Book, with details be released the same day as the presentation. Followed by Dr. Robert Bruen with a review of activities since the last MIT spam conference... more

LTE and Spectrum Stupidity

Mobile operators are counting on Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology to handle surging demand for mobile data access. But LTE developers made some poor choices, cutting spectral efficiency and thus driving up operator costs. LTE was envisioned as an all IP system, but the RF allocations follow the voice-centric approach of earlier generations. While LTE standards allow for either Frequency Division Duplexing (FDD) or Time Division Duplexing (TDD), all initial LTE equipment uses FDD. FDD requires two separate blocks of spectrum... more

ICANN CEO Urges African Telcos to Shatter Monopolies

ICANN CEO, Rod Beckstrom, urges African leaders to "shatter" telecommunications monopolies in their nations in order to help lower the price of Internet access to their citizens during his opening remarks at the start of the 37th ICANN meeting in Nairobi, Kenya. Beckstrom noted that while 15 percent of the world's population lives in Africa, Africans make up less than 7 percent of all Internet users. more

Industry Updates

$42 Billion Funding for US Broadband Deployment

Dormant IPv4 Addresses Can Help Mitigate Expected Network Outages

To Accelerate 5G Adoption, European Telcos Need More IP Addresses

Log4j Vulnerability: What Do the IoCs Tell Us So Far?

Gathering Context Around Emotet, Trickbot, and Dridex C&C Servers with Bulk IP Geolocation

i2Coalition and DNA Merger Creates North America’s Largest Internet Infrastructure Advocacy Group

i2Coalition Launches Survey on the Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Internet Infrastructure Providers

The Internet Infrastructure Industry Is Protecting Digital Trust and Fighting COVID-19 Related Fraud

Carpet-Bombing Attacks: A Rising Threat to ISPs

Currents of Change: Empowering the Growth and Interplay of Subsea and Interconnection

Peering Versus IP Transit: Answering the Age-Old Question

2016 U.S. Election: An Internet Forecast

Neustar Expands Professional Services Offerings for Communications Service Providers

Australian ISP iiNet selects ARI Registry Services to Help It Apply for and Operate .iinet TLD

NeuStar Names Steven Edwards General Manager, Senior Vice President of Converged Addressing Services