Can Mobile Operators Afford a Mobile-Only Strategy?

With 4G rollouts in many developed mobile markets reaching completion, it might be time to check the balance of the state of the mobile industry. Looking at campaigns around the world it is clear that what you see are 'me too' strategies. The advertising campaigns and the marketing hyperbole around them might suggest that a particular operator has now done something unique or very special, but if one looks beyond the advertising blurb it is clear that the campaign is nothing new and/or that what is on offer can be very easily matched by their competitors in the market. more

The ITU Plenipotentiary: Member States Decrease Financial Contributions

The ongoing ITU Plenipotentiary Conference wraps up at the end of the week. The more than 2000 people present in Busan Korea from 171 countries -- overwhelmingly government bureaucrats -- have been busily polishing nearly a hundred resolutions on everything that ails them. The good news is that some sanity seems to have prevailed and most of the really extreme provisions apparently disappeared during the ensuing dialogue. One of the reasons for the change of heart is the realization that the ITU emperor's budget for clothes is disappearing. more

Europe and Data Protection: We Need a Real Debate - Exactly What We Don’t Have Now

Europe is at the forefront of the global debate about data protection and privacy. Unfortunately that debate is characterised more by hyberbole and scaremongering than real discussion. Europeans deserve better -- and so does the world, who rightly see Europe as a leader on this subject. The new Commission has a chance to truly lead in partnership with governments, like Brazil, that agree with us. more

Data Mining - The Next Driver of Mobile Revenue

I have often argued that in both the fixed and the mobile telecoms markets the actual telecoms element is a utility -- a utility that allows for an enormous range of new services, new business models and new applications. For this reason the argument for more than a decade (since 2002 to be precise) has been that structural separation of the vertically-integrated telecom model is needed in order to unleash the huge potential of telecoms. If that doesn't happen technologies will be applied that allow the users to bypass the barriers set up by the telcos to protect their utility.  more

Zero-Rating and the Creation of Digital Castes

During the last Internet Governance Forum in Istanbul, a day was devoted to Net Neutrality with three panels devoted to the subject. The first was exactly about Zero-Rating: Net Neutrality, Zero-Rating & Development: What's the Data? the second was Network Neutrality: a Roadmap for Infrastructure Enhancement and last, the main session Network Neutrality: Towards a Common Understanding of a Complex Issue and Zero-rating was discussed on all three panels. more

45th Anniversary of the First Message Between ARPAnet Computers

Given that CircleID is about "Internet Infrastructure" it would be remiss if there wasn't a mention here that October 29, 2014, was the 45th anniversary of the moment when the first message was sent between two ARPAnet computers located at UCLA and the Stanford Research Institute (SRI). That moment was chronicled well this year by Matt Novak writing on Gizmodo's Paleofuture, complete with photos of the original logs and more. more

Enhanced Confusion: The European Council and the Governance of the Internet

On November 1, 2014, the new European Commission started its work. One of the priorities of its new president, Jean Claude Juncker, is the digital agenda. The European Union wants to be a leader in the Internet world of tomorrow. Vice President Andrus Ansip from Estonia (some people spell the country name "e-stonia") and Commissioner Günter Oettinger from Germany will have special responsibilities to implement the big plans. Juncker was elected by the European Parliament, although the green light for his nomination came from the European Council. more

Deadline of Oct 31 to Register for IAB Workshop on Stack Evolution in a Middlebox Internet

Can we develop better transport protocols for communication across the Internet? In a world where the "end-to-end" principle is no longer certain and middleboxes are common, which paths through the Internet are actually available to applications? Which transports can be used over these paths? How can applications cooperate with network elements to improve path establishment and discovery? ... These are all questions posed for the Internet Architecture Board's (IAB) Workshop on Stack Evolution in a Middlebox Internet (SEMI). Taking place in Zürich, Switzerland from 26-27 January, 2015. more

Stopping Illegal Activity Online - It’s More Complicated Than It Seems

There was a compelling article in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) the other day about ICANN and illegal online pharmacies. The result of a six-month investigation, the reporter, Jeff Elder, calls into question ICANN's effectiveness in investigating complaints of suspected illegal activity on domain names it has a contractual relationship with. Elder cites a recent incident where Interpol and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration tried to have 1,300 websites shut down because they were suspected of selling drugs without a prescription. more

The “Bottom Dilemma”

I attended the 46th ICANN meeting in Beijing, China, and made a statementat on the panel "Internet Governance -- The Global Agenda", questioning the limits of the multistakeholder model, or more precisely the "bottom" of the bottom-up concept. My expectation was enormous, just at the time when two important meetings on governance and information society are in evidence: the WCIT and WSIS +10. more