Reaching Critical Mass for Gigabit Connections

The statistics concerning the number of gigabit fiber customers in the US is eye-opening. OpenVault tracks the percentage of customers provisioned at various broadband speeds. At the end of 2019, the company reported that 2.81% of all households in the US were subscribed to gigabit service. By the end of the first quarter of 2020, just after the onset of the pandemic, the percentage of gigabit subscriptions had climbed to 3.75% of total broadband subscribers. more

SpaceX Starlink Is on a Roll

The last two months have seen a flurry of Starlink activity, including the following: Bill Gates has a history of interest in satellite Internet and in September, Microsoft announced their Azure Obrital ground station service, which enables satellite access to its Azure cloud services. SES, Viasat, and Intelsat were announced as initial partners and SpaceX just signed up. Starlink+Azure Orbital will compete with Amazon's satellite constellation and its ground-station service... more

The Good Old Days in the Cryptography Wars

The 20th century was the golden age of surveillance. High-speed communication went either by telegraph and telephone, which needed a license from the government, or by radio, which anyone can listen to. Codes were manual or electromechanical and were breakable, e.g., the Zimmermann telegram and Bletchley Park. (The UK government spent far more effort inventing a cover story for the source of the telegram than on the break itself, to avoid telling the world how thoroughly they were spying on everyone.) more

2020 Hindsight After 20 Years at ICANN

After two decades of involvement with ICANN, I am stepping down from the Board of Directors, where I served for nine years. I have spent considerable time of late reflecting on the past 20 years, and I have isolated some memories that help frame my time with ICANN. ... November 2000, ICANN07 in Marina del Rey, California - With only a scant idea of what ICANN is all about, I am warmly welcomed by the flag-wearing country code top-level domain (ccTLD) community, who come to ICANN to ensure that nothing happens to affect the independence of ccTLDs... more

Apple Buys Into 5G

Apple is coming out with a full range of new 5G iPhones. The phones have been designed to use the full range of new frequencies that the various cellular companies are touting as 5G, up to and including the millimeter wave spectrum offered in center cities by Verizon. In addition to 5G, the phones have new features like a better camera, better ease at using wireless charging, and a lidar scanner. more

Going Postal

When a service is constructed using diverse components, then the way in which service revenues are distributed to the various suppliers of the components of the service can follow a number of quite distinct models. There are various forms of revenue redistribution models where the revenue per transaction is distributed to the various suppliers according to their inputs to support each transaction. more

The Magnitude of the Urban Digital Divide

The web is full of stories of rural areas with no broadband options, and I've spent a lot of time in the last few decades helping rural areas get better broadband. There has not been nearly as much coverage of the huge broadband gap in urban areas. There are a lot of urban homes that can't afford broadband and, in many cases, got bypassed when the telcos and/or cable companies built their networks. more

AI Initiatives at the US Post Office: Final Rethink Before We Dissolve It!

MIT released a comical study in May of 2020 on the historical innovation accomplishments, and the potential logistical endeavors brought to light by the beleaguered United States Postal Service. The apparent scholarly article cited several technological implementations and employee empowered frameworks that could define the USPS's plight over the next five years. These frameworks, through FY2025, mention a postal-banking initiative and two AI autonomous vehicles initiatives. more

US Election-Related Web Properties Prone to Fraud and Misinformation Due to Lack of Domain Security

The risks of fraud and disinformation in the U.S. election process have been hiding in plain sight. CSC's new research finds that a large majority of web domains closely linked to the campaign websites for Joe Biden and Donald Trump lack basic domain security protocols and are prone to domain spoofing tactics. This makes them a potential target for hackers looking to spread disinformation ahead of the election, and criminals who want to take advantage of voter intentions... more

The Race to Bury Net Neutrality

The Internet is currently full of news articles describing how the FCC will soon be putting to bed the last vestiges of its order a few years ago to eliminate net neutrality rules. The order that is widely being called the net neutrality ruling was a far-reaching change at the FCC that essentially wrote the FCC out of any role in regulating broadband. more