John McCain has introduced a new legislation at the US Senate, which is called Internet Freedom Act... I agree with the statement about the governmental control and regulation -- we've done exactly this in Bulgaria, and the results are stunning (for the US user): today Bulgaria ranks No. 1 among the EU in number of users per capita who are connected to the Internet at speeds above 100 Mbps (in the US, the typical connection speed is 3 Mpbs), or 30 times faster than the US, and in many cases, people are connected via fiber, at 1000 Mbps, or 300 times faster. more
The Internet's existence within the regulatory system has been a disastrous failure. Network Neutrality is fine as far as it goes. The problem is that it leaves the current abysmal system in place. On my Economics and Architecture of IP Networks Mail list, Erik Cecil has been deconstructing the regulatory system. Bottom line -- the most significant thing that can be done for the citizens of the internet in the US would be for the FCC to declare the internet protocol to be telecommunications and no longer exempt from regulation. more
Ten years ago, Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman lamented the "Business Community's Suicidal Impulse:" the persistent propensity to persecute one's competitors through regulation or the threat thereof. Friedman asked: "Is it really in the self-interest of Silicon Valley to set the government on Microsoft?" After yesterday's FCC vote's to open a formal "Net Neutrality" rule-making, we must ask whether the high-tech industry -- or consumers -- will benefit from inviting government regulation of the Internet under the mantra of "neutrality." more
Finland's national broadband strategy (NBS) was set up in 2004 by the Ministry of Transport and Communications with the practical goal of increasing the number of broadband connections. The strategy, part guided by the EU's i2010 'Broadband for all by 2010' plan which focuses on rolling out broadband through a range of measures while promoting competition in and between networks, included an implementation program of 50 separate measures. Broadband access in sparsely populated and rural areas was to be supported by structural funds from the EU and central government. more
The global telecoms industry numbers remain impressive: By 2020 there will be 6 billion mobile subscribers -- of which, according to Nokia, 95% will have access to wireless broadband by 2015, and by 2020, there will also be 3 billion fixed broadband subscribers. However the relevance of these numbers will decline. By 2020 there will be 50 billion fixed and mobile connections. more
During the ITU Conference I had the honour of a private meeting with Dr Hamadoun Touré, Secretary-General of the ITU since 2006... Dr Touré has a fascinating background. Born in Mali and educated in Russia, he has brought with him a distinctly fresh approach to the ITU. He has been Africa's Regional General Manager for ICO Global Communications and worked at various levels at the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization (INTELSAT). more
I have found a disturbing lack of context in respect of some reports examining the state of Canada's telecommunications industry, especially those that have cited various OECD studies released over the past few months. It has become increasingly clear that the OECD's analysis is flawed. The failure by so many to analyse the data appears to confirm what President Barack Obama said recently in a newspaper interview... more
Very little was said about telecommunications during the official speeches and forums at ITU Telecom World 2009. The industry is even talking about changing its focus from telecommunications to ICT [United Nations Information and Communication Technologies Task Force], Discussions are now focusing on how ICT can be used to underpin the various socio-economic developments that are taking place. more
The surest way to screw up future innovative applications would be for ISPs to make constraining assumptions about the future based on existing applications' performance. Discussing P2P behavior as if it were some monolithic, unchanging entity is simply wrong. What is P2P? BitTorrent? Skype? CNN live video feed fan-outs? And what of changes to these existing apps? What of future apps? more
In 2007, Johna Till Johnson, president of Nemertes Research, published a paper that hyped a so-called "Exaflood" - a kooky Discovery Institute idea about how the Internet would drown in its own data. The Nemertes press release on the paper was widely reported in newspapers. It described itself as a "... landmark study ... groundbreaking analysis ... evidence the exaflood is coming... It said: "The findings indicate that by 2010 ... users could increasingly encounter Internet "brownouts" or interruptions to the applications they've become accustomed to using on the internet." more
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