New analysis from Frost & Sullivan research firm suggests that the IPTV subscriber base in Asia-Pacific -- covering 13 countries -- reached 4.1 million in 2007 and estimates this number to reach 22.4 million by the end of 2013, at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 32.7 percent (2007-2013). Of the 13 countries, eight had commercial IPTV services in 2007, while the rest are conducting trials for expected deployments from 2009 onwards, according to the report. "Many service providers feel the urge to launch IPTV services as a defensive strategy to increase their 'n-play' offerings with one more service." more
I read an article on the Finley Engineering blog that talks about new research with free-space optics. For those not familiar with the term, this means communication gear that communicates directly using light without any wires. The article talks about a Chinese team of scientists who have used light to transmit ultrahigh-definition video signals between high-rise buildings. more
Cryptocurrencies (such as Bitcoin) are all the rage -- so, naturally, related domain name disputes are, too. The wild fluctuations in cryptocurrency prices (Bitcoin hit a low of close to $6,000 this week, after reaching an all-time high of more than $19,000 only two months ago, and less than $1,000 a year ago) have attracted speculators, regulators and now even cybersquatters. more
The more I follow the .WINE & .VIN opera, the more I start to believe that the idea is either to kill both new gTLD applications to free space in Round 2 of the ICANN new gTLD program or make this subject a political tool "only" to increase Europe's presence in ICANN decisions. If there still is a wish from the European Commission to help .WINE and .VIN to become the strongest identity European wines could ever have on Internet, I would like to understand why the situation is still blocked... more
Someone was talking the other day about the ITU and what they think about the issue of Internet Governance. I know what the ITU Secretariat wrote in a paper some years ago (Bulgaria was one of the governments heavily criticizing the errors and flaws in the ITU paper), but also decided it might be interesting to show how this question has evolved in the words of the ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Toure, by finding out how his positions on that issue, and on the role of the ITU have changed through the years. more
Last year I wrote a post right after Thanksgiving entitled: "While You Were Eating You're Turkey Homeland Security Was Seizing 9 Domains". Well I could have repeated the headline today except the number would be 131 domains rather than just 9. Looks like Homeland Security is going to make domain seizures on Thanksgiving as common in the US as Turkey and Stuffing. more
With DNS abuse a topic of increased concern throughout the community, any controversy over adopting the Uniform Rapid Suspension System (URS) for all generic top-level domains (gTLDs) seems misplaced. The URS was designed as a narrow supplement to the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), applicable only in certain tightly defined circumstances of clear-cut and incontrovertible trademark infringement involving the registration and use of a domain name. more
The UN Panel on Digital Cooperation presented last week in New York its final report, and an old question is back on the international agenda: Could the global Internet be ordered by a reasonable arrangement among stakeholders which would maximize the digital opportunities and minimize the cyber risks by keeping the network free, open and safe? more
Please pardon me if I start this story by telling about an incident that happened to me at the Madrid airport while flying to the ICANN meetings in Rio.
It was about midnight when, after flying in from Turin, my hometown, I had to go through the passport control to reach my gate for the flight to Rio. The war between the US/UK and Iraq had started two days before, and even if the Spanish government was among its supporters, security checks were apparently proceeding as usual. Passport controls inside the EU for EU citizens usually take a few seconds, and the line ahead of me was proceeding quickly. more
Last time the ICANN faithful gathered in Sydney, there was a fair bit of unrest and some big unknowns. The Implementation Recommendation Taskforce (IRT) report on how Intellectual Property (IP) could be protected in the era of new Top-Level Domains (TLDs) stirred the pot as did, to a lesser extent, the issue of Registry-Registrar separation in new TLDs. Additionally, everyone had big questions on their minds - when the root would be signed (and DNSSEC fully implemented)... Four months later and five thousand miles almost due north, the netizens gathering at ICANN 36 in Seoul know the answers to some of those very important questions. more
Chinese technology policy is now more effective even than their naval posture in the South China Sea, and both are playing out in full sunshine. This success is not about the hardware pillar of Chinese tech policy, though: its focus is the structural approach China and, increasingly, other stakeholders are taking to global Internet Governance... Late in the Year of the Pig just gone, China's offer of a New Internet Protocol was chewed over in senior-level advisory groups of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)... more
On 21 August 2023, ICANN org. made its position in relation to the current state of the UN's Global Digital Compact (GDC) clear in a blog post by Sally Costerton (ICANN CEO), John Curran (ARIN), and Paul Wilson (APNIC), entitled "The Global Digital Compact: A Top-down Attempt to Minimize the Role of The Technical Community." The publication strongly criticizes the GDC's attempt at folding the technical community into the civil society umbrella under a "tripartite" approach also involving the private sector and governments, as proposed by the Secretary-General's Envoy on Technology, Amandeep Gill. more
At the IETF 95 meeting at the start of April, I was in a meeting of the IPv4 Sunset Working Group, and heard Lee Howard, Director of Network Technology at Time Warner Cable, present on a proposal that recommended that IP version 4, or to be specific, that the technical protocol specification documented in RFC 791, be declared "Historic"... The rationale for this proposed re-designation of IPv4 was that this protocol has indeed been superseded by a more recent specification, namely IP version 6. more
We'll only be able to tell whether domain names are recession proof by waiting for the performance of e-commerce sites during the holiday shopping season. Domain name owners and buyers have to remain in suspense a while longer. Some domainers are experiencing drops in sales and prices. However, it is not clear whether those drops are because of changes in valuations by buyers, sellers, or both. more
Working in the anti-spam and online malware fight can be depressing or at best invoke multiple personality disorder. We all know things are bad on the net, but if you want a dose of stark reality, check out Brian Kreb's fantastic 'Security Fix' blog on the Washington Post site... Speaking to an old friend who asked me what I was doing these days, I recently likened the fight against this relentless onslaught to having one's pinky in a dyke, and there are days when I don't even think we have a dyke! more
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