Our world finds itself at a critical juncture. Both trillions of dollars and the future of human communications including fundamental access to it are at stake. For telecom operators and media outlets there is not a migratory way from where we are to the future. There is a clear consumer shift underway that runs in the opposite direction to that of telecom and media incumbents; emergent social practice is increasingly clashing with the very structure and desires of incumbent players... It was for these reasons that one of the six keynote speakers invited to Spring 2009 Emerging Communications Conference (eComm) in San Francisco was Richard Whitt, Google's Washington Telecom and Media Counsel. His keynote was entitled, Tinkering without Tampering: Wrestling with Convergence and Communications Policy... more
The UK's communications watchdog, Ofcom, has proposed referring Microsoft and Amazon to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) for further investigation into their dominance of the cloud computing market. more
Today's official launch of Gig.U, a consortium of universities to facilitate next-generation community broadband opportunities, has tremendous potential. John Markoff has a story about the launch in today's New York Times. Here's why I'm hopeful for this project. more
Susan Crawford, special assistant to the president for science, technology and innovation policy and a member of the National Economic Council, is reported to be favorably inclined towards a U.S. network much like Australia's recently announced $33B broadband plan. Of course, the U.S. is some 15 times bigger than Australia, and that'd make the price tag closer to $500B by straight multiplication. But the U.S. would get a fiber network done right... more
This essay is the second of a three-part series, written by Anonymous, and published by the Publius Project of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. It focuses on the steps of a possible roadmap for centralizing Internet governance under the United Nations. more
About a year ago after coming back from Estonia, I promised I'd send in an account of the Estonian "war". A few months ago I wrote an article for the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, covering the story of what happened there. This is the "war" that made politicians aware of cyber security and entire countries scared, NATO to "respond" and the US to send in "help". It deserved a better understanding for that alone, whatever actually happened there. more
This article addresses the issues around the planned sale of the PIR .org registry by ISOC. It examines the history and issues plus looks at several possible paths forward, including PIR becoming a Benefit Corporation (B-Corp) and identifying possible alternative buyers who could retain PIR's non-profit status. Before Tim Bernier-Lee brought the HTML markup language to the Internet, starting in 1989, there were few registered domain names. Access for public registration started in 1986, and by December, there were about five dozen registered .com domain names. more
Like many of you, I am keenly following the Comcast-Level 3 dispute and am trying to make sense of it all. The dispute confirms several universal principles about Internet traffic routing that have passed the test of time. ... Consumers pay Internet Service Providers ("ISPs") a monthly subscription with the expectation that the fee covers access to available content, i.e., the conduit. As the World Wide Web evolves and content options diversify to include full motion video, consumers simply expect their ISPs to make sure the download distribution pipes are sufficiently robust to handle high bandwidth requirements and commensurately large monthly download volume. more
It seems like most new technology today comes with a lot of hype. Just a few years ago, the press was full of predictions that we'd be awash with Internet of Thing sensors that would transform the way we live. We've heard similar claims for technologies like virtual reality, blockchain, and self-driving cars. I've written a lot about the massive hype surrounding 5G -- in my way of measuring things, there isn't any 5G in the world yet, but the cellular carriers are loudly proclaiming its everywhere. more
Europe's governments are increasingly acting on the popular belief that the Internet should be a basic right, and that citizens not disposed to using IP-based services should nevertheless have access to its infrastructure. As such, governments either have already introduced legislation to this effect or are in the process of doing so. First off the block was Switzerland: from January 2008 Swisscom's 10-year renewed USO (universal service obligation) has included the provision of broadband at a regulated price. more
Hawaii Telcom, the incumbent local exchange telephone company, has filed for bankruptcy protection. Press accounts attribute this outcome to increased competition, the company's struggle to finance capital spending while making debt payments, a significant downturn in the economy, as well as the difficulties in the transition following the leveraged buyout of the company from Verizon Communications Inc. I have a few other bogus and credible explanations that may offer greater insights. more
Ok, so I had a day in Wellington that was not busy with other things so I thought I'd wander over to the ICANN venue and sit in on the PUBLIC Forum... I saw friends on the walk over and we entered the venue, chatting about several different things. They pulled out their badges. I didn't have one. They were admitted, I was denied entrance... more
Data analytics isn't just for large organizations anymore. As businesses and community collectives increasingly move their operations into digital spaces, the vast amounts of data being collected pose an opportunity for them to get to know their stakeholders better. While the security implications of this migration are hard to be taken lightly, the potential for game-changing insights is likewise enormous. more
Cachivache Media recently reported that the Bitly URL-trimming service had stopped working in Cuba. Cubans had been using the service for several years, so this resulted in many broken links. Cachivache did not know what had happened, but published a traceroute that timed out at an Akamai router. I contacted Akamai, and they said they could not say anything -- they would only talk with their customers -- Bitly in this case. So I contacted Bitly and had an email exchange with one of their support people. more
Several developments are coming together in cloud computing that are creating shockwaves throughout society and in the economy. Over the last five years we have seen the debate about cloud computing hotting up. There was the hype around the new development at the same time as warnings regarding security and privacy, and for a while the market seemed subdued about the new development. However the economic reality of cloud computing meant that enterprises and government bureaucracies had little choice but to move ahead with cloud computing... more
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