What Is the Business Case for 5G?

There is much hype around 5G, but none of it is new. We saw the same propaganda -- fueled by the manufacturers -- in the run-up to the launch of the 3G and 4G versions of the mobile technology. Driverless cars and a range of other IoT applications can indeed potentially open new revenue streams. The reality, however, is that these markets might not eventuate until somewhere between 2025 and 2030. more

Call for Participation - ICANN DNSSEC Workshop at ICANN62, Panama City

Would you like to share information about how you are using DNSSEC with the wider technical community? Do you have an idea for how to make DNSSEC or DANE work better? Or work with new applications? If so - and if you will be attending ICANN 62 in Panama City, Panama from 25-28 June 2018 - then please consider sending in a proposal to participate as a speaker in the ICANN 62 DNSSEC Workshop! more

Agriculture At High-Speed: Project Updates on Bridging California’s Rural/Urban Digital Divide

When farms are connected to the Internet, we all benefit. Agriculture that gains real-time information about plants, soil, atmosphere, and irrigation, dubbed "precision agriculture", can save farmers 20-30% of their water consumption while increasing productivity by 20-70%, according to Valley Vision. The San Francisco-Bay Area Internet Society Chapter is pleased to announce that we have started phase one of our collaborative project, "Bridging California's Rural/Urban Digital Divide with Mobile Broadband"... more

Email Getting a Makeover!

The New York Times recently posted an article about how email is getting a makeover and how the communication medium is being shunned by the younger crowd as they move more and more towards other platforms. If you like using email, that means you're an old fogey. When the Internet exploded in growth in 1995, email was a pretty cool commodity. Now, it's not that big a deal anymore, according to the New York Times. more

IPv4 Address Space Now Below 5%, Says NRO

The Number Resource Organization (NRO) announced today that less than five percent of the world's IPv4 addresses remain unallocated. APNIC, the Regional Internet Registry for the Asia Pacific region, has been assigned two blocks of IPv4 addresses by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). This latest allocation means that the IPv4 free pool dipped below 10% in January, just nine months ago. Since then, over 200 million IPv4 addresses have been allocated from IANA to the Regional Internet Registries (RIRs). more

The Resurgence of Voice

One of the most interesting outcomes of the COVID-19 crisis has been a huge resurgence of telephone calls. While broadband usage is up 40% or more in some markets, the volumes of traditional voice calls have skyrocketed. Verizon says it's now seeing an average of 800 million calls per day, which is double the number of calls made on the last Mother's Day. Verizon also says the average length of calls has increased by one-third over recent averages. more

When is a Typo Not a Typo?

I was reading about the Nieman Marcus lawsuit and on a phone call related to the "Working Group on Mechanisms to Protect Rights of Others", when suddenly it occurred to me that this whole rush to rid the world of typos could eventually head in a messy direction... How far can this go? Let me take you back to that phone call I was on where representatives of Yahoo indicated they would try to secure Flicker.XXX as a TYPO of Flickr.com (their made up brand name) during a potential new TLD sunrise period. How backward is that? A Typo that became a brand, trying to call the generic name a variant of their trademark! more

Brands and Domains Conference Recap

The best and most knowledgeable experts of dot Brand met in the Brands and Domains conference, on October 2 and 3 in the Hague, Netherlands. Brand and project owners were also present, coming from all around the world -- from Australia or Japan to the USA and Canada. The keynote by Georges-Edouard Dias, CEO of Quantstreams and founder of the concept of brand hospitality, explained how customers are not anymore the targets of brands. more

DNS Attack Takes Down Internet in Five Northern and Coastal Provinces of China

According to Shanghai Daily, there has been an "organized Internet attack on Tuesday night which caused serious congestion in several provinces [in China] and left millions of users unable to gain access to the Internet." This is the first time the regulator has published news about an investigation into an online attack in China within 24 hours, says Shanghai Daily. ..."It was an attack on DNS (Domain Name System) and the carriers and related firms should do more back-up to avoid similar incidents," the ministry said in a statement. more

PRISM, Multistakeholderism Cancer Scare, Montevideo Declaration, Brazil Summit: Where’s ICANN Going?

Many who attended the ICANN Durban meeting this summer will recall the open forum were speakers lined up to call on ICANN to either speed up or slow down the new gTLDs depending on their position or interest. I chose to address a different topic that no one was yet willing to tackle publicly. It was PRISM and the NSA surveillance scandals. In my intervention I was also the first to also publicly warn ICANN and Fadi Chehade directly that "Trust" in ICANN and Multistakeholderism face serious perils from the Snowden revelations... more

Internet Governance in 2026: Sovereignty, Security, and the Limits of Multistakeholderism

As Internet governance fragments in 2026, authority shifts from open, multistakeholder forums to state-led security regimes, legal instruments, and alliance-based cooperation, challenging longstanding institutions and reshaping global norms through enforcement rather than consensus. more

Measuring the Pulse of Our Networked Society

Ericsson has released its latest Mobility Report, providing a wealth of analysis and insights into current communications traffic and market trends. As one of the leading mobile infrastructure providers, Ericsson has performed in-depth data traffic measurements since the earliest days of mobile broadband, leveraging its large base of live networks in all regions of the world. more

Microsoft and Financial Services Groups Disrupt Zeus Botnet Servers

Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit - in collaboration with Financial Services - Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC) and NACHA - The Electronic Payments Association, as well as Kyrus Tech Inc. - has executed a coordinated global action against some of the worst known cybercrime operations fueling online fraud and identity theft, said Microsoft in an announcement today. "With this legal and technical action, a number of the most harmful botnets using the Zeus family of malware worldwide have been disrupted in an unprecedented, proactive cross-industry operation against this cybercriminal organization." more

The Technical Problems of the UN’s Internet Governance Forum Will Not Simply Solve Themselves

The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) has, for several years, experienced technical problems that have nothing to do with the local staff or host countries of the event. In fact, the volunteers who were part of the local staff of its 17th edition, held in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, were constantly overcompensating for issues with a great deal of goodwill.  more

DNSSEC Workshop Streaming Live From ICANN 51 On Wednesday, Oct 15

Want to learn about the state of DNSSEC usage in North America? Or what is new in DNS monitoring? Or where DNSSEC fits into the plans of operating systems? Or how DANE is being used to bring a higher level of security to email? All those questions and much more will be discussed at the DNSSEC Workshop at ICANN 51 happening on Wednesday, October 15, 2014, from 8:30 am to 2:45 pm Pacific Daylight Time (PDT, which is UTC-7). more