The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has granted T-Mobile and SpaceX approval to extend mobile coverage to remote areas using satellite technology. This marks the first authorization of its kind, allowing collaboration between a wireless carrier and a satellite operator to utilize spectrum bands traditionally reserved for terrestrial services. more
US Federal Communications Commission is proposing privacy rules that wireless companies claim could hurt their ability to compete with the likes of Facebook and Google. more
In the USA the FCC has started the discussion on the next level of telecoms in the wireless market, aimed at making spectrum in bands above 24GHz available for flexible-use of wireless services, including next-generation, or 5G networks and technologies. New technologies such as massive-MIMO are going to make it possible to deliver 'fibre-like' speeds over short distance wireless networks operating in the 24+GHz bands. This will make the technology especially useful for high-speed broadband services in densely populated areas. more
In this part I want to focus on the gathering of cyber crime data. Are there best practices in the world on how cyber crime data is reported to law enforcement and aggregated to show the impact of said crime? Previously the discussion focused on the fact that cyber crime = crime and on a basic cyber (crime) training for every police officer. From the reactions this received, it is clear that some people see this as a possible solution. more
A web-based poll on the Mobile Broadband Genie site had participants 1160 who were asked: "Is your mobile broadband fast enough?" 133 yes; 740 no; 287 don't know. Perceptions of the term "mobile broadband" appear to far exceed what is being delivered. While operators have been competing to offer cross-subsidized laptop and netbook deals with higher usage caps and ever cheaper mobile Internet deals, they seem to have overlooked the quality of the service. more
Do consumers still get confused when they see a URL without a .com (or other traditional extension)? Probably -- but I don't think anyone really knows the answer to that from a global perspective. What I do know, however, is that it's important for those of us in the new TLD industry to help our brand customers ensure that we're providing audiences with the best possible chance to identify new domains as legitimate web addresses. more
All civil society organisations and other self-identified public interest representatives in the regime of Internet governance and related areas of information and communications policy are invited to complete a survey titled Public interest representation in the information society. This survey contributes towards the development of a map of Internet governance... more
We believe that certain updates in the latest draft that limit the scope of ICANN's Mission, as specified in paragraph 188, could explicitly prevent ICANN from actively enforcing its contracts with Registries and Registrars or use contracts as a tool to implement consensus policies in the future. We suggest in our comments that revised bylaw text be added explicitly stating that the enforcement and creation of ICANN's contracts with Registries and Registrars... more
In a potentially damaging cybersecurity revelation, researchers from the cybersecurity company Eclypsium have identified a hidden mechanism in the firmware of motherboards manufactured by Taiwanese company Gigabyte. more
Out in the wilderness of cyberspace is a boundary, marking the limits of Sec. 230 immunity. On the one side roams interactive services hosting third party content immune from liability for that third party content. On the other sides is the frontier, where interactive content hosts and creators meet, merge, and become one. Here host and author blend, collaborating to give rise to new creations. more
Two Sudanese nationals have been indicted for allegedly leading Anonymous Sudan, a cybercriminal group responsible for over 35,000 Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks targeting critical infrastructure worldwide. more
EURid and Leuven Statistics Research Centre have released the results of a study investigating websites under most popular top-level domains. more
Joly MacFie writes: Last October the NYC Department of Information Technology & Telecommunications (DoITT) issued a request for proposals for "services to obtain, manage, administer, maintain and market the geographic Top Domain name .nyc.". At ICANN's recent 37th meeting in Nairobi, consensus was reached on the "overarching" issue of intellectual property protection. This leaves only the issue of the final (4th) draft of the Applicants Guidebook, expected before the 38th meeting in Brussels in June 2010... more
The success of a proposal by AT&T and Verizon to end net neutrality does not threaten the Internet. The broadband customers of AT&T and Verizon will just no longer have access to the Internet. The development appropriately creates alarm among AT&T and Verizon's customers, but the combined customer bases of these companies represent less than 2% of the billion or so users of the Internet. The fact that access to the Internet requires net neutrality does not depend on laws passed by the US Congress or enforced by the FCC. Neutrality arises as a technical and business imperative facilitating the interconnection 250,000 independent networks that choose to participate in the Internet. more
The cloud cuts both ways; while the ability to spin up compute power on demand has empowered even small businesses to compete on a global scale, this same flexibility has led to a significant amount of "cloud sprawl." According to Tech Radar, 61 percent of companies surveyed said cloud sprawl - both from employees using unauthorized services and not fully utilizing approved resources - is responsible for business-wide inefficiencies. Bottom line? more