New Data Suggests Americans Abandoning Wired Internet Access

According to the latest computer and Internet use data released by NTIA, Americans as a whole are becoming less likely to have residential broadband. NTIA's Chief Economist, Giulia McHenry, in blogs post today wrote: "Americans’ rapid move toward mobile Internet service appears to be coming at the expense of home broadband connections." more

Landing Sites, Internet’s Achilles Heel of the Internet?

For a student final dissertation TV documentary short, 10 minutes, I have ended up choosing to investigate whether the landing stations for trans-atlantic cables are the achilles heel of the internet. As an outsider to the world of internet infrastructure I have been struck by how easy it has been to identify the landing stations in Cornwall and the cables that enter them. (Thank you Google for the aerial photographs) more

Net Neutrality Advocates: Wireless Carriers’ Network Management Must Be ‘Reasonable’

Emboldened by their summertime victory against Comcast, advocates of network neutrality said Thursday that the next front in battle for the principle would be against wireless carriers who make "unreasonable" network management decisions. In a panel discussion on managing wireless networks at the Wireless Communications Association conference here, Free Press Policy Director, Ben Scott and Google Telecom Counsel, Richard Whitt said that the FCC's Net neutrality principles would bar discrimination over wireless networks -- while conceding that the networks are, for the time being, more bandwidth-constrained than wired-based network. more

M3AAWG, London Action Plan Release Best Practices to Address Online and Mobile Threats

A cooperative international report was released last week outlining Internet and mobile best practices aimed at curtailing malware, phishing, spyware, bots and other Internet threats. It also provides extensive review of current and emerging threats. "Best Practices to Address Online and Mobile Threats" is a comprehensive assessment of Internet security as it stands today... more

DNS, Content Providers Including Google and Neustar Propose Extending DNS Protocol

A proposal to extend the DNS protocol has been submitted by Google and other DNS and content providers such as Neustar/UltraDNS. Wilmer van der Gaast and Carlo Contavalli on behalf of the Google Public DNS team said: "Our proposed DNS protocol extension lets recursive DNS resolvers include part of your IP address in the request sent to authoritative nameservers. Only the first three octets, or top 24 bits, are sent providing enough information to the authoritative nameserver to determine your network location, without affecting your privacy." The proposal aims to ultimately help send users to nearby servers in order to improves speed, latency, and network utilization. more

Likely Timeline to New gTLD Delegation With Batching

Today, the team at ARI Registry Services decided to tread where no-one has tread before and map out the likely timeline to new gTLD delegation with batching. The exercise took some time, given that the information provided in the Applicant Guidebook is limited and there hasn't been any specific public data made available. However, we have presented what we believe to be the likely scenario should ICANN proceed under the current batching model, assuming a first batch of 500 applications. more

New gTLD Retrospective at ICANN 50

On Wednesday June 25th from 10-12am in the Sovereign Room applicants and key community members will debate what worked, what didn't and what's next for new gTLDs. The event has been organized by the RySG & NTAG as the first community led dialogue on the 2012 new gTLD round since 'reveal day' two years ago. Rather than have panelists deliver presentations, the session will be an open dialogue both between panel members and the audience. It is split into two fifty minute discussion sessions. more

The Price of Lack of Clarity

As anyone reading this blog, assuredly knows, the world is in the grip of a deadly pandemic. One way to contain it is contact-tracing: finding those who have been near infected people and getting them to self-quarantine. Some experts think that because of how rapidly newly infected individuals themselves become contagious, we need some sort of automated scheme. That is, traditional contact tracing is labor-intensive and time-consuming - a time we don't have. more

China Proposes Cyberspace IDs to Simplify Online Identity Verification

The Chinese government is considering a new system allowing citizens to use cyberspace IDs instead of providing personal information to internet service providers. more

iBreakfast New gTLD Conference in NYC Wed Aug 3rd

Joly MacFie writes to report: "iBreakfast is presenting About the 'Domain' Conference: The Era of New TLDs, this Wednesday Aug 3 2011 at Herrick, Feinstein LLC in NYC. Wendy Seltzer, Esther Dyson, and Annalisa Roger, representatives of dotgay, .berlin, .xxx, plus major registries are among the participants who will discuss how the Internet will be impacted by the coming new TLD rollout." more

NTIA to Allow IANA Functions Contract to Expire October 1

On Friday, ICANN informed NTIA that it has completed or will complete all the necessary tasks called for in the transition proposal by the end of the contract term. more

Apple CEO Tim Cook Calls for New Privacy Law, Suggests Data Broker Clearinghouse

Apple's chief executive officer Tim Cook has called for the US Congress to introduce a national privacy law, attacking a "shadow economy" where personal data is bought and sold without their knowledge. more

Genachowski: FCC Will Enforce Net Neutrality and Watch Any Violations of Principles

US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski today reaffirmed his commitment to network neutrality and said that the FCC will go after anyone who violates its tenets. "One thing I would say so that there is no confusion out there is that this FCC will support net neutrality and will enforce any violation of net neutrality principles," said Genachowski told The Hill newspaper when asked what he could do in his position to keep the Internet fair, free and open to all Americans. more

M-Government Requires Mobile ID

More and more governments are now looking at electronic ways to deliver services to their citizens. With the enormous growth in mobile penetration this infrastructure is now becoming a viable alternative in the delivery of services. But personal authentication is required to make this happen. This is recognised throughout the industry for a range of services and the GSMA has launched a project 'Mobile Contact' aimed at developing a standardised mobile ID. more

Mobile Internet Usage at 8.5%, Doubled From Last Year

Global internet usage through mobile devices, has almost doubled to 8.5% in January 2012 from 4.3% last year according to a new report from web analytics StatCounter. While this stat excludes tablets, firm's research arm highlights the increasing use of mobile devices to access the internet with market share doubling year on year since 2009. Nokia leads worldwide, most probably driven by its dominance in India. Apple is second globally but leads the US and UK markets. In the UK RIM is second only to Apple. more