Starlink Beta vs. Fiber

Last year we had terrible DSL from Consolidated Communications and much better, although not always consistent, service from wireless ISP GlobalNet. I signed up for fiber service from Stowe Cable for installation this year and also was accepted early as a Beta tester for Starlink. Now we have both Starlink and fiber and can compare the two. I was very happy to cancel my Consolidated service but felt bad about canceling GlobalNet, which was essential to me for many years. Most of the time, there are only two of us in the house. more

COVID Domain Registrations Surged in March

The Internet and the domain name system (DNS) have become the mainstay of the new COVID sheltered world. Afilias looked at registrations in the unrestricted domain name space, with a special focus on the popular .INFO, .PRO, .MOBI and .IO domain name extensions. The data shows that the number of website and domain registrations related to COVID and Coronavirus in these extensions is flattening after a surge in March. more

How Aruba is Using Racing Sponsorship to Make Itself a Premium Brand

Sitting in the Aruba hospitality at the Italian round of the Superbike World Championship in Imola, CEO Stefano Cecconi exudes passion. The love he has for motorcycles in general, and racing in particular, is evident. Less so is the rational behind Aruba's multi-million-euro-a-year spend to be the title sponsor for the factory Ducati World Superbike team. For Internet industry onlookers at least. more

Internet Infrastructure: Stability at the Core, Innovation at the Edge (Part 2 of 5)

For nearly all communications on today's Internet, domain names play a crucial role in providing stable navigation anchors for accessing information in a predictable and safe manner, irrespective of where you're located or the type of device or network connection you're using. Over the past 15 years hundreds of millions of domain names have been added to the Internet's Domain Name System (DNS), and well over two billion (that's Billion!) new users, some ~34 percent of the global population, have become connected. more

French NIC Warns Against Slamming

Everyone knows there are many frauds linked to the growth of domain names. According to AFNIC (the French NIC), there has been a significant increase in the number of cases of slamming since the beginning of this year. ...To fight against these practices, AFNIC issued a guide where it describes different categories of slamming... more

Internet Religious Wars: Net Neutrality Episode

Turning network technical protocols into religion seems like an inherently bad idea -- transient and unstable at best. However, it happens. More than 40 years ago, the world of legacy telecommunications and network design formalism started the tendency with OSI (Open Systems Interconnection) and ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Networks). A few years later, the academic research community did it with their myriad host-to-host datagram protocols -- eventually calling one "the Internet." more

ICANN’s Noah: Chehade’s 40-Day Report Card

Forty days. That's how long Fadi Chehade has had to get a handle on the most complex, diverse and important non-profit corporation the world has ever known. The last guy to face such an unforgiving timeline was measuring timber in cubits. So if Cheade is Noah, I guess that makes ICANN Chairman Steve Crocker God, telling Fadi to wrangle all these diverse (and often diverging) constituencies and march them two-by-two into the boat, ahead of the coming storm. more

The Question of Fairness in UDRP Decision-Making

In disputes under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), parties should be able to rely on Panels delivering predictable, consistent, and legally reasoned decisions. In large measure, this depends on Panels analyzing the facts objectively through a neutral lens and applying principles of law consistent with the jurisprudence. However, the results are not always seen by the losing party as having achieved a fair result. more

USC: Solving the Digital Divide?

Like many in the UK communications industry my colleagues and I at Entanet have been eagerly awaiting the Digital Britain report. Darren Farnden, Entanet's Head of Marketing, has posted an interesting assessment of key parts of the report at opinion.enta.net. Given the content of Darren's article I thought it would be useful to post it in full here for CircleID readers... more

Ambient Connectivity: An Introduction

"Ambient Connectivity" is the ability to assume connectivity anywhere and anytime. Ambient Connectivity is the future of the Internet once we've removed the barriers we associate with today's telecom and extend the reach beyond the narrow confines of "broadband". The nuanced definition of Ambient Connectivity is that we can view connectivity as infrastructure but we need to take responsibility if we find ourselves disconnected. more

Top 3 New Requirements to the TLD Evaluation Criteria and What They Mean for Applicants

Three sections of the redlined version of the Draft Evaluation Criteria for new Top-Level Domains (TLDs) caught my attention. It seems ICANN wants to ensure it has information to not only evaluate and score responses, but to conduct a post-launch analysis of the program's success in terms of expanded competition, consumer choice and trust. That additional information means more work by both the applicant and for ICANN. But it's a good move because pre-launch preparation and thought staves off mishaps and misfortunes later. more

Mitigating the Increasing Risks of an Insecure Internet of Things

The emergence and proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices on industrial, enterprise, and home networks brings with it unprecedented risk. The potential magnitude of this risk was made concrete in October 2016, when insecure Internet-connected cameras launched a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on Dyn, a provider of DNS service for many large online service providers (e.g., Twitter, Reddit). Although this incident caused large-scale disruption, it is noteworthy that the attack involved only a few hundred thousand endpoints... more

Packet Loss: How the Internet Enforces Speed Limits

There's been a lot of controversy over the FCC's new Network Neutrality rules. Apart from the really big issues -- should there be such rules at all? Is reclassification the right way to accomplish it? -- one particular point has caught the eye of network engineers everywhere: the statement that packet loss should be published as a performance metric, with the consequent implication that ISPs should strive to achieve as low a value as possible. more

The Report on “Securing Cyberspace for the 44th Presidency”

A report "Securing Cyberspace for the 44th Presidency" has just been released. While I don't agree with everything it says (and in fact I strongly disagree with some parts of it), I regard it as required reading for anyone interested in cybersecurity and public policy. The analysis of the threat environment is, in my opinion, superb; I don't think I've seen it explicated better. Briefly, the US is facing threats at all levels, from individual cybercriminals to actions perpetrated by nation-states. The report pulls no punches... more

The Addressing System for the Next (Wireless) Internet

I gave a talk yesterday at Northwestern called A DNS in the Air. My idea is that, in order to scale, the emerging wireless Internet needs something analogous to the domain name system (DNS) -- the infrastructure that allows you to reach sites across the Net. Billions of mobile phones, and even more billions of connected sensors and other wireless devices will completely overwhelm our current spectrum management regime. AT&T Wireless estimates we will need between 250 and 600 TIMES the current wireless capacity in 2018, less than a decade from now. more