Court Approves Nortel’s Sale of IPv4 Addresses to Microsoft

Yesterday morning (26-April-2011), in US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, Judge Kevin Gross signed an order authorizing Nortel's sale of IPv4 addresses to Microsoft. This is an important moment for the Internet community, as it represents the beginning of a new market-based mechanism for the distribution of scarce IPv4 address resources. As the various Regional Internet Registry (RIR) organizations exhaust their supply, traditional "needs-based" distribution will become impossible. more

ICANN, WSIS and the Making of a Global Civil Society - Part III

For a book project I decided to extend my interview with Milton Mueller from November 2003 (Part I | Part II). Exclusively for CircleID readers, here's part III that deals with WSIS, WGIG, US-American bias and the Internet Governance Project. "...One good result of the WGIG process is that the involved international community has already moved beyond those cliches. No one is proposing that the UN control the Internet. There is growing consensus that control of the DNS root needs to be internationalized..." more

Squirrels Are the Number One Culprit for Animal Damage to Aerial Fiber

These cute rodents are the number one culprit for animal damage to aerial fiber. To a lesser degree, fiber owners report similar damage by rats and mice. Squirrels mainly chew on cables as a way to sharpen their teeth. Squirrel teeth grow up to 8 inches per year and if squirrels aren't wearing their teeth down from their diet, they look for other things to chew. more

The Beginning of the End of the Internet?

Discrimination, Closed Networks and the Future of Cyberspace... Just over a month ago, Karl Auerbach asked, "Is the Internet Dying?". Today, Commissioner Michael J. Copps, of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in a speech at the New America Foundation, is asking the very same question, "Is The Internet As We Know It Dying?" and warning about FCC policies that damaged media now threatening the Internet. more

Digging Into IPv6 Traffic to Google: Is 28% Deployment Really the Limit?

After some years of accelerating IPv6 deployment, we are now into a period of slower growth and it's not clear where we are heading. It is therefore interesting to try to predict the future of IPv6 over the coming years. At Ericsson Research, we have been working on this topic since 2013, but just recently created a forecast model that seems to be quite accurate. However, it gives a disappointing message of a very low final level of IPv6 deployment at less than 30%! more

What Became of the ARCOS Undersea Cable Connection to Cuba?

Cuba's primary connection to the global Internet is through the ALBA-1 undersea cable linking landing points on the south-east shore of the island to Venezuela and Jamaica; however, the bulk of Cuban traffic originates in Havana which is on the north-west coast. Traffic from Havana and other cities in the west travels over a backbone to reach the cable landing points. A landing point near Havana would reduce the load on the backbone... more

The BIG Impact: How Cloud Computing is Changing the Face of Small Business

While 86 percent of small businesses see the importance of the cloud, 70 percent aren't using cloud solutions. This data, from a Microsoft report for National Small Business Week and reported by Talkin' Cloud, yields a sobering conclusion: Small businesses understand the broad value of cloud computing, but aren't sure how to apply the technology on a case-by-case basis. more

Securing a Domain: SSL vs. DNSSEC

There has been quite a bit of talk lately about the best way to secure a domain, mainly centered in two camps: using Secure Socket Layer (SSL), or using DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC). The answer is quite simple -- you should use both. The reason for this is that they solve different problems, using different methods, and operate over different data. more

DPI is Not a Four-Letter Word!

As founder and CTO of Ellacoya Networks, a pioneer in Deep Packet Inspection (DPI), and now having spent the last year at Arbor Networks, a pioneer in network-based security, I have witnessed first hand the evolution of DPI. It has evolved from a niche traffic management technology to an integrated service delivery platform. Once relegated to the dark corners of the central office, DPI has become the network element that enables subscriber opt-in for new services, transparency of traffic usage and quotas, fairness during peak busy hours and protection from denial of service attacks, all the while protecting and maintaining the privacy of broadband users. Yet, DPI still gets a bad rap... more

The XXX Train Wreck in Vancouver

It is now clear that by sending its letter of August 12 blocking approval of the .XXX domain, the US Government has done more to undermine ICANN's status as a non-governmental, multi-stakeholder policy body than any of its Internet governance "enemies" in the ITU, China, Brazil, or Iran. And despite all the calls for a government role that would ensure "rule of law" and "accountability" of ICANN, the interventions of governments are making this aspect of Internet governance more arbitrary and less accountable. more

ICANN is Broken

The ICANN Board's recent resolution to suspend an accountability safeguard hardcoded in its bylaws may represent the final straw that breaks the community's trust in ICANN. Most community members, including its own Board Chair, acknowledge that its current policy development and implementation processes are not working efficiently. However, the Board's decision to suspend the mechanism that could address these inefficiencies only seeks to preserve the status quo and the economic interests of these dominant market participants.  more

700 MHz Auction Winners: Why Block C Matters

Today the FCC announced the winners of the 700 MHz auction -- and you can see from pp. 62-63 of this document that Verizon won Block C. (Block C was set up in two nationwide paired blocks of 11 MHz each, which were auctioned off in very large geographic areas -- 12 licenses, each covering a "Regional Economic Area Grouping". Verizon won seven of the twelve licenses, covering all of the US except Alaska, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands.) Why does this matter? more

ICANN Should Curb Anonymous Domain Name Abuses

E-commerce has revolutionized how businesses sell to consumers -- including those involved in illicit activities, such as websites peddling illegal narcotics, pirated movies and music, or counterfeit handbags. For example, 96 percent of Internet pharmacies do not comply with U.S. laws, and as they ship pills tainted with paint thinner, arsenic, and rat poison, they put the health and safety of consumers at risk. Why don't law enforcement officials do more to combat this problem? Partly because of the difficulty of identifying who is actually operating the illegal pharmacies. It is time to fix this, while allowing anonymity for those who deserve it. more

The Standards Paywalls Fall: Everyone Benefits

Yesterday -- in a unanimous decision of the US Federal Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit (CADC) in ASTM v. Public.Resource.Org --- some of the worst standards paywalls came tumbling down. The court definitively determined that where governmental authorities incorporate private organisation technical standards into law by reference, non-commercial dissemination of those standards "constitutes fair use and cannot support liability for copyright infringement." more

To Meow or not to Meow: .CAT TLD approved by ICANN

The Sponsored TLD .CAT got the green light to move ahead from ICANN this week, another of the sTLD proposals in the second round of submissions to gain momentum toward being added to the root. When I shared the news today with folks, the most common response was a tongue in cheek response, 'Where is .DOG?'. ...Still, comedy aside, this is not a TLD for animal species, but rather for a language. more