U.S. Cable Industry Says to FCC That Consumers Don’t Need 25 Mbps Speed

Apparently, we consumers in the USA don't need to have broadband speeds of 25 Mbps or higher. And we certainly don't need upload speeds greater than 3 Mbps! At least, that's according to comments filed to the US Federal Communications Committee (FCC) by the National Cable & Telecommunications Assocation (NCTA) in response to the FCC's proposal to raise the definition of "broadband" from 4 Mbps downstream and 1 Mbps upstream to 25 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up. more

Navigating the “Pentest” World

The demand for penetration testing and security assessment services worldwide has been growing year-on-year. Driven largely by Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) concerns, plus an evolving pressure to be observed taking information security and customer privacy seriously, most CIO/CSO/CISO's can expect to conduct regular "pentests" as a means of validating their organizations or product's security. more

Why the Pandemic Makes Domain Names More Valuable Than Ever

In the United States, at least 25,000 brick and mortar businesses will close in 2020 due to the Coronavirus (source: Coresight). I believe this will only be the tip of the iceberg. The businesses that fight to stay alive will become 100% dependent on the Internet to generate their revenue. No longer able to rely on foot traffic to their old brick and mortars, the popularity and brand-ability of their websites will solely dictate their ability to survive in the coming years. more

CADNA Returns to Lobby for Stronger Cybersquatting Laws

Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse, the lobby group that campaigned for stronger cybersquatting laws and against new gTLDs, is back. more

Achieving a Cyber-Reliant Infrastructure

Don't worry about the bad guys turning out the lights. Worry about everything they're stealing while the lights are still on. The theft of intellectual property ranging from Hollywood films to defense secrets is underway by cyber-criminals of various stripes. Maintaining control over intellectual property may be the single most important challenge to American economic security. Implementing a cyber-reliant infrastructure is a national challenge which crosses the traditional boundaries between economic sectors and between public and private domains. more

How Does the Internet Industry Compare?

In an earlier CircleID post (The ISP Industry: Concentrated or Diverse?) we discussed if the ISP industry is concentrated and concluded the industry is amazingly open and varied. This time we try to identify criteria that make other economic sectors comparable to our own industry, using the global automotive manufacturing sector as an example to test our assumptions. Comparing the Internet industry with other industries is interesting, because it is quite special in a number of ways: it is transparent, keeps detailed records and values a high level of industry self-regulation. It also enables organisations to serve a global market. more

Putin’s Iron Firewall Is Porous

In 1946 Winston Churchill declared that Russia had lowered an iron curtain across Europe, and in 2022 Vladimir Putin created an iron firewall between the Russian Internet and media and the rest of the world, but, like its precursor, it is porous. Information wants to be free. more

Google to Let Users Block Sites Based on Domain Names

In pursuit of its efforts to improve Google search results, the company on Thursday announced the release of a new feature that enables users to block specific search results based on domain names. more

Apple’s Naked Self Interest

Any vendor in the platform business knows that their primary product is programming interfaces -- the so-called APIs that developers depend upon in order to deliver applications. The API exposes features of the platform, and differentiate applications running on that platform from all others. Lose control of the API, and you will lose control of the developer. Developers are the leading indicator for platform success. Ergo, lose the developer, lose the platform. more

Domain Registrar Hide and Seek

In the past year ICANN has been putting a lot more effort into its compliance activities, which is a good thing, since the previous level was, ah, exiguous. That's the good news. The bad news is that while they're paying more attention to misbehaving registrants, the registrars, gatekeepers to the world of domains, have serious issues that ICANN has yet to address. more

Debugging Legislation: PROTECT IP

There's more than a hint of theatrics in the draft PROTECT IP bill that has emerged as son-of-COICA, starting with the ungainly acronym of a name. Given its roots in the entertainment industry, that low drama comes as no surprise. Each section name is worse than the last: "Eliminating the Financial Incentive to Steal Intellectual Property Online" (Sec. 4) gives way to "Voluntary action for Taking Action Against Websites Stealing American Intellectual Property". more

Belize to Host Caribbean Peering and Interconnection Forum

Belize will host the fourth Caribbean Peering and Interconnection Forum, known as CarPIF, on June 13 and 14. Since its inception in 2015, CarPIF has brought together regional and international technology experts and telecommunications industry execs to discuss a range of topics related to Internet peering and interconnection trends, and their relevance to the Caribbean region. more

Update on AS Path Lengths Over Time - How Interconnected is the Internet?

With the number of ASes connected to the Internet constantly increasing, one could expect that the length of the AS paths would also increase as the network as a whole gets wider. However, this doesn't seem to be the case. Also, with IPv6 being more widely deployed, how does the interconnectedness of the IPv6 portion of the Internet compare to IPv4? more

Asia and Africa Top Mobile Web Usage

Highest share of mobile web usage isn't in the most developed nations, but rather in the developing nations of the world, based on StatCounter's October 2010 data. "The reason these countries have such high mobile web usage compared to desktop web usage (for lack of a better name) is very much a result of economics," says RoyalPingdom. "A relatively cheap mobile phone (most often from Nokia, as we have seen) will then be a much more realistic option, and it therefore becomes the way to reach the Web for many. " more

IPv6 Medics Without Borders

At its November 5th plenary, the Canadian ICT Standards Advisory Committee approved the recommendations of the Canadian IPv6 Task Group set up by isacc in april. The 50 members of the Task Group were invited to individually produce a list of seven recommendations. Received inputs were collated, debated, ranked and ultimately distilled down to a pair of quite straightforward recommendations for immediate action. more