Europe’s Mobile Operators Running Dumb Pipes for Revenue

In most of Europe, mobile network operators (MNOs) have largely completed their 3G network roll outs. During the last year or two their focus has been on upgrading these networks with new technologies, including femtocell and, importantly, HSPA. Following trials expected to be held during 2010, LTE will soon be sufficiently advanced for commercial launches. This will provide significant opportunities for Europe's market for convergent services, adding a new platform for delivering a range of media... more

Home Broadband and the Cloud

I'm not sure that most people understand the extent to which our online experience has moved to the cloud -- and this movement to the cloud means we're using a lot more bandwidth than in the recent past. A huge number of online functions now reside in the cloud, when only a few years ago, a lot of processing was done on our computers. Take the example of Twitter, where I keep an account to upload a copy of my blog every day. more

Riding the Waves of the Future

Yes, that was the theme of this year's Caribbean Cable and Telecommunications Association (CCTA) conference. This annual event was held in sunny Montego Bay, Jamaica, over the first week of February... For that, one has to applaud the fine work that CCTA puts into the event, drawing together operators, vendors, programmers, solution providers, marketers, and technologists alike -- and this year, over 270 attendees and 80-some exhibitors. more

How to Design a Decentralized Social Media Protocol – Be Ruthless About Technical Requirements and Eager to Build Coalition

Project Liberty's Institute sat down with Dave Clark, an early contributor to the TCP/IP protocols that built and run the Internet, and one of the expert advisors on DSNP, the Decentralized Social Networking Protocol. Dave Clark is Senior Research Scientist at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and Fellow of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. more

Saving the ITU-T in Three Steps

In yet another committee meeting among the many over the past thirty years, the ITU-T is holding a Review Committee session in Geneva in two weeks in an attempt to save the organization. There aren't many people left these days interested in these noble efforts - largely from the only two remaining entities who participate significantly - Korea's government ETRI institute, and entities clustered around China's MIIT ministry. As someone who has participated in and written about the organization over the past forty years in many different capacities, I have some suggestions - in the spirit of recognizing that there is still something worth saving. more

Canada Migrates Its Domain .CA to Fury, a Homegrown Registry Platform

CIRA, Canada's .CA operator, today announced that it has successfully migrated the nations TLD to its homegrown domain registry platform it calls Fury. more

Would It Be Selfish to Register Calzone.Pizza?

I was told recently that I should register the domain "calzone.pizza" as soon as it becomes available, even though our start-up has nothing to do with food. This is a question that a lot of businesses may be facing as they become aware of the new dots that are becoming available, like .club, .nyc and .guru. Should businesses spend money and grab their brand in all of the new domain extensions to prevent potential customer confusion, or worse - cybersquatting or phishing of their brand on the internet? What if your brand can have multiple meanings?  more

‘Combosquatting’: New Attention for an Old Problem

A study (18-page PDF) from researchers at Georgia Tech and Stony Brook University has attracted attention to what it calls "combosquatting," but the practice has been around since the early days of domain name disputes. The study says combosquatting "refers to the combination of a recognizable brand name with other keywords (e.g., paypal-members.com and facebookfriends.com)." It adds that this practice differs from other types of cybersquatting "in two fundamental ways. more

From Telegraph (1914) to Twitter (2014) - Are There Lessons to Be Learned?

Could the Great War have been avoided if leaders had gotten together and negotiated in person instead of exchanging telegrams? In the voluminous historiography of the origins of WWI, there is a very little on the role of the telegraph. Today, as Twitter takes its place conference rooms, we can learn a lot from the failure of telegraph diplomacy one century ago... The telegraph introduced the notion of 'virtual presence'; for the first time in human history, communication was detached from transportation. more

Some of the World’s Largest Investors Are Investing in FttH

While some governments are still struggling with the concept of FttH - some of the world's largest investors such as the Dutch superannuation funds (ABP, PGGM and Pensioenfonds Vervoer (PfV)), have been investing in FttH in the Netherlands since 2010. This is happening in a country with a broadband cable network that covers 95% of the country and nationwide access to ADSL2+ networks. more

Politically Correct Rhetoric at a Technical Conference in Cuba

In a recent post, I argued that the US embargo, the poor state of the Cuban economy and fear of free information had stifled the Cuban Internet at its inception in 1996, but that twenty years later, those constraints were significantly reduced. I suggested that the Cuban Internet was being held back by mundane bureaucracy and political correctness. We got an example of that at the Latin American and Caribbean Network Information Center (LACNIC) conference in Havana this week. more

ICANN Update on Whois, New gTLD Program PDPs, ICANN CEO and Privacy Accreditation

As promised, 2016 is off to a busy start at ICANN, with important discussions about Whois/Registration Directory Services, subsequent rounds of the New gTLD Program and internet governance already underway, and more to come. Brand owner concerns will be front and center in the coming months, as community stakeholders set priorities and begin discussions of key challenges and desired results. more

Is ICANN Opening up Public Comment Periods in Bad Faith?

I read with interest that ICANN opened up yet another comment period on new TLDs. I believe that I speak for many when I question whether ICANN is opening up these comment periods in good faith, or instead whether these are smokescreens, mere distractions to pretend that ICANN is "listening" to the public while staff and insiders proceed with predetermined outcomes. more

GTLDs Valuation Components That You Must Not Overlook

This post outlines the valuation pitfalls that need to be avoided when competing for the acquisition of a new generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD). The most widely used financial tools to determine the economic viability of a capital investment project, such as bidding for a new gTLD, are the Internal Rate of Return (IRR) and the Net Present Value (NPV), which measures the expected additional value a project would create if undertaken. more

ICANN: Termination of Registrar EstDomains to Go Ahead

The termination of ICANN-accredited registrar EstDomains is to go ahead, effective 24 November 2008. On 28 October 2008, ICANN sent a notice of termination to EstDomains, Inc. based on an Estonian Court record reflecting the conviction of EstDomains' then president, Vladimir Tsastsin, of credit card fraud, money laundering and document forgery. Pursuant to Section 5.3 of the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA), ICANN may terminate the RAA before its expiration when, "Any officer or director of [a] Registrar is convicted of a felony or of a misdemeanor related to financial activities..." more