Global Broadband Subscribers Reached 763 Million in 2010

During calendar year 2010, an average of 9.2 million new broadband subscribers signed up for service each month. Subscribers reached 763 million worldwide in 2010 with 179 million in United States. "Total worldwide DSL subscribers will reach 371 million at year-end 2010, fueled primarily by strong demand for DSL service in the Asia/Pacific region," according to In-Stat's latest market intelligence report. "Though this is expected to slowly decrease to 10% by 2014 as the broadband market matures, there are still some substantial gains to be made. The Asia/Pacific region will continue to see very high growth rates, along with Latin America and the Middle East/Africa regions," says Vahid Dejwakh, Industry Analyst. more

Researchers Demonstrate Serious Privacy Attacks on 4G and 5G Protocols

A group of academic researchers have revealed a design weakness in the 4G/5G protocol which can be exploited by an attacker to identify the victim's presence in a particular cell area just from the victim's soft-identity such as phone number and Twitter handle. more

Businesses Angry with ICANN’s New gTLD Structure, Says CADNA

In a conference hosted by the Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA) on Tuesday, discussions were held concerning ICANN's upcoming new gTLD Program. CADNA President Josh Bourne said: "ICANN has an image problem. Businesses are outright angry with ICANN because of the way that this program has been structured. We are not trying to derail the rollout of new gTLDs altogether, but rather, we are proposing an opportunity for ICANN to make this Program much less detrimental to brands and businesses..." more

WSIS+10 Consultations at the U.N. Next Week: The Negotiations Are Accelerating

Next Monday the WSIS+10 Second Informal Interactive Consultations will take place at the UN Headquarters in New York. Much of the discussions will focus on what is called the "zero draft", which is the draft outcome document of the overall ten-year Review of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). As it stands, the text is an effort from the negotiators to collect multiple perspectives, reconcile differences and hopefully make progress towards consensus before the UN General Assembly High-Level Meeting in December. more

A Closer Look at Recent Submarine Cable Failures

In light of the recent submarine cable failures, Doug Madory from Renesys has a detailed report on what has happened to some of the providers in four countries along the route of the cable: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and India. more

Benefits and Challenges of Multiple Domain Names in a Single UDRP Complaint

How many domain names can be included in a single complaint under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP)? Neither the UDRP policy nor its corresponding rules directly address this issue, although the rules state that a "complaint may relate to more than one domain name, provided that the domain names are registered by the same domain-name holder." more

Canada’s Telecom Regulator to Uphold and Strengthen Commitment to Net Neutrality

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) today announced that it will strengthened its commitment to net neutrality. more

ISOC Reinforces Commitment to IANA Transition Post ICANN President Step Down

Internet Society President and CEO, Kathryn C. Brown released a statement today stressing the organization’s continued commitment to the stewardship transition of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions to the global Internet community -- emphasizing that this process is key to maintaining long-term value in the collaborative, multistakeholder model of Internet governance. more

WikiLeaks Releases CIA Malware Implants Called Assassin and AfterMidnight

The recent heavy news coverage of WannaCry has overshadowed the latest WikiLeaks release of critical CIA malware documentation: user manuals for two hacking tools named AfterMidnight and Assassin. more

The Importance of the Emerging Data Trusts

I recently followed a webinar session organized by the University of Queensland on the factory of the future. Smart or not, the future will still need factories to make the stuff we humans use every day. One of the discussed questions included: "how will existing production models cope with the staggering and ongoing rate of digital disruption and advanced capabilities?" more

The Truth About Supplemental Filings in UDRP Cases

A typical proceeding under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) consists of a complaint and, sometimes, a response. UDRP Rule 12 makes clear that "further statements or documents from either of the Parties" are appropriate only if "the Panel... request[s], in its sole discretion." In practice, however, such supplemental or additional filings are not uncommon, with the leading UDRP service providers - WIPO and the Forum - issuing guidance about when they may be appropriate. more

We Need to Disconnect from Facebook Right Now

The smartphone has effectively transformed us into cyborgs, we have in our hands a highly efficient computing device equipped with a photo and video camera, microphone, GPS, accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, light and proximity sensors, as well as other features that allow creation of increasingly useful, impressive and addictive applications. more

United States: 276M Wireless Users, 740B Text messages Recorded for the First Half of 2009

According to CTIA's semi-annual wireless industry report, text messaging continues to be enormously popular in the United States, with more than 740 billion text messages carried on carriers' networks during the first half of 2009 - that is 4.1 billion messages per day. This number is nearly double from last year which was reported at 385 billion text messages. more

Free Broadband: The Shape of Things to Come

The UK's broadband market is one of the most competitive in Europe. The DSL network effectively covers the entire country, while the network of the dominant cable provider Virgin Media covers more than half of all households (about 12.6 million homes). Beginning in 2007, Virgin Media expanded the availability of its services not by increasing the footprint of its cable network but by utilising wholesale LLU services... more

Major New Funding Opportunities for Internet Researchers and R&E Networks

Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action (NAMA) is a new policy program that was developed at the Bali United Nations Climate Change Conference. As opposed to the much maligned programs like CDM and other initiatives NAMA refers to a set of policies and actions that developed and developing countries undertake as part of a commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Also unlike CDM, NAMA recipients are not restricted to developing countries. more