Policy & Regulation

ICANN’s Economic Study - It Depends

Economists aren't very good at predicting things, as any one with money in the stock market can attest. The most powerful economist in the United States, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, is on record predicting a continuing climb in housing prices -- just prior to their precipitous decline. And yet their crystal balls still hold some allure for those who need to present "evidence" about the future. Such is the case with ICANN and the new generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) program.

The Broadband Adoption Rate

Yesterday's FCC report estimates that at least 80 million Americans don't have high-speed Internet access - defined as download speeds of at least 4 Mbps and upload 1 Mbps - at home. (Soon the Commission will release another report comparing these results to those in other countries.) This service is completely unavailable to at least 14 million Americans - the FCC estimates that "1,024 out of 3,230 counties in the United States and its territories are unserved by broadband[, and t]hese unserved areas are home to 24 million Americans living in 8.9 million households."

Failure of the Broadband Plan?

Craig Moffett sees this as I do: "If LTE networks are going to be usage-capped, then the last pretense that LTE can be positioned as a substitute for terrestrial broadband would seem to be gone." The heart of the U.S. broadband plan is to release more spectrum - enough for 10-20 networks like Verizon's LTE now building - and pray that will be enough competition in five to seven years to check price increases.

International Academy for Trans-Sector Use of Broadband

While jogging along LacLeman in Geneva I caught up with Dr. Kim Seang-Tae, the President of the National Information Society Agency of South Korea. He is also one of the Commissioners of the ITU/UNESCO Broadband Commission for Digital Development. Dr. Seang-Tae is the chief architect of the FttH miracle that is transforming South Korea. His broadband journey began in 1994, when he developed the country's first broadband plan.

VeriSign Anti-Trust Lawsuit Paves Way for More Suits If There Are No Vertical Integration Exceptions

The Coalition for Internet Transparency (CFIT) filed an anti-trust suit against VeriSign for their monopoly control of the .COM registry and the expiring market of .COM domains. The claims were many including excessive financial pressure lobbying and lawsuits to force ICANN into renewing the VeriSign .COM agreement under very self-serving terms. ICANN inevitably was paid millions of dollars to settle the suit. However, the saga continues once again. ... In the light of continuous and relentless discussions and proposals by the Vertical Integration working group, one question is in the back of everyone's mind. Could the decision on Vertical Integration backfire on ICANN and invite similar suits in the domain name space?

Top Ten New gTLD Gotchas

With the launch of new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) expected to occur early next year, many are closely examining the opportunities and risks associated with ICANN's Program. Although still in draft format and subject to change, keep these gotchas in mind as you think through your strategy.

Canada: Smart Regulation, Not De-regulation

Canada's CRTC isn't as dumb as U.S. regulators who are considering ruling that the law doesn't apply where the telcos oppose it. (Title II deregulation) Canada just decided wireless needs to follow the rules. In turn, the CRTC intends to make sure the rules are reasonable. Rather than saying "never any rules," they instead try to write sensible ones.

Comments on the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace

The White House has recently released a draft of the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace. Some of its ideas are good and some are bad. However, I fear it will be a large effort that will do little, and will pose a threat to our privacy. As I've written elsewhere, I may be willing to sacrifice some privacy to help the government protect the nation; I'm not willing to do so to help private companies track me when it's quite useless as a defense.

One Billion Internet Users

Last week ICANN took another very significant step forward in the expansion of the internet by approving the delegation of a number of Chinese script IDN ccTLDs. Although we have all heard statements that portray the introduction of IDN ccTLDs as being perhaps the single most important factor in the achievement of ICANN's "One World, One Internet" vision, we should take a moment to appreciate the true significance of this latest round of IDN ccTLD approvals.

Finland’s Broadband USO an Inspiration for Europe

Europe's governments are increasingly acting on the popular belief that the Internet should be a basic right, and that citizens not disposed to using IP-based services should nevertheless have access to its infrastructure. As such, governments either have already introduced legislation to this effect or are in the process of doing so. First off the block was Switzerland: from January 2008 Swisscom's 10-year renewed USO (universal service obligation) has included the provision of broadband at a regulated price.