Policy & Regulation

Taking It to the Streets

It is interesting to see telecommunications policy issues being covered by the general media. Of course, we expect to see coverage of communications issues in the business press. The sector is a large employer, makes massive investments in infrastructure and virtually every citizen buys communications products and services every month. Still, covering the sector in the business section is different from seeing coverage move to the front page or the general editorial pages. more

Carriers Are No Longer Operators

The classic view of a wireline or mobile carrier is that it was an "operator", it ran out cables, raised poles, installed switches, constructed central offices and base stations and the like. However, the figures from Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) show that firm is making 45% of its sales from services, meaning it is constructing and managing networks on behalf of "carriers". NSN is "carrying" a lot of telecoms traffic. This has been accelerated by the global financial crisis... more

Multi-Stakeholder Internet Governance Is Captured and Presumed Dead

Technical management of the Internet was delegated to ICANN by the U.S. government because it was believed that the private sector would be more agile and responsive to the needs of globally distributed stakeholders. However, this optimism and the faith it has produced has proven to be misplaced since ICANN's multi-stakeholder governance continues falling far short of the basic expectations set when it was created. more

It’s Time for a Referendum on Orgxit

The worst thing about Brexit wasn't the referendum. It was the fallout. David Cameron decided that the best way to manage a small risk was to take a big one. Finally, over three agonizing years later, the UK looks set to move on. The Internet Society – which has run the .ORG domain since 2002 – was in the same position as Cameron. They became convinced that it was worth dealing with a small risk by taking a huge one. more

Broadband and Presidential Politics

For the first time in my memory, broadband has entered into U.S. presidential politics. This is an important milestone for rural broadband – not because of the proposals being made by candidates, but because it indicates that the voices of those without rural broadband have reached upward to the top of the political system. I'm sure that when the presidential candidates go to rural areas, they are asked if they can help find a solution for the lack of broadband in many rural counties. more

The Operationalization of Norms and Principles on Cybersecurity

With two simultaneous processes getting underway in the UN General Assembly's First Committee, the UN Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) and the Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) on Cybersecurity, and several technology and multi-stakeholder initiatives pushing cybersecurity improvement, the world of cyber norms has become both more interesting and more complicated. more

Kaspersky Loses Appeal Against US Government Ban of Its Security Software

A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. has upheld the federal government’s ban on anti-virus software from the Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab. more

A Patchwork Quilt: Abuse Mitigation, the Domain Naming System and Pending Legislation

A few weeks ago, Appdetex published a blog with predictions for 2021, and admittedly, at the date of publication, there were already very clear indications that one prediction was already in flight. In our blog post, we'd said, "With the global domain name system failing to abate abuse, and, in fact, thwarting consumer protection, get ready for a patchwork of local laws targeting attribution and prosecution of bad actors... Get ready for some confusion and turmoil in the world of notice and takedown related to local laws and regulations." more

U.S. Federal Communications Commission Votes 2-1 for Net Neutrality Rollback

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission voted 2-1 on Thursday to advance a Republican plan to reverse the Obama administration's 2015 'net neutrality' order. more

In an Eight-Hour Test, Cuba Makes Internet Access Available Nationwide

Cuba's government provided free internet to more than 5 million cellphone users on Tuesday as an eight-hour test prior to launching sales of the service. more

Mozilla Offers Proposal for Solving Net Neutrality Problem

Mozilla says that the FCC shouldn't look at an Internet line only as a relationship between an Internet provider and a subscriber. Regulators should formally recognize that there's a third party involved: Content providers such as websites, apps, gaming and more, Mozilla says. more

Enough’s Enough: It’s Time to Set a Deadline for the Next New gTLD Application Window

The ICANN community is currently in full congratulatory mode because the team responsible for the delivery of the Phase 1 Final Report of the Expedited Policy Development Process on gTLD Registry Data (EPDP) has managed to do so in a record-breaking seven months. The GNSO Council approved the Final Report in a special meeting on 4 March 2019, and the report will now be sent to the ICANN Board for consideration and hopefully adoption. more

Canada Caves to the US, Blocks Huawei 5G (Inference)

Huawei is the strong favorite of Canadian network builders, for good products and extraordinary support. It displaced the incumbents at Bell Canada years ago and has a joint "Living Lab" in Vancouver with Telus. Huawei had already won the 5G contracts. It has a thousand researchers and spends a quarter billion dollars on Canadian R&D. It was a government decision. more

Audio Recording from the “Power, Privacy, and the Internet” Conference

On October 30 – 31, 2013, The New York Review of Books held a conference called "Power, Privacy, and the Internet," taking a look at the role of the Internet both as a vehicle of political and cultural dissent and, in the hands of the state, as a weapon of repression and control. The recordings from the event have recently been released where listeners can stream or download the audio. more

Dictators Could Rule the Internet: A Response to Robert McDowell and Gordon Goldstein

The Obama administration's proposals to regulate the Internet according to common carrier rules have set off a storm of opposition from carrier interests, whose scale and reach have been impressive. The arguments they muster are fatuous and deceitful. The Internet is not what the carriers own or have created; the Internet is what they seek to extract money from. "Regulating the Internet" is not the issue; regulating the carriers is. more