Policy & Regulation

ICANN’s New gTLD Program Makes Some Progress (... Sort of)

True to form, the outcomes of the ICANN Board's new generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) Retreat in Norway late last week haven't exactly provided the community with huge amounts of confidence in the fact that the new gTLD program will be finalised this year. But when you read between the lines, we may be able to provide supporters of the program with a little hope... more

Nothing to See Here

Three parallel events in US communications policy today, all reported on widely - but with a common thread. ... Law enforcement and national security officials want to make sure that they have the same ability to execute warrants and surveillance orders online that they had in the switched-telephone-circuit age -- which will mean substantial government design mandates for new software, hardware, and communications facilities. more

Study Finds Majority of U.S. Gov’t Agencies Fail to Meet Security Mandate for DNSSEC Adoption

Majority of U.S. Federal agencies using .gov domains have not signed their DNS with DNSSEC (Domain Name Security Extensions) despite a December 2009 Federal deadline for adoption, according to the latest report by IID (Internet Identity). IID analyzed the DNS of more than 2,900 .gov domains and has released the results in its "Q3 State of DNS Report". more

FCC Approves White Space Usage for “Super Wi-Fi” Technologies

In a unanimous vote today, the FCC has given a green light for the use of "white spaces" in order to deliver broadband connections as super "WiFi". From today's announcement: "The Federal Communications Commission today took steps to free up vacant airwaves between TV channels -- called "white spaces" -- to unleash a host of new technologies, such as "super Wi-Fi," and myriad other diverse applications. This is the first significant block of spectrum made available for unlicensed use in more than 20 years. TV white space spectrum is considered prime real estate because its signals travel well, making it ideally suited for mobile wireless devices." more

Politico Writes of Comcast’s IPv6 Effort

Larry Seltzer writes: Politico? Comcast's PR gets an 'A' for this article, an upbeat tech-lite description of the impending depletion of the IPv4 space and efforts to adopt IPv6. It also seems that the Obama administration is behind this, and that the Federal government has had "remarkable foresight on this issue." I feel better already. more

IP Address Distribution Doesn’t Fit in the Registry/Registrar Model

At the IGF2010 in Vilnius, two folk are floating a trial balloon about separating the allocation function from the registry services function. Currently, these functions are seen as indivisible by the Internet addressing community. In other words, one gets an allocation or assignment from a RIR and the RIR adds the assignment to their database... The question being asked is "Is it time for a split between allocation and services for Internet number resources as was the case for domain name resources?" My answer is no more

Transmissions from the Past: Radio and Email on Mobile Devices

Apparently, along with trying to change who gets paid when the music gets played, the National Association of Broadcasters is lobbying Congress to require FM radio receivers to be built into phones and other mobile devices. I'm sure this is in part a reaction to the rise of streaming music apps like Pandora and the Public Radio Player, but they want FM receivers in not-so-smart phones too. more

The IPTV Growth in South Korea

At the beginning of 2008, the South Korean government passed a law that allowed telecoms operators to broadcast programmes in real-time over their broadband networks. The KCC awarded IPTV licences to KT Corp, Hanaro Telecom and LG Dacom. KT was banking on real-time Internet TV services because growth in the traditional broadband and telephone markets had slowed. The company planned to invest more than KRW1.7 trillion (US$1.5 billion) in IPTV services by 2012 as part of efforts to cultivate new sources of revenue. more

A Look at How Google, Verizon and the FCC Talks are Playing Out

Sam Gustin reporting in DailyFanance: "As Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN), Netflix (NFLX) and Google forge ahead with highly publicized new plans to stream high-speed content like movies and TV shows to your living room, smartphone, telecom and cable giants like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast (CMSCA) have been intensely lobbying to maintain control over the broadband pipes they spent billions to build. Comcast is going so far as to buy a rich content factory, NBC Universal, a deal that would create a $35 billion media and delivery juggernaut." more

Omnibus Cybersecurity Bill May Not Go Where Original Authors Intended

In an interview with GovInfoSecurity, Sen. Thomas Carper said that the U.S. Senate is considering attaching cybersecurity legislation to a defense authorizations bill. Though clearly a ploy to be able to say "we did something about those evil hackers" before the elections, CAUCE applauds the attempt. There can be no doubt that the United States (and many other countries) sorely needs better laws to deal with these threats. more

The Web is Dead: What This Means to ICANN, New gTLD Program and the Domain Industry

While we are spending years figuring out how to create the perfect generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) launch and guidebook, the Internet is moving along at an extraordinary pace without any care about ICANN policy-making. The fact of the matter is ICANN is a ghost to the ordinary person or Internet company. You can not imagine how many times I had to explain what ICANN is, what ICANN does and why ICANN is important. more

Network Neutrality is the Wrong Fight!

We shouldn't settle for network neutrality. It's a poor substitute for what we had and much less than what we need. Let me explain. There are two topics to discuss. The first is "common carriage," a centuries old legal concept that applied to the US telecom industry throughout most of the 20th century. The second involves communications protocols. Both topics are complex, so I will cover only what's needed to understand why we shouldn't accept network neutrality and why, at a minimum, we should fight for enforcement of existing common carriage rules. more

Wired vs Wireless Debate Becomes a Core Policy Differentiator in National Election

I never thought I'd see the day when the difference in capability between a wireless and a wireline Internet would become a core policy differentiator in a national election, but this has now happened in Australia. ... It seems that everyone has an interest in a ubiquitous, fast and cheap internet. Now that interest has been taken up as a major policy differentiator by both sides of the political spectrum in the recent Australian election. What was this all about? more

Australia’s Gigabit: Cheapest Upgrade in History

Australian Minister Stephen Conroy announced the National Broadband Network would offer speeds of 1 gigabit without spending a penny more of capex. Sounds like the usual politician's promise. The NBN is a huge issue in the election in 8 days. The opposition wants to kill the $43B project as too expensive; the government warns that a vote against them will condemn Australians to a second rate Internet for a decade or more. Both are right. more

Net Neutrality and Google/Verizon

What surprises me about the Google/Verizon deal is not that they have come to agreement, but that they have taken so long to do so. What they have agreed to is essentially what I proposed they do back in 2006. What Google want and what Comcast, Verizon and the carriers want is not and was not incompatible. more