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New York City Releases Internet Master Plan For City’s Broadband Future

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Chief Technology Officer John Paul Farmer today announced an Internet Master Plan for the City aimed to chart a path for internet providers in the private sector to work in partnership with the City in order to address market gaps and deliver universal broadband to New Yorkers. more

Speculation on Trump’s Forthcoming Cuba Policy Speech and Its Impact on the Cuban Internet

Trump has a dilemma. He has to take some executive action that will allow him to ridicule President Obama and show that he is punishing Cuba for its human rights violations and the confiscation of businesses and property after the revolution, but not harm US telephone companies, hotel chains, airlines and cruise lines. Trump is expected to announce his Cuba policy next Friday in Miami. There can be little doubt that he will reverse some of President Obama's executive orders... more

Capping Broadband Internet by Design

FIOS by Verizon, is a bundled Internet access, telephone, and television service that operates over a fiber-optic communications network with over 5 million customers in nine U.S. states -- providing Fiber to the Home (FTTH). One of the first service areas was a Northern Virginia community known as Ashburn -- which is also is the cloud data center capital of the world. It literally sits on top of the most massive mesh of high bandwidth, low latency fiber in existence. more

BlackBerry Service to be Suspended in UAE from October 11

Imran Ahmed Shah writes: Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (TRA) announced on Sunday to ban Blackberry Services, this ban will take effect on October 11. This ban will affect hundreds of thousands of BlackBerry users who access Internet, e-mail and messaging services on their mobile handsets. more

Forward-Thinking Remedies

Just a year ago, I gave a talk at David Isenberg's 2005 Freedom to Connect conference. I said, essentially, that we should be careful in asking for regulation to protect the net, because the power to protect carries with it the power to constrain. This was a very troubling message for the audience, and the chatroom projected behind me went wild with disapproval. Since then, I've become very concerned about the concentration in broadband service provision in this country, and worried that there won't be any competition for unfettered internet access. more

CAN SPAM Applies Even Within a Single Provider

I recently came across a copy of a ruling in the bizarre case of MySpace vs. theglobe.com. Theglobe.com was the ultimate dot.com bubble company. It started up here in Ithaca, and went public at the peak of dot.com hysteria with one of the the greatest one-day price runups ever. Since then they bought and sold a variety of busineses, none of which ever made any money, including the Voiceglo VoIP service which appears to be what the spam was promoting. more

Over 190 Internet Engineers, Pioneers, Technologists File Comments with FCC on Net Neutrality

A group of over 190 Internet engineers, pioneers, and technologists today filed joint comments with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) explaining "Technical Flaws in the FCC's Notice of Proposed Rule-making and the Need for the Light-Touch, Bright-Line Rules from the Open Internet Order." more

Minding the Gap at the ITU-T

In 1992, Theo Irmer who had served as the organization's director for the previous eight years during its glory days, wrote that if there was any hope of saving what was left of the body, it must be privatised. That never occurred. Everyone pretty much left and migrated to dozens of other venues where all the world's information and communication technology standards have long been created and evolved. Essentially every major nation moved to competitive, private, marketplace-driven provisioning of communication products and services. more

Some Unsolicited Advice for AT&T re Google Voice

The FCC has posed a number of provocative questions to AT&T regarding the fact that iPhone subscribers cannot download and use the Google Voice application. AT&T should stifle every motivation to play cute or clever with the FCC. Apple adopted such a strategy when it suggested to the Library of Congress and others that it would be curtains for the free world if iPhone owners could hack, jailbreak, tether, and otherwise use their handsets without fear of violating the prohibition on circumventing copyright laws contained in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. more

HD Voice Really is Great

Listen for half a minute to a demo of a high-bit-rate codec and you expect they will transform our industry. The difference is like a CD with great headphones versus a little transistor radio. Suddenly, you realize just how awful the sound is on your regular telephone. Who wouldn't want their call to sound dramatically better was my first reaction. When Thomson and some of the cable folks discussed plans, I was enthusiastic. Years later, nearly no one is taking advantage... more

“Toll Free” Broadband Service: Double Billing Ripoff Or Better Than Best Efforts Premium Option?

Representatives of both AT&T and Verizon have stated that their companies will soon offer "toll free" broadband services. So far they have not provided much detail, but the prospect for customer and content provider surcharges should trigger concern, even outside the context of the network neutrality debate. First let's consider the frame the carrier reps use: "Toll Free." This is an old school "Bellhead" reference... more

Wireless VoIP: Loss Leader or Upselling Strategy?

Verizon Wireless' decision to allow their subscribers to access Skype raises a question about strategy. Is Verizon leveraging Skype access as an inducement for subscribers to upgrade to smartphones and commit to $30 a month data plans, has the company acknowledged that its future marketplace success lies in data and not voice services, and how will the company prevent a substantial reduction in plain old voice subscriptions priced above the $30 data plan benchmark? more

Meeting with ITU Secretary General Dr Hamadoun Touré

During the ITU Conference I had the honour of a private meeting with Dr Hamadoun Touré, Secretary-General of the ITU since 2006... Dr Touré has a fascinating background. Born in Mali and educated in Russia, he has brought with him a distinctly fresh approach to the ITU. He has been Africa's Regional General Manager for ICO Global Communications and worked at various levels at the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization (INTELSAT). more

FCC Chairman: We Must Choose to Preserve the Open Internet

As per earlier reports, U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski proposed new rules today requiring Internet service providers to treat all Internet traffic equally and allow users to access their networks with any device. more

Department of Commerce to Allow US Companies Work With Chinese to Develop 5G and Other Standards

A new rule announced by the U.S. Department of Commerce on Monday enables American companies to contribute to standards-development activities in the telecommunications sector more fully. more