Webremixed Articles for tags: voip

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

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 22:48:00 GMT

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.

While the Internet is moving along with exciting innovations and new platforms of communication, ICANN is still working at dinosaur pace, still playing catch up and still not aligning the realities of the Internet to policy-making. Interest groups, corporate monopolies, politics and conflicts of interest still rule supreme.

Chris Anderson, the editor of Wire Magazine, in a recent front-page Wired article called "The Web is Dead" proclaims that the world wide web is dead and we are experiencing the beginning of the next generation of the Internet. Anderson explains:

"Two decades after its birth, the World Wide Web is in decline, as simpler, sleeker services—think apps—are less about the searching and more about the getting. You wake up and check your email on your bedside iPad—that's one app. During breakfast you browse Facebook, Twitter, and The New York Times—three more apps. On the way to the office, you listen to a podcast on your smartphone. Another app. At work, you scroll through RSS feeds in a reader and have Skype and IM conversations. More apps. At the end of the day, you come home, make dinner while listening to Pandora, play some games on Xbox Live, and watch a movie on Netflix's streaming service. You've spent the day on the Internet—but not on the Web. And you are not alone."

The reality of the matter is that the web is not quite dead yet. It is evolving. Devices are becoming more and more important than ever before. Mobile devices have paved way for the app revolution. These apps do not reside on the web but on the Internet for the purpose of creating a better user experience for the consumer as well as creating "closed" and "controlled" economies bound by distribution gatekeepers. This might be the beginning of the death of the "open" web as we see it. The move away from Flash programming in mobile devices in favor of non-web-based applications illustrates the gradual move away from a web-centric Internet, but the reality of the matter is that the Web will continue to exist given the human need for open-access to information and connecting with like-minded communities or social networks.

One point is certain. ICANN is wasting precious time trying to create a perfect solution in regards to new gTLDs. Can ICANN predict the future? No-one thinks so, but ICANN's propensity to solve any possible problem that might arise is clouding the process itself. ICANN is well-equipped and capable of dealing with any secluded abuse that might arise and react to any potential future issue. ICANN is losing its prime focus and is distancing itself from real task at hand which is no other than to introduce innovation and competition in the domain space and expand the Web.

The odds against new entrants are high. However, ICANN still insists on archaic concepts such as not allowing new registries to engage in free-trade, be able to sell direct as well as be flexible to introduce their own innovations. The self-proclaimed ICANN Business Constituency that should be all about free-trade claims that free trade is a terrible idea for new registry entrants and keeping the monopolistic, restrictive and anti-business regime at bay with the status quo is the best option for businesses. The ICANN Business Constituency that alleges to represent small-business interest and open, free markets is what your typical economist will call an oxymoron that is inconsistent with the modern economic framework of business practices. Does it have credibility? None whatsoever. I can only imagine what happens behind closed doors for a Business Constituency to oppose free trade for new entrants.

While the Internet moves towards a new direction, ICANN stands and ponders on issues that delay innovation, competition and the expansion of the Web. Big brand holders are still complaining about implementing more trademark mechanisms or further improving the existing ones that were created to please them. Why is ICANN wasting more time with that? Is there a method to retrieve your trademarked domain if someone else is abusing it? Yes. ICANN has gone beyond what is necessary. Will new gTLDs introduce more harm or benefits to the Internet society? If ICANN is all about open-access, free trade, competition, fairness and represent the Internet community, it has to align itself with what is happening in the Internet space today and not be stuck in the '90s.

The Web is not perfect. The big brands and corporations that ICANN seeks to protect who are delaying everything are not perfect. For example, the Web has been used by companies such as Google and Internet Service Providers to piggyback on intellectual property issues. What ICANN is dealing with in regards to implementing additional trademark mechanisms is tiny in regards to the harm that has been inflicted by many corporations that are regarded as the "backbone" of the Web. Google and major ISPs have been piggypacking intellectual property owners for their own profit and not much has been done about it. Both Google and the ISPs have been profiting from the unauthorised distribution of copyrighted works. Google makes money and generates traffic so they do not care about intellectual property. The ISPs get paid higher fees from consumers wanting higher bandwidth to download illegally at faster rates. Rampant piracy translates to billions of dollars of profits. 95% of music on iPods is illegal. Apple knows that but their marketing is clear: fit tens of thousands of songs on your iPod (irrespective if its illegally downloaded or not).

The Internet is dominated by many corporations who really have no respect for intellectual capital. If ICANN wants to make a difference that matters in Intellectual Property, then perhaps they need to be involved with other more significant issues that affect the Internet. If they are responsible for implementing trademark mechanisms for TLDs, then why not actually make a difference where it counts and where copyright holders are suffering from piracy, which has cost many their jobs? The trademark issues that will arise from new TLDs are insignificant if compared with the harm inflicted by piracy to copyright holders. My point is that ICANN has done enough to appease the trademark community. They are offered the trademark mechanisms to solve cybersquatting, even though the potential harms are expected to be tiny in comparison (if any). Copyright holders do not enjoy such benefit because of the very nature of the Web and its chaotic openness. I thought Rod Beckstrom understood this concept. I did after-all I read his book. Action is needed now, not just mere words.

With the Internet moving away from the Web, the repercussions to the domain industry will be felt. Domain name parking will become obsolete and the astronomical prices that premium, one-word .COM domains sell for will fall significantly and industry will experience less million-dollar domain name sales. There is no better time to sell your domain portfolio than right now unless you are developing it or unless you believe that apps and mobile devices with proprietary, closed ecosystems is not a reality.

ICANN needs to finally get the new TLD program launched without any further delays. The delays are unwarranted given the very few issues that are left such as Vertical Integration, pricing on bulk same-translated strings and establishing a better and fairer point system for community applicants that will also prevent abuse.

Unless ICANN shares Chris Anderson's viewpoint that the Web is dead, ICANN has to finally acknowledge the financial harm and opportunity costs that all the delays have inflicted to all applicants that have been clinging to ICANN timing promises to launch their respective TLD. The Web depends on it since it is shrinking. Time to join forces with the new Internet economy and space. It is time to expand the Web and introduce new complementors to the Internet: new TLDs.

Written by Constantine Roussos, CEO & Founder of .Music & Music.us

The Growth of Mobile Apps is Overwhelming -- For Now

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 19:36:46 GMT

Folks in the mobile application sector should take a snapshot of what is happening today to make them feel better when, inevitably, the growth curve slows. They can take these numbers out of their desk drawers and feel better, at least for a moment.

Network Neutrality is the Wrong Fight!

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 18:32:00 GMT

Winning would mean giving up much more important rights—historical rights that were in place in the US as recently as 1995 and remain in place in most of Europe even today.

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.

Network neutrality is about allowing any Internet application to run over an Internet connection, i.e. over a connection that uses Internet Protocol (IP). But under common carriage as it applied prior to the late 1990s, we had a more powerful right—the right to run any kind of network protocol, IP or otherwise, over a lower, simpler service which today we call a "bit stream*." Why does this matter? Because real innovation is also possible at these lower layers and that innovation continues to be important. But today, such lower layer innovation is restricted to inside one building or one campus. Yes, we can tunnel some lower level innovations over IP, but not all of them and only at a cost.

IP telephony (VoIP) is one place where problems arise. Most enterprises use IP PBXs internally, yet calls between enterprises use the PSTN. Many companies have attempted to address this gap, but progress is slow and expensive. Within an enterprise, IP telephony packets are given priority, but that priority is not supported on Internet access links and network neutrality doesn't help. As a result, to interconnect VoIP calls, enterprises must lease separate dedicated access circuits—circuits usually based on bit stream access—to support "SIP trunks." Up until the late 1990s, these circuits were regulated under common carriage. Today they are an unregulated monopoly, with prices derived from the cost of voice circuits 15-20 years ago, i.e. abnormally expensive for today.

Common carriage is the legal concept that, in exchange for government granted monopoly access to rights-of-way, the monopolist must carry anyone's traffic over the resulting infrastructure, at regulated rates. For centuries this has applied, to canals, to roads, to railroads, to telegraph lines and, until nearly the end of the 20th century, to telecommunications lines. But during the legal battles after the Telecom Act of 1996, the FCC basically gave up on common carriage.

If we accept Network Neutrality instead of common carriage, we guarantee future innovations happen only above the IP layer. Innovation at lower layers will be restricted to enterprise or campus applications. That's too bad as it was the existence of common carriage that allowed the Internet to develop in the first place. Do we want to eliminate that kind of innovation in the future?

If anything, we should be fighting to extend the ideas of common carriage to lower layers, e.g. dark fiber. Installing dark fiber is expensive and requires access to rights-of-way that are limited. The installed fiber is capital expensive infrastructure that lasts for decades. Such conditions justify granting monopoly access, in exchange for common carriage and regulated rates of return. But when you light up a dark fiber, you use (relatively) low cost gear with a short life (even if it can survive for ten years, Moore's Law renders it functionally obsolete within 2-3 years). What's more, there's rapid innovation in opto-electronics gear. Just look at the order of magnitude difference in cost between enterprise and carrier fiber-optic gear.

Today, the US is loosing leadership in all things Internet. Network Neutrality will just put a nail in our coffin. To stop our decline, fight for restoration of the common carriage principals that existed through most of the 20th century and still exist in law. To regain world leadership, fight to extent those principals to include access to dark fiber at regulated rates.

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* Bit stream access. In the 20th century two regulated services provided what the 21st century calls bit stream access. These were voice telephony and T1 circuits. T1 circuits directly carry a stream of digital bits. Modems allowed voice connections to carry digital bits, for example, for bulletin board services and other purposes long before the Internet became popular.

Written by Brough Turner, Founder & CTO at Ashtonbrooke; Chief Strategy Officer at Dialogic

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

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 17:48:00 GMT

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.

Perhaps it's a timely indicator of just how important the Internet is in our daily lives these days, and how much we've managed to associate keeping in touch with family and friends with tools such as Jabber and Skype, and just how much of our daily working life is now mediated by email. 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?

On the one hand there is the National Broadband Network (NBN), an ambitious project to replace the now quite old telephone copper pair access network with a comprehensive fibre optic system. The copper pair network was originally funded by the public purse many decades ago, and has since been passed into private hands, along with all the other network assets of the former monopoly telephone operator. The NBN plan is to provide a layer 2 national fibre access network that would provide a last mile conduit to the majority of the nation's 6 million households and business premises. The NBN was intended to be revolutionary in terms of the change in capability of the national network and lift achievable last mile access speeds from DSL-speeds of 1 to 10 Mbps to a uniform level of access speeds of 100Mbps for every customer. Curiously, the election campaign has managed to squeeze more capacity out of the network and the political rhetoric has managed to up the access speed of this network tenfold to claimed access speeds of 1Gbps. This network is intended to be truly prodigious and the harbinger of bountiful benefits for everyone for many decades to come! Of course such a massive undertaking to rewire an entire continent does not come cheap, and the budgeted cost of providing this infrastructure to its 21.5 million population is a $43 billion impost, or a cost of $2,000 for every Australian resident. This project is a public works program, and the evolving expectation is that the network will once more be a public asset, in the same way that the original copper telephone network was constructed using a funds underwritten by the public purse. In every respect the project is intended to be game-changing. The ubiquitous use of high capacity across the entire population is intended to alter the way in which services are delivered, in which we define work and entertainment and the way in which a relatively small population in the south Pacific Ocean defines its place as a developed and hopefully highly competitive economy in a global context. These are indeed great expectations and the price tag is entirely commensurate with the level of euphoric optimism that is associated with this national project.

On the other side of the political spectrum there is a proposal to scrap this scheme immediately after the election. Lest this political party be perceived as technical troglodytes, they propose to replace it with a program of installing a swathe of wireless access points, particularly in the semi-rural areas of the Australian continent, and undertake some form of unspecified upgrade of parts of the existing copper pair network. This is a far more modest program, which is reflected in the price tag, currently estimated to cost the Australian taxpayer a mere $6 billion Australian dollars.

Each side of this political debate is keen to paint their chosen Internet technology in the most positive of lights, and portray the alternative in as dark a light as possible. A national network based on expansion of wireless infrastructure is portrayed as retrograde and hopelessly ineffectual in terms of national infrastructure. A fibre optic network is portrayed as being wastefully extravagant, unnecessary, and behind the times in today's i* world of wireless access devices. As a result, this ordinarily somewhat dry debate conducted between engineering, product and business line managers within the industry about the relative merits and weaknesses of mass access wireless and wireline networks has come to the surface of the political world for a day or two of mass media focus.

What lies behind this debate? In our efforts to convert every home and office into a wifi hotspot and convert every handset into a 3G wireless client have we really turned our back on the wired Internet? Is the copper pair, and even the concept of the fibre access network already being consigned to the dustbin of historical technologies, and will wireless totally dominate the future of the Internet? Or does the wired network have an assured future as an essential path to higher capacity and greater diversity and utility of the Internet, while wireless is just a passing fad that cannot sustain the full load of the diversity of needs of tomorrow's Internet?

The case for comprehensive uptake of wireless networking in the world of consumer electronics is close to overwhelming in today's environment. This month it has been reported that the 5 billionth device will "plug" into the Internet. It is statistically likely that this 5 billionth device will not exactly "plug in" to the network but wirelessly associate with a nearby base station! Wireless has been focal point for the Internet's evolution in the past few years, fuelled largely by the market success of Apple's various i-devices and the competitive responses from other suppliers. An earlier press story, again from Australia, illustrates this rather dramatic growth of the wireless market sector:

"Use of wireless broadband services mushroomed during the past year [2009] to reach more than 2 million subscribers, driven by the popularity of wireless modems and mobile devices such as the iPhone. The Australian Communications and Media Authority's communications report [for 2009] revealed the use of wireless broadband services jumped by 162 per cent in 2008-2009. ... Wireless broadband subscribers accounted for 25 percent of the number of Internet subscribers, up from 11 per cent in 2008."
The Australian, Wednesday 13 January 2010

There is no doubt that wireless services are so popular with consumers that they attract a price premium for their services. It is still the case that SMS messages in the mobile network are the most expensive data service on the planet, measured in units of dollars per megabyte, but other wireless 3G data services are also up there in terms of the margins of price over cost, particularly if one is daring enough to use international mobile roaming services for data! In the Australian market, for example, for the same $50 per month a consumer can access an Internet service with a usage cap of 3Gb per month with a wireless service provider, or take a service with a cap of up to 100Gb per month with a DSL service provider. Why is the wireless service some 30 times more expensive? The cost or provisioning a wireless service is dramatically lower than the cost of a wired service. The return on the investment of a wireless tower in densely populated urban environments is dramatically higher than the business case of dragging more wires through existing communications conduits. Even taking into account the lease costs of the radio spectrum, wireless services still represent a much higher margin activity than wires services. So its evidently not the relative costs of the service that determines the retail price of the service. Perhaps its more of a case of provider push coupled with consumer pull. Wireless services resonate with consumers in terms of convenience, and are prepared to pay a premium for this convenience. Consumers are prepared to pay higher prices for mobile services. Providers use this preference to add a premium to their mobile products and services, making this a more attractive product for them in terms of return on investment in service infrastructure. In every respect this looks like a mutually satisfactory setup.

There is always a "but" in these arrangements. The perennial question that gets posed about these innovations in service delivery in the internet is: "But does it scale?" When we consider not just a population of some 6.8 billion humans, but a population of over 100 billion chattering devices, will this approach scale?

In other words, is wireless an infinitely exploitable resource? Can we expect ever-increasing numbers of services, ever-increasing intensity of use, and ever-increasing capacity from the wireless network in the future? Like the air we breathe, the radio spectrum is a shared resource with many competing potential uses, from broadcast media, such as radio, television and geolocation to private point-to-point services with mobile telephony, and various permutations of satellite services. And of course, not all radio spectrum is the same. Lower frequencies provide better penetration through buildings, and can extend beyond line of sight, but have limited bandwidth. Higher frequencies have higher bandwidth, but are more readily absorbed by hills, buildings, and even walls. And of course the radio spectrum is a shared medium, so it is necessary to manage the spectrum as a common resource and coordinate the various potential users of the spectrum. The spectrum space is already full, and the prospect of displacing the existing users to make way for a massively larger Internet appears to be an unlikely outcome.

The part of the spectrum is that can be used for wideband digital communications is very limited. As more subscribers crowd in the same shared spectrum space the problem is that the quality of the service ultimately degrades. This can be mitigated to some extent by using more and more base stations with smaller radii of coverage, but at the same time this approach increases the issues with cross talk and signal interference and the complexities with mobile station handover.

The service performance with wireless also suffers, with signal dropouts, higher bit error rates, higher jitter and sudden changes in access capacity due to the method of channel contention in 3G. All of these are particularly hostile to the TCP protocol, and while there has been much said about the rapid rise of theoretical carriage capacity of wireless systems in recent times, achievable sustained data transfer rates using TCP in the wild fall far short of the hype.

Does an investment of $6 billion of public funds into wireless infrastructure represent a wise investment in national infrastructure for a future extending for many years into the future? Or would this be a case of making a investment in a current technology that is closer to a fad than an enduring element of a digital infrastructure? Also, given that the current wireless internet has already been enthusiastically constructed with private capital investment, should further public funds be expended in undertaking a public works program that may well be undertaken by private capital in any case?

There is no doubt that if we are facing a bandwidth hungry Internet future, then fibre optic wireline services can provide much greater reticulated capacity to the network. Unlike wireless, wireline systems behave consistently in terms of bit error rates, latency management and jitter. As a result the TCP transport protocol behaves with close to maximal efficiency, and can achieve sustained data rates equal to the line bandwidth, even at gigabit per second rates. All this prodigious performance can be achieved on fibre optic systems without crosstalk and without interference between users. Because the signal is guided by the wire the systems exhibit far higher energy efficiency, and can operate at far higher speeds. If speed and capacity are what we are after, then speed and capacity is precisely what fibre optic systems can deliver.

But of course despite all these efficiency and performance differentials, it's still a wired service, and the service is tethered to the end of the wire. That limits its usefulness and utility in an acknowledged highly mobile world. However, the choice is not quite so stark as a choice between an RJ45 connector and a 3G modem. WiFi has also revolutionized the consumer marketplace, and these days its quite commonplace to see appliances use WiFi as a connection medium. There is no doubt that I have no interest in using a carrier's 3G network to send a print job to the printer sitting beside me on my desk—that's a job for my local WiFi network, as is access to a home server and a myriad of other local operations in the home and at the office.

Where should public funds be spent? On a comprehensive revamp of the wired access network, replacing the aged copper pair telephone network with a highly capable fibre optic network? Or on improving access in those areas where the copper pair network simply cannot support high speed access by public investment in wireless infrastructure?

In trying to answer this question, we return to a persistent theme in the area of public communications infrastructure. What's the role of public capital investment and how is that balanced against the role of private capital investment? Is it possible for private investment to fulfill the entirety of a public agenda? Given that a capable, cost efficient and effective public communications infrastructure that encompasses an entire national constituency is seen as a core deliverable of any national communications policy regime, then how is this best achieved today?

To more back from generalities to the specifics of this broadband investment choice, is it realistic to expect that we have further decades of useful life from an already ageing copper pair infrastructure? As a consequence, should current public investment focus on current gaps in the national infrastructure, using a relatively cost effective approach of plugging these gaps using wireless infrastructure where the copper network is simply inadequate, and leave the remainder of the network in situ, as being adequate for the moment Or should we leave such wireless infrastructure investment to private enterprise, given that this technology is enjoying strong consumer attention and there is a continuing investment in wireless infrastructure by the industry actors. Instead, should a public investment program focus on a longer term national program of replacing the copper loop with a comprehensive fibre optic network? From such a longer term perspective perhaps the NBN is the better approach, as we need to concede that the level of investment required for a national very high speed access infrastructure in a fibre access network is probably well beyond the scope of private capital works investment. So far all that the industry has achieved in this space has been the rewiring of the CBDs in the major cities, while the upgrading of remainder of the network has been effectively ignored. It appears that this is, like many major infrastructure projects in the past, one that properly sits in the realm of a public investment program, in the same way that we've made investments in national road, rail and shipping infrastructure in the past.

That's the spectrum of choice between wireless and wired infrastructure programs for a better, faster and broader broadband Internet by the two Australian political parties. The wired vs wireless debate has become a matter for the electorate to decide.

Written by Geoff Huston, Author & Chief Scientist at APNIC

Afilias' Project Safeguard to Boost Global DNSSEC Deployment by 50 Percent

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 18:41:00 GMT

Afilias plans to deploy Domain Name System Security Extensions in 13 more top-level domains

Afilias, a global provider of Internet infrastructure services, today announced that it will deploy Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) across its registry platforms, signing 13 more top-level domains (TLDs) and increasing DNSSEC deployment among domain registries by 50 percent.

How prepared is your registrar to offer DNSSEC services to your registrants TODAY?
© Afilias Limited - Registrar DNSSEC Readiness Report. Aug 2010 (www.afilias.info)”Afilias has been a leader in DNSSEC deployment, including working closely with .ORG to plan, design and implement the .ORG DNSSEC strategy as early as 2007," said Ram Mohan, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for Afilias. "We are pleased to introduce DNSSEC across our registry and DNS platform, protecting TLDs in our care from DNS cache poisoning and man-in-the-middle attacks, while maintaining consistency and convenience for registrars and their customers."

DNSSEC development began in the early1990s, but only recently became ready for broad deployment as an additional security measure to protect the DNS from cache poisoning exploits. Recently referred to as the Kaminsky bug, this exploit can allow malicious entities to intercept Internet users' requests to access a website, and redirects or eavesdrops on these users without their knowledge, and with no ability to reassert control. DNSSEC introduces digital signatures to the DNS infrastructure and automatically ensures that users' are not hijacked and taken to an unintended destination.

To deploy DNSSEC for these additional TLDs, Afilias is introducing a new global strategy, launched under its "Project Safeguard" initiative. Project Safeguard includes a registry and DNS infrastructure upgrade across Afilias' global technology platforms to support DNSSEC. It also includes a year-long registrar training initiative to address technical issues concerning implementation of DNSSEC in registrar-registry transactions.

As part of Project Safeguard, Afilias conducted research across domain name registrars to understand the issues they face with DNSSEC deployment. Afilias' Registrar DNSSEC Readiness Report found that:

Registrars think DNSSEC is a good idea, but are not yet fully prepared to offer consumer services. 80 percent of registrars believe that top-level domain (TLD) registries should offer DNSSEC. However 90 percent of registrars currently feel completely unprepared or only somewhat prepared to actually offer DNSSEC services to their customers as this time.
69 percent of Registrars plan to offer DNSSEC services in 2011 or beyond. 32 percent have no plan to introduce DNSSEC within the next 12 months.
Consumer demand is the biggest challenge for registrars. 56 percent cite a lack of consumer demand as their biggest challenge impeding their DNSSEC implementation.
Registrars also cite issues with deploying DNSSEC technology: For example, nearly 20 percent cite the management of DNSSEC keys as their number one concern, followed by more than 18 percent that cite overall DNSSEC technology and expertise.

"Our goal is to help registrars navigate the challenges of enabling the next generation of Internet security with DNSSEC, by providing a simple and singular enablement process to easily deploy DNSSEC across Afilias-supported domain registries," said Mohan. "The Project Safeguard initiative should ease the technical burden of DNSSEC deployment and could spur user adoption."

Afilias will deploy DNSSEC first in the .INFO domain in September, to be followed by TLDs that it supports in Asia, the Latin America/Caribbean, and Europe. Based on the proven strategy for the .ORG registry's successful DNSSEC deployment effort, Afilias will adopt a similar, careful, step-by-step approach. This strategy will include a "friends and family period" which will coincide with registrar outreach.

DNSSEC statistics source: DNSSEC Deployment Initiative - as of 13 August 2010 26 TLDs had deployed DNSSEC.

The reaction to FaceTime

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 17:26:51 GMT

VoIP Survivor has a cool roundup up of the web's reaction to the iPhone4 FaceTime application. As what would appear to be the beginning of the mobile video VoIP movement, it's interesting to see the varied coverage including musings on the effects of the technology on carriers, comparisons to Skype and the technical stuff behind the service. Article

Report: Top trends of unified communications

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 17:16:57 GMT

Irwin Lazar from Nermertes Research came up with a cool round up of top trends in the unified communication space. A couple of them certainly rang true from the vantage point of the FierceVoIP news desk.

I won't spoil the whole article here, but I thought Lazar's first and third pick were right on. ROI certainly is king in this industry, and if a company is going to make the move to a powerful UC deployment, they are going to have to be convinced that their investment will pay off. Cost savings from UC is one of the main draws, so look for those offering SIP Trunking to benefit from the ROI focus of buyers.

Lazar also brings up social networking as a trend in UC. Having seen some UC applications both pull Twitter feeds into the main application as well as provide keyword search for company feedback, I can see the strength of including social networks into the UC deployment. For help desks, call centers and customer service reps who can monitor Twitter, Facebook and Yelp for positive and negative feedback directed at their brand, they will be able to respond much quicker to rectify situations and hopefully help their companies keep customers happy.

For more of the top trends:
- Check out the article here

More VoIP coming to BlackBerry

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 16:56:54 GMT

With all the buzz around the iPhone and Android platforms, its easy to forget that the choice phone for the enterprise is the BlackBerry. Luckily, the latest BlackBerry OS has seen some VoIP potential. A few days ago Mitel made a few announcements regarding their BlackBerry UC offerings. Now, GigaOm has a quick piece on a VoIP app coming to the BlackBerry as well.

The TringMe app for BlackBerry makes calls of a user's WiFi connection or over a locally routed phone number. Once the app is installed, the application integrates with the OS, a link on your contacts page of your BlackBerry appears offering to "Call using TringMe." The service is offering a white-label version for companies and even provides the ability to configure for a company's SIP solution.

TringMe is an Indian start-up company based in Bangalore.

For more:
- read the GigaOM piece

Sipera gets distributed Columbian call center security deal

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 16:12:21 GMT

Apparently call centers are booming in Columbia due to government investment. Most of these call centers rely on unified communications to provide services. Sipera, teamed with South American Sipera-reseller Belltech, has been brought on to secure the UC systems of Columbian call center company InterContact.

InterContact has selected Sipera's UC-Sec security appliances for its call centers. Sipera will provide SIP trunk termination and comprehensive UC security for call center staff, customers and partners using VoIP, IM and other UC applications.

The Sipera UC-Sec products are real-time VoIP and UC security solutions for next-generation communications over any network, to any device. UC-Sec can safeguard communications and deploy SIP trunks combating toll fraud while satisfying security and privacy mandates throughout multiple countries.

For more:
- read the release

Skype Goes IPO - What Should Service Providers Do?

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 16:11:00 GMT

Last week's news about Skype's planned IPO brings a renewed focus on what constitutes a service provider these days, and perhaps more importantly, what forms the basis for its valuation? We all know how the advent of IP has turned the economics of telephony on its head, and the drivers of value continue to shift from the physical world of network infrastructure to the virtual world of software, the Web and now the cloud.

There's little doubt that Skype's continued growth has made them an attractive vehicle for investors. Having customers is key for any company's success, and having lots of customers raises the bar on what success could look like. Skype doesn't have everyone on the planet as a customer, but they're as close anyone is likely to get. According to their S-1 filing, the current user base is 560 million, and this has increased by 163 million from last year. Although "users" aren't true customers in terms of being paying subscriber or tied to contracts, anyone who can add this many in one year must be doing something right.

We all know that many "users" have multiple identities or aren't really active, so a subset of this is needed to get a more meaningful read on what Skype actually has. One metric would be "connected users", which averages out at 124 million per month. This is still a substantial community, although the majority is not using any paid services. In fact, the paid segment is a fraction of this, at 8.1 million.

While 8.1 million is a far cry from 560 million, Skype generated $406 million in revenues during the first half of 2010, and with this being a 25 percent bump from 2009, the company is on track to hit $1 billion in revenues next year.

In some ways, Skype has the best of both worlds. They are generating decent revenue from a small portion of their base with hardly any marketing expense. On the other hand, free is hard to beat, and they keep building a massive user base from which they keep trying to upsell. This is a very different model from conventional service providers who only offer paid services, and do not have a feeder pool of free "users" they can convert to paying subscribers. Of course, their operating expenses are much higher than Skype, and they could never survive on the relatively small ARPU that Skype generates from their calling services.

Skype hasn't yet become very profitable, and the thinking is by going public they'll have enough working capital to find new ways to increase ARPU, develop new revenue streams, and convert more free users to paid. Whether the $100 million they expect to raise will be enough is open to debate, but I see their IPO as being a strong validation for a new model and a different kind of service provider.

Of course I'm using the term "service provider" loosely, since Skype is Web-based and has little control over the last mile connection. Their technology is not as open as other operators, which limits their ability to interwork with other user communities and achieve a more universal federation to grow the user base. Furthermore, their ability to extend Skype beyond desktop telephony depends heavily on partnerships with other operators and vendors. Skype may have strong brand recognition, but little leverage when it comes to entering new markets from a position of strength.

Two such scenarios were noted in their IPO filing. One is their dependence on smartphone vendors—primarily Apple—to get Skype featured as a downloadable application. This can provide a broad entrée into the mobile VoIP market, but only to the point that the vendor feels it is worthwhile. There is no exclusivity here, and the vendors are free to offer other comparable services or even limit the features that Skype can provide.

The second scenario would be the partnerships Skype has developed with wireless carriers. Verizon is the most notable here, and again, there is a delicate balance that both parties must strike. Verizon will gladly support Skype so long as the relationship helps retain subscribers, drive network usage, and develop new sources of revenues. However, once Skype starts to cut into established revenues, they become more of a competitor, at which point the relationship can sour quickly.

As such, Skype does not hold all the cards, but neither does anyone else. With the right partnerships and market positioning, Skype has many paths to growth. Their user base is attractive to any operator, especially those seeking global coverage. Skype recognizes the challenges of growing in both the video market and the business market, both of which are large untapped opportunities. Video already accounts for 40 percent of their calls, but they have not yet been able to monetize this. The fact that they're considering subsidizing free video calls with advertising says a lot about how important this opportunity is to them. In the early days, this would never have been an option, but the stakes are higher now, and market forces may leave them little choice.

Skype certainly has an attractive product mix, and with such a large user base, their main challenge is mainly around market positioning and creating the right business models to capitalize on their strengths. This is a very different problem set from what conventional service providers must contend with, and whether Skype goes it alone or as a complement with other operators, their IPO should give them enough resources to get to the next level. Skype is certainly not going away, and as these pieces come together, they will start to look more and more like more like these operators. At that point, service providers will have some complex decisions to make, and depending on where Skype is having success, they may well end up working more as equal partners than being a minor add-on to stay competitive.

This article of mine originally ran on Friday in my Service Provider Views column on TMCnet.

Written by Jon Arnold, Principal, J Arnold & Associates

CounterPath and NEC offer mobile UC solution

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 15:53:52 GMT

Desktop and mobile VoIP provider CounterPath has teamed with NEC Unified Solutions to introduc NEC's Smart Mobile Client, a fixed mobile convergence solution to extend the features of NEC communication servers.

Smart Mobile Client R2.2 will offer customers the ability to use enterprise smart phones like the Blackberry 9700, Nokia E72/N97 and Apple iPhone to get full access to their company's communications network even when they are on the go. The solution offers telephony, voicemail and corporate directory services as well as presence, instant messaging and conferencing capabilities for smart phones over cellular networks as well as through WiFi. Smart Mobile Client automatically routes their calls through the company's communications server based on the customer's least-cost-routing settings. The software supports Blackberry, Windows Mobile and Nokia Symbian platforms, as well as Apple iPhone and Android through a Web client.

"We are excited about our partnership with NEC Unified Solutions and the value it brings to their customers," said Donovan Jones, CEO of CounterPath Corporation in the release. "With Smart Mobile Client, customers on NEC call servers can now seamlessly shift phone calls off the cellular network onto their enterprise WiFi network, saving an estimated 30 percent on their mobile cellular spending. They can also select PBX routing schemes for considerable savings on (international) roaming costs, too."

For more:
- read the release

Pew's Broadband Home 2010 Research: Is It Truly Representative?

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 15:48:00 GMT

A Pew Home Broadband 2010 Summary reports in a sub-headline, a dramatic absence of continued growth in broadband adoption across the United States; while at the same time reporting increases in demographic adoption in a particular ethnic group. That sub-headline seems contradictory by indicating an overly dramatic slowing of adoption.

"After several years of double digit growth, broadband adoption slowed dramatically in 2010. African-Americans experienced broadband adoption growth in 2010 well above the national average."

Home Broadband 2010

Broadband Adoption	2009	2010	% Change
All Americans	63%	66%	3%
African-Americans	46%	56%	10%

In fact, indications are that broadband adoption continues to grow as referenced in the % change in those indicators. While it is not an overwhelming mandate that substantial adoption is continuing at a rapid pace; it is a positive referendum.

This change reflects the opinion of those surveyed and depends entirely on their location, circumstance, age or other factors which do not necessarily represent a broader geographical perspective. Results depend on those interviewed, their circumstances and knowledge of broadband in compiling the research. Pew Research methodology encompassed a sample survey of 2,252 adults, age 18 and older representing all adults in the United States who have access to either a landline or cellular telephone.

In further research Pew shares responses of those surveyed about government's role in making broadband a priority:

"By a 53%-41% margin, Americans say they do not believe that the spread of affordable broadband should be a major government priority. Contrary to what some might suspect, non-internet users are less likely than current users to say the government should place a high priority on the spread of high-speed connections."

Methodology (Source)

Pew statistics came from a Princeton Survey Research Associates International project conducted between April 29 and May 30, 2010. To say a representative survey of 2,252 respondents is reflective of all Americans becomes a stretch of anyone's imagination. It can hardly be characterized as being the end-all of statistics for broadband adoption due to the nature of broadband adoption or availability, which includes age, (since seniors are the fastest growing segment of our population and who are not as likely to be adoptive to broadband as much younger constituents.), where those respondents reside, education levels and exposure to broadband knowledge.

In reflecting the purpose of broadband adoption, results would be more substantial if those surveyed were asked thought provoking questions about the benefits of broadband, rather than what do you think of broadband adoption and availability, especially if unaware of the benefits. Those who follow broadband are well aware of the benefits afforded both younger and older generations who adopt the possibilities of its life changing abilities. Proliferation of broadband takes time and effort on the part of all related constituents from consumers, government, educators and businesses, alike.

Written by Leonard Grace, Founder & Editor - The Cable Pipeline

Cloud Net offers Mobile PBX for business

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 15:25:44 GMT

Consumer mobile VoIP is grand, but what we are really interested in is the business applications. Luckily, companies are catching on. Cloud Net is getting into the mobile game with the launch of its first mobile version of its VoIP for business service.

The Cloud Net Mobile PBX is launching for the iPhone and the iPad with business VoIP features and a fully hosted virtual PBX. Cloud Net Connect users will see an extension of the features they know and love with follow-me number portability as they go mobile. It features a management portal to configure the system, free calls on Cloud Net's network, voice mail, fax boxes, call redirect, call recording, ring back, conferencing and Caller ID.

New users can sign up for a free 14-day trial to test out the new offering.

For more:
- read the post

Related news:
Ten Mobile VoIP Apps for the iPhone
Will consumer demands drive mobile VoIP?

Femtocells Make Their Move

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 14:37:22 GMT

The benefits of femtocells have long been clear: These devices, which in essence are small base stations that sit at the customer's home or office, increase network coverage and transfer traffic from expensive cellular networks to the Internet.

Undesirable Consequences of Empirical Studies on Cybersquatting

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 19:14:00 GMT

Empirical studies on cyber- and typosquatting (for example, Moore and Edelman's "Measuring the Perpetrators and Funds of Typosquatting") may inadvertently encourage bad behavior. People tend to do what most other people are doing, even when the given act is presented to them as something wrong. (See, for example, Professor Robert Cialdini's "Crafting Normative Messages to Protect the Environment.") Yes, attempts to use negative social proof against cybersquatting should still underline how much harm the practice causes overall. But, when possible, they should focus the audience's attention on the act of a few rotten apples, not the entire community.

Carrot-and-stick strategies can be effective in fighting cybersquatting. For example, domain parking service providers can display a seal of approval on parking pages whose registrants don't own rogue (i.e., brand-infringing) domains. The seal creates trust in the minds of visitors and thus generates additional profits to domain owners; that, in turn, increases parking companies' commissions. Moreover, the seal, combined with the parking company's logo, would indirectly increase the value of the parking company's other services. Skeptics may say that a given domainer could conceal infringing domains by splitting his or her portfolio among more than one parking company. That's possible in the short term, but profits from parking such domain names would dwindle, especially in the face of the quality-driven measures that search engines are likely to take against rogue domains. Although the carrot-and-stick mechanism has a first mover advantage, the stick available to parking companies (that is, rejecting rogue domain owners) won't be credible unless domain owners are made to realize the damage stemming from bad behavior. Otherwise, domain owners will block out the threat. (I have also proposed the carrot-and-stick mechanism in the context of a cooperative regime between brand and domain owners.)

Written by Alex Tajirian, CEO

ICANN Looking Into Demand Media's eNom After Serious Allegations by Security Group

Sat, 21 Aug 2010 16:52:00 GMT

ICANN is looking into Demand Media's eNom devision for answers following complains from the Internet security group HostExploit. "ENom, the world's second-largest domain name registrar, came under fire last week in a report from HostExploit, a volunteer-run anti-malware research group. According to HostExploit, eNom is host to an unusually large number of malicious websites and is a preferred domain name registrar for pharmaceutical spammers."

Read full story: Computerworld

Digital Rights Management or Digital Restrictive Management?

Sat, 21 Aug 2010 16:10:00 GMT

We are all accustomed to purchasing and/or using copyrighted material in one fashion or another. From music, movies-(BluRay), e-books-(Kindle), computers-(software), mobile phones-(iPhone) and games; the umbrella of companies wanting to restrict access to its products continues to grow and become increasingly restrictive.

Digital Rights Management (Source)

"Digital rights management (DRM) technologies are aimed at increasing the kinds and/or scope of control that rights-holders can assert over their intellectual property assets. In the wake of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's (DMCA) ban on the circumvention of DRM technologies used to control copyrightable works, DRM restrictions are now backed up with the force of law. In essence, copyright owners now have the ability to write their own intellectual property regime in computer code, secure in the knowledge that the DMCA will back the regime with the force of law."

Investment Point of View

Digital Rights Management is a restrictive system enabled to protect the copyright and unlawful distribution on digital hardware or software produced by companies via an investment in technology through a business model. The restrictions placed on end users in copying and/or sharing protected material is essential in protecting the ROI (Return on Investment) of those entities producing digital content now and in the future. Without Digital Rights Management the argument constitutes that innovation and invention will suffer through piracy and stifle any future investment in producing the creative technologies we enjoy today.

Digital Millennium Copyright Act (Source)

United States copyright legislation, in conjunction with the World Intellectual Property Organization, criminalizes the production and dissemination of copyrighted technology, devices or services, thereby circumventing Digital Rights Management. The bill also heightens the penalties for copyright infringement on the Internet. The Act was passed on October 12, 1998 by a unanimous vote by the US Senate and signed into law by President Bill Clinton on October 28, 1998.

The law specifically addresses the encryption process used by manufacturers of copyrighted products or material to protect their rights. It is now unlawful to decrypt, disrupt, copy and share such products and/or material under criminal statutes provided by Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Free Speech Point of View

This view takes the opposite approach to copyrighted material in that it contending that basic rights of users are violated since copyright holders are able to use Digital Rights Management to enforce restrictions. It therefore infringes on the rights of users to implement fair use exceptions. There continues to be a belief that content owners will take precedent over the rights of users.

Fair Use (Source)

"Section 107 contains a list of the various purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered fair, such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Section 107 also sets out four factors to be considered in determining whether or not a particular use is fair:

The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes
The nature of the copyrighted work
The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole
The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work"

Perspective

Whether it is the right of consumers to Free Speech or the right of producers to protect their products, the bottom line remains how can Digital Rights Management draw the line between the use and abuse of copyright infringement? It seems only logical that protecting copyrighted products and material is of utmost importance in the continued innovation and dissemination of new products. The music industry learned the hard way that alienating consumers can produce a backlash of which recovery is very difficult.

Microsoft learned early on that copyright protection was critical the growth and innovation of its products which turned out to be a great thing for Microsoft shareholders. We cannot believe for a minute that copyright infringement does not hurt us all in some way from the economical standpoint of higher prices, loss of innovation and creation of sustainable jobs.

Written by Leonard Grace, Founder & Editor - The Cable Pipeline

Internet Continues to Grow at Astonishing Pace (Perspectives from RIPE NCC Membership Stats)

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 16:06:00 GMT

We are at the height of vacation season here in the Netherlands, and the RIPE NCC headquarters in Amsterdam are quieter than usual. The downtime has given me a chance to reflect on how the recent economic downturn has affected our membership growth.

The good news is that it hasn't.

Our membership, made up of Local Internet Registries (LIRs) from our service region in Europe, the Middle East and parts of Central Asia, is creeping very close to 7,000. Overall, we've had a stable increase in growth from 1994, when the RIPE NCC first started operations, to present day.

If we take a more detailed look at accumulative membership growth per 12-month period, you can see a definite lull in 2001-2002. This, of course, was when the dotcom bubble burst. Our membership still grew during this time, albeit at a snail's pace.

But the recent economic downturn, even amid speculation of a double-dip recession, has not had a negative impact on our membership. One can only assume that the reason for this is that while the manufacturing and financial industries took the brunt of this economic blow, the Internet industry continues to grow at an astonishing pace.

Other factors that may impact our membership growth include IPv4 depletion, though we haven't seen evidence of the impact of this to date.

Now back to vacation time…

Note: The RIPE NCC is an association and only its members can receive the full RIPE NCC service portfolio. Organisations become members mainly to request Internet Number Resources - IPv4 and IPv6 addresses and Autonomous System (AS) numbers.

Written by Daniel Karrenberg, Chief Scientist at the RIPE NCC

Feature Phones Live On

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 21:57:51 GMT

Virtually all the headlines in the cellular phone world are being generated by smartphones. It is important to remember, however, that these sleek new devices still are in the minority. That point was made in recent research released by

Intel to buy McAfee for $7.68 Billion, Biggest Acquisition in 42-Year History

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 20:54:00 GMT

Intel plans to buy security company McAfee for $7.68 billion—the biggest acquisition in its 42-year history. The chipmaker said Thursday it has entered into a definitive agreement to buy all of McAfee's common stock at $48 per share in cash. McAfee's stock closed Wednesday at $29.93, making Intel's offer a 60 percent premium. The boards of both companies have approved the deal.

Related Links:
Intel to buy McAfee for $7.68 billion CNET News, Aug.19.2010
Analysts: McAfee fits into Intel's future CNET News, Aug.19.2010

ccIDNs: So Many Choices, So Little Time

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 19:55:00 GMT

As a result of ICANN's IDN ccTLD Fast Track process, which was launched in November of last year, a number of new ccIDNs (Country Code Internationalized Domain Names) have been successfully added to the root including: China (.中国, .中國), Egypt (.مصر), Hong Kong (.香港 ), Russia (.рф), Saudi Arabia (.السعودية), Taiwan (.台湾, .台灣) and the UAE (.امارات).

And earlier this month, five additional countries/territories were approved by the ICANN Board including: Sri Lanka (.இலங்கை), Thailand (.ไทย), Palestinian Territory (.فلسطين), Tunisia (.تونس) and Jordan (.الاردن).

With so many new registration possibilities available, and several Sunrise periods quickly approaching, many corporate domain managers are asking themselves whether new registrations should be added to portfolios which are already bursting at the seams.

For the most part, the answer is—it depends.

Some brands are never translated, transliterated or transcribed into other languages and always appear using Latin script. In those instances, registering ccIDNs to protect brands may not make sense at all.

However, reviewing non-Latin trademark portfolios is an important step in determining which ccIDNs should be registered. This can provide a definitive list of names for registration and offers a good starting point.

In addition to researching trademark registrations, reaching out to regional marketing groups can also provide valuable information about where and how brands are actively marketed. Information obtained may be of critical importance in deciding whether a new registration is really necessary.

Regional marketing groups may also be able to assist in identifying generic terms that should be registered along with the brand. I recently heard of a domainer who was very excited because he had registered 'World Cup' using a non-Latin script. Unfortunately, only later did he find out that what he actually registered was 'World Glass' which did not have the same meaning at all.

Clearly with this ever-expanding namespace, the opportunities for cybersquatting are increasing. However, registering every variation is impractical—so employing a brand protection approach to monitoring and taking action becomes more important that ever.

Written by Elisa Cooper, Director of Product Marketing at MarkMonitor

Dot-Jobs Expansion Worries Job-Site Operators

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 19:49:00 GMT

Sarah E. Needleman reporting in the WSJ: "So far limited to only employers' names, as in Disney.jobs or Whirlpool.jobs, the dot-jobs Internet domain will begin accepting applications next month for generic names like hospitality.jobs and virginia.jobs. But the mostly small businesses that run job sites ending in dot-com say they worry how the development will affect their already crowded and distressed sector of the economy."

Read full story: Wall Street Journal

Australia's Gigabit: Cheapest Upgrade in History

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 19:40:00 GMT

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.

Conroy wasn't lying. The shared 2.4 gig down, 1.2 gig up GPON Mike Quigley has chosen can in fact deliver a gigabit to the home—as along as your neighbors aren't doing much on the Internet. If three of the 32-64 users on a node want a gigabit, it can't deliver. Today, so few web services deliver even 100 megabits I'd guess you could get the 800+ megabits gigabit 95% or even 98% of the time. Even in five years, likely traffic patterns would allow actual speeds of 400 megabits or more most of the time. (Assuming GPON's shared bandwidth can be efficiently divided, which hasn't even been proven in the lab.)

The capital cost to the Australian taxpayer will be almost the same because the OLT in the exchange is the same standard Alcatel GPON. It will require more robust switches and routers from the exchange to the Internet peering point at modest expense.The OLT in the home may be slightly more expensive, but the chipmakers are making progress integrating the silicon. Charging the customers who want the gigabit $5-10 more per month would easily cover the increased operations costs.

We've learned that in practice even dramatically faster speeds produce surprisingly modest increases in total demand. HD TV at 3-8 megabits is the only high volume use. It streams at the same rate whether the connection is 10 megabits or 800 megabits. It's a joy to get your 150 megabit Microsoft update in seconds with high speeds, but you don't do more updates because of it.

Hong Kong Broadband Network is the only carrier I know doing customer experiments with a gig over GPON and hasn't discussed the results yet.

The efficiency of sharing at high speeds over GPON is unproven. I'd very much like to hear, probably off the record, from any well-informed engineer.

10GPON, four times faster, was demonstrated a few months ago by Huawei and Verizon. Commercial units are years away however. Active Ethernet inexpensively provides a full gigabit. It's being deployed at that speed in Sweden, Singapore, and the Vermont Tel network I consult with. It requires a strand to every home and more lasers, but is a simpler network to manage at high speeds.

For any fiber network built in 2011 or later, the natural speed is a gigabit.

Written by Dave Burstein, Editor, DSL Prime

Inside look into 8x8's Virtual Office Pro

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 16:26:11 GMT

PC Magazine has been doing some neat reviews of VoIP and Unified Communications (UC) offerings. They recently did an overview of 8x8 Virtual Office Pro. Check it out to get a good inside look at what the software is like. Article

Frost & Sullivan: Google moving into UCC

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 15:55:28 GMT

Google's (Nasdaq: GOOG) seemingly haphazard approach to software development and company acquisitions often has people wondering what exactly their goal is. Frost & Sullivan has been monitoring the latest moves and acquisitions from the Internet giant and they've come to the conclusion that it's only a matter of time before they are truly a unified communications and collaboration (UCC) player.

A new F&S research report titled, " Google's Enterprise Universe: Google Storms the Unified Communications and Collaboration Market," projects that Google will be the next big UCC competitor. Google's cloud-based Apps and business Gmail offerings are one start to their strategy, but it's acquisitions point to even more of a UCC play. Google has, over the last few years, acquired videoconferencing vendor Marratech, VoIP vendor GrandCentral and Skype competitor Gizmo5 to build up its Google Voice offering--which is believed to be launching as an enterprise solution soon.

Not too long ago FierceVoIP ran a piece on Google's UC rise as well. Similar title too: The rise of Google's enterprise empire. Feels good to be on the right track.

For more:
- read the article at Phone+

Rebtel CEO offers insight into Skype IPO

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 15:53:40 GMT

Sure, Rebtel CEO, Andreas Bernström is a competitor of Skype, but that doesn't mean he can't offer some interesting thoughts on their IPO filing. The CEO dug into the numbers and thinks that Skype has set the bar low so they can blow it away for their potential investors.

Bernström sees Skype's huge gap between paying and freemium users not as a troubling statistic but as a huge opportunity for growth. If Skype can leverage its massive (half a billion) registered user number to convert them to even spending incremental cash on some part of its service, it can stand to make a few billion dollars.

Rebtel's CEO also believes Skype's ARPU has the potential to triple as their mobile initiatives gain speed. Skype's ad revenue was another area he saw growth with comparative companies making many millions where Skype could do at least equally as well. Another place Skype stands to gain is by trimming the fat and cutting costs. Bernström sees Skype tightening these numbers in the next few months to make their IPO very enticing.

For more:
- read the whole Business Insider article for more insight

Related news:
Skype launches $100 million IPO
Free 3G Skype calling a play to buddy up with carriers?
Skype vs. Fring: What does it mean for SkypeKit developers

CounterPath Bria hits iOS4

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 15:39:53 GMT

iPhone applicationss are all the rage, but it's great to see when a serious business targeted VoIP app shows up. CounterPath has announced the latest edition of its Bria softphone, Bria iPhone Edition 1.1, is taking the VoIP phone to iOS4.

The VoIP softphone works over 3G and WiFi and works in the background to allow for mulit-tasking. Bria iPhone supports eight user accounts allowing for the software to be used for various aspects of a users life and allowing for specific configurations for calling. The application works seamlessly with CounterPath desktop and convergence solutions as well as other VoIP infrastructure from major vendors like Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, BroadSoft, Metaswitch, Avaya, Cisco and NEC as well as Asterisk-based telephony systems.

iPhone edition is SIP compliant and appears as another endpoint to service providers and PBX equipment. The application is also iPad ready.

For more:
- read the release

Sipera and Cisco team on unified communications security

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 15:28:32 GMT

Sipera has announced joining Cisco's Security Assessment Program. The unified communications (UC) security company will offer its expertise to Cisco resellers to help them find infrastructure risks and other threats to their customers' UC deployments.

A major piece of the partnership will be free training for the Sipera VIPER Lab Vulnerability Assessment Services (VAST). System training will help security professionals find problems with UC security architectures and discover configurations that expose communications privacy, integrity and availability. VAST offers reports that detail vulnerabilities as well as remedies.

Sipera's partnership program will add another arrow in the quiver of Cisco resellers, allowing them to offer customers top of the line security assessments to make the switch to IP that much safer.

For more:
- read the release

The iPhone and Android Will Continue to Slug it Out

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 20:34:01 GMT

Rhythm NewMedia's study on the use of mobile video is intriguing. The researchers said they found that use of mobile video is accelerating far faster than is commonly assumed. Just between the first and second quarters, they said, video views grew by

Openness and Transparency: ICANN Takes an Important Step in the Right Direction

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 01:53:00 GMT

Over the years I have been critical of ICANN's inability on several occasions to match its words on openness, transparency and accountability with its actions. Therefore, it was a very pleasant surprise to see ICANN post the Board briefing documents in connection with two of its last three Board meetings (June 25th and April 22nd).

In connection with my 10-1 Reconsideration Request I had specifically requested that:

In addition, it is specifically requested that the staff briefing papers that are provided to the ICANN Board in advance of their Board meeting be publicly posted on the ICANN website in connection with the proposed Agenda seven (7) days before a meeting of the Board.

While these Board briefing papers have been posted after the Board meeting, and not before as I had originally requested, it is an important step in the right direction and for that these actions by ICANN should be applauded. Also encouraging in connection with the most recent 5 August 2010 Board meeting was the availability of the adopted resolution within 24 hours after the meeting. While I had requested that these resolutions be posted immediately after the conclusion of the meeting in my Reconsideration Request, this is still a positive change that needs to be recognized and applauded.

Keep up the good work!

Written by Michael D. Palage, Adjunct Fellow at The Progress & Freedom Foundation

Will NFC Finally Break Through?

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 20:39:16 GMT

Near-field communications (NFC), a technology that enables the transmission of data over short distances, has been hovering around the periphery of the telecommunications sector for about a decade. If the plast couple of months is an accurate barometer,

Internet Connected Devices Reaching 5 Billion

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 17:57:00 GMT

John Cox reporting in Network World: "Sometime this month, the 5 billionth device will plug into the Internet. And in 10 years, that number will grow by more than a factor of four, according to IMS Research, which tracks the installed base of equipment that can access the Internet. On the surface, this second tidal wave of growth will be driven by cell phones and new classes of consumer electronics..."

Read full story: Network World

.ORG, The Public Interest Registry Releases Results of Bi-Annual Domain Name Report, "The Dashboard"

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 17:37:00 GMT

Key Findings Show that 2010 .ORG Registrations Grew 7.6 Percent during First Six Months - Total .ORG Domains Reaches 8.5 Million

Domains Under Management – By June 2010, over 8.5 million organizations owned a .ORG domain name. Domains under management increased by 7.6% in the first half of 2010..ORG, The Public Interest Registry today released the results of its bi-annual domain name report, "The Dashboard," detailing the continued unparalleled growth of the world's third largest generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD). In the first six months of 2010, the .ORG domain grew by 7.6 percent—more than doubling last year's first half gain of 3.2 percent. This increase in registrations has brought .ORG's total domains under management to an astounding 8.5 million.

The "Dashboard" also reveals other key findings illustrating the increasing strength of the .ORG domain:

.ORG surpassed the growth of the two largest gTLDs—.COM and .NET—by posting a growth rate of 7.6 percent.
77.1 percent of organizations renewed .ORG domains for 1 to 3years—an increase of 4 percent over 2009.
.ORG realized a 16.5 percent growth in the first half of 2010 for New Creates, staying on par with results posted from .COM and .NET.
A .ORG content analysis showed that healthcare and education related domains had the most significant growth for 2010, increasing 6 percent and 13.6 percent respectively since 2009.
North America and European Union (EU) continue to represent the regions with the most significant .ORG registrations, though China grew from 2 percent to 4 percent, and the Netherlands grew 1 percent to 3 percent in 2010.

"The staggering growth of .ORG is proof that we're successfully expanding our influence across a wide array of registered businesses, for-profit companies and special interests while also continuing to serve the greater non-profit community," said Alexa Raad (CircleID), CEO of .ORG, The Public Interest Registry. "With our overall number now reaching over 8.5 million, it only further illustrates the continued appeal of a .ORG address and how our domain is viewed as a trusted and secure source both domestically and internationally."

Complementing .ORG's notable growth thus far in 2010 was the announcement that .ORG is now offering full DNSSEC deployment. On June 23, 2010, during ICANN 38 Brussels, .ORG, The Public Interest Registry announced that it has taken the final step to become the first gTLD to offer full deployment of Domain Name System Security Extensions—otherwise known as DNSSEC. The acceptance of second level-signed .ORG zones culminated an extensive two-year process in the domain's rollout of breakthrough security protocol, as registrars such as Go Daddy, DynDNS.com, and NamesBeyond can now offer added security protection to their customers by enabling .ORG website owners to sign their respective domain name with DNSSEC.

Such key initiatives lead by PIR attest to the organization's continual dedication to improve Internet security. In cooperation with the DNSSEC Coalition, .ORG hosted educational webinars for registrars to outline best practices and lessons learned in DNSSEC implementation. Also, .ORG contributed to the creation and dissemination of a Crib Sheet (Operational Considerations for Registrar Implementation) along with a Risk Assessment Document for Registry Implementations. The continuation of proactive industry partnerships is one of the many reasons .ORG is considered the most trusted gTLD on the Internet.

For more information on "The Dashboard” or to download previous versions, go to www.pir.org/news.

Protection of Intellectual Property: The Core of the Net Neutrality Debate

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 17:13:00 GMT

It didn't take long for criticism of the Verizon/Google net neutrality proposal to start pouring in. "[I]nterest groups, bloggers, and even Google fanboys [have started] discrediting the plan" according to one trade publication.

Although most of the commentary simply echoes various groups' long-held positions, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the nation's foremost cyber-rights watchdog, provided a crucial insight about the plan that goes to the core of the net neutrality issue.

EFF found merit with some aspects of the proposal, particularly with regard to limiting the FCC"s regulatory authority. The NGO stated that although they strongly support net neutrality, "we are opposed to open-ended grants of regulatory authority to the FCC." EFF also thought that a Verizon/Google recommendation for using standard setting bodies to "develop reasonable network management" was an "intriguing" approach to "handling concerns about politicization of the FCC processes...."

The most significant element of EFF's critique, however, is their objection to limiting net neutrality to "lawful" content. EFF stated that the plan would limit "nondiscrimination to 'lawful' content without defining the term or giving any indication of who decides what is 'lawful,' opening the door to entertainment industry and law enforcement efforts that could hinder free speech and innovation."

Whether or not to permit network management practices that discriminate against unlawful content is the crux of the net neutrality debate. EFF would like the issue addressed by applying non-discrimination provisions to content irrespective of its lawfulness while the FCC largely pretends that the lawfulness issue does not exist.

Although the FCC would nominally limit regulatory protections to "lawful" content, their net neutrality plans ignore the fact that most content distributed through peer-to-peer file sharing mechanisms is unlawful. As the Library of Congress' Copyright Office stated, "the files distributed over peer-to-peer networks are primarily copyrighted works...."

The FCC's new net neutrality plan rests on the fundamental mistake the agency made in their Comcast decision, determining that there is harm in companies limiting what is mostly the unlawful dissemination of music, movies, software and other protected intellectual property.

Until the FCC's error in the Comcast decision is corrected, a responsible net neutrality framework cannot be developed.

Written by Bruce Levinson, Regulatory Watchdog

Afilias Announces Judging Panel for 2010 .INFO Awards

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 15:00:00 GMT

Leading members of media and technology will select the short list of finalists to via for Best .INFO Website of 2010

Afilias, a global provider of Internet infrastructure services and the registry for the .INFO top-level domain (TLD), today released the roster of judges selected to evaluate submissions to the fourth annual .INFO Awards program. The Awards program, which opened last week, enables any .INFO website owner to submit their site for consideration to receive top honors as the "Best .INFO Website of 2010" and receive a cash prize of up to $7,500.

"Afilias is pleased to have such high caliber judges from the fields of online information, media, and technology," said Roland LaPlante, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for Afilias. "This year's panel consists of judges from many different countries and three continents, truly representing the global nature and appeal of the .INFO domain."

The 2010 judging panel will be made up of seven distinguished individuals from the online, media and technology industries. They include:

Dominik Grollmann, editor in chief, Internet World Business (Germany)
Grant Allaway, group managing director, AD2ONE (UK)
Peter Prestipino, editor in chief, Website Magazine (US)
Liam Eagle, editor in chief, the Web Host Industry Review (Canada)
Anand Parthasarathy, editor, IndiaTechOnline.com (India)
Katy Tafoya, creator and editor, ConstantChatter.com (US)
Philipp Grabensee, chairman of the board, Afilias (Germany)

The judging panel will review all eligible sites submitted for consideration based on five key criteria including: presentation of content, functionality of the website, design, usability, and originality.

For details on entry requirements and restrictions please visit the Awards Rules. For more details on the .INFO Awards or to submit your site visit www.INFO-award.info.

About the .INFO Awards
The .INFO Awards honors the best .INFO websites and highlights the usefulness that the .INFO domain has added to the Internet in the nine years since its debut. Any .INFO domain owner may submit their website for consideration until September 10, 2010. A shortlist of the 10 finalists, based on the judges' scores, will be published on October 5, 2010. Members of the public will then be able to vote for their favorite of the top 10 sites until November 2. The public votes will be combined with the judges' scores to select the top 3 winners, with first place being named the "Best .INFO website of 2010." Winners will receive cash prizes allocated as: US$7,500 for first place, US$5,000 for second place, and US$3,000 for third place.

About .INFO
.INFO was the first generic, unrestricted TLD to be launched since .com and is the most successful new TLD launched in over 25 years. Registrations in .INFO first became available in 2001. Since then, .INFO has grown to become the fourth largest gTLD in the world with over 6 million domain names registered. .INFO Domains are currently available in ten Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) scripts. For more information on .INFO please visit www.info.info.

Google Still Dodges Questions on Wireless Net Neutrality

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 16:58:20 GMT

It is possible that Google has the public’s best interests at heart in the agreement it struck last week with Verizon. As I pointed out last week, however, a corporation has significant legal and fiduciary responsibilities and has a responsibility to

LG-Ericson targets U.S. with business voice offerings

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 16:37:06 GMT

LG-Ericsson has decided to make some moves into the U.S., announcing today that they would be offering a end-to-end and voice networking solutions targeting small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) up to large enterprises.

The U.S. offering is a joint venture of Korea-based LG-Ericsson, a provider of telecommunication solutions, and Taiwan-based Accton Technology Corporation, a global provider of voice and data networking solutions. With this combined portfolio, the U.S. company will provide a suite of IP PBX systems and a full complement of business-class digital, IP, WiFi, SIP, soft phones, and multimedia terminals, as well as a host of fully-managed and unmanaged switches with a Network Management Services and Unified Device Manager platform.

For more:
- read the FierceTelecom story
- read the release

Dialogic offers trade-in deal for old video gateways

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 16:21:51 GMT

Dialogic, a multimedia and signal processing technology company, has launched its new Vision Plus video gateway program that will help service providers upgrade their offerings.

The new program offers service providers and solution developers a trade-in promo to replace deployed video gateways with a Dialogic Vision 1000 Video Gateway. Vision Plus participants will trade in their competing old video gateways for a Dialogic one. Companies can also purchase a reduced price lab bundle which includes free remote installation and remote training. The Vision 1000 Video Gateway's 3G-324M interoperability and real-time video transcoding offers users enhanced video quality for interactive mobile video services such as social networking, integrated video conferencing, video call completion to voice, video SMS or video voice mail, video surveillance, interactive voice and video response and video advertising.

"As mobile networks grow to support billions of subscribers worldwide, video services represent an exciting approach to generating new revenue streams. However, while this opportunity is significant, service providers can be faced with a changing vendor landscape that can make it difficult to choose the right technology partner," said Kevin Cook, senior vice president of worldwide sales at Dialogic Corporation in the release. "The Vision Plus Program helps reduce risks in deploying 3G-324M video gateway technologies and enables service providers to maintain--and grow--mobile video service revenues."

For more:
- read the release

Report: 27% of respondents migrating to VoIP this year

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 15:57:05 GMT

A new study issued by Atlantic-ACM shows that a good portion of telecom customers are planning to migrate to VoIP in the coming year.

In its 2010 edition of its Business Connectivity Wireline and Wireless Report Card, Atlantic-ACM surveyed small- and medium-sized business (SMBs), enterprise customers and wireless subscribers who rated their carriers and products like ISDN, DIA, IP VPN and VoIP. The survey found that 27 percent of respondents indicated that they already had or were planning to migrate to VoIP services within the year. Integrated access/PRI and circuit-switched voice users were the main group of respondents who were planning to make the migration to VoIP soon.

The research company believes that VoIP will continue to see high growth in the future as VoIP becomes more commoditized and customers see more cost savings and efficiency boosts.

For more:
- read the release

MagicJack figures out how to do completely free calls

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 15:47:42 GMT

MagicJack's USB dongle is king of the infomercial led free-after-the-initial-purchase consumer VoIP, but now it has sweetened the pot.

The USB VoIP device goes for $40 down and then $20 a year (after the first free year) for unlimited VoIP calls to telephones (not just to other MagicJack users or computers). Although the deal sounds pretty sweet, but MagicJack is now launching a new service that will mean truely free calls. The MagicTalk service is a software release of the MagicJack service, but it makes its money charging phone companies for incoming calls to MagicJack users. Initially supporting Windows and Mac, MagicJack plans to release a mobile phone version soon. Each user gets their own MagicJack number with the option of transferring their own number to their MagicJack service.

MagicJack's idea sounds like a win for consumers and it's pretty tough to compete with 'free.' It will just be interesting to see if the company can make enough money to keep the service afloat on just charging fees to other telephone companies.

For more:
- read the news story

An Attack on DNS is an Attack on the Internet

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 17:18:00 GMT

On Saturday Aug 7th, DNS provider DNS Made Easy was the target of a very large denial of service attack. As far as can be determined the total traffic volume exceeded 40 Gigabit/second, enough to saturate 1 million dialup Internet lines. Several of DNS Made Easy's upstream providers had saturated backbone links themselves. There are indications that not only DNS Made Easy suffered from this attack, but the Internet as a whole.

An attack on DNS is an attack on the Internet in two ways. Name servers are a critical point in almost every Internet access. But as our research shows, the consequences of this attack were wider than the attack's primary target.

According to DNS Made Easy, service impact was limited. According to our measurements it was around 5-10% on a global basis.

"In some regions there were no issues, in other regions outages lasted a few minutes, while in other regions there were sporadic (up and down) outages for a couple of hours. In Europe for instance there was never any downtime. In Asia downtime continued longer than other regions. In United States the west coast was hit much harder and experienced issues longer than the central and east coast."

DNS was designed from the ground up to be resilient to individual server failures. In theory this should make the loss of a few servers irrelevant. On top of this, the provider has implemented an anycast routing infrastructure, which works to ensure that DNS queries all over the world are resolved regionally. Note that because of the anycast routing of this provider, outages are related to the location where the clients (resolvers) are located, not the servers whose names are being queried.

However, measurements/analyses that I made in collaboration with WatchMouse.com have uncomfortable implications. WatchMouse regularly measures the performance, including the DNS resolve time, of thousands of sites, through a network of more than 40 stations spread over all continents.

In a dataset with sites whose DNS records were served by the provider, resolve times rose from a normal average of less than 100 milliseconds to over 200 milliseconds in the hours of the attack. Average failure rates in this dataset are around 1%. During the attack hours, this rose to 5% and even 10%. As can be expected, these failure rates differed greatly by monitoring station, though it is hard to see a geographical pattern.

Another dataset consists of regular measurements of more than 300 sites, with a total of more than 300.000 individual measurements over a period of 8 days. In contrast, none of these sites had their DNS service from DNS Made Easy. These sites are operated by a wide variety of industries.

On the seven days leading up to the attack, the daily average DNS resolution time in this dataset was between 352 milliseconds and 379 milliseconds. On the 7th of August, the average was 453 milliseconds, which is a significantly higher. Averaged by the hour, resolution times rose to 600 and even 800 milliseconds. There are failure rate fluctuations in this dataset, but they appear to be uncorrelated to the attack.

Note that these measurements support the provider's claim of shorter resolve times. A regular DNS lookup takes 350 milliseconds, but DNS Made Easy's average is less than 100 milliseconds.

In conclusion, these results are disturbing because even sites that are totally unrelated to DNS Made Easy were affected in their response times. The implication of this is that this denial of service attack was big enough to have collateral damage on the rest of the Internet.

Written by Peter van Eijk, IT Strategist, Author and Speaker

Good News on Several Fronts for 4G

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 20:48:52 GMT

The maturing of 4G – generally defined as either Long Term Evolution (LTE) or WiMax – has been even more interesting than usual during the past couple of weeks. Clearwire, the sponsor of the Clear service, is the most significant backer of WiMax.

Net Neutrality and Google/Verizon

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 16:16:00 GMT

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. They both want high speed access, the dispute is over who pays for that high speed access. Google would prefer someone else pay. Verizon/Comcast want to build out high speed networks but are skeptical as to the willingness of consumers to pay for faster access.

If not for the way that Google and Comcast had raised the issue, I would have written much more about the issue in public at the time. But one of the biggest problems with net neutrality was the ideological manner in which the issue was being fought. Both sides were taking a no prisoners approach and threatening reprisals against anyone who might dare suggest a compromise.

On the face of it, the proposal is an entirely reasonable solution to the question of how to pay for higher speed Internet. But it does nothing to solve the underlying structural issue that most US consumers have little or no choice in Internet providers and there are no effective measures of how good the service a provider is supplying.

I currently have Comcast as a provider for my Internet and VoIP. I also have Vonage on my office line, but that is now unusable. But I have absolutely no way to know whether that is because of the Vonage network or because of Comcast. Comcast would like to upsell me to their new Xfinity product, which I might consider if it would let me run my own VoIP server, if I could run a home server, if it would provide me with other services I want, if it would make my home Internet faster. Verizon would like me to consider their FIOS service.

I spend a considerable amount on communications. I am clearly in the target market for these premium services. But at the moment I see no real reason to switch because neither supplier is able to quantify the improvement in quality they are offering.

And this is why I am somewhat more skeptical of the benefit of adding yet more competition for broadband provision into the mix. While competition is unlikely to hurt (unless you are a shareholder of a monopoly provider), it is hard for me to see what benefit I get by switching either. And if I can't work out what the advantage is, I doubt that the typical subscriber will either. Without objective measures of quality of service, I can't make an informed purchasing decision.

What we need here is a Nielsen ratings service for broadband provision. A statistically representative group of subscribers would fit measurement devices that sit behind the Internet router and these would feed statistics to one of more bodies that analyze the data and produce reports on the quality of service delivered by specific providers in specific locales. There could even be a service contract element here. If a consumer pays for five star service and only gets one, they get a break on their charges.

The other part of the puzzle is that we need a mechanism that ensures that the Google-Verizon deal is available to all Internet content providers on an equal basis.

Given Verizon's earlier experience of seeing a firestorm from customers after blocking a text message from a pro-abortion rights group, I seriously doubt that US broadband providers will want to get into the business of political censorship. On the contrary, it is in their interest to assure everyone that they are not taking sides. Whatever short-term gain is realized by favoring one side is going to be far outweighed by the revenge extracted by the other when they get their chance.

No, the real problem is how to make sure that the Internet does not tip so heavily towards the incumbents so that there is no room for innovators to enter in the US market. That would not only be bad for consumers, it would be catastrophic for companies like Google who need external innovators to supplement their internally generated ideas. Google realized the value of video and tried to set up their own service (Google Video, it still exists). But they ended up paying over a billion for You Tube because they had done it better, and Google needed to stay ahead.

In conclusion, I think the deal is positive. But it is the first step, not an end in itself.

Written by Phillip Hallam-Baker, Consultant, Author, Speaker

Google Responds to Criticisms Over Proposed Net Neutrality

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 04:38:00 GMT

Responding to recent controversies over Google-Verizon deal, Richard Whitt, Google's Washington Telecom and Media Counsel writes: "Over the past few days there's been a lot of discussion surrounding our announcement of a policy proposal on network neutrality we put together with Verizon. On balance, we believe this proposal represents real progress on what has become a very contentious issue, and we think it could help move the network neutrality debate forward constructively. We don't expect everyone to agree with every aspect of our proposal, but there has been a number of inaccuracies about it, and we do want to separate fact from fiction."

Domain Names as Second-Class Citizens

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 23:01:00 GMT

A new book by Dr. Konstantinos Komaitis (Lecturer in Law at the University of Strathclyde) provides a passionate yet legalistic and well-researched overview of the legal, institutional and ethical problems caused by the clash between domain names and trademarks. This is really the first decent book-length treatment of what is now a decade and a half of legal and political conflict between domain name registrants and trademark holders. But this is more than a static compilation and description of the subject: Komaitis has an original and fundamentally important argument to make.

In his view, domain names are a form of property, and the property rights held by domain name registrants need to be recognized in law—independently of, and carefully distinguished from, the limited rights associated with trademark protection. Komaitis shows that under the institutional regime that has evolved since 1998 (in which ICANN and US law play leading roles), domain name registrants are not afforded normal property rights. Due to the political power of the trademark lobby, their rights are subordinated to trademark protection and their property rights recognized only insofar as they have no impact on trademarks. Hence the book's subtitle: domain names are "second-class citizens in a mark-dominated world." The author makes a convincing case that this is not the appropriate state of affairs, so we need to rethink the way we approach the laws and rights pertaining to domain names.

This argument is carried out very systematically. Komaitis starts at the beginning, taking up the theory of property and reviewing the legal debate over whether domain names are property or "service contracts." He then proceeds to discuss the history, legal basis, procedural aspects and performance of ICANN's Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). There is an interesting discussion of the differences between what we normally think of as arbitration and the UDRP, which poses as an arbitral process. As one might expect, most of the differences have the effect of weakening the rights of registrants, binding them to a procedure and rules while allowing the complainant more choice and options. He goes on to critique the procedural justness of the UDRP and the contradictions of the U.S. Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA), with its in rem jurisdiction that erases the territoriality of trademark protection. There is a chapter on the interaction between domain name regulation and freedom of expression rights. He concludes by showing how "the same mistakes" are being repeated and even reinforced by a trademark interest-dominated "implementation review team" (IRT) which developed in reaction to ICANN's new top level domains initiative.

Komaitis's take on domain name regulation is definitely worth reading. On the downside, the writing style of this non-native English speaker is a bit complex at times (although, oddly, it improves in later chapters). One can only wonder whether the Routledge series that published the volume gave it the editorial attention it clearly deserved. There are also some minor mistakes in the author's understanding of DNS technology; several times the author says that ICANN enforces domain name judgments by "altering the registrant's information on the 'A' root," which is not how it works (actions deleting or reassigning second-level domains are taken at the TLD registry, not at the root zone file). But this has no impact on the legal argumentation.

Written by Milton Mueller, Professor, Syracuse University School of Information Studies

Ten Mobile VoIP Apps for the iPhone

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 17:03:45 GMT

One of the exciting places that this previously wireline-only technology has been springing up lately is on the mobile phone. And one of the hottest spots in the mobile phone world is the iPhone App store. With the iPhone's WiFi capabilities as well as the recent lifting of the 3G VoIP calling embargo, the iPhone is playing host to numerous mobile VoIP apps that allow users to take advantage of the cost savings and advanced features of voice over IP. Here in no particular order are 10 consumer VoIP apps for the iPhone:

Skype
With Skype for the iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch users can make or recieve calls and instant messages from anyone else on Skype from around the world. The Skype-to-Skype calling works between iPhone users and desktop users, so it doesn't matter what device your friends are using. In the latest release, users can now call over 3G on the iPhone and have Skype run in the background for an always-on call answering ability. Skype allows calls to phones not on Skype as well for low international calling rates at near CD quality.
goober VoIP
The killer app for goober is that they offer calling to 40 countries where the first 2 minutes are always free. The cost of the first two minutes end up being credited to your account at the end of your call. The company offers flate rate plans for international calling and although it offers calls over 3G it reccomends WiFi.
fring
This little app, which has caused a lot of commotion, offers free voice calls, IM chats and video calls. Recently, fring ran into trouble with Skype and no longer offer Skype calls as part of their service, but the Fring app still communications with MSN Messenger, GoogleTalk, Twitter, Yahoo, AIM, and ICQ. fring offers Push notifications and even SIP integration.
Nimbuzz
Nimbuzz taps into Yahoo, MSN, and AIM as well as social networks like Facebook and Myspace. The service allows for free or low cost local and international calls as well as free messaging. Nimbuzz allows users to make calls to landline phones as well.
Vonage Mobile
Subscribers with the Vonage World Mobile plan can make unlimited calls with this app to anywhere in the US and to over 60 countries around the world. The app uses both cellular and WiFi networks to make calls with non-international calls being free over WiFi for minute plans.
Truphone
This app has gotten a lot of great reviews for its ability to manage many IM coversations as well as offer free WiFi and 3G calls to other Truphone users, Skype, and Google Talk users. The service also offers low cost international calling and free voice mail with Push notification. The service also provides Twitter integration. Be warned though as the most recent software update (4.0.2) has disabled the background multitasking but hopefully they will bring that back soon.
Vopium
This app lets users try the service for 15 minutes free to anywhere in the world. As part of the intro, users also get 15 free SMS to anywhere in the world. The Vopium service taps into both Skype and Google Talk for additional free calling and chats with friends on Facebook, MSN, Skype, Google Talk, Yahoo, AIM and ICQ. Vopium won the 2009 European Mobile VoIP Technology Innovation award by Frost and Sullivan.
Gizmo5
Recently acquired by Google, Gizmo5's latest update was August 2 so its still alive and well on the iPhone. The only glitch is that you have to have already been a Gizmo5 subscriber before the Google takeover to really make any use of the app. Also, the Gizmo5 app costs $1.99, so don't buy it unless you are already a subscriber.
Ooma Mobile for iPhone
Ooma Mobile is for Ooma customers. The service allows them to make US and international calls from their iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch either using 3G or WiFi. Ooma's PureVoice technology offers higher voice quality without using a lot of bandwidth. The app costs $9.99 in addition to what you are paying for your Ooma service. Calling to other Ooma users is free but calls to US numbers come in at $.019/minute.
iCall
Apparently iCall was selected as the New York Times App of the Week at one point. According to the company it is used by over 4 million people worldwide to make calls. With iCall you can make calls over 3G and WiFi. The app is free but ad-supported.

Watch this space in the future for a round up of business VoIP apps.