Facebook Announces Plan to Make Internet Access Available to All, Launches Internet.org

By CircleID Reporter

Facebook announces global partnership with Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Qualcomm, Samsung as founding partners of Internet.org — an initiative to expand global internet access availability.Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, on Tuesday announced the launch of internet.org, a global partnership with the goal of making internet access available to the next 5 billion people.

From the announcement: "The founding members of internet.org — Facebook, Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Qualcomm and Samsung — will develop joint projects, share knowledge, and mobilize industry and governments to bring the world online. These founding companies have a long history of working closely with mobile operators and expect them to play leading roles within the initiative, which over time will also include NGOs, academics and experts as well. Internet.org is influenced by the successful Open Compute Project, an industry-wide initiative that has lowered the costs of cloud computing by making hardware designs more efficient and innovative."

Related topics: Access Providers, Broadband

New gTLDs Are Like Derivatives on Wall Street With No Value, Says Esther Dyson

By CircleID Reporter

In a story ran by the New York Times over the weekend, the viability of introducing hundreds of new top-level domains in the market has been criticized by individuals including Esther Dyson, a technology investor who served as the founding chairwoman of ICANN. Dyson likens ICANN's plan for the introduction of new gTLDs to creating derivative-like businesses on Wall Street that have no value. "You can charge people for it, but you are contributing nothing to the happiness of humanity."

Related topics: Domain Names, ICANN, Top-Level Domains, Web

Global Internet Traffic Falls by Around 40% Due to a Google Outage

By CircleID Reporter

Worldwide internet traffic plunged by around 40% as Google services suffered a complete black-out, according to web analytics experts. The tech company said all of its services from Google Search to Gmail to YouTube to Google Drive went down for between one and five minutes on Friday. The reason for the outage is not yet known and Google has refused to provide further information reports Sky News Online.

Related topics: Access Providers, Web

China Unveils Broadband Strategy, Aims to Provide Access to All Urban, Rural Areas By 2020

By CircleID Reporter

China aims to provide broadband access to all urban and rural areas by 2020, according to the State Council. It is the first time for the country to announce a specific timetable for the development of broadband as "a national strategy," according to the announcement. By 2015, half of the Chinese households are expected to use fixed broadband, 3G mobile coverage rate is expected to reach 32.5 percent, and fiber-to-home services will cover all urban areas.

Related topics: Access Providers, Broadband

ICANN, NTIA, Verisign and ANA Weighing In on 'Name Collisions' and the Readiness of New gTLD Program

By CircleID Reporter

Gregory S. Shatan of Reed Smith writes: "Last week, ICANN (the organization that oversees the domain name system of the Internet) was busy with nothing less than the security and stability of the Internet. At ICANN's recent meeting in Durban, those of us attending heard a drumbeat of studies, presentations and concerns regarding "name collisions": the conflicts that will arise when new gTLDs go live and conflict with existing top-level extensions in private networks… ICANN has now reacted to the studies and concerns over name collisions, and posted a "Proposal to Mitigate Name Collision Risks" The Proposal assumes that all new gTLDs can be divided in three parts, like Gaul: High Risk (just .home and .corp), Uncalculated Risk (approximately 280 gTLDs) and Low Risk (the remaining 1100 gTLDs). The flaw in this reasoning is that the division is based solely on the number of observed "empty queries" relating to each new gTLD."

Related topics: DNS, Domain Names, ICANN, Internet Governance, Policy & Regulation, Top-Level Domains

ISOC: Global Internet Community Must Unite to Support Open Internet Access, Freedom, and Privacy

By CircleID Reporter

The Internet Society Board of Trustees during its meeting in Berlin, Germany today called on the global Internet community to stand together in support of open Internet access, freedom, and privacy. Recently exposed information about government Internet surveillance programs is a wake-up call for Internet users everywhere — the fundamental ideals of the Internet are under threat. The Internet Society Board of Trustees believes that government Internet surveillance programs create unacceptable risks for the future of a global, interoperable, and open Internet.

Related topics: Internet Governance, Privacy

Michael Kende Joins Internet Society As Its First Chief Economist

By CircleID Reporter

Michael Kende joins Internet Society as its first Chief EconomistAs the first Chief Economist of the Internet Society, Michael Kende has joined the organization to provide strategic insights into the economic dynamics of Internet issues, as well as current and emerging trends impacting the Internet. Based in Geneva, Switzerland, he will be responsible for leading economic research and analyses as well as key Internet development, policy, market, and technology issues.

Mr. Kende was previously a partner at Analysys Mason, a global consulting firm, where he led the Policy and Regulatory sector and was responsible for developing its Internet practice. During the past several years, Mr. Kende authored a number of papers for the Internet Society, including a study of the impact of IXPs in Kenya and Nigeria and improving Internet connectivity in Africa.