Measuring IPv6 at the Network and the Customer Level

George Michaelson, APNIC's Senior Research and Development Scientist recently visited the RIPE NCC to collaborate on various research projects with his RIR colleagues. IPv6 measurements were one of the topics we looked at.

Recent IPv6 statistics from the RIPE NCC show an accelerated uptake of IPv6 in Norway, both in terms of the number of allocated prefixes, and visible announcements in the routing system. This is based on a comparison over time of the amount of IPv6 addresses allocated to each economy, and the amount of visible prefixes per Autonomous System (AS) in the routing tables each day. The graph below shows 50% of ASes in Norway now announce one or more IPv6 prefix.

Some have interpreted this

Communications and the London Olympics

Communications will be one of the most critical areas during the London Olympic Games.

The industry is working to establish shared access networks — would it not be nice if they did this everywhere, all the time? They are also working very closely with British Olympic Association, London Transport, the broadcasters and content providers.

Mobile coverage will be the biggest shared infrastructure in the world. There are already 80 million mobile devices in the UK, and to this will be added the millions of devices from overseas visitors and athletes. There will be more people taking photos and videos and sending them around the world. And, of course, the same applies to the thousands of professional photographers and journalists attending the Games. The mobile operators have indicated that there may be periods of 'controlled service', particularly in relation to mobile broadband.

There will be two dimensions to this network — one for officials and

If You Build It, They Will Come.

Only two years after signing the DNS root zone, the powerful lure of a secure global infrastructure for data distribution is starting to reveal itself. It is illustrated clearly by two proposed technical standardizations that seek to leverage secure DNS. To some degree these developments highlight the strength of DNS institutions and how they might fill gaps elsewhere in the Internet's governance. But an increasing reliance upon and concentration of power in the DNS also makes getting its global governance correct even more important.

The first, more widely known, development is the IETF's ongoing DANE effort. The DANE standard proposes to improve the Transport Level Security (TLS) protocol, which is used worldwide to secure communication between applications (e.g., a browser) and host machines (e.g., a website server). DANE enables adm

IXPs and CDNs Critical to the Future of Competitive Broadband Internet

We continue to see consolidation in the broadband market and various games played by the cablecos and telcos to thwart competition or undermine network neutrality (See links below).

Until regulators create true structural separation between infrastructure and service providers the chances of seeing genuine broadband competition are slim. It is interesting to note telecom regulators in North America have imposed structural separation in the past. In the 1970s when the cable industry was a fledgling startup industry the FCC in the US and the CRTC in Canada passed regulations forbidding telephone companies to acquire and/or compete with cable companies. This enabled the creation of a entirely new business sector — cable television- who now dominates the broadcast and Internet market place. If regulators and governments are interested in stimulating the economy and creating new business opportunities, it is time they study their past successes and breakup up toda

Canadian Telcos Fast Tracking FttH to Combat Cable Operators

There are a number of stimuli which are pushing Canada's burgeoning FttH market, and the government and telcos alike have made significant steps to improve the reach and capacity of broadband infrastructure. These measures will show real benefits for consumers in recent years.

From the government's side, its Economic Action Plan, launched in 2009 as a response to the global financial crisis, included a pledge to provide $225 million over three years towards its Broadband Canada Program, geared to extending broadband coverage to underserved communities. The initiative called for the government to pay up to 50% of costs incurred by operators upgrading broadband in rural areas. By the end of 2012, the program's 86 or so projects are expected to have delivered broadband to about 214,000 households.

The government also recently proposed reducing barriers to foreign investment in the telecoms sector, enabling foreign companies to hold more than 46.7% stakes in l

Canadian Telcos Fast Tracking Ftt to Combat Cable Operators

There are a number of stimuli which are pushing Canada's burgeoning FttH market, and the government and telcos alike have made significant steps to improve the reach and capacity of broadband infrastructure. These measures will show real benefits for consumers in recent years.

From the government's side, its Economic Action Plan, launched in 2009 as a response to the global financial crisis, included a pledge to provide $225 million over three years towards its Broadband Canada Program, geared to extending broadband coverage to underserved communities. The initiative called for the government to pay up to 50% of costs incurred by operators upgrading broadband in rural areas. By the end of 2012, the program's 86 or so projects are expected to have delivered broadband to about 214,000 households.

The government also recently proposed reducing barriers to foreign investment in the telecoms sector, enabling foreign companies to hold more than 46.7% stakes in l

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

Representatives of both AT&T and Verizon have stated that their companies will soon offer "toll free" broadband services. So far they have not provided much detail, but the prospect for customer and content provider surcharges should trigger concern, even outside the context of the network neutrality debate.

First let's consider the frame the carrier reps use: "Toll Free." This is an old school "Bellhead" reference to a pricing strategy where the called party pays instead of the calling party. Lots of commercial ventures have offered consumers Wide Area Telephone Service ("WATS") line access using the 1-800 and now 866, 877 and 888 prefixes. So toll free historically has referred to a pricing arrangement where consumers can avoid having to pay for a long distance telephone call.

The toll free reference may be a red herring here, because it's likely that the arrangement will simply mean consumers will not have minutes of use or downloaded bytes debited against a

Carlos Slim Puts Bomb Under European Telecoms Market

The Mexican telecoms and broadcasting magnate Carlos Slim — the wealthiest man in the world and owner of the business conglomerate Grupo Carso — has put a 28% bid for the Netherlands' incumbent telco KPN on the table. This is a very interesting and significant move. As is often the case, new winners tend to arrive when previous winners become losers, especially when they are becoming weaker and thus easier to attack. The new winners in the 21st century will come from what in the 20th century were called developing countries. In the communications sector in particular we have seen that these countries — be they in Africa, Asia or South America — have seen the most spectacular growth. Because of their very large populations, growth in these markets adds up to very big numbers.

For several years now I've argued that it is only a matter of time before these new telco giants will enter the so-called developed economies. Now is a good time: developed econo

Software Defined Networks and Integration of Wifi with 3G/4G for R&E Networks

A number of R&E networks such as SURFnet, JANET, AARnet, etc. are actively promoting mobile services and looking at integration of campus Wifi with 3G/4G networks using Eduroam. Mobile wireless services promises to be major service offering for R&E networks as the Internet of Things and Machine to Machine (M2M) becomes increasingly critical for research. Applications such as personal medical devices on (or in) the body, environmental sensors, traffic monitors and even garbage truck tracking will need such networks. As well anytime, anyplace, any device education and research will be increasingly dependent on the integration of campus Wifi, community Wifi and 3G/4G networks. Public content and distribution networks will also be an integral component. And as I have blogged in the past such wireless integration allows the deployment of overlapping Green WiFi nodes — powered by solar panels which will be needed to adapt a warmer climate.

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A Look at the Rapid Evolution of the World's DNS Infrastructure

A recent report by Pingdom looks at the booming growth of Internet's DNS infrastructure. From the article: "Five years ago there were 123 DNS root server sites (the "backend" of DNS) spread out on the Internet. Today there are more than twice as many, over 300. Five years ago, 46 countries had root servers. Today, 76 have them. In other words, not only has the number of root servers grown tremendously, but their geographical spread has increased as well. This is good news for the overall stability and performance of DNS worldwide."

The report also notes that Europe has overtaken North America as the world region with the most root server sites.

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