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Fiber Business Case |
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VoIP part 1 VoIP part 2 |
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Everest Trek: a Guided Tour |
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Kashmir and Ganges Sept-Oct 2001 |
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Everest Base Camp 2003 Tibet 1998, Nepal 2002 |
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Past Issues (Abstracts)
Highlighted links will take you to executive summaries. For possibly quicker access, especially to older executive summaries, click executive summaries bar above.
Interconnectedness of IT and telecom and jobs. Roxane Googin on revolutions in servers, software, storage, silicon, clients and broadband that are maturing and converging to enable the real time global corporation. Extensive interview with Jason Hill creator of Tiny OS, the operating system for wireless sensor networks.Interview with fSona free space optics gigabit wireless backbone provider. Note on progress of advanced optical networks. Auerbach bests Cerf in discussion of ICANN failures. 42 pages
A look at how the US is abandoning the 30 years of policy that built the Internet. Our findings based on extended interviews with Texas telecom attorney Scott McCollough and Canadian broadband expert Francois Menard, a shorter conversation with both the CEO and chief regulatory officer of EarthLink, and on careful readings of articles by Penn State Professor Rob Freiden and Bob Cannon of the FCC Office of Plans and Policy, some high level summary by Canadian attorney Tim Denton and on a very useful interview on DSL technology with Merhan Musai. 66 pages
A look at FCC regulatory moves (Triennial Review Broadband DSL NPRM) that will likely destroy independent non wireless ISPs. An introduction to the regulatory issues and the significance of the arcane classifications of services. Does Powell have a plan? And if so what is it?Part 2 is an exploration of wireless sensor networks and pervasive computing with interviews of Deborah Estrin, Letina Connelly and Kris Pister. 62 pages
October - November 2003 (12.07 - 08)
The Universe of License Exempt Wireless -- A Realistic Alternative for Broadband Provisioning This double issue of The COOK Report presents a survey of the progress made by license exempt wireless over the past 18 months. The technology is now capable of delivering bits at whatever bandwidth levels users require. Virtually everything that is done by copper and fiber can be achieved by license exempt wireless. We explain in detail the very complex decision making criteria necessary for the successful provision of wireless broadband service. It won't happen overnight but it is now becoming economically feasible to think in terms of replacing most of the wireline upstream infrastructure with wireless. - 130 pages
July - September 2003 (12.04 - 06)
First Mile Technologies - Fiber and Wireless. Roxane Googin on Commodization. Why Linux wins and Microsoft loses. Anders Comstedt on Stokab. Steve Stroh on Broadband Internet Access. Also a 61,000 word symposium on fiber to the home architectures and business models. For introductory essay and table of contents click this url. - 130 pages. The Paradox of Commoditization - Studies in VoIP and Telecom Economics This url will take you to our Paradox of Commoditization Essay and an abbreviated Executive Summary for the April June 2003 issue. The June pages of this three month issue contain a further discussion of edge based IPv6. As well as an extended round table discussion on telecom economics with Carliss Baldwin, David Reed, Roxane Googin, Andrew Odlyzko, Bill St Arnaud, and Scott Bradner. Voice as just a Data Application. Technically and even more importantly, economically, the difference between voice and data is disappearing. This two part (eventually 3 part) issue explores basic VoIP architecture looking especially closely at SIP and H.323 and the effect of the architecture on telco business models. It examines the impact of VoIP on the arbitrage and collapse of international call charges. It looks, we suspect for the first time ever, at Black Market VoIP and at European Cellular bypass. It examines broadband in Asia especially Yahoo! BB in Japan and broad band in Korea. Broadband infrastructure in these countries is coming to lead the world. Finally looks at the setback to broadband in the USA as a result of the FCC's gifts to the LECs. - 128 pages Building Tools for Edge Based Control. Vonage and mesh-based wi-fi in context of Clay Shirky's Zap mail. Extensive discussion of IPv6. Going no where in the backbone according to Nabuo Ikeda and Farooq Hussain. Very important at the edge according to Bob Frankston, David Reed, and Francois Menard. Edge v6 has the potential to allow users at the edge to avoid would be central controllers. Discussion of Farber Faulhaber Proprietary Spectrum approach from the Open Spectrum point of view. How ICANN kept the IANA function from being institutionalized and kept overturned the policy of the NSF to open the DNS process at the end of 1996. Don Mitchell explains what NSF wanted to do. We republish Larry Lessig's October 1998 prophecy on what ICANN would become. - 51 pagesJanuary - February 2003 (11.10-11)
The Enterprise Leaves the PSTN. The full two part issue contains an extended discussion of issues VoIP in the Enterprise and VoIPs impact on the arbitrage of international rates. It gives also a detailed overview of ENUM issues and the development of VoIP, ENUM, VISION NG activities in Europe. Additional articles discuss neutral attachment to IP networks, and the progress of extreme broadband. An extensive write up of asset based telecom in the Khumbu (Mt Everest area of Nepal). Lessig's 1998 ICANN prophecy. 107 pages Part one of a combined issue on voice over IP. In an interview with Richard Shockey and commentary by Henning Schulzrinne we examine the progress of VoIP in the enterprise during 2002 and conclude that the enterprise is beginning to leave the PSTN. Discussion of VoIP and ENUM issues with panel of experts. Analysis of Michael Powell's move on spectrum policy reform. Part 2 early January. A two part combined issue on peering and transit. Farooq Hussain describes the broken policy of the Tier 1 oligopoly. Bill Woodcock Explains a methodology for Peering and transit decisions that can enable smaller ISPs to prosper. Interview includes the first description of netflow data for Synthetic path construction. From pages 28 - 83 A Mini Encyclopedia of the Economics, Politics and Technology of Internet Interconnections -- Our Experts Discuss Architecture, Traffic Flows, Transit and Bandwidth Costs, as Well as Market Economics. Interview with Roxane Googin on .13 Micron Technology. Article on ICANN's paranoia. How Michael Froomkin's well reasoned analysis of ICANN's demetia drove Joe Sims to distraction. The RIAA runs amok and a net architect mistakenly defends them. - 118 pages This references the third and final part of a three month issue on Asset Based Telecom. This URL will take you to the majority of the Executive Summary for the entire Asset Based Telecom issue. This third part contimes interviews with Bernard Daines of World Wide Packets, Bill St Arnaud and other new material. All three parts can be obtained for $375. This equals the yearly subscription price for a corporation with annual revenues of 10 to 200 million dollars. The URL immediately below gives you the contents of the entire issueAug - Sept - Oct 2002 (11.05 - 06)
A combined issue on Asset Based Telecom. As the center goes bankrupt municipalities are beginning to build fiber and wireless based broadband networks. When the industry revives it will do so from asset based edges as users will come to own their own networks. This rebuilding will increasingly involve fiber to the home. In a symposium with 20 experts from all aspects of these developments, we look at the critical role that finding the right architecture will play in the industries future. Combined issue including October refernced above is 178 pages in length.A combined issue on the technologies of no license wireless, including 802.11b. Extended discussion of regulation and FCC policy or lack of same. Interview with Peter Cochrane, former CTO British telecom. Overview of non wi-fi technologies by Steve Stroh. Exhaustive discussion of these technologies as a possible replacement for the local loop. Contributors to this symposium who discuss technolgy as well as regulatory issues are David P Reed, Dave Hughes, Dewayne Hendricks, David Isenberg, Jim Forster, Robert Berger, Peter Cochrane and Roxane Googin. - Combined issue is 112 pages
Part Two of a combined special issue on the Future of the Industry. In this part we look at the IXC's and greenfield players like Level 3. These companies are trapped under a mountain of debt and glut of bandwidth. We examine Level 3 closely including an interview with L3 Vice Pres. of Investor Relations. The bandwidth problem is so bad that IRU sales for dark fiber are dead and for lightwaves very likely greatly limited. We show why the industry has effectively run out of "gas" and will be very difficult to re-ignite. We define an asset based scenario that could lead the way out of the current situation. Comments by Telcordia, Andrew Odlyzko, Bill Klein, Bill St. Arnaud - 57 additional pages - combined issue - 82 pages
Part One of a combined special issue on the Future of the Industry. Roxane Googin on why the LECs are "doomed". Commentary by Andrew Odlyzko, Bill Klein and David Isenberg. - 25 pages
Detailed (23 pages) discussion of Matrix NetSystems Internet performance measurement. John Quarterman and Peter Salus explain how they apply their measurement techniques to the requirements of business clients. Pointers to software defined radios, optical switching tutorial, and article by Froomkin and lemley: ICANN and Antitrust. State of the Internet 2002 Review. Part 2 of Dave Hughes Anatomy of a Small Revolution. - 52 pages
Short overview of the impact of peer-to-peer technology on the Internet by Gordon Cook. Broadband defined as customer access to fiber by Francois Menard. Discussion of IPv6 deployment. Discussion of passive optical network (PON) within Ethernet in the First Mile working group. PON is regarded by many as the only practical way to get fiber to the home. Anatomy of a Small Revolution. Part one of how Dave Hughes became a telecom activist. Part two next month. ICANN refuses to let Director see its financial records. - 48 pages
Interview with Bill St. Arnaud and Wade Hong on all aspects of plans for CA*net 4 - revolutionary approach that will give customers their own lambdas and enable universities to set up and tear down light wave peering with their counterparts. Article by Ed Gerck discussing trust in the context of the engineering problem of Internet communications. Review of Larry Lessig's the Future of Ideas. Article from ICB Toll Free News on ICANN's mishandling of at large member issues. UK has its own ILEC problems -42 pages
Discussion of "Rethinking the Design of the Internet" by David Clark and Marjory Blumenthal. What is the fate of the end-to-end principles as a guarantor of trust? Interview with Craig Partridge on routing problems and issues. Andrew Odlyzko critiques the Caspian Networks bandwidth study. Larry Roberts responds. Interview with Dave Hughes on techniques for spreading grass roots networks. 'The Real ICANN,' by Gordon Cook and Dave Hughes. ICANN takes advantage of Sept. 11 attacks to implement a security agenda as Roberts announces that ICANN will kept terrorists hands off the DNS. - 54 pages
Interview with Jonathan Rosenberg, dynamicsoft on Windows XP, SIP clients and general state of VoIP infrastructure. Interview with neustar's Richard Shockey on business models for VoIP. Comments on Shockey's views by Francois Menard. Long interview with Dave Siegel, Director of IP Engineering for Global Crossing on details of GBLX's business model and technical networks at layer 2 and layer 3. The half PON discussion from the Ethernet in the First Mile mail list. ICANN and the Neulevel lawsuit. Summary of routing oriented IETF groups. Ca*net4 proposals released. New features explained. 42 pages
Interview with Ciena's Joe Berthold on SONET. Compared to gigabit and ten gigabit Ethernet. First generation compared to second generation. Why SONET does indeed have a futrure. Interview with Dale Hatfield on policy issues and software defined radios and spectrim management. ICANN spin management update. Update on issues confronting Ethernet in the First Mile. Particpants tempted to build in DOCSIS like features. Peering debate. - 42 pages
Evaluation of the state of the industry by the Editor. Plea to make public section alternative to the "walled garden" available. Essay by Francois Menard that shows why fiber must be brought to the customer to guarantee local loop competition. Calls for municipalities to use control over rights of way to guarantee equal access. Interviews with Level 3 Communications Ron Vidal and Rob Hagens. Detailed discussion of Level 3 buisiness model. Customer owned networks by Tim Denton. Sprectrum is not property by Robert Berger. Icann update. Jamie Love on the Hague Conference. Swedish Comission on Fiber nets. Dave Hughes takes on Larry Irving on the Digital Divide. - 50 pages
Examination of the technology and economic implications of the great fiber build out of the late 90s - motivated by a misunderstanding of how fast Internet traffic was growing. Interviews with John Strand and Tom Afferton on details of AT&Ts build of intelligent optical network. Interview with Andrew Morely of Level 3. Intro to that company's business model and infrastructure. PSI and C&W have a peering dispute. A summary. Pointer to Steve Gibson's article on DOS attack. Ex-employee sues Network Solutions. Latest ICANN shenanigans. - 30 pages
Interviews on Ethernet in the First Mile (EFM) with Howard Frazier [ex-Cisco, now-Dominet] and World Wide Packet's Jonathan Thatcher. 10 gig e is discussed along with three variations of outside plant (Ethernet over UTP, P-P Fiber, and P-MP Fiber PONs,) with implications for the greater Net's backbone, and other architectural opportunities/implications. The last 8 months of ENUM wars are analyzed with a summary of mail list discussion. Short articles on bandwidth trading issues and ICANN's goals. Dave Hughes FCC filing against Alaska Telecommunications Assoc, FCC resources for small ISP. Tauzin Dingle Bill critique. - 50 pages
Discussion of Canadian dark fiber in context of Ravi Suria analysis of telecom downturn. Telecom as an asset not a service. Interview with Alberta builders of gig e backbone and discussion of steps to lay fiber to entire pprovince. Difference between switch and a router. Interview with Texas.net. Discussion of business model. With 100,000 defaultless routes, problems in scaling BGP lead to first steps to revise the protocol. John Gilmore sounds alarm on intellectual property issues. - 32 pages
Interview with LayerOne which is using Ciena Core Director to connect carrier fiber at the physical layer in co-lo hotels and enable more rapid and cost effective provisioning of circuits. Interview with Net Access CTO who relates criteria in choosing technology to enable mid sized ISP to provision customer circuits in the North East. Metromedia Fiber Networks wins over shared ethernet offered by Telseon and Yipes! ICANN colludes with VeriSign to reimpose NSI DNS monopoly. Staff demonstrates Board as useless appendage at Melbourne ICANN meeting. OBGP becoems Internet draft. Short interview with M. Blanchet. Letter to Editor from Dai Davies of DANTE. - 40 pages
A look at SURFnet by means of an interview with Kees Neggers, Managing Director. Like Canada's Ca*net3 in North America, the Netherlands Research and Education Network is the most advanced in Europe. We find out why. We interview Peter MacKinnon to learn about specialized but ubiquitous high performance computing fabrics known as grids. We interview Joel Mambretti on the subject of Chicago's CivicNet, a plan to build a fiber network to all city run buildings in Chicago (< 1600) including all schools and libraries. We look at the project's web site and its RFI. This is by far the most ambitious project of its kind ever attempted. the issue concludes with an examination of the mid February senate hearing on ICANN and includes the testimony of Karl Auerbach, Michael Froomkin and DNRCI / CPSR. - 40 pages
A Special Report on Internet in Canada. We interview Bill St Arnaud of Canarie on plans for Ca*net4, on OBGP, dark fiber scaling issues etc. We interview Robert Proulx of IMS the company that leads Canada's customer owned dark fiber builds, and has pioneered brokering and condominium fiber driving down prices greatly. We interview Francois Menard at great length on the commercial and regulatory scene. Menard gives a rare glimpse into the cable /content/ ISP/ open access wars. He talks at length regarding Canada's regulatory issues of its evolving customer owned fiber infrastructure. We publish an excerpt from St. Arnaud's new "Scaling the Internet paper as well as excerpts from Canarie presentations on Optical Communities and its design for Ca*net4. --52 pages
Interview with Robert Grossman on the Data web that will result from the storage of XML files in Data oriented web sites. Grossman coordinates an industry consortium known as the Data Mining Group and dedicated to the creation of open standards for data mining carried out over the Internet. Interview with Charlie Perkins of Nokia on the general transition to IPv6. The second part of the interview focuses on protocol development for cell phones which if they are to effectively handle voice and data must be IPv6. Another IPv6 debate from the IETf list. A look at the ENUM fight and the problems of international domain names as John Klensin in an internet draft proposes a new class - something that is tantamount to a new root. - 28 pages
Interview with Judy Estrin and Kathie Nichols of Packet Design on their efforts to develop improvements in routing. A survey of global exchange point industry and an interview with Jay Adelson and Lane Patterson of Equinix on technical and business model issues in the use of exchanges in scaling the Internet. Richard Shockey updates progress on the administration of ENUM. An IS-IS bug causes 258 router reset in UUNET. Jim Dixon on ICANN's lack of legitimacy in Europe. DNRC letter to ICANN details duplicity behind the 'clean sheet' study of ICANN members at large. - 24 pages
An interview with Rich Shockey on ENUM. This protocol enables PSTN numbers to be linked to a range of internet services. It is expected to siphon off much traffic from the PSTN and is sometimes referred to by net heads as the servce control point for the deconstruction of the PSTN by the Internet. We interview Henning Schulzrinne on Instant Messaging standardization efforts. Law Professor Michael Froomkin has written a momoth 166 page paper that finds that the Department of Commerce acted illegally in the creation of ICANN. We comment on and sumarize Froomkin's arguments. Finally from NANOG a discussion on network service level agreements. 24 pages
An interview with Bill St Arnaud director of Ca*Net3 Canada's gigabit Ethernet optical internet. The interview focuses on the fate of the backbone in the gig e and 10 gig e era and offers the first detailed public discussion of the Optical Border Gateway Protocol (OBGP) which is under test in Quebec. If it works it will permit direct remote peering at optical switches without the need of buying transit through a carrier "cloud". We also interview Bernard Daines CEO of Worldwide Packets which will be delivering gigabit ethernet over fiber to the home by years end. In addition a continuing discussion of the liklihood of IPv6 deployment and a fresh list of icann footnotes. -26 pages
Interview with Francois Menard on the new business model made possible by running gigabit Ethernet on VDN's Montreal fiber data network. A gigabit data link will cost about 20% more than a 50 megabit link from the local phone company. Menard is Lead Engineer Internet Division of Cable VDN. Interview with Cisco's Howard Frazier, examines the development of standards for ten gigabit Ethernet. Frazier also explains the economics of why many Fortune 500 companies are leasing their own fiber in order to run IP over gigabit Ethernet. Managed SONET data services from the ILECS have just become obsolete. Interview with Ericsson's Gary Pinkham explains third generation wireless protocols and focuses on wireless in China. From the IETF mail list a debate on IPv6 address allocation and maintenance costs. - 24 pages
The first interview about Caimis which is a profit making spin off of the Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA). Caimis will make commercial quality ISP network management and monitoring software as well as geographic location software. An interview with Dave Schaeffer, the CEO of Cogent Communications, explains in detail the business plan for a 20 city facilities-based network that will deliver 100 megabits-per-second internet connectivity to businesses in connected buildings for $1000 a month. We publish the first 30% of a draft on optical BGP an extenson to BGP developed at Canarie that will enable customer owned dark fiber networks to be routed independently of the large carrier clouds. Finally we cover the GAO report on ICANN, ICANN's first lawsuit and it's well scripted Yokohama meeting where once again Esther Dyson and Mike Roberts showed the Internet the look and feel of kangaroo goverment. - 26 pages
Parts 4 and 5 in our series on the commoditization of bandwidth. Jeff Kiel of Sycamore Networks explains how an intelligent optical network can be called on by routers to switch bandwidth off and on. Eric Raab CEO of AIG Telecom explains why commoditizing bandwidth may not be in everyone's interest. Paul Lewis of Airwire.net describes the innovative business model of this spread spectrum Florida wireless ISP. Discussion of Cisco versus Juniper router capabilities. ICANN tries to rig its elections and is sued. Culture shock - a canadian describes the Silicon Valley job market. A technical description of in-addre.arpa. - 24 pages
Dave Hughes explains in great detal how advances in spread spectrum radios are enabling hundreds of ISPs in the United States to bring broadband wireless connections to their customers. He also show how environmental scientists are going to be dumping huge amounts of field observation data onto the internet through combinations of broadband wireless and satellite access as the result of a three year project that he is directing for NSF. Johnathon Rosenberg, cheif scientist of dnamicSoft, Inc describes progress in internet telphony protocols and applications. Noel Chiappa, independent routing researcher, describes technical issues facing he imlementation of real time commodity exchange trading in IP bandwidth. An article excerpting continued debate on NATs and implementation of IPv6, restrictictive practices of IP registries as well as routing issues involved with optical cross connects. Milton Mueller critiques NSI's Roger Cochetti's self serving proposal for .banc and .shop gTLDs. Bret Fausett takes ICANN to task for breaking its bylaws in establishing elections nominations panel. Bertelsman promotes ICANN in Europe. - 36 pages
Akamai is scaling the web by pushing content to the edges of the network. In an interview with Avi Freedman, Akamai Vice President of Network Architecture, we learn how Akamai has used capabilities of DNS to have its network of servers decide in real time from where to deliver web content. In Part 2 of our on-going series on bandwidth as a tradeable commodity we interview Lin Franks of Andersen Consulting. Lin is teaching carriers how to think about commoditization and prepare the professional staff needed to begin trading. From an inet-access discussion we present a short summary IGBP issues involved in network design. We conclude with some ICANN Footnotes as the European commission issues a voicing its concerns over U.S. handling of ICANN, and the US Congress General Accounting Office prepares yet another set of answers the the question of ICANN's legitimacy, and John Berryhill shreds the pretensions of the trade mark lobby that runs ICANN. - 24 pages
Bandwidth will soon be traded as a commodity. We interview Stan Hanks, formerly of Enron, who is now involved in the commoditization effort. We learn why commoditization is necessary as a risk management tool and how the process will reshape the industry. We interview a senior staff member of the Swedish commission that created the just annouced governent plan to put five megabits per second of Internet bandwidth into every home and apartment in Sweden. An article on the MP3 shareware program Napster that is clogging networks on American university campuses. The Editor's analysis based on Ed Gerck's "Thinking" essay (April 2000 COOK Report) shows ICANN as a part of American strategy to hold on to control of the DNS root and DNS administration at all costs while giving the Europeans and Asians illusory influence. While the American stance has advantages for our lead in global e-commerce, it is producing strains that are very likely to fracture the root and, in so doing, shatter the highly speculative e-commerce internet stock market bubble. Because we are farther ahead than anyone else, we have the most to lose if this happens. No one seems willng to admit that the solution least harmful to everyone would be to press for a technology solution that would remove the possibility of any single person or group being able to control the DNS and thereby the Internet. - 26 pages
The February distributed denial of service attacks highlighted. we present the technical discussions from NANOG and IETF lists in narrative form. The attacks represent a more serious weakness of the internet than the Cinton Administration will admitt. There appears to be no overwhelming concensus on what they are or how to deal with them. We also publish an interview with Ed Gerck as well as two essays written by him. Gerck has some potentially very significant and paradigm changing ideas about how data is handled in the Internet. He believes that the nature of the DDoS attacks has been misunderstood. His essay "Thinking" is an extremely perceptive piece on DNS as the single handle of control and single failure point for the Internet. -- 30 pages
Interview with Hewlett Packard's Dan Dove on gigabit and ten gigabit Ethernet development. Smoothing the way for unified inexpensive data transport from Lan to Wan and back again. Explosion in Capacity Chased by Explosion in Use; Fiber to the Home from HP, Oracle, and Power Companies For Less than $15 a Month. Interview with Kathy Nichols on the development of Diffserv with in the context of the Internet's evolving Quality of Service needs. Responsibility for the stability of domain names decays under ICANN. Froomkin protest's ICANN policy. -- 30 pages
Interview with Ira Brodsky, of Datacomm Research about the state of broadband wireless and the Internet. Interview summarizes leading technologies and players in US and Europe and US. In mobile wireless, stationery wireless and wrireless LANs. Our annual State of the Internet Report finds that - in addition to grasping the technology advancements - analysts better understand the impact of both issues of control and issues of architectural revision to determine the winner and loosers in the continued rabid growth of the network. We also publish a long edited recapitulation of the most fertile debate on the IETF mail list in recent memory. The debate discusses the disapearance of end-to-end transparency that is due to the rise of firewalls and NAT boxes. It focuses on two alternatives. One is network implementation of IPv6 extremely rapidly. The other is whether Internet users value diversity enough to be satisfed with protocoals that do inter operate. -- 26 pages
Interview with Frode Greisen and Sean Doran of Ebone and now Global TeleSystems. Structure, growth, architecture, & technology of Europe's leading carrier's carrier. Article by Francois Menard critiques Open Access, Cable TV, ISP regulatory issues in Canada. Long overview of ICANN analyzes secret July 30, 1999 meeting run by IBM to turn NSI into ICANN registrar. Finds ICANN largely dependent on IBM for its existence. NANOG and peering tools. -- 42 pages
Special essay: Regulator's Dilemma -- Cable versus Internet & Vertical versus Hoizontal Organizing Paradigms for Equinix, VCs and ICANN. We examine some reasons why the Internet is so misunderstood by the telephony folk in general and by regulators in particular. Interview with CTO of Equinix Internet Business Centers examines new neutral Internet business exchanges. Interview with Jerry Colonna of Flat Iron Partners explores a VC's view of the net. Further ICANN events including its deal with Network Solutions. -- 24 pages
What is behind ICANN? ISOC, the trademark interests, the European Commission, the ITU and the GAC - not to mention a ruse by the Clinton Gore Administration to refrain from regulating the Internet while turning it over to ICANN as an defacto regulatory organization removed from the accountability that would normally come with regulation. A long article detailing ICANN saying one thing and doing something quite different. This is part one of a two part November issue. - 26 pages
Joe Berthold Vice President of Network Architecture and Standards discusses the technology of DWDM and the Development of Ciena. He outlines a family of products that enables optical transmission of data from customer premises across a wide area network. Sean Donelan of DRA Associates leads a short discussion of peering. Rob Bednarek, CTO of PanAmSat discusses the place of statellite technology in the delivery of content in the internet industry. Also examined are business model and protocol issues. This is part one of a two part November issue. - 20 pages
Jack Terry, creator of ETHERLOOP and Chief of Technology at Elastic Networks discusses the technical characteristics and operational advantages of ETHERLOOP which is much faster, more flexible, and more robust that any of the members of the symmetrical or asymmetrical DSL families. Wayne Price, the CTO of Williams Communications discusses the topology, technology and business model of Williams' new gas-pipeline-based fiber network. Using Sycamore transponders Williams can sell a single lambda and offers its customers unparalleled flexibility. A discussion with Jim Dixon of the ramifications of the ICANN proposals submitted by the Regional IP Number Registries. A look at the possibility that the administration is prepared to trade the enhanced service exemption of ISPs for concessions on e-commerce in the WTO forum. Summary of Canadian efforts to build dark fiber networks for many of its secondary schools. - 24 pages
Jim Southworth, Chief Technologist at Concentric Networks, gives a 14,000 word mini-encyclopedia on DSL. What it is; how it works; what kinds exist; how it is being deployed; security issues and how it will impact independent ISPs. Look for HDSL2 to cannibalize T-1 local loops. Steve Heap and Bob Collet discuss Teleglobe's global buildout and business model ranging from its use of satellite and undersea cable to sonet rings in Europe where it serves as an international carrier of choice for the new generation of competitive service providers. Interview also focuses on Teleglobe's global Internet which serves upwards of 100 countries. An excerpted debate from NANOG on multicast versus caching. A very short look at some ICANN views. - 24 pages
John Curran, VP of Internet Technology ,discusses his role in the development of a nation wide, urban based fiber and LMDS wireless broadband TCP/IP data network for NEXTLINK which is a facilities based CLEC. NEXTLINK should cover the totality of the small and middle size business market's broadband needs in a way that few next generation companies can. Ross Callon, Chief Architect for IronBridge Network's multi-terabit router discusses his development of a traffic engineering system designed to increase the a network's ability to use infrastructure efficiently at terabit speeds. Short NANOG discussion of Internet security issues as taken from a report by the President's National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee. A pointer to Netheads vs Bellheads, the best policy paper since Isenberg's Stupid Network. Finally a summary of ICANN's continuing effects to extend the tenticles of its control far beyond the boundaries of its original charter for technical coordination of DNS, IP numbers and port assignments. - 24 pages
Farooq Hussain discusses growth of international and domestic infrastructure in the context of the convergence of voice and data networks. He shows why the Internet business model cannot be forced into a telco regulatory regime without severe damage to the continued high growth of the net. Discussion of Quality of Service, reality versus hype, and use of bandwidth as a substitute for QoS from NANOG. What ICANN is doing to impose an unaccountable regulatory regime over the Internet. Analysis of the forces driving ICANN and the emergenence of the Government Advisory Committee (GAC) as ICANN's Trojan Horse. Interview with Dave Farber on issue of ICANN reinforces view that one intent is to use it as a means of imposing uniform laws regulating electronic commerce across national boundaries. - 30 pages
Toni Li, one of the principal architects of the Juniper M40 router, explains its design and Juniper's strategy of partnering. He also describes Core backbone traffic engineering issues. Rick Wilder of MCI discusses his experience in beta testing the Juniper M40s at OC48 on the vBNS. He also discusses traffic engineering and QoS issues. A short article summarizing the issues in IP telephony protocol development. (The process is slowing down and issues are piling up.) A review of the e-commerce study "Portals to Profit" and and interview with Chris Locke on the meaning of the Clue train manifesto. This article seeks to define a perspective from which to evaluate electronic commerce. - 24 pages
David Rand, CTO of AboveNet, explains the Abovenet business model of aggregating content providers and ISPs in data centers connected by very high speed, uncongested leased lines. It seems that AboveNet has done a huge amount to redress the peering imbalance caused by the private interconnection of the five or six largest players three years ago. An article summarizing the issues behind the FCC's decision on reciprocal compensation and dial up ISPs. A short pointer to the manuevers of part of the CCTLDs. An article on ICANN in the aftermath of Singapore and analysis of its rules for registrars. An anonymous legal analysis (we know the attorney) explaining the foundation for a legal attack against the authority DOC in the ICANN case. - 24 pages
Stank Hanks explains the physical network and the Business model of Enron Communications. Enron is operating an all IP network that it is marketing to aggregate and deliver audio, video and other kinds of web based content to customers by moving the web servers to the periphery of its network which is a private overlay of the public internet. A discussion from the IPTel Working Group mail list contrasts a bell head versus net head orientation to the development IP telephony protocols. An interview with the owner of Nepal's largest ISP gives insight into the importance of the internet in third world telecommunications. A short article that contrasts how the ITU and IETF handle standards documentation. Finally a short summary of recent highlights from ICANN's push to become a global internet regulatory regime. - 24 pages
Francois Menard on the difference between Internet telephony and IP telephony. A discussion of the various voice over IP markets and the protocols supporting them. An interview with Derek Oppen of Nortel on the four different architectures being used to apply IP to fiber. Oppen points out the kind of end user needed to match each different architecture. In both this interview and the following one the potential for using entire lambdas to solve Quality of Service problems becomes clear. We talk with Ken Smith of Nortel about the many ways that this huge, world-wide multi national has been repositioning ityself in the age of the stupid network. Finally we continue the ICANN chronicles in which a Washington lawyer and an ex-naval officer appear to think they can build ICANN into a Central Office point of control for the Internet. - 24 pages
News of developments that will dramatically push down the cost of boardband optical internets. Interview with Desh Despande of Sycamore Networks (1998) and founder of Cascade Systems (1990). By the summer of 1999 Sycamore will introduce equipment that will render SONET Muxes unnecessary and, in avoiding optical to electrical conversion and back, make just-in-time bandwidth delivery feasible at a cost of 25 to 30% of current costs. Interview with Alan Huang of Terabit, Inc. We publish first explanation of his November 24, 1998 patent 5,841,775 that applies group theory to design what Huang maintains is a high efficient fault tolerant routing fabric that can be established, on a micro level, by generic line cards placed in a single chassis or at a macro level by connecting off-the-shelf routers into a very large routing farm. Huang offfers a methodology of network planning especially useful 12 to 18 months out. The impact of both Sycamore and Terabit should be largest when entire lambdas are used as switched virtual circuits. Finally we publish our annual State of the Internet in 1998 Report. - 28 pages
Norm Abramson, CTO of ALOHA Networks, describes the technology and strategy behind his company which applies spread spectrum to the processing of satellite bandwidth. The resulting increase in efficieny will lower costs and price. David Oran, Voice over IP architect at Cisco Systems, discusses enabling factors behind IP telephony and evaluates the recent IPDC, SGCP, and MGCP protocol developments. We present an evaluation of how to engineer SONET in a mission critical situation taken from a NANOG discussion. We offer a long evaluation of ICANN, a disastrous move to install, from the top down, a clique that will be free to pander to the desires of conservative, old-line giants like IBM. We conclude with pointers to web based papers on peering and QoS. - 24 pages
Vijay Kumar, the lead designer of Lucent's Packet Star terabit, IP-in-silicon routers, explains the evolution of his terabit router designed to do QoS - especially on all IP nets. Henry Sinnreich, MCI's lead IP telephony designer and director of its IP telephony engineering effort, gives his analysis of SIP versus H.323, E.164, IPDC and other protocol efforts. Via a block Diagram, he explains how all mixed PSTN and IP nets will migrate to all IP nets. Lessons from failure of Priori discussed. Long survey of Internet governance and ICANN formation. Treated on national and international level. Postel's attorney helped make a process that should have been open - closed. Road ahead will be difficult. 36 pages
Tom Evslin, CEO of Internet Telephony eXchange Corp. (ITXC) discusses his views of the industry and protocol development. Mary Evslin explains the ITXC business model in detail. ITXC acts as a wholesaler of Internet telephony services. John Plonka of Frontier Global Center describes the details and strategy of his OC 48 backbone buildout. Steve Bellovin, AT&T Fellow, describes issues in Internet security. Issues discussed include IPSec and smurf. Ira Magaziner tells COOK Report one more draft needed before new IANA Corp. is formed. Letter to the Editor from RIPE on country Code issues. -24 pages
Peering dispute between Exodus and BBN pits content provider against carrier. We recount the details of the dispute and interview John Curran. Interview with Jim Bound on the status of IPv6. IPv6 moving close to deployment. Problems with NAT. What IPv6 will fix and what it won't. Interview with Steve Blumenthal on BBN's build out of OC 192 backbone and on what BBN had to learn in the integration of its regional network purchases. Critique of IANA efforts to set up country code TLD registrars as domain Names council within the new IANA without representation of gTLD registrars. - 24 pages
New protocols developed far more quickly than thought possible will enable new IP packet networks and their next gen telcos to seamlessly interconnect with the Public Switched Telephone Network. By means of interviews with protocol architect Ike Elliott, and with Richard Shockey and Christian Huitema, we review Level 3's IP Device Control protocol in depth and look at related protocol developments. Interview with John Quarterman who announces new Internet performance monitoring service. Interview with Ira Magaziner focuses on govermnet plans to deal with NSI during phase down between now and September 30. NANOG debate on DIGEX unannounced proxy web caching. Interview with Director of Texas Internet Association. - 24 pages.
Level 3 ready to begin role out of new fiber network designed and optimized for the use of IP. Interview with Jack Waters discusses Level 3 strategy and focus on inter city connectivity for business. Article on peering described by one reader as strategy for lawyers to bring suit under transport provisons of 96 telecom act. Mike Trest and Bill St. Arnaud explain why optical backbones will be fast and dumb. Discussion of traffic locality, and practicality of metered pricing. Explanation of RED as bandwidth management tool. Summary of Jon Postel and Brian Kahin's moves to give USPS control over .us domain. Analysis of proposed MCI internet spin off to Cable and Wireless. Assessment of Sprint's Integrated on demand Network (ION) announcement. - 24 pages.
Optical Internet revolution. Interview with Bill St. Arnaud. CANARIE leads in building first optical Internet dispensing with both SONET and ATM. IP over WDM will result in cost savings of more than 90%. Look for this technology to be used by Qwest and Level 3 and to have profound impact. IP Telephony for the Stupid Network. An interview with Francois Menard of Mediatrix which is making an inexpensive device to attach telephones to the internet without computers. Menard describes the design philosophy by which such devices can move intelligence into phones and result in the replacement of the PSTN. Mapping the phone numbers of the PSTN to DNS to enable internet telephony to cross ISPs transparently is becoming a big issue. We present a discussion. Finally a second tier backbone gives us an anonymous up date on peering. The public exchanges have become worthless to those who peer there with the big five because the big five refuse to increase bandwidth from the exchanges to their backbones. This refusal means that packet loss is bound to be unacceptably high. It is difficult to see anything else that smaller backbones can do except become customers of the big five. - 24 pages
The first 2/3 of the June issue looks at bandwidth issues. It contrasts a detailed interview with Nayel Shafei, the CTO, of Qwest the new national fiber carrier with technical debates on the economics of interconnection and on differentiated services. Qwest has come to symbolize the arrival of vast new quantities of bandwidth and the expectation of a collapse in price. We find the technical reality of economics interconnection and differentiated services, posited on bandwidth scarcity not plenty, to be sharply at odds with the expected impact of the new fiber carriers. Sean Doran comments further on the issues involved in the MCI WorldCom merger. Hannu Tuomisaari discusses the internet telephone strategy of Telecom Finland. Editorial on the foolishness of those who would destroy ARIN. - 24 pages
A transcript of John Curran's address to the March 13 CWA Symposium in Washington DC. Curran, the CTO of GTE Internetworking, finds that the merger of WorldCom and MCI would endanger the internet. Vint Cerf rebuts Curran and Curran presents a response to Vint. Interview with Jerry Scharf on the technical issues surrounding DNS and BIND. DNS has become defacto internet directory service. Critique by Paul Vixie of the issues raised by pgMedia in its filing with NTIA. Summary of legal issues in Internet governance including Department of Justice's failure to get adequate representation for NSF in the Bode Case. A commentary of Dan Steinberg's filing pointing out the problems of not riding policy herd on the court challenges and their possible impact on the Magaziner plan. - 24 pages
A description of the competing power centers that are pushing win/lose scenarios for Internet governance. We sort out the complex relationships between those competing for power and show how unsettled the situation still is. We also offer a short history of the origins and development of the DNS disputes and the zero sum malaise. We offer a 6,000 word long interview with Ira Magaziner. The interview gives a good picture of Magaziner's methodology. Our next article is an assessment of the process with a discussion of what is at stake for the internet and some interesting points of view as to whether the internet is controllable. We present interviews with Paul Ferguson on QoS and Iakov Rekhter of tag-switching. Also an interview with Dr. Hiroshyi Fujiwara on the state of the Internet in Japan. An Interview with Tony Rutkowski on meta-issues involved in understanding the Internet landscape. We conclude with three technical discussions from Inet-access. - 32 pages
Interview with internet fax entrepreneur Richard Shockey. Discussion of development and implentation of new IETF/ITU Internet FAX Standards and likely impact of Internet fax on Internet and the PSTN. A look at calls for divestiture of the LECs. Article on Magaziner's Green Paper and a critique of its plans for the organization of the IANA policy council. Ideas for corrective action. Interview with "X" on alleged cartel like operation of consortia of owners of underseas fiber cables where by rationing availability of new strands of cable, prices for leasing are kept artificially high. Since these cables are not tariffed, prices on leases are generally non existent. The practice creates transoceanic bottlenecks that may keep the Gilderian era of bandwidth plenitude at bay. Summary of Dave Hughes complaints against the FCC, the LECs and the SLC for forbidding the use of universal service funds in paying for wireless Internet connections. Debates on peering and routing from NANOG. - 24 pages
Interview with Kerry Hawkins of Vienna Systems. Explores current developments in Internet telephony and discusses in detail the use of gateways to take corporate traffic off the public switched telephone network and send corporate voice traffic via the corporate intranet. Interview with Bill St.Arnaud of Canarie. Discusses Savvis' use of GigaPOPs, a development that opens the potential of a regional business model for ISPs. Other developments discussed include the emerging concept of TCP/IP only telecommunications networks. See for example, recent announcements about Level 3 Communmications. Also included is the editor's annual review of the state of the Internet. Finally, we survey the most recent struggles in what all parties now acknowledge is the reshaping of not just of DNS, but all of Internet governance. - 24 pages
First article interviews well known Internet architect, Christian Huitema. Christian is Chief Scientist in Bellcore's Internet Architecture Research Laboratory. He talks about how he is focusing on extending QoS beyond the boundaries of technology and into areas such as customer expectations and economics. An IBM vice President talks about how IBM Global Net became in georgraphic terms the world's largest dial up ISP. Yet another discussion of the flaws of the Boardwatch Keynote backbone measurement methodology. Some 8 weeks after our orginal FOIA, OSTP ships two large batches of documents focusing on Brian Kahin's dealings with IBM, ATT and Oracle. Discussion of much improved Network Address Translation devices or NAT boxes. Conclusion of article on IANA's management of .us GTLD. Van Jacobson proposes a two bit differentiated services architecture. - 24 pages
Lead article interviews the General Manager of the Automotive Network eXchange (ANX) Overseer at Bellcore. ANX is an auto industry mandated VPN run over the public Internet and about to go into its pilot stage. Connecting parts suppliers to manufacturers, this mission critical network has the potential to reshape the business model of the Internet. Editorial expresses dismay that WorldCom appears to have won its bid for MCI and wonders what the "pecking order" between Vint Cerf and John Sidgemore will be. A long transcript of a NANOG discussion of the fate of IPv6 follows. Growing strength of NAT technology makes a transition to IPv6 somewhat less likely. An even longer article on Internet governance crisis examines the failure of the Kahin and Burr led Interagency Working Group on DNS. It points out that despite leaks by the Working Group that they will announce their policy during November, Ira Magaziner has told us directly that real decisions are some weeks and perhaps even some months off. We conclude with several essays by Einar Stefferud which stress the ungovernable nature of the Internet and point out that in DNS the only immediate crisis is that generated by the hatred of NSI which has serious proposal on the table if the Kahin Burr led working group would only take the time to examine them. - 24 pages
Focus on peering. We publish several discussions of technical, economic and political issues behind peering. Economic conditions of interconnection of backbones are changing. Outcomes are likely to affect ISP industry. Interview with John Curran, CTO of GTE Internetworking (formerly BBN), details GTE's assimilation of BBN and discusses impact of changes in peering requirements on Internet business model. Interview with FASTNET CEO who presents his own views on how these changes affect large regional networks. Summary of the views of smaller backbones and explanation of the economic model affecting their use of peering and their survivability. Interview with Verio's Randy Bush on technical issues behind peering - especially at public exchanges. Summary of recent NANOG technical discussions. Part One of article on .us TLD. Editorial on NTIA's mishandling of Commerce NOI on Domain Names. - 24 pages
IP sec is a new protocol designed to permit the selection of various encryption algorithms. It is combined with the Oakley/ISAKMP key management protocol which in turn enables digital signatures. If the user wishes,IP sec can render key escrow irrelvant. IP sec makes full secure use of the public internet possible. We interview Bob Moskowitz who played a significant role in the creation of IP sec. -- We provide an update on the latest DNS and other Internet governance problems. Institutionalization of the IANA functions is not progressing well. Postel has indicated his desire to move "dot" to ISI in California. A collision between Jon and the U.S. government could be in the making. -- We interview W. Scott McCollough a Texas attorny who specializes in assisting ISPs in coping with their incumbent local exchange carriers and in learning how to read and interpret the ILEC tariffs.-- We interview Jeff Sedayao about his use of Timeit to measure the comparative accessibility of web servers from networks from which Intel is considering buying service. We compare what Sedayao does to what Boardwatch/Keynote did in its recent backbone survey. BBN, MCI, and Sedayao critique the Boardwatch/Keynote 'methodology'. - 24 pages
Internet Governance Not Scaling Well - a 19 page in depth look. We find that IANA and IP Number Registry policy need formalizing. We note that NSF tells NSI not to enter new Top Level Domains. NSI operational failures and direction of US Government policy could give impetus to move of DNS operations to Europe as opening of ARIN is held up by delay in getting liability insurance in place. Article includes detailed discussion of Jon Postel's unique position, his current problems and a discussion of scenarios for formalizing IANA functions. This issue also contains interview with kc Claffy and Tracie Monk on the Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis. Interview with David Holub about peering problems for national backbones. - 34 pages
July - August 1997 (6.04 and 6.05)
US government allows formation of ARIN. Magaziner at last minute gains understanding of issues breaks gov't imposed log jam. We detail government efforts to derail ARIN. Article on efforts of USIPA lawyer to circumvent IP number assignment process. Article on business implications of IAHC gTLDS. Article on imposition of charges for peering by Sprint and UUNET. This move by UUNET and Sprint makes significant changes in the cost equation of about 15 national backbones established during the past 18 months. Critics view it as anti-competitive move. Article on David Holub's theory of open interconnect. Articles on choosing backbone providers and the cost model for dial up service. Article on NSF IG's failed plan to tax DNS. Article on Russian Internet. Review of web and Java books. Part 2 of debate on use of technology in K- 12 environment. - 48 pages
Past Issues from 1993 through June 1997