WEF Africa Summit: Africa needs more investment on broadband footprint

WEF Africa Summit is took place the past week in Rwanda’s capital Kigali, under the theme: “Connecting Africa’s Resources Through Digital Transformation”. Improved broadband coverage, availability and access to energy are at the centre of Africa’s move towards the 4th Industrial revolution.     Electricity challenges are weighing on the continent’s outlook in the technology …

“Attempts to impose rules on the Internet are doomed to fail” says ICANN CEO

ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade  has told Bloomberg yesterday in an interview that government attempts to impose rules on the Internet are doomed to fail Read the coverage below Nov. 18 (Bloomberg) — ICANN, the gatekeeper for Web addresses, said government attempts to impose rules on the Internet are doomed to fail as the group seeks …

Ip-Watch: ITU Plenipot 14 Outcome Limiting UN Agency Role In Internet Governance Deemed “Success”

  By Monika Ermert for Intellectual Property Watch US Ambassador Daniel Sepulveda on the eve of the final celebration of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Plenipotentiary Conference last week said he was “happy” about the results. Asked what he thought was the most important resolution of the three week conference, he told Intellectual Property Watch …

Defunding ITU? Plenipotentiary: Member States Decrease Financial Contributions

Anthony Rutkowski, Principal, Netmagic Associates LLC writes an analytical article on CircleID on member states dropping their contributions to the ITU The ongoing ITU Plenipotentiary Conference wraps up at the end of the week. The more than 2000 people present in Busan Korea from 171 countries — overwhelmingly government bureaucrats — have been busily polishing …

ICANN is not the Internet, U.S. Ambassador Daniel Sepulveda

Multistakeholder Governance at Stake The official U.S. Internet policy calls for preserving a free and open Internet under a global multistakeholder community encompassing Web registries, website owners, and nonprofit organizations. To that end, the U.S. Department of Commerce is working on an overhaul of the current system of allocating domain names through an advisory group …

ITU Plenipot14 begins in Busan with a potentially troubling ministerial statement

The ITU has kicked off three weeks of wrangling over the future of the Internet – the 2014 Plenipotentiary – with a ministerial statement that’s likely to spark concerns about the direction of the coming summit. The Busan Declaration, issued at the close of the Busan ICT ministerial meeting, is filled with high-minded language about …

Are We Destined To Surf The UN-Net?

Earlier this year, the Obama administration asked ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) to create a means of overseeing the Internet after U.S. governance is scheduled to end in another year. The administration decided not to maintain the current U.S. minimum-oversight role. This decision led to a debate as to whether transferring control …