Tag Archives: isoc

Domain Names

New Domains .Africa

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The countdown for a huge tranche of new top level domain names is well underway* and the list of applied for domains will shortly be made public. One applicant is making their option known now at GlobalINET which is taking place this week in Geneva.

The .Africa top level domain application is a African Union sanctioned bid to establish a regional internet identity of Africa. Mohamed El Bashir, Chair of the dotAfrica steering committee describes the reason for the domain:

“Africa’s new top-level domain (dotAfrica) will be utilised as a mechanism to promote the development of Africa’s Internet services and ecosystem, and to showcase African pride, identity and know-how.”

The registry will be run by non-profit .za (South Africa) operator, UniForumSA, and they hope the new domain will stimulate the whole African domain name market. Pricing and availability (including any restrictions) will be announced closer to launch.

*The countdown hit a bump in the road in April due to a security issue with the online platform ICANN uses for the process.

Opinion, Technical

2020Media supports ISOC IPv6 project

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The IPv6 Matrix project, proudly supported and hosted by 2020Media, was featured in a presentation at London INET this week. The ISOC project looks at the entire internet for take up of next generation IPv6 addresses. IPv4 addresses are due to run out in under a year so adoption of IPv6 addresses is crucial to the future growth of the internet.

INET London

INET is a worldwide set of conferences looking at the future of the internet. Opportunities, threats and challenges to business were examined and discussed by the participants.  Matthew Ford, technology program manager from the Internet Society spoke about the current state of internet penetration and how ISPs are constantly increasing capacity to keep up with demand. The big 6 ISPs who account for 94% of UK broadband services now use an arsenal of technological techniques to manage, control, and limit their users internet use. These include traffic shaping, deep packet inspection, acceptable use policies (AUP) and limits hidden deep in their terms and conditions.

2020Media’s broadband has clear up-front quotas on bandwidth use, no deep packet inspection or traffic shaping, and a clear indication of the line speed you can expect. View our broadband site for more information.

Other comments of interest included one likening the internet to the large banks – “too big to fail”. The internet is now such a essential part of the way services are delivered to the public that it is now considered essential infrastructure. ISOC warned that in the future the freedoms and accessability of the entire internet we have now, may not exist. Their Future Scenarios videos demonstrate some of the problems we are internet users and providers may face.