2009 – The good, the bad and the ugly!
Dec 9, 2009 Business, Copyright, Digital Divide, Featured, File Sharing, Marketing, Net Neutrality, Privacy, Regulation
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As we approach the end of an eventful year I thought it would be apt to take a look back over the main industry talking points of 2009 to evaluate what happened, why we were discussing it and where we are currently at. When we have completed that let’s take a stab at predicting what we will be discussing in 2010.
Elsa Chen, General Manager
The ‘hottest’ topic of 2009 was undoubtedly illegal file sharing
We first covered this subject back in April with an article discussing the Pirate Bay case. The four founders of the website ‘The Pirate Bay’ were found guilty in a Swedish court for assisting the illegal downloading of copyrighted material. They were each sentenced to 1 year in jail and ordered to pay £2.4million in damages to the entertainment industry. This was the catalyst that started the raging debate between the entertainment industry, the government and ISPs which continues to this date. The entertainment industry and a number of high profile MPs, in particular Peter Mandelson, are calling for a three strikes and you’re cut-off policy. However, ISPs have continuously raised concerns regarding the accuracy of correctly identifying offenders and the fact that cutting a user off is presuming guilt before a fair trial with minimal and potentially flawed evidence.
This topic continued to be covered for several months and was once again inflamed with the release of the Digital Britain Report which actually advised against a three strikes policy, much to the annoyance of the entertainment industry.
- Entanet Opinion: The pirates of… Sweden
- Entanet Opinion: USC: Solving the digital divide
- Entanet Opinion: Guilty until proven innocent is the wrong approach to file sharing
- Entanet Opinion: Are YOU on the list?
- Entanet Opinion: Mandelson’s mindless meddling infuriates Internet industry
So where are we at now?
Tags: Broadband, Business, Copyright, Digital Britain, Digital Divide, File Sharing, IPv6, Marketing, Net Neutrality, Privacy, Regulation
(5 votes, average: 3.20 out of 5)
Loading ...IPv6: Ready or not?
Jul 21, 2009 Featured, IPv6, Wholesale
4 Comments
Since 1984 IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4) addresses which consist of four groupings of numbers (e.g. 123.45.67.89) have been used to access the Internet. Twenty five years on and unsurprisingly the 4.3 billion addresses originally available are now running out with only an estimated 700,000 left. Previous estimates stated IPv4 addresses would be depleted by 2011 or 2012 but a more recent announcement from ARIN (American Registry for Internet Numbers) states this could be as soon as 2010.
Neil Watson, Technical Support Manager
The suggested replacement for IPv4 is IPv6 which provides infinitely more IP addresses due to their hexadecimal format, separated by colons e.g. 2ffe:1800:3525:3:200:f8ff:fe21:67cf. This is just as well, as the number of devices we use to access the Internet continues to increase.
Before we run out of IPv4 addresses completely (possibly as soon as next year), we really need to start implementing IPv6 ones. It’s just a matter of getting on and doing it!
It all sounds relatively straightforward, doesn’t it? Well you’d think so. The media and several leading Internet figures have expressed concerns that ISPs’ take up of IPv6 has been too slow and that unless adoption is accelerated we will have consumed all of the available IPv4 addresses before IPv6 is fully supported. In the worst case this would make it impossible for ISPs to accommodate any more subscribers. In reality IPv6 is already available and some ISPs are already utilising it, including Entanet. Whilst several of our competitors may not be implementing IPv6 just yet I find it hard to believe that any would be so negligent that they actually reach this crisis point without taking action. Nevertheless it is possible and if it does happen it will be you and your customers that will be affected.
(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5) Loading ...
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