Who will keep the keys to the internet?

10 April 2014 Last updated at 15:27 BBC News Washington, DC The US is set to hand over control of the internet domain name registration company Icann in September 2015 The US government recently announced that it would be handing off the reins of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann), an organisation tasked with assigning and managing domain names and IP addresses worldwide.

While the transfer of power won't happen until September 2015 and has been planned since the organisation's creation in 1998, some reactions have been panicked, to put it lightly.

This transfer of power could mean the end of a single united internet, writes Keith Darnay for the Bismarck Tribune.

Darnay wonders what happens if September 2015 arrives and no organisation is ready to take control. Perhaps the US agrees to stay in a leadership position until the new digital overseers are in place, but other countries get nervous and start developing their own internets.

"Indeed, we may be living in the waning days of the Internet's 'Golden Age,'" he writes, "a time when we were tantalisingly close to being united in a single digital world."

John C Dvorak thinks that the US giving up Icann will change the course of the internet forever.

"Enjoy the internet while you can," he writes for PC Magazine. "America has waved the white flag. Decades from now, we will look back at the glory days fondly."

He continues:

Continue reading the main story

The internet is a collective hallucination, one of the best humanity has ever generated”

End Quote Jonathan Zittrain The New Republic Porn, of course, will be the first thing to go. We all know there is too much on the net and it is too freely available. But this is not the job for Icann. Will it become the job of the next group to come along? You can count on it. Forget net neutrality; content neutrality is over.

Others predict that the internet will fall under the sway of governments they fear are uninterested in electronic freedom.

"It's been a good month for Vladimir Putin: He got Crimea and the internet," writes L Gordon Crovitz of the Wall Street Journal.

The US has used its level of control to make sure that access to the internet and content is free from political interference, he writes. If the US follows through with this plan, the alternative is a weak international body fending off governments who will try to use their influence to silence their critics.

"China could get its wish to remove FreeTibet.org from the internet as an affront to its sovereignty," Crovitz writes. "Russia could force Twitter to remove posts by Ukrainian-Americans criticising Vladimir Putin."

The editors of the Orange County Register take issue with the explanations behind the future transfer. Along with many commentators, they point to the Edward Snowden revelations about the National Security Agency as the reason behind the US's decision to hand over Icann, the idea being that perhaps the US can buy back some global trust.

"Trading away control in exchange for the ephemeral - or completely illusory - goodwill of foreign governments is unforgivably naive and can only damage the causes of free speech and freedom of information for everyone," they write.

Julian Assange speaks to the BBC's technology programme

Julian Assange, the founder of the anti-secrecy website Wikileaks, counters that a division of the internet might not be such a bad thing.

"I think the impulse to do it is quite important and will lead to good things and should be supported," he told the BBC. "The devil is in the details in terms of how these communications links actually operate."

Mr Assange said that it would be difficult to build a European internet because of the number of backdoor deals conducted between Europe and the US. If those deals can't be stopped, than another organisation - presumably Assange's own Wikileaks - has to step up and publish what these governments are up to.

"For any organisation to be accountable, the buck has to stop with someone," he says.

Others are suggesting that we all try to understand the role of Icann a little bit better.

Continue reading the main story

Today's Icann already works, and I can't think of a good reason to do away with it”

End Quote Hiawatha Bray The Boston Globe "The internet is a collective hallucination, one of the best humanity has ever generated," writes Jonathan Zittrain for New Republic. "To be sure, it is delicate in many ways, with its unowned character threatened from many quarters. But rest easy that Icann isn't one of them."

He says that it is almost impossible for Icann to get involved in a way that could prohibit free speech, as all it does is decide who runs each list of names. The US government has had little impact on how the organisation has run so far, he contends, and Icann cannot tax internet usage. If anyone tried to change that, there would be a powerful backlash.

"Anyone trying to tighten the screws too much will simply strip them," Zittrain writes.

Icann chief Fadi Chehade has published a blog post attempting to correct some inaccuracies and misconceptions.

He writes that giving up Icann is not the same as surrendering control of the internet. He adds that the move is not a response to Mr Snowden's information, would not lead to a division of the internet, and would not affect the general public. He believes critics are distracted by all of this misinformation and missing the larger point.

"Instead of politicising the debate over the US government's decision to transition stewardship of the internet's technical functions, let's move forward with the discussion we need to have - how to engage in the necessary discussion to develop an effective transition process, one that continues to ensure an open internet that belongs to everyone," he says.

Hiawatha Bray of the Boston Globe wonders why this transition is necessary. Why fix something that isn't broken?

He says he doesn't expect the handover to be a disaster, as the Obama administration has made clear that it intends to prevent any governments from taking control of the organisation. Ideally, Icann would be a truly independent agency with no motivation to censor or impose restrictions.

"Done right, it might work," he writes. "But today's Icann already works, and I can't think of a good reason to do away with it."

Whatever happens, the editors of the Washington Post think that the US is in the end responsible.

They write that the US commerce department has to ensure that the internet's new stewards are free from outside influences that would make it harder for them to do their important administrative work.

"The commerce department's contract with Icann expires next year," they note. "If the non-profit hasn't organised itself to ensure the continued functioning of an open, free and functional Internet by then, US authorities should not let global politics stop them from extending their supervision."

(By Kierran Petersen)

Somalia's internet 'culture shock'

10 April 2014 Last updated at 18:28 Internet cafes are popular in the capital, Mogadishu Some residents of Somalia's capital have been experiencing a form of "culture shock" since fibre optic services launched over the last week, an internet provider has told the BBC.

"Any video or site just pops up... they're very excited about the speed," Somalia Wireless's Liban Egal says.

Until now access to the internet has been via dial-up or satellite links.

Earlier this year, 3G mobile phone services were cut off because of a threat from Islamist militants.

The al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab group issued a directive in January ordering all internet services to be stopped, saying those who did not comply would be seen as "working with the enemy" and dealt with according to Islamic law.

Al-Shabab was driven out of the capital, Mogadishu, in August 2011, but still controls many smaller towns and rural areas in the south and centre of the country where they have imposed a strict version of Sharia.

Following their threat, 3G networks nationwide were turned off but the project to launch fibre optic cable services continued in the capital, the BBC's Moalimu Mohammed reports from Mogadishu.

'Day and night'

He says the fibre optic connections, which have been rolled out over the last week by several internet providers, are only available in Mogadishu.

People have been flocking to hotels and internet cafes to try out the fast service - some seeing video platforms like YouTube and social networking sites for the first time, our correspondent says.

Mr Egal said the difference in speed was like the difference between "day and night".

For those residents who have recently returned from the diaspora the development was a relief, he said.

It was "almost a culture shock" for those who have never left Somalia, he added.

He said the move would be a huge boost for the country, which is recovering from more than two decades of civil war.

"Every time a fibre optic cable is connected to a country they see their GDP [gross domestic product] going up because their communication costs go down," Mr Egal said.

"All life will be affected - businesses, the government, universities - they all will see the benefits."

Our reporter says the current security situation will limit the rollout of fibre optic services to the rest of the country.

Since 1991 Somalia has seen clan-based warlords, rival politicians and Islamist militants battle for control - a situation that has allowed lawlessness to flourish.

An African Union force has been helping the UN-backed government fight al-Shabab, which wants to create an Islamic state in Somalia.

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Internet satellite launch success

27 December 2010 Last updated at 09:01 By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News The Proton climbs into the pre-dawn sky The second European satellite dedicated to delivering broadband internet connections has launched successfully.

The six-tonne Ka-Sat lifted off atop a Proton rocket from Baikonur in Kazakhstan at 0351 local time on Monday (2151 GMT on Sunday).

The flight to orbit lasted nine hours and 12 minutes.

The Eutelsat-operated spacecraft will concentrate its services on the estimated tens of millions of European homes in so-called "not-spots".

These are places where consumers cannot get a decent terrestrial connection.

The spacecraft follows the Hylas-1 platform into orbit. This satellite, operated by Avanti Communications of London, was launched just last month.

Ka-Sat, however, is considerably bigger, and has a notional capacity to serve up to two million households compared with Hylas's 300,000.

Nevertheless, such is the scale of the under-served market in Europe that both platforms should be very profitable ventures, the two companies believe.

"As many as 30 million households in Europe are not served at all or get high mediocrity of service," said Eutelsat CEO Michel de Rosen.

"These could be people in the countryside or in the mountains, sometimes not very far from large cities. Ka-Sat is an answer to that problem," he told BBC News.

Paris-based Eutelsat is one of the world's big three Fixed Satellite Services (FSS) companies, and transmits thousands of TV channels across its fleet of spacecraft.

It already provides some internet capability on its existing platforms, but Ka-Sat is its first broadband-dedicated endeavour.

High throughput

Ka-Sat will sit about 36,000km above the equator at nine degrees East.

Ka-Sat was prepared in the UK

Its communications payload, structure and propulsion system were prepared by EADS Astrium at its UK facilities in Stevenage and Portsmouth.

Final testing of the spacecraft took place at Astrium's factory in Toulouse, France, before shipment to Baikonur.

Ka-Sat has a total throughput of some 70Gbps.

This will be channelled via 82 spot beams on to different market areas stretching from North Africa to southern Scandinavia. A very small segment of the Middle East will also be reached.

Eutelsat has signed about 70 deals with distributors across the satellite's "footprint", and more would be signed over the next year, said Mr de Rosen.

"It takes normally a few weeks for a satellite to become operational after launch," he explained.

"In this case, it is more likely to be a few months. Expect Ka-Sat to be operational in the second half of the second quarter of 2011."

The satellite will need to undertake some firings of its own propulsion system to circularise its final orbit. Ground controllers will also need a period of time to check out and commission all onboard systems.

Previous failure

Ka-Sat's Proton rocket was under the spotlight for this flight.

The Russian vehicle had failed on its previous outing, dumping three Glonass satellite-navigation spacecraft in the Pacific Ocean.

An inquiry found the Proton's new Block DM-03 upper-stage had been over-fuelled, making it too heavy to achieve its required performance.

International Launch Services (ILS), which runs the commercial operations of the Proton vehicle, used a different upper-stage for the Ka-Sat mission.

This Breeze M stage has a good recent record.

It was the eighth and last ILS-organised Proton mission of 2010.

Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

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