The Times: Tech column - Broadband speeds/Iraqi domain
By David Rowan
How broad is broadband? For anyone frustrated by the long download times of a "narrowband" 56kbps modem, broadband was supposed to herald a revolution. But though most internet service providers commonly use the term to describe data speeds of at least 500kbps, there is confusion about where exactly broadband begins. The DTI takes a loose view, considering broadband to be "a generic term describing a range of technologies operating at various data transfer speeds".
Oftel is more specific, mentioning data rates "of 128 kbps and above". But last week the Advertising Standards Authority ruled that NTL was wrong to sell its 128kbps internet service as broadband.
Can we come up with an industry-wide agreement? With speeds of 2Mbps 2,000kbps - now available, it's about time we agreed where "fast" begins. Quickly.
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When Afghanistan finally won control of its own "dot-af" internet domain last month, the UN Development Programme cheered this "planting of a flag in cyberspace" as a historic symbol of national renewal. Some day soon a reconstructed Iraq will want a dedicated country- level domain that will give its websites and e-mail addresses a distinct nation-building identity. But a dirty battle lies ahead over who gets to control the "dot-iq" domain.
For the past six years, all web addresses ending in .iq, the country's dedicated suffix, have been controlled by the Alani Corporation. The company provides a Baghdad telephone number, but is based in Texas. Yet for all the domain's commercial possibilities - wouldn't you like to advertise your intelligence with a "dot-iq" e-ddress? - the Alani Corporation has not been trading much lately.
Perhaps that is because Bayan Elashi, Alani's technical contact for the "dot iq" domain and owner of InfoCom, the web hosting company behind the Alani Corporation, has been in a Texan jail since December, awaiting trial for allegedly funding terrorism.
When that month the FBI charged Elashi, various relatives and a named senior Hamas figure with helping to finance a terror campaign through InfoCom, the US Attorney-General, John Ashcroft, considered it so significant that he personally gave a news conference in Washington. Elashi had long been an FBI target: on September 5, 2001, 50 federal agents raided InfoCom's offices on suspicion that the company was being used to channel cash to Hamas and, perhaps, al-Qaeda. Elashi says that his company has never had terrorist links, and he and his co defendants deny the current charges.
Whatever the outcome of Elashi's trial, it's hard to see the "dot-iq" domain staying in the Alani Corporation's hands. Already the speculators are lining up to grab it. There might not be much of a communications infrastructure in Iraq, but ownership of a country domain could prove a lucrative franchise - just ask Dot.tv, the company selling the rights to Tuvalu's television-friendly suffix. Only last week an IT consultant in East London formed "the Committee for Information Technology Reconstruction in Iraq" in the hope of grabbing "dot-iq". He claims his "non-profit group" could raise millions by auctioning domain names - while, of course, "making a fundamental positive difference to the people of Iraq". Right.
As for Saddam, he managed to ignore the whole "dot-iq" business: his Government's websites used uruklink.net addresses until they disappeared two weeks ago. The country's internet traffic depended on satellite links provided in part by a company called Satellite Media Services - which is based in Rugby, England. It's a strangely global entity, this worldwide web.
(The Times, April 15 2003)
How broad is broadband? For anyone frustrated by the long download times of a "narrowband" 56kbps modem, broadband was supposed to herald a revolution. But though most internet service providers commonly use the term to describe data speeds of at least 500kbps, there is confusion about where exactly broadband begins. The DTI takes a loose view, considering broadband to be "a generic term describing a range of technologies operating at various data transfer speeds".
Oftel is more specific, mentioning data rates "of 128 kbps and above". But last week the Advertising Standards Authority ruled that NTL was wrong to sell its 128kbps internet service as broadband.
Can we come up with an industry-wide agreement? With speeds of 2Mbps 2,000kbps - now available, it's about time we agreed where "fast" begins. Quickly.
++++
When Afghanistan finally won control of its own "dot-af" internet domain last month, the UN Development Programme cheered this "planting of a flag in cyberspace" as a historic symbol of national renewal. Some day soon a reconstructed Iraq will want a dedicated country- level domain that will give its websites and e-mail addresses a distinct nation-building identity. But a dirty battle lies ahead over who gets to control the "dot-iq" domain.
For the past six years, all web addresses ending in .iq, the country's dedicated suffix, have been controlled by the Alani Corporation. The company provides a Baghdad telephone number, but is based in Texas. Yet for all the domain's commercial possibilities - wouldn't you like to advertise your intelligence with a "dot-iq" e-ddress? - the Alani Corporation has not been trading much lately.
Perhaps that is because Bayan Elashi, Alani's technical contact for the "dot iq" domain and owner of InfoCom, the web hosting company behind the Alani Corporation, has been in a Texan jail since December, awaiting trial for allegedly funding terrorism.
When that month the FBI charged Elashi, various relatives and a named senior Hamas figure with helping to finance a terror campaign through InfoCom, the US Attorney-General, John Ashcroft, considered it so significant that he personally gave a news conference in Washington. Elashi had long been an FBI target: on September 5, 2001, 50 federal agents raided InfoCom's offices on suspicion that the company was being used to channel cash to Hamas and, perhaps, al-Qaeda. Elashi says that his company has never had terrorist links, and he and his co defendants deny the current charges.
Whatever the outcome of Elashi's trial, it's hard to see the "dot-iq" domain staying in the Alani Corporation's hands. Already the speculators are lining up to grab it. There might not be much of a communications infrastructure in Iraq, but ownership of a country domain could prove a lucrative franchise - just ask Dot.tv, the company selling the rights to Tuvalu's television-friendly suffix. Only last week an IT consultant in East London formed "the Committee for Information Technology Reconstruction in Iraq" in the hope of grabbing "dot-iq". He claims his "non-profit group" could raise millions by auctioning domain names - while, of course, "making a fundamental positive difference to the people of Iraq". Right.
As for Saddam, he managed to ignore the whole "dot-iq" business: his Government's websites used uruklink.net addresses until they disappeared two weeks ago. The country's internet traffic depended on satellite links provided in part by a company called Satellite Media Services - which is based in Rugby, England. It's a strangely global entity, this worldwide web.
(The Times, April 15 2003)
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