The United States will retain control of the Internet address structure for longer – perhaps far longer – than it appeared at the beginning of the year.
In March, the Department of Commerce said that it would let lapse a contract between an agency it runs, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), and Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). ICANN operates the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), which oversees Domain Name System (DNS) functions that in essence are the Internet’s addressing system. The intent was to move these functions from U.S. to international control.
The prospect of transitioning control of the DNS away from the U.S. is controversial. Last week, the Department of Commerce told Congress that it will extend the contract between IANA and ICANN to September 30, 2016. There are options to extend the contract for three subsequent years.
Sprint’s Big Move on Small Cells
Small cell technology is a big deal in the world of expanding data capacity demands. Working in concert with legacy macro cells, small cells can reuse spectrum, help migrate data from expensive cellular to cheaper unlicensed spectrum, and confront coverage problems in structures that lowers customer satisfaction.
Thus, it’s no surprise that Sprint will deploy tens of thousands of small cells (alongside thousands of new macro cells) in its network upgrade. WirelessWeek’s Martha Degrasse reports that Mobilite, a provider of small cell and distributed antenna systems (DAS), is expected to partner with Sprint. Indeed, she says that the vendor may pay for some of the upgrade and benefit by leasing some of the capacity on the small cell network to other carriers.
Technology: The Next Generation
The next generation of workers is in college today. But they will be entering the workforce sooner rather than later, so Domo surveyed 2,000 millennials on their current use of technology and their expectations and desires for the day they join the workforce.
The firm found that 46 percent access the Internet via mobile phone and 43 percent via a tablet or laptop. Almost all of them use a phone to text and access the Internet – 97 percent and 96 percent, respectively – and 68 percent use mobile devices to stream music and send or receive pictures.
Domo found that 22 percent would be less likely to accept a job at a company in which mobility is not a main feature of the landscape. Seventy percent expect BYOD to be offered at the company at which they work.
The survey, as reported upon at eWeek, suggested that technology is more important to these millennials than eating or exercising:
When asked to rank employee benefits, 65 percent said that technology (smartphone/laptop) is the most important perk to them. By comparison, only 12 percent chose free meals/a stocked kitchen, and 14 percent chose a gym membership/wellness stipend as most important.
Manufacturing and Other Verticals to Drive the IoT
Transformational technologies grow uniformly. They generally gain traction in the verticals that gain the most from them in the immediate term. As time passes, other verticals that more gradually benefit come on board.
The August Heavy Reading Insider identifies manufacturing as the vertical that will lead the way on the Internet of Things (IoT). Denise Culver reports that the IoT “makes equipment smarter, better connected and provides better operational excellence and business insight.” The report, according to the advance story on it at Light Reading, points out that other verticals that will benefit in the short term are transportation, logistics, energy and utilities.
It’s a Mobile World
Business communications planners must pay attention to what is happening in the consumer sector, especially in the era of bring your own device (BYOD). For that reason, the finding that 53 percent of marketers are allocating more than half of their advertising budgets to mobile platforms is significant. There is a lot of food for thought in the study, which was reported upon at Mobile Marketer:
While mobile is definitely the front-runner in upcoming advertising spend, digital overall is being focused on as well. Marketers are planning on centering on social media, with 50 percent planning on increase spending on social, but video platforms and publishers are showing significant growth compared to past years as well.
Marketers are savvy people. Their very business depends upon a keen understanding of how people like to communicate. Paying attention to their interpretation of usage patterns can help organizations create communications platforms that are more useful to employees.
Carl Weinschenk covers telecom for IT Business Edge. He writes about wireless technology, disaster recovery/business continuity, cellular services, the Internet of Things, machine-to-machine communications and other emerging technologies and platforms. He also covers net neutrality and related regulatory issues. Weinschenk has written about the phone companies, cable operators and related companies for decades and is senior editor of Broadband Technology Report. He can be reached at cweinsch@optonline.net and via twitter at @DailyMusicBrk.