Stories by: Johna Till Johnson

I've seen the future of the Internet, and it's recursive -- in more ways than one.

You hear a lot these days about two topics: mobility and collaboration. Unified communication and collaboration (UCC) is getting promoted by vendors ranging from Microsoft and IBM to Cisco, Avaya and Nortel.

Elections aren't the only things in chaos in Pakistan these days. The country recently decided to censor YouTube. Unfortunately, Pakistan botched the technology: It issued BGP routes that leaked, causing a worldwide reroute of all YouTube requests to a black hole in Pakistan -- taking YouTube off the global Internet for a couple of hours.

Forget the Super Bowl. Ignore the presidential primaries. For network geeks, the really big news recently was the cable outages in the Mediterranean, which disrupted Internet connections to Europe and the Middle East. The outages have raised a host of questions about the vulnerability of the Internet and the action plans enterprises should have in place to protect themselves from the consequences. Here are some frequently asked questions -- and the answers.

Radiohead recently rocked the music industry by making its latest album downloadable for free, or more accurately, for "whatever fans wanted to pay." The band was lauded for ushering in a new business model that disintermediated record companies and created a closer, more authentic bond between artists and fans.

Seems like carriers and content providers alike have been bitten by the open access bug. Big news recently was Verizon's announcement that it plans to open up its wireless network to any device or application. And Google upped the ante by announcing its intention to bid on the available 700-MHz spectrum in upcoming auctions, a portion of which, thanks to Google's lobbying efforts, is required to be open access as well.

One of the great things about technology is that it's surprisingly easy to underestimate how strong the demand for it can become. Remember IBM CEO Thomas Watson's purported 1943 remark, "There's a world market for maybe 5 computers," and Bill Gates' supposed 1980 comment, "640 kbytes of RAM ought to be enough for anyone"?

I've written several pieces pointing out that the issue of net neutrality is more nuanced than either proponents or opponents want you to believe. But with their characteristic cluelessness, providers have pretty much succeeded in reducing the debate right back down to a sound bite -- and positioning themselves on the wrong side.

While the U.S. feds and carriers are taking turns taking the heat for warrantless wiretapping (and a pox on both their houses, say I), I'm beginning to wonder why we ordinary Joes and Janes don't spend more time watching each other. Or more accurately, wondering when we're going to start.

There's a lot of buzz lately about the concept of social networking. You've got to admit the phrase is pretty silly. First off, it's redundant: Networks, by definition, are already social -- they connect humans. Plus, what's the opposite -- "antisocial networking"? Going online to tell everyone how much you hate them?

In economics, someone who hoards resources to drive up the price is rather whimsically referred to as a troll. I was reminded of that recently when one of my colleagues suggested that perhaps the US government's interest in IPv6 is part of a plot to drive up the market price of IPv4 addresses.