Samtec wins Bishop European customer service survey - ITREALMS

ITREALMS ... making leadership SENSE with digital news!

Samtec has been ranked #1 in the 2023 Bishop and Associates European Customer Survey of the Electronic Connector Industry, reports ITREALMS.

This is Samtec’s 12th consecutive win for the survey. From standard cataloged interconnects to unique high-performance designs, Samtec’s comprehensive product line supports interconnectivity needs across many industries, including industrial, military/aerospace, computer/semiconductor, automotive, datacom, medical, and instrumentation.

Shell Nigeria Gas commissions indigenous firm to carry out largest domestic gas market survey - ITREALMS

ITREALMS ... making leadership SENSE with digital news!


Nigeria’s leading domestic gas distribution company, the Shell Nigeria Gas Limited (SNG), has commissioned a far-reaching gas market survey in 33% of the states in Nigeria to gain deeper market insights for entry and to accelerate the achievement of Nigeria’s Decade of Gas objectives. SNG has engaged notable indigenous consulting firm, Philips Consulting Limited, for this project which has the potentials to advance Nigeria's energy transition agenda.

SNG’s Managing Director, Ed Ubong, said, “The outcome of this survey will provide additional insights into gas critical role in transforming Nigeria to an industrialized nation. This key commercial activity of identifying gas supply and expansion opportunities cuts across all regions in the country and would leverage Nigeria’s $2.8 billion Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano (AKK) pipeline project to penetrate the key Northern markets.”

NCC explains importance survey on cybercriminal - ITREALMS

ITREALMS ... making leadership SENSE with digital news!

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), has explained the essence of the its recent request to industry stakeholders to actively participate in a survey on cybercriminal, reports ITREALMS.

NCC also noted the exercise would ensure a secure cyberspace that is safe for the operators and consumers of communications services and infrastructure in Nigeria.

Survey shows corporate boards lack cyber demands - ITREALMS

ITREALMS:

The latest global survey by the Deloitte has showed that boards of several corporate organisations lack cyber demands of their entities, reports ITREALMS.

Cyber, ITREALMS gathered, is growing and moving in multiple dimensions across multiple disciplines—beyond an organisation’s perimeter and IT environments, permeating the products it creates, the factories where it makes them, the spaces where its employees conceive them, and where its customers use them. Cyber is at the centre of digital transformation.

According to Deloitte’s 2019 Future of Cyber survey, there are notable gaps in organisations’ abilities to meet cybersecurity demands for the future. Findings indicate that many cyber organisations are challenged by their ability to prioritise cyber risk across the enterprise (16 percent), followed closely behind by lack of management alignment on priorities and adequate funding, each at 15 percent.

“Cyber leaders today are focused on digital transformation as a catalyst for change for both the greater enterprise and their cyber agendas. The good news is the survey results show that organisations are no longer taking a wait-and-see philosophy to preparing for and responding to cyber incidents”, says Deloitte Africa Risk Advisory Cyber leader Eric Mc Gee, “There is a whole new way of thinking that is starting to occur with how organisations are going to achieve their business outcomes, and that is with a cyber everywhere mindset.”

Findings from the 500 C-suite cybersecurity executives surveyed also suggested that there is still much work to do in aligning cyber initiatives to executive management’s digital transformation priorities. There is a real gap that must be bridged, with finite budgets and resources as well as a lack of prioritisation by executive management. The overall consensus was that many organisations aren’t fully equipped to efficiently and effectively tackle today’s cyber demands.

Findings of the Future of Cyber survey include:

· 43 percent of surveyed CISOs indicated they report directly to the CEO. This is consistent across the total survey population where 32 percent of respondents indicated the CISO reported to the CEO, with only 19 percent indicating that the role reported to the CIO. In Deloitte’s experience facilitating hundreds of CISO transformation labs over the past five years and through informal collection of data, nearly 80 percent of CISOs report to a CIO or CSO. This indication that CISOs are, in fact, directly reporting to a CEO is quite encouraging but counter to Deloitte’s experience.

· Half of organisations (49 percent) have cybersecurity on their board agenda at least quarterly. On the other hand, half of boards are not discussing cyber as often as they should. More concerning is that only 4 percent of respondents say cybersecurity is on the agenda once a month.

· While organisations are prioritising digital transformation, only 14 percent of cyber budgets are allocated to provide for cybersecurity in transformation efforts.

· Less than 20 percent of organisations have security liaisons embedded within business units to foster greater collaboration, innovation, and security.

· Organisations are turning to third parties to manage certain functions of their cyber operations. According to 65 percent of the CISOs surveyed, 21-30 percent of total cyber operations are outsourced, with nearly half (48 percent) of CISOs selecting insider threat detection as a top function that they turn to third parties to manage.

· There’s a disconnect between the majority (85 percent) of the survey respondents who indicate that they are using Agile/DevOps in application development and then ranking DevSecOps lowest (11 percent) on the cyber defence priorities and investments areas, which may explain why 90 percent of organisations surveyed experienced disclosures of sensitive production data within the past year.

· Data integrity (35 percent) was the top-ranked cybersecurity threat respondents were most concerned about followed by unintended actions of well-meaning employees (32 percent) resulting in a negative event and then followed by technical vulnerabilities (31 per cent).

Chuks Egbuna/DoP

*JOIN our alert's group | Share stories with us | Advert placement: WhatsApp | SMS: +2348033592762 *Twitter: @ITREALMS *Email: itrealms.dsa@gmail.com*

ccNSO review survey available for community input - ITREALMS

ITREALMS:

The independent examiner conducting the second review of the Country Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO), Meridian Institute, has published a survey for community input, reports ITREALMS.

The aim of the survey, ITREALMS gathered is to collect input from those who have interacted with ccNSO or have suggestions for ways to improve it. 

"The survey is informed by learnings from Meridian Institute's research and interviews conducted to date," a press statement from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) stated.

ITREALMS reports that following the close of the survey on 21 December 2018 at 23:59 UTC, Meridian Institute will evaluate responses, along with input received via interviews and other forums, as input to its assessment report. The assessment report is expected to be posted for community consultation in February 2019.

As with all ICANN Organizational Reviews, the second ccNSO review is following a two-phased approach, in which the independent examiner first completes its assessment and then makes recommendations to address the findings noted during the assessment.

The purpose of the Bylaws-mandated ccNSO review is to determine (i) whether the ccNSO has a continuing purpose within the ICANN structure; (ii) how effectively the ccNSO fulfils its purpose and whether any change in its structure or operations is desirable to improve the ccNSO's effectiveness; and (iii) the extent to which the ccNSO as a whole is accountable to its organizations, committees, constituencies, and stakeholder groups. Meridian Institute was selected to conduct the second ccNSO review in August 2018.

Chuks Egbune/GEE

*JOIN our alert's group | Share stories with us | Advert placement: WhatsApp | SMS: +2348033592762 *Twitter: @ITREALMS *Email: itrealms.dsa@gmail.com*

NomCom seeks comments with survey

ITRealms:

The Nominating Committee (NomCom) of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is seeking comments with a survey over ongoing review, reports ITRealms.

The survey which takes up to between 10 and 15 minutes, is the main instrument in the review process to express community opinion about ICANN's NomCom.

This, ITRealms reports could access the survey directly and has until 13 October.

Also, ITRealms reports that NomCom plays a critical role within ICANN as it appoints individuals to the ICANN Board, the Public Technical Identifiers (PTI) Board, the
Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) and Country Code Names
Supporting Organization (ccNSO) Councils, and the At-Large Advisory
Committee.

The NomCom organizational review, ITRealms gathered, is assessing how effectively the
NomCom is operating, how well it is achieving its purpose, and if it is accountable to the multistakeholder community.

ITRealms also gathered that following the survey, the independent examiner will attend ICANN60 to conduct further review work.

The draft final report of the independent examiner, ITRealms further gathered, will be posted for public comment, and the review is expected to conclude by mid-2018.

Chuks Egbune/GEE

ITREALMS ... everything news digitally!

ICANN unveils gender diversity participation survey

ITRealms:

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has unveiled a survey to determine current perceptions of gender diversity in the ICANN community and to identify potential barriers to participation, reports ITRealms.

The purpose of this survey, ITRealms gathered is to inform community discussions on diversity, following calls for additional data on this topic.

ITRealms also reports that looking to clarify perceptions of diversity and equality, leadership, and inclusiveness, ICANN would like to understand the degree to which barriers such as familial responsibilities play a role.

ICANN, therefore, invite all community members to share their views, stressing that the survey takes about 10 minutes to complete.

In addition, ITRealms reports that the survey closes on 8 July, just as responses would be anonymous and would be used in accordance with ICANN's Privacy Policy.

Further, ITRealms reports that this survey is available in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. While the survey report will be shared with an analysis of gaps, perceptions, and potential next steps.

This data, ICANN said, would help identify ways to enhance gender diversity and support broad, inclusive participation.

Nonye Dom/GEE

ITREALMS ... everything news digitally!

Global registrant survey final phase on showcase

ITRealms:

The Los Angeles-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has unveiled the final phase findings of its two-phased global registrant survey, reports ITRealms.

The study, ITRealms gathered was conducted by Nielsen, examines domain name registrants’ perceived sense of trust, choice and experience in the current domain name landscape.

The completion of this study, ITRealms also gathered conclude the separate consumer and registrant survey efforts that served as inputs for a community-based review team assessing the new generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) Programme in terms of Competition, Consumer trust and consumer choice (CCT).

President of ICANN’s Global Domains Division, Mr. Akram Atallah disclosed at the weekend that the findings of this survey are similar to phase one results, which showed there is stability across the domain name landscape.

“The global registrant and consumer studies will play an important role in measuring the success of the new gTLD Programme. I look forward to the CCT Review team’s interim report later this year,” he said, stressing that the online survey had participants which included 3,349 domain name registrants aged 18+ in 24 countries throughout Asia, Europe, Africa, North America and South America. The survey was administered in 18 languages.

ITRealms also gathered that some of the key findings include perceived awareness of new gTLDs remains steady, declines with legacy gTLDs.

“New gTLDs that were in both phases of the survey show similar awareness levels, with higher awareness reported in South America and Asia Pacific. Awareness of several legacy gTLDs dropped slightly by five to seven percentage points.

On among new gTLD registrants, registering a single domain remains the most common practice, the survey showed that more than 30 per cent of survey respondents indicated they registered a name in a new gTLD.

Of those who registered domains in a new gTLD, 52 per cent had registered one name only, while 34 per cent said they registered two to three domain names. While survey reported registration of new gTLDs is highest in the Asia Pacific region.

Coming to registrants generally trusting the domain name industry, the survey revealed that trust in the industry generally remains high, particularly in Asia, even as registration restrictions elicit higher levels of trust, whereas positive reputational characteristics, such as business expertise and dependability, contribute to trust in the domain name industry.

On the ‘Many registrants choose alternative identities over domain names’ it was largely seen as a new series of questions added in Phase Two to gauge the use of alternate online identities, such as social media accounts, blogs or other tools.

Therefore, 24 per cent of these respondents said they chose to use a social media account instead of a domain name. While estimated 17 per cent of the respondents said they did not renew a domain in favor of using an alternative method for managing an online identity.

ITRealms recalls that ICANN commissioned the Global Registrant Survey in response to recommendations from the Implementation Advisory Group on Competition, Consumer Choice and Consumer Trust.

ITREALMS ... everything news digitally!

USF has huge potential to solve connectivity – Survey

ITRealms:

The latest survey findings have revealed that the Universal Service Fund (USF) has a huge potential to solving connectivity and service delivery issues in rural environments, reports ITRealms.

The survey key findings made available to ITRealms by the Managing Director, World Telecom Labs (WTL), Mr. Leigh Smith, indicated that an estimated 96 per cent of respondents see USF as offering huge potential to solve connectivity and service delivery issues in rural environments.

While 86 per cent of respondents including operators, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and government agencies, all expressed an interest in delivering connectivity to unconnected areas with a feeling strongly that a combination of all three is required in order to unlock investment.

ITRealms gathered that this implies that connecting the unconnected requires a coalition – a collaborative approach between all relevant stakeholders, including vendors who could offer technology to deliver the connectivity required.

However, the main obstacles blocking the building of networks using USF funds, the survey identified, were excessive bureaucracy and inflexibility of USF rules, just as concerns were raised about the sustainability of rural investments.

In addition, many respondents, ITRealms reports were unfamiliar with the handful of companies including WTL which provide equipment specifically designed to build commercially viable networks in rural villages. 

“People were very open and eager to share their experiences and opinions – and most were extremely positive about the economic benefits of providing voice and data to areas which are still unconnected. Connecting the unconnected continues to be a hot topic with companies such as Facebook and Google investing heavily in their own initiatives. At WTL we will continue to develop our portfolio of award-winning equipment to help operators, ISPs and NGOs build sustainable rural networks,” he said.

WTL has built a number of networks in rural Africa partly financed by USF and has seen for itself the immense benefits USF can bring, irrespective of its challenges. In particular, the deployment of WTL’s Vivada (Village Voice and Data) system in rural Tanzania is an example of a strong and productive use of USF funds.

ITREALMS ... everything news digitally!

3,357 respondents participated in ICANN consumer survey - Nielsen

ITRealms:

A total of 3,357 respondents participated in the consumer and registrant survey conducted by Nielsen for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), reports ITRealms.

An extract from the whole survey report made available to ITRealms, out of the 3,357 responses included in the final sample, 768 came from the ICANN-supplied lists, while 2,589 from Nielsen.

This is coming out of the specific 6,144 adult were surveyed between consumers and registrants.

ITRealms notes that the survey was precipitated by ICANN commissioning of the exercise as part of the recommendations from the Implementation Advisory Group on Competition, Consumer Choice and Consumer Trust (IAG-CCT). 

Whereas the IAG-CCT concluded its work in September 2014 and recommended to the ICANN Board 66 metrics to measure how the New gTLD Programme has impacted competition, consumer choice and consumer trust in the domain name space.

However, among those 66 metrics, a subset of 11 were identified as best being measured using a global survey of Internet users and following Response for Proposal (RFP) conducted openly by ICANN the consultancy was awarded and contract signed with Nielsen to conduct the study in November 2014.

According to Nielsen, they surveyed 6,144 adults ages 18 and older, who spend 5 or more hours a week on the Internet for the Internet consumer survey and they represented all five of ICANN's geographic regions. 

“Respondents came from 24 countries, representing 75 per cent of the world's Internet users: China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Philippines, Russia, South Korea, Vietnam, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom, Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa, Canada, Mexico, United States, Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia. The results were reported at a 95 per cent confidence level,” officials of Nielsen stated in the report made available to ITRealms.

Whereas Nielsen also reported that they completed the survey of domain name registrants, with 3,357 registrants from the same countries, the results were reported at a 95 per cent confidence level. 

Nielsen explained that to be included in the sample, “respondents were screened to ensure they were 18 and older, had ever registered a domain name, were at least a partial decision maker in domain name registrations, were aware of the purpose of the domain name and in which TLDs names had been registered.”

As said by the report, domain name registrants were identified using several sources provided by ICANN to Nielsen with a sample of WHOIS records used in the 2014 and conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. 

“Due to a low response rate to emailed invitations to complete the survey, ICANN then worked with Domain Tools to procure a larger sample of WHOIS records,” the report stated.

Accordingly, it was these WHOS records that were parsed and sorted by country codes of the registrants with additional parameters used for this sample comprising the domain name's creation date was not necessary for sorting records; The sample was created from gTLD domain names and excluded ccTLD domain names; The sample included, where available, a mix of legacy and new gTLDs. Records included in the sample were selected according to a standard process, e.g., a randomized selection of records from a registry, according to the established criteria as described above.

 

ITREALMS ... everything news digitally!

ISOC takes survey on African ccTLDs

ITRealms  Exclusive!

The Internet Society (ISOC) has commenced survey on African country code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs), ITRealms exclusively reports.

The African Regional Bureau Director, Internet Society (ISOC) Mr. Dawit Bekele revealed this to ITRealms, requested that completing the online questionnaire that takes at most 15 minutes of your time.

“The study aims at helping the development of a program to assist African ccTLDs understand their market and better compete in the industry,” he said.

Pointing out that input will be kept confidential and only aggregated information will be shared.

ISOC, he said, is also happy to inform that, as a respondent, qualify for a lottery that might win a Samsung Galaxy SIII mini mobile phone by completing the questionnaire before December 6, 2013.

“Don’t forget to give your email address in the questionnaire in order to participate to the lottery,” he said.

ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D
Pix: BobHinden-ISoc BoT chairman

Implementation failures swells data planning survey, reveals Symantec

A study by Symantec Corp has revealed that the findings of its 2012 Information Retention and eDiscovery Survey shows how enterprises manage their ever-growing volumes of electronically stored information (ESI) and prepare for the eventuality of an eDiscovery request.

ITRealms gathered that the study found the percentage of organizations without a formal information retention plan dropped by half from the 2011 survey. 

However, even with this improvement, the study stated that organizations struggle with implementing their information retention plans as only a third of organizations report their plan is fully operational.

Nearly two-thirds (60 per cent) of organizations say they have a formal retention plan, yet only 34 per cent report those plans are fully operational. 

The perceived cost of implementing their plans is reported to be the most common reason why organizations are lagging in plan implementation. 

The survey found that only 7 per cent of organizations do not have any plans in place, a 50 per cent drop from 14 per cent of organizations reported in the 2011 survey. 

Even more concerning is that while they received on average 17 requests for electronically stored information, these requests failed 31 per cent of the time. 

This, the study noted is significantly higher than the 20 per cent of failures reported in 2011, adding that while each time a failure occurs, the organization is at risk. 

Forty-three per cent reported the inability to make decisions in a timely fashion as the biggest consequence of these failures. Just as other consequences reported include damage to reputation, compromised legal position, fines, raised profile as a litigation target and court sanctions. 

Director, Information Intelligence Group, Symantec, Trevor Daughney, said the survey highlighted that, although there is a reduction in the number of organizations without an information retention plan, organizations have not fully funded and implemented their plans.

“With the number of ESI requests and failures to obtain requested information increasing, organizations face risks that are much more costly in the long run than implementing their plans,” Daughney said.

Further, the study revealed that there is still a substantial gap between beliefs and practices in retention policies, which has not significantly changed year over year. Whereas 81per cent of respondents believe that a proper information retention plan allows organizations to delete information on an ongoing basis. However, 42 percent of backups are indefinitely retained by organizations. 

This is virtually unchanged from the 2011 results and, information deleted by organizations is often deleted without considering established retention policies. 

The most reported negative consequences resulting from preserving more electronically stored information  than necessary include “Increased costs associated with collection, analysis and review (54 per cent); increased time spent to collect, analyze and review ESI (47 per cent); increased risk that sensitive information may be disclosed (44 per cent); compromised position in potential or actual litigation (27 per cent); and information unintentionally made available for potential future litigation (28 per cent).” 

Remmy Nweke
ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D

8 of 10 SMES not satisfied with telcos - Survey

Latest survey on Telesperience from Comarch, a global provider of end-to-end solutions for telecommunications, has revealed that eight of 10 European Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have plans to change telecom provider.

ITRealms gathers that the Telesperience research was based on a survey on 298 European SMEs in France, Germany, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom (UK), according to the author and Chief Analyst, Telesperience, Ms Teresa Cottam.

She said that the level of satisfaction of European SMEs with their telecom service providers was identified during the survey.

 The survey, she said, was done by an analyst firm, Telesperience, on 298 European SMEs, to see what they saw as the most valuable services that Consumer Satisfaction Problems (CSPs) could offer them, but also to identify the main churn and dissatisfaction factors. 

She also revealed that some of the key issues included that SMEs do not feel loyal to their CSP(s) – 8 out of 10 plan to change service provider in the near future; The biggest causes of frustration amongst SMEs are billing-related issues, low quality of services and networks, and the inability of service providers to quickly and effectively resolve problems; and the most important factors for SMEs when selecting a telecom service provider are service availability, service quality and dedicated tariff plans, while low price is only rated as fourth on the list.

Additionally, Ms Cottam said, eight out of 10 SMEs do not see handset selection as being a “deal breaker” as they prefer a cheaper service to their ideal handset. While 48 per cent of SMEs would prefer to have a single service provider for all their services, even as she pointed out that the services that SMEs would value include: access to itemized and archived bills, an ability to set spending limits for their employees, as well as fixed-mobile convergence.

ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D