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  • isoc-ny 1:23 pm on February 22, 2012 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , itu, , , WITC-12   

    @FCC Commissioner McDowell to @UN – Hands off the Internet! #netfreedom 

    Robert M. McDowellOn Feb 21 2012 the Wall Street Journal published an Op-Ed from FCC Commissioner Robert M. McDowell – “The U.N. Threat to Internet Freedom“. Commissioner McDowell says that at an World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT-12) next week “Russia, China and their allies” will be pushing hard to renegotiate the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) set at the World Administrative Telegraph and Telephone Conference held in Melboune in 1988 (WATTC-88). Key provisions in those ITRs facilitated the private expansion of IP-based networks opening the gates to the building of the Internet.

    Commissioner McDowell lists several proposals that would emasculate the open successful multistakeholder process that has engineered the growth of the Internet and suggests that they will lead to an eventual balkanization of the network.

    He concludes with a call to action to defeat the proposals.

    A top-down, centralized, international regulatory overlay is antithetical to the architecture of the Net, which is a global network of networks without borders. No government, let alone an intergovernmental body, can make engineering and economic decisions in lightning-fast Internet time. Productivity, rising living standards and the spread of freedom everywhere, but especially in the developing world, would grind to a halt as engineering and business decisions become politically paralyzed within a global regulatory body.

    Any attempts to expand intergovernmental powers over the Internet—no matter how incremental or seemingly innocuous—should be turned back. Modernization and reform can be constructive, but not if the end result is a new global bureaucracy that departs from the multi-stakeholder model. Enlightened nations should draw a line in the sand against new regulations while welcoming reform that could include a nonregulatory role for the ITU.

    Pro-regulation forces are, thus far, much more energized and organized than those who favor the multi-stakeholder approach. Regulation proponents only need to secure a simple majority of the 193 member states to codify their radical and counterproductive agenda. Unlike the U.N. Security Council, no country can wield a veto in ITU proceedings. With this in mind, some estimate that approximately 90 countries could be supporting intergovernmental Net regulation—a mere seven short of a majority.

    While precious time ticks away, the U.S. has not named a leader for the treaty negotiation. We must awake from our slumber and engage before it is too late. Not only do these developments have the potential to affect the daily lives of all Americans, they also threaten freedom and prosperity across the globe.

     

    • joly 2:43 pm on February 22, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      Internet Society Senior Manager for Public Policy Sally A. Wentworth has directly filed comments to the WCIT-12, including detailed recommendations (pdf).

      She adds:

      Further, any expanded regulation at the infrastructure level is likely to have an impact on growth and innovation and should be avoided unless absolutely necessary. In the rare case where a regulatory framework is needed, Member States should commit to ensuring that these are justified, and consist of high-level principles. Regulation should not interfere in commercial decisions, be based on specific technologies or business-models, or seek to substitute government (public-funded) action for the private sector.

      The ITRs should enshrine a commitment to the use of open and voluntary international standards. Interoperability, mutual agreement, and collaboration are invariable requirements for the Internet’s survival. Many standards development organizations contribute to the smooth functioning of the Internet, and new standards development organizations have emerged over time, so it is potentially damaging to impose a preference for some standards development organizations (SDOs) over others.

      The ITRs should reflect what has been learned about what works best for telecommunication regulation in the 24 years since the WATTC. In particular, its text should seek Member States’ commitment that their regulatory regimes be non-discriminatory, technology neutral, and encourage competition.

      Finally, to continue to benefit from what we know about the Internet, the ITRs should strive to be permissive, not restrictive. The text could be improved by committing to develop “soft” regulatory practices such as “codes of practice” and “guidelines” wherever possible, and always in an open and transparent manner, consistent with current practices and with the outcomes of the WSIS.

      Ms. Wentworth refers readers to the Internet Society document: Internet Invariants: What Really Matters

  • isoc-ny 8:14 am on January 22, 2012 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: adoption, , itu,   

    Video: Who can afford #broadband worldwide? @ITU_News 

    In October 2011, the ITU’s Broadband Commission for Digital Development set the target that basic broadband service should cost less than 5% of average monthly income in all countries worldwide by 2015. How many countries already make the grade? And what are prices like in the poorest parts of the world, where broadband could be the critical catalyst for meeting the Millennium Development Goals in areas like education and health? The results are mapped in this stylish video..

     

  • isoc-ny 8:28 pm on October 28, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , itu,   

    ITU ruefully agrees to share Internet Governance #icann #isoc #ietf #itu #igf #w3c 

    Monica Ehmert of IP-Watch has written a report on the recently concluded ITU Plenipotentiary Conference in Guadalajara, Mexico. She notes the tussle over recognizing the roles of independent organizations (such as the Internet Society) in the management of the Internet.

    The opposite position underlining ITU’s need to cooperate with existing self-governing internet organisations was provided by the Swedish delegate speaking for the 48 members of the “European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations” (CEPT). Changes both within the Union and in the cooperation with other organisations are necessary, the delegate said. “We need to be more efficient internally and we need to avoid overlap with the work done by other organisations. This is particularly important in the internet area.” The 2010 plenipotentiary decisions will “guide the ITU in the right direction,” the Swedish delegate said.

    Despite ITU making moves towards transparency apparently the key resolutions won’t be published until Feb 2011

    The whole package of internet-related resolutions (Resolutions 101, 102, 133 and a new resolution on the new internet protocol, or IPv6) was passed at a late hour on Thursday night, close to the end of the three-week meeting and it needed re-elected ITU Secretary General Hamadoun Touré’s urgent appeal for a compromise. For days, delegations mainly from the Arab world and from Russia had fought against a reference to the self-regulatory organisations like the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the Regional Internet Registries (RIRs), the Internet Engineering Task Force, the Internet Society and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in the internet resolutions.

    Proposals to transform ICANN’s Government Advisory Committee (GAC) into an “international committee, or create an (ITU) Council working group (…) with powers of supervision over ICANN,” or a “progressive cooperation agreement between ITU and ICANN and define a mechanism to increase the participation of governments” were all struck from the text. Also struck earlier in the Guadalajara meeting was a Russian proposal to integrate the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) whose future is on the agenda of the UN General Assembly this week. The IGF was an outcropping of the 2003-2005 ITU-led World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).

    How, asked Syrian delegate Nabil Kisrawi, can an intergovernmental UN organisation like the ITU be considered to be on equal footing with a California-based private company like ICANN? An explanation of the concerns of the Arab countries came from the Saudi delegation. Some people just did not want the names of ICANN and the other self-regulatory bodies in the resolutions because, “we think that in fact there’s a risk of undermining the role of the ITU in the internet.” All countries are in favour of having ICANN work under international and not under California law, the Saudi delegation said.

    Touré’s last-minute compromise for the internet resolutions asked at least for “reciprocity” in the cooperative efforts of the ITU, ICANN and the other internet management organisations, and this formula is now part of all four internet-related resolutions of the ITU work plan for 2012-2015.

    Monica observes:

    A delegate from Russia said in the closing ceremony that the conference had stated “that the ITU is open for cooperation and is ready to take the first steps to bring closer together other organisations that are dealing with internet-related matters.” But, he said, the ITU is also “ready to take on itself a leading role in internet governance within the scope of its competence and we ask the secretary-general to inform the General Assembly of the UN and all those concerned in telecommunications on our progress in this field.”

    and she concludes:

    Non-governmental organisations have criticised the ITU for many years and the internet self-regulatory bodies looked at the ITU as interested in “taking over.” With the formal acknowledgement of private domain regulator ICANN, the IP-address allocating RIRs, the Internet Engineering Task Force and the World Wide Web Consortium – standardisation organisations for the internet protocol and the Web respectively – in its plenipotentiary documents, the ITU might be seen as giving up its claim as sole representative for future networks. But how much will the ITU give up?

     

  • isoc-ny 12:09 pm on December 23, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , itu, ,   

    Lynn St Amour @ ITU – ICT Qatar interview 

     

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