<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Dear Michel and Baudouin </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></span> </p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I agree wiith both your comments. Let me add my personal one for complementing them.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></span> </p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Best regards and wishes for a successful IGF. I mean an IGF that (also) addresses DC’s actual needs.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></span> </p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Jean-Louis Fullsack</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></span> </p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> </span></p>
<p><em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">M. Touré said :</span></em></p>
<h3 style="margin: 10pt 0cm 0pt; background: white;"><em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><Infrastructure</span></em></h3>
<p style="background: white;"><em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><The conference will also focus on how ICTs – and particularly broadband – can be highly effective catalysts for </span></em><em><span style="font-style: normal; font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">sustainable</span></em><em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> social and economic progress.</span></em></p>
<p style="background: white;"><em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><Right now, access to this potential is constrained by issues of affordability, with high costs a reality for many users. Related to this is insufficient investment in < infrastructure, especially in developing countries.</span></em></p>
<p style="background: white;"><em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></em></span></em> </p>
<p style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">My comment :</span></p>
<p style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This isn’t right ! H. Touré is confusing investment and useful telecom infrastructure deployment. <br />Investment in these countries are very high with more than 50 billions spent in the last decade in sub-saharian Africa alone. But this investment is market driven, i.e. it is mostly focused on profitable routes where competition –encouraged by the ITU- generates multiplication of infrastructure, instead of building a real network that links the main cities and traffic nodes at national and sub-regional levels. Best example for illustrating this statement are the seven submarine cables that have been laid during the last decade along the African atlantic coast without any basic principle of actual telecommunication networking. In fact, instead of complementing each other they are just aimed to compete each other. This scandalous<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“bandwidth glut” has swallowed up four billion dollars<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>while half of the capacity potential would be largely sufficient for the next decade.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The same over-investing scheme -competing instead of complementing- is applied on a series of terrestrial routes, leaving Africa without true backbone networks at national, sub-regional and continental level, despite the ITU’s solemn promises for such a network given in the seventies –remember Panaftel !- and in 2003 together with the Africa Union. Moreover, in 2007<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the ITU led initiative Connect Africa promised the long awaited continental African backbone being in place in 2012 ….<br />Thus billions of dollars are wasted in needless infrastructure instead of being invested<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to building essential telecom backbone networks. The invisible hand of the market is still ruling, and H.Touré’s ITU is applauding.</span></p>
<p> </p>
<blockquote style="padding-left: 5px; margin-left: 5px; border-left: #ff0000 2px solid;">> Message du 08/11/12 16:23<br />> De : "Baudouin Schombe" <br />> A : governance@lists.igcaucus.org, "michael gurstein" <br />> Copie à : "McTim" <br />> Objet : Re: [governance] Hamadoun Touré Op-Ed in Wired +<br />> <br />>
<div><span class="hps">I appreciate</span> <span class="hps">rightly</span> <span class="hps">this</span> <span class="hps">appreciation</span> <span class="hps">of Michael and</span> <span class="hps">I ask myself the</span> <span class="hps">question of what</span> <span class="hps">are</span> <span class="hps">beneficially</span> <span class="hps">precoccupations</span> <span class="hps">that will</span> <span class="hps">be discussed</span> <span class="hps">during this</span> <span class="hps">high mass</span><span>?</span> <span class="hps">While</span> <span class="hps">we seek to</span> <span class="hps">make</span> <span class="hps">digital technology</span> <span class="hps">more profitable and</span> <span class="hps">beneficial</span><span>, we find</span> <span class="hps">the</span> <span class="hps">money to spend</span> <span class="hps">because we are</span> <span class="hps">at the end of</span> <span class="hps">the</span> <span class="hps">year</span> <span class="hps">and somewhere</span> <span class="hps">there was</span> <span class="hps">money</span> <span class="hps">that has not</span> <span class="hps">yet</span> <span class="hps">been</span> <span class="hps">spend</span> <span class="hps">and must</span> <span class="hps">justify its use.</span></div>
<p>> <span class="hps"></span> </p>
<div><span class="hps">Baudouin</span></div>
<div><br />> <br />></div>
<div class="gmail_quote">2012/11/8 michael gurstein <span><<a href="mailto:gurstein@gmail.com" target="_blank">gurstein@gmail.com</a>></span><br />>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex; border-left-color: #cccccc; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid;">McTim,<br />> <br />> I have no idea what the conference is "actually about", but even if it is<br />> only camouflage at least he is raising the issue and I don't see any of the<br />> folks who are semi-hysterical around the WCIT talking about anything even<br />> approaching those issues.<br />> <br />> At least in the US where AT&T is trying to do a similar deregulatory number<br />> on the FCC they are willing to pay a reasonable price ($14 Billion for<br />> additional connectivity) to get themselves off the regulatory hook. What<br />> are the folks who are throwing everything but the kitchen sink at the ITU,<br />> offering (except platitudes about the magical wonders of<br />> "competition"--hardly of much use to subsistence farmers in Bangladesh or<br />> Burkina Faso living on $1 per day)?<br />> <span class="HOEnZb"><span style="color: #888888;"><br />> M<br />> </span></span>
<div class="HOEnZb">
<div class="h5"><br />> -----Original Message-----<br />> From: McTim [mailto:<a href="mailto:dogwallah@gmail.com">dogwallah@gmail.com</a>]<br />> Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2012 4:47 PM<br />> To: <a href="mailto:governance@lists.igcaucus.org">governance@lists.igcaucus.org</a>; michael gurstein<br />> Subject: Re: [governance] Hamadoun Touré Op-Ed in Wired +<br />> <br />> On Thu, Nov 8, 2012 at 12:02 AM, michael gurstein <<a href="mailto:gurstein@gmail.com">gurstein@gmail.com</a>><br />> wrote:<br />> ><br />> > With over 90 percent of the world’s people now within reach of mobile<br />> > phones, the challenge today is bringing internet access to the<br />> > two-thirds of the world’s population that is still offline. This<br />> > challenge is compounded by the need to ensure connectivity is affordable<br />> and safe for all.<br />> ><br />> > and then<br />> ><br />> > The conference will chart a globally agreed-upon roadmap that offers<br />> > future connectivity to all, and ensures sufficient communications<br />> > capacity to cope with the exponential growth in voice, video, and<br />> > data. The sole focus of the event is making regulations valuable to<br />> > all stakeholders, creating a robust pillar to support future growth in<br />> global communications.<br />> ><br />> > and<br />> ><br />> > The conference will address issues that relate to improving online<br />> > access and connectivity for everyone.<br />> ><br />> > Surely these are appropriate goals for Civil Society as well<br />> <br />> spot on Michael.<br />> <br />> I for one don't believe that what HT says the conference is about is<br />> actually what the conference is about, do you?<br />> <br />> <br />> <br />> --<br />> Cheers,<br />> <br />> McTim<br />> "A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A route<br />> indicates how we get there." Jon Postel<br />> <br />> <br />></div>
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