[bestbits] Fwd: [governance] ISOC/USG WCIT Post Mortem

[parminder]

On Monday 24 December 2012 01:57 AM, michael gurstein wrote:
> http://isoc-ny.org/misc/isoc-dc_wcit_post_mortem.mp3

Could not open this link but saw on youtube ar 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cN_PwWkv14A

A good and cogent speech by Terry Kramer. One thing surprised me, and it 
links to what I think was the failure to posit a positive agenda at the 
WCIT by civil society.

Kramer says, first let me deal with the telecommunication side, and 
there are many positives there (vis a vis WCIT)... (paraphrased)

And then he speaks of the ETNO proposal, as being /on the telecom 
side/.... Of course, he (like us) was happy that ENTO proposal did not 
pass, he clearly seems to agree that it belonged to the telecom side, 
and thus to ITR's mandate.

This is very significant. (Others who know US positions better can 
perhaps clarify.)

If ETNO proposal was within ITR mandates, even if otherwise a very 
disagreeable one, would not Internet traffic interconnection regimes be 
also in ITR's remit.... I dont think it is anyone's case that ETNO 
proposal was not about the Internet (its physical/ infrastructural 
layer). So,  isnt the US agreeing here that/some kind of Internet could/ 
should well have been in the ITRs/.

Later in the speech, Kramer regrets that much could be done (at the 
WCIT) about spread of broadband, but that this was not something members 
were willing to pursue seriously.... Again, it surprised me, but this 
statement is consistent with the above one on ETNO..... Of course, 
broadband is Internet, right!

This is perplexing. Does the Ambassador say that US would have accepted 
to write in the ITR's high-level principles that, say, ETNO kind of 
proposals should never be encouraged (I mean, of course, in some form of 
non-specific formal text) and that, say, more competition should be 
promoted to improve universal access to broadband .

 From his speech I clearly get this impression. And if true, that makes 
a revealing point.

Why did the civil society then had this single agenda - no internet in 
the ITRs (as if the Internet was a kind of virus which, even if present 
in the minutest quantity, spreads everywhere quickly) - without making 
the distinction between the physical/ infrastructure player (with issues 
like broadband access, net neutrality, inter-connection regimes) and 
higher, application and content players.

Why were we not able to present and articulate a positive agenda around 
broadband access, net neutrality and the such, vis a vis the issues that 
belong to physical/ infrastructure layer.

Why were we, the CS, ended up looking like also motivated by the secret  
desire (though not difficult to divine) - as were the extreme 
libertarian actors, to just see the ITU die, and with it, also all 
regulatory regimes around the Internet at national levels. If we indeed 
want to see ITU simply die, lets not play games and say so it clearly. 
No Internet in ITU's scope - not even the physical/ infrastructure layer 
-  is simple a death warrant for the ITU. Which may be fine, but then 
who, for instance addresses the issue of ' global net neutrality'. 
('Global net neutrality' was identified as a key cross-border issues by 
a Council of Europe's expert committee, in which incidentally, Wolfgang 
also participated.) Why do we think that these are questions for someone 
else to answer, not for us, the 'global IG civil society'.

Why did we allow ourselves to so blatantly take sides in the intense 
ideological struggle taking place around the remit and powers of the FCC 
in the US, where the struggle for net neutrality is now all but lost. A 
game which is going to soon visit our own national regulatory systems 
very soon. Just watch out!

That was at least as big a game that played out at the WCIT as the 
efforts by some authoritarian countries to use ITU to carve out tightly 
controllable 'national segments' of the Internet. But, such is the power 
of the neoliberal social intermediary space - in which I include media 
as well as the civil society - that only one story is coming out of the 
WCIT.

parminder


>



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