[governance] Net neutrality & IG - a proposal to the IGC

Thu Apr 13 02:22:32 EDT 2006

Michael Gurstein wrote:

>> In that context the question of Network Neutrality is not fundamental but
rather secondary to the realization of the public interest-->>

That is exactly the point. That is why though there is a lot of talk around
(strangely, much more in arenas outside IGC than inside it) about the NN
issue as an important issue to be taken by IGF --- and though this concern
trigged our IGF proposal - the proposal was written deliberately not in
terms of NN but in terms of 'public-ness'. 

And I used this 'public-ness' term as a broader term than public interest
because

(1)the term 'public interest' can get constructed too narrowly, with each
taking one's own conception of it

(2)there were connected issues of reclaiming the 'public sphere or domain'
on the Internet, that many CS activists in the IPR arena speak about. And
there are infrastructure issues like open spectrum and ownership of spectrum
- and I thought there was a common thread running through these Internet
related issues (which are at the base of the political lines of contestation
in the emerging information society) which our theme proposal tries to
capture.  

>> Internet (or its carriage) should (not) be

seen solely from the perspective of the (or "a") market, but rather as a

place where the public interest (the achievement of public goods) can

and should be realized.>>

Yes, there is a market component/ aspect of the Internet - and public
interest in context of this market aspect needs to be preserved - and NN
principle means to do that. And as you rightly observe, there are other
non-market aspects of the Internet which are as important, and nature of
public interest in these respects may be different, and remains paramount. 

>>>if NN supports the public interest, well and good; if it doesn't then the
public interest should prevail and NN should be structured so as to
accommodate this.>>>

Of course. NN is not by itself important, it is merely a technical issue -
it is the public interest that is important. Technology advances towards
more and more possibilities and that also means more differentiation. The
issue is how these technology advances and increased possibilities used for
public interest. (In fact I can already think of some public interest issues
that can be used to overrule network neutrality.)

And I do not understand what special public-private complementarily Milton
speaks about which is not there in most other public infrastructure. The
road infrastructure which is certainly public also connects the private
spaces (say, our home) to private spaces (our office) which we can travel in
private spaces (our cars). But this doesn't take away from the essential
public nature of the road infrastructure. So whats the problem in asserting
the essential public nature of the Internet! 

In fact, that there seems to such a problem in some (strong and dominant)
quarters to do so is the real justification of our public-ness proposal. 

Many IS concepts and theorizations have a congenital neo-liberal dominant
slant, in sharp contrast to the traditional public-private balance of the
yester-decades. And this slant hurts the developing countries a lot. We have
tried to argue such congenital deformity of IS discourse in our recent paper
on 'political economy of the IS'
(http://wsispapers.choike.org/papers/eng/itfc_political_economy_is.pdf )

Parminder 

________________________________________________

Parminder Jeet Singh

IT for Change, Bangalore

Bridging Development Realities and Technological Possibilities 

91-80-26654134

www.ITforChange.net 

-----Original Message-----
From: governance-bounces at lists.cpsr.org
[mailto:governance-bounces at lists.cpsr.org] On Behalf Of Gurstein, Michael
Sent: Wednesday, April 12, 2006 4:25 PM
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org
Subject: Re: [governance] Net neutrality & IG - a proposal to the IGC

I think the issue might be clarified somewhat if we were somewhat

clearer on what is being discussed.  As I understand it the IGF is in

fact to be the IG (P) F -- Internet Governance (Policy) Forum i.e. a

place where broad issues of public policy with respect to the Internet

in a global environment are discussed and presumably recommendations

made with respect to appropriate responses including the appropriate

vehicles or institutions for implementing those responses.

In a "Policy" forum the fundamental questions, which underlie all others

are what are the basic assumptions which are made concerning the

framework or policy pre-conditions which underlie all others--ultimately

this means what are one's fundamental "political" choices.

In the context of Network Neutrality, what is being assumed as being

"neutral" is the positioning of the various players with respect to the

"market" i.e. there is no discrimination as to the various

players/competitors in the Internet (or the underlying carriage of the

Internet) as a "marketplace".

My understanding of Parminder's position is that the underlying

assumption should not be that the Internet (or its carriage) should be

seen solely from the perspective of the (or "a") market, but rather as a

place where the public interest (the achievement of public goods) can

and should be realized. In that context the question of Network

Neutrality is not fundamental but rather secondary to the realization of

the public interest--if NN supports the public interest, well and good;

if it doesn't then the public interest should prevail and NN should be

structured so as to accommodate this.

Seems fairly clear to me (as does the reason for introducing Parminder's

"issue" concerning the public interest into the initial IGF discussions

as well...

MG

-----Original Message-----

From: governance-bounces at lists.cpsr.org

[mailto:governance-bounces at lists.cpsr.org] On Behalf Of Vittorio Bertola

Sent: April 12, 2006 12:03 PM

To: Milton Mueller

Cc: governance at lists.cpsr.org

Subject: Re: [governance] Net neutrality & IG - a proposal to the IGC

Milton Mueller ha scritto:

> The meaning of NN in this context is not entirely clear. At its best,

> Net Neutrality is about maintaining that complementary relationship 

> and protecting it against certain (real or imagined) threats. At its 

> worst, it is a rather unproductive replay of the US model of regulated

> unbundling of networks, which devolved into microregulation and court 

> battles. I prefer discussions to revolve around concepts of 

> "nondiscrimination", but admit that NN is a better PR term. Given the 

> rootedness of these issues in domestic telecom policy laws, 

> regulations and institutions, however, I am confused as to how a 

> nonbinding global discussion forum would be able to make a 

> contribution in this area.

I think that the best contribution would be a sort of principle 

recognition of what you say, i.e. the importance of keeping a balance 

between the freedom for private parties to communicate and to innovate, 

and the need for the network to be one, open, and publicly sharing its 

basic elements. Network neutrality should mean, for example, that 

private entities are encouraged to fight through their ingenuity to gain

advantage positions in one of the spots of the value chain(s) of the 

network, but should not be allowed [too much] to use those positions to 

break the unity of the network or to reduce others' freedom to act or to

alter competition in other spots.

This then involves countless situations, not just last mile & provider 

control on content, but also the Apple / iTunes type of situations, and 

even Microsoft / WindowsMedia or Microsoft / IE - but also SiteFinder 

(eg Verisign using a monopoly position at the DNS protocol level to gain

an advantage position at the application protocol level).

-- 

vb.             [Vittorio Bertola - v.bertola [a] bertola.eu.org]<-----

http://bertola.eu.org/  <- Prima o poi...

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