[governance] Are Internet users powerless or empowered, and how?

Sat Dec 1 05:21:52 EST 2007

George and all,

I strongly disagree with your view (which we hear from time to time in 
this debate) that liberalization (aka privatization, part of the 
[in]famous "enabling environment" business keeps preaching at us) per se 
solves any of the problems we are debating.

Brazil had a pervasive privatization process in the late nineties. It 
was strongly criticized not because of privatization in itself, but 
because it was incredibly underpriced, a real gift to big business by 
the federal government at the time. It was also criticized because it 
replaced a national monopoly with de facto regional monopolies which 
(guess what) agreed to act (illegally, of course) as a cartel (so much 
for the  "competitivity" the so-called "liberalization" tries to sell us 
as ficticious panacea).

The result: although ANATEL, by law, is able to define price ceilings 
for telecom services (in agreement with the cartel, of course), it can 
hardly do so for "value-added" services like Internet connectivity and 
data transfer. So we have a situation in which broadband pricing is 
fixed by the cartel at sky-high levels -- much like connectivity pricing 
is fixed among the giant backbone operators in the North -- with a lousy 
service quality and serving only "prime markets".

Brazil is now trying to devise ways to get out of this riddle. After 
all, the cartel leaves nearly half of 5,564 municipalities totally out 
of the Internet (no local points of presence), since "there is no 
market", so they are condemned to be perpetually unconnected (except for 
a minimal telephone service mandatory in the incumbents' contracts). 
There is no other way except a strong public policy to create a true 
enabling environment -- one which provides everyone with decently priced 
and reasonably good access, be it a money machine for a cartel or not. A 
large existing fiber backbone is being reorganized now to carry 
government e-services and help in universalizing municipalities' access 
to the Internet for e-gov services, public schools' connectivity and 
community nets. And ANATEL is proposing a regulation which will require 
all regional telco monopolies to install points of presence (with speeds 
compatible with population size) in every municipality.

I do hope it works.

--c.a.

George Sadowsky wrote:
> Dan,
> 
> I would disagree that low costs and more consumer choice, as reported by 
> Veni, support Karl's claim of powerlessness.
> 
> Every country has an ISP industry, shaped by competitive forces, 
> history, and the legislative and regulatory environment in which it 
> exists.   These determine the structure, conduct, and behavior of the 
> actors in ISP industry.  In the US, it depends where you are.  If you're 
> in Washington, you have lots of choices; if you're in Hanover, New 
> Hampshire, you have at most two.   There are locations in the US where 
> there are no broadband choices.  Some countries, especially those that 
> are geographically compact, can offer more comprehensive broadband 
> connectivity in similar policy environments.
> 
> Users are not made powerless by connectivity prices that are above lower 
> costs available elsewhere in the world.  The ARE made powerless by lack 
> of any connectivity or by connectivity that is outrageously expensive.
> 
> I would like to stress that these are national and local problems, and 
> not international problems except to the extent that they are replicated 
> in country after country.  To the extent that they exist, I argue that 
> this is a case for telecommunications reform at the national and local 
> level, and that we should be working with governments, as well as other 
> sectors of society, to demonstrate the benefits of liberalization for 
> this sector.
> 
> On the one had, I think that it's terrific that Bulgarians have all 
> kinds of choices with respect to the purchase of Internet connectivity.  
> On the other hand, I don't think that users in other countries are 
> necessarily substantially disadvantaged by that.  We need to work with 
> all countries to enable them to understand the opportunity costs of not 
> liberalizing, so that they can make the Internet even more of an 
> empowering tool than it is already.
> 
> I would argue that institutional governance of the Internet is 
> important, but less important than seeing that user needs are met. They 
> are clearly interrelated, but identifying needs comes first, and then 
> governance arrangements that maximize meeting those identified needs 
> should follow.
> 
> Form should follow function.  I think that tends to be forgotten for a 
> number of postings on this list.  Let's focus first on real needs and 
> then how to best meet them.  Let's also remember that when we talk about 
> Internet users, the great majority of them don't have domain names, so 
> it's not the domain name industry that we should be focusing on but the 
> user community as a whole, at present and to a fair extent, in the 
> future also.
> 
> George
> 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 
> 
> At 3:40 PM -0800 11/30/07, Dan Krimm wrote:
>> Indeed, Veni, competition in consumer broadband last-mile connectivity
>> service in the US is dreadfully low.
>>
>> So, all that really does is support Karl's claim of end user 
>> powerlessness
>> that George was disputing.  It seems to me that Karl was just allowing
>> George's point without deep analysis (or perhaps Karl was thinking about
>> domain-hosting services, independent of last-mile connectivity, where
>> competition remains quite robust even in the US -- "ISP" may not be a 
>> very
>> precise term anymore) because Karl was making a different point about 
>> power
>> in institutional structures of political governance, rather than power 
>> in a
>> commercial marketplace (two *very* different realms).
>>
>> Please, this is just a "gotcha" tactic of rhetorical distraction, and
>> brings us off point from what Karl and George are really trying to 
>> discuss,
>> which is a substantive issue of real significance.
>>
>> This is precisely part of the "noise" that dilutes productive 
>> discussion on
>> this list.  There was really no need for this comment at all, and nothing
>> was really gained by it, unless you were simply trying to spuriously
>> undermine trust in Karl as an individual speaker.  That is not a
>> substantive topic.
>>
>> As long as we're trying to clear the list of ad hominems, can we 
>> please try
>> to clear this stuff off too?  It dissipates the substantive focus of
>> discussions on the list, and that's good for no one except those who wish
>> to obstruct and distract from such productive discussion.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Dan
>>
>>
>>
>> At 3:31 PM -0500 11/30/07, Veni Markovski wrote:
>>> At 11:20 11/30/2007  -0800, Karl wrote:
>>>
>>>> For example, yes, we users have great power in the marketplace to
>>>> select ISP's and the like.
>>>
>>> This sounds strange. At least in New York City there is a choice -
>>> between cable Internet and Verizon. Both are at the same price, more
>>> or less. Is this really a choice? Compare: in Sofia, Bulgaria you can
>>> choose among about 20 big ISPs, and about 500 smaller  (true, in the
>>> whole city, not each of them covers all of the buildings).
>>> In New York you can choose between "business" and "family" or
>>> something like that plan. Speeds - up to 6Mbps. In Sofia - tens of
>>> plans, speeds - up to 1000 Mbps. Prices - adequate: in New York City
>>> it is more expensive than in Sofia. I call that a choice.
>>>
>>> But, again, that is my own, non US-centric, point of view. Or, 
>>> rather, fact?
>>>
>>> veni
>>>
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