[governance] Are Internet users powerless or empowered, and how?
Alejandro Pisanty
apisan at servidor.unam.mx
Sat Dec 1 13:57:03 EST 2007
George,
re how liberalization/privatization, your Rx is generally accepted. Many
of us in Latin America see it lacking, though, in that some strong state
policy is required, together with public investment, in order to push
connectivity and access to large sectors of population and territory which
are not attractive as markets, especially to the large, consolidated
companies which Carlos has described.
You have also seen many analyses of the troubles of pure-market solutions
for island states and other sparsely populated geographies which are not
large enough to support competitive markets, either by population or by
the total mass of money available.
So, many of us have arrived at the conclusion that market-only is not a
complete solution outside the Northern economies - and even there.
Now of course in general the solutions are in-country and barely global,
exception made of international interconnection costs, or international
aid/support for fledling markets and extremely disadvantaged populations.
Mind you, this is one issue in which Carlos and I see almost eye-to-eye,
our differences are of degree. I mention this in illustration of my
concept that once we start looking at different sets of issues, the
alignments of the same set of players change radically.
Yours,
Alejandro Pisanty
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Dr. Alejandro Pisanty
Director General de Servicios de Computo Academico
UNAM, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico
Av. Universidad 3000, 04510 Mexico DF Mexico
Tel. (+52-55) 5622-8541, 5622-8542 Fax 5622-8540
http://www.dgsca.unam.mx
*
---->> Unete a ISOC Mexico, www.isoc.org
Participa en ICANN, www.icann.org
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
On Sat, 1 Dec 2007, George Sadowsky wrote:
> Date: Sat, 01 Dec 2007 12:58:08 -0500
> From: George Sadowsky <george.sadowsky at attglobal.net>
> Reply-To: governance at lists.cpsr.org,
> George Sadowsky <george.sadowsky at attglobal.net>
> To: governance at lists.cpsr.org, Carlos Afonso <ca at rits.org.br>
> Subject: Re: [governance] Are Internet users powerless or empowered,
> and how?
>
> Hi, Carlos.
>
> My definition of liberalization is not only privatization. You are correct
> in reporting that a privatized monopoly is worse than a public monopoly, and
> I am sorry for your experiences.
>
> In "liberalization," (probably a term that should not be used without some
> contextual description), I include:
>
> 1. Privatization of state providers of ICT services
> 2. Effective competition in all markets
> 3. Strong and non-discriminatory interconnection requirements
> 4. No artificial barriers to entry
> 5. A "level playing field" for all competitors
> 6. A technologically neutral legal context for ICT development.
>
> ... and probably a couple of other things I can't think of at the moment.
>
> Does that help?
>
> George
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>
>
> At 8:21 AM -0200 12/1/07, Carlos Afonso wrote:
>> 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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