[governance] How can civil society help the Internet to

[Suresh Ramasubramanian]

A lot of the competition policy issues (regulator favoring the incumbent
telco, local telcos colluding to fix prices on one side, and not trusting
each other to peer on the other etc) do get addressed at a local level by

1. Talking to the telcos and ISPs concerned, engaging with them on
discussions

2. In some cases, suing in a consumer court, approaching the telecom /
consumer ombudsman, right to information act filings etc get widely (and
with varying degrees of effectiveness) used by local groups.  Oh yes, and
media attention to these issues.

Some other issues are mitigated by capacity building, distribution of free /
cheap software on CDs (the Australian government was handing out CDs with
ubuntu linux and some other software back in 2005 - I remember picking one
up when I was at APRICOT in Perth, just for example..)

But you will agree I hope, that most of these are entirely local issues and
require local knowledge, local coordination.  Global coordination in these
areas would be much more valuable in sharing experiences, and developing a
set of shared best practices (nothing on the grand scale John Perry Barlow's
declaration of independence of cyberspace)

	Suresh


> -----Original Message-----
> From: George Sadowsky [mailto:george.sadowsky at attglobal.net]
> Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2008 9:53 PM
> To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; Adam Peake
> Subject: Re: [governance] How can civil society help the Internet to
> 
> Yes, the APC paper addresses many of these
> issues, and it is potentially a very useful
> document.
> 
> I want to go a step further.  Granted that there
> is an evolving consensus regarding issues
> surrounding access, what is the next step?  Is
> this something to start a national scorecard on?
> Is it something to be followed up at the national
> level in all countries?  I fear that continuing
> to stress it at the IGF will result in, for the
> most part, the converted preaching to the
> converted.
> 
> This is an area, where in general you have an
> alignment of civil society, the Internet
> community, and most of the business community.
> On the other side, generally, you have
> governments and businesses (often telcos) that
> have monopoly or controlling positions.
> 
> At some point, words don't go further in an
> alignment like that.  What can be done further?
> 
> George


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