[governance] IGC workshops

[Milton L Mueller]

Bill,
the disconnect is that NN is not "part of" NGN; on the contrary NGN is a trend that runs counter to it. Your phrasing was confusing.
There's no resistance here to "assessing the potential impacts of trends in the telecom industry..." on the contrary, this is why we proposed and offered to organize an NN panel and why IGP introduced NN into the global IG debate two years ago. So please, climb down from that hobby horse.

Milton Mueller
Professor, Syracuse University School of Information Studies
XS4All Professor, Delft University of Technology
------------------------------
Internet Governance Project:
http://internetgovernance.org<http://internetgovernance.org/>



________________________________
From: William Drake [mailto:william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch]
Sent: Monday, June 08, 2009 3:42 AM
To: Milton L Mueller
Cc: Governance List
Subject: Re: [governance] IGC workshops

Hi Milton,

Not sure what the disconnect is here.  NGN is a term used in industry and policy circles world wide to characterize the shift underway from PSTNs to IP-based convergent nets with new architectures and service provisioning models.  An important part of those new models, if the carriers get their way, is to abandon NN, ergo my characterization of the issues as part and parcel of the NGN shift.  Some observers say that NGNs could provide the technical means to monitor and manage traffic in such a manner that all applications are treated on a nondiscriminatory basis, but that doesn't appear the to be preference of the carriers making the investments.  And they're getting their way in various places; governments like the UK's have specifically rejected NN as a barrier to NGN development.  So I was simply suggesting we might want to consider NN in the context of the larger transformation underway.

I've moaned here on and off for years about the apparent aversion to assessing the potential impacts of trends in the telecom industry, including its global governance, on the Internet and IG.  It really puzzles me that we would treat a katrillion dollar industry that controls much of the underlying infrastructure as somehow irrelevant, particularly after all the (semi-coherent) discussions of international interconnection charging and such in WSIS and beyond.  The singular obsession with ICANN---not so much what ICANN actually does, the issues it addresses, but rather what it is or represents institutionally---seems to blot out interest in other issues and leaves the ministries and industry to merrily go there way without any public interest advocacy as a countervailing force beyond purely national discussions.  Since we can't or don't participate in most of the international spaces where this stuff goes on, why would we not want to use the opportunities provided by the IGF to explore these dynamics, especially when they're directly relevant to the focus of the workshop?

Whatever...dead horse duly beaten, back to our regular programming...

Cheers,

Bill



On Jun 8, 2009, at 6:04 AM, Milton L Mueller wrote:

No, I just misunderstood your statement that Net Neutrality is "part and parcel" of the NGN trajectory. What you apparently mean is that phone companies may be using NGN to _avoid_ being neutral, which may be true, and is certainly important if it is. I still don't know what you meant by "...of which it is part and parcel."
________________________________
From: William Drake [mailto:william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch]
Sent: Sunday, June 07, 2009 12:38 PM
To: Milton L Mueller
Cc: Governance List
Subject: Re: [governance] IGC workshops
Hi Milton,
On Jun 7, 2009, at 4:49 PM, Milton L Mueller wrote:


I agree.  We might want to consider widening the lens an little and placing NN in the context of the whole NGN trajectory, of which it is part and parcel.
It is???? I hope not. That's a peculiarly Geneva-centric view of NN
Are you saying that carriers around the world are not in fact making the investments and pursuing the strategies they say they are---replacing PSTNs with IP core and access nets, trying to move to QOS and differentiation, etc?  Or that because they adopt the standards and coordinate on the policies in Geneva, it doesn't matter that they are doing these things? Or that because in Geneva they use terminology they may not use as much in the US, it doesn't matter that they are doing these things? Or that taking note of the global trends is suspect if one is based in Geneva?  Or...?  Perhaps a peculiarly US-centric view of NN at work here...:-)
But forget the term, forget the ITU.  The question is, in the IGF context, would it be optimal to continue talking about NN as a stand-alone issue, or might it be useful to view it as part of a larger set of dynamics in the telecom industry that could affect the net going forward?
Cheers,
Bill

***********************************************************
William J. Drake
Senior Associate
Centre for International Governance
Graduate Institute of International and
  Development Studies
Geneva, Switzerland
william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch<mailto:william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch>
www.graduateinstitute.ch/cig/drake.html<http://www.graduateinstitute.ch/cig/drake.html>
***********************************************************

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