[governance] US Ambassador Terry Kramer on WCIT

[David Allen]

This would almost be amusing - if so much were not at stake.

Those who remember the long history of policy debate, leading up  
finally to divestiture of AT&T, know that there were a series of so- 
called Computer Inquiries, official inquiries (in the US of course).   
They revolved around trying to divine a dividing line, between  
telecommunications and computing.  This proved to be a Gordian knot,  
which could not be untied.  But the argument went forward, seemingly  
endlessly, for many years actually, with much foolish policy mooted,  
in an effort to separate the two, computers and networks.

As one of the sages of the era told me (when interviewed for an  
intellectual history), the mess will be straightened out only when we  
correct the mistake, that is, our attempt to separate the two.

George Santayana can be heard once again from the grave, it seems,  
with his:  "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat  
it."  If each generation has to learn all over again, instead of  
building from the hard-won lessons already travelled ...

Notably - even a bit ironically - there, in those Computer Inquiries,  
as here in the Dubai struggle, the core issue was / is (if by  
different names):  What we then called the common carrier obligation -  
the telecoms carrier was not allowed to interfere with or change in  
any way the messages being carried.  What today we tussle over with  
the rubric network neutrality.  And what might be generalized to:   
freedom of expression.

David

On Dec 6, 2012, at 4:22 PM, Salanieta T. Tamanikaiwaimaro wrote:

> Economic, Energy, Agricultural and Trade Issues: Development and  
> Progress of the World Conference on International Telecommunications  
> Currently Being Held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates Until December  
> 14, 2012
> 12/06/2012 02:45 PM EST
>
> Development and Progress of the World Conference on International  
> Telecommunications Currently Being Held in Dubai, United Arab  
> Emirates Until December 14, 2012
>
>
> Special Briefing
> Terry Kramer
> Ambassador U.S. Head of Delegation, World Conference on  
> International Telecommunications
> Via Teleconference
> December 6, 2012
>
> ...
> QUESTION: ... I understand the definition for telecommunications has  
> been set. This morning, in the conference that the – in the media  
> conference that the ITU holds, Director Peprah from Ghana mentioned  
> that that’s the case, but ICT is still in the works – that is, the  
> concept of information communications technology is still in the  
> works, possibly as a defined term. Could you comment on that?
> AMBASSADOR KRAMER: Yeah. We are still working through a lot of  
> different elements of how this definition gets driven. Our view  
> right now is it does not belong in there. There may still be people  
> talking about ICT in different forms. And certainly, in our own  
> discussions, people are talking about VoIP operators, Skype and  
> others that provide what they believe is telecomm services. But we  
> don’t feel those are appropriate.
>

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