[governance] FW: [IP] Internet humbles UN telecoms agency | .Nxt | Internet policy and governance

Mon Dec 17 10:07:23 EST 2012

A few more views on what did or did not happen in Dubai; and how 'shocked' we should be by international standards/treaty games 101 v IETF processes.
________________________________
From: Dave Farber [dave at farber.net]
Sent: Monday, December 17, 2012 8:54 AM
To: ip
Subject: Fwd: [IP] Internet humbles UN telecoms agency | .Nxt | Internet policy and governance

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Livingood, Jason <Jason_Livingood at cable.comcast.com<mailto:Jason_Livingood at cable.comcast.com>>
Date: Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 8:51 AM
Subject: Re:Internet humbles UN telecoms agency | .Nxt | Internet policy and governance
To: Dave Farber <dave at farber.net<mailto:dave at farber.net>>

Dave – For IP if you wish.

The WICT was quite a spectacle to behold! It was also a huge contrast with the IETF meetings I typically attend, and which pretty much tend to work just fine.

For IP'ers who don't have experience with the IETF – those meetings are totally open, so anyone can attend, participate remotely/online. There are no delegations, just individual contributors. There is no voting, only rough consensus (and running code in some situations). Standards are not imposed a la regulation and treaty, but merely encouraged and voluntary. In the end, the good standards and practices are naturally adopted and the others simply not. By and large standards tend to encourage or establish things like interoperability and simplicity, which lowers costs in the end (rather than increasing complexity and coming up with ways to impose or extract cost).

Next time I feel like complaining about the cookies at breaks during an IETF meeting or that there's not a power strip within 3 feet of my chair, I'll just remember how good we have it there!  ;-)

- Jason Livingood

On 12/15/12 11:05 PM, "Dave Farber" <dave at farber.net<mailto:dave at farber.net>> wrote:
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: John Day
Date: Saturday, December 15, 2012
Subject: [IP] Internet humbles UN telecoms agency | .Nxt | Internet policy and governance
To: dave at farber.net<mailto:dave at farber.net>

Kieren McCarthy is apparently grossly inexperienced in what standards meetings are all about. What is described in this article is pretty much how any standards meeting works.  The greater the gulf between the groups at the meeting, the more like this it is.  What is reported here is hardly unusual.

First of all, most standards meeting are closed meetings in the sense that only the delegates and even then the head of delegation does most of the talking.  (Remember anyone can just join in the debate from the balcony in Congress, either.)  That said, all documents for the meeting should be available to the delegations well before the meeting.  Whether delegations share these documents with the public at large is their business.  One would hope they would.

The fact that only "government representatives would be able to provide proposals" is the norm.  If one substitutes "member" for "government representative" then you have the rules that most standards bodies operate under.   The member serves as the elected representative of their constituency.  Should the technical community and public be able to submit proposals and debate them within their members?  Sure!  But by the time you get to a meeting like the WCIT, the members better have a pretty well formed position and know what they are going to do.

"Consensus by exhaustion" is not unusual in standards meetings, especially where there is no fundamental agreement about the direction of the effort.  Arguing over every comma and word is also the norm.  (Is it fun?  No.  Does it produce a good output? Seldom.) Actually if I had to guess based on experience, there were no strategic games going on, just tactical ones.

Only the naive and stupid would have been "stunned" by this process. This was precisely what would be expected. The idea in this article that it was the ITU's job to respond and provide a solution is the ultimate in the ridiculous.  For better or worse, the ITU's job was to serve as the Secretariat of the meeting.  All standards groups are bottom up.  If there are no contributions, or delegates are not willing to consider correct directions, it is not the ITU's job to lead.  (Thank goodness!)

Is the ITU a bit desperate to figure out what it should be doing?  I certainly hope so.  Do I support them? What a joke! I have a 30 year track record being a thorn in their side and hope to maintain it.

As I said on this list a bit ago, when many phone companies were vertically integrated government owned monopolies, the ITU had significant clout.  Also, international coordination of spectrum was (and still is) necessary.  But remember even in the 70s and 80s ITU avoided telling countries how to run their networks.  With deregulation, they more resemble a traditional voluntary standards organization, such as IEEE or ISO:  Standards among private network and private manufacturers.

The only need for government involvement (other than spectrum) would seem to be limited to some vague coordination among government regulatory bodies.  But in the case of wireline communications, I don't see many areas that require *international* coordination. Domestic perhaps the FCC certainly thinks so, but not international.

So was the WCIT a big flop!  A big surprise.  Hardly. it was clear a year ago, that if repressive governments wanted to push a bunch of repressive measures, the rest of the world would simply not sign it. That is what was done last time.  But certainly gave a lot of foolish journalists a lot to write about for awhile.  Now they can back to writing about other foolish things.

Was it a waste of time?  Yes.  Would it have been better if no one went?  Well some poor soul had to go and make sure that was the outcome.  I remember once when the CTO of my company was our representative in some committee.  The technical group had done one thing and the committee changed it in the plenary coordinating all of the technical groups so that was not in our best interest and the CIO was asked how it happened.  He said, he didn't bother to go to the Plenary.  Asked when the hell not!?  Responded that "well, nothing ever happens in Plenary"  To which I responded:  RIGHT! The reason one goes to Plenary is to make sure NOTHING happens!  The guy was an idiot.

So the US delegation to WCIT should be applauded for going to Dubai and sitting through all of these painful machinations so the rest of us could ignore it.  For all those, who got wrapped up in the hype, and thought that this meeting was critically important and they needed to be there, they just qualified as "one born every minute."

Good grief! McCarthy grow up.  The Internet didn't humble anything. The US did what it does in any standards group when the idiots prevail, simply not agree.  They can't impose anything and that was known going in.

http://news.dot-nxt.com/2012/12/14/internet-humbles-un-telecoms-a

Another point of view

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