[governance] ISOC/USG WCIT Post Mortem

[Adam Peake]

On Tue, Dec 25, 2012 at 1:58 PM, parminder <parminder at itforchange.net> wrote:
>
> On Monday 24 December 2012 01:57 AM, michael gurstein wrote:
>
> http://isoc-ny.org/misc/isoc-dc_wcit_post_mortem.mp3
>
>
> Could not open this link but saw on youtube ar
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cN_PwWkv14A
>
> A good and cogent speech by Terry Kramer. One thing surprised me, and it
> links to what I think was the failure to posit a positive agenda at the WCIT
> by civil society.
>
> Kramer says, first let me deal with the telecommunication side, and there
> are many positives there (vis a vis WCIT)... (paraphrased)
>
> And then he speaks of the ETNO proposal, as being on the telecom side.... Of
> course, he (like us) was happy that ENTO proposal did not pass, he clearly
> seems to agree that it belonged to the telecom side, and thus to ITR's
> mandate.
>
> This is very significant. (Others who know US positions better can perhaps
> clarify.)
>
> If ETNO proposal was within ITR mandates, even if otherwise a very
> disagreeable one, would not Internet traffic interconnection regimes be also
> in ITR's remit.... I dont think it is anyone's case that ETNO proposal was
> not about the Internet (its physical/ infrastructural layer). So,  isnt the
> US agreeing here that some kind of Internet could/ should well have been in
> the ITRs.
>
> Later in the speech, Kramer regrets that much could be done (at the WCIT)
> about spread of broadband, but that this was not something members were
> willing to pursue seriously.... Again, it surprised me, but this statement
> is consistent with the above one on ETNO..... Of course, broadband is
> Internet, right!
>

No.  In the same way as Article 9 is not Internet.

Adam

> This is perplexing. Does the Ambassador say that US would have accepted to
> write in the ITR's high-level principles that, say, ETNO kind of proposals
> should never be encouraged (I mean, of course, in some form of non-specific
> formal text) and that, say, more competition should be promoted to improve
> universal access to broadband .
>
> From his speech I clearly get this impression. And if true, that makes a
> revealing point.
>
> Why did the civil society then had this single agenda - no internet in the
> ITRs (as if the Internet was a kind of virus which, even if present in the
> minutest quantity, spreads everywhere quickly) - without making the
> distinction between the physical/ infrastructure player (with issues like
> broadband access, net neutrality, inter-connection regimes) and higher,
> application and content players.
>
> Why were we not able to present and articulate a positive agenda around
> broadband access, net neutrality and the such, vis a vis the issues that
> belong to physical/ infrastructure layer.
>
> Why were we, the CS, ended up looking like also motivated by the  secret
> desire (though not difficult to divine) - as were the extreme libertarian
> actors, to just see the ITU die, and with it, also all regulatory regimes
> around the Internet at national levels. If we indeed want to see ITU simply
> die, lets not play games and say so it clearly. No Internet in ITU's scope -
> not even the physical/ infrastructure layer -  is simple a death warrant for
> the ITU. Which may be fine, but then who, for instance addresses the issue
> of ' global net neutrality'. ('Global net neutrality' was identified as a
> key cross-border issues by a Council of Europe's expert committee, in which
> incidentally, Wolfgang also participated.) Why do we think that these are
> questions for someone else to answer, not for us, the 'global IG civil
> society'.
>
> Why did we allow ourselves to so blatantly take sides in the intense
> ideological struggle taking place around the remit and powers of the FCC in
> the US, where the struggle for net neutrality is now all but lost. A game
> which is going to soon visit our own national regulatory systems very soon.
> Just watch out!
>
> That was at least as big a game that played out at the WCIT as the efforts
> by some authoritarian countries to use ITU to carve out tightly controllable
> 'national segments' of the Internet. But, such is the power of the
> neoliberal social intermediary space - in which I include media as well as
> the civil society - that only one story is coming out of the WCIT.
>
> parminder
>
>
>
>
>
>
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