[governance] The ITU/WCIT: Thinking About Internet Regulatory Policy From An LDC Perspective?

[Milton L Mueller]

Michael
There is a vast literature on telecommunications liberalization and privatization's effects. If you have not seen evidence to back up the arguments about the effects, it is not because it doesn't exist. Here are some samples:

The Impact of Privatization and Competition in the Telecommunications Sector Around the World
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=364140

Telecommunications Liberalization on Two Sides of the Atlantic
http://muse.jhu.edu/books/9780815798781

The institutional environment and effects of telecommunication privatization and market liberalization in Asia
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308596100000665

The productivity effects of the liberalization of Japanese telecommunication policy http://www.springerlink.com/content/r48142651763j8hv/

I include the abstract from this article, which summarizes the consensus of much of this research

An Econometric Analysis of Telecom Competition, Privatization, and Regulation in Africa and Latin America.
The Journal of Industrial Economics. Volume 49, Issue 1, pages 1-19, March 2001

This paper explores the effects of privatization, competition, and regulation on telecommunications performance in 30 African and Latin American countries from 1984 through 1997. Fixed-effects regressions reveal that competition is correlated with increases in the per capita number of mainlines, payphones, and connection capacity, and with decreases in the price of local calls. Privatization combined with an independent regulator is positively correlated with telecom performance measures. Privatization alone, however, is associated with few benefits, and is negatively correlated with connection capacity.



[MG>] I know that is your position Milton, which at that level of ideological pandering/name calling is no different from Kende's argument and we hear it often enough.  What I would very much like to see though, is some evidence to back it up. What I'm curious to see, and that was the point of my original note, is some research/analysis which starts not from a definition of "benefits" as dictated by Google, Microsoft, and Uncle Tom digerati and all but rather one which starts from the quite specific policy contexts and dilemmas of the folks in LDC's who seem to be bearing a rather large amount of short term cost in the service of purported long term benefit (and not incidentally alongside rather significant short term benefits adhering to already extremely well provided for DC beneficiaries). And if they don't publicly object I will,  not all of those folks or dare I say even most (countering again some ideological and even should  I say xenophobic posturing rather than systematic analysis and research on your part) are as you imply, corrupt and despotic.


I myself am of two minds on this issue.  I well recognize the value/benefits that could flow from Internet access even to the poorest of the poor and the overwhelming benefits that Internet access provides to those for example in civil society who can take advantage of its more or less unlimited free flow of communications and information (including through undermining various repressive political regimes). On the other hand, the unlimited unregulated policy environment advocated by reports like that of Kende and others of that ideological ilk would I think, lead almost directly to a further enrichment of the already stupendously wealthy and overall a signifcant transfer of wealth and benefit from those with the least to those with the most.
[Milton L Mueller] I am glad you are honest about this two-mindedness. Factually, there is just no way around it. The liberalization and deregulation of telecommunications has massively increased access, decreased costs, increased diversity and innovation.

[MG>] For some certainly, but I'm wondering who have been the net beneficiaries and whether those who haven't benefited directly have in fact borne some of the cost of those benefits... I don't know, maybe they have, maybe they haven't but neither Kende or you have offered much beyond ideology and bluster in that regard.


The internet never would have happened without it. I know it provides cognitive dissonance for some people, but all you have to do is compare the penetration and price of ICTs before and after liberalization and the contrast will be very, very stark. True, there have been pitfalls here and there, usually due to remnants of monopoly power or not handling the complex transition from monopoly to competition properly, but on the whole the progress has been revolutionary.

[MG>] You are probably right but I would like a bit more evidence than your assertion and I would also like some analysis of the costs involved and also an analysis of how those costs (and benefits) have been and are being distributed and then an analysis of what might be required to ensure that there has been some benefits distributed beyond the usual cast of characters.  I know that you and I have benefited but I'm rather less sure about the folks living in Khayalitcha and even less for the cattle herders in Burkina Faso and I mean now not in a never never land future. And as an outcome I'ld like to see an analysis which isn't zero sum (regulation or no regulation) as you seem to suggest is necessary. Rather the question shoud be what sort of regime (without regulation and or with what type of regulation of what elements of the overall Internet technical ecology).

Mike


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