[afnog] Re: Request for input: The Working Group on InternetGovernance

[Geoff Huston]

At 12:04 AM 18/11/2004, Robert.Shaw at itu.int wrote:
>That may be the current state in Africa but clear trend is that
>there is less and less discernable difference between telcos and
>ISPs. Most argue there is no future in a pure telco or ISP play
>- only a broadband play with a bundled palette of services (of
>which voice is just one).

Although if you look at the revenue margins for various services you'd 
wonder why anyone moves out of the mobile telephony market. IP over fixed 
line appears to be one of the toughest telecommunications markets we've 
seen for some  time, and the cost disciplines imposed by intense 
competition are often  beyond the capabilities of many incumbent telco 
operators. Which is why we see some of the pressure on national regulators 
to create a slightly different balance within a national market, and 
pressure at the international level to create a 'different' balance. In 
this latter effort  the ITU becomes a vehicle  for the expression of the 
interests of some of its member states in its  recommendations, while other 
member states find such outcomes  regressive and inappropriate.

Now you could say that's international politics and commerce for you, and 
the ITU simply can't fix that. Indeed the ITU is the way for nation states 
to air these interests and reach compromises on the voting floor. Like any 
compromise there are those who favour  the outcome and those who resent it. 
The folk who feel that they are continually out-voted are stirring up this 
issue and ignoring the case that the outcomes are the legitimate expression 
of the interests of the bulk of the international community.

Or you could take the view that shoehorning the very real need 
for  cooperation and coordination in telecommunications activities into a 
venue mainly concerned with the advocacy of  starkly opposed interests 
of  nation states is the very heart of the problem, and this mode of 
interaction within the ITU venue emphasises a process where political 
outcomes gain primacy over technical and/or end user considerations.

While the telco margins were phenominally high I think there was broad 
acceptance of the ITU process outcomes, to a greater or lesser extent. With 
the  recent shifts of a more deregulated approach in many 
national  environments , coupled with the deployment of a disruptive 
technology in the guise of the Internet and the related VOIP implications, 
then the margins are declining and cost-based competition is becoming very 
intense.  The outcome is that those who felt that the ITU was a 
compromise  that was only marginally relevant and tenable appear to be now 
positioning themselves into a more strident and vocal opposition to the ITU 
structure and its outcomes, while those who saw such a venue as a means of 
amassing a multi-national grouping with combined economic and political 
pressure are increasing their political commitment to the ITU.

>If you look at this as an "us versus
>them crusade" (as some of you seem to want to make it), I think
>you're missing the point as industry, particularly the equipment
>manufacturers are already far down the convergence path.

It is not an 'us vs them' in the supply-side industry sense. The us vs them 
is a far older and enduring division of a political nature at the level of 
nation states, as I see it.


>And if one thinks that the policy makers and regulators aren't
>going to be involved in the public interest issues related to this
>convergence, that's a very nice dream but I'd suggest you take a
>look at slide 13 at
>http://www.itu.int/osg/spu/presentations/2004/enum-ftra-uganda-rs.pdf
>and prepare carefully your arguments...

There are many policy makers and many regulators, and they too  cover a 
very broad diversity of perspectives. Some national economies have taken 
the position that open competitive markets create economically efficient 
supply systems where the consumer benefits ultimately  with a greater range 
of efficiently priced goods and services and monopoly rentals are stripped 
out. The winner is the national economy which is supported by efficiently 
operated enabling communications services. i.e. efficient communications 
network seed efficient information industries that in turn become 
generators of national wealth in the international sector.  Others argue 
that ubiquitous access to  telecommunications services across a diverse 
national society  requires structural cross-subsidisation and regulatory 
impost as the natural behaviour of the open market players of to maximise 
profit, and there is a tendency to simply concentrate on providing services 
to those with the highest capacity to pay. Some argue that universal access 
to telecommunications services is not a natural outcome of private 
investment and that public sector operation of telecommunications services 
is  the only way to achieve these social objectives.

This national debate has, of course, spilled over into the international 
sector, and much of the philosophy driving the support of ICANN and the ITU 
can be traced back to these differing perspective on the manner in which 
telecommunications services are provided  to consumers.

 From this perspective, in many ways the ITU and ICANN are merely vessels 
for the expression of national interests. While the ITU appears to accept 
and embraces this characterization in the form of its member states and its 
manner of decision making, ICANN has a harder time in balancing this view 
with its principles of primacy of private sector interests in policy 
setting and decision making.

(If you find this of interest, and I readily admit that its not the most 
exciting of topics, you may want to look at 
http://ispcolumn.isoc.org/index.html and glance over the most recent 2 
articles on Internet Governance.)

regards,


   Geoff Huston