[Chapter-delegates] ITU Followships for the World Telecommunication Policy Forum, April 2009, Lisbon, Portugal

[Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond]

"Alejandro Pisanty" <apisan at servidor.unam.mx> wrote:

> my two cents re ITU/WTPF:
>
> It is worthwhile to read through the ITU documents to which 
> Constance and the ITU pages point to.

Of course, this is only possible when either having a TIES account, 
something provided free only to ITU members (defined as Member States, 
Sector Members, and Associates).
Sector membership stands at 63,600 Swiss Francs and you can choose an 
1/8 or 1/4 of the contributory unit, except if you're a sector member 
from a developing country in which case you can contribute 1/16 of a 
unit.

This is absolutely technocrat talk and is, as it currently stands, and 
as it was in the 80s and 90s (which is the time I was part of an 
organisation which had "oh miracle" access to a TIES account), a 
gigantic paper-producing machine - now probably even worse because the 
people producing the e-paperwork don't even get ashamed when they see 
the CD/DVD of their work. In the past, they used to get ashamed when 
seeing the piles of yellow, green and white papers amounting to more 
weight than substance.

In Cairo, Dr. Touré was confronted about this aberration. How can he 
promise an integrative management of processes and the free 
participation of the public to ITU processes when barriers exist 
everywhere and the complexity of the organisation is such that it 
seems *impossible* to make it more transparent and accountable?

>
> The key one is the Secretary General's letter, which last I read was 
> in its third draft.
>
> For ISOC members there are several salient points:
>
> 1. the definition of NGN's or New Generation Networks.
>
>  a. The definition is broad, in evolution, and subject to strongly 
> disagreeing viewpoints;
>  b. In general the definition of IP-based networks for all, 
> converged purposes and services sounds like "very Internet-like" and 
> pleasing but is fraught with the paradigm of "owned networks" and 
> can also be seen as big-telco-plus-government paradigm recovery;
>  c. NGNs are seen as the opportunity to regain control over 
> networks.

d. entertain ambiguity so as for each listener to make up his/her own 
mind.

Discussions have been going on at the IGF & other governance forums as 
to what this really meant.
They ended up in circular arguments.

>
> 2. A very telling point is the relationship between NGNs and the 
> Internet. For many in ISOC the only point, or surely the main one, 
> for a new build of IP-based networks is to enable access to the 
> Internet with its full rainbow diversity of contents and services, 
> not for creating controls and choke points.
>
>  Or, caricaturally if you wish, to allow more use of Skype, not to 
> restrict it further or make money from it.

And this is said whilst the exact opposite is said from ITU "members". 
I have a growing fear that they either have no clue what an NGN should 
be or there is a strong disagreement within ITU and between its 
members about this.

>
> 3. Thus other issues of interest, like Network Neutrality in some of 
> its versions, may be questioned.
>
> 4. Veni points to issues related to Internet Governance and I think 
> he is right that the writings of the WTPF have discrepancies with 
> the WSIS agreements. Sometimes in explicit language and sometimes in 
> a more cryptic form they endorse a view that is not the same 
> multi-stakeholder, problem-solving view that most in ISOC and other 
> of the Internet's own organizations are working on. And, certainly, 
> other related events and expressions reinforce this view.
>
>  One of them is the set of expressions by the SG of the ITU, Dr. 
> Hamadoun Toure, about the Internet Governance Forum (calling it a 
> waste of time and apparently impatiently circumventing it with the 
> WTPF, which is intergovernmental in nature in spite of allowing 
> some - limited, controlled, and pre-filtered - non-governmental 
> attendance.

Frankly, I do not know what ITU's bottom line is. Frankly I don't know 
if they know. Does anybody here know?
Calling the IGF a waste of time is offensive to the good people who 
have participated in the IGF. I don't understand the reason for such a 
statement.

>
> I believe that a vigorous discussion about the WTPF's agenda and 
> documents among chapter delegates and ISOC's membership is necessary 
> and, given the date, urgent. I hope to be kicking off some of it 
> with the above.
>

The question I have is: do they know what the agenda is? With so many 
I am increasingly confused by it all.

Kind regards,

-- 
Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond, PhD
http://www.gih.com/ocl.html