[Chapter-delegates] FCC

[Carlos Raúl G.]

Thank you very much Dave for some historical context. As Costa Rica was introduced into an open telecom Market by a free trade agreement with the U.S., our law does make a strong difference between telecom and information services, the latter subject to a much  higher threshold before the Regulator may intervene.

Carlos Raúl Gutiérrez
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> El feb 26, 2015, a las 20:07, Dave Burstein <daveb at dslprime.com> escribió:
> 
> Jason and folks 
> 
> As someone who has gone to ITU WCIT and the ITU Plenipot for two weeks each and listened to a great deal of the discussion, I'm confident I can answer. 
> 
> Jason asks " does this open the door for the UN/ITU to assert itself to a greater extent," echoing at least one U.S. Senator.
> 
> My simple answer is "No. Certainly not to any meaningful extent."  There's a real public discussion about whether the ITU should have any role in the Internet but it's not because of a semantic description. 
> 
> I say that confidently because almost no one outside the U.S. makes that distinction. As Columbia University Professor Eli Noam has said, "Everyone outside the U.S. just calls it ICT, Information and Communications Technology."  In fact, many countries call their ministry "Information and Communications Technology." Nearly every public paper and International discussion simply says ICT, including across Europe and in academia. The rest of the world simply sees the Internet as a crucial part of communications. To me, that makes sense.
> 
> In fact, the U.S. government didn't even make that distinction until after 2009. Before that, we were the leaders in wanting the ITU to get involved. (I'm told that we wanted the ITU to regulate satellites.) My source on that is Dick Beaird, until 2013 the lead of the U.S. State department group. 
> 
> The "Information" versus "telecommunications" divide was invented by some very smart people at the FCC two decades ago. The "Hands off the Internet" crowd, led by Robert Pepper, had to deal with 70 years of precedent that government had a role in communications. They created the distinction because they believed at that time the Internet would do best being completely unregulated. It was a way to make a new interpretation of the law.  Some have changed their minds since, as the Internet has gone from many competing ISPs to highly concentrated. 
> 
>     Except where pressured by the U.S. or making a rhetorical point, people in other countries simply do not make that distinction.  The general opinion, I believe, is that the Internet is how we communicate today and should be treated the same. From there, opinions differ about things like whether the government should censor. 
> 
>     Which doesn't mean it's right or wrong for the ITU to get involved. I suspect our opinions differ on that.
> Dave Burstein
> 
>> On Thu, Feb 26, 2015 at 6:16 PM, Livingood, Jason <Jason_Livingood at cable.comcast.com> wrote:
>> ​...​ One possible danger I worry about is that now that the U.S. FCC has claimed Internet services are telecommunications, does this open the door for the UN/ITU to assert itself to a greater extent than in the past over Internet standards & Internet governance. 
>> 
>> - Jason
>> 
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> Editor, Fast Net News, Net Policy News and DSL Prime
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