Upon consideration, we at LIRNEasia have decided to join as signatory the letter to ITU re the proposed amendments to the International Telecommunication Regulations. The letter originates from the Center for Democracy and Technology, a group I had worked with while living and working in the US. Critical analysis by the Center for Democracy and Technology on the pernicious ETNO proposals to upend the present Internet business model: Internet users in less developed countries could find their access to the global Internet more limited or more costly if proposed changes to the International Telecommunication Union’s treaty are adopted. ITU Member States are meeting this December at the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) to decide whether and how to extend ITU regulations to the Internet. A group of European telecommunications companies (the European Telecommunications Network Operators or “ETNO”) is proposing radical changes to the ITU’s underlying treaty in an attempt to wrest more revenue from providers of Internet content and applications.
I’ve been becoming increasingly concerned about the need to improve the international backhaul segment of Internet connectivity. There is plenty of good news like the cables landing along the east coast of Africa. But now there is bad news too. The European telcos have ganged up with ITU, trying to reimpose the discredited settlements regime on the Internet. So it looks like we’ll have to shift the focus from promoting good things to preventing bad things I was asked to talk about high-priority areas for ICT policy research at the recently concluded CPRafrica 2012/CPRsouth7 conference in Mauritius.
For some time, we have been engaged in the task of improving the way Internet users are counted. We are in agreement with the ITU that the best way of counting Internet users is through demand-side surveys. According to reports, China conducts regular surveys on Internet use. Yet, the ITU does not use these data. Why?
The ITU homepage announces the death of former Secretary General (1983-89) Richard Butler. Dick Butler had many achievements to his credit, the most well known being the successful outcome of the crucial and difficult World Administrative Telephone and Telegraph Conference (WATTC) held in Melbourne in 1988 at which new rules governing the conduct of international telecommunications services were approved in a fraught environment. There is value in looking at that achievement today, especially in light of the upcoming WCIT in Dubai, that will seek to revisit the International Telecommunication Regulations adopted in Melbourne during Dick Butler’s watch. What we’d like to emphasize is that Dick Butler was a forward looking man. Having been in the ITU for over two decades prior to becoming Secretary General, he could have acted to reinforce the existing dysfunctional status quo.
My previous post on the subject of ITU moves on the Internet elicited a response: a link to a speech made by the ITU Secretary General where he says the criticisms are ridiculous. This is good. Let’s see what his main argument is: There are many important issues that may be addressed at WCIT, but I would like to focus on one broader issue in particular: how do we ensure sufficient investment in broadband network infrastructure? . .
Research on explosive developments in the ICT field in recent times shows that the ITU was a marginal actor. They had to be dragged kicking and screaming to support the market liberalization processes that yielded innovation and growth. Even in the area of standardization, they could not lead from the front. Entities such as the IEEE were responsible for most of the critical innovations. Now it appears that the ITU Secretary General, in alliance with Vladimir Putin, is trying to take over the Internet: The problem, Gross said, is that participation will be limited to representatives of national governments, not telecoms players, and a number of proposals have been put forth that will put the internet under much more restrictive regulation than it is now.
But this time they are not the numbers given by the ITU. They are the exaggerated claims of the BTRC. The Daily Star questions: If BTRC’s figures were true, Bangladesh would be among the top 20 countries in the world in terms of number of internet users. Alas, it is nowhere in sight. Munir Hasan, an ICT expert and secretary general of Open Source Network, estimates the number of internet users in the country to be no more than 1.
The Wall Street Journal reports that legislative action is required for permitting competition in Myanmar telecom market: Officials have enacted an investment law with guarantees against nationalization and have proposed tax reform. However, these don’t go far enough. The state still controls the most lucrative industries, since a 1989 law restricts private enterprise in oil and gas, mining and telecom. This makes it imperative that the retrograde ITU sponsored draft law be thrown out and a piece of legislation appropriate for the 21st century be adopted.
The Economist has a nice nuanced discussion on the above question, starting thus: DO DIGITAL economies grow faster than analogue ones? Rich-country leaders seem to think so. G7 and European Union governments are committed to a variety of digital stimulus packages; Australia, the biggest spender, has promised broadband investment of $33.4 billion (or 3% of GDP) to connect 90% of homes at ultra-fast speeds. “Digitisation” involves adopting technologies like wireless phones and internet access to generate, process and share information.
This was the question that was addressed at a plenary session at the APNIC conference in New Delhi today. The debate that centers on the role and function of multi-stakeholders, not limited to governments alone, was conducted by a panel representing multiple stakeholders, including Hon Hasanul Haq Inu, Chair of the Standing Committee on post and telecom of the Bangladesh Parliament, Mr N. Ravi Shanker, Administrator of the Indian Government’s Universal Service Fund, Mr Paul Wilson, Director General of APNIC, and Raman Jit Singh Chima of Google India. I chaired the session. The Indian government wants the current Internet Governance Forum to be beefed up so that it will actually produce decisions.
According to a post by Ami, Sri Lanka has hit 11.8% internet penetration by December 2011, with an estimated 2.5 million Internet users. While the data correspond to International Telecommunications Union (ITU) data, Sri Lanka hit double digit internet penetration by December 2010 according to ITU, rather than December 2011 as mentioned by the author. Therefore, by now, the number of Internet users should be even higher.
LIRNEasia was unhappy with the ITU’s practice of reporting the prices of telecom services on the basis of a three-minute call. From 2006, we worked on popularizing the OECD basket methodology. We started becoming increasingly unhappy about the accuracy of the method because of the widespread use of discounts. At the same time, the ITU adopted the basket method and started reporting prices on that basis. We declared victory and stopped price benchmarking for voice calls.
Because of excellent performance on many indexes such as the AT Kearney Service Location Index, I have made a habit of checking on Vietnam’s performance on comparative rankings. True enough, the ITU’s ICT Development Index showed Vietnam advancing from 91st place to 81st place, a dramatic 10 place advance from 2008 to 2010. This prompted me to probe deeper to find out what good things were happening in Vietnam that others could emulate. Instead of finding lessons to emulate, I ended up with deep disquiet about the IDI methodology. Vietnam’s score and ranking on the Skills subindex remained unchanged (value of 5.
The ITU’s ICT Development Index has been released. The performance of most South Asian countries has increased since 2008, but not enough. The rest of Asia shows a marked contrast. Vietnam advanced 10 places in the rankings and Indonesia six. Korea retained its first place.
Some time back I wrote about the dangers of the emergence of an International Internet Union at the behest of Vladimir Putin and Hu Jintao. They’ve held a conference in London to beat it back, but apparently were missing something really important: a counter narrative. In his closing message, he said: “State-sponsored attacks are not in the interests of any country, long term… those governments that perpetrate them need to bring them under control.” He did not name names. Some private-sector delegates like Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales were less reticent.
The countries within the purview of the Pacific ICT Regulatory Resource Center are mostly micro states, 14 in all. Only the two largest states, Fiji and Papua New Guinea, have been included in the ITU’s IDI Index for 2010. The picture, for them, is bad. Fiji and PNG have both dropped four places, Fiji to 94th rank and PNG to 143rd. Both have increased their IDI scores, Fiji from 2.