The past weekend, I was quoted, not altogether coherently, in a piece on Google’s Loon pilot in Sri Lanka. LIRNEasia Founding Chair and Founder Director of ICTA, Rohan Samarajiva made a few comments about the Google Loon project. He said, “I am no fan of outmoded notions of national sovereignty. A fragmented Internet where local data storage is mandatory is not the kind of Internet I prefer”. The Google Loon project is expected to offer easily-available Wi-Fi across the country and connected for instance through ISPs like Dialog or Mobitel with some part being free and the rest charged.
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.