By Kieren McCarthy in Tunis for The Register
This article has been reproduced from The Register, with
permission.
The ITU has refused to accept the internet governance consensus
reached after torrid negotiations during its own summit process,
further damaging its credibility in eyes of the net community.
Speaking at the closing press conference for the World Summit in
Tunis, ITU secretary-general Yoshio Utsumi said that while it would
continue to discuss issues in the newly created Internet Governance
Forum (IGF), an increased "regionalisation" of the internet would
mean the ITU will be called upon to take over in five years'
time.
"The internet need not be one Net controlled by one centre," he
said. "Regionalisation has already started and I suspect in a few
years, the simile of the internet will be a quite different
one."
As an example of this "regionalisation", Utsumi, a Japanese
national, brought up the controversial topic of China's efforts to
create a form of intranet within its country in order to more
easily control access to information. "In China, they have already
started on a Chinese address not provided by the so-called global
ICANN system yet."
Claiming that domestic networks were "more efficient and
economical", he then tried to draw a parallel to the existing
telephone system, saying: "Telephone networks are made up of
regional, domestic networks united together in agreement of the ITU
framework. A similar situation may start with the internet." And,
in that case, "the role that the ITU plays for the international
telephone network will be called upon."
The statement is a depressing pointer to the fact that the
four-year debate on net governance, which ended in agreement on
Tuesday with only hours to go, may have achieved very little.
Utsumi effectively said that the international consensus reached
was the wrong one.
It is the second time recently that the outgoing head of ITU has
made a major blunder with regard to net governance. At the end of
September's PrepCom meeting in Geneva, Utsumi told the assembled
world governments that the ITU was ready to take over running of
the internet.
It was this bold and unthinking statement that lent much of the
power behind the subsequent lobbying for the existing
infrastructure to be retained - a view that eventually prevailed.
There are very strong historic reasons why people do not wish the
ITU to be involved with the internet in anything but an advisory
role. If it were up to the ITU, the internet as we know it - a
vast, cheap, interconnected network - simply would not exist.
In the early days of the net, the ITU saw the network as an
extension of the international telephone network that it oversees.
It foresaw - and heavily pushed - the image of a network where
governments and telephone companies controlled the means of access,
something that would have resulted in enormous connection charges
and greatly reduced individual freedom on the Net.
In many ways, the ITU is the antithesis of the culture borne up
through the dedicated engineers and academics that created the Net
and for that reason the organisation will remain public enemy
number one in many people's eyes.
Utsumi's comments will not only uphold that view but strengthen
it because they come after an exhaustive discussion process that
clearly rejected the notion of ITU control.
It will now be up to the new head of the ITU, to be chosen in
just under a year's time, to try to repair bridges if the ITU is to
have any credibility within the internet community.
You can listen to
Utsumi's exact words here (1.13MB MP3 file).
© The
Register 2005
