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<nettime> CWI editorial, 29 nov 99: Keep that ITU camel out of our tent |
<http://www.totaltele.com/cwi> [Communications Week International Online] Bottom Line: Keep that ITU camel out of our tent By Tony Rutkowski 29 November 1999 The ITU is asking for help. A few weeks ago one of the general secretariat staff sent out a formal circular letter to all the ITU's member states and the private-sector telecoms players who act in its standards groups. The letter, which describes questionable Internet dabbling over the past four years by the ITU, asks what more the ITU can do to help the Net it has been trying to kill in the past 20 years. The letter and its attached report are themselves studies in cluelessness. The ITU's turf is radio spectrum management plus legacy public telecoms networks and services traditionally provided by government monopolies, and it moves at a glacial pace under the careful scrutiny of the world's governments. The Internet consists of global private shared user networks and computer resources completely outside the ITU's purview and harnesses the autonomous activities and innovations of millions of entrepreneur-users to move at hyperspeed. Some ITU staff have been trying the past few years to get the ITU camel's nose under the Internet tent. Indeed, the latest circular is directed at nudging the nose a bit further. The amusing thing is that the nudging is justified on assertions that ITU members "provide most of the infrastructure of the Net," and that the PSTN is "providing most of the physical pipes over which the Internet Protocol and related application services" run. Well, guess again. While this may have been true some years ago, it certainly is not true today for the preponderance of Internet infrastructure. However it is an indication of just how remote these folks are from the real world; or maybe it's just delusional. So, one of the first things I did was to call my old friend Bill Schrader to ask him to respond to the ITU solicitation. Bill is chief executive of PSI - the first private ISP and the only remaining large independent one. He describes himself as aggressively focussed on heading the world's best large-scale ISP. Bill also doesn't mince words. His recent keynote speech to the libertarian-oriented Cato Institute annual meeting in Silicon Valley had people cheering in the aisles. He regards traditional telecoms institutions as dead; and had the chutzpah to boycott the ITU's Telecom '99 show, while creating a media event by floating a huge lighted PSI balloon over the Palexpo and holding press conferences to celebrate the dying days of the ITU. Bill's response to my query came swiftly. He said "even working against them seems like a waste. It's like observing a dying dinosaur convention. Since they are almost too dead to hurt us any more, why go there only to listen to them explain why they are dying and wishing to harness all the wild young turks to extend their doomed existence for even another few months. Nope, I am a busy guy." But he suggested that others "might wish to assist their funeral or something." So is it time to call the death doctor Jack Kevorkian over to Geneva? Well, considering two-thirds of the ITU provides useful services to spectrum managers and assisting developing countries to transition to competitive environments, the ITU's demise is not going to happen. In the Internet arena, however, the best thing it could do is realize finally that this is outside its jurisdiction and competence, and become a good user. In other words, realize that Bill Schrader really knows what he is talking about, and focus on other things that need reforming within the ITU's existing purview, such as removing the controls on spectrum and creating a global Internet-like revolution for wireless connectivity. Tony Rutkowski (amr@ngi.org) is principal of NGI Associates in Herndon, Virginia, and executive director of the Center for Next Generation Internet. # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net