ITU Meeting May Decide Governance of the Net

NickFitz writes "The Register has an article on the forthcoming World Summit on the Information Society, organised by the International Telecommunications Union. It seems that the United States, Europe and English-speaking partners are happy to let ICANN carry on running the show, while developing nations would prefer control to be handed over to the ITU. As the second stage of the process isn't due until November 2005, it could be some time before we see any changes."

Follow the money...

[Space cowboy]

It seems that the United States, Europe and English-speaking partners are happy to let ICANN carry on running the show

That's that, then.

Simon.

Re:Reliability is all we need.

[arivanov]

Well... And nowm, do you expect anyone but the telcos to participate in an internet run by the ITU? 'cause I do not. It will just become yet another phone system regulated to death and used to feed a few incumbents in a few years time.

Re:Reliability is all we need.

[Zeinfeld]

The ITU really isn't much more than a standards setting body. It is, however, an important one because ultimately the Canadian system has to be able to talk to the Irish system, the French to the Australian, the Cambodian to the Mexican, and without an impartial, respected, body in place that represents the technical interests of the industry as a whole, such a thing isn't going to work very well if at all.

Actually its more than that. The ITU has been incorporated into the United Nations (even though it actually predates it). As a result it is a diplomatic treaty organization and has diplomatic immunity. Useful when the main risk is harassment by lawsuit.

The other thing the ITU does besides setting standards is to perform a whole rack of registration functions. Slots for satelites in geosynchronous orbit are allocated by the ITU, as are radio frequencies. In other words pretty much what ICANN was set up to do.

I suspect that there wont be much movement unless the US directs ICANN to do something completely assinine like cutting off Cuba from the net if the Bushies think they need to impress the Florida voters.

Re:All Hail...

[jon787]

you mean an american network world is using... go read a history book

No, it started as an American network, it is most definetly and INTERNATIONAL network at this point.