"The Internet's unique value is openness. The experimentation by certain European access providers with blocking, filtering and throttling of services creates borders in an online world whose key value is the absence of borders." explains Joe McNamee, Executive Director of EDRi. "This reckless experimentation will continue unless the European Commission puts a stop to it."

In fact, in 2013 the Internet governance debate will continue at least in seven different venues. 2012 has leaded to a growing polarization. Now the tone of the controversy seems to become more aggressive. Almost a quarter of a century after the end of the Cold War of the 20^st century, we witness now in the 21^st the emergence of a global political scenario which more or less exactly follows this cold war model, not along the old "isms", but along a different understanding of freedom, human rights, innovation, control and the role of governments. Like fire and water, two incompatible ideas about how the Internet should be organized worldwide stand against each other and form two poles of broad spectrum of different opinions.

On one side, China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Sudan and some other Arab, African and Central Asian countries see the extension of their national sovereignty into cyberspace as their first priority. This means not only control and surveillance over the Internet communication within their own territory but also an extension of local legislation across national borders as long as this cross border Internet traffic affects their "national Internet segment". For those countries, cybersecurity is more important than human rights and it is first of all the government which should be in charge for the development of policies on top of a hierarchical one-stakeholder mechanism

On the other hand, the U.S. and its Western allies see the multi-stakeholder model as the best form of global Internet governance. This model, a kind of round table where the government, private sector, civil society and the technical community develop together, in their respective roles, step by step, in a transparent and open bottom up process Internet policies. For those countries a free, open, borderless and secure Internet can be managed only by a collaborative effort of all concerned and affected parties based on shared norms, programs, protocols and decisions making procedures.

And between those two poles are the "swing states", Internet-emerging powers such as India, Brazil, South Africa, Egypt, Kenya, Ghana and others who reject Internet censorship and closed networks, but have their own political as well as economic interests and are rather critical if it comes to the special role of the US government in ICANN or the domination of the major US companies in the world Internet economy.

This multistakehooder Internet Governance model has enabled in the past 20 years an incredible technical innovation and expansion of individual liberties. To replace it by an intergovernmental treaty system and to turn a bottom up policy development process into a top down regulation where governments make deals behind closed doors would stifle economic growth and restrict human rights.

2013 will see a growing tension among the two poles and no one can say today how free and open the Internet will be at the end of 2013.

1. The ITU World Telecommunication Policy Forum (Geneva, May 2013)

Organised by the ITU, the WTPF is not as WCIT an international treaty conference. The Forum adopts non-binding recommendations and opinions. However it would be very surprising if those states which could not incorporate their proposals into the "International Telecommunication Regulations" (ITR) in Dubai in December 2012 would not come back with concepts as the definition of a "national Internet segment" or the extension of telecommunications rules to all Internet Service Providers, search engines and social networks in Geneva in May 2013. And it would not be surprising if those ITU member states would repeat their call to give the ITU a bigger role in policy making for cybersecurity, a mandate to allocate IP addresses or to bring the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) under the umbrella of the ITU sponsored WSIS Forum. Such WTPF recommendations could later be used at the next ITU Plenipotentiary Conference, scheduled for October 2014 in Busan/Korea where the legally binding ITU constitution and convention is being renegotiated.

2. UNCSTD Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation (Geneva, June 2013)

Seven years ago, at the 2005 UN World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis, governments could not agree on oversight over the management of critical Internet resources (domain names, IP addresses, Internet protocols, and root servers). The idea to put ICANN under the regime of an Intergovernmental Internet Council did not get consensus. The compromise was to start a process of "enhanced cooperation" on Internet Governance. The problem of the undefined process was that the vague definition what "enhanced cooperation" means allowed rather different interpretations. Some expected at the end of the process a new UN Internet organization, other saw it more as a process to strengthen the multi-stakeholder model. When in 2009 India, Brazil and South Africa proposed in the UN the establishment of a "Council for Internet Related Policy" (CIRP) a controversial debate started. It did not lead to concrete negotiations, but in May 2011 a one-day "consultation" was held in Geneva to clarify the concept. The outcome of the consultations was that there is a need for more "clarification". As the next step the 67th UN General Assembly decided recently to establish a "Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation" under the UN Commission for Scientific and Technological Development (UNCSTD) with a mandate to make proposals for further action until summer 2014. Yet there is no schedule and it is also unclear whether the invited representatives of civil society, the technical community and the private sector are equally involved. What is certain is that those governments which are not satisfied with the current Internet governance model will use this stage to argue again for a governmental oversight over ICANN. The regular annual meeting of the UNCSTD is scheduled for early June 2013 in Geneva.

3. WSIS 10 + (Paris, February 2013)

At the WSIS Summit in 2005 it was agreed that after ten years a WSIS Review Conference should be organized to evaluate the progress of the Tunis Agenda. WSIS was a very broad-based summit which covered issues like the digital divide, human rights, infrastructure development, cultural diversity, intellectual property, privacy, cybersecurity, e-learning, e-agriculture, e-health, e-commerce, e-transport and e-everything. A total of 16 action lines were adopted. UNESCO, ITU and UNDP got a mandate to oversee the implementation. Internet Governance issues played a key role in Tunis, however the full dimension of the digital revolution was not yet so clear for all UN member states. The decision in Tunis was, to separate the Internet Governance issues from the other WSIS issues and to put them into the new established Internet Governance Forum (IGF) and into the process of enhanced cooperation. With the 2015er WSIS Review Conference ante portas one can expect that this separation will not work anymore, that all Information Society issues will now be linked to the way how the Internet should be managed globally. There are still two years to go but the process starts already in February 2013 in Paris, when UNESCO is organizing a three day WSIS 10+ meeting. And the battle will continue at the WSIS Forum, organized by the ITU in May 2013 in Geneva, in parallel to the WTPF. In 2014 a high-level 10+ WSIS conference in Sharm el Sheikh will follow, also organized by the ITU. And the "big" WSIS Review Conference 2015 at the UN level will probably take place at the level of Heads of State. One can take it for granted that on the way to WSIS III the two opposing Internet Governance concepts will clash.

4. 68th UN General Assembly (New York, October 2013)

Internet issues are not new for the UN however they did not play a significant role on the 200 items agenda of the annual General Assemblies in the past. That could change in 2013. Already since years Russia is pushing in the 1st Committee of the UN General Assembly (responsible for security and disarmament) for an intergovernmental "Internet Code of Conduct". Last year they introduced also a draft for a "Convention on Cybersecurity". The enthusiasm to work out an international Internet treaty is rather limited, at least among the western countries. They point to the existing Council of Europe Cybercrime Convention but Russia, Brazil, India, China and other major emerging Internet economies reject this convention from 2001 because they were not part in its drafting. But 2013 could go beyond a debate of cybercrime. Last year saw the expansion of the cybersecurity debate into the military sector. Cyberwarfare and cyberweapons such as Stuxnet and Flame could become issues at the forthcoming 68th UN General Assembly. Russian wants to start negotiations on disarmament in cyberspace but the US government does not like it and prefers to discuss first "confidence-building measures" such as greater transparency, better information sharing and hotlines for unclear cyberattacks. A so-called "Group of Governmental Experts" (GGE) works since a couple of years on the issue. The "Third GGE" (a group of 15 UN member states including Argentina, Australia, Belarus, Canada, China, Egypt, Estonia, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Russia, UK and USA) will have two meetings in January 2013 in Geneva and in June 2013 in New York before it reports back to the UN General Assembly in October 2013. Furthermore the 3rd Committee (human rights) will have to deal also with a resolution adopted by the UN Human Rights Council in February 2012 which states that everybody enjoys the same human rights offline as well as online, including the right to freedom of expression: Another opportunity for a controversial debate "cybersecurity vs. human rights.

5. The 8th Internet Governance Forum (Bali, November 2013)

When the IGF was established by the WSIS Summit in Tunis in 2005 there was a lot of scepticism. Is this another UN talking shop? But the IGF has matured and it is now a high-level annual meeting of the Internet elite of the world, a place where ministers, parliamentarians, the captains of the big Internet companies, engineers and the civil society discuss on an equal footing all new questions which emerge in the further expanding world of the Internet. It is true that talking is not acting, but more and more it is recognized that sustainable developments in the Internet world need a deep and complex multistakeholder discussion before decisions can be made by bodies which have a legal mandate. But this form of open and transparent discussions among all stakeholders and interested parties, regardless of whether they represent a government or not, is not welcomed by everybody. There are governments which would prefer to go back into the corset of intergovernmental treaty negotiations, where one can operate behind closed doors and engage in traditional political horse-trading. And indeed, one can't avoid the impression that since 2009 UNDESA, the body responsible for the IGF in New York gives the support for the IGF only a low priority. For more than two years now, the posts of the head of the IGF Secretariat in Geneva (formerly Markus Kummer) and of the Internet Advisor to the UN Secretary General (formerly Nitin Desai) are vacant. The IGF secretariat has only a mini-budget and is completely understaffed. It took months for the UN Secretary General to appoint the members of the IGF Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG), which is responsible for the substantive preparation of the annual IGFs. However that the IGF has developed yet so magnificent is primarily the result of the commitment of the engaged stakeholders: dedicated governments and non-governmental groups. There were also those stakeholders which were pushing during the last IGF in Baku (November 2012) for a more concrete outcome. They proposed the use the IGF as a platform to discuss Internet Governance principles which could lead to something like a "Multistakeholder Framework of Commitment". The next MAG meetings are scheduled for February (Paris) and May (Geneva) and it remains to be seen whether the 8th IGF in Desa Nusa at Bali in October 2013 will produce a next step forward.

6. ICANN (Beijing, Durban. Buenos Aires)

When it comes to Internet Governance, ICANN is always up for discussion. ICANN is widely regarded as the first functioning multi-stakeholder governance model, even if it still has many flaws. ICANN's way into the unchartered territory of cyberspace was described recently by the former US President Bill Clinton as "stumbling forward". That is not at all bad, Clinton said 2011 in San Francisco, as long as it goes forward. The next step ICANN has to stumble forward is the expansion of the space for internet domain names. After 12 years of discussion on the introduction of new generic Top Level Domains (new gTLDs) ICANN has now opened the doors and is going through the list of nearly 2000 applications. The first new gTLDs could arrive in the Internet Root Server System in fall 2013, followed by a couple of hundreds, months by months. But the road into the root is still paved with all kinds of problems. The trademark owners and the business constituency is not satisfied with the level of protection of their brandnames and want to have further improvements which would lead to another delay into the deployment of new gTLDs. And the governments want to have a decisive role in the final selection. Individual governments have raised already nearly 300 so-called "early warnings". Such an early warning obliges the applicant to enter into consultations to clarify issues, remove misunderstandings or to withdraw the proposal. In April 2013, at the next GAC meeting, governments plan to give an "advice" to the ICANN Board with regard to new gTLDs which should not be put into the root. This could be exciting at least for three reasons: First, on which names the members of the GAC could reach an agreement, second what the ICANN Board will do with the legally non-binding advice and third what those governments will do when their objections are not respected. Will they appeal to the principle of sovereignty and claim their ultimate decision-making authority when it comes to new TLDs which eventually would affect their "national Internet segment"? There will be a lot of muscle-flexing at the forthcoming ICANN meetings in Beijing (April 2013), Durban (July 2013) and Buenos Aires (November 2013).

7. G8 & G20 (Lough Erne and St. Petersbourg)

The G8 had from time to time Internet on its agenda. In the last year of the Clinton Administration the G8 summit in Okinawa in 2000 adopted declaration on the Information Society which led to the formation of a Multistakeholder Digital Opportunity Task Force (dotforce) which played a substantial role in the preparation of the two WSIS summits in Geneva (December 2003) and Tunis (November 2005). Under the Bush administration the Internet disappeared from the G8 agenda but it came back in 2011 under the French G8 Presidency. The Heads of States, including US President Obama, the German Chancellor Merkel and Russian President Medwedjew, agreed in a "Deauville Declaration" on six fundamental principles for the Internet, including the principle of multi-stakeholder Internet governance that is the involvement of civil society, private sector and technical community in the development of Internet policies. Host of the G8 summit in 2013 is the British Prime Minister Cameroon but he has not yet specified his priorities. The meeting will take place in June 2013 in Lough Erne (Northern Ireland). At the G20 summits, which include also the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) the Internet was not an issue until now. In 2013 Russia has the G20 presidency. Is this an opportunity for the new Russian President Vladimir Putin to raise questions like cybersecurity or the national Internet segment at the G20 summit in September 2013 in St. Petersburg?

Copyright, net neutrality, privacy, etc.

But there will be more venues and topics for the big Internet Governance controversy. After the failed ACTA agreement, some governments are trying to protect their traditional music, film and print industry by new bilateral or regional copyright agreements. The telecom industry will continue to lobby governments to undermine net neutrality and to secure new revenue streams, particularly in the mobile phone sector and for broadband. Privacy will be a big issue and the EU will try to find an answer for the big challenge how to protect personal data in an open Internet which is enforceable globally. There will be an increasing discussion about the business practices of Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon & Co. The Internet of Things, Cloud Computing, Smart Communication, Augmented Reality and other new applications and services will raise new questions. OSCE, OECD and the Council of Europe have already announced major Internet conferences in 2013.. On June, 20 - 21, 2013 the 6th "European Dialogue on Internet Governance" (EuroDIG) will take place in Lisbon.

And as said above, it is unclear whether the Internet will remain in 2013 as open and free as we know it from the previous years with borderless communication and innovation without permission. A probable scenario is the fragmentation of the Internet or a least the cutting out of parts of the global Internet, the so-called "national Internet segment" which would reduce global communication capabilities for millions of netizens and risk to trigger new conflicts on the frontiers of national sovereignty in cyberspace.

Who will be the winners and loosers in the Internet Controversy in 2013? Will it be possible to avoid a "Cold Internet War" and to develop a "Peaceful Internet Coexistence"? Difficult to predict, but one thing is worth to remember what Jon Postel once said: "The Internet works because a lot of people cooperate to do things together".

Written by Wolfgang Kleinwächter, Professor for Internet Policy and Regulation at the University of Aarhus

It is midnight in Dubai and I am listening to the final readings of the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITR). This instrument is the final output of two weeks of negotiations at the World Conference on International Telecommunication (WCIT), a gathering of the world's nations to update the the ITRs. The Chair goes through the document article by article, section by section, and with each passing "thank you", this Conference draws to a close.

Many in the room are elated. They have won hard-fought victories. Their issues are significant. Their chosen solutions adopted by a majority in the room. They can return home proud of their achievement. We should respect their effort and the result it yielded.

Others in the room experience different emotions. They run from sadness, disappointment, and frustration to acceptance, resolve, and pride. We worked tirelessly. We yielded where appropriate but remained resolute and principled throughout. We return home knowing we did all that we could and that the best possible outcome was achieved.

WCIT Effort

I was fortunate to be a member of the United States Delegation working with a range of industry, civil society, academia, and government experts. We were led by Ambassador Terry Kramer and entered the Conference with a set of principled positions on the Internet, liberalized markets, competition and others. These positions were based on the input of some 100 delegates plus expert contributions from others interested in the Internet and telecommunication.

Like many delegations, ours was a truly multi-stakeholder affair bringing expertise to bear on the full breadth and complexity of issues related to this treaty conference. These issues ranged from arcane telecom accounting practices to the implications of placing the Internet under intergovernmental control.

In the run up to the Conference, we were repeatedly told that the WCIT would not address the Internet or its Governance. The reality on the ground proved otherwise with a number of contributions either directly referencing the Internet or obviously reading on it. Considerable effort was expended in removing or mitigating the more egregious proposals. In the process we and others communicated the benefits of a free and open Internet, liberalized markets, and competition.

Unfortunately, not all of the contributions were dealt with in a manner that enabled the United States and others to accede to the treaty. (At this writing 89 nations have signed with 55 taking other positions.) I'm sure we all wished for a different outcome, one where consensus was achieved. Sadly, that did not occur and instead a series of [non]votes were taken in order to make progress. Such is the way of a treaty conference, or any outcome-based event with a firm deadline.

Consensus

Consensus-based decisions take time. Principles must be understood, positions presented, compromises made. Throughout the process, enlightenment occurs at various times and in varying ways. Individually we consent to the will of the group. We accept the decision, because it is one we have made.

Complex issues require even more time, especially when they interact. Such was the case of this Conference that covered areas like accessibility, energy efficiency, e-waste, liberalized markets, expanded regulation, mobile roaming, human rights, and of course the Internet. In the end, there simply wasn't enough time to bring everyone together on all the issues. Outcome was selected over consensus. Efficiency prioritized over understanding. Majority imposition over free choice. There is a lesson here if we choose to recognize it.

As the events unfolded in the final days of the WCIT, I could sense something important was occurring but couldn't recognize it for what it was in the fog of the moment. With time came clarity and I now see both the stark contrast between the Internet Community and intergovernmental agencies' decision making as well as the implications of that contrast for the Internet.

The Internet is proving to be the economic engine of the 21st century. It has developed without the aid of significant government oversight. It is governed by institutions that permit anyone to participate with most decisions made by true consensus. Given the breadth of debate that can occur when industry, academia, government, and individuals get in a room, it should be no surprise that decisions can be excruciatingly slow and frustrating to observe. At the same time, the process ensures that we have adequate time to learn and as a consequence we make better-informed decisions.

Lessons Learned

While Internet decision making may not occur at Internet speed, the Internet itself remains incredibly agile because individuals innovate, small groups self-form to repel attacks and address security incidents, and the community grows through a sense of ownership and pride of achievement. I've come to believe that the style of governance is in no small measure responsible for the success of the Internet and it is essential that it be preserved.

Would volunteers spend years of their lives on efforts where decisions are taken by a simple majority of "those in the room" that might result in their work being abandoned? Will investors fund startups that could have a similar fate? The answer to both is clearly no and the events in Dubai demonstrate how very real the potential for just such outcomes is if we cede control of the Internet to an intergovernmental agency.

What became obvious in Dubai was the power of consensus and its importance for the Internet. Voting has no place in our decision making. Straw polls, temperature taking, and other informal mechanisms to gauge consensus are important tools to achieve consensus but they are no substitute for it. When the individual chooses to consent to the will of the group, the group is strengthened in a way no vote can achieve.

The Road From Dubai

I'm now nearing the end of my day-long return journey that coupled with my day-long outbound leg bracket my time in Dubai and an experience I will never forget. I will miss the US Delegation meetings and the people I now consider friends and colleagues. Hopefully we will see each other again at the WTPF, plenipot, WSIS Review or other venues where some governments will attempt to exert control over the Internet through an intergovernmental entity. We saw it in Dubai and will likely see it in Geneva, Busan, or any of the various cities where intergovernmental agencies convene.

¹ anon, Dubai UAE, December 2012.

Originally posted on inetaria.

Written by Bill Smith, Sr. Policy Advisor, Technology Evangelist at PayPal

The most egregious of the paragraphs in this proposal refer to routing, naming and addressing, to wit:

(management of Identification resources)
31B 3A.2 Member States shall have equal rights to manage the Internet, including in regard to the allotment, assignment and reclamation of Internet numbering, naming, addressing and identification resources and to support for the operation and development of basic Internet infrastructure.

This is either completely meaningless or incredibly dangerous to the day to day operation of the current Internet depending on interpretation. If one considers that Member States already have "equal rights" to participate in the current Internet governance regime (some would say they have more than equal rights given the exalted position of the GAC inside ICANN), then this is redundant text that should be removed. However, a more pernicious interpretation is that the ITU would entirely replace the existing institutions that have been responsible for naming and addressing with a completely intergovernmental model.

Why they have proposed this seeming non-starter is anybody's guess, as no mechanism exists for nation states to force the naming and addressing bodies to hand over responsibilities to an intergovernmental body. In fact there are contracts, policy documents and MoU's in place that would absolutely prevent it. The authors and the ITU staff who helped edit this proposal surely know this (and if they don't know, that in itself shows willful ignorance of how the current system works).

Seemingly, some of the Arab States who saw their previous proposal to form an intergovernmental Regional Internet Registry sent to a Working Group to die a quiet death are thinking that proposing direct control of Internet numbering resources is a good second choice. ICP-2 is the document that precludes the ITU from forming their own RIR (they could actually do it if it only served Antarctica but that isn't an attractive option for the ITU), so they have proposed:

(Fundamental Right)
31F 3B.1 Member states have the right to manage all naming, numbering, addressing and identification resources used for international telecommunications/ICT services within their territories.

Not only is this a complete rejection of the current system, but it is completely unworkable idea. Say for example I have registered a .ug domain name (which I have), but the webserver is located in the USA. Is that .ug domain name used for international telecommunications/ICT services within the USA or is it used in Uganda? The answer is both, but no one would suggest that the .ug ccTLD be managed by the USA. Nevertheless, that is what 31F 3B.1 says! Another example is that Autonomous System numbers (inter-domain routing identifiers) frequently cover multiple countries or regions, so who gets to "manage them" when they are used by routers in many nations to determine where to send traffic??

In terms of routing, the proposal introduces much more unworkable ideas:

30 3.3 Operating agencies shall determine by mutual agreement which international routes are to be used. A Member State has the right to know the international route of its traffic where technically feasible.

and

MOD
1/7 1.4 In cases where one or more international routes have been established by agreement between administrations/operating agencies and where traffic is diverted unilaterally by the administration/operating agency of origin to an international route which has not been agreed with the administration/operating agency of destination,the terminal shares payable to the administration/operating agency of destination shall be the same as would have been due to it had the traffic been routed over the agreed primary route and the transit costs are borne by the administration/operating agency of origin, unless the administration/operating agency of destination is prepared to agree to a different share.

Currently routers forward packets based on economic choices made by the owner of that router. The two modifications above change that paradigm completely, giving Nation States the ability to control the choice of provider networks that packets transit. In addition, if an ISP tries to skirt these "toll booths", they still have to pay for traffic that would have transited the "agreed" network. In other words, even though a provider did not receive service from a provider, they still have to pay for services they didn't receive! This would seem counter-intuitive to most people, but when you understand that there is no mechanism built in to the current routing protocol to count traffic in this way, it enters the realm of the absurd.

Fred Baker, Adrian Farrel and Benoit Claise have written an excellent primer on routing for regulators at WCIT, which it seems none of the authors of this proposal have read. In it they conclude by saying:

"Maybe increased connectivity between ASes through IXPs will magnify the
benefits of Internet connectivity, will attract more local online business, and
provide a significant economic stimulus as larger percentages of the population
are able to get on line. Perhaps these benefits will go some way to offset the lost
revenues from the declining legacy telephone systems. What is the for sure is
that using DPI to monitor and charge VoIP calls in the same old way ... will
simply not work!"

Internet infrastructure (IXPs, submarine and other fiber builds, data centers, etc.) have developed outside of a treaty body. Internetworking is done between networks, not between Member States. Trying to retrofit the Internet to include toll-booths and points of governmental control at this point is self-defeating. During the last revision of the ITRs, revenue from international voice calls were the golden eggs laid by the telephony golden goose, but the Internet has disrupted that model to the point where the ITRs are an anachronism that is no longer of great utility. Ultimately, it will be end-user customers of the affected businesses that will pay the price for the type of folly.

Of course, some cynics suspect this "compromise text" is a tactical ploy in a much longer game, that diplomats are human and don't want to be seen as the cause of a failed international treaty conference, that the USA and its "Hands Off the Internet" allies will tire of saying "No" and eventually relent to some of their bad ideas. It's also possible that the USA will throw Russia a bone in hopes of getting their cooperation in other areas of international relations (think Syria).

This proposal shows that those who were concerned about the agenda of some ITU Member States and the Secretariat were right. They are out to take over the Internet, they just weren't honest about it. The ITU does useful work in, inter alia, spectrum and satellite slot allocation. They should stick to those tasks and if they really want to help spread the edge of the network to the billions who don't yet have access, perhaps they should focus on access issues instead of asserting intergovernmental control over things they clearly don't understand.

William S. Burroughs wrote "Paranoia is just having the right information". It turns out that the folk who have had great concerns about WCIT over the last year were not paranoid, they just had the right information.

Written by McTim, Internet policy and governance consultant

The reason this is a hot topic, of course, is because some people whose web sites don't appear as high as they'd like in search results think it's a monopolistic plot against them, and Google should be required to present search results in a neutral way. It might be, but more likely it's not, and the cure would be far worse than the problem.
The whole argument about search neutrality is based on a false assumption, that there is such a thing as a neutral search result. Any mechanical definition you can invent, e.g., the page with the most incoming links, or the page with the most incoming links from other domains, will instantly be gamed by SEO spammers and the answers will be useless. Furthermore, a good search engine does a great deal of semantic analysis to get useful results. For example, if you search for key lime pie, Google recognizes that as an idiom, looks for it as a unit, and also realizes that it matches a lot of recipies so it adds decorations to the search page appropriate for a recipe search. It's a strong enough idiom that many searches, e.g., for "can lime pie" will be redirected to key lime pie. If you happened to name your web site "can lime pie", too bad, your name will be autocorrected.

How the heck you can make that "neutral" without completely destroying the utility of a search engine? You can't. The only way to imagine that you can is to completely fail to understand what search engines do.

The only place I can see any possibility of a remedy is in the universal search, where Google adds results from maps or plane schedules or the like. Some decades ago, as part of an antitrust settlement, IBM agreed to document and separate out some of the functions of their mainframe system OS/360. That way, if people wanted to use a competing product for a function, the product could use the defined interface and people could install it and it'd work. In practice, hardly anyone ever did, but the interfaces were there if anyone wanted them. I'd think something like that might be workable for the results other than search, with maps being the prime example. But it's not the same as making the results "neutral".

Written by John Levine, Author, Consultant & Speaker

Read full story: External Source

Is Divestiture a Warranted?

Companies are always pushing the limits of rules and regulations, and Comcast is no exception in this case. If continued disregard of basic neutrality principles, using its broadband service as a vehicle to discriminate against other competitors is not enough evidence to call for divestiture; then what will it take to emphasize the implications for an OTT (Over-The-Top) video market that is being disadvantaged by prioritization from a horizontally controlled service. There must be consideration and debate as to whether Comcast, as a broadband provider and a cable provider, has undue influence in market control, being such a large and dominate provider of both services. (See: He said, she said: Is Comcast prioritizing traffic or not?)

Boundaries Must Be Set

Taking a page from the playbook in the dispute with programmers over the right to allow access to cable programming on multiple devices, represented in changes of market dynamics from set-box-box viewing to multiple device viewing, both inside and outside the home; cable operators insisted those devices were just another STB. Taking this concept a step further, Comcast is using the argument that the Xbox 360 App is just another viewing device for its customers, which under Title VI, does not fall under public Internet consumption, but viewing on a private network.

DOJ-FCC Question

The implications, however, are far reaching and may set a precedent in companies with horizontal services being allowed to manipulate competitive forces to favor themselves. If this is ultimately, the argument, then Comcast should bow out of either its broadband service or cable service to remove the inference. This is a DOJ (Department of Justice)/FCC question which should be looked into further. As companies like Comcast are allowed to grow in dominate market status, their actions can up-end market forces in an undeniable adverse way, if allowed. (See: Comcast's Xfinity app for Xbox 360: a new battleground in net neutrality)

Confidence in Past Court Appeals

Comcast has been successful in past court appeals such as the FCC Bit Torrent Throttling Case in which a DC court ruled the FCC had limited authority in Internet ruling making. Obviously companies like Comcast have the resources to fight such infringements of its actions, tying up regulators in court for months or even years. Again, we are beginning to see signs that a market-dominate Comcast can infringe its authority with somewhat impunity to unbalance competitive forces, if it wishes to do so. (See: Title VI — High Speed Access to the Internet over Cable Devices and other Facilities)

What we are left with is a company feeling confident enough in its actions to spread "fear and loathing" into anyone questioning its motives or agenda. A rule of thumb for all Internet providers wishing to expand or to dominate market forces should be; do our actions foster fair competition or hinder competitive forces? No company is going to embrace competition if left to its own devices. My point is that as companies become very large their influence becomes a market liability in itself. Being competitively fair is a simple rule and one which evidently needs to be re-enforced.

Written by Leonard Grace, Founder & Editor - Broadband Convergent

First let's consider the frame the carrier reps use: "Toll Free." This is an old school "Bellhead" reference to a pricing strategy where the called party pays instead of the calling party. Lots of commercial ventures have offered consumers Wide Area Telephone Service ("WATS") line access using the 1-800 and now 866, 877 and 888 prefixes. So toll free historically has referred to a pricing arrangement where consumers can avoid having to pay for a long distance telephone call.

The toll free reference may be a red herring here, because it's likely that the arrangement will simply mean consumers will not have minutes of use or downloaded bytes debited against a monthly usage cap. Toll free will mean debit-free to the end user with a surcharge to the content provider.

The proposed arrangement appears to parallel what Amazon has secured for cellular carrier delivery of e-books with two big differences. First Amazon is having delivered content costing $10 or more in a single transaction, while ventures like Netflix may be offered expedited delivery of content costing $8 a month for "unlimited" streaming. Also we should appreciate that when Amazon pays the e-book downloader pays nothing and does not even have to subscribe to cellphone service. In both the wireline and wireless environment where "toll free" data will operate, end users already are subscribing to monthly service: DSL, fiber or a hybrid fiber wireline broadband service, and/or cellphone service. So the value a carrier offers appears to be "better than best efforts" Internet routing of possibly "mission critical" bits coupled with a end user sweetener of not debiting minutes or bytes from a monthly basket.

Is this a fair deal, or double billing? End users will end up paying for such premium service, so it's fair to ask when — if ever — one would want better than best efforts routing when plain vanilla best efforts heretofore has worked just fine. The network neutrality advocates have a legitimate concern that carriers will find a way to degrade service to content providers like Netflix and Google making the premium routing a necessity. Bear in mind that Netflix already pays Content Distribution Networks, such as Level-3, for high quality, "toll-grade" delivery. Recently Comcast demanded a delivery surcharge in light of the higher volume of traffic Level-3 hands off to Comcast for final delivery than the amount Comcast hands off to Level-3 for upstream delivery through the Internet cloud. So is Netflix getting hit up for a double or triple payment: once to Comcast for last mile delivery, twice to Level-3 and other long haul Internet cloud carriers and thrice to Verizon/AT&T? Let's not forget that end users already are paying $30-100 monthly for their wired and wireless broadband connections. Doesn't that broadband subscription entitle subscribers to timely and efficient delivery of any and all traffic without surcharges?

Written by Rob Frieden, Pioneers Chair and Professor of Telecommunications and Law

Paul Brigner – Appointed Regional Bureau Director, North America at Internet Society

Cory Doctorow of the Guardian who has been investigating the story says a good case has been made for him being the right man for the job. Doctorow writes:

"I asked Brigner whether his statements about DNS blocking and seizure and net neutrality had been sincere. 'There are certainly a number of statements attributed to me that demonstrate my past thoughts on DNS and other issues,' he answered. 'I would not have stated them if I didn't believe them. But the true nature of my work was focused on trying to build bridges with the technology community and the content community and find solutions to our common problems. As I became more ingrained in the debate, I became more educated on the realities of these issues, and the reality is that a mandated technical solution just isn't a viable option for the future of the internet. When presented with the facts over time, it was clear I had to adjust my thinking.'"

… guide the FCC's work on technology and engineering issues, together with the FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology. He will advise on matters across the agency to ensure that FCC policies are driving technological innovation, including serving as a resource to FCC Commissioners. He will also help the FCC engage with technology experts outside the agency and promote technical excellence among agency staff. He will be based in the FCC's Office of Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis.

Henning brings an excellent background to this role, having been one of the co-authors of the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP - RFC 3261) and the Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP - RFC 3550 and 1889), the two main standards used in most Voice over IP (VoIP) systems today. Henning is also the author/co-author of over 70 other RFCs and countless Internet-Drafts and has been active with the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) since the 1990's. He also served on the Internet Architecture Board (IAB).

Given the recent FCC workshops on the transition of the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) to new technologies, it's great to have someone with Henning's background and knowledge in a prominent role at the FCC. Henning himself noted this in an email to the IETF DISPATCH working group mailing list, where he noted that the FCC is definitely seeking input from technical folks.

Obviously in this new role he'll be working not only with real-time communications but also with the wide range of other areas that the FCC covers. Regardless, it's excellent to have someone with Henning's background providing this level of advice and input to FCC activities.

Prior to joining the FCC, Henning has been a professor and chair of the Computer Science department at Columbia University. In my experience he's also just an all-around decent person and I'm very much looking forward to seeing what he'll do at the FCC.

Written by Dan York, Author and Speaker on Internet technologies

In June, the net neutrality debate took an unexpected turn when the Netherlands leap-frogged the USA to became the first country to legislate for mobile net neutrality. Business models for fixed and mobile networks must shift toward volume charges.

The net neutrality debate has been seen not having much relevance outside the USA because the plight of carriers there was aggravated by unlimited usage. US carriers objected to carrying the extra traffic generated by the likes of YouTube and BitTorrent and others including Google objected to the carriers' crude attempts to manage traffic by restricting customers' access to such sites.

The issue came to a head in 2008 when the FCC ordered Comcast, a cable TV and Internet access provider, to cease blocking or downgrading certain users' access to some peer-to-peer download services. The FCC's ruling, however, was subsequently struck down on appeal over the FCC's authority to implement net neutrality regulations.

US state of play

The FCC rallied and in December 2010 issued a new policy (still to be tested in a federal court) that sets three basic rules for net neutrality¹:

• Transparency. Fixed and mobile broadband providers must disclose the network management practices, performance characteristics, and terms and conditions of their broadband services;
• No blocking. Fixed broadband providers may not block lawful content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices; mobile broadband providers may not block lawful websites, or block applications that compete with their voice or video telephony services; and
• No unreasonable discrimination. Fixed broadband providers may not unreasonably discriminate in transmitting lawful network traffic.

It is interesting to note that only the first of the FCC's three rules applies equally to fixed and mobiles providers. But for mobiles, the no-blocking rule applies only to services "that compete with their voice or video telephony services” and mobile providers are not mentioned at all in the third rule because "existing mobile networks present operational constraints that fixed broadband networks do not typically encounter. This puts greater pressure on the concept of "reasonable network management" for mobile providers".

But mobiles are under pressure. Free Press wants the FCC to take a close look at Google's move to curtail access (making them "unavailable for download” via the Android Market) to independent tethering apps. Google says it is doing this in response to requests from wireless carriers. But Google's Droid partner Verizon says "Google manages what's available in the Android Market."

When Verizon acquired massive amounts of spectrum in the 700MHz "C Block" auction back in 2008 it promised to adhere to the FCC's "Open Access" rules which forbid carriers from trying to "deny, limit, or restrict the ability of their customers to use the devices and applications of their choice." In the new Report and Order (Paras 134-135), the FCC has hinted that its powers may not be restricted to users of this part of the spectrum. Again, this must be tested in court.

Dutch policy

The Netherlands has gone further. In April 2011, KPN announced plans to charge mobile customers extra for using Skype and WhatsApp (an application that for $2 pa enables smart phone users to send messages for no additional charge). KPN does not reveal much but last year Telstra's messaging revenues were over $1 billion and over 9 billion SMS were sent from its mobile phones. So, losing voice and message revenues to Skype, Facebook and WhatsApp could seriously dent profitability.

To charge users access to such services, KPN would need to look at the data being transferred, using "deep packet inspection." Following protests about possible privacy violations, politicians moved quickly to stop the plan. In June 2011, the Dutch parliament passed a bill which will force mobile Internet providers to let customers use Skype and other rival services on their networks without charging extra or giving preferential treatment to their own offerings (and not to place cookies without express permission from the end user).²

KPN has responded [Business Week 19 July] saying that from September the cheapest advertised price for one gigabyte of mobile data will be part of a euro50 ($70)/month package, compared with current packages under euro20 ($28) that include unlimited data. This is similar to the moves that US fixed carriers have made by moving towards Australian style monthly caps.

Expect to see mobile handset prices increase and more volume-based charging. The latter makes sense for both fixed and mobile networks and is the next logical move after caps.

¹ FCC (December 2010) Open Internet Rules, Report and Order 10-201.
² http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-06-dutch-parliament-mobile-net-neutrality.html

Written by Henry Lancaster, Senior Analysts at Paul Budde Communication

So I'm quite worried by the push for content fees by European operators. Apparently Vivendi, Deutsche Telecom, and Alcatel-Lucent will release a report pushing this "solution" to concerns about slow deployment of next-generation broadband. It's nothing new, and not unique to Europe, but I see the campaign coalescing in a powerful way. It was strongly in evidence at the OECD High-Level Meeting sessions in Paris that I led two weeks ago. Europe is where broadband competition at the retail level has prevented some of the problems we've had in the U.S. If the carrier, content, and equipment industries worldwide reach a consensus on a new business model for the Internet, we're in trouble.

The freedom of not watching the clock is a very powerful thing. Social science research even suggests that it's a reason why poor people don't do as well in life: they are too busy keeping track of small costs that the rest of us ignore. It's what made possible the rocketship growth of Internet access, mobile phone service, YouTube, Netflix, Gmail, Skype, and countless others. And it doesn't just let the big guys get big; it lets the small guys get started without the high cost of buying in the club. It was written in a different context, but Josh Kopelman hit the nail on the head in a blog post four years ago. A simplistic economic analysis will tell you that metered charges maximize welfare for everyone, but human behavior and creativity don't follow simplistic models.

So, what do we do? Heavy-handed price regulation isn't a solution. Putting carriers in an economic straight-jacket isn't the answer for many reasons, including the predictable ways they will respond. And operators should be free to innovate, manage their networks, and generate returns for their investors like everyone else. Better to achieve an equilibrium like the U.S. Internet backbone market had at key points in time. Competitive alternatives, systemic dependencies, mutually assured destruction, and cultural norms produced a workable interconnection regime without regulatory intervention… usually.

It's easy to point to the old backbone market as an ideal, harder to dig into the details and understand how it really works, and harder still to give the broadband industry the characteristics that produced those positive results. That last one is what regulators should focus on. Alignment of incentives, largely driven by competition, is the only sustainable force to drive corporate behavior. It would be a shame to muzzle the Internet as an engine for growth just when the world economy needs it most.

Written by Kevin Werbach, Professor at the Wharton School and Organizer of the Supernova Conference

This 2 day meeting, "The Internet Economy: Generating Innovation and Growth”, had the objective of exploring a number of current issues in the public policy space, including:

• how best to develop high speed broadband access,
• how to leverage broadband for economic growth,
• metrics of broadband development and its impact, and
• how best to maintain openness and promote continued growth.

The presentations I heard at this meeting could be broadly classified into a number of themes, as outlined below.

Public Policy: The Internet as a brilliant success of Multi-Stakeholderism

The first theme was somewhat self-congratulatory in nature, and noted that the Internet has been very effective in achieving economic growth. One speaker cited from a McKinsey report that the level of economic growth attributable to the Internet in 15 years, as measured by GDP growth, equalled the level of GDP growth experienced in the Industrial Revolution over 50 years.

The speakers who talked to this theme espoused freedom of expression, freedom of governance, and freedom of enterprise — online. The Secretary General of the OCED proposed that the OECD, and its working methods of inclusion of governments, the private sector, civil society and the technical community, was uniquely positioned to further this effort. As he noted in his presentation to this meeting, "The OECD has already established many of the social norms that define the Internet today." He espoused a light touch public policy environment as a platform to provide growth, and a driver of innovation that improves efficiency and growth. In other words, when handled with some consideration and care from a perspective of public policy and governance, the Internet will continue to play the role of a critical enabling tool for wealth creation.

The prevalent meme of today appears to be "multi-skateholderism," which appears to relate to today's mixed environment of public and private sector activity, coupled with explicit recognition of civil society and other vested interests, including the technical sector as stakeholders in the process.

The tone of such presentations on the success of the open Internet and upon light touch public policies and multi-stakeholderism was generally upbeat, with some concessions to the challenges of security and net neutrality, but overall there was a sense that if the process was well structured, then such challenges could be properly addressed to the satisfaction of all.

In many ways this is little more than self-congratulatory rhetoric about the positive outcomes that have resulted from the general deregulation of the telecoms sector in the late 20th century and the associated shift of the model of service in this sector from a single public sector utility telecom operator to a diverse set of competitive private sector actors. However, an implicit subtext within this theme was a critical commentary on alternative approaches to coordination frameworks for national and international communications, notably the ITU-T, and a rather barbed criticism of the ability of such treaty-based institutions to perform the necessary structural changes to their institutional model that would allow the institution to reflect the broader set of stakeholders that are peer players in today's landscape. Perhaps behind the rhetoric is one more piece of preparatory activity in the extended leadup to the renegotiation of the world telecommunications treaty by the set of nation states that have some level of commitment a communications industry structure that is now largely based on private sector activity within a framework of open competition, and a general desire to reduce, to some extent, an indefinite continuance of the encumbrances, obligations, and structural cross-subsidies that are associated with the current treaty obligations that stand behind the ITU-T.

The Faltering of the Traditional Carrier

A number of speakers on the topic of broadband infrastructure were critical of today's network infrastructure. A salient comment I heard at one point was: "This sector really has a problem in meeting demand."

Some of the now-privatised telcos (for example, the presentation from Telecom Italia) were effectively claiming that with the impositions of net neutrality and the imposition of a public policy agenda of ubiquitous equitable access for all to a high speed broadband infrastructure funded through private capital investment was not a viable proposition.

The broader question was raised in a presentation from the Korean delegate, who raised the question as to who should fund broadband network infrastructure construction. The Australian presentation made that case that such large scale broadband infrastructure projects exceeded the capacity of private enterprise, and therefore the responsibility to lead such projects fell to the public sector. Although it has to be noted that this leadership comes at the considerable cost of around $2,000 per capita in the Australian case, and it therefore takes a relatively robust economy to underwrite such a significant level of public capital expenditure within the broader collection of public sector issues. Many other OECD economies appear to have largely left the activity of the construction of broadband network infrastructure to the agenda of the private sector, particularly where financing is concerned, and limited their involvement to cheering from the sidelines. The outcomes so far from such an approach are not exactly stellar.

Another carrier, AT&T, asserted that public communications policy in broadband infrastructure is being driven by a vocal minority rather than the mainstream and asserts that this imbalance in policy formulation will result in subsequent retrograde intervention that will restore what he termed as "20th century regulation." He argued for continuance of deregulation and a "hands-off" policy response by government. He noted that a policy priority of broadband access, at an affordable price, as a enabler of economic outcomes, and a lever to improve delivery of social services and utilities. Interestingly, he noted a $95B infrastructure investment by AT&T over the past 5 years and claimed that this cost could not feasibly be recovered from the end user base because the imposition of additional costs onto the consumer base would exclude large sectors of users from the network, and this would be counter to a an objective of ubiquity of access. Given the stated preference for continuation of an industry model that is a deregulated industry lead by private sector investment, it would appear that AT&T is constructing a case to forego the concept of network neutrality with respect to their carriage services, and they apparently wish to have the ability to impose additional costs on content industry actors if they want to have high speed visibility to users on AT&T's broadband network and recover a significant proportion of their investment in this manner.

Network neutrality is a significant issue in today's industry, and it appears to be used by the carriers and operators as a keyword for their lack of incentive for infrastructure investment beyond the existing cooper loop wired infrastructure, citing that net neutrality acts as an investment disincentive that brings the financial returns on capital investment in infrastructure below what they consider to be acceptable levels that are able to meet the cost of private capital in their enterprises. At the same time they are pointing to the lack of radio spectrum as the reason for a lack of further investment in mobile data infrastructure, and accusing application developers of generating mobile content applications that make extravagant use of bandwidth, and hence extravagant use of spectrum as being part of the problem they face.

With some small level of dissension, there appears to be a general admission that demand on today's Internet is not only outstripping current levels of supply, demand growth now is outstripping the sector's business plans, capital investment capability and even technical capability, and the resultant need to exercise common constraint in an environment of limited resources is counter to an industry whose relatively crude content and service models appear to be based on continued abundance of the basic commodity of bandwidth and ubiquitous connectivity.
Security and Privacy

This is one of those mantra topics - everyone agreed that security is a Good Thing (at least I heard noone argue against the concept!), and all speakers who touched upon this topic appeared to agree with the proposition that this was a current issue and by no means a solved problem. But where to go from here was definitely not so clear.

It was clearly recognised that the quantity, breadth and detail of information that is now online poses some serious concern. The risk profile of unintended information exposure now includes individuals, organisations and even nation states. The security industry is becoming overwhelmed with the onslaught of new threats on a continuing basis, and the underlying concern is that the current level of cyber attack may mutate at any time into attack profiles associated with cyber warfare between nation states.

Industry commentators perceive this topic to have a low priority in the political agenda, where politicians want lower prices and greater regulatory control, while the ability of the private sector to invest in the necessary resources and measures to support greater levels of online security is limited by the relatively low value placed on this activity by end users. In some ways the issue of security in todays networks, particularly as they relate to high end security measures that are capable of defending a national communications system against broad scale infrastructure attack of a scale and intensity anticipated in the context of a concerted and well resourced attack (such as envisaged in a cyber warfare attack, for example), is seen to be beyond the scope of conventional private sector infrastructure operators. At the same time the public sector is showing some signs of uncertainty as to how to engage with this agenda, as this is a matter that is well beyond simple regulatory responses.

Hand-in-hand with security is the topic of privacy. It was asserted that the challenge about privacy is not about technology, as today's technology is adequately capable of supporting privacy, but is about the nexus of privacy policies and technology. In order to implement scalable systems that respect and adhere to privacy policies and are functional, there is a need to invest in an effort to define common privacy and authentication standards, i.e., standards relating to the nature of credentials that appropriately define individuals and roles, reputation mechanisms and validation of such credentials and the associated topic of negotiation of trust. The privacy management reference model is looking at operational privacy management in online services, and public standards need to be considered in the development of services. There is some optimism that policy entropy and conflicting standards can be addressed, assuming that the various actors in the area talk to each other and work in the context of industry-driven standards that are based on interoperable implementations. There is the expectation that the industry can deploy systems that can manage privacy conflict and ensure compliance with public policy frameworks that would engender trust and confidence. It was suggested that governments need to support the effort to foster the greater use of standards organisations to facilitate the development of data privacy standards and their adoption.

IPR and Intermediaries

This is a long-standing issue in this sector. The copyright holders have been reluctant, or incapable, on the whole to modify their business model to adapt to the capabilities of computing systems and computer networks to replicate and redistribute content. In the face of monotonically declining sales revenue of traditional media, and the collapse of many of former major players in the media-based content distribution industry, the content industry resorted to legal means to attempt to curb the decline in their industry.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the United States is perhaps the most well known, but no means unique, example of this push for legislative remedies to unauthorized redistribution of content, and the industry has, at least in the realm of the public policy debate successfully managed to apply a lexicon that includes emotive terms such as "theft", "illegal", and "piracy" to such redistribution activities and have this lexicon adopted by the broader industry and in public policy debates.

However, such actions have been largely unsuccessful in terms of reducing the level of such unauthorized redistribution of content and the associated revenue leak that such redistribution represents to copyright holders. The copyright industry has now turned its attention to attempts to coerce the carriage providers to act as co-opted vigilantes in the efforts to enforce intellectual property rights.

This effort runs counter to the general principle of the role of a common carrier, where, in somewhat approximate terms, the carrier is bound to respect the privacy of the parties to whom it has contracted to act as a carrier, and in return is not held to be liable for the content carried across its network. However, there is a strong push to have the public sector to force the carriage sector, and all others who act as "intermediaries' in the provision of services and content to users, to play an active role in enforcing the intellectual property rights of copyright holders of the material. Rather than starting from an assumption that carriage providers and intermediaries are not liable for the content they carry on behalf of users, the default position being pushed in the context of this OECD meeting is one of assuming that such liabilities already exist, and the consequent agenda is to "limit" such liabilities.

It has been pointed out by critics of this approach (such as in a recent blog on this topic) that the wording of the communiqué from this meeting that some of the stakeholders, notably the technical community according to this particular critic, acted in a way that played into the hands of the IPR efforts: "Lacking the historical perspective, ITAC failed to see the camels nose being inserted under the tent in the IPR and Intermediary Liability sections."

Some of the presentations at the meeting were staunchly in favour of the copyright industry's proposals for making carriers and ISPs liable for content. In particular the presentation by Vivendi went as far as claiming that the entire content creation industry would come to a complete halt if IPR theft was not halted using all available means. The assertion was made in this context that: "Copyright is a key component of economic growth."

An alternative view was put forward by Deezer (and presumably Pandora, were they to be present) is that "piracy" is just one competing service model for distribution of content, and the real goal of this industry should be to create business and service models for the distribution of content that represent a superior service proposition to users as compared to resorting to unauthorized redistribution of content in the form of "piracy". Such new service models should allow IPR to be respected and due royalties paid in the use of copyright material. From Deezer's reported commercial success, this is evidently an achievable objective.

In any case, the default position of assuming some unspecified level of liability on the part of intermediaries, including carriage providers, and the need to "limit" this liability with respect to copyright material was maintained in the deliberations prior to this meeting, and the Civil Society Information Society Advisory Committee (CSISAC) was unable to endorse the resultant communiqué.

IPv6 - The Elephant in the Room

Oddly enough for a meeting that was intended to discuss the public policy aspects of the internet's future growth and the maintenance of the Internet's openness and ability to innovate, evolve and generate societal wealth through efficient and novel forms of connectivity and communication, the one topic that implicitly threatens the entire framework of today's Internet rated barely a mention in the meeting, namely the exhaustion of the IPv4 address pool and the industry's marked indifference to adopt IPv6. It was the unacknowledged elephant in the room.

While one speaker, Vint Cerf, highlighted the need to place IPv6 adoption as a matter of urgent priority in the public policy agenda, and noted that without IPv6, innovation on the Internet will suffer and beneficial outcomes from an open and accessible communications environment would cease, and we simply have no alternatives at this point in time. He noted that if this meeting can conclude with the imperative to deploy IPv6 across all parts of the Internet, then it would be a useful meeting with a positive message. Oddly enough, the chairman's summary at the end of this particular session omitted any reference to IPv6, despite this topic being the major theme of Vint's presentation.

There was certainly an air of disconnection that persisted through the meeting on the continued omission of any mention of IPv4 address exhaustion and the risks posed to the further growth of the Internet if IPv6 is not adopted in a timely manner. It got to the point that when a speaker from the UK Regulatory Office subsequently mentioned IPv6 and the need for the public sector to actively support its adoption, parts of the audience broke out in spontaneous applause.

It appears that despite many years of active promotion of IPv6 the message is still not getting heard within the area of public policy. The comprehensive transition of the Internet to IPv6 is a central pillar of any expectation that the Internet can continue to grow and sustain a vibrant environment based on open competition and innovation. So far we appear to have failed to effectively make that case that in a networked environment that stalls on IPv6 the resultant NAT and ALG-ridden IPv4 environment is one where the current incumbents will hold all the addresses and any further competitive entry into the Internet by new actors, at both the levels of carriage and content services, would be effectively limited to the terms and conditions imposed by the incumbents. Such a scenario is about as good a definition of the failure of an open market as one could find, and its one that the Internet would do very well to avoid.

Where To From Here?

Somehow I'm missing the sense of driving optimism and opportunity that was associated with the 2008 OECD Ministerial on the Future of the Internet Economy. It's not clear to me that multi-stakeholderism is sufficiently powerful a mantra to shake off the issues that confront this industry as it slowly shifts into a phase of success-disaster.

Yes, the mobile market is a massive commercial success, so much so that we are now running out of useable spectrum space in the most populous parts of the networked world.

Yes, the wired internet is transforming our economies, so much so that the pressure to recable our infrastructure from copper to fibre is now an essential prerequisite to keeping pace with demand, but the capital is not there and the sustainable carrier business models are not there to undertake this effort.

Yes, the provision of content is a runaway success, but the copyright industry still cries foul and in an effort to curb some of the reported massive damage being inflicted to the entertainment industry there is an effort to rip apart the principle of common carrier and hold all elements of this industry liable for the unauthorised distribution of content.

And yes, we've managed to distribute billions of computers, but at the same time we've managed to create significant areas of vulnerability, and we are now witnessing the exploitation of these weaknesses shift from elements of organised crime to the distinct possibility of cyber warfare waged between nation states.

But I don't believe that any of these issues present insurmountable challenges. In seeking productive responses to these challenges we need to make sure that we are looking in the right place. These problems appear to arise from an intersection of rapid shift in the technology base of this industry intersecting a set of business and policy frameworks that are often somewhat conservative in their response to change. I would like to believe that many of the answers we are looking for lie in adaptation of business models and public policy frameworks, and the tools that will best assist this common effort are probably economic in nature.

For that reason I believe that the OECD has a valuable role in the coming months and years, and I am heartened to see the OECD continue to engage all stakeholders in a public dialogue that I hope will be ultimately fruitful and productive for the future of the Internet.

Written by Geoff Huston, Author & Chief Scientist at APNIC

Read full story: External Source

For those of you coming in person, we look forward to seeing you! For the rest of you here are the remote participation details:

• Webcast:
• Transcription
• Questions

There is no need to register for remote participants — all are welcome. For those unfamiliar with backchann.nl, one can not only ask questions but also vote on questions already asked. There are chatrooms associated with both the transcription and the webcast. For those wishing to comment via twitter the hashtag is #INETny

Here'a brief schedule (times are EDT = UTC-4):

09:00 Opening remarks
09:30 Keynote + Q&A: Sir Tim Berners-Lee
10:30 Panel: Pushing technology boundaries
12:00 Lunch
13.00 Keynote + Q&A: Vint Cerf
13:30 Panel: People Power
15:00 Keynote: Lawrence E. Strickling
15:20 Panel: New Privacy Models
16:30 Closing discussion
17:30 End

The full agenda is on bit.ly/inetnyagenda

More info: isoc.org/nyinet

Written by Joly MacFie, VP (Admin) - ISOC-NY