OTTAWA – The speculative feedback loop that are web rumours are rife with accusations that the United Nations or the International Telecommunications Union want to “take over the Internet.”
“Let me say quite plainly and clearly: This is simply ridiculous,” ITU secretary general Dr. Hamadoun Touré told delegates of the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association conference on tower siting yesterday in Ottawa.
The speculation sown online by some mainstream media outlets, backed up by endless rumour repetition in the blogosphere the Twitterverse are fed by the fact there is a meeting scheduled in Dubai in December called the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT). The goal of the conference, which will include delegates from just about every country, is to update the organization’s regulations, last finalized in 1988.
These are broad international telecom regs that don’t really influence day-to-day telecom life signed by 178 countries, but if one reads articles like this Wall Street Journal story, it’s easy to see why people are becoming alarmed.
(Ed note: However, those who follow the UN or these broad multi-state regulations and organizations, no matter the subject matter, nothing much practical comes of them beyond hazy statements of purpose vague enough so that everyone can sign on and so that each country can interpret them its own way. The worry that the ITU or UN could ever “take over the Internet” seems laughable.)
Dr. Touré said: he expects the conference (and if you’re Googling it, it’s not the Montreal WCIT happening in October) to come up with “broad, forward-looking principles that support a transparent, efficient framework for investment. This is in all of our interest: governments, business and consumers.”
The conference in December will, for example, look at how $800 billion might be raised to bring mobile internet to those in the developing world, emphasizing that the people in those areas of the world have been left behind as the developed world has gone digital.
“Everyone wants mobile broadband and the benefits it will bring. But few seem willing to pay for it – including both the over-the-top players, who are generating vast new demand through their applications, and consumers, who have become accustomed to unlimited packages,” added Touré. (Ed note: The good doctor is seemingly unaware that a comment like this, criticizing OTT video players for their offerings and greedy consumers for their web demands, invites the speculation that the ITU does, in fact, want to have a say over what happens or how money is spent to develop broadband and instead sows the fear he is trying to dispel).
“This is putting tremendous pressure on mobile operators, who need to invest in high-capacity broadband networks in order to maintain quality of service as demand rises,” he added. “At the same time, as broadband becomes increasingly viewed as basic infrastructure for social and economic development, operators are being asked to extend the reach of their networks to under-served populations.
“These are strategic, bottom-line issues, and we need to be talking about them.”
– Greg O’Brien
