Re: The telephone network and the internet (RE: [ga] ALAC comments on proposed Bylaws modifications)

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com>]

Marilyn and all former DNSO GA members or other interested parties,

  COngratulations here Marilyn on your wonderful bit of spin here in
support of Richard and the ITU al be it anything but brief.  >:)
( More specific comments/remarks below Marilyn's )

Cade,Marilyn S - LGCRP wrote:

> Richard, I read your response to Marc Scheiders, which seems to be an explanation of the ITU's operations
> and functional responsibilities, and suggest that there is a need for clarification in a few areas.  You are undoubtedly describing part of the activities of the ITU, but for those who are not fully informed of its core mission and responsibilities, it may not be actually factually helpful since it omits so much in your undoubtedly very well intentioned effort to be brief.
>
> I suggest, for instance: the use of the word "no cost" in regard to services available...
>
> First, for the record, AT&T is a sector member of the ITU, and greatly values its role in telephony and related convergence issues and areas. I've said this publicly many times, and do want it clear that we are strong supporters of the role of the ITU in its areas of core competency. However, we are also involved in other organizations mentioned in your email, and I suggest that it is possible that some may misunderstand some of the comments you made.
>
> First, you seem to be saying that there is "no charge" for some of the services of the ITU :-) This could imply "free".  I think you mean that the particular service is subsidized by member fees and that there is not a specific charge for it. BUT, your comment could imply that the service is "free" and indeed that the workshops are "free".  Your careful use of the words "no charge" are factual. All services of the ITU, like services of any organization, are paid for by someone.

  Thank you Marilyn for this comprehensive clarification of Richards remarks
regarding the difference between "Free" and "Not cost".  I reading this
portion of your spin, I could not help but to a degree find them
humorous in the extreme.  >:)

>
>
> It's important to be clear.  All who read your response should understand that "no charge" does not mean "free" but that the core budget of the ITU bears the subsidy.  And that of course, with the financial status of the ITU and indeed all organizations and even corporations these days, changes may occur in the ability to provide such subsidies.  Some may not be familiar with the ITU's financing, nor its reliance on unit contributions by countries, and sector member fees, etc. Nor, perhaps fully informed of the rather substantial budget shortfall faced by the ITU, as described at the ITU Plenipot '02.  The Council of ITU is charged with addressing this substantial -- as I recall, somewhere around $23m sf -- budget shortfall and determining how to address this.  The financial stability of the ITU was a significant focus of the ITU Plenipot '02, as all know who kept up to date by reading the excellent announcements by the ITU staff on the ITU site which described the work of the!
>  Plenipot '02.
>
> Secondly, while you are describing some of the ways in which the ITU interacts with interested parties, via workshops, forums, etc., you made no mention of the way that voting takes place in the governing bodies of the ITU. The description below didn't include a factual portrayal of how decisions are actually taken in the policy bodies and treaty conferences by the member states of the ITU, where, of course, only member nations vote and where the sector members or observers have no to extremely limited presence or voice.

  Thank you again for this wonderful clarification here as well Merilyn.  Indeed
the controvolted structure of the ITU is such that individual stakeholders or
almost any type, much like the BC, are unable or blocked from active
participation, especially in decision making within the ITU.  This of course
closely mimics the now supposedly "Reformed" ICANN.  However as
you should recall such ICANN Reform which was voted upon by
the than DNSO GA members was to replace ICANN all together,
as part of that Resolution.  Of course this did not happen in Stuart
Lynn's "Vision" of a reform.  Hence as in the last ICANN Meeting
most that attended know full well no reform has actually taken
place.

> And, again, at Plenipot '02 significant discussion did take place by member nations regarding whether there should be any change in the ability of sector members to participate more directly.
>
> Perhaps it is more helpful to be clear that your response below seems to focus primarily if not solely on the workshops
> and forums which the ITU hosts, and does such a good job of providing in a variety of areas related to telephony and
> convergence, and international standards in those areas.  Again, as you state, the costs for sponsoring these are borne by the ITU core budget [supported by unit fees to member nations and sector member fees], and  no registration fees for attendance are charged.

  Oh this is yet another nicely worded piece of spin here as well Marilyn.  But
of course I suspect  you know that.  >;)  Indeed no registration fees are charged,
yet the funding comes from "Special Interests" of the ITU.  How quaint...
And of course very convenient in that other interested parties are not
able or priced out of such meaningful participation.  Yet they are often
saddled with the results, none the less.  Is this a Free Market based
approach.  I think not.

>
>
> Folks on this list have a wide range of familiarity with the ITU, and its core purposes.  You and I have discussed this many times, and you and I are in agreement that the concerned parties related to the coordination of the technical aspects of the global Internet do not work at the ITU on these issues. There are many reasons for that, of course.
>
> And, of course, there are working relationships between some of the groups where this work is underway and various entities of the ITU, where there may be convergence issues or the need for coordination.

  Here is the key and the future key of the Internet stakeholders impact coming
from the ITU and it's various "Entities"...  And of course again most of the
small business interests, or individual interests are underrepresented in those
same ITU "Entities" a la ICANN and the various "Constituencies" now that
the DNSO is non-official and no atlarge is in extant.

>
>
> Of important acknowledgement, with the support of the GAC, and the wide set of global private sector parties, many do work at ICANN.  I think it very important to note to all that the ITU is a member of the GAC at ICANN and has a significant influence and voice in the role of governments and itself through that participation.

  Another good clarification point here as well Marilyn!  Well done!  Except that
the ITU as a member of the GAC, seems to hold a "Special Interest" seat
in the GAC where other organizations cannot do so.  Why is that?  Well,
it is that way because the contrived and unbalanced special interests
desire it to be so.  As such, many stakeholders are further disenfranchised
and yet will be or may be dramatically effected.

>
>
> Perhaps it is useful to note for the GA list that the GNSO council in fact recently voted strong support for a resolution, which restated the Council's support for the role of governments, and multi-lateral inter-governmental organizations, such as the ITU, WIPO, and others, to work effectively and supportively of ICANN via the GAC. This resolution was forwarded by Council to the ITU workshop just held as a contribution and is available both on the GNSO council site, and on the ITU's site as a workshop contribution. As a member of Council, I was pleased to support that resolution and its contributing to the Workshop.

  Yes and such a resolution still did not have the vote or even the opportunity of
individual stakeholders to vote upon it's enactment.  Yet another example
of the flaunting of the MoU and White paper.  Of course the passage of
this resolution on the GA was met with much discussion, debate and
nearly unanimous revulsion.

>
>
> However, Richard, I do wish to call your attention to a concern I have with your email below. You rely on telephony examples in how you explain the role of the ITU via telephony and related convenience examples. This is quite appropriate, because the ITU is and has been such a significant contributor in the international standards areas of telephony and in working to bring teledensity to developing economies, through the important work of the D sector.  And, of course, the important work of the R Sector is well known and well respected, as is the T Sector's role in international telecommunications standards. However, you seem to imply [perhaps I misunderstand] that this extrapolates to the Internet.
>
> I am not sure that your efforts to extrapolate from telephony into the Internet are quite a "fit". I know that it is often done for expediency sake particularly by those more comfortable with the telephony world or even as a means to try to bridge the two worlds.  I fear that relying on explaining the Internet from a telephony perspective does in fact a disservice to not only users, but policy makers.

  Users Marilyn, are the policy makers.  I recognize fully that you are
strongly and inaccurately against that, but it is none the less true.
And again an example of a skewed and destructive view.

> All of us should strive for new and better analogies, while respecting the concerns and experiences of others. And since I trust that you truly want to be helpful in "decoding" some of these issues, I suggest that this is a mutual challenge, and that we should all strive for better analogies, rather than relying on extrapolations from telephony.
>
> A better approach for all would be to continue to talk about the Internet technical coordination, where the private sector has been the lead, not governments, and not governmental entities.

  Let us not forget that it was government funding that started and for many
years supported internet development activities.  Let us all also not forget
that Stuart Lynn has ask for additional government funding for some
aspects of the internet as well..

> And, to start from and continue from that perspective, and to discuss the important, even critically important, supportive role of governments and intergovernmental organizations in advisory and supportive activities.

  Governments, especially the USG play a Leading role, and should continue
to do so to a limited degree in the continuing development of all types of
electronic communication, including of course the Telephony and the
Internet industries in partnership with the private and the public
sector.

>
>
> I continue to hope that the ITU will participate in a supportive manner in support of ICANN, through the
> GAC. Certainly the resolution passed by GNSO Council and forwarded to the just past ITU Workshop endorsed strong
> support for that participation by the ITU in the GAC, and in support of ICANN. Accordingly, I trust that you will attend the ICANN meeting at Rio and look forward to seeing you there.
>
> Finally, I offer one point, which others more expert than I must validate. My understanding is that at the IETF, that one participates as an individual, and that in fact, all documents are publicly available.

  Not true Marilyn.  Some documents are now and have been recently
not available.  Of course I am surprised that you would make such a
statement as you have been a participant on the DNSO GA list
and have seen the removal of many IETF documents/informational,
and otherwise RFC's...

> Of course, at the ITU, there are both public documents, and then, there are the documents which are available under subscription as a member. And, of course, during the course of treaty conferences, many documents are not available at all until they are finalized.... One simply shouldn't confuse the ITU, a treaty organization, with the responsibilities of such an organization and the realities of its treaty responsibilities, with any other kind of organization. Probably in your interest of being brief and concise in your communication below, some of that wasn't clear. But I trust  that it was an effort by you to support the ITU's work at the GAC in support of ICANN.

  I, along with our growing membership, trust that the ITU will remain independent
in as much as it is now at least, and work in conjunction with any and all
internet organizations involved in Internet and other communications development
activities equally and not become a "Creature" or any, including ICANN.

>
>
> Best regards,
>
> Marilyn Cade
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: richard.hill@itu.int [mailto:richard.hill@itu.int]
> Sent: Friday, March 07, 2003 3:55 AM
> To: marc@fuchsia.bijt.net
> Cc: ga@dnso.org
> Subject: RE: The telephone network and the internet (RE: [ga] ALAC
> comments on proposed Bylaws modifications)
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Marc Schneiders [mailto:marc@fuchsia.bijt.net]
> > Sent: Thursday, 06 March 2003 19:44
> > To: richard.hill@itu.int
> > Cc: ga@dnso.org
> > Subject: The telephone network and the internet (RE: [ga]
> > ALAC comments
> > on proposed Bylaws modifications)
> >
> >
> > On Wed, 5 Mar 2003, at 09:46 [=GMT+0100], richard.hill@itu.int wrote:
> >
> >>The above
> > brought up one question to which I have no answer. How would
> > the ITU be
> > able to deal with a network that is designed in a totally
> > different way
> > than the one it already knows so well for a hundred (?)
> > years, vid. the
> > telephone?
>
> Actually today's telephone network is switched by computers, using protocols
> (SS7) developed within ITU that have absolutely no relation to the
> mechanical switching that was used 100 years ago, so the today's telephone
> networks, and the issues that ITU handles, are quite different from those of
> 100 years ago.
>
> ITU as an institution deals with issues in much the same was as IETF, or
> ISO, or IEEE, or any other standards-making body.  It organizes forums for
> discussion, in which experts meet to exchange views and to agree on
> solutions.  The agreed solutions are published.  The forums can be
> face-to-face meetings, electronic meetings, e-mail discussion lists, etc.
>
> So the way that ITU would deal with any issues that its members would like
> it to deal with is to invite members to express their views, and then
> facilitate the formation of a consensus for how to proceed.
>
> The issues that are being discussed in ITU today obviously are very
> different from those that were being discussed 10 years ago, and even more
> different from those that were discussed 100 years ago.
>
> >
> > The variety of devices and the relative dumbness of the network they
> > connect to are two sides of the one coin we call the internet. Is an
> > organization like the ITU suitable to take over (some of)
> > ICANN's roles,
> > since it has such a venerable tradition in coordinating a
> > very different
> > sort of network, where the intelligence is in the network and
> > not in the
> > machines, and open standards are _less_ important, or cannot
> > be allowed
> > even for they will ruin the network?
>
> As I've stated elsewhere, in my opinion discussions are only productive when
> they involve  all concerned parties, and people with expertise in the
> subject matter.  I would hope that any discussions in ITU would meet those
> criteria.  In some cases, that would imply greater participation in ITU by
> people who currently don't participate that much.
>
> In my opinion, if you get the concerned parties and the experts together,
> you can find solutions.
>
> >
> > I would hope that if ICANN is ever replaced, completely or in
> > part, that
> > it will be by a better organization. In my view that means _less_
> > regulation, a more open DNS. (Minimal requierements for new
> > TLDs, and only
> > of a technical nature. No business plans and 13 appendices.)
> > Would this be
> > possible 'under' the ITU?
>
> ITU only does what its members ask it to do.  The ITU staff (such as me)
> don't write any Recommendations.  We just facilitate the process.  The
> Recommendations are written by our membership, mostly by people from
> industry (Sector Members).
>
> If you will allow an analogy to telephony, no telephone operator sends its
> business plans to ITU and we have no mandate to look at how they operate.
> National regulators may have such mandates, that depends on national laws.
>
> ITU does not have contracts with telephone operators (except of course for
> the contracts we need to get telephone service for our premises).  What ITU
> does (for example, my administration of the telephone country codes) is
> specified in detail in a Recommendation (E.164.1 for the telephone codes).
> I follow the instructions in the Recommendation.  That service is provided
> at no cost.
>
> ITU-T Recommendations are of two types.  Most are technical standards, such
> as modems, xDSL, X.509 (used in PKI), etc.
>
> Some tell the ITU staff (like me) what they are supposed to do to support
> global interoperability.  Those services are provided free of charge.  No
> contracts are required between the ITU and the users of the services.
>
> Most people don't know about it, but there are actually non-national
> telephone country codes.  These are assigned (by me, in accordance with
> Recommendation E.164.1), on the basis of what I would call minimal technical
> requirements.  No business plans are required for an assignment.
>
> Best,
> Richard
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Regards,
--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 129k members/stakeholders strong!)
================================================================
CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng. SR. Eng. Network data security
Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
E-Mail jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com
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