The ISP Column An occasional column on things Internet
Public Policy Questions for Internet Governance
Geoff Huston
There is little doubt that the Internet has formed part of the impetus
for a revolutionary change in the nature of the global communications
industry. "Revolutionary" in the sense that the past decade has seen
fundamental and highly disruptive changes in the nature of the underlying
technologies used by the industry, changes in the composition, ownership
and role of industry players, changes in the nature of services offered
to the end consumer, changes in the associated financial models used by
the industry, and changes in the regulatory environments in which this
industry operates.
Considering that this industry was, in the latter half of the twentieth
century, one of the largest and most influential industry sectors on a
global basis, these revolutionary changes will doubtless have
consequences that will echo onward for some time yet.
Accordingly, when looking at the particular topic of "Internet
Governance" from a perspective of public policy questions, its not easy
to examine this topic without bringing in some of the broader context of
the communications industry, its history and the expectations as to its
future.
The industry of global communications is not a recent phenomenon. One can
trace it's history back through telephony, the telegraph system and the
postal system. This history extends back many centuries. Up until today,
however, communications services were never offered as a ubiquitous
commodity. The infrastructure, be it undersea cables, geostationary
satellites, extensive copper networks or switching systems was expensive
to construct, offered limited capacity and served only a limited set of
potential consumers of the service. The associated infrastructure
investments were significant both in terms of their monetary value and
the period of the investment. For many years the only players who were
willing to undertake that form of investment was the public sector.
As an example, when the first telegraph systems spanned the world over
130 years ago, to send just 30 words from one part of the globe to the
other side, from Australia to the United Kingdom for example, those 30
words cost three weeks' average wages. One could confidently expect that
at least one-third of those words were irretrievably garbled in the
process. The cable systems were commonly financed by public monies and
commonly operated by public authorities. This position was largely
maintained through much of the history of the deployment of the global
telephone network through the twentieth century.
Today's Global Communications Sector
While communications was an historically expensive service, it's now
become a commodity and the investments and the players are changing as
the industry itself changes into a conventional utility model.
The progressive deregulation of this industry is not an accident. Given
that the price-based barriers to entry for competitive providers are
coming down, and given the increased capability of the technology to
support more complex operating models that are associated with
competitive providers, progressive deregulation of the industry is a
natural step. Now communications is a commodity-based service, largely
fuelled by private sector investment. We are now seeing the traditional
models of defined roles for each player, be it an international carrier,
a national inter-exchange carrier, a local access provider, becoming
blurred into a mesh of competitive suppliers operating in open
competition.
Replacing a regulated monopoly operator model is now a different dynamic
of competitive suppliers and consumer choice. The moderation of the
market is one related more to the disciplines of competitive supply. More
fundamentally, the nature of the demand and supply models has changed.
The traditional telephony model was one of extensive over-supply, with
artificial constraints applied through monopoly price premiums in order
to ensure the viability of the original infrastructure investment. This
dynamic has changed into a more conventional market-based dynamic
equilibrium, where demand is the predominate factor in determining levels
of supply.
The regulatory role has also changed as a result of these structural
changes within the industry. What we are seeing in today’s industry is
progressive deregulation of this industry as the cost of communications
comes down. The landscape now features many suppliers operating in an
open and competitive market. Some suppliers continue to operate as "full-
service" comprehensive providers, while others concentrate on particular
services and particular market segments. That change in the supplier
model doesn't imply the public sector has taken a step back. The public
sector and the related public service objectives remains part of the
overall structure of the industry. Many countries, if not all, still have
reserve regulatory powers. Markets can be distorted. Markets can fail. In
such cases reserve powers are one way to correct the distortions and
ensure continuity of service.
The role of the public sector is changing to one of the definition of
reserve national regulatory powers to ensure fair open market behaviour
and outcomes consistent with related national objectives.
The residual issue here is that of the international space, and it should
be recognised that associated with this progression of communications
service provision into the private sector with the associated model of
competitive pressure, there are far fewer international regulatory levers
that can be applied to this particular aspect of the industry.
This does not imply that there is no residual role for public sector
regulatory interest other than overseeing the operation of competitive
market in a national context. One of the more significant changes in
recent years in the pattern of communication is the proportionate rise of
international communications, and this has raised a number of public
policy issues. How are such issues to be addressed? How are various,
diverse national interests reconciled into a common framework for global
communications. What are the roles for international agencies? How do
existing inter-governmental treaties impact on this activity? Is there a
role for coordination of national regulatory frameworks at an
international level?
The Big Public Policy Question
The trend towards an industry based on competitive pressures within open
market structures does not imply that the public sector's interests have
disappeared. The public sector interest is constant within an activity of
supply of public communications services. The public sector is always
there at both national and international levels.
Transcending most of the specific policy issues in today’s international
communications sector is a larger question pertaining to the institutions
that populate the public inter-governmental space. Are the institutions
that we currently have in this space the best we can devise? Does their
mission, governance structure, constituency base, charter, activity
protocol, and mandate match the future requirements for coordination of
activity in this sector?
One can take a highly critical look at the ITU-T, one of the central
institutions in the public policy space. At one extreme, critics of the
ITU-T would quite happily characterise this as a moribund, historical and
largely irrelevant organisation in today’s environment. With the advent
of the Internet, with the increasing, and indeed almost dominant, private
sector current activity levels in most markets today, the ITU-T, with its
intergovernmental governance structure, appears to be grappling, some
would add “desperately”, for a future role in this changing space. One
of the more fundamental issues here is that it does not readily reflect
the full diversity of today’s communications sector, where the private
sector appears to be cast in the role of passive observers to a public-
sector lead activity.
But, equally, one can point at ICANN and observe that this institution
also attracts harsh criticism. Critics of ICANN need look no further than
recent decisions concerning the top level domains of “.net” and “.xxx” to
see an institution whose decisions could readily be characterized as
erratic. If one wanted to go a little further, the issues relating to the
deployment of a wildcard entry in .com and the site finder matter do not
portray ICANN as an institution with a clear and accepted mandate, nor do
the longstanding issues with Verisign, and the related US legal actions.
The reasons for those decisions do not appear to be logical or
consistent. “It appears,” say critics, “that ICANN is captured. It's
captured by sector interests. It's even captured by particular national
interests at the expense of everyone else.” So ICANN is not without its
criticism, and, again, this institution does not appear to reflect the
full diversity of sector interests.
One could also look at the Regional Internet Registries in the same
critical manner. What is their role? And how effective are they in
undertaking it? Critics would point out that while the RIRs reflect an
industry-based self-regulatory framework, the question is where is the
public sector within this process? How do the RIRs integrate industry
views, which often are necessarily short-term, with the longer-term view
of resource management? And, if you think that's an abstract question,
maybe you should think again. As we run through the remaining IPv4
address resource, who should get the last /8? How do we balance the
interests of developing economies, who would like to say, "Look, give us
some space to make some investments in IPv4. We don't think we can afford
to do IPv6 yet," against the interests of a large and dynamic industry in
the more developed parts of our world who say, "Give us more addresses,
we need them today." How are we going to balance those conflicting
demands on a dwindling resource? What's the public sector dimension
within this discussion? And are RIR forums appropriate to be able to
discuss that rationally, properly, and achieve outcomes that reflect
reasonable consensus? What is the public sector interest here and how can
this be factored into the overall consideration of this matter?
So I would suggest that, from the global to the regional, institutionally
in this international space we haven't really got it right yet for the
Internet. We still have further to go, as it certainly appears to be the
case that none of our existing institutions accurately reflect the full
spectrum of sector players and their corresponding interests.
So should we consider institutional change in this space? While the WGIG
reports fell short of specific recommendations for institutional reform
and change, maybe change of these institutions is required at this point
in time. Perhaps when we look at these institutions, its reasonable to
conclude that none of them today fully reflect the broad spectrum of
players and interests. All of them appear to be sectorial one way or
another and the intersections across these institutions do not appear to
be working properly.
Within the overall framework of the WSIS program there may be scope to
pose the questions: "How should the global communications industry
charter institutions that accurately reflect the diverse interests of
private and public sector players? How should an institutional framework
reflect the interests of consumers as well as governments, industry,
technology, and broader societal aspirations? How should such
institutions reflect industry involvement and industry investment? What
are our expectations?
But a word of caution is appropriate at this juncture. International
institutions are never effective as leaders. They're not the focal point
of revolutions and they are not revolutionary in nature. International
institutions cannot take positions and remain viable within their
constituencies if they constantly challenge every last constituency
member to think differently, to make different decisions, and to act in a
manner that is contrary to their perceived interests. International
institutions tend to be more like mirrors. They're mirrors of the
players, they're not leaders. And, in being a mirror, they're generally
always after the event. In other words such institutions are effective
when they embrace conventional wisdoms rather than challenge them, when
they follow the event rather than lead the charge, and when they make
decisions that are conservative rather than challenging and provocative.
So, in thinking about WSIS, in thinking about this process, are we asking
for instant answers when they shouldn't happen? Are we asking for radical
change when the best we should expect is a more gradual process of
transition? Are we asking for reform in a leadership role where it is not
going to happen? Such institutions are generally conservative, not
revolutionary. So maybe we should be more patient here, and revise our
expectations down to a more realistic level.
On the Road to Tunis
So there are a few questions that I'd like to pose that perhaps deserve
some consideration while we are on the road to Tunis.
What is the spectrum of expectations related to WSIS?
Some folk would see this as the opportunity to actually get back to an
agenda of addressing the digital divide, of using the communications
industry as a vehicle for structural cross-subsidisation across national
and regional disparities.
Some would see that the expectations around WSIS are of a more defensive
theme: "Please don't do damage to a system that is actually working
phenomenally well. Don't change things. The Internet happened simply
because of this progressive area of deregulation. The private sector has
managed to pull off a revolution in communication. Don't stifle it."
Such expectations seem almost contradictory, but both of those
expectations are on the table as we go to Tunis.
So what's a realistic expectation from an international body that
attempts to create common consensus? What's the lowest common denominator
we can expect? I would offer the personal perspective that many of these
expectations are unrealistically high.
How do we balance national expectations and national agendas that
conflict with others? Because, certainly, if you look at the world, there
are a huge variety of national expectations and they're not all the same.
How will those harmonise? And, equally, we are talking about technology –
no matter how useful it would be when applied selectively, anti-gravity
simply doesn't exist. There are a set of common constraints bounded in
the way technology works. I’d like to quote John Klensin here to
illustrate this: “You can route politics or you can route packets but not
both at the same time.” How do we recognise those common technology
constraints inside forums where the technology viewpoint is simply not
there? Those technology folk aren't at that table.
So what's fairness in balance inside such a diverse environment? How do
you achieve outcomes that we can readily recognise involve compromise?
What precisely are we trying to achieve here? And when we consider
changes to these current structures, current institutions and current
behaviours, what are the risks as well as the opportunities?
I suspect that, when we deal with institutions whose roots go back
centuries, we're asking way too much of ourselves that, in trying to
achieve outcomes that all of us individually, institutionally, and
nationally, can feel comfortable in working in. There are no instant
answers and WSIS is not an end in itself.
There will not be revolutionary answers coming in November of 2005. But
if we meet again in 10 years' time, I suspect that things will have
changed. Because ultimately, institutions survive and thrive in the
international space when they are reflective of the environment. Such
institutions cannot remain historical anachronisms, nor can they only
represent a limited set of sectorial interests as they move forward. They
have to embrace a broad plurality of interests that reflect the world if
they are to survive.
And for the Regional Internet Registries, some time well within the next
10 years, we have to have a rational, reasonable, fair and a balanced
outcome about what we do with the remaining resources available to us in
IPv4. We’ll also have had to put in place policies and processes that
reflect our considerable expectations for IPv6.
This is an edited transcript of a presentation by the author at APNIC 20,
on the topic of Internet Governance.
http://www.apnic.net/meetings/20/programme/igov-discussion.html
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Disclaimer
The views expressed are the authorÕs and not those of APNIC, unless
APNIC is specifically identified as the author of the communication.
APNIC will not be legally responsible in contract, tort or otherwise
for any statement made in this publication.
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About the Author
GEOFF HUSTON B.Sc., M.Sc., has been closely involved with the
development of the Internet for many years, particularly within
Australia, where he was responsible for the initial build of the
Internet within the Australian academic and research sector. He is
author of a number of Internet-related books, and has been active in
the Internet Engineering Task Force for many years.
www.potaroo.net