[ncdnhc-discuss] ICANN Reform: Role of ITU

[Milton Mueller]

Although I am not all that favorable to some of the
ideas being floated about moving things to the ITU, as
someone with a lot of knowledge of the telephone industry
and its history I want to agree with Mr. Hill on this:

>>> "Hill, Richard" <richard.hill at itu.int> 05/01/02 08:44AM >>>
> whatever ITU may have done 15 years ago was, I think, a reflection 
> of government policies at the time...

....which policies have mostly changed.

The ITU is dominated by the telecom firms and govt telecom
ministries. The idea that telecom firms want to or could squash the 
Internet the way that they tried to do in the 1980s or early 90s, 
when it was new, should not be a serious part of this debate. 

What makes it even
less relevant as an argument is that today the Internet
industry is dominated by telecom firms, too. One could also
argue that telcos play a disproportionate role in ICANN
as well. Certainly the DNSO Business constituency is 
basically a few telcos (AT&T, BT, Telstra) in alliance with 
IP interests. 

The relevant issue for us is, which forum and which set of
procedures are the most balanced and which provides the
best forum for advancing the policy objectives we share?