ITU Head Seeks Input on Potential New International Rules
ITU Secretary General Hamadoun Toure underlined the role of private sector contributions to the review of the International Telecommunication Regulations, at a preparatory meeting for the World Conference on International Telecom (WCIT) in Geneva. A new edition of the ITRs that date from negotiations of the World Administrative Telegraph and Telephone Conference in Melbourne in 1988 await approval by ITU member countries in Dubai in December. The ITRs establish general principles and provisions governing international telecom services.
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Toure expects input on the ITR review from private companies, he said. “I have explained to them, if you do not take part someone will take decisions on your behalf.” Toure said some people believe of the ITR review that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But international telecom is “not a straight line business, we have to fine tune it,” he said.
There have been some concerns and critical comments recently about a bigger role of the U.N. organization in Internet politics aired recently, for example by FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell. “Is Internet Governance an issue? No!” Toure adamantly said Wednesday. Internet governance issues will be discussed a year later, at the World Telecom Policy Forum (WTPF) in 2013.
While WTPF is a discussion forum, the WCIT negotiates a treaty with binding effects on the member countries. Concerns about the WCIT have resulted from proposals of several member countries. One major thread of proposals promotes additional rules for peering, billing and cost models or quality of service levels of data and voice traffic. Another is potential ITR agreements on cybersecurity, from anti-spam measures to measures against the misuse of numbering and origin identification in the networks.
The U.S. delegation argued vigorously against a Chinese proposal to include cybersecurity in the new ITR. “Information services certainly should not become part of the ITR,” the U.S. delegate said. Despite assurances by the Chinese delegation that China wanted to include only “network security and not information security,” the U.S. delegate said “any type of cybersecurity should not become included, as the ITRs was about telecommunication services.” In the association of European regulators (CEPT), European countries are considering some high-level principles for example on spam might be appropriate, but the U.S. delegate warned: “We fear any advances in the ITRs could be outdated pretty quickly.”
The option to stay much more up to date with the ITR is something that is pursued by proposals to make at least some ITU-T recommendations references in the ITR mandatory. The ITU-T recommendations -- documents emanating from ITU study groups -- are standards co-produced by the ITU sector members and governments, and their adoption is voluntary. To make the standards mandatory would be “legislating through the back door,” said U.K. delegate Nigel Hickson. “It does not make sense at all to say to all study groups that in the future any recommendation would be a regulation.”