Every time an Internet user watches Gangnam Style on YouTube, packets of digital data course through the global telecommunications system, converging on an iPhone, tablet or laptop.
Having missed out on most of the lucrative revenue that the explosion of digital content has generated for Internet companies, telecommunications providers in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere now want to charge them for carrying this traffic.
No way, the content providers say.
This commercial and ideological clash is set for a showdown next week, when representatives of more than 190 governments, along with telecommunications companies and Internet groups, gather in Dubai for a once-in-a-generation meeting.
The ostensible purpose of the World Conference on International Telecommunications is to update a global treaty on technical standards needed to, say, connect a telephone call from Tokyo to Timbuktu. The previous conference took place in 1988, when the Internet was in its infancy and telecommunications remained a highly regulated, mostly analog business.
Critics of the International Telecommunication Union, the UN agency that is organizing the meeting, see a darker agenda. The blogosphere has been raging over supposed plans led by Russia to snatch away control of the Internet and hand it to the UN agency.
That seems unlikely. Any such move would require an international consensus and opposition is widespread. Terry Kramer, the US’ ambassador to the conference, has vowed to veto any change in how the Internet is overseen.
Union secretary-general Hamadoun Toure of the telecommunications, has repeatedly said that it has no desire to take over the Internet or to stifle its growth. On the contrary, one of the main objectives of the conference is to spread Internet access to more of the 4.5 billion people around the world who still do not use it, he said.
However, groups as diverse as Google, the Internet Society, the International Trade Union Confederation and Greenpeace warn that the discussions could set a bad precedent, encouraging governments to step up censorship or take other actions that would threaten the integrity of the Internet.
“This is a very important moment in the history of the Internet, because this conference may introduce practices that are inimical to its continued growth and openness,” said Vinton Cerf, vice president and chief Internet evangelist at Google, during a conference call.
Google set up a Web site last week titled “Take Action,” encouraging visitors to sign a petition for a “free and open Internet.”
The campaign is modeled on the successful drive last winter to defeat legislative proposals to crack down on Internet piracy in the US.
Analysts say the outcry over censorship and Internet governance is a red herring — the real business of the conference is business.
“The far bigger issue — largely obscured by this discussion — are proposals that are more likely to succeed that envision changing the way we pay for Internet services,” Michael Geist, an Internet law professor at the University of Ottawa, said by e-mail.
In one submission to the conference, the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association, a lobbying group based in Brussels that represents companies like France Telecom, Deutsche Telekom and Telecom Italia, proposed that network operators be permitted to assess charges for content providers like Internet video companies that use a lot of bandwidth.
CHARGE THEM
Analysts say the proposal is an acknowledgment by telecommunications companies that they cannot compete in the provision of digital content.
“The telecoms realize that they have lost the battle,” independent telecommunications analyst Paul Budde said in Australia. “They are saying: ‘We can’t beat the Googles and the Facebooks, so let’s try to charge them.’”
The European lobbying group says that without the new fees, there will be no money to invest in the network upgrades needed to deal with a surge in traffic. Regulators have required European telecommunications operators to open their networks to rivals, and the market for broadband is fiercely competitive, with rock-bottom prices.
In the US, by contrast, most telecommunications companies have been permitted to maintain local monopolies — or duopolies, with cable companies — in broadband, keeping prices higher. And US regulators have ordered broadband providers to give equal priority to all Internet traffic. Such “network neutrality” is incompatible with charging content providers for carriage.
Analysts say this may explain why US telecommunications companies have not joined the European call for a new business model.
People who have been briefed on the conference submissions say that not a single European government delegation has endorsed the telecommunications operators’ proposal and the European Parliament has passed a resolution denouncing it. Only governments, not private groups or companies, can put items on the meeting agenda.
Elsewhere, the idea may have wider support. While many documents prepared for the conference remain secret, several people who have seen submissions say there is broad support for Internet connection fees in French-speaking Africa and among Arab nations — countries in which many telecommunications companies are still owned or heavily regulated by governments.
Without taking sides on these proposals, Toure said during a speech in June that he thought it was “fully appropriate” to discuss the cost of building and improving broadband networks.
“Some have said that there is a need to address the current disconnect between sources of revenue and sources of costs, and to decide upon the most appropriate way to do so,” he said.
However, Cerf said that charging content providers for carriage was inconsistent with Toure’s stated goal of expanding access to the Internet.
“It would have a very significant impact on pricing on the Internet — very harmful in my opinion — especially for startups in developing countries,” Cerf said.
RUSSIAN PROPOSAL
Much of the attention before the 12-day conference has focused on a proposal from Russia that would effectively remove control of the Internet’s infrastructure from a collection of decentralized and apolitical organizations, mostly based in the US.
“Member states shall have equal rights to manage the Internet, including in regard to the allotment, assignment and reclamation of Internet numbering, naming, addressing and identification resources,” Russia proposed.
Those functions are performed by the Internet Corp for Assigned Names and Numbers, a private organization with an international board that operates under contract with the US government.
Russia also proposed that “member states shall have the sovereign right to establish and implement public policy, including international policy, on matters of Internet governance, and to regulate the national Internet segment, as well as the activities within their territory of operating agencies providing Internet access or carrying Internet traffic.”
This was widely interpreted as a call to legitimize domestic censorship of the Internet. Yet analysts note that governments inclined to filter the Web, like China and Iran, have not felt the need to wait for US permission to do so.
In any case, Kramer said he would reject the Russian proposals, as well as those from telecommunications companies to charge content providers. Like most UN agencies, the telecommunications union customarily operates by consensus, so there is little chance that any proposal drawing broad opposition could end up in the final document.
Kramer said during an interview that he was nevertheless concerned that if the proposals for fees gained traction at the high-profile international conference, they could resurface elsewhere, or individual governments could try to impose such fees unilaterally.
“Models that try to force payment terms between nations and telecoms operators run a huge risk of cutting off traffic,” he said. “Liberalized markets are the only way to expand the success of the Internet.”
Saudi Arabian largesse is flooding Egypt’s cultural scene, but the reception is mixed. Some welcome new “cooperation” between two regional powerhouses, while others fear a hostile takeover by Riyadh. In Cairo, historically the cultural capital of the Arab world, Egyptian Minister of Culture Nevine al-Kilany recently hosted Saudi Arabian General Entertainment Authority chairman Turki al-Sheikh. The deep-pocketed al-Sheikh has emerged as a Medici-like patron for Egypt’s cultural elite, courted by Cairo’s top talent to produce a slew of forthcoming films. A new three-way agreement between al-Sheikh, Kilany and United Media Services — a multi-media conglomerate linked to state intelligence that owns much of
The US and other countries should take concrete steps to confront the threats from Beijing to avoid war, US Representative Mario Diaz-Balart said in an interview with Voice of America on March 13. The US should use “every diplomatic economic tool at our disposal to treat China as what it is... to avoid war,” Diaz-Balart said. Giving an example of what the US could do, he said that it has to be more aggressive in its military sales to Taiwan. Actions by cross-party US lawmakers in the past few years such as meeting with Taiwanese officials in Washington and Taipei, and
The Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan has no official diplomatic allies in the EU. With the exception of the Vatican, it has no official allies in Europe at all. This does not prevent the ROC — Taiwan — from having close relations with EU member states and other European countries. The exact nature of the relationship does bear revisiting, if only to clarify what is a very complicated and sensitive idea, the details of which leave considerable room for misunderstanding, misrepresentation and disagreement. Only this week, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) received members of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations
Denmark’s “one China” policy more and more resembles Beijing’s “one China” principle. At least, this is how things appear. In recent interactions with the Danish state, such as applying for residency permits, a Taiwanese’s nationality would be listed as “China.” That designation occurs for a Taiwanese student coming to Denmark or a Danish citizen arriving in Denmark with, for example, their Taiwanese partner. Details of this were published on Sunday in an article in the Danish daily Berlingske written by Alexander Sjoberg and Tobias Reinwald. The pretext for this new practice is that Denmark does not recognize Taiwan as a state under