WSIS Performance Measures: Understanding Impacts on the Internet

[Note:  This item comes from friend Seth Johnson.  DLH]

WSIS Performance Measures: Understanding Impacts on the Internet
By Seth Johnson
Mar 25 2014
<http://internetdistinction.com/wsisimpacts/2014/03/25/wsis-measures-understanding-impacts-on-the-internet/>

Introduction
Definitions/Usage of Terms
The ITU’s WSIS Indicators
Broad Usage of the Term Internet
Internet Associated with Vertically Integrated Telecommunications Contexts
Conformance, Interoperability, Broadband and the Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement
Introducing De-convergence
Convergence in the WSIS Project
Implications
Internet Governance and “Internet Universality”
The FCC’s “IP Transition”
Recommendations/Conclusions

Introduction

In the first week of December the World Telecommunications Indicators Symposium (WTIS) met in Mexico City and endorsed the latest set of revisions to the indicators by which the ITU will measure the progress of the WSIS project. The Experts Group on Telecommunications Indicators (EGTI) met just prior to the WTIS to prepare inputs based on their discussions in the preceding months.

The indicators adopted at these meetings show how the WSIS project as a whole will have critical effects on key characteristics of the Internet. They fail to distinguish the Internet from other types of IP-based networks, or to distinguish the open Internet from specialized services. They are also based on a set of definitions for the telecommunications sector that does not clearly provide for legal traditions such as common carrier that assure competitive access by autonomous Internet providers to physical layer infrastructure.

The following presents the usage of the term Internet in the ITU’s measures and offers comments placing the analysis in the broader context, then offers a set of recommendations. The broader context includes factors such as the WTO’s Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement, proposals for study questions on broadband and conformance and interoperability testing being pursued for the WTDC, and the notion of convergence that underlies the WSIS project. It also includes various proceedings presently underway, including the “IP Transition” at the FCC in the United States, discussions in different fora on the nature and scope of enhanced cooperation in the WSIS project and on the role of governments in a number of Internet-related public policy areas, as well as on international Internet governance in general, the WSIS+10 review of status, the development of the ITU’s Strategic Plan for the next 4-year cycle, and ITU-D’s processes for promoting ICT development and investment in infrastructure as framed by WTDC-related ITU resolutions.

[snip]