Operators Want Talks on ITU Treaty Revision to Focus on High Level Principles

BRUSSELS -- Talks on revising the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) should focus on the high-level principles needed to spur investment and boost network capacity to meet demands in the coming decades, executives told a workshop on talks to revise the ITU treaty later this year. Internet governance issues are on the front line, said an executive representing 45 operators in 25 countries.

The last revision of the ITRs, in 1988, was “a success of historic proportions,” said USTelecom President Walter McCormick. “The flexibility they established laid the foundation for the growth and development of the Internet,” he said. “Flexibility” is the “beauty” of the framework agreed to in 1988, McCormick said. “It has accelerated investment and deployment,” McCormick said. Any changes should be considered “with care” and in accordance with governments’ first responsibility, which is “to do no harm,” McCormick said.

Mobile broadband is the priority for the telecom sector that the ITRs needs to account for during the next period, said Jacquelynn Ruff, vice president-international public policy and regulatory affairs at Verizon. The relevant questions are what policies are needed for spurring investment and the conditions for the mobile transformation available globally, Ruff said.

Any regulatory changes should reinforce the multi-stakeholder governance structures that have developed since 1988, Ruff said. Flexible, enduring high level principles are the best way to achieve that, she said. Proposals on Internet charging or traffic routing could undercut overall objectives, Ruff said.

Duplicating the work in the Internet Society or the Internet Engineering Task Force would be a mistake, McCormick said. Any initiative to change the current multi-stakeholder approach runs counter to the recently adopted OECD principles for Internet policy-making, would be difficult to achieve, and may be counter productive, McCormick said.

USTelecom backed an International Chamber of Commerce view that any attempt to include new provisions for the payment of communications charges by services would threaten to increase overall prices, and decrease network deployment and usage, McCormick said.

The Internet is “the communications medium of the 21st Century,” McCormick said. Broadband investment and consumer welfare are best achieved through policies that spur facilities-based competition, and a consumer demand-driven marketplace, he said. The detailed rules for international switched voice communications should be abandoned in favor of a general delegation of arrangements to parties involved, he said.

Revising the ITRs is “an opportunity for change,” said Tom Wilson, chief of the telecom consortium Samena, a group of 45 operators and dozens of members from 25 countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Many meetings with operators, leaders and regulators are coming up, he said. “The ITRs and Internet governance issues” and a content issue are all on the “front line,” he said. China only tentatively engaged in a recent Asia-Pacific regional group meeting, another executive said.

The millions that are not being served today must be addressed, Wilson said. “We have to find a way to make broadband not a privilege but a right,” he said. “We need to make sure the investment can be made,” Wilson said. “There has to be incentive to make that investment,” Wilson said referring to previous speakers who talked about flat revenue and traffic spiking. Samena will publish a position later this month, he said.

Some of the proposals to deal with Internet charging arrangements by bringing them into the old accounting rate regime “legally just don’t make sense,” Ruff said. Other ways are available for addressing developing and emerging economy concerns about returning revenue to the level 20 years ago, she said. New business models and increased competition, not a return to an accounting rate model, should be examined, she said.

The ITRs should stay on high level principles, said Isabelle Mauro, GSMA head of international affairs. Calls for more intervention should be avoided, she said. “Any proposal for very stringent regulatory measures in the ITRs should be really carefully examined,” she said, referring to an impact assessment. They could reduce investment incentives, and adversely affect consumer uptake, she said. Some clarification is needed for double taxation of international telecom traffic, an executive said.

The revised ITRs should focus on general, strategic policy issues to spur international telecom services, and only exceptionally on specific regulatory and technical matters, said Carlos Lopez Blanco, director of international affairs at Telefonica. The ITRs should not address Internet governance, Blanco said.

The mobile industry doesn’t oppose regulatory measures for enshrining high level principles for roaming in the ITRs, Mauro said. General principles only should be used to allow for the variety of local situations, she said. The ITRs aren’t the best place to address roaming, she said. There is no regulatory “silver bullet” at the international level, she said.

Spurring cross-border data flows bringing content and file services could be an area of “positive government involvement,” Ruff said referring to foreign ownership limits or certain other requirements that the ITU could help governments clear away.

Privacy and security are “absolutely essential issues” and are at the center of a political debate in the telecom and information technology sectors, Blanco said. A guarantee for inhomogeneous treatment of privacy and other aspects of security regulation “is essential,” he said.