The World Telecommunication/ICT Policy Forum (WTPF) will be...

The World Telecommunication/ICT Policy Forum (WTPF) will be a “chance to pause, reflect and debate the emerging issues” involving the Internet, ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré said Tuesday during the conference’s opening ceremony in Geneva. Tuesday’s proceedings were dominated by ceremony and discussion of the conference’s governance and structure. Ivo Ivanovski, Macedonia’s minister of information society and administration, is WTPF’s chair; representatives from Costa Rica, Gabon, India, Poland, Russia and Saudi Arabia are vice chairs. Plenary Working Group 1 began presenting the Informal Experts Group’s (IEG) draft opinions on promotion of Internet exchange points as a long-term connectivity solution and fostering broadband connectivity growth, as well as member states’ contributions on those opinions. Debate on those two opinions is set to continue when the conference reconvenes Wednesday morning. Working Group 2, which is handling the IEG’s draft opinions on the adoption and deployment of IPv6, are set to present those opinions Wednesday. Working Group 3, which is handling the IEG’s draft opinions supporting “multistakeholderism” in Internet governance and the Enhanced Cooperation Process, is also set to begin presenting those opinions Wednesday. The New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute endorsed a statement on the “Best Bits” network submitted to the ITU ahead of the conference that urged adoption of the IEG’s opinions and supported instituting “inclusive and transparent ITU processes and uphold[ing] and protect[ing] the public interest and fundamental human rights.” Thirty-two groups in the U.S. and elsewhere have endorsed the statement, which Best Bits originally submitted prior to the controversial World Conference on International Telecommunications (http://bit.ly/196issz). While the tone of WTPF shows the ITU has “taken some positive steps to open up these important discussions, the ITU must create legitimate mechanisms for open and participatory policymaking with all stakeholders,” said Benjamin Lennett, OTI’s policy director (http://bit.ly/13Zw5cy).