On Jan 14, 2013, at 7:27 AM, John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> wrote:
There'd have to be some organization to negotiate and oversee international settlements and other, similar, regulations.
Why? The internet has operated just fine without such for quite some time now.
The Internet is held together with spit and duct tape, and sucks for connections that need a stable low-jitter channel, we've all noticed. It has no principle of universal service.
The Internet does what it does surprisingly well, but it's not the same kind of network as the phone system. We all know of the abuses that can come with mandatory interconnection and settlements, but the solution is not to cut off the poor countries.
I have no reason whatsoever to believe that defunding the ITU would cut off the poor countries. Quite the contrary, actually. I believe that the combination of the ITU and the back-pocket distribution of settlement checks has held back the improvement of digital connections to poorer countries. Owen