[discuss] Question

Wed Jan 22 21:54:40 UTC 2014

At 20:25 22/01/2014, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
> > how could we really
> > ensure an 'open Internet' by allowing various ISPs to provide
> > services through the same cables? Could cables enabling
> > multiple ISP access be a requirement for 'net neutrality'?
>
>Exactly.

The question is also what you mean by net neutrality.

In addition, in spite of the laudable Jorge trust's, you can NOT even 
trust that the overall architecture and technology will do its best 
to send a data packet from point A to point B. Please read 
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3238 to understand why, which is purely 
architectural. RFC 3914, 4037, 4496 can then be of interest.

All that boils down to your initial question which is "what is the internet".

The internet actually is a bunch of IETF documents. Joe Sims that 
Michel Gauthier quoted is the lawyer who wrote the ICANN by-laws and 
was its initial (well paid lawyer). The real interest of ICANN is 
that Joe Sims contractually transformed technical adhesion to this 
bunch of IETF documents in an a contractual obligation. This created 
the ICANN community. Then ICANN itself, seeing that its own contract 
with the NTIA was not enough, signed a Declaration of Commitment.

Business needs stability. ICANN tries to "sell" its contractual 
stability as a trustable island in an untrusted ocean. This is 
certainly a good idea. The mistake is that ICANN was designed to only 
trust the USG instead of being able to mutually builid an archipelago 
of trust (what the WSIS has called enhanced cooperation).

As a result ICANN wants to lead an MS process rather than participate 
to an enhanced cooperation that MS endeavours could trust. The 
OpenStand and the Montevideo statement could have permitted Sao Paulo 
to consider a multinational enhanced cooperation. It is now clear 
that Sao Paulo is not about stabilizing trust but about extending the 
ICANN reach, and therefore its distrustable instability.

We will certainly wait and see if BRICS/OECD could come up with a 
credible complement. But our hopes have decreased.

Best
jfc 