Internet DRAFT - draft-rutkowski-itr-accession-harmful
draft-rutkowski-itr-accession-harmful
General Area A. M. Rutkowski
Internet-Draft Netmagic Associates LLC
Intended status: Informational
Expires: January 14, 2014 July 14, 2013
Accession to the ITRs Considered Harmful
draft-rutkowski-itr-accession-harmful-00.txt
Abstract
One of the treaties maintained by the International Telecommunication
Union is the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs), whose
purpose historically has been to create international service
uniformity and a global monopoly cartel for provisioning legacy
international telecommunication services. Nations such as the U.S.
and Canada have typically neither signed them nor accepted their
provisions. The 1988 version of the ITRs was similar in purpose and
effect, but failed in its objectives because the mandated OSI
services and ITU-T standards were unsuccessful in the marketplace. In
addition, most of the world's Nation-States moved away from monopoly
government-run telecom provisioning to competitive market models.
This also resulted in a substantial decline of the ITU itself as an
intergovernmental home for monopoly Nation-State providers.
Given this institutional decline and the vestigial opposition of some
ITU Members to this provisioning paradigm shift, efforts were begun a
decade ago by some ITU participants and officials to imbue the ITU
with a vast expansion of its scope and jurisdiction and impose new
regulatory controls through revisions to the moribund ITRs. Most
progressive national Administrations opposed these efforts. The
conflict played out in Dec 2012 in Dubai at a global treaty conference
known as the WCIT.
Only 89 of the ITU 193 member nations signed the resulting treaty
instrument at Dubai - largely those without significant national
communication infrastructure, or those favoring strong regulatory
regimes for Internet use. The result was an embarrassing
miscalculation for those seeking these changes. It bifurcated the
treaty basis for the ITU. This document analyses the many adverse
effects of the resulting treaty, and identifies problems that may
arise for those states acceding to the treaty. It concludes by noting
how the Internet community, including citizens of non-signatory
countries, benefit from the rejection of this broken treaty
instrument.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. The 2012 ITRs and their far-reaching adverse effects . . . . . 4
3. Specific adverse effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4. Future ITU treaty instrument evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
5. IANA considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
6. Security considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
7. Informative references . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
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1. Introduction
The World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT-12) was
convened in December 2012 as a treaty conference among the ITU Member
Nation-States to revise the International Telecommunication
Regulations (ITRs). The ITRs - which trace their origin to the 1850
Dresden Treaty for the electrical telegraph - have historically
existed to effect a global cartel among ITU's Members by maintaining
provisioning constraints and controls over legacy telecommunication
services that they provided. The U.S., Canada, and other nations that
did not provide public telecommunications through a national
government agency (known as a PTT), typically did not participate in
the conferences or adhere to the treaty provisions.
The most recent version of the ITRs produced in 1988 were an abysmal
failure because of wholesale reservations to the provisions, because
they mandated the use of OSI platforms and ITU-T standards that failed
completely in the marketplace, and the elimination of most national
government telecommunication provisioning monopolies in the 1990s.
The last factor was accompanied by the emergence of pro-competition
treaty regimes such as the World Trade Organization General Agreement
on Trade in Services. The Internet, global mobile infrastructure, and
myriad additional information services rapidly emerged in most nations
as a result - and notwithstanding the potential negative effects of
the 1988 ITRs.
These changes dramatically diminished the relevance of the ITU as an
intergovernmental organization involved in the provisioning of
telecommunication and information services. The ITRs became
effecively a nullity because the mandated standards became unused.
The ITU's activities and participants diminished. Twenty-nine Member
States significantly reduced their financial contributions. Even
their once popular and profitable industry Telecom trade shows became
embarrassing financial liabilities.
All of these changes did not set well, however, with those vestigial
Member States that felt threatened by robust service provisioning and
technological revolutions of which they were either not a part or
could not control. Over the past ten years, this hostility to change
brought together a combination of some Nation-States and pandering ITU
officials. They sought to reverse what had occurred in the global
marketplace by morphing the moribund 1988 treaty provisions into what
they hoped would be a new relevancy for the ITU and control over the
Internet and just about everything else in the way of electronic
networks and information systems.
The result was proposals by some nations and the ITU General
Secretariat that used the ITR treaty instrument to vastly expand the
jurisdiction and authority of the ITU. The ultimate vision was to
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include all "ICT" services, as well as all providers and users of
those services. Normative regulatory provisions were then added into
the ITRs with the intent like decades past, to make ITU standards
"preeminent" and effectively mandatory.
Most progressive nations rejected this result. Unlike in decades
past, where only the U.S. and Canada refused to sign and took
reservations, most of the world's networked nations rejected the
contrived treaty result. Only 89 signed the instrument - primarily
from the Middle East and Africa, plus Russia and China. This result
was unprecedented in the history of the ITU, as well as a significant
embarrassment for the ITU officials who are continuing to sell what
they ludicrously assert are "benefits" without treating the
substantial adverse effects of the new instrument.
The ITRs are utterly irrelevant today, and there are no "difficulties"
or downside by not acceding. Indeed, acceding is highly embarrassing
for any nation doing so - saying effectively that they do not
understand how the global marketplace in services operates today.
They also ignore the reality that most major nations have completely
ignored the ITR provisions for decades - with only positive results.
The old 1988 provisions mandated the use of non-IETF, OSI standards
and services. This plainly would not have been good for the Internet
or the global economy!
Few judicious nations would want to accede to the ITRs, and those
which already have will likely treat the action as a superficial
political gesture. In addition to all the other adverse factors, the
ITU today - except in the radio spectrum domain - has been largely
abandoned, and lacks the ability to take on far reaching roles for the
world's ICT networks and services.
2. The 2012 ITRs and their far-reaching adverse effects
The ITR provisions are a construct for a world that existed in 1850
and were incrementally evolved over the decades to apply to a narrow
set of legacy international telecommunication services. On the
positive side, the 1988 evolution allowed for the first time for
alternative uses of international leased lines. However, they also
sought to much more broadly apply the ITU-T OSI standards and declare
them preeminent. It was a fatal mistake, and guaranteed the ITRs
would be irrelevant and ignored.
Where the 2012 revisions went very wrong was the expansion of the
treaty from applying only to "administration or recognized private
operating agency(ies)" to now applying to all "authorized operating
agencies." The old RPOA term was very narrowly constructed and
interpreted to apply only to a handful of legacy telecom carriers.
There are almost no RPOAs today. This definitional devise crossed a
"red line' that was made plain at the outset of the conference, that
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most progressive Nation States were not going to cross. Thus, for
example, the new treaty provisions require that "in implementing the
principles of these Regulations, authorized operating agencies should
comply with, to the greatest extent practicable, the relevant ITU-T
Recommendations."
In the context of the IETF and the Internet, it is inconceivable that
such a constraint would be acceptable. For example, where there is a
conflict between an IETF and an ITU-T standard, nations acceding to
the 2012 ITRs are obliging themselves to ignore the IETF in favor of
the ITU-T and consigning their infrastructure to standards that have
largely been a proven failure over the past three decades. The
adverse effects go far beyond the Internet as even in the world of
mobile communications where the infrastructures and services are built
on 3GPP and GSMA provisions, it is ITU-T standards under the ITRs that
would be preeminent. The result is untenable.
In reality, almost no ICT infrastructure or services make use of ITU-T
standards. The change in the ITRs concerning the broad application of
the obligations is the most far reaching of the multiple highly
adverse effects of the 2012 provisions. This fundamental change goes
clearly far beyond merely "some editorial revisions to bring them up
to date" as ITU officials and staff have suggested.
3. Specific adverse effects
The generic expansion of the ITRs to apply essentially to all service
providers as described above, adversely affects the Internet and other
telecommunication infrastructures by creating significant new
regulatory requirements through ITU-T Recommendations. In addition,
the new clauses added in Dubai, create still further adverse
consequences.
Regarding specific provisions:
* In the Preamble, a far reaching new provision was added that states
"these Regulations recognize the right of access of Member States to
international telecommunication services." The provision was added
in response to efforts by some landlocked nations to require access
to nearby backbone transit facilities. However, in the past few
years, similar ITU provisions have been applied against Internet
based service providers who reject traffic from some nations for
security or legal compliance purposes. Indeed, the new provision
effectively creates a right for a nation to expropriate private
resources where that nation can demand access to anything they deem
to be an "international telecommunication service."
* New language in Article 1 vastly expands the jurisdiction of the ITU
and the ITRs to anyone designated an "authorized operating agency."
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This expansion was one of the principal reasons why so many nations
refused to sign the provisions. In particular, it effectively
places the ITU in technical and operational control of the Internet
by requiring in numerous ITR provisions that ITU-T standards are
"preeminent" and to be followed rather than those of the IETF or
other Internet organizations.
* Other Article 1 sub-clauses repeatedly underscore ITU-T preeminence
by stating "authorized operating agencies should comply with, to the
greatest extent practicable, the relevant ITU-T Recommendations."
Additional sub-clauses "encourage the application of relevant ITU-T
Recommendations by [authorized operating agency] service providers."
* Modified and new provisions in Article 3 require that "Member States
endeavor to ensure that authorized operating agencies to provide a
satisfactory quality of service," and then explicitly state that "a
satisfactory quality of service should be maintained to the greatest
extent practicable, corresponding to the relevant ITU-T
Recommendations." Here again, the ITRs operate to create an ITU-T
preeminence over the IETF and other Internet organizations on
"quality of service." If the 1988 ITRs had prevailed, "broadband
ISDN" would be used today to meet ITU requirements for "quality of
service" rather than IETF standards in a flexible marketplace.
* A matter of some contemporary conflict with the IETF and Internet
organizations over VoIP services arises through three new Article 3
clauses. One requires "that international telecommunication
numbering resources specified in ITU-T Recommendations are used only
by the assignees and only for the purposes for which they were
assigned; and that unassigned resources are not used." A second
requires Member States to institute calling line identification
pursuant to ITU-T Recommendations. A third requires that Member
States become involved in "the implementation of regional
telecommunication traffic exchange points." This provision
potentially adversely affects IETF efforts, for example, related to
STIR (Secure Telephone Identity Revisited).
* Just as the modified provisions in Article 3 provide for ITU-T
preeminence for network infrastructure, similar provisions in
Article 4 require that "authorized operating agencies...
international telecommunication services which should conform, to
the greatest extent practicable, to the relevant ITU-T
Recommendations." The provisions then go further to require Member
States "ensure that authorized operating agencies provide and
maintain, to the greatest extent practicable, a satisfactory quality
of service corresponding to the relevant ITU-T Recommendations."
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4. Future ITU treaty instrument evolution
It is unlikely that the many nations who refused to sign the
International Telecommunication Regulations will accede in the future.
The adverse consequences of accepting and implementing the basic
provisions would be far reaching for nations - who would then be
obliged to maintain loyalty to an "ITU regime" whose standards are
not viable and looks to a global regulatory model for service
provisioning. Such nations consign themselves to a kind of second
class status among networked nations, and the 89 that signed in Dubai
should reject accession.
Already since December 2012, most major networking nations and their
industries have accelerated their flight from the ITU-T - leaving it
largely a shell. There is nothing but "upside" to not signing the
ITRs - as was amply demonstrated in the years following 1988 when
increasing numbers of nations collectively ignored the provisions.
What the Dubai WCIT made plain was a long-term evolution where "old
school" government officials in some nations failed to realize that
an intergovernmental treaty organization that functions as a United
Nations Specialized Agency, has a very limited value proposition today
in a world of the Internet and mobile telecommunications. Indeed,
such an organization is in large measure detrimental to the interests
and citizens of all nations. The last thing that should occur is to
expand the ITU's reach to include and regulate under a common ITR
regime, all Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and
their providers as articulated in the ITR provisions and accompanying
Resolutions.
These fundamental bifurcations represented in development of the ITRs
in 2012 in Dubai could spill over into the ITU Plenipotentiary
Conference in late 2014. If the same nations who pushed for ITR
changes to broaden the ITU's jurisdiction and role attempt to do so in
the ITU Constitution as well, a similar scenario is likely to unfold
where large numbers of ITU Member States will refuse to sign the
treaty containing its Constitution. The trend to flee the ITU will be
even further exacerbated. It is possible that an independent ITU
Radiocommunication treaty organization could emerge - as existed prior
to the ITU amalgamation that occurred in 1934.
5. IANA considerations
None.
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6. Security considerations
The requirement that nations acceding to the 2012 ITRs follow ITU
treaty provisions, including an obligation to "comply with, to the
greatest extent practicable, the relevant ITU-T Recommendations" for
Internet networks and services, is a major security vulnerability.
7. Informative references
[never-say-die] Telecomtv, Never say die: the ITU goes door-
stepping for signatures,
http://www.telecomtv.com/comspace_newsDetail.aspx?
n=50069&id=e9381817-0593-417a-8639-c4c53e2a2a10
[staff-gone-wild] CircleID, ITU Staff Gone Wild, 13 Mar 2013,
http://browse.feedreader.com/c/CircleID/351187458
[itu-meltdown] CircleID, The Continuing ITU Meltdown, 10 Feb
2013,
http://www.circleid.com/posts/20130210_the_continu
ing_itu_meltdown/
[after-dubai CircleID, After Saying No in Dubai: What Next, 19
Dec 2012,
http://www.circleid.com/posts/20121219_after_sayin
g_no_in_dubai_what_next/
[itu-failed] c/net, ITU 'failed,' says former policy chief, 12
Dec 2012, http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_357558819-
93/exclusive-itu-failed-says-formerpolicy-
chief/
[does-it-matter] CircleID, The Dubai Debacle: Does It Matter?, 4
Dec 2012,
http://www.circleid.com/posts/20121204_the_dubai_d
ebacle_does_it_matter/
[itu-gone-wild] Enterprise Tech Central, ITU Gone Wild, 26 Nov
2012, http://blog.itcentralstation.com/itu-gonewild-
or-why-free-speech-on-the-internet-is-atrisk/
[only-winning-game] CircleID, The Only Winning Game at the WCIT, 15
Nov 2012
http://www.circleid.com/posts/20121115_the_only_wi
nning_game_at_the_wcit/
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[just-say-no] Computerworld, WCIT-12: Just say no, 14 Sep 2012,
http://blogs.computerworld.com/it
industry/20993/wcit-12-just-say-no
[privatizing-itu-t] Circle ID, Privatizing the ITU-T: Back to the
Future, 16 Aug 2012,
http://www.circleid.com/posts/20120816_privatizing
_the_itu_t_back_to_the_future/
[extreme-agendas] Wordpress, Extreme agendas in the ITU, 29 June
2012,
http://inetaria.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/ituextreme-
agendas-v1-2-1.pdf
Author's Address
A. M. Rutkowski
Netmagic Associates LLC
Ashburn VA, USA
Phone:
Fax:
Email: trutkowski@netmagic.com
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