Ray, re: some pm's and emails I've received on this topic, let me say a few more things about my regard for the ITU's predicament right now.
The ITU's acknowledgement of the forces of change is a veiled manifestation of fear in many ways. Their need to get a handle on the 'net by creating new initiatives can be construed as a friendly, yet nervous, gesture to a new community of industry players who would transcend it in a flash if they could, and who could obviate it within the next several years for the majority of the earth's coverage, if they don't get with it, quickly.
The ITU, like every other brick in yesterday's foundation, is in some ways acknowledging that if they don't join the revolution, they will be left behind or worse, in its wake.
Having said that, I don't dispel the previous needs that they've filled, and the benefits that they've been responsible for over the years in assisting to orchestrate international telecommunications through the latter part of its first hundred years of operation.
But if we've learned only one thing during these past couple of years regarding future prizes for yesterday's merits, it's that they will not be awarded. Those who are irrevocably caught up in yesterday, irrespective of their reasons and justifications, will be doomed to yesterday. Their only hope, assuming that there is a future and unquestionable need for them in the first place, is to redouble their efforts in order to grasp today and envision tomorrow.
In this respect, the ITU's work is going to be extraordinarily difficult, if they can pull it off at all.
My thoughts and suspicions have been suggesting to me for a while, already, that the forces of industry (the very large players who were mentioned in the article who want their products and services spec'ed in) will tacitly act to neutralize many of the Internet's original modi operandi going forward, and help the ITU to more gradually acclimate and assimilate itself into a model of a modified Internet of the future, as we are now already beginning to see in many areas.
Witness the many VoIP/IP Telephony compromises which have already taken place; VPN's which are really private IP backbones (some using ATM or just plain old private lines attached to legacy forms of switches and gateways, to boot); and other examples which abound where the big boys have made some bogus claims under the rubric of IP this and that.
This is not to be judgmental, but simply some observations of a networkologist, who has had significant experiences in international telecommunications, of the changes that are now taking place.
It could be argued that only through the use of new superstar industry players will the ITU and many of the world's regulatory agencies survive, as well as the larger vendors themselves who want to see their goods and services used.
This may be the only way for them to both "catch up" and survive in the new world. They will need a loud say in how it is molded. Right now the ITU seems to be losing its voice, though. And so, they must bring on some stronger voices who would (and often have) say (said) just about anything plausible to have their names in the press associated with initiatives that foster progress in international telecommunications. And so it goes.
FACt |
