The VCXC - Voice Communication Exchange Committee - is a Washington, DC based startup nonprofit, modeled on the Advisory Committee on Advanced Television Service.
Open Source Policy Versus the Last Telecom Monopolist by Daniel Berninger
The founding of the Voice Communication Exchange Committee (VCXC) offers a competitive alternative to the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) and the first example of a startup addressing policy questions. The decision to target the FCC reflects the government agency's status as the last monopolist on the telecom landscape and the failure of other means of policy reform. The number of companies regulated and the FCC's funding doubled since the arrival of the public Internet and VoIP in 1995. VCXC leverages the transition to all-IP networks to setup an end game for the telecom regulator as the 100th anniversary of the first government intervention into telecom arrives next year.
The FCC presides over a domestic telecom industry generating almost a trillion in revenue and employing over a million people. The relatively tiny FCC budget of $335 million and staff of 2000 indicates either striking efficiency or a worrisome concentration of power. The reality seems unlikely to be the former as there exists no company among the 6000+ obligated to file the FCC Form 499 or public interest advocate satisfied with the result. This type of performance usually makes a monopolist irresistible for entrepreneurs, but startups do not usually target government agencies. A plan for influencing government usually involves paying a registered lobbyist.
VCXC applies the same means of disrupting the FCC as Linus Torvalds applied in the case of the Microsoft operating system hegemony. Publish the starting point for a competitive alternative and issue an open invitation for incremental contributions. The open source process benefits from the energies of people and organizations seeking relief from an oppressive monopolist. Open source initiatives do not always succeed and may even rarely succeed, but they do tend to advance the cause of meritocracy. The collective impact of the open source movement transformed the software business, and VCXC seeks to test the approach on questions of governance.
The roots of telecom regulation in the US trace to an agreement between AT&T President Theordore Vail and President Woodrow Wilson as outlined in a December 19, 1913 letter from AT&T Vice President Nathan Kingsbury to the Attorney General. The agreement settled an antitrust complaint against AT&T and made America the exception as every other country in the world nationalized telephone networks. The Kingsbury Commitment represents the first example of a theme repeated over and over in the subsequent 100 years - government policy makers recognize the importance of communication as an input to economic and political power and the resulting policy interventions tend to prove counter productive.
The most successful communication policy also represents something of an embarrassment and further illustration of the benefits of non-regulation. The invention of the transistor at AT&T Bell Laboratories in 1947 and the awarding of a Nobel Prize did not prevent the Department of Justice from excluding the AT&T monopoly from pursuing information technology revenue in a 1956 Consent Decree. The FCC maintained a separation between the transistor driven communication and information technology industries through the Computer Inquiries in the 1960's, 70's, 80's and through the Telecom Act of 1996 as well as in rulings such as the Free World Dialup Decision in 2004.
The nascent information technology industry regulators sought to protect from the AT&T in 1956 now enjoys equivalent revenue, profits, and 4x the collective enterprise value of the still heavily regulated telecom industry. There exist no differences between the worlds of information and communication technology sufficient to account for the outcome aside from the relative benefits of regulation and non-regulation. The expansion of information technology includes a wholesale takeover of communication via the Internet and creates a dilemma for the FCC VCXC seeks to exploit. The transition to all-IP networks makes telecom and information technology indistinguishable.
VCXC takes advantage of FCC's failure to admit the limitations of regulation or recognize the obsolescence of distinctions between information and communication technology. As a practical matter, the transition to all-IP networks makes telecom an information technology. VCXC leverages the non-regulated status of information technology and private networks to give member network operators the opportunity to demonstrate the public interest benefits of a private non-regulated communication ecosystem. Communication policy remains as much a question of public interest today as in 1913. VCXC simply seeks to demonstrate non-regulation offers more public interest benefits than regulation.
The backward looking justifications of regulation injure both telecom and information technology companies. Communication and information technologies offer complementary means to the same end - knowledge. The means of making technology distinctions disappears with the transition to all-IP networks. The policy of starving telecom in order to allow information technology to flourish became counterproductive with the arrival of VoIP in 1995. Limitations on telecom companies slow investments in network infrastructure necessary for information sector growth. The information sector no longer prospers at the expense of the telecom sector but in tandem with the telecom sector.
The public interest energies favoring strict regulation of telco's remain undiminished in spite of changing conditions. These forces found a recent expression in blocking the acquisition of T-Mobile USA by AT&T, but bad policy injures the public interest no less than telephone company profits. The exclusive focus of policy on market share competition between telco's ignores the dominant source of information technology sector growth. Intel's investments sustaining Moore's Law predate AMD and owe to the benefits of new compute capacity in expanding addressable market. The same link between expanding networking capacity and addressable market exists in the case of telecom.
The benefits of leaving all-IP telco's beyond the reach of the FCC needs to show up in the communication services offered by member companies. The success or failure of open sourcing policy turns on the public interest benefits of moving communication from a regulated public telephone network to unregulated private networks. Both the FCC and VCXC rely on the rule of law, but VCXC allows companies to opt-in to a policy of their own design. The urgency of competition shaping FCC decisions in recent years applies to the FCC itself. To paraphrase a quote attributed to Margaret Mead, never doubt a startup can change the world. Indeed, it is the only that ever has.
ICT Policy Parity by Daniel Berninger
The assertion of separate policy regimes to information and communication technology (ICT) represents a 20th century public policy success story. The 1956 Consent Decree built a "Berlin Wall" between the two industries by excluding AT&T from pursuing information technology revenue. The FCC Computer Inquiries in the 1960's, 70's, and 80's worked out by trial and error the information versus telecom service dichotomy. The transition to all-IP networks illustrates the success of the policy and makes reunification and ICT policy parity the imperative in the 21st century. The eventual need to end unequal treatment of information and communication technology became obvious as soon as Vocaltec made Internet voice an option in 1995.
The need for ICT policy parity reflects the same "black box" test motivating the original assertion of separate policy regimes. The value proposition of the information black box continues to expand at a rapid pace without regulatory intervention. The transition to all-IP networks puts the same forces to work in the case of the communication black box. The question of finding policy means does not even arise to the extent the policy outcome obtains without intervention. The challenge and controversy in the case of ICT policy parity arises from the need to unwind legacy regulations as the means of regulation tends to take on a life of its own. Preserving the old means nonetheless now threatens the end purpose of communication policy.
Changes in technology do not alter the purposes of public policy, but they do effect the means and the extent of the need for interventions. The nature of Internet protocol separates service (aka application) and networking. This one fact accounts for the differences between the pace of innovation associated with IP and TDM networks. The accumulation of market power by AT&T in the 20th century relied on the integration of service and networking. PSTN voice remained both unimproved and the only communication option aside from writing a letter for the entirety of the 20th century. The arrival of the commercial Internet and VoIP in 1995 as well as the transition to all-IP networks starting in 2005 makes ICT policy distinctions unnecessary and unsustainable.
The founders of America viewed the cause of self-determination a core to their mission. The resulting model of governance asserts rules only to the extent conflicts arise in the unrestricted pursue of self-determination by individuals. In context of ICT, notions of abundance and scarcity drive public policy, because information and communication remain key inputs to economic and social outcomes. Policy makers do not concern themselves with abundance and scarcity of toasters or shampoo. The merits ICT policy parity turns on whether "I" and "C" business models threaten scarcity or promise abundance. Telecom regulation arose to defend the right of self-determination by end users from the rent seeking ambitions of telephone companies.
End user time and attention survive as the only relevant scarcities in all-IP networks. The near zero switching costs between IP enabled services and the ability of end users weigh the value proposition of all communication options against each other creates a communication free-for-all. Substituting one service for another represents the new normal. Email and telephone calls offer entirely different modes of communication, but email substitutes for telephone calls extremely well in many contexts. The all-IP network gives end users the power to ignore historical market distinctions by geography (local, LATA, intrastate, interstate, international), service type (voice, text, video), access mode (copper, coax, fiber, licensed and unlicensed wireless), vertical market (consumer or enterprise), and even notions of real-time or non-real-time.
The disconnect between connectivity and the software innovation driven application layer alters the the risks and rewards of rent seeking enabled by market power at the network layer. End user willingness to pay reflects the value proposition generated by the communication free-for-all. The addressable market of the application layer reflects the price, performance, and capacity of IP connectivity, but connectivity holds no inherent value for end users. This turns communications into a non-zero sum game where rent seeking on the part of network owners shrinks the addressable market along with demand and willingness to pay. A strategy of regular network upgrades creates a virtuous cycle expanding the addressable market, and, by extension, the value of network assets.
The example of regular network upgrades and ever more compelling attached devices in the case of wireless illustrates this virtuous cycle. The all-IP network and steady reductions in the cost of moving bits gives the telecom industry the same growth opportunity as the information processing sector. The ability of over-the-top offers to address several billion end users associated with global IP networks limits the leverage of even the operators of the largest networks. Policy regimes considering only zero sum market share contests miss the type of non-zero sum forces driving Moore's Law and the growth of the information technology sector.
All-IP networks offer 10x operational expense benefits and provide the means to implement new services like HD voice. Absent regulatory distortions, disincentives, and the resulting litigation, the transition to all-IP networks can produce an overhaul of communication networks by 2018. This does not require network operators to give up pursuing scarcity and rent seeking dreams. It means withholding interventions absent evidence of success - increasing price without improving the value proposition. Experiments with discrimination against wireless over-the-top services did not slow the growth of an increasingly compelling list of communication alternatives. Policy makers do not need to defend the communication sector against dumb business models.
The ability of countries to achieve ICT policy parity will determine the communication and economic winners and losers in the 21st century. Policy parity does not necessarily mean wholesale adoption of the information technology like non-regulation. The most prominent proposals under consideration by ITU member countries at WCIT in December favor applying telecom like regulation to the Internet. America can not dictate the outcome at the ITU, but American policy makers can offer a model for implementing ICT policy parity. The forces in play in 2013 are similar to the conditions in 1913 when the Kingsbury Commitment made America the exception as countries nationalized telephone companies.
The impact of IP networks on everyday life increasingly makes interventions more a question of control than communication in many countries. Decisions to nationalize telephone networks in the 20th century and assert national control over IP networks today reflect a recognition of the transformative power of communications. This track record of attempts to control communication looks problematic in two dimensions. Top down controls over communication in North Korea and Cuba survive at an enormous economic cost. This leaves these countries and others with more sophisticated controls like China vulnerable to political instability. The potential of a Moores Law driven communication renaissance exists only in those countries willing to let communication flourish.
The information and communication industries become indistinguishable in the context of cloud computing and all-IP networks. ICT policy parity makes competition a function of customer acquisition, customer retention, and a vigorous pace of innovation. The frictionless nature of global IP networks makes retaining differences between information and communication unnecessary. There exist issues with communication abundance as no technology offers uniformly positive outcomes. The communicating public needs to decide whether the resulting interventions represent attempts to reassert government control or facilitate communication. The controversies generated by the questions of governance under consideration by the ITU reflects the fact decisions about ICT policy parity will determine the future of the Internet and drive geopolitics in the 21st century.
The Miracle of the Non-Commons in ICT by Daniel Berninger
Great power imposes great responsibility. Voltaire, 1772
Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Lord Acton, 1887
The incoherence of the "I" and "C" policy environments ICT companies navigate reflects a conflict between the miracle of the non-commons driving information technology and a 1930's view of communication scarcity. Pollution or other costs externalized by corporations generate headlines, but the externalized benefits underlying the growth of the information technology sector persists with little notice. The return on capital necessary to justify Intel's investments sustaining Moore's Law come from the sale of processors to OEM's, but this economic stewardship produces a miracle of the non-commons lifting an entire value chain of companies. Stubborn loyalty to scarcity assumptions undermine an equivalent virtuous cycle in telecom.
The failure to reconcile the theories of information and communication cripples the growth these fully integrated and co-dependent industries. It prevents the formation of a grand info-telecom virtuous cycle with the potential to accelerate the economic contributions of the four trillion dollar ICT industry as well as generate productivity gains lifting the entire $60+ trillion dollar global economy. Progress in communication and information technologies trace to the same inventions of the transistor and computing in the late 1940's. The AT&T Consent Decree separated the sectors shortly thereafter in 1956 by excluding the AT&T monopoly from entering the market for information technologies and pushing the transistor into the public domain.
The reintegration of communication and information technologies in the form of IP networks owes to forces set in motion in 1968. The quadruplet events in the same year - FCC MCI and Caterfone decisions, founding of Intel, and the ARPA IMP contract for the precursor Internet - made the reunion of information and telecom inevitable. The MCI decision led to the AT&T breakup in 1984. Carterfone made device innovation possible. Intel's stewardship of Moore's Law drives infotech industry growth. This miracle of the non-commons continues to move ICT into adjacent markets and create new markets. Cloud computing and IP networks end any hope of preserving policy distinctions between information and communication sectors.
The dysfunctional policy environment owes to an obsolete view of information and communication as the mutually exclusive products of two separate networks. Information and communication sectors rely on the same IP networks and always offered complementary means to the same end - the accumulation of knowledge. Information provides a self-help route to knowledge. Communication refers to the contexts individuals help each other accumulate knowledge via a monologue or dialogue. A student might accumulate knowledge by reading a book as information or attending a lecture where a professor communicates the same information. Humans fully integrate information and communication modes as circumstances demand and any policy distinctions require problematic fictions.
Policy makers face a binary choice - grant telco's the commercial self determination enjoyed by information technology companies or bring information technology into the regulatory regime applied to telecom. A move to all-IP networks starting in 2005 gives telecom companies the same opportunity to pursue economic stewardship as their siblings in information technology. The miracle of the non-commons already exists in the beneficial externalities associated with investments in broadband networks since 1995. The resulting communication free-for-all already obsoletes the assumptions underlying The Communication Act of 1934 and its revisions.
Consider the differences between the telephone company value proposition in 1995 and today. Long distance charges accumulating at the rate of $0.25 per minute in 1995 no longer exist. International calling costs a small fraction what it did in 1995. Always on $50 per month 10Mbs broadband connections replace accessing the Internet with a 28.8Kbs dial-up modem. Telecom offers already reflect the 100 fold per decade improvement associated with the miracle of the non-commons in information technology. Bickering suggests the communicating public, regulators, telco's, and, even, infotech executives remain unaware of the new narrative.
The assertion of separate policy regimes for information technology and telecom becomes severely counterproductive in the context of all-IP networks. Top down regulation of telecom in the US and the rest of the world nonetheless holds on to the presumption of monopoly or zero sum market share competition as the only relevant market dynamics. The arrival of the commercial Internet and IP voice exposed telecom to competition from information technology after 1995. IP infrastructure already dominates core telco networks and will (contingent on regulatory obstacles) displace circuit switching before the end of the decade.
AT&T and Intel end up with exactly the same incentives for investment in network and compute capacity. IP networks do not support the type of scarcity business models associated with the PSTN even accepting capital intensity and right-of-way makes market share competition very difficult to sustain. The capacity of IP networking equipment benefits from the same transistor density improvements driving Moore's Law in computing. The decoupling of transport and application layers in internet protocol allows this capacity to support any and all services. Expanding capacity and by extension the addressable market for the entire ecosystem offers the same miracle of the non-commons in telecom as expanding compute capacity in infotech.
Expanding capacity through an upgrade of networking equipment can follow a three to five year cycle even as the return on outside plant (e.g. fiber, coax, copper, cell towers) remains spread over decades. Investors presently award information technology companies four times the enterprise value to revenue multiple of telecom companies. The necessary conditions exist for this differential to disappear to the extent policy makers allow network operators to embrace the miracle of the non-commons. The scarcity business models triggering a regulatory response no longer serve the best interests of shareholders. The economic stewardship business provides the only sustainable source of growth investors covet.
The upset with telephone companies reflects the nature of communication as key input to social and economic life as well as the belief telephone companies prefer hostages to customers. At this point, the extent of options available to the communicating public turns telco attempts at scarcity into self-injury. Telecom regulation represents a means to an end, not received wisdom chiseled on a stone tablet. The fate of telecom regulations needs to reflect the best outcome for end users otherwise known as the public interest. Regulators need to acknowledge complicity in the causes of the exodus of customers from the PSTN and remove obstacles to creation of all-IP telco's realizing the miracle of the non-commons in telecom.
Framework for a New American Communication Policy by Daniel Berninger
The transition to all-IP networks as infrastructure for communication and information technology (ICT) represents a victory for borderless bottom-up multi-stakeholder governance. A majority of the 160 countries voting on changes to a 1988 ITU treaty at the World Conference of International Telecommunications (WCIT) in December look likely to veto this outcome in favor of border respecting top down government regulation. The controversy arises because the policy regimes associated with the "I" and "C" in ICT remain separate and incompatible nearly two decades after IP voice made a transition to all-IP networks possible.
American policy makers continue to resist calls for imposing telecom regulation on information technology even as Voice over IP erases the basis for distinctions between information and communication technologies presumed in The Communication Act of 1934 and its revisions. China, Russia, Iran and most of the developing world hope the UN telecom agency can help assert new state control over information flows and restore control over communication. A framework for a new American communication policy recognizing a right of self determination in governance of IP networks would end the debate in favor of borderlessness by aligning the world's largest economy with 2 billion users of the Internet. This window of opportunity to prevent a declaration of war closes at WCIT in December.
Associating the principle of self determination with IP networks represents the only means to preserve the benefits of the Internet as a single global digital economy and need not trigger an existential crisis for nations states. America does not need to assert a right to govern Mexico just because American citizens travel to Mexico. Navigation of waterways and oceans as well as the exploration of space already require exceptions to territory as the basis of sovereignty. The exception for IP networks arises from the desire to add communication to territory as a source for the human cohesion necessary for governance. The priority accorded territory, starting with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, arose as a solution to the problems caused by relying on religion as the sole basis for governance. Applying the principle of self determination in governance of IP networks can help address problems plaguing territory governance.
The history of America offers a cautionary tale about the wisdom of attempts to deny self determination in favor of dividing the treasures of the New World between existing powers. The status of England as the greatest ever military power failed to prevent 3 million colonists in America from winning self determination en route to a 100 fold expansion of population, economic scale, and military power. John Perry Barlow captured this sentiment in A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace in 1996 at a time the Internet consisted of a mere 30 million early adopters. The technology and social forces expanding the population of the Internet to 2 billion today seem unlikely to pause given the universal human needs and aspirations of a global population expected to reach 10 billion by 2050.
The ever expanding functionality of IP networks and compute capacity associated with the billion-billion increase in transistor density Moore's Law predicts by end of the 21st century promises a day when the interaction options of any two people on Earth exceed the options available to next door neighbors today. Frictionless communication will prove essential to addressing the global scale financial and environmental threats facing humanity. An embrace of borderlessness contains unknown risks, but the known risks of defending borders cost 250 million lives in the last century. The founders of a new American communication policy might even adopt the definition of success motivating the founding fathers of America.
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain....
Borderlessness least suits the modes of governance pursued by countries American military and economic strategists worry about the most. Declining to join China in a fight against the IP network juggernaut alters the conditions making China the favorite as #1 global economic power by 2025. The necessity of a principle of self determination for IP networks exists for the same reason as the checklist of principles in the United States Bill of Rights. The possiblity of communication as both means and antidote for the abuse of power inevitably creates a struggle over control. America cannot dictate policy beyond its borders, but America can model a coherent information and communication technology policy.
Reed Hundt initiated the policy resisting regulation of the Internet during his tenure as Chairman of the FCC when VocalTec's introduction of Internet Phone in February 1995 triggered calls to regulate software. This policy already reflects a tentative conclusion in favor of self determination in the governance of IP networks. Experience accumulated over the last 17 years provides a sufficient record to make this conclusion permanent. American communication policy makers do not risk a penalty of death like the signers of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. They do not need the conviction and boldness Reed Hundt demonstrated in 1995. The prospect of an American policy changing the course of humanity this time around requires merely recognizing the risks of delay exceed the risks of action as of WCIT in December 2012.
The First World of Quintillion Abundance by Daniel Berninger
The inexorable forces driving Moore's Law promise a quintillion (a billion-billion) increase in transistor density by the end of the 21st century. The IP Transition as Grand Challenge workshop in Washington, DC on June 15, 2012 kicked-off an effort harnessing this quintillion abundance to reinvent telecom. The implications for humanity in the all-IP network grand challenge may surpass the grand challenge putting a man on the moon. The specific effects of quintillion abundance remain unknown, but cyberspace already looks more likely to influence course of humanity than outer space.
The coming expansion of capacity in both computing and connectivity promise to reset the sources for first world status that created the Cold War. Quintillion abundance makes computing devices mediators of human interaction and the lens for experiencing the world. The Cold War arose from competing theories of nation state governance. Membership in the new first world turns on Internet governance. Quintillion abundance leaves the new first world unbound by place of birth. It moves communication to the center of the human experience. Prosperity reflects differences in access to communication rather than the zero sum scarcity associated with natural resources.
Changes in communication and military technology always reshape the rules of engagement underlying society. The creation the nation state traces to a period when it took a month or more for a letter from London to reach Philadelphia and three days from Boston. The Cold War arose from efforts to cope with the invention of nuclear weapons. Quintillion abundance represents the communication equivalent of nuclear weapons. The emergence of Internet governance bottom-up via multi-stakeholder solutions represent the new way forward. The governance questions always emerge as a grand challenge in moments of transformation, because the power elite and even many of the suffering citizens resist changes to the status quo.
The mix of old and new forces during the transition makes navigation difficult without a clear vision of the future. Borders reflect a failure of governance agreements between people and obstacles to trust in a borderlessness environment. Membership of the new first world requires embracing connectivity over disconnectivity. Quintillion abundance expands the options for a global population expected to reach 10 billion by 2050. A world made borderless by increasingly powerful communication tools contains risks, but the wars arising from defense or expansion of borders cost 250 million lives in the last century.
The governance obstacles loom large as traditional institutions seem hopeless out of synch with the pace of change. The urgent task of facilitating borderlessness already looks problematic for the command and control models applied in the developing world. Economic stagnation and financial market rescues nonetheless discredit policy solutions and assertions from the developed world. The fictions asserted as distinctions between Internet and telecom policy in the US become unsustainable in all-IP networks. The way forward requires a fresh start and accountability for improving outcomes. Any country defining success as preserving the status quo dooms itself to third world status.
Economic outcomes separate winners and losers navigating borderlessness and resolute sovereignty as they did in the case of the Cold War. The consent of the governed traces to the same criteria in all countries. Araham Maslow summarized these as survival, safety, social, success, and spiritual issues in his Hierarchy of Needs. The grand challenge imperative for all-IP networks in developing cyberspace reflects the otherwise problematic prognosis for quality of life on spaceship earth. It provides a means to give future generations a legacy of more than war, debt, and depleted natural resources.
Internet Governance: Coin of the New Realm by Daniel Berninger
The Aspen Institute released the IDEA Common Statement and Principles as a do no harm Hippocratic Oath for Internet governance. The Aspen report describes the present moment as an inflection point for "the most robust medium of information exchange in history". Reed Hundt outlined the risks associated with Internet governance changes favored by China and a group of developing nations through the ITU. Michael Joseph Gross frames this same ITU dispute as World War 3.0 in the May 2012 issue of Vanity Fair. The collision between the borderless Internet and national borders may prove World War 3.0 a literal description of the forces in play. The Aspen report argues governance represents the coin of this new realm.
A world where the availability of connectivity shapes prosperity does not follow the same contours and constraints as the present Haves and Have-Nots economic pyramid. This makes Aspen's do no harm principles problematic for those benefiting from the economic status quo. The frictionless nature of the Internet creates an existential threat to the relevance of borders and by extension the wealth of gatekeepers. The enormous stakes promise a Darwinian survival of the fittest battle between champions of connectivity and disconnectivity splitting the world between these doctrines. The resulting stalemate may prove unresolvable until one side or the other wins economic hegemony as in the case of the Cold War.
The cost of moving a bit (1 or 0) from A to B or average-bit-cost (ABC) benefits from the same Moore's Law of transistor density driving processing power, memory, storage, and even megapixels. In 1980, AT&T charged $0.43 per minute for a "long distance" connection between 300 baud modems connecting computers in Los Angeles and New York. The present reflects the benefits of the 100 fold per decade reduction in ABC enabled by Moore's Law. The assault on physical borders will continue to escalate with another 10,000 fold ABC reduction due by 2040. The profound nature of the conflict reflects the fact coercion and communication anchor two ends of the human interaction spectrum.
Borders will remain important everywhere there exists a threat of coercion, but borders represent mere means to the end of prosperity. The motivations listed in the preamble of the US Constitution "... establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare,..." represent universal aspirations. The Internet governance debates provide an opportunity to test connectivity as a more potent source of prosperity than the delegation of power to the gatekeepers of national borders. The momentum presently favors the new Internet majority living in the developing world as well as China, Russia, India, and Brazil. The Internet freedom champions in America and Europe devolved into financial turmoil during the same period over the last decade China cut the GDP gap with the US from 8:1 to 2:1.
Internet partisans can point to the military cost of sustaining borders, abuses of power by gatekeepers, and uneven access to the resulting benefits. It nonetheless remains an open question how many of the 2 billion people already connected will step up to defend the benefits of the Internet. Threats to the Internet include both excessive and insufficient regulation. History shows borderless anarchy yields a downward spiral into horror conceding the landscape to strongman governance. The promise of the Internet as an engine of innovation seems unlikely to survive the interventionist regulatory model associated telephone networks championed by the ITU.
Internet governance decisions may reorder the world order as much as the world wars in the last century. Expanding connectivity creates wealth for the same reasons as borders by facilitating cooperation in pursuit of a common goal. The extent of cooperation reflects the extent communication tools replicate the experience of connecting in-person. Continuous improvement promises to make communication tools entirely substitutable for meeting in-person over time, but this does not preclude a painful transition. The 250 million lives lost to border disputes in the last century makes defending the promise of the Internet an urgent matter for this century.
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Global Voice Communication Exchange
VCXC Objective
Transition global telecom industry to all-IP networks and upgrade the universal core voice service to HD voice by June 15, 2018.