[10717] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: clarifying NAP discussions
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Tony Rutkowski)
Sun Mar 6 21:35:31 1994
Date: Sun, 06 Mar 1994 16:49:23 +0500
To: Marvin Sirbu <ms6b+@andrew.cmu.edu>, com-priv@psi.com,
From: Tony Rutkowski <amr@isoc.org>
Marvin,
>
>Given the levels of technical expertise at the FCC and the fact that it
>only got on the Internet for the first time two weeks ago, I would much
>rather see the NSF attempt to make policy in this area than the FCC.
>
>Under the Administrative Procedures Act, and the Communications Act, the
>FCC could not, even if it wanted to, delegate authority to such a joint
>board such as you describe.
Plainly the Internet is an enhanced service outside the exercise of
jurisdiction by the FCC under Computer III. It seems unlikely that 30
years of domestic and now international policy is going to be changed,
nor should it be.
There seems to be a lot of historical perspective being lost here.
The Internet and its technologies and applications thrived and scaled
because of those policies keeping the keeping government regulators
out of this domain, promoting competive provision of underlying transport
that drove prices down, and that compelled liberalization throughout the
world - which is only now being achieved.
It is unfortunate this dialogue is so USA centric - as offshore
Internauts could portray the daunting problems they have faced in
dealing with heavily regulated monopoly provisioning environments.
The changes now taking place in domestic regulatory policies and GATT
are finally allowing Internet growth to thrive throughout the globe -
as is evident in current statistics.
We shouldn't forget that it was only on 1 July 1990 when Art. 9 of
the International Telecommunication Regulations treaty became effective
and allowed the global Internet to become legal.
--tony
THE INTERNET IS ITS OWN REVOLUTION
Internet - une revolution qui lui est propre
