Re: <amarc-1> telecoms & strategy (was: A different concern)

[Bram Dov Abramson <bram@tao.ca>]

hi to all,

Your friendly neighbourhood moderator here.  I've been hoping to find time
to jump in and intervene, but that hasn't yet happened, so let me do so
anyway: like many, I'm heartened and excited, but somewhat overwhelmed, by
the increasing pace of discussion.

How do we focus our discussion on international strategies for building the
right to communicate?  The question has arisen a few times.  We've spent
time talking past each other, but increasingly, with each other.  At first,
a number of concrete projects and institutionally-grounded proposals were
circulated.  Following introductions, we've moved to a more critical and
more general level -- sizing up, even diagnosing the problem.

The goal, I hope, is to link those two.  Lyn's proposal on tracking and
bothering telecoms giants and their next-generation competitors is a step
in this direction.  Kole's call to collate this and place it on a web site
is another.  Are others interested in this?

We're only getting started, and yet just two weeks are left in our
conversation.  As you know, the <vplen> list -- to which most of you are
subscribed* -- plans to take an active role as a resource for and about
these issues, so we'll be able to continue things there.

At the same time, the mapping exercise is a good one.  <vplen> will be
linked to a slowly-emerging web site, which can provide a digital home.
And a number of efforts like the World Congress (see Sean's message), like
the London Platform (see Pradip's message), and others will feed into that
site and into the <vplen> list.  Let's put our heads together, in other words.

Last week's _Economist_ talks of the recent telecoms mega-mergers & joint
ventures -- AT&T getting together with British Telecom, Bell Atlantic with
GTE -- as elephants dancing.  Three factors are said to be driving sweeping
changes in telecoms: market liberalization; privatisation; technology.

Technology -- cheaper, higher-capacity bandwidth -- is identified as the
most important of these.  But the story gets more complicated: mega-mergers
are a strategy by old, former-monopoly telecoms operators to beat smaller,
quicker, newer competitors: (1) by defining the playing field, and (2) by
shaping how technology gets implemented:  "They are testing regulatory
regimes to the limit, by merging with other telecoms companies to 'buy'
customers and recreate the industry in a form they like.  They accept the
imperative of new technology, but want to introduce it in ways that protect
as much of their existing business as possible."

The mega-mergers we read about, then, are very much about telecoms giants
who're protecting their turf.  What space for the right to communicate in
all of these turf wars?  The World Congress proposal called for civil
society representatives at the International Telecommunications Union.  Lyn
has suggested that we open dialogue with the corporations who already sit
around decision-making tables, formally and informally -- at the ITU, or at
the World Trade Organization which is crowding the ITU's political turf.  

So the question comes: are these good strategies? Are they useful? And if
so, how do we go about making them happen?

In answering, it would be especially useful for you marry your opinion with
your institutional experience: to evaluate these strategies, but also
suggest ways that the organisations and institutions with which you have
experience -- as employee, volunteer, citizen, or other -- might be brought
to support these.

cheers
Bram
---
   Bram Dov Abramson                   bram@tao.ca
   C.P. 48099 - Montreal Quebec - H2V 4S8 - Canada
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