<html><body><div style="color:; background-color:; font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:13px"><div>Here is the un-edited version. The Editor, stripped off all the technical jargon from the published version - as usual :-). But am sure this forum can soak in the slight tech-jargon. <br></div><div><br></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 13px; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;">walu.</div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 13px; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><br></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 13px; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;">#######<br></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 13px; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><br></div><div style="color: rgb(0,
0, 0); font-size: 13px; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;">World Conference on International Telecommunications - Did Kenya Win or Lose?<br><br>As
Kenyans focused locally on political coalitions, marriages and
divorces, governments convened and concluded a meeting in Dubai known as
the World Conference on International Telecommunications, 2012 (WCIT,
pronounced "weakit"). Governments were revising a 1982 Treaty which
describes how International Telecommunication services will be governed
over the next one to two decades. Historically, the International
Telecommunication Union (ITU) was founded in Paris in 1865 as the
International Telegraph Union and took its present name in 1932, and by
1947 it had became a specialized agency of the United Nations in charge
of Telecommunications.<br><br>ITUs role was best appreciated in 1970s
through the 1980s & 1990s when Telco companies were largely
government owned and by extension, the same governments as members of
ITU would make binding decisions on how these telecommunication
companies (e.g. the defunct Kenya Posts & Telecommunication
Companies, KPTC) would interconnect internationally to others. ITU would
therefore define the technical standards and protocols for the
interconnection as well as how the various Telcos would settle the
international charges arising from the telecommunication traffic
exchanged.<br><br>Basically this meant that when a telephone call was
made from London to Nairobi, it would mainly be originated by the
government owned British Telecoms (BT) and would terminate onto the
government owned KPTC network. The originator of the call, BT would then
pay KPTC for
terminating the call according to the widely cited "Sender-Pays" model.
Needless to say, KPTC and other Telcos in developing countries made
billions of shillings in this arrangement simply because there were more
calls originating from abroad and terminating locally as compared to
those originated locally and terminated abroad. This meant that
developing countries were the Net beneficiaries of this charging and
accounting arrangement.<br><br>So what has changed? The simple answer is
the Internet. The Internet has changed the rules of the game. Majority
of todays telephone calls, Voice over the Internet Protocol (VoIP) are
carried over the Internet instead of the traditional, ITU defined
protocols that carried Voice communications. Biggest example ofcourse is
"Skype", which boasts of close to a billion registered users who make
international voice calls - without following the "Sender-Pays" model.
The pay structure for the Internet based applications is
based on the "Bill and Keep" model whereby the ISPs charge users for
local Usage while they look for a foreign ISP to terminate their traffic
preferably for free (Peering Agreement) or at minimum fee (Transit
Agreement).<br><br><br>The crux of the matter is that these Peering and
Transit agreements are negotiated and made privately between various
ISPs and OUTSIDE the realm of ITU and its membership. Since membership
of ITU is made up of Governments, one can begin to see how the battle
lines become clear. One one hand, you have Developing
Countries/Governments largely fronting for their Telecommunication
Companies who have since lost a huge chunk of their revenues because the
money they used collect when voice traffic was not Internet based has
dried up. On the other hand, you have Developed Countries/Governments
fronting for Internet based companies who are making billions by
transmitting Voice communication over the Internet without due regard to
"Sender-pays" arrangements.<br><br>Everything was going as planned
until one of the developing countries, Kenya, declined to sign the
Telecommunication Treaty. It was immediately lumped together with the US
and Europeans and celebrated as the beacon of light in an otherwise
group of developing countries bent on controlling and stifling the
Internet. In the same breath, African countries demonised Kenya for
failing to stand up for a chance to restore billions of shillings that
used to be collected by the Telcos during "Sender-pays" models.<br><br>Did
Kenya win or lose at the WCIT -2012? Only time will tell, but for now,
one can say that Kenya may have won a battle for the Internet community,
but may have lost the war - in as far as the regional, geo-political
dimensions are concerned.</div></div></body></html>