It is of course all history, but allow me some remarks (in line).
Thanks Brian, That helps clear up a few things. See below for a
couple of questions:
At 8:31 AM +0000 1/1/13, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
>I'v been hesitating to join in here because this seems distinctly OT
>to me, but there are some basics that need to be understood:
>
>On 31/12/2012 21:08, John Day wrote:
>> At 1:05 PM -0500 12/31/12, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
>>> On Mon, Dec 31, 2012 at 9:51 AM, John Day
>>> <<mailto:jeanjour@xxxxxxxxxxx>jeanjour@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>...
>>> MPs and Congressmen are elected decision makers. ITU participants can
>>> make decisions but they are not binding on anyone and only have effect
>>> if people like me choose to implement them.
>>
>> This was my point. The standards part of ITU is just like any other
>> standards organization. But there are other things it does which are not
>> like this, e.g. spectrum allocation. There are other aspects with
>> respect to tariffs that are binding on signatories.
>
>Not only tariffs. Historically, it was national enforcement of international
>regulations set by CCITT (now known as ITU-T) that prevented interconnection
>of leased lines**.
But creating a VPN with in an international carrier that crossed
national boundaries would not fall under that rule? Actually neither
would a VPN operating over a couple of carriers that crossed national
boundaries, would it?
In the early eigthies, after consulting with the telecom authorithy
in the Netherlands we got the green light to move data for third
parties, and thus the (then uucp based) EUnet was born. The green
light was given in the anticipation of the libiralization of the
EU telcom market. And yes, first this was indeed first using (nearly
only) dial-up connections but soon some leased lines and of course
TCP/IP etc. game into play.
>This is an arcane point today, but if CERN hadn't been
>able to use its status as an international organization to bypass that
>restriction in the 1980s, it's unlikely that TBL and Robert Cailliau would
>ever have been able to propagate the web. It's even unlikely that Phill
>would have been able to access Usenet newsgroups while on shift as a grad
>student on a CERN experiment.
;-) Actually what they don't know won't hurt them. ;-) We were
moving files from CERN to Argonne in the 70s through the 360/95 at
Rutherford over the ARPANET. Not exactly the way you want to do it
but 15 years later I am sure it was upgraded a bit.
>
>Also, it is exactly because ITU was in charge of resource allocations
>such as radio spectrum and top-level POTS dialling codes that it was
>a very plausible potential home for IANA in 1997-8, before ICANN was
>created. Some of the ITU people who were active in that debate were just
>as active in the preparation for WCIT in 2012.
Yea, this one is more dicey. Although I think there is an argument
that says that you need ccoperation among providers about assignment,
but I don't see why governments need to be involved. When phone
companies were owned by governments, then it made sense. But phone
companies are owned by governments any more.
[The RIPE was born out of necessity for coordination of the IP number space].
That doesn't leave much does it? (Not a facetious question, I am asking!)
Take care,
John
>
>** CCITT document D.1. The 1988 version includes the restrictions on
>use of leased lines:
>http://www.itu.int/rec/dologin_pub.asp?lang=e&id=T-REC-D.1-198811-S!!PDF-E&type=items
>
>The 1991 version is much less restrictive, but it remains the case that
>interconnections are all "subject to national laws" and that is the basis
>for all national limitations on the Internet today. Nevertheless, the 1991
>revision of D.1 was absolutely essential for the Internet to grow
>internationally.
>
>It would be foolish to imagine that the Internet is in some way immune
>to ITU-T regulations, which is why the effort to defeat the more radical
>WCIT proposals was so important.
>
> Brian
It seems that this document was already unaware about what was really happening
in practice.
jaap