The Dubai Round of Telcos: proposals for a new structure of the Internet Governance

In December 2012, the International Telecommunication Union willmeet in Dubai on the occasion of the World Conference on InternationalTelecommunications to review the International Telecommunication Regulations(ITRs), a treaty dated 1988 which established the current frameworkfor interoperability and interconnection of international telecommunicationstraffic.The proposal aims at adapting the rules shaped in 1988 to the so-calleddigital ecosystem. This leads towards the extension of the ITRs to the entireICT sector and not only to the field of telecommunications. A position thatderives from the observation that the production and consumption of telephonyand Internet access, television, radio services, and publishing haveundergone a profound transformation. So far the governance model was shapedaccording to the net neutrality principle, relying on a regulatory imbalanceamong various industry players (on the one hand the telcos, on theotherone OTT). Many operators (supported by some economists) claim thatis time to review this approcch and to go a step further in the implementationof a new and more simmetrical regulatory framework.In the light of the lively debate that ITU proposal has raised, this analysisaims at reviewing the key points of view, proposing a sort of red line throughwhich get better insights of the problem.