ITU's Richard Hill on ICANN's $.75 fee and Net governance


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: ICANN partying like it's 1999
Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2005 18:20:35 +0100
From: <richard.hill@itu.int>
To: <declan@well.com>

Declan,

With reference to your article

> 
> http://news.com.com/ICANN+partying+like+its+1999/2010-1071_3-5495758.html
> 
> ICANN partying like it's 1999
> December 20, 2004, 4:00 AM PT
> By Declan McCullagh
> 

Here are some comments that you may, if you wish, post publicly.

As you know, ITU does not charge a per-number fee for administering 
E.164, E.212 and/or Q.708 naming and numbering resources.

Nor do most national regulators (although practices vary nationally).

But I don't know whether that is relevant or not.

For interest, the American Heritage dictionary gives the following as 
its second definition of tax:  "a fee or due levied on the members of an 
organization to meet its expenses"

Separately, I note that you state "some inchoate process involving the 
United Nations' International Telecommunications Union."

My dictionary defines inchoate as "1. In an initial or early stage; just 
beginning; incipient. 2. Immature, imperfect".  Now the ITU is surely 
not perfect, but its processes are surely neither immature, nor just 
beginning, nor at an initial or early stage.

On the contrary, as most people recognize, the ITU's processes are 
stable and predictable.  And work well for many topics.

Also, the ITU's processes and procedures for substantive matters are 
independent of those of the UN, and ITU's work program, priorities, etc. 
are determined by ITU's membership using ITU's own processes.  On the 
other hand, salary scales and certain staff regulations are common to 
the entire UN system.

Best,
Richard

-----------------------------------------
Richard Hill
Counsellor, ITU-T SG2 and SG4
International Telecommunication Union
Place des Nations
CH-1211 Geneva 20
Switzerland
tel: +41 22 730 5887
FAX: +41 22 730 5853
Email: richard.hill@itu.int
Study Group 2 email: tsbsg2@itu.int
Study Group 4 email: tsbsg4@itu.int
Posted by Declan McCullagh on Jan 07, 2005