As the International Telecommunications Union’s (ITU) plenipotentiary conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota begins to debate issues concerning the internet (see separate story), rather than its traditional concern of telecommunications, questions are being asked in the internet community as to the policy positions of the secretary-general-elect, Yoshimo Utsumi, who was elected to the post on Tuesday (10/21/98). The current secretary-general, Pekka Tarjanne who has been in the post for ten years, has largely stayed out of internet issues, even as the two technologies have begun to converge over the past couple of years. Judging from his campaign speeches, Utsumi may not be so hands-off. But Utsumi seems intent on extending the sphere of the ITU to the net. In his most recent campaign article in September, entitled The economic and political importance of telecommunications Utsumi, who is the deputy minister at Japan’s ministry of posts and telecommunications (MPT), says that the settlement rates, or accounting rates, as they are known, that telcos pay to land international calls should also be paid by ISPs. Any such move would vastly increase the costs incurred by US ISPs, if it was agreed to by the ITU and accepted by the US. The battle over settlement rates stretches back to about 1982 when the FCC first broached brought the subject. Two years ago the FCC said US carriers were paying more than ten times the amount to foreign carriers than it actually cost them to land the international calls and therefore the rates needs to be renegotiated (12/01/96). In August last year the FCC broke with a long-standing ITU agreement and drew up rate bands that it expected US carriers to have to pay to land calls. Foreign carriers, including those from the UK and Japan objected, protesting that they need those higher rates to subsidize the development of their networks, a point raised by Utsumi in his speech. Of course, just because Utsumi says he would like it to happen, does not necessarily mean it will. But by stating this as a policy position, he is likely to incur the wrath of the US ISP community, as well as the government. It was a little early for the ISPs to have taken this on board yesterday, but those we did speak to, including Cable & Wireless, which recently acquired MCI’s internet business, agreed that it would greatly increase costs to the US ISPs, and therefore would need to be resisted.
