This is an arguement of long standing. In APEC it is known as 'international Internet charging arrangements for services' or ICAIS and in ITU-T as Recommendation D(iii). Precisely the same phenomenon applies to New Zealand and until relatively recently to the whole world, including Europe. Europe now has 'in house' Internet exchanges and a growing volume of indigenous content so that there is less and less reliance on Internet US-centricity. Asia is slowly evolving the same way. Arguments around this matter have been rehearsed on this list previously, when I asked for comment on a New Zealand position to take to the APEC TEL Working Group about two years ago (and received very helpful feedback). My (v. concise) summary of the New Zealand Government position on this matter is as follows: "Noting that NZ has the highest percent of GDP expenditure on telecommunications world-wide (OECD, 2000): we recognise that there is a net economic cost to NZ arising from current charging arrangements, nevertheless, this is not having a perceptible dampening effect on Internet development and use in NZ. Relevant industry opinion in NZ is that there should be no government action taken with respect to the current arrangements." Incidentally, the lack of perceptable effect on Internet development applies throughout Asia as well, in my view. I would love to see a realistic break down of comparative costs to ISPs and to their customers internationally ... I would bet that 90% of end user costs are due to domestic tariff rates and policies.There is now a considerable pile of international policy papers on this matter in the ITU and APEC TEL as well as a number of other international fora. They can be summarised as saying 'no or very little effect, dont regulate' or 'disaster, discrimination, growing digital divide, its not fair, regulate'. Logic argues that there is nothing that can or should be done about it through regulation that would be effective but that does not seem to be having much influence on the international debate. I would be happy to receive (off list) any comments members might want to make on what the NZ Government position should be and I will provide further information on the international debate on request. Frank March Specialist Advisor, IT Policy Group Ministry of Economic Development, PO Box 1473, Wellington, NZ Ph: (+64 4) 474 2908; Fax: (+64 4) 471 2658
-----Original Message----- From: Chris Wedgwood [SMTP:cw(a)f00f.org] Sent: Wednesday, 17 April 2002 13:16 To: nznog(a)list.waikato.ac.nz Subject: [OT?] The great African internet robbery
The same argument presumably applies to New Zealand (and Australia) here.
What the article fails to mention is there seems to be more interest on the whole for New Zealanders to access U.S. based content than for U.S. based users to access New Zealand based content.
I would guess, if the option were available for parity here, that many people in the U.S. would simple choose to ignore (cut off) NZ completely if they had to share an equal part of the cost burden (remember in a fair world whis would be circuits to Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe), however, I have to wonder what the incremental cost to the average U.S. based user would be of U.S. based carriers and suppliers did take half of the cost and could redistribute the burden over other transit and peer links.
--cw
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/africa/newsid_1931000/1931120.stm
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According to Kenya's Internet Service Providers (ISP) Association, the continent is being forced by Western companies to pay the full cost of connecting to worldwide networks.
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