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The Kenyans settle in at WCIT. Credit: ITU

After a busy start, WCIT started to settle down into a familiar mode on the second day of the conference. The main highlights were:

• A bid by Canada and the US to get some key definitions agreed before work starts was pushed off until the end of the week
• The meeting delegates all agreed that they agreed with freedom of expression and human rights but that they didn't want to write it into a telecoms treaty - a press release was produced instead
• Russia's controversial new article covering the Internet was pushed into "informal discussions"
• Ghana's idea to review the ITRs every eight years (rather than 24 years) was met aggressively by the United States.
• The ITU's Secretary-General pushed access in developing countries and the high cost of Internet access, pointing to a likely strategy for the rest of the conference.

It’s not what you think

It must have come as quite a shock to the world to learn at the last minute that this week the United Nations is going to take over the Internet.

A wave of articles, op-ed pieces and interviews in the past few days have grown increasingly concerned about what will result from the WCIT conference in Dubai.

Just a few days ago, the Syrian government cut its country off from the Internet. Was this the future we are now all facing? Governments deciding what and when we can go online? Faceless bureaucrats monitoring everything we do?

As the claims grew hysterical - and the ITU became increasingly defensive and frustrated in response - the Internet itself started providing the world with the answers. Subject experts took to their keyboards and began to debunk the claims on both sides.

At the end of it, what does WCIT boil down to? An effort by old telecoms operators to make more money. An effort that, by the way, is likely to fail.

The topic of Charging and Accounting will be where there will be the most heated exchanges occur at the WCIT conference.

In a nutshell, some countries want to apply the traditional telecoms (think: telephone) pricing models onto the Internet. Nothing focuses the mind like billions of dollars in lost or gained revenue.

It is notable that the country that has been making the biggest noise about WCIT - the United States - has this issue of pricing as its number one priority.

It is no coincidence either that the ambassador (and so head of delegation) that has been specially chosen for WCIT, Terry Kramer, used to be a senior executive at Vodafone. Nor that Kramer has consistently identified the pricing issue as his number one priority at WCIT. Kramer is expected to have 101 reasons why the pricing model of the telephone should not apply to the Internet - and he may need them all.

Foolish as it may be, we have some predictions for what will happen between now and the end of WCIT. Here they are:

• Nothing radical will appear in the ITRs. Instead it will be agreed that they will be reviewed in four or eight years' time and a range of working groups will be formed to work on various issues and report to the Council next year, take it to the ITU Plenipotentiary for initial review in 2014, and onto the World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (WTSA) in 2016.
• The United States will push its hand incredibly hard (bolstered by its huge delegation of industry representatives and over-excited civil society/Internet groups who have all persuaded each other of their own truth). It will threaten to take a reservation once too often and will end up being saved by either Canada or a European country.

Everything you need to know about how WCIT will pan out

ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Toure opens the conference. He has a lot on his plate. Credit: ITU

WCIT has got off to a quick and effective start.

Having spent much of the past year preparing for the conference and notwithstanding a number of last-minute contributions, the governments of the world are ready for what will be a contentious conference.

The first day saw the heads of delegations meet and thrash out agreements that their staff had already largely agreed. Then came the opening ceremony and a stage-managed but important display of support between the ITU and ICANN. The message was plain: WCIT will not be about Internet governance.

That's not to say there aren't important and contentious issues coming over the next two weeks. Most significant are:

US government intervenes, raising questions about ICANN stewardship

Verisign shares have plunged 15 percent, wiping $850 million off the company's value, on the news that it will not be allowed to raise prices on dot-com domains for the next six years.

The current wholesale price for dot-coms stands at $7.85 and the company had already agreed a six-year extension on its right to exclusively sell the domains with DNS overseeing organization ICANN. That agreement mirrored one signed in 2006 that allowed Verisign to raise the price by seven percent in four of the six years the contract ran.

However the contract was subject to approval by the US Department of Commerce and it decided to remove the price-rise clause before signing. A short statement issued by the DoC quoted Assistant Secretary Larry Strickling saying that "consumer will benefit from Verisign's removal of the automatic price increase".

Arab State push to become an RIR turned into working group

Efforts to make the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) into a supra-regional Internet registry have been ditched, at least for the time being.

Attendees at the World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (WTSA) were surprised with a last-minute proposal, aggressively pushed by the Arab States, that the ITU become a provider of IP addresses.

Discussion within Committee 4 had been focused on the allocation of IP addresses and in particular the provision of IPv6 address blocks.

In the middle of discussions, however, draft text was introduced that argued "many countries believe that there are historical imbalances related to IPv4 allocation". It added: "Many developing countries want ITU-T to become an additional registry of IP addresses in order to give the developing countries the option of obtaining IP addresses directly from ITU."

Chehade aims to "bring clarity" over organization's role

ICANN's CEO and chair will attend the opening ceremony of the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) as the guest of the ITU and the government of the United Arab Emirates.

The invitation, as well as the decision to accept, is noteworthy after more than a decade of barely concealed mistrust and contempt between the two organizations.

Clearly expecting some criticism from the Internet community for attending the event, CEO Fadi Chehade pre-recorded an interview in which he gave his reasons for attending.

"It’s time to engage," Chehade said in the ICANN-produced tape, arguing for a "new season of understanding" and pledging to avoid the "public wars" between the two organizations. He also stated that both the ITU and ICANN have roles that are "clearly separated and well-defined" but that they may be "confusion" over what those roles are. He would bring clarity to the situation.