The context for this is the World Conference on International Telecommunications 2012 [1] to be held inn Dubai in December. A major purpose of the meeting is to consider updating the ITU's International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) [2,3] to include an internet governance role for the ITU.
Its not very clear what the detail of the proposed changes actually is, but the Internet Society have a summary [4] that suggests a takeover of technical standardisation efforts (e.g IETF and maybe W3C processes), the regulatory functions of ICANN/IANA, and maybe oversight of the regional IP registries.
One point of view is that this is a power grab by the ITU, who see this as a last chance to remain relevant as the networks they used to regulate (traditional voice and data comms) are absorbed by the Internet. Behind it are various ITU member states (principally China and Russia) who hope to use an enlarged ITU as a proxy to control the Internet to further their domestic and international agendas.
Its not very clear what the detail of the proposed changes actually is, but the Internet Society have a summary [4] that suggests a takeover of technical standardisation efforts (e.g IETF and maybe W3C processes), the regulatory functions of ICANN/IANA, and maybe oversight of the regional IP registries.
One point of view is that this is a power grab by the ITU, who see this as a last chance to remain relevant as the networks they used to regulate (traditional voice and data comms) are absorbed by the Internet. Behind it are various ITU member states (principally China and Russia) who hope to use an enlarged ITU as a proxy to control the Internet to further their domestic and international agendas.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Telecommunication...
[2] http://www.itu.int/oth/T3F01000001
[3] https://fileshare.tools.isoc.org/groups/comms/public/Publica...
[4] http://www.internetsociety.org/wcit