Report WSIS PrepCom2

A report from the WSIS coal face from Alicia (Lucy) Cameron, a PhD student in the School of Social Science at the University of Queensland, who attended PrepCom2, Geneva, February 17-25, 2005 as a Civil Society participant.

Report from the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) PrepCom2, Geneva, February 17-25, 2005

Alicia (Lucy) Cameron (c) 2005

WSIS PrepCom2 built on work completed at the Geneva WSIS (the Declaration of Principles and the Draft Plan of Action), by developing documents for the Tunis Phase, divided into two parts: A Political Chapeau; and an Operational Part: The Tunis Agenda for Action.

The main focus of discussion in both of these documents was a) Internet Governance, and b) the formation and distribution of the Digital Solidarity Fund (DSF) to fund ICT projects in developing countries (Chapter 2 of the Operational Part).

I participated in the civil society forums - which ran in parallel time slots to the main forum in which the national delegations debated issues and the wording of documents. Civil society representatives were allocated 15 minutes a day to present issues that were of concern to the main international forum. Business group stakeholders could also present issues to the main forum of national delegations. However there appeared to be a lack of business group representation there, and so they 'horse-traded' some time with the civil society groups - giving the civil society groups more time each day (up to 45 minutes) to present issues. There was no real integration of the civil society speeches to the main debates. Civil society members for instance were not involved in the drafting of any of the WSIS documents. Their role seemed mainly educational.

While some members of the civil society groups claimed that there had been huge advances in UN protocols to allow civil society groups to be present, their contributions were, at best, marginal.

Many countries sponsored civil society participants from their own countries or developing nations. Australia supports a process of civil society participation in WSIS through the Centre for Community Networking Research at Monash University (http://www.ccnr.net/wsis/welcome.htm), but does not directly sponsor participants to attend WSIS forums - from either Australia or other nations. Staff at the Department of Communications, IT and the Arts (DCITA) have indicated that the Department is examining the possibility of sponsoring civil society participants to attend future WSIS forums, but this is conditional on forthcoming budget outcomes.

Internet Governance

The Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) gave a preliminary report to a general plenary (of WSIS) on Thursday February 24. That report is available at: http://www.itu.int/. The Group added that the online forum to supplement face-to-face meetings would soon have new functionalities including improved accessibility and added news alerts. The Working Group emphasised that the Internet is a fast moving technology and needs to be flexible and supportive of technological change.

National delegations were then asked to comment on the preliminary report.
I have summarised my notes taken on the day and noted some of the points raised by some of the national delegations but it is not a comprehensive list.

Brazil
The Brazilian delegation asked why the forum was discussing Internet Governance and suggested that it was because the current Internet architecture was not democratic, transparent or multinational in its operation. They suggested that there is a lack of representative processes in decision-making regarding the use and future of the Internet, and further suggested that the citizens of Brazil were in need of:

• Cheaper access;
• Lower interconnection costs;
• Affordable hardware;
• Free and open source software;
• Access to management decisions regarding the root servers;
• Reform of the domain name allocation system - operated by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

Brazilian delegates claimed the current system was not working and that the Brazilian Parliament was critical of forums to control these issues because national governments and civil society have been excluded. The Brazilian delegation proposed that there be a treaty on Internet governance.

Russia
The Russian delegation suggested that there be co-ordination of the Internet at both national and regional (global regional) levels. The Russian delegation suggested that large portions of the Russian population were inadequately prepared for the information society and that problems in addressing these were:

• A current and historical digital divide;
• Inadequate legal frameworks and settings for ICT diffusion and innovation; and
• Internet security including spam and cyber-crime.

Malta
The delegation from Malta praised the multi-stakeholder approach adopted by the WSIS and WGIG and suggested that the approach was a tool for vertical integration and the propagation of intra and inter national dialogues. They mainly discussed methodologies for the action agenda and encouraged further intergovernmental discussion.

Iran
The Iranian delegation suggested that young people in particular are aware that their future prospects now depend on their access to ICTs. Without access their avenues for personal and societal development are curbed. This is due to the ability of the Internet to assist in:

• Education;
• Information sharing; and
• Scientific advancement.

They drew attention to paragraph 26 of the WGIG report - and suggested that technical aspects were important in establishing an inclusive, open-ended and democratic information society.

Cuba
The Cuban delegation supported comments made by the delegation of Brazil and also agreed with the delegation from Iran: that the Internet is a global resource and its governance has relevance for current and future generations.

Norway
The delegation from Norway suggested that the Internet was a 'global public good', and its development should be people and [social] development centred. The technology had to allow for democracy, sustainable development and good governance and that these features had to be at the heart of an information society.

The delegation suggested that the reasons why there needed to be multinational co-operation in Internet governance included trans-national organised crime and cyber terrorism, and suggested that dynamic and market-led policies be included in further development of the WGIG statement.

India
The Indian delegation suggested that there was currently a conflict between private rights and public policy regarding the governance of the Internet.

They identified powerful private stakeholders as impediments to greater reform of the Internet and suggested that for political and economic reasons the current situation was not acceptable. "The medium must be made accessible to all".

The Indian delegation said that the private stakeholders controlling the Internet were concentrated in industrialised countries (one in particular) and that they often denied information on the technical operations of the Internet to other stakeholders. They suggested that the key issues were the 'operational mechanisms' of the Internet. For instance there were 13 root servers in the world, all of them in developed countries and 10 in the USA, and companies in India had been told that, for technical reasons, there could be no more root servers in the world but this had not been adequately explained. They felt that technical restrictions were being used to resist competition and create a political hegemony.

The operational mechanisms of the Internet had direct economic and political consequences. For instance the Indian delegation suggested that it was not acceptable that one country could potentially deny another country's access to the Internet for political reasons.

They also supported the comments of the Brazilian delegation and emphasised that the Internet must now be seen as a global resource.

Saudi Arabia
The Saudi Arabian delegation said that there was currently a lack of

• Transparency on technical issues;
• Policy avenues;
• Democratic instruments;
• Fair distributions of resources;
• Mechanisms to guarantee Internet security; and
• Multilingualism in governance of the Internet.

However they suggested that the private sector should be allowed to continue to develop the Internet in conjunction with civil society and NGO's. They highlighted that there was no definition of 'governance' yet but hoped that Arabic will be one of the languages used in the WGIG.

China
The Chinese delegation suggested that the WGIG needed to move from the fact-finding phase to a fact-analysis phase. They took the position that the Internet had become a global resource and supported multilateralism, transparency, and democracy in its governance. They also supported the multi-stakeholder approach which includes both government and civil society.

They suggested that governments should play a leading role and that inter-governmental agencies should facilitate. Stating that the Internet had become critical infrastructure for social and economic development, they noted that it was currently monopolised by one state and a handful of organizations. The WGIG should examine and undertake research into establishing a multinational organization to control the Internet. That organization must allow for the Internet to remain innovative.

The Chinese delegation pointed out that now 1 in every 10 Internet users is Chinese, and said that the Chinese Government is already conducting research into other models of Internet governance, and would be happy to contribute to drafting policies to create an 'international Internet governance mechanism" and a "new ICT development order".

Pakistan
The Pakistani delegation suggested that there should be a free and competitive market and a rejection of monopolies for the management of critical Internet resources. They gave further support to the statement by the Brazilian delegation and suggested that backbones providing Internet access should be free from peering and interconnection fees. They suggested that Internet governance now had to be a public policy issue as it impinged upon the sovereign rights of nation states.

United States
The US delegation stated that as the Internet expanded in size and scope and became a global resource, it was natural and healthy to have debate on governance. They urged WGIG however to adopt some guiding principles including:

• Promoting competition to all stakeholders;
• Private participation and leadership;
• Minimal regulation;
• Network stability; and
• Global collaborative and co-operative processes.

The delegation supported the privatisation of the domain name management and management of technical issues regarding the Internet through the institution of ICANN.

They suggested that there be a presentation of options given by WGIG in their operational plan.

Algeria
The Algerian delegation supported a moral code of conduct but not a treaty on Internet governance. They suggested that one of the central roles of government was to be custodians of freedoms and liberties in both public and private realms. They suggested that what is needed is an "International Council of Governance" and Algeria will be making a contribution to the processes online.

They expressed support for the statement made by the Brazilian delegation and reiterated that they supported the development of an open and progressive charter but not a treaty needing ratification.

Columbia
The Columbian delegation suggested that domain names were important at an international level and that the world can longer postpone reform of the domain name system of management.

Morocco
The Moroccan delegation related principles outlined at a meeting in Marrakesh, in particular the point that there may be different governance structures needed for different parts of Internet regulation. For instance Internet content may need different governance structures to the Internet architecture. Suggested that it was necessary to translate technical languages into local languages, and that Internet governance should be independent from government authorities.

Barbados
The delegation from Barbados suggested that the Internet had assumed a critical role in the development of countries and suggested that geographic regions in the world needed to be involved in Internet governance. Issues that required national and regional governance included cost, security and spam, and the maintenance of a stable and successful platform.

They suggested that the Internet had become an important tool of trade and that lower costs of access gave traders a competitive advantage. This was particularly important in countries with asymmetric information flows.

South Africa
The South African delegation stated that good governance is closely linked to human rights and political autonomy.

They strongly associated with the views of Brazil, China, India, Cuba and Argentina. They shared the view that the current structure of governance was not transparent or democratic.

They suggested that there needed to be a common understanding of 'open' and 'democratic' and that effective participation is more than just attending a meeting. They suggested that the fear that reform might stall progress should not hold the forum back from tackling the hard issues, and stated that rapid reform is necessary.

South African delegates stated that the technology was not politically neutral. Spam had become a road-block in some countries to effective utilisation of e-commerce, e-government and government service delivery.

They stated that there were also issues of language and access protection to be discussed but that the sovereignty of governments should reign supreme. They suggested that countries were in varying degrees of development but there should be an emphasis on the local content side of development rather than the provider side.

Many countries had to overcome the challenge of education and ensure privacy and security to users. There also needed to be an international legal framework on cyber-crime and data stealing.

El Salvador
The El Salvadorian delegation noted the evolving definition of the Internet since it was first officially defined in 1985 (prior to the World Wide Web). They suggested that there needed to be a new definition to encompass all the applications of the Internet today.

Delegates supported the statements by the Chinese delegation, and suggested that the group must now work towards resolving the problems identified in the first Geneva meeting of WSIS. The group should also consider the future of Internet governance once the Tunis phase is completed.

Australia
The Australian delegation recognised the growing importance of the Internet for social, economic and cultural development. They suggested that the core issues raised are best dealt with by not compromising the dynamism and innovative character of the current private sector involvement in Internet governance and proposed that issues raised may be best dealt with through the reform of the existing structures. They suggested that many of the issues of concern to national delegations fall under two main headings: a) Consumer protection and b) global community cyber-crime. They suggested that there needed to be interaction between these issues and financial mechanisms of operation.

Australian delegates stated that they would prefer a model that optimised the use of existing institutions. They would like the WGIG to prepare an options paper setting out the pros and cons of different avenues for reform, including costings. The delegation supported the establishment of the Friends of the Chair drafting text for the next paper but suggested an early circulation of the text so that adequate input could be provided.

Contributions from the Business Sector

CCBI
The CCBI welcomed new models including multi-stakerholder models for Internet governance and commended the methods of contributing to the debate via both online and face-to-face forums.

The delegation stated that there needed to be a focus on:

• Technological innovation;


• The need to accommodate future advancements;


• A market and consumer-driven model; and


• Internet stability.

The organisation held the view that Internet governance was more than just IP addresses and domain name systems, and recommended an evolutionary not revolutionary approach to reform.

Internet Society (ISOC)
ISOC felt that there was an inordinate amount of time and effort focussed on ICANN but commends WGIG's decision to take a broad approach to technical and policy issues. Stated that the Internet was now 30 years old and had been an organic, bottom-up, flexible and decentralised technology whose architecture incorporated localised needs. They suggested that lightweight governance was a feature and not a bug of the Internet, and that national legislation was the best way to deal with many issues of the Internet. ISOC would like the Internet to be seen as 'just another medium' and cautioned against 'yesterday's thinking being imposed upon a society of tomorrow'.

Would like the definition of governance to be inclusive of more than government activities but to also include local Internet activities.

They suggested that before new processes are discussed and recommended, that the WGIG define how the existing processes and institutions can be improved. They suggested that the forum governs the 'uses' of the Internet, not the Internet itself. The organisation referred the forum to their website http://www.isoc.org

Contributions from Civil Society Caucuses

NGO Statement
The NGO Statement expressed support for the multi-stakeholder approach adopted by WGIG and suggested that Internet governance had to be more than multi-lateral because legitimate and successful governance can only be achieved if all groups have input.

There was concern expressed that emergent technical protocols from organizations such as ITU, WIPO, UNESCO, ICANN and the ITF created cultural uniformity and exclusivity in participation. Suggested that there needed to be creativity, innovation, and cultural and linguistic diversity in forums regarding Internet governance.

The NGO Statement suggested that current civil society participation in forums such as WSIS were, however, limited to economically privileged individuals and groups. More could also be done to include civil society members in forums of Internet governance that affected:

• User agreements;


• National legislation; and


• International and transnational governance and agreements.

Forums now have to go beyond mechanisms of consensus and find ways to reflect diversity. They encouraged WGIG to deal with issues of:

• Unilateral control of the root zone and ICANN;


• Technical standards;


• Freedom of Expression and Privacy;


• Consumer protection; and


• Trade rules where they intersect with Internet governance.

They suggested that there needs to be a coherent meaning and definition of 'Internet governance' and that the formation of this definition needed to be an open and inclusive process, and the final document needed to reflect this process.

Human Rights Caucus
The Human Rights Caucus linked human rights to democracy and stated that the Internet cannot harbour lawless zones that go beyond the governance of international standards on human rights. Governments need to be held accountable for human rights abuses on and off line.

Media Caucus
Stated that there should be no legal bars to journalism and freedom of speech on or offline, and also suggested that there be communicators and representatives of journalists on the WGIG. Architecture and technical restrictions should not be an excuse for censorship. Filtering of information should be an individual choice and should not be left up to national governments. The principles of freedom of expression should apply.

Privacy Caucus
Privacy is a fundamental human right and the need for protection of privacy is more essential than ever. New technical capabilities of the Internet threatened privacy. For instance the new Internet protocol IPv6 included plans to include Ethernet addresses and electronic fingerprints were being installed in hardware. Anonymity would no longer be possible for Internet users. There was also a danger that in all areas, known facts about individuals would lead to greater degrees of control and manipulation. A zone of anonymity however often limits the potential for abuse. They stated that privacy must be protected as the most basic civil liberty.

Other Stakeholders from UN institutions

International Telecommunications Union (ITU)
The ITU stands ready to contribute to the functioning and expansion of the information society. The ITU delegation reported that it has been a key player in the development of international standards, and protocols and fosters international exchanges and input. These ITU facilitated processes and protocols have contributed to the low and affordable costs of Internet connections including broadband.

United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO)
UNESCO believes that cultural freedom and freedom of expression should be central to all key documents of WSIS, and this includes the role of the media. The battle against terrorism should not impinge upon freedom of expression. UNESCO stands ready to contribute further to policy formation.

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
Internet governance affects international operations and it is apparent that there are many prejudices inherent in much of the technology. They stated that many of the issues raised had been salient aspects of development in certain regions. For instance in the Asia- Pacific region, the cost domain name systems are an important aspect of development.

Personal comments on Internet Governance at WSIS

Before I went to Geneva and this Prep Com2 meeting of WSIS I had heard quite a bit of speculation that the WSIS was the ITU's attempt at gaining some relevancy in global Internet development. Having been to the PrepCom2 however, it appeared that the ITU's establishment of the WSIS was a reluctant and belated response to claims by member states (especially the North African and Middle Eastern States - who had pre-empted the WSIS by holding their own meetings on Internet governance) to intervene in the US controlled institutions (mainly ICANN) and the control of the Internet's 13 root servers. Civil society delegations were included in the event to add legitimacy to any claim for the democratisation of ICANN, which, being a private corporation with a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the US Department of Commerce, is almost legally impossible without ICANN and the US ceding a degree of control. At this stage there's no real indication that the US and ICANN are going to be doing that, and Australia appears to be supporting the US in maintaining the status quo. Having talked to contacts who have worked at the ITU, they insist that, even if it could, the ITU would not want to take on the work of ICANN - which is considerable and very political - but they had to respond to pressure, mainly on the issues of surveillance, interconnection fees and domain name costs and availability. The most desirable outcome for the ITU is probably the development of regular meetings with ICANN to relay the 'wishes of the world' in a documented and formal way, and to also ensure that there is greater input and transparency to/of the technical development of the Internet through the ITU. Whether countries such as China, India and Brazil would be satisfied with that outcome has yet to be seen, but their strong language at this forum would indicate that they are looking for much greater autonomy from ICANN, and US government control of the Internet.

The civil society meetings and publications were also particularly enlightening on the issues leading up to the Internet governance forums. A contribution to the civil society media caucus from the Representatives of Iranian Journalists stated:

[It has] been observed recently that a well-known hosting provider has blocked the servers of [a] popular Iranian News Agency which has thousands of viewers each day. Furthermore we got some more reports that the hosting provider does not feel any responsibility to respond to the [I]nquiries and they repeat again and again that the case is not negotiable. It made us keen to investigate more and finally we found a general answer to that.

The fact is the News Agency functions in a country which is on the sanctions list of the United States. As you may know, there are several countries [on] the US sanctions list and USA policy is to isolate the countries on the list through the pressure of the embargoes on those countries. From the other side, you may find some news that USA claims that governments of sanctioned countries are trying to filter undesirable websites and USA is investing thousands of dollars to develop Anonymisers to let people jump over [national] filtering applications and watch the blocked websites [such as those that allow Chinese citizens to view BBC World websites - which have been officially blocked by the Chinese government].

When you see the US embargos on exchange of information material within sanctioned countries and then you see that they are granting huge resources to help freedom of expression in the same counties, you feel a clear contradiction within their policy.

One of the more interesting documents circulating from the civil society literature tables (and of particular concern to Australian participants) was the Draft Summary Report on the Online Forum on Internet Governance Priorities for the Asia-Pacific Region (see - http://igov.apdip.net/opening_discussion/) a paper developed by joint committees under the UNDP. This online forum had 180 members from 27 countries in the Asia pacific region. The lead moderator was Adam Peake from the Japanese organisation Glocom. For a snippet of Adam's views on Internet governance see -

http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/random-bits/2003-February/001038.html

This document was interesting because it addressed (and in part rebutted or qualified) some of the primary issues raised by member states in their focus on ICANN's control of domain names and root servers.

One of the first discussion threads was about the root servers, questioning whether the current system of 13 separately managed operators were more vulnerable to attack than a more controlled and homogenous system. It was also suggested that the concentration of servers in the United States (10 of 13) was problematic from the point of view of geographic diversity, both in the sense of such concentration of resources presenting a possible security failure (particularly in time of war) and also being geopolitically inappropriate.

…Participants also pointed out that geographic concentration of root servers in the United States had been recognised as a problem and has been addressed by the introduction of Anycast, a technique that enables one root server to be 'cloned' in multiple locations. Anycast servers are mirror images of the root server they replicate. These mirrors operate in just the same way as one of the 13 and provide local root services, additional security through redundancy, and faster response to queries. APNIC announced the launch of Anycast project in the Asia Pacific in November 2002. Statements from APNIC Forum members indicated that APNIC currently funds or partly funds eight roots servers operations in the region. There are an additional five root servers in the Asia Pacific provided by other projects and activities (including one of the 13 authoritative root servers which is located in Japan.) p. 3.

And on the issue of IP Address Allocation by ICANN

Forum participants from China led discussions, suggesting that means of IP address allocation to date had favoured developed nations, especially the United States. And that as IP addresses are a global public resource more concern should be shown for sovereign national needs. It was also suggested that the IP address system was inherently unfair, based on a 'first come, first serve' and that this led to a scarcity before many developing nations had the chance to request addresses. That is the present IP address allocation policies were a bottleneck to development. There was a suggestion that a bias towards US organisations was the result of ICANN's MoU with the US Department of Commerce.

…ICANN does not set IP address allocation policies, nor does the US government. Policies are made by the communities of the four (soon to be five RIRs [Regional Internet Registries]). APNIC Forum members and other commenters pointed out that in the past two years China has been among the largest recipients of address space.

…The discussion brought to light that since the RIR system was introduced, address space has been allocated on the basis of demonstrated need. IPv4 address space (the current IP system) is limited and has been allocated with conservation in mind. It was pointed out that there is no known instance in the Asia Pacific region of a request for address space that showed a demonstrated need being turned down. p. 4.

…Further comments recommended that assigning large consecutive blocks to countries would enable the country to better control its national networks, to identify and monitor users and so provided better security. Overarching in these suggestions was the notion that as the Internet penetrates deeply into all our lives so IP resources naturally taken on national attributes and the issue of sovereignty become paramount when considering how they are allocated. The Internet and in this case IP allocation had thus become a role for the state.

…Contributors who did not share this view pointed out that some of these suggestions were based on the false premise that the current allocation system was unfair and restructured development; however, there seems to be no proof of such unfairness. IPv6 address space is also considered to be so large that depletion anytime soon is extremely unlikely. As an example of the potential of IPv6, it was mentioned that using one method of counting potentially available addresses, the IPv6 address space currently allocated to operators in China may provide as many as 47 billion addresses for each of China's more than 1 billion population.

On ICANN

ICANN was of course discussed in relation to the root servers and IP addresses. ICANN was described as an organisation that was out-of-date: some considered it to be under control of the US Department of Commerce, and so not an appropriate entity to be controlling aspects of a network which has become a global resource. …ICANN's control over editing of the content of root zone file - the database that contains information about all ccTLDs [Country Code Top Level Domain - e.g .au] and gTLDs [global Top Level Domain] - meant that it had the power to remove a country's record from the root and therefore delete it from the Internet.

…Some felt that ICANN excluded developing nations from its processes.

…Discussion about ICANN also brought to light some misunderstandings about the domain name system generally. Some considered ICANN to be the global regulator of the DNS, with associated powers of a regulator controlling root servers IP addresses and all TLDs. People had misconceptions about the root server system and other factual matters. This should be a concern as effective policy discussions cannot be held based on misconceptions.

This document was obviously attempting to the shift focus of debate away from ICANN and control of the Internet architecture to other arenas by explaining technical advances that will potentially alleviate some of the concern over current issues - such as the introduction of regional Anycast root server mirrors and explaining the capabilities of IPv6. Issues such as the subjective evaluation of 'demonstrated need' - used by ICANN to allocate domain names, and the remaining power to remove countries from the root servers appears to be downplayed. Despite this however, these issues were not discussed in the main forums discussion of the WGIG draft report from WSIS.

The Digital Solidarity Fund

Chapter Two of the Operational Part dealt with the formation of a Digital Solidarity Fund (DSF) to support developing nations in financing ICT infrastructure and digital connectivity.

Part 14. We recognise the existence of the digital divide and the challenges that this poses for many countries, which are forced to choose between many competing objectives in their development planning and in demands for development funds whilst having limited resources (Agreed).

And

We welcome the Digital Solidarity Fund (DSF) established in Geneva as an innovative financial mechanism of a voluntary nature open to interested stakeholders with the objective of transforming the digital divide into digital opportunities for the developing world by focusing mainly on specific and urgent needs at the local level and seeking new voluntary sources of 'solidarity' finance. The DSF will complement existing mechanisms for funding the Information Society, which should continue to be fully utilised to fund the growth of new ICT infrastructure and services (Agreed)

Much of this document was agreed upon by the end of the Prep Com2 meeting but significant proportions were referred on to further drafting committees.

Paragraphs of contention appeared to be concerned with acceptable governmental frameworks for promoting the Information Society - such as competitive market environments and policies promoting universal access.

eg. Paragraph 18A

We are greatly encouraged by the fact that advances in communication technology, and high speed data networks are continuously increasing the possibilities for developing countries, and countries with economies in transition, to participate in the global market for information technology-enabled services on the basis of their comparative advantage. These emerging opportunities provide a powerful commercial basis for ICT infrastructural investment in these countries [Therefore, Governments should take action, in the framework of national development policies, in order to support an enabling and competitive environment for the necessary investment in ICT infrastructure and for the development of new services] - bracketed sentence still under contention

And

Paragraph 25

We acknowledge the following prerequisites for equitable and universal accessibility to better utilisation of financial mechanism:

a). Creating policies and regulatory incentives [aimed at universal access [as well as open access]]/[and open access]/[aimed at universal access and private sector investment];

Also the issue of debt relief mechanisms in lieu of appropriate ICT development remained in brackets.

Prep Com-3 has now been scheduled for PrepCom-3: 19-30 September 2005, Geneva (Switzerland) while the final phase is planned for 16-18 November 2005 Hammamet in Tunisia.

About the author

Alicia (Lucy) Cameron is currently enrolled as a PhD student in the School of Social Science at the University of Queensland. She is undertaking a three-year study into the adoption and use of broadband technologies in non-metropolitan Australia . Prior to undertaking full-time study Lucy was a statistician at the Southern Cross University and the Northern Territory University, and earlier was employed as a senior researcher at the University of Technology, Sydney. Her previous research work concerned the role of information and communications technology in higher education. Lucy also dabbles in short films and is an active member of community media organisations in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales. She is due to complete her PhD in 2005.

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