ITU Complements FCC

January 13, 2007

I thought it was interesting to read the director-general of the International Telecommunication Union, Hamadoun Toure said the agency would be just one of many organizations involved in shaping the Internet's development.

"It is not my intention to take over the governance of the Internet," Toure told reporters in Geneva at his first press conference. "There is no one single issue that can be dealt with by one organization alone."

He said the ITU would work with other agencies such as the quasi-independent Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, which manages the day-to-day flow of data across the Internet from its Marina del Rey, Calif., headquarters and oversees key rules that govern how computers communicate.

He further praised the U.S. Federal Communications Commission as a model regulatory body, saying the FCC was "one of our very dynamic members ... with a very positive attitude" toward solving technical issues.

I was pretty impressed to hear a member of the ITU/UN backing the FCC with such a nice complement. It is so unusual to hear anyone in the UN complementing anything the US does these past years. It seems like the world is happiest when bashing – not supporting the US and its policies.

It is a real positive to get a complement like this and Commissioner Kevin Martin and the rest of the FCC should be proud to get such nice comments.