NARALO Trip/Event Assessment 1

Summary of IGFUSA2016 Highlights:

The Forum opened with a plenary on the digital divide with a presentation by a researcher from the Pew Research Center. The message here was that the divide was still alive and well and in some respects, growing. There was some good news regarding upticks in connectivity among the economically depressed and racial minorities due to the increase in smart phone usage. Efforts to connect third world populations have been falling short.

There were three morning breakout sessions. We attended the one on trade transparency and the one on expanding access, adoption and digital literacy through technology and local solutions.

There was an interesting discussion on confidentiality in trade negotiations, in particular in the context of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a recently negotiated multilateral trade treaty with intellectual property and Internet trade implications. Speakers questioned the need for the traditionally accepted policy requiring confidentiality during and following treaty negotiations, and suggested moving towards greater transparency in trade negotiations.

The session on expanding access gave some examples of broadband connectivity initiative in USA. It offered an overview from the FCC on access for disabled persons, where the market sector is not always involved. It also provided some pratical solutions offered by Microsoft (affodable access initiative) in USA (Southern Virginia).

The Indigenous situation is probably the most challenging connectivity issue raised during the session. Jeff Blum from Dish explained how USA could provide connectivity solutions in rural areas and Indigenous, but cost is still an obstacle and should be US funded. Jeff thinks that funding should be technically neutral and rely on the best quality/price ratio. Comcast confirmed an access gap of 35% in rural areas where they launched initiatives in schools and other communities.

However, it is interesting to see the similarity of the situation both in USA and Canada where broadband access in many rural regions and communities (Indigenous) is a remaining problem to solve that would need an holistic solution.

Of the three afternoon breakout sessions, we attended the session on the Big Data and the Internet of Things. One of the speakers opined that we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg as respects the Internet of Things and that the IoT will revolutionize our lives to the same extent as the Internet itself has. There were discussions regarding the need for safeguarding privacy and security, predictions how the IOT would impact bandwidth needs, and ethical questions regarding the generation of use of Big Data.

We also attended the session on how better broadband benefits eveyone. Competition is hard to fine in the mature existing market, stated Blair Levin (The Brookings Institution). Unbundling freezes capital investments and new entrants need high capital. People like Google Fiber ans cabledistributors entering mobile markets might impact comepition, and the players who have access to data are also to consider.

Eli Noam argues that USA is still in competition head and shoulders above most of other coutries of the world. He thinks that applications on top and video will be the drivers of infrastructure. The challenge will be how to integrate videos in the broadcast system, considering countries different sensitivities on what can be shown or not.

Following Kate Gage (US Gov) talking on the Global Connect initiative driven by the Government where projects benefit from eliminated custom barriers (ex : a natural disaster , a tsunami), Robert Pepper asked the panel if eliminating custom barriers in a systemic approach is part of the solution.

According to Eli Noam, technology is developped so fast and governments move so slow that the notion of Internet Governance and Global Internet Governance is not going to work in the future. «The future is one where different countries, different companies will go their own ways, and will do what then want in a faster way.» he said.

Plenary Session

The afternoon plenary dealt with the IANA transfer to ICANN. This was clearly the Forum highlight and the presentations and debate can be relived at https://livestream.com/internetsociety/igfusa/videos/129759615 thanks to the hard work of our very own Joly MacFie. The discussion was lead off by Larry Strickling, US Depart of Commerce, explaining that a further delay in the transition, which could result from the failure of the legislature to approve the transition plan supported by the administration, would be expected to cause the U.S. Government to lose credibility in the eyes of the other governments. This, in turn, would be expected to cause countries who favor a centralized control of the Internet through a UN agency or similar to gain traction in the Internet governance debate. Speakers representing libertarian perspectives argued for delaying the transition to work out certain details which they viewed as potentially problematic, particularly in the area of ICANN corporate governance. One speaker argued for a claw-back provision that would allow the U.S. Government to rescind the transition during an initial two year period if certain risks or dangers came to pass or loomed.

In addition to Joly, Judith Helerstein and Glenn McKnight were instrumental in the success of the IFGUSA 2016. The day was insightful and stimulating and packed a lot, efficiently, into a few hours. The small size of the audience (maybe 200 or so) added to the effectiveness of the event.

We would like to thank ICANN and NARALO for giving us the opportunity to attend.

Outreach and Engagement (Seith)

I was successful in connecting with 3 or 4 individuals that expressed some interest in becoming an ALS. One was a law student who was interning with the FCC for the summer and who had attended an IGF in Istanbul in 2014. She expressed some interest in participating in the At Large community and also thought she might have friends at her law school that might be interested.

I also connected with one of the speakers who is a non-practicing lawyer working for a research consultancy who had done extensive research on the ICANN transition. We discussed the advantages of joining the At Large contingency relative to other ICANN contingencies.

I also met with other attendees who, because of their positions and interests, are unlikely to become ALSs.

The opportunities for outreach and engagement were somewhat more limited at this event, perhaps because it was held in Washington, DC with participants from government, think tanks and consultancies who would be unlikely to be appropriate ALSs or have an interest in constituting an ALS.

Outreach and Engagement (Louis)

I had the opportunity to talk with speakers and attendees (including ICANN contributors, members of the Board). These discussions where more than valuable since I could initiate talks on recruiting new Als with various people (Indigenous,US Gov representative, lawyer, rural citizen joining from abroad)

All of this contributing to a real discussion on outreaching objectives to be followed.