Question: In difference to Asia, in Europe, (Germany!!!), large parts of the society are still kept away from the internet because of high access costs, internet communication seems to be restricted to IT specialists only. I would like to ask if ICANN could help to open internet communication for everybody?

Nominee Replies

Winfried Schueller - posted on 2000-09-26 09:18:09 ICANN is aware of the administration of the most important Internet resources like IP addresses, the Domain Name System, Port numbers and the root server system. The awareness and the outreach of ICANN surely improves the topic Internet in many countries. To open up Internet communication to everybody has to be done by the local governments or ISPs possibly supported by higher developed countries. At the last G8 summit talks about the support for under developed countries by countries like e.g. Germany or the US took place. Andy Mueller-Maguhn - posted on 2000-09-24 03:18:34 I do agree to your idea, but ICANN can mostly only deal with this idea in their issues - name space, ip-numbers, protocols. I think it would be a good idea - and this does not have to happen in ICANN - to develop global ideas for global (information/communication) society. I wrote down some ideas for this some years ago, see http://www.datenreisen.de/Papers/Index.html ICANN could of course transform this idea into their sub-partners and try to inspire them symbolically, but most of the job will have to be done outside of ICANN. Please mention that still more than half of the human race of this planet does not even have a connection to the telephone-system. Olivier Muron - posted on 2000-09-22 08:26:42 This is an important issue and a lot of progresses have been made but it is beyond the scope of Icann's responsibilities. Lower the price of domain names for individuals is however a goal ICANN should pursue. Jeanette Hofmann - posted on 2000-09-21 16:20:20 I don't agree. The use of Internet services is not longer restricted to IT experts. About 600 million people worldwide and approximately 100 million people in Europe have access to the Net right now. Only a minority of them are IT experts. Besides, I know of no other technology that has spread so quickly as the Internet. The next generation of users will take the Net already for granted - as we once the phone network ;-) And, no again, the question of access to the Internet is beyond ICANN's scope. Regarding the high access fees in Germany: this should and can be dealt with on the national level. A Regulierungsbehörde is in charge of this issue. Alf Hansen - posted on 2000-09-21 00:29:45 My motto is: ICANN keeps The Internet interconnected for Everyone. ICANN must however limit its engagement to minimum co-ordination of names and numbers. If ICANN sets up rules for how Service Providers should price their services, this would certainly be outside the scope of ICANN. Please remember what ICANN's mission is. How people get access to the Internet, access prices, content, etc. are not issues that ICANN should handle. ICANN should help to open Internet communication for everybody by assuring that the names and numbers in the Internet are not limiting such open communication.