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Alan Levin
- posted on 2000-09-28 23:13:04
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Voice over IP uses packet based audio technology. I have always closely followed this technology and I believe that it can clearly bring down the costs of telecommunications. It also impacts the telecomms economics so I can understand the concern from African regulators.
I concur with Nii's well worded comment, In the general telecommunication sector, where your question is focussed, we note that its not unusual for regulatory practices to lag behind the advancement of fast changing technologies. Hence the opportunity is in knowledge transfer from industry to regulators and a good dialog to avoid regulation becoming a hindrance in ICT development.
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Nii Quaynor
- posted on 2000-09-28 09:41:44
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The ICANN contribution to VOIP development in Africa would come in the technical standards, policies developed through the PSO and ASO. The act of deployment itself is the natural domain of Industry operators who would optimize solutions for markets. The laws of the land and the preparedness of the regulator is important for public voice service provisioning.
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Calvin Browne
- posted on 2000-09-27 03:36:19
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I've set up Voice Over IP on Cisco kit before.
But I can see very little reason why anything an ICANN board member does would stop this from happening.
Regulators may attempt to outlaw it, and National carriers might attempt to prevent it from taking place on their networks, but I can see very little from stopping it, if there is an IP network in a country.
And ICANN certainly has no place telling ISP's or government what to do on their networks.
In short Voice Over IP is a certainty whatever an ICANN board member does.
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