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Introduction
We appreciate the opportunity to express our views on international public policy issues by responding to the online consultation run by the ITU Council Working Group on international Internet-related public policy issues (CWG-Internet).
Japan Registry Services Co., Ltd. (JPRS) is a private company that serves as Japanese ccTLD (.jp) registry. It makes contribution to the global and local Internet resource management in coordination with ICANN, Japan Network Information Center (JPNIC), Japanese government, and other entities. Further it makes various contributions as well to the Internet growth and development through IETF, ISOC, and so on.
Here we submit our comments to Question 1, 3, 4 and 5 from the standpoint of an organization that serves to the Internet infrastructure and its usage environment mainly through domain name management and domain name system (DNS) operation as a ccTLD registry.
We pay our respect to the effort by parties and individuals involved in the Internet growth and development and expect the discussions in ITU will lead to further sound development and more secure and stable Internet infrastructure.
Question 1: Internet connectivity
What are the elements of an enabling environment to promote Internet connectivity?
Answer to question 1:
One of the indispensable nature of the Internet is "equally connecting every corner of the world". It has been the strong will and autonomous activities of various stakeholders, mainly of non-governmental entities, that have served as driving force of the growth and development of the Internet. Such activities, among others, include policy setting, technical standardization, and operation of the Internet. Below are the examples of the forums yielding such activities.
It must be noted that "equally connecting every corner of the world" should cover not only the technical infrastructure layer but also the upper layers including human social activities on the Internet. To achieve the connectivity in this context, we believe that active participation of multistakeholder, which has been the outstanding feature in the course of the growth and development of the Internet, should be the basis and should be empowered.
For example, ICANN continuously contributes to the security and stability of the domain name system (DNS) by coordinating the technical aspects of the Internet resource management. The outstanding nature of ICANN is that its activities are based upon open and active participation of individual and organizational multistakeholder entities from governments, private sector, civil society, and others.
This participation framework strengthens the nature of the Internet, which is "equally connecting every corner of the world".
ISOC contributes to the growth and development of the Internet, especially by creating discussion platform, such as IAB and IETF, for engineers around the world to gather and openly discuss the standardization of the technical protocols and to produce standard protocol specifications as RFC documents. ISOC also contributes to the healthy and powerful usage of the Internet, proposing better usage environment and user literacy improvement, through discussion among technical community, private sector, and civil society.
Another example is Network Operators Groups (NOG's). In various regions and countries, engineers in network operation community have formed NOG's as open community forums to share experience and discuss about sound operation of networks within each NOG community and across NOG communities in order to upgrade their network operation.
As exemplified above, frameworks that have served as driving force of the Internet growth and development are based on open and bottom-up multistakeholder model.
Question 3: Quality of access to the Internet
What are the elements of an enabling environment to promote the quality of access to the Internet?
Answer to question 3:
Accessibility of the Internet has to be defined as not only technical accessibility but also mechanism and policy that allow access to any content on the global Internet. With this definition in mind, quality of access should be discussed. We think, as we mentioned in the response to Question1, participation of multistakeholder should be the basis of all the discussion to promote the quality of access to the Internet.
Question 4: Confidence and security in the use of the Internet
What are the elements of an enabling environment to build confidence and security in the use of the Internet?
Answer to question 4:
Various stakeholders, especially non-governmental organizations and individuals, have cooperatively discussed about and developed the Internet mainly to satisfy their own needs.
When more and more people and things come to rely on the Internet, multistakeholder process is also the key to the confidence and security they demand in using the Internet, because those who know their ever-changing real needs are themselves.
Since demand for the Internet grows and changes rapidly, Internet technologies and services are required to be evolved continuously as rapidly as the demand evolves. The speed of the growth and development of the Internet has relied on, and will further rely on, the multistakeholder frameworks whole community has devised to realize.
Question 5: Role of Governments
What is the role of Governments in building an enabling environment?
Answer to question 5:
One of the outstanding characteristics of the Internet is 'borderless free flow of information', which gives extraordinary ability to the Internet. We have strong concern that the speed of the growth and development of the Internet would seriously ruined, if intergovernmental organizations and/or national governments should have excess influence to the policy and technical development by means of international treaties and/or national regulations. We strongly request such situation is avoided.
Also, talking about the role of government, we wish each government to take any actions to accelerate the growth and development of the Internet as one of the stakeholders in the multistakeholder process.
Question 6: Contact Details
First/Last Name: Koki Higashida
Title: President
Organization you are representing: Japan Registry Services Co., Ltd. (JPRS)
Country: Japan
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