The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Guadalajara, Mexico, from 6 to 9 December 2016. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the event, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> Welcome, everybody to workshop ten. We'd like to start. If you can, please take a seat. Welcome, everybody to Guadalajara, Mexico.
>> JOE GATTUSO: Welcome, everybody. Let's see if I get the microphone right. So, to our visiting delegations and to our guests from the Internet Society and any other guests we have here observing in person or online, I welcome you all. I thought I'd say a few words about why we're here and what we're doing for the next few hours so, we're all familiar with that. The guests know this, but we'll repeat anyway. The U.S. Department of Commerce ‑‑ I would say just speak right into it. All right, I'll do it. I'm with ‑‑ my name is Joe Gattuso. I'm an attorney adviser with the United States Department of Commerce commercial law development program. I'm here with my colleague, Emily Skills, who's in the front, who's an international program specialist. And what our office does is help advanced commercial legal issues and matters throughout the world in various countries.
Telecommunications and the internet are just one aspect of the work of CLDP which is generally funded by the US Agency of International Development or the U.S. Department of State. We have been doing work separately on IT issues in both Afghanistan and Pakistan for the last couple of years. We have today representatives from both of those countries as part of our ongoing facilitation of those countries. This is not a joint delegation. This is simply a matter of, we are able to support both countries and very pleased that both are here. We can do introductions separately. The room doesn't really provide for it at this moment but I'll tell you we're very pleased to have two officials here this morning from the Pakistan telecommunications authority including the chairman of the authority, Dr. Shaw.
We have two representatives of the Afghan government. One from the Ministry of Communications and IT, one from the Afghan Telecommunications Regulatory Committee. We have four Civil Society participants, including Mr. Wafa with American University, Mr. Cobana with Tech Women Afghanistan. Mr. Shamin from Pakistan, Mr. Payab from Afghanistan from the regular story authority. We also have Ms. Judith Hellerstein and Mr. Jordan Solomon with USAD.
Our morning, for everybody's benefit, will start with some time spent with representatives from the Internet Society who have very kindly come forward to talk about issues. This is going to be informal. I should also mention this is a continuation of the two days we spent in Washington DC last week where we were able to meet with parties in government and non‑government to talk about both internet and telecommunications issues. So we're picking up this morning, finishing up. We're just going to be finishing the morning here in this room.
We're going to be visiting with ISOC now. We'll have a visit from the Commissar with the Mexican ITS, the Institute for Telecommunications, to talk about telecommunications sector. After that, we're expecting visitors to come by informally, not confirmed. So we will finish up with before lunchtime. Afterwards, our visiting participants will take advantage of the many Day 0 programs that start at 12:00 and go for the rest of the day. That is the overview.
So with that, we'll see how this works with the space we have here. I'd like to start by introducing Sally Wentworth from ISOC who will now introduce her colleagues and generally follow through.
>> SALLY WENTWORTH: Very good. Thank you, Joe. Good morning, everybody. My name is Sally Wentworth. I'm the Vice President of Global Policy at the Internet Society. This is great. We have a new chapter in Afghanistan and a longstanding relationship in Pakistan, so this is a really fabulous opportunity to meet with you in person and speak to you a little bit from an ISOC global perspective to help you in the work that you do locally in your countries.
So hopefully that's the kind of conversation we can have, and we can certainly take it in any number of directions based on your questions and areas of interest. Why don't I first start by just introducing quickly our Internet Society colleagues who are here just so you know the faces in the room. We have Joyce here, who works on ‑‑ Joyce, your formal title? Senior director of Global Engagement. She knows everything there is to know about chapters and also has important work with our department around the world. Jane Coffin, who I think everyone knows. Jane ‑‑ I don't know everybody's title at the Internet Society. We're not really big on titles, but Jane is instrumental on the ground in developmental activities worldwide. She's one of the foremost experts in the world, and somebody I know that many of you have worked with.
Noel is a policy expert in our Asia Pacific bureau covering a host of issues including security, access, trust, and a wide range of topics. Carl Ganberg is raising his hand now. There he is. Carl works in our Geneva office and covers a range of Internet Governance policy issues in the US and otherwise. Just joining us is Raul, the policy of engagement. I think I'll start and then Raul, do you want to pick it up? This is sort of an informal discussion. Joe told us we're going to talk about what we do at the global level and see how it relates to regional and local activities.
Internet Society, I think many of you know, is a global organization. We are a non‑profit entity really dedicated to the growth of the internet. We advocate for the growth of internet worldwide. We think the internet is good for humanity. We think it has connected community and people in ways never before possible, created opportunity, and is a channel for the future. So our whole set of activities, whether they're technical or policy or development oriented are really focused around that unifying theme that the internet should be for everyone and it should be a medium of opportunity.
The work that we do, as I said, is divided sort of into these areas. We do a lot of work on the technology front. We are ‑‑ the entity that develops many of the protocols that you use every day and don't think about, probably. We do a lot of work on the public policy, so things related to internet governance but the host of internet policy issues that are confronting us today at every level, whether they're related to access, affordability, opportunity, trust, security, privacy, all of these range of issues that are facing the future of the internet are issues where Internet Society is active and has positions and works on advocacy.
And then on the aspects of development, I think Raul can speak more about that, but fundamentally the internet -- so we have to create the universal channels of connectivity and that relates to empowering people, training people, building capacities of individuals to build the internet, to innovate on the internet and grow it to the next thing it will become. So that's really the work that Raul works on, and Jane and Joyce, of what do we have to do to build the communities of excellence in all of your countries to build the internet of the future that you want.
So, that's very high level overview of what we do. The way we do it is, really we aim to be bottom-up. We aim to be community driven. So the chapters that you have in your country are our resource to you as policy makers to help you make the policy that makes sense in your country. They are the community of experts that can help build the internet in your countries. So, our chapters are really a link between "ISOC global and the local community." So we are very pleased to have the chapter emerging in Afghanistan and ongoing in Pakistan. I'll just stop and give you a little in terms of my background because maybe it relates to some of you, especially on the policy making side.
I used to be in government. My background, I started at the State Department working on internet policy issues and then went to the White House to work on domestic internet policy issues. And one of the things that I found is that as a policy maker, you are called upon to be an expert in everything. Right? You have to make decisions about everything. And nobody is an expert about everything. And, you need the community around you to help you. You need to be able to reach experts on different topics to help you make the right policy decisions. So, I think it's important that governments look at the stakeholder community, the multistakeholder process, not as a, you know, formal thing, but as a community, a way of making decisions. A way of getting to the right answer. A way of bringing experts to the table to help you work through a consumer protection challenge. To help you work through, how do you make connectivity more affordable? How do you strengthen the capacity of your community?
It's not a decision or a set of decisions you have to make on your own. You can lien on your Internet Society chapter. You can lean on the industry. You can lean on legal experts, academic experts around you to help you make the right decisions. That was something I did not fully appreciate until I came into government, but just how hard it is to make the whole wide range of decisions you have to make on a daily basis.
And it's okay to reach out to the community and say, what is the right answer here? Advise us. Give us your input. Help us make the right decisions. And we hope that's what our Internet Society chapters can be in part to the community. It's not the only thing they do but I think it's an important role, especially since we have government officials here, we really hope you would look at the Internet Society community as a resource.
So I will pause there and maybe turn it over to Raul, and Raul, maybe we talk a little bit about why we support the Internet Governance forum and local IGFs and that set of issues.
>> RAUL ECHEBERRIA: Good morning, everybody. Thank you for this invitation, for this meeting. As Sally said before, for us in the Internet Society, the internet has never been ‑‑ connectivity has never been the ultimate objective of our work. We have work always in the understanding that the internet is a tool for improving the life of the people. And so, in that sense, as Sally also said, it is important that we look ‑‑ it's among all of the holders, the way, the best ways to the bill of the internet and to move forward in order to develop that internet. An internet of opportunities. An internet that really helps to improve the conditions of the people, at the same time improving also the potential of the country.
And so, this is ‑‑ the IGF is an instrument that we created that we worked very much to create in 2005 in the summit, we have been committed strongly since the beginning. And then just for giving you a data that help to show this commitment, in this meeting, we ‑‑ the Internet Society directly or indirectly have supported the participation of about 200 people. This shows clearly our commitment plus all the efforts we have spent in the year in developing materials, working with groups or well-meaning activities or some of them by ourselves, some of them in partnership with other organizations like the one that Jane is leading today for community.
This is where we contributed to bringing together all the people that is expert in that field, just as an example, while it's for community. So they meet here and make valuable contribution to the discussion. So, we bring people, but we bring contents, we bring expertise to the Internet Governance. But one of the ‑‑ it's very good. This meeting is very good. The IGF, all the process of the IGF is very important for bringing all the different stakeholders to have an open discussion and equal footing, but it's not enough because we come here every year. We send a lot of very interesting things. We learn about what is happening in all the world, but we have to come back to our countries the day after that and we want to do things, based on the things that we have learned in IGF.
We want to bring some this knowledge to the practice. So we need also the regional and local levels, we need to adapt those ideas and have their own discussions closer to the policy making. Close to the policy making as a way to, as Sally said, the policy makers can lean on all the communities for the decisions they have to take.
This is very important. It's a huge responsibility for the governments to take all the decisions and things that will benefit or compromise the future of the country in the next 50 years. So we have to take advantage of all the expertise that we have distributed in the society among different stakeholders. And this is why we also promote the creation of the implementation of national dialogues and regional dialogues and things that are important for the regions. Sometimes are the same topics that are the most popular topics in global, some other times are different topics because the local realty impose to discuss other things.
And our chapter is an instrument in both areas. It's an instrument for working on development. For bringing, in particular in Pakistan we have done a lot of work and I am hopefully, we will continue doing a lot of work there and I have to say, I'm very glad to say that many of the things we have done in partnership with the government there and we have the regulator here that is a very good partner of us. We have organized the community meetings like INETs or supporting the international governance, local school, and we have organized activities on accessibility, and also deployed connectivity in rural places, we are working together with the incumbent, the telecom of the country in bringing connectivity as part of our Wallis for Community project.
In Afghanistan, as we have a recently adopted chapter there. We are very happy to have this chapter in Afghanistan and I anticipate we have the same opportunities to do similar kinds of work there. So this is why I say we have this dual role of the chapters in working on development of the country and at the same time also promoting more open dialogues on Internet Governance related things. But, there are also other activities that they have in capacity building and reaching a discussion and also bringing the local flavor to the region hall and global discussion is very important because we need this Internet Governance forum and other forum taking consideration of the diversity of the situations and characteristics of the world as a whole. Thank you. Sorry. Was a little long?
>> SALLY WENTWORTH: No. Not at all. So that's a very quick overview. I wonder ‑‑ I know this room is a little more formal than maybe a round table would have provided, but can we open it up for any ‑‑ it would be wonderful for us to hear from maybe our chapter leaders about sort of your goal for chapters in either Afghanistan or Pakistan. Your objectives for the week and what you're hoping to get out of the week or any questions you might have about the Internet Society and your engagement with us.
So those are at least three areas I'd love to hear from people on. If people are willing to take the microphone from me, we can have more interactive conversation. I have a taker over here. And if you could give your name and where you're from.
>> OMAR ANSARI: Sure. Thank you so much for the very good presentation, the comments. My name is Omar. I'm one of the founding members of ISOC Afghanistan and I'm on the Board of Directors, and the first Vice President, Vice Chair is here, and the four board members. We started this together. It took us two years to get the formal approval of the Afghanistan chapter and then Chobana is Chair Vice. We all work together to get global recognition for our local chapter. One of the biggest issues we face in Afghanistan, and that's been for the past this 30, 40 years, is that we have been in isolation due to the invasions, war, civil war in all of these. You know?
But the past 10, 13 years were very good in terms of capacity building of Afghans and deep connection with the global community. If it's about business, internet issues, technology, public policy. So, we're very happy about that and learning a lot from going to meetings on international level. CLDP has been very supportive in the past few years. We had quite a few sessions together at the IGF 2015 and then IGF 2016. And they're trying their best to provide more support to the afghan government, the Civil Society and the private sector. However, Afghanistan is a very new chapter. It's been a couple of months we got our formal approval from the ISOC Global.
We have three major issues. Number one is the capacity of the local technology professionals as well as people who are in public policy. Technology and public policy, these are like two different issues, but we don't have many people who understand how to develop policy, how to formulate policy, and how to do like policy advice so this is going to be one of the areas who would need some capacity building. And this could be by engaging our chapter leaders and the members of the Internet Society, Afghanistan. And then the global connection, that's another issue. We would like to connect with the rest of the world. We want to have opportunities to attend workshops abroad. For example, the engineering task force you've talked about. That would be an ideal place for some of our technologists to get involved in.
The other issue would be helping the local communities to get involved in our activities and also the global activities. A major challenge when it comes to the international meetings is everyone needs to go through applying for fellowships, you know? And that's very difficult for Afghans who are non‑speaking to do a very good fellowship application. If they had to compete with people from India, for example, in Pakistan and so many other countries, they are not going to win. Because they are not good in writing English. They are not good in expressing themselves. But they're really good in working, you know? When it comes. If you give them a chance to attend these meetings and participate, with the passage of time, they're going to learn.
Last year, I was at the IGF 2015 with the help of Joe and his team, but this year I was appointed as a member of the IGF MAG, the multi‑stakeholder advisory group. So that's how we were exposed. That was a big step for an Afghan, you know? It was difficult. It was hard for us to be there. But when we got involved, we, you know, got to the top. And that's how I wanted for the rest of the Afghans to get involved in your, you know, communities, for example, the ‑‑ what is it? You have a Board of Directors and there is Board of Trustees, right? So Board of Trustees would be a place where Afghanistan would need representation but I know there are quite a few limited seats available so these are some of my questions and if you can elaborate more on that, on how we can get involved more and take advantage of the opportunities.
>> SALLY WENTWORTH: So this doesn't just have to be the Sally and Raul show. Since we have other ISOC experts here, I'm going to turn over to Joyce. If that's okay, Joyce? Joyce is very familiar with our chapter opportunities and can talk a little bit more about those. I would just like to say from where I sit, it is so exciting to see the enthusiasm that you have, that Afghanistan has. You've worked for two years to get a chapter. That's commitment. That's endurance right there. And that you have this hunger and this desire to participate on the global stage is very important, and I think it can happen. So, I think from where I sit, it's a very good data point to know about the enthusiasm and the interest. And sometimes, that's the first step, right? But Joyce, you want to talk a little bit about the various programs.
>> JOYCE: Thank you, Omar for bringing up the issues. I formally want to say since it's face‑to‑face now, congratulations on the chapter and we are thrilled to have you as part of the family, as we said. And had the opportunity to see very actively involved in Bangkok during the chapter workshop we had there, so I think this was a very first opportunity for the chapter to get connected to the other regional chapters. I'm sure he brought home a hot of stories, a lot of takeaways from that session. So I think those opportunities are definitely there. As you all know, it is important for us to develop the chapters at local level and to ensure that we provide you with the necessary tools and resources to be successful at local level, but it's also very important for us to bridge that connection with the other, not only regional chapters as we did in Bangkok and bringing together all the chapters from the region to have discussions about the issues that are alive, not only in your local countries but in the region and how you can actually collaborate with each other to find solutions to that.
And then the next step is obviously, the more ambitious piece is looking at the global connections with the chapters. I think what we see with the more mature ‑‑ I think our Pakistan chapter can confirm that as well. Once you get connected with other chapters, once you get involved with the regional calls we have. We have some community forums as well where you have the opportunity to discuss policy or technology issues with other chapters, with peers, we have one of our US chapters here in the room as well. So, this is already an opportunity. And I think as a chapter, you need to give yourself some time to grow and make those connections. We are obviously there to help and to do that. In terms of capacity building, Noel, do you want to talk about what is happening at the regional level in terms of activities and opportunities for capacity building or other activities in the region, specifically?
>> Very briefly we have opportunity to participate in some of our chapter activities, so we do organize several activities for chapters. One of them is the chapter leaders meeting, which I think you have participated in, but there are also many opportunities for building capacity. We have, as you might know, we organized activities with chapters as well so that is another opportunity. We have the Asia Internet Symposium. There are several organized every year. We aim to organize at least three. Sometimes it goes up to six. And these are on local issues. So we work with local chapters, not necessarily chapters in areas that we don't have chapters, for instance. We have worked with governments. We have worked with other stakeholders to make this happen, but there is a local host and this mostly, this tends to be the chapter.
We work with a local host to set the agenda to determine what needs to be discussed, but ultimately, this is about talking and coming up with a particular set of issues that you think is relevant to your locality at the moment. We also have this year, we started a major conference call, the regional internet and development dialogue which I think you also participated in. This is also an opportunity for us to come together as a community and to just build general understanding, to deepen the interconnections that we have and just be a more ‑‑ how is it? To foster a more kind of ‑‑ a more solutions hitch driven environment. And ‑‑ solutions‑driven environment. On the technical side, we also have several fellowships.
One of them is the Apricot Fellowship that we try to sponsor every year. That is also an ‑‑ we open that up to chapters and we do encourage you to join and obviously, you know, I'm going to give you my card and if there's anything else that we could help you with, we'd be happy to.
>> SALLY WENTWORTH: So Joyce and I have each one more thing and then we want more questions from the group. Go ahead.
>> JOYCE: I just wanted to mention one program that is very concretely available to you already now, I mean, apart from the chapter support in terms of management and so on. But, we actually run a program called Beyond the Net with which you may be familiar. It's actually a granted program where chapters can apply for funding to run community projects. So, it's a program that has been run for the past ten years. We've funded over 200 projects over those ten years. So the program is open for applications at any time, and they can actually, they can be connectivity‑related to projects. They can be capacity building projects. Funding is available up to 30,000 U.S. dollars so it's definitely an opportunity for the chapter to, one, get involved at local level in terms of capacity building and obviously the team can support in providing some of the content, some of the briefings. We can put you in touch with other chapters who have done some successful projects already so you can learn from each other and not have to reinvent everything from zero.
So, we will have a little ‑‑ if it arrives, eventually, we will have a little report. It's a Beyond the Net Impacts Report of 2015 where you will see some examples of the projects we have funded in 2015. Jane also knows a lot of those projects. She's involved in actually supporting some of them very actively. So, if you want to have a chat with one of us, I mean, feel free at any time just to ‑‑ even to brainstorm at any time. Not a problem.
>> SALLY WENTWORTH: So, the last thing you had mentioned a desire to be linked to sort of ISOC global linked to the global community. Just an idea, and Judith, I hope this is okay, but, you know, one ‑‑ I hear from the DC chapter. I live in DC. So one of the things that they have said is the desire to have sort of joint meetings with other chapters. You know, one idea is to kind of, to find a buddy, so to speak. Another chapter that's maybe more developed that's been around a little bit longer, and do some joint conversations. Find, you know, they know how to navigate the Internet Society, although as staff, we're always here to help with you that.
But they know how to do that. But they've also had success in certain activities, may have some ideas, but may also have resources in terms of policy or technology ideas that may be of interest that may be, you know, if in Afghanistan, there's a big push on a particular topic, another chapter in the network may have also worked on that topic and may have ideas and you may be able to do some joint activities just as an idea. So I know the DC chapter has been very keen to do things like that. I think other chapters are as well. If it's IPC6, I can tell you the Japanese chapter is light years ahead of everybody else and Colorado chapter is very interested in IPC6.
So, there are groups you could tap depending on your areas of interest. So that's just a suggestion.
>> SYED: Thank you very much. As you probably know, Syed, Chairman of Pakistan. We work very closely with ISOC in the country and even outside. Recently, just to continue with what Omar mentioned, recently from 26th to 29th November, we had the Pakistan school of Internet Governance and I think we had participants from, we recently organized activities with ISOC so if there's any paperwork or supports required, we can actually help with that. Because we are a government entity and the paperwork could be organized. If there are a requirement for our event friends to come to any events in Pakistan.
In April this year, in connection with the first IXP that's now up and running, we just need to have the formal inauguration. Other than that, we had the INET last year immediately after the IGF, we had the INET which went very well. That was very successful. Another activity that you might also consider, Omar, doing, that you might want to consider is that we are working with ISOC and the local operators on activities related to persons with disabilities. So, ISOC had been helping us and creating the awareness regarding the persons with disabilities and what the ICTs can do for them.
So, that is something that you might want to do in Afghanistan also. Of course, if any expedience or anything else is required from us, we would be happy to do that. Another than that, you would rightly mention if you look at the overall internet, this is our belief also, that internet can be a great source for humanity. It can provide so many services that especially countries like ours require, for example, in terms of health, education, financial services, and I am glad to inform you that last year in the previous IGF I met a group from Pakistan here.
They were actually establishing e-clinics for the women in the villages. We are now working with them and I'm encouraging having their meetings arranged with the local operators, the local carriers, so that the broadband connectivity can be provided to them free of cost in remote areas. So that's something we're working on and the same content can be extended.
So we can actually do a knowledge hearing with all the community. For this, also we had some workshops on IPV 6 arranged in Pakistan. In Pakistan, we are also working with the higher education commission. ISOC, Higher Education Commission, so awful us working together on Internet Governance. Now, specifically, for this IGF, again we would like to extend to know more about how the Internet Governance should take shape and most importantly how the SGDs, for example, can be achieved using the ICTs. So that's basically ‑‑ we do have our own ideas also, but simultaneously, we would like to know what the other countries, other groups, are doing to help achieve the sustainable development goals, especially using ICTs. So that's one of the objectives that we are here for, and during the last ‑‑ since last IGF until now, we have it actually taken a few ISOC courses online. Our staff, including myself, I have taken Internet Governance Forum online courses.
I am, by the way, also a member. You have to become a member before you can take the course. So these are something that our government colleagues also have representation from telecom relating authority, the internet. What we need to do to get the benefit of the internet and services it can purchase, the government as an entity, no single entity, whether that's the government, ICANN, even the United Nations. All of us have to work together. I know there are topics of interest, for instance, cybersecurity. So that's an Internet of Things.
And our needs are a little bit different in a developing country, for example, the Internet of Things for Korea or US would be driverless cars but for us it would be more important to have sensors that can tell about the quality of water in certain places, monitor the weather and so on. But of course the technology would be the same, the protocol, activity, and all these other activities if not the same would be similar. So we would hike to know and at the same time give also our ideas on how we can take full advantage of the internet. And by the way, in Pakistan, in the last two years and three months, the broadband penetration has jumped from ‑‑ it's mostly broadband, but we are focusing on the specific ones.
With that, actually, the SMEs are growing. That's another area, I think Shabana is there from Women in Technology. This is something that's really important and as government, there are initiatives being taken by Pakistani government where we are establishing women in centers and I can share the experiences wherever they are required. So, these are some of the things. I can continue on, but ‑‑
>> SALLY WENTWORTH: I think that's great. And this is what, I think, at Internet Society, we like to see ourselves as conveners as a platform where these kinds of connections can happen. So, if we can do that through the Internet Society and help channel between all of you, that would be ideal from our perspective. In terms of resources from a policy perspective, we've been publishing a series of ‑‑ we call them "policy briefs" on different topics. On a whole range of issues. They cover everything from human rights to privacy to internet of things to, we're just publishing one on over the top services, security. I don't know, Carl, help me out with the list. We try to publish about two or three per quarter.
They are in English, French, and Spanish. If it's helpful and more helpful to you to get them translated in a local language, we are happy to work with you on that so they are available to your policy makers and your communities. The other thing we're always really looking for is to help ‑‑ these are written at a very high level for a global audience, but they need to be regionalized and localized. How does this play out in your country? What are the specific challenges as a developing country that you see that may not be reflected in a global perspective. So we put them out for comment. We are always seeking input on them but they're there for you as a resource.
For government officials, there's a program we run at the IETF, Internet Engineering Task Force where we bring policy makers and groups of about 15 to 20 to the IETF. The IETF is a very special place. It is very, very technical every time I think I know something about IPV6 I just go to a IETF working group and realize they know deep, deep things about IPC6 that I will never know. We try to show policy makers how the standard process works, what it looks like, what the IETF is because it is a mystery to many people. I felt it was a mystery when I was in government, so that's one of the reasons we run this program is a to do a tutorial.
Then how the internet works from a technical perspective. Not deep, deep, deep technical and complicated but in general, how does the domain work. How does addressing work. What is encryption? Why does it work this way? How does routing work on the internet and why is it different than telecommunications? These are not government perspectives but intended to help policy makers understand enough about the technology to try to make good decisions or at least know how to reach out to.
So that is something available to government officials. If that's something ever of interest, we'd be delighted. The IETF moves around the globe, meet three times a year, so there are opportunities there. And I firmly believe because I came from the government that is linkages between technologists and policy makers are crucial. The decisions governments make about the internet ultimately have to be implemented by technologists, right? They have to be able to write the code. They have to be able to build the devices. They have to be able to create the internet exchange points, do all of the various things at a technical level that people are asking for. So if governments are making decisions that can't actually be implemented at a technical layer, then we've been ships crossing in the night and we don't solve whatever problem it is we're trying to solve.
And I think that's particularly important on cybersecurity. Because physical security is generally been in the realm of governments, right, for a very long time. Governments have armies and police and the things related to traditional security have traditionally been government. And yet we have the internet that has traditionally been in private hands run by private entities and users are building on it and running services out of their basements or whatever it is they're doing and everybody is interacting with this technology in all of these different ways. And now we have to secure it. We have to create levels security that are vastly different than what we have currently. And you're coming up on this clash a little bit between the traditional government role and physical security and a technology that has for 25 years been in private hands and we have to find a way to secure it.
So government passing a law that says, it shall be secure, is not going to work. And waiting for the engineers to just figure it out is probably not also going to work. And this is one of the areas where the two communities absolutely must get together. There has to be interaction. Because, the solutions that the engineers provide have to meet the expectations of all of us, right, as consumers, as policy makers, as human rights activists. There's all sorts of considerations that have to go in. An industry still has to be able to function over this medium.
There are all these things to take into consideration. I really think cybersecurity are the things that are going to test this whole multistakeholder model. That's where we all have to get together. There's a question in the back, and then tell me on time where we are. We'll take one more question and then wrap up.
>> AZIZ TAQWA: Hello, everyone. My name is Aziz. I represent Internet Society Afghanistan chapter. We have recently established a chapter and we've had a few small activities here and there but we are working on the progressing. I have my colleagues from the Internet Society Afghanistan chapter here too, and it's a pleasure to be here and I'm glad to know that Internet Society global are there to, you know, support us, and provide us all the resources and assistance in whatever way possible.
Problems at the level of our country is a lot ‑‑ there are a lot of problems. Security being a major one. You know, culture differences and religion which sets boundaries in terms of, we cannot do certain things. You know, those problems are there. And our government being in a total different level which is much lower than the private sector. My government speaks a total different language and the private sector uses a different technology to the government which the government cannot afford most of the times. So, those problems we are working on.
We have also planned on having different advisory committees through the ISOC channel, which we can sort of contribute and advise the administrative communications in IT and also the Afghanistan telecommunications regulatory authority. Our plans are to have the Afghanistan school of Internet Governance which we are planning to sort of start. So I was wondering how ISOC global can help, what sort of assistant can they provide, and obviously there has been a School of Internet Governance in India and Pakistan and a few other countries, Bangladesh, for example.
So what can we learn from their best practices in terms of how to start the School of Internet Governance and what things to consider in order to be successful? And going back to ISOC, some of the chapters in ISOC has been, you know, working for ten years or more. For example, Hong Kong, Australia, so, we'd like to learn from their best practices, how did they start ten years ago and what sort of challenges did they have at the international level, at the local level, and how did they overcome those challenges? So those are the things we would like to sort of communicate with the chapters. So, what we really need is those cross‑functional activities between our chapter and the other chapters like India, Pakistan, Hong Kong and things. And also School of Internet Governance. How can Pakistan help if we want to have our School of Internet Governance because they have already started and are already working.
I heard there was a workshop last week. Yeah and how can we participate in that? And how can you guys help? How can ISOC global help in terms of having in ISOC and also the School of Internet Governance. Thank you.
>> SALLY WENTWORTH: We don't actually have a formal internship program. We're always open for good people, though. So. ISOC ambassadors. So this week, we have, how many ISOC ambassadors? Twenty‑some ambassadors. And ambassadors are programs that we run at a number of different meetings where, again, you can apply. And I should ‑‑ you made a comment about Afghanis couldn't make it through the process because of English or whatever. It is not an English writing competition. I really do want to assure you of that. It is ‑‑ we work in a global environment and not everybody has the same level of English. And I'm in Mexico this week and I have a terrible level of Spanish.
We don't want to ‑‑ that's not the point of the ambassadorship, so I do want to assure you of that. But maybe the place to start is to give you ‑‑ I think there are these lists of various engagement opportunities. We could make sure that you have those. I think you're quite spot on Internet Governance school. It strikes me that the linkage with Pakistan is probably the most relevant because they're doing this right now geographically. It makes sense, but from an ISOC global perspective, if there are questions, we're always happy to hear from you.
I'll just wrap it here on a very practical advice is, you mentioned a name. Navid. So he's your person. So, we can definitely put you in touch with, you know, with the other countries that have the School of Internet. I think you have a buddy, already, actually, so I think this meeting was great.
>> AZIZ TAQWA: Great. Thank you.
>> SALLY WENTWORTH: So I'm going to wrap there. Thank you for listening to us and thank you for being part of the Internet Society. I think that's the most important thing I could say is welcome to Internet Society, our Afghanistan chapter. Thank you to the Pakistan group and the chapter for being part of our community. We do see it as a community. So, you are welcome and we hope you speak up and contribute from where you sit. So, thank you very much.
>> And thank you. Thank you all from ISOC
(applause)
I appreciate all of you coming. It's a show of force, which is correct.
>> We hope you don't take it personally, but a number of us will get up and leave.
>> JOE GATTUSO: My good friend Jane, we never put on to speak. We do have to go. So thank you again. So, I would like to move quickly into a short introduction before our next longer speaker. To my left is Ms. Marilyn Cade. She has had a long career working in telecommunications and the internet. I met her many years ago when she worked for a major company. She has been instrumental in the IGF and internet issues. Today we're hearing a lot from the non-government side. It's a reflection of the multistakeholder nature of the agency. I'm sorry, I'm speaking over our guests. We have our speaker from the government of Mexico coming on soon. I've shorted Marilyn, but she can be very dynamic in five minutes so I'll let you continue introducing yourself and the information you brought. I will be right back.
>> MARILYN CADE: Do the microphones work? Sure. So, my name is Marilyn Cade and I see some old friends and some new friends here. So glad to have the opportunity to speak. I am going to speak quickly. I am here to ask you to do two things. And that's what the paper is about that I'm handing to you. I'm a MAG member, a member of the Multistakeholders Advisory committee and I service as the substance coordinator of the regional IGF. My job in the focal point, Anya Gecko at the secretariat is to support what the NRIs themselves want to do.
There are many people who want to dictate the IGF. Some of them are from governments. Maybe sometimes from my own government. Internet government has become sexy and a hot topic and because of the linkage with the SDGs many governments who have just gun to get involved in Internet Governance had are now asking themselves, whoa whoa whoa. Maybe I need to run the national or regional IGF. Maybe I need to be the chair. Maybe I need to. The best, most successful, most sustainable model is when we fulfill the promise and commitment of the TUNIS agenda where all stakeholders act on an equal footing.
This is a really tough thing within business and with governments to sell up the chain because we have to learn new models of interaction. So, the NRIs are holding a main session here on Tuesday, day 2, and the little flier has information about what the NRIs are doing and on the back, it has the information about the meetings that we are holding. The little ‑‑ this one right here. This little one right here. I hope that if you ‑‑ I look forward to talking with you in other settings about the growth of the national IGFs in both of your countries. I know that you're both really working in that direction and working to bring your other stakeholders together. In addition to the ingredients of having ISOC, you also have in your countries ICT associations. And we can help, I can help to draw them in if they're not already involved. Omar himself is actually a leader in WITSA and able to help also with reaching out.
Now, let me talk for a minute. The NRIs are growing significantly. We can talk about public policy at a global level and we can talk about public policy at a regional level but we cannot implement public policy except at a national level. We have to take the ideas and the change home and make it work in our countries. And that's where the NRIs come in.
So over the next ten years it's going to be a significant expansion of the number of NRIs and the work they do. They do not report into the IGF but they reflect into the IGF. The second little document you have is my invitation to you to be actively involved as speakers from the floor at the Town Hall at the first main session tomorrow, 10:00 to 1:00, which is the role of Internet Governance in the SDGs, the sustainable development goals. Some of you were here last year and you remember the standing microphones where everybody had to queue up and wait for a three minute speaking slots. We will do something like that. In a huge auditorium. We will have five setting the scene speakers and then that graphic, the UN graphic will be projected and then there are questions. You're going to be asked to speak for three minutes on your views on that or anything else you want to say, because you may have other things you want to say. But it is a Town Hall consultation about Internet Governance and impact on SDGs.
The SDGs were, unlike the Millennium debt, they were developed but it was only representative stakeholders. It was not a bottom up process. And I'm not being critical. I'm saying, this is our opportunity to add in more information about those of us who are out there trying to figure out how to implement the SDGs and the importance of the SDGs.
So I hope to see you in both and in particular I'm going to take names about who shows up at the main session since I'm the coordinator. Any quick questions before? And by the way, stop bit NRI booth if you can. It's in the Village. Love to see you there. There are different NRIs there. And here to do anything we can to help to augment the great work that you're already doing. So glad to see you all back.
>> JOE GATTUSO: Thank you so much, Marilyn. Appreciate you coming by. Very efficient use of time.
>> MARILYN CADE: Can I just see a show of hands of who's going to commit to go to the microphone? More? More?
>> JOE GATTUSO: Everybody.
(inaudible)
>> MARILYN CADE: Thanks again.
>> Would you open the door? We're going to invite our next people there. I'm sorry, we squeezed in Marilyn. That was a very important thing to do, and I hadn't put her on the program before but the folks from the Internet Society had to leave by 11:00 and also our next speaker has somewhere else to be a little bit later, so they're also vying for that. I want to invite them in now. Can somebody open the door in the back and tell them we're ready for them? They're sitting over to the right. It's like inviting in the ‑‑ ah this way. Like a game show when you have the next door. Welcome, then. As I explained outside, its room is a little clumsy. Perhaps, though, you would like the official speaker chair. I would make an introduction. Thank you again for your patience in waiting as we finished up that last part.
So, we're going to turn the --
I guess I should use this one or it makes no difference. We're going to turn the focus here. This is reflective of both the multistakeholder nature of the IGF and also the diverse background of the participants. We spent some time in Washington doing some preparatory work with our delegations on different issues but we do have representatives and we have Civil Society from Afghanistan so we're covering a lot of ground. This morning, we heard from the Internet Society about the activities of the Internet Society. We also just very briefly had an introduction by Marilyn Cade who's private sector for the internet. Now we're going to talk about more internet oriented things and more telecommunications oriented things. Part of what we do is providing internet to different governments including both Afghanistan and Pakistan. It seems to me that the countries especially Afghanistan face some similar issues with respect to development, connectivity, and part of that is how one encourages the development of the IT sector.
What does it mean to connect to different people? What is the role of competition? If we have an international sector, we can talk about a new policy in Afghanistan to encourage competition in the fiber optic component. Speaking specifically about Afghanistan, they have a stakeholder company that owns the infrastructure. Mexico has been through reforms that affect your competition. Reforms that affect your institution. It seems there's a similarity and perhaps the countries could learn from each other.
So, that is an introduction of why we're here. I'd like to literally go to an introduction which I have to do from memory a little bit. I'm joined to my left here by Commissioner Maria Elena Flores. She's with the IFT, which I think in English is the word for telecommunication, so would be FIT in energy. She holds a Bachelor's in Economics and an MH and PhD from the University of Paris. Thank goodness for Google. I hope that did it correctly. She's joined by Mr. Carlos and Mr. Victor. Like I said, this is a chance for us to meet together. With that, I'd like to turn over the room. I don't know how long you can stay, but we are pretty good for time now.
>> MARIA FLORES: Hello. It's a pleasure to be here. I understand that the interest of meeting today is to hear about what we have done in Mexico for the last years since we had an important, very, very deep Constitutional reform. This Constitutional reform is about competition in telecommunications and both issues are deeply entwined and this conditional reform started to rethink about the Constitutional design. Before the reform, we had two different authorities. One for competition. One for telecommunications. The regulator for telecommunications had, for the few years before the reform, acquired also the mandate for broadcasting.
But, it acquired the mandate, but the law didn't ‑‑ the law want reformed in a way to have a convergent view for both vectors. And ‑‑ sectors. And also before the Constitutional reform, the country made several efforts to bring more competition to the sector. It was very difficult to do so. For example, we tried for about 15 years to get to an asymmetric regulation for the dominant carrier but it was never done. It was difficult to do it with the ancient institutional reform because the procedure had to go through two different phases. One with the competition commission. The other with the telecommunications commission. Through all these procedures, the dominant carrier went through the Court. It was quite easy to get protection from the Court against these procedures.
So, we didn't get through all this period, we didn't get to get in place a specific regulation to enhance competition. So in very broad terms, this was the situation when the Constitutional reform took place. This was a very important reform. It started by redefining the authorities. Instead of having a separated competition commission and telecommunications commission, it emerged in one and the same body. This same reform created a new competition commission, but only for sectors different from telecommunication and broadcasting. And gave powers to the new institute, to the Federal Telecommunications Institute as a new regulator for telecommunications, competition, and also for the authority in charge of these sectors. So, there are no overlaps between the two competitions authorities. We apply the same law but for different sectors.
There are also very important definitions in this reform. The Institute was created as an autonomous body. So, it is not part of the executive branch of the government. It is a Constitutional autonomous body, so we have regulatory powers. We have to apply the telecommunications law, the commission law, which were created by the Congress. But we have some regulatory powers in those issues that are not covered by the law. So this is new as a regulatory body. This gives us more power as to react to such a dynamic market, which is changing all the time, and so we may put in place regulations which are needed and which may not be contemplated in the laws.
We have also a very broad mandate. We are in charge, as I told you of telecommunications and broadcasting that is all audio visual and Constitutions are related to our mandate. But in this aspect, there are also other authorities that have different powers related to content, audio/visual content. So we share different responsibilities. For example, with the ministry of the interior, which is in charge of the classification of content for television. The definition of the time periods to ‑‑ for these different kind of contents. And we are also responsible for, in combination with our authorities, to ensure that there is freedom of speech and the right of information. So, through all this broad mandate where we have technical powers, economic regulatory powers, we have also to make sure that these fundamental rights are respected through all the regulation and our different decision‑making.
This is broadly the objectives of the Constitutional reform. As part of the reform, there was only a very specific mandate for the Institute to come up with a series of decisions that had to be made in a period of a hundred and 80 days that was after the enactment of this reform in 2013. So, all these decisions have been made. One ‑‑ the most important, maybe, was to determine if there was a preponderant agent for broadcasting and preponderant agent for telecommunications. This is a new concept that was created in the Constitution. We still have this in our competition powers. We may define in they are dominant players according to competition law, but we also have this new concept from the reform, from the institution, and that is simpler. Very much simpler in its application. And, it says that any economic agent which has more than 50 percent share in the whole sector of telecommunications or in the whole sector of broadcasting is a preponderant agent. So, we have to define specific regulations to enhance competition. This concept of preponderance is aimed inclusively at in‑‑ exclusively at enhancing competition. So, we made this decision. We found preponderant players in both sectors.
In fact, we have very concentrated markets and sectors, so it was evident that we were facing preponderant agents in both places. But this concept was very helpful in bringing the power to define these asymmetric rules. After trying for so many years, I have told you, it's around 15 years of different efforts to bring about this asymmetric regulation. After the Constitutional reform, we got to put them in place in just a period of 180 days. So, this has been a very good departure for all these different efforts that we have been making to enhance competition. As I told you, the main objective of this reform has been to enhance competition in the markets, in the sectors, and to allow for a convergence in these sectors. We have also made some other decisions that came about from the asymmetric regulations but also others directly from the law, from the Constitutional reform.
For example, the reform put in place must carry and must offer obligations for the broadcasting sector. That is it that pay television have to carry open air sign-ons. All open air sign-ons that are freely received by the people in each city or location. They have to be carried freely by television and also open air broadcasters cannot charge the pay systems for letting them carry their sign-ons.
This has been an important regulation for broadcasting that is also aimed at enhancing competition. In the past, we had several competition problems because in Mexico, open television is still is very, very important for the audiences. In paid television, the channels, there are mostly watched by the people, are still open‑air sign-ons. So, for any paid television that wanted to grow, to have audiences, they have to have open air sign-ons and before the reform it was very hard to do it and mostly because we have a vertical integration between open air television and paid television.
In fact, an open television is also the most important carrier for paid television so we also had this specific competition program that couldn't be addressed before. And with these new rules from our reform, we are ‑‑ this is specific problem of access to a very relevant input result. We have also put in place several public offers for wholesale services that the preponderance have to give to other carriers.
Mainly for telecom services but we also have one public offer for broadcasting services. For telecommunication services, the preponderant agents, which is American Mobile, have to offer wholesale services for bundling access. This was mandated specifically in the Constitution, this unbundling of the local network. Also, for virtual mobile operators, they are obligated to have a specific wholesale offer for these types of carriers, of mobile carriers. They have to give access also to their passive infrastructure, and this is also the case for the broadcasting sector. It also has public offer for passive infrastructure. These offers have been bringing about new opportunities for other carriers that are smaller in their networks, and it has helped to have their services more easily coming to new places to have new capabilities.
The unbundling service is the newest one. It was in place since the last year. We had a technical group made of the carriers with the Institute to solve out technical issues, because this is a very complex services for unbundling. But this was a good exercise to have this technical group with the carriers, with competitive carriers as well as the preponderant to solve out all this these technical issues and then the Institute to solve questions that couldn't get an agreement. Just right now, we are in the first review of the general obligations for the preponderant agents. When we issued them in 2014, we considered to have a review every two years to see how the obligations are working and that's because we considered different factors. For one, to be able to correct things that weren't adequately defined at this first exercise.
Also, to look at the compliance of the preponderant to be sure that there were mechanisms to enforce the obligations and if changes have to be made to the rules, to have this opportunity to review and to better the obligations.
Now, we are in this, as we are in 2016, we have come to this first review of the obligations. We went through public consultation procedure and it finished. Right now, we are close to getting the final decisions that will come in between January or February. That's where we expect to close with a final resolution. And while it has been very useful to have this review because we have been gaining experience from the market, what has happened. What has happened, what has worked, what has not worked. We also benefited a lot of the public consultation with the carriers which are the direct users of the wholesale services so it was also very useful.
In fact, since the Institute was created, we have been using public consultations for all our rule making. This ‑‑ well, there are many countries that have used public consultations for many years, but for Mexico, it has been a new exercise and we now have it as a rule, an obligation to go through public consultation and it is really very helpful for the authority to be able to go to the public and ask for their rule playing. And mainly because we have to rule on complex technical issues with new technologies that are coming to the market all the time. But also because in several themes, we have many different stakeholders and it's very useful to learn about their different points of view for specific issues. Well, as I told you, we have a very broad mandate. But, we have been very effective on competition issues because the main objective of the reform is to have better competition on the markets.
But, there are also some other important issues, important mandates that are complimentary to competition which are very important. For example, we have to look for the protection of the users' rights and the audience's rights. We very recently issued a public rules for the defense of the audiences. And these are oriented to protect basic rights in relation to what the audiences watch in television. For example, that children should have access to content that is adapted for them. That people shouldn't see discriminating content, sexist content, that is reinforcing this discriminating ideas. And, we have to put in place mechanisms so we can effectively protect these rights. In the law, there is a contact that has begun to work.
This is begun to work. This is an obligation for every to have a defensor of the audiences. And this defensor receives complaints from the public. If the public has any content that is against his basic rights, then any person can complain before the defensor, and well, we have to watch that ‑‑ this activities of the defensor are effective. They are followed. The defensor has to come up with recommendations and the broadcasters have to follow. I don't know if we have ‑‑ if you think that we can make some questions, answers.
>> JOE GATTUSO: I hope we can. And if you have the time, we'll make the best of the space. But I would like to suggest that ‑‑ first of all, thank you very much for that overview. Appreciate it. And I heard in what you said, as I expected, some similar themes that every country deals with. And I would invite our participants to ask questions or to even offer your experience along similar lines in your country. And I always put you all on the spot by encouraging you to speak and I won't do that too much unless you don't speak. So, do we have anyone who would like to ask a question or make an observation. Very good. I don't think mine ‑‑ now it's on. Sorry.
>> This one?
>> Thanks a lot for an overview about the Mexican Telecommunication regulation. How you are figuring out the dominant operator? Is it a task which is done on regular basis? And currently, who is the dominant operator in Mexico?
>> MARIA FLORES: Let me make sure I understand this ‑‑ how do we make sure that they are complying?
>> No, how you figure out the dominant provider, which is having more than 50 percent of market share.
>> MARIA FLORES: Okay. Yes. Because, this is a definition that is very broad in all the sector. So, we have to figure that out. We calculate for the different services in the telecommunication sectors. For example, mobile, fixed, paid TV, some other smaller services. We only summed all the users in the sectors and compared it to the total. And since we have such concentrated markets, we found out that American mobile had more than 50 percent of all the users in all the services.
>> And is it done on regular basis? For example, annually or quarterly or something? How the time period?
>> MARIA FLORES: We have not reviewed the definition of preponderance because in the law, we have a special provision for how to revise that decision. And we have to receive a specific ‑‑ how do you say ‑‑ application by the preponderant. And, in order to define that they are no longer subject to their obligations, they have to prove that they do not have any more than 50 percent share, but also that there is effective competition. So it is more difficult to get out of the obligations than to get in. To get in, we didn't have to make this effective competition analysis. Only the share of the sector.
>> And you said the configuration on dominant operator as well?
>> MARIA FLORES: Yes, we apply also competition law and we have the dominance definition is in the law. But, it's according to usual competition criteria. We look at the ‑‑ well, we have to define relevant markets. We don't do it in all the sectors when we talk about dominance. We do go to competition law. So, we have to define relevant markets and then look at the share by entry, the existence of other competitors, its application of the competition criteria. There are more ‑‑ that are shared with other countries. No?
>> I'm the Chairman of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority. I met one of your commissioners in Bangkok, Adriana. My question is, you have this question to talk about content for broadcasting. So, you mentioned that there is a certain type of content that is not allowed in the broadcasting medium. Do we have something similar for the streaming or internet? Content regulations for the internet?
>> MARIA FLORES: No, not for the moment, but we have to make rulemaking on neutrality. It is a mandate of the law. But, we're still in the early process but we will have to come up with rules. In the law, we have some general criteria as to what to consider in this rule making. Very general, but for example, the law says that the user is always to have its choice protected. So one of the main objectives is to protect user's choice. But the law also says that the carriers that they have to be justified and not against competition.
>> SHAMIM: My name is Shamim. I'm from Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, director of communication in national appearance. One question is in most of the laws, the telecom regulator have the providing in the law that the competition control or they have some ‑‑ they have to control competition. But when a competition commission arrives, is there an overriding effect to the telecommunication competition under the law or is it ‑‑ they would have limited access to control the competition or to look into the competition issues?
Second, what is your control of your commission in the sectors?
>> MARIA FLORES: Can you repeat the second question, please?
>> SHAMIM: Like, you know, you pass a judgment or determination. Is it how you enforce it, or what is the procedure to enforce that? Thank you.
>> MARIA FLORES: Thank you. All right, for the first question, yes, it's a little bit difficult to understand our new institutional design, but we area competition authority. A full competition, that means that when we act as a competition authority, we apply directly the competitional law. So, we can investigate, for example, practices, cartels. We are in charge of authorizing mergers from the competition viewpoint but because we are also the telecommunications regulator, we try to do it efficiently. We have to authorize as the telecommunication regulator some mergers but from the telecom viewpoint but we also have to authorize asset competition authority.
So we try to do it in the same procedure so as to not make the firms to duplicate their procedures with us. But we act differently. We apply both laws and we apply them as the competition commission would do. And if there is a complaint, if one of the carriers is making some anticompetitive conduct, they have to bring their complaints to us. They cannot bring them to the competition commission because they do not have powers over this sector. And we do the investigation. We complete all the procedures, and we may impose the sanctions of the competition law.
And your other question is about enforcement. So, we have powers diversifications, investigations, to go directly to the carriers to ask them to produce documents but we can also make direct measures. For example, if we're looking at quality, we directly measure quality in camp. We have also to make sure that people are using inspection with proper license.
So we go to locations and measure and locate if there are illegal use of frequencies, and we have those powers. What I didn't mention, and it is very, very important, is as part of the Constitutional reform, now we have specialized courts for telecommunications and competition. That is a very important change because we're looking to have more specialized people in the regulatory part, but it's also very important that is judges are specialized. So now we have specialized courts.
And another change that was very important also is that the decisions made, our decisions, cannot be suspended until the final decisions of the courts are reached so it has really changed the way that the companies go through the judicial procedure because before, it was very easy to stop any decision by the regulator or by the competition commission. And now, they not do it until the final decision by the courts is reached.
>> SHAMIM: Who are the judges ‑‑ the courts telecommunication codes. Who are the judges? Are they from the telecom sector or they are appointed by the ‑‑ they are the regular judges appointed by the government?
>> MARIA FLORES:They are regular judges. They were assigned looking at their past experience. But, because there were no specialized courts before they had to come from the administrative part of the courts, that what we're looking at is that they will acquire in working only with these kind of cases, they will be acquiring this experience.
>> Sorry for cross‑posting. One second. I am from Afghanistan Telecom Regulatory Authority. I had the question about Arbitrage, international transit of vice from one country to another country to Mexican carriers. And also another question about the licensing. Is it technology neutral or is it technology specific licensing?
>> MARIA FLORES: It is neutral. We have it, in fact, in the law, we have a principle of technology called neutrality so we exercise the licenses in the widest form possible. The licenses we have been issues are for national services and for any services that can be produced with a network. And broadcast and telecast. We're not differentiating from broadcast and telecoms. In the general license, we call it the (speaking non English language).
It's like the only license and it is very broad but we have also licenses for spectrum and in spectrum, we have to follow the authorized use for the spectrum. But only up to that limit that it has to be used, a spectrum use that we have in our national spectrum chart. We give this representation in the broadest sense.
>> And how about the Abitrage? The international voice transit.
>> MARIA FLORES: We have rules for international traffic, so if there's traffic coming in the country, this is traffic that has to go to an end user in Mexico and has to pay the interconnection charges for termination.
>> So, does it mean, for example, if country A wants to call country C, it goes through Mexico, is it allowed?
>> MARIA FLORES: We have, in our rules originating and terminating charges. But we don't have a service, that is called, for example, international transit. You have to end the communication in the country.
>> And is it illegal if some carrier or operator do so, for example, run one country's voice over Mexico to another international country?
>> MARIA FLORES: Carriers can give, in a broad sense, transport services. Those are permitted. But, they have to follow these rules for terminating transit or originating transit. Because, for example, we are ‑‑ because of convergence and services and that we're going to IP services it's difficult to distinguish between voice and data. And it's possible to have a transport of data, but that will not follow through a voice service definition. In voice services, you have to follow originating or terminating charges.
>> So, I mean, is there any specific regulation for that or rules, or it is just by general concept?
>> MARIA FLORES: No, we have specific rules. We have specific rules, some that have been in place even before the reform. Those rules have also been updated but we have also some different rules and technical plans that have to be followed. There are some rules that have to follow voice services.
>> I hope I am not taking time of others. Lots of questions. Only I will have the question about the unlicensed band coming to the sector. Do the carriers allowed to use the unlicensed band to off load their services, for example, their Wi‑Fi services, to off load 3G or LT services?
>> MARIA FLORES: Yes, of course. We have classification of spectrum that is free to use that is unlicensed. We have some bands that are, for the moment, that are defined, but there are also new bands coming. In fact, we have, right now, a public consultation for a new band for license use.
>> I always ask this question with my colleagues from Afghanistan. This is a commercial use of the free Wi‑Fi bands. But, do you distinguish commercial use from non‑commercial use in terms of charges or anything like that?
>> MARIA FLORES: Oh, yes, of course. We have also this other use. Social. The social use and public use, and in these cases, we give licenses without fees. That is very important because they are not intended for commercial use. And this has been also very interesting for different needs. For the public use, because well, there are many public organizations that need services, their own services, for example, and mainly for security reasons. So, we give ‑‑ we license the spectrum for these public uses directly. Obviously, without having to compete with others. And because all, for commercial use, we have to auction all spectrum.
But, this is different. With public and social uses, we do not have to auction. We can assign it directly. And social uses are for groups and organizations that do not have a commercial objective. But, want to bring services mainly for people, for locations that have no ways of paying services.
That it would be for telecommunication. We have assigned some licenses, social licenses, for the social telecommunications. But also for social broadcasting. So, and for indigenous people. This is a specific kind of license that, they go through a procedure that is more easy for indigenous people, and we have assigned, also, some licenses mainly for broadcasting.
>> So, is that, for commercial use, the unlicensed bandwidths with no fee?
>> MARIA FLORES: Yes. No, no fee at all.
>> JOE GATTUSO: You may continue with more questions. I think. I don't know if you're under a time schedule? It's 12:00 now.
>> I have some more questions.
>> Okay.
>> JOE GATTUSO: But you don't have to.
>> Well, you could have personal time.
>> Okay. To quality of service, you mention to how you measure the quality of service. Is it done randomly or the operators just report from the operation centers? How it is done and for what interval of time?
>> MARIA FLORES: We do both. They have to report, the self‑reporting, but we also go and measure. In fact, we have to sanction some of the carriers some months ago because they were not complying with quality of service obligations. In fact, quality services have been in place for a while. But now wire working on some new regulation for mobile services and fixed services. We have public implementation for these new rules for services and we are now in the face after the consultation.
>> Which methodology you're using, is it then to drive test or through OMC raw data analysis?
>> MARIA FLORES: What we have been applying is rather simple. We want to move to something more updated, but we measure inside for ‑‑ we have to make for different days of the week and different places of their network to come for result that is solid. But, it is random. We have to do it randomly. We do not have specific problem that the carriers know where we are going to do our measures. It is, we make our definitions and we do not publish them. So, these measures will get us through, as thorough as they can be.
>> So the measurements are basically subjective measures or objective?
>> MARIA FLORES: Objective. Yes, they have to like comply with some ranges of quality of service.
>> JOE GATTUSO: I hate to shut this down. I think this is indicative. It's very good that Mr. Nashimi is with the Telecom Regulator in Afghanistan and it demonstrates the interest in learning about how other countries, especially Mexico take on the same issues. As I mentioned, we've talked before about thinking about doing a long seminar. We have now done a seminar in 15 minutes and you've answered all the questions, right? So, if there are no more questions for now, I want to thank you for coming. Thank you for that excellent presentation. What I propose right now is that unlike when we had speakers coming in in a hurry, that we give you a hello, good‑bye, because you weren't able to meet people personally. We'll escort you out. And then I'll ask the group not to leave. We'll have some closing thoughts. That will be another 15 minutes after that. So, this is not a break, but a thank you for coming, good‑bye.
(silence)
>> Let's get started.
>> Can you give us please two minutes?
>> Okay. I didn't know.
>> So you're good. Okay. Welcome back everybody. Thank you for being here. I'm very happy that our speaker, Mr. Chris Painter isn't able to join us as part of our program. I had indicated this an our agenda, and I'm so pleased that it came through. So, this will be our final speaker of the day. As we've said in other sessions, as I just said to Mr. Painter, our group is diverse in the sense that you come from two countries. I've said this in other sessions. You've come from different backgrounds. Some of you represent your governments, as in fact our Pakistan representatives. Chris, I think you know Dr. Shaw, Director Shamin from Pakistan. From Afghanistan, we have Mr. Nashimi who is the regulator. In the back, we have Mr. Payab, with the ministry. Mr. Wasa, formerly in the ministry, now in private sector. Ms. Shabana, with the tech administration. We don't know what happens to Aziz but he's in the in the room, right?
We have another Civil Society person from American University in Afghanistan. My colleague, Emily Skills is here. We also had a USA representative the here. So we've covered different ground today. We had a visit from ISOC. We just had a visitor from the Mexican administration. In Washington, we had two days of meetings all over the also, we meet with Facebook and Microsoft, or at least some did. Different type of meeting. All geared toward different interest, different backgrounds. How to make the most out of being at the IGF, how to understand the different issues being addressed here. How the different expertise is here.
You represent a lot with respect to your cyber responsibilities. A more formal introduction of you. Mr. Christopher Painter is the coordinator for all cyber issues at the U.S. department of state. He's been at the Vanguard of cyber issues for over 25 years and what he does is coordinates and leads the U.S. diplomatic issues. He implements from cyberspace. These are a lot of issues. You see I'm reading off of the internet. I hope you don't mind but I've been very fortunate to have worked with you the last couple of IGFs. Your more than staff member, Lisel Fronz in the back who coordinates the IGF activities so it's a big honor that you're here and you've come again to talk to our delegates. I thank you and turn to you.
>> CHRIS PAINTER: Thank you and am happy to do so and it's been nice to do in the past. This has been a very interesting issue. I've been doing this in many capacities. I as way prosecutor doing cybercrimes in the 90s. I've done a lot of policy at the White House when the Obama administration came in and now I'm running this office at the state department, seeing different aspects. I'll start talking about what I do then talk about some of the different challenges but also I want to make this more interactive and have questions and answers because I think that's better to address some of the issues people have had in the past. What my office does, set up about five and a half years ago now.
It was the first office ordinary where a foreign ‑‑ anywhere where a foreign ministry was looking at all the sweep of cyber issues. So everything from, on the hard side, the cybersecurity issues, the international security issues, cybercrime issues. To issues like internet governance and internet freedom, working with people across our government and across our department to try to do two things. One, raise the level of engagement, make them a real policy issue. Two, make sure we're speaking in the same voice. Not a shock, probably, you'd get different answers or takes on things but if we had a more unified strategy going forward, we can be better at achieving the things we're trying to achieve which is an open, interoperable, but secure at the same time internet and communications infrastructure so you can have all of those together.
That's not always easy because there are a lot of competing concerns, competing issues around security and privacy and freedom of expression, but they really don't when you analyze them closely compete as much as people think they do. They can go hand in glove, then that's one of the things we try to do.
We launch an international for cyberspace back in 2011 that looked at all these different issues. Everything from the security issues, to the human rights issues, to the security and economic issues and we try to put them under one overarching theme. Not only for our own governments but for all of them.
Not just governments making decisions. Somewhat of a sliding scale that there is a multistakeholder approach where it's government, civil associate, the private sector, ac deem yew. Indeed, when we were doing Civil Society at the White House, we shared it with all those groups. In the Obama administration, we share it had with all those groups and now routinely in my job at state department, we talk to these groups in the U.S. and around the world. Indeed, some of the sessions we're going to have later on during this IGF is a meeting of the private sector stakeholders, a meeting of the Civil Society stakeholders, and obviously dialogues with a number of countries too. I think that's a very helpful way to look at this basket of issues.
It's important that this has been elevated to meet a policy issue for a couple of reasons. I think for a long time that I'd seen this, people looked at this as more of a technical issue so there are more important aspects of it. Regulatory aspects, technical aspects, and it's important for the ICT ministries and the regulatory bodies to be involved. But, it's not just that. If you're looking at issues around security or human rights, there are other parts on the government side. It's not solely a technical issue. It really is a core issue of national security, economics issue, human rights policy, and it's important for all those players to be think about this and having discussions because that means your policy in the end will be better.
Security, cybersecurity, for instance, is not an end in itself. It is an enabler to allow you to have better economic use of the internet and just better economic growth generally and social growth. So, you have to look at all these things together, and we've done that. The things we've been trying to promote certainly working very closely in forums like the IGF promote the multistakeholder way of looking at internet freedom issues, working with the freedom online and other coalition. Working on security issues.
Getting more countries to sign on to the cybercrime convention, the Budapest convention, getting more countries to deal with cybercrime. Working on cybersecurity issues, cybersecurity strategies that are not just any one strategies, but whole of government strategies that are developed that has all the different parts of a government and the other stakeholders in society as part of it. I think now there are over 35 countries that have national strategies around the world and more on the way, which is important.
We've been doing capacity building on cybersecurity, doing different strategies and others. We have been championing a cyber stability framework on that hard side, trying to avoid cyberwarfare. So how do you do that? Having international law to cyberspace. Making sure there are mechanisms in place, confidence building measures so countries can talk to each other. Having channels of communication is one type. To make sure there's not misunderstandings because of areas of misattribution. Also worked to meet between cybersecurity and we've used diplomatic tools to respond to other implements.
We have an incident a few years ago where a lot of our banks were hit with bots located all over the world, concentration can change from day‑to‑day. They're hard to deal with. There might be some technical things you do but they're not that easy to do. What we did was in addition to our US Cert reaching out to their counterparts around the world and our law enforcement reaching out, we also used diplomatic means. We said, can you use these and mitigate the threat and you if ask us, we'll try to do the same for you. We'll try to build this collective response issue.
But again, all of that has to be looked at together and I think we've done a good job in main streaming this issue with not just a technical issue but a major policy issue within the US and increasingly around the world. I remember when I first started doing this, going to a minister or cabinet secretary in our system and telling them about any of these issues, usually their eyes would go blank and they would not want to deal with it because they thought it was a technical issue. Now, I go to meetings in the White House that are cabinet level meetings, or deputy cabinet level meetings where they talk about these issues quite intelligently because they understand all the implications. It's not just a cyber issue. It's a larger issue.
So that, I think, really means this is maturing as an issue. It's an important issue not just for developed countries but for developing corns because if those countries develop the right practices while they're developing connectivity, then they will be in a better place, frankly, than we were because we tried to bolt a lot of those policies on after the fact where these countries as they get connectivity have the opportunity to do that and make policy in a they'll be enduring and the beauty of making policy by bringing in the private sector and Civil Society is that when you have that policy, those sectors embrace that policy and are supportive of it rather than criticizing.
So, there's a lot we've been able to do. There's still a hell of a lot more to do in this area. The challenges are getting greater. You read every day on the news about some major incident of almost any kind of. People are getting worried about these issues so I think we need to be able to address this. But, at the same time, make sure we're looking at the positive nature of the internet and what it brings while looking at the security and really melding those together. So that's really been our job. Now I'd say since my office was created, Lisel joined the office about a year after it started. We start with four people. We have about 20 now, which is, you know, good obviously. But they're all overworked. We were the first office mentioned anywhere in the world that had this, any country. There are now over 20, almost 25 countries who have a counterpart to me and their countries who we've been dealing with on these range of issues. And that's very important.
And countries are taking it much more seriously. Again, always understandable when countries have lots of different priorities they have to deal with. This is maybe not always their priority but I think if it becomes a priority for your executive, the leaders of the countries and administrators, the really helps us overall. It's something we've been pushing pretty aggressively. So I'm going to stop there just because I want to encourage questions and make this a little more interactive than just me speaking at you, if that makes sense. This is like one of the longest microphones I've ever seen, I feel like. But, please.
>> This is one of the rooms that is least conducive to conversation, but we'll try. So let's try to have a conversation. Is there anything else you'd like to know or anything that ‑‑ and I know, I guess most of you aren't that involved with cybersecurity, although Mr. Wafa always has been. He's always with my cybersecurity contact. He's ready to speak, I think.
>> I should say, this is not just about cybersecurity. I covered that. As I said, we cover issues around human governance, internet freedom and human rights online. But the important message I'm trying to leave with you is that you can't have people over here doing cybersecurity and p.m. over here doing internet governance and people over here doing human rights and people over here doing economics because if you do that, you're kind of doomed to fail. I'll tell you a little story that when I first went to the White House in the beginning of the Obama administration to join the national security council.
I thought once you're in the White House, everything is organized and there's no conflicts and everyone has the same view. No. It's very similar to the interagency process and what I saw ‑‑ and this has changed dramatically over the last eight years -- is the people who did the economic side of the internet policy and the people who did cybersecurity didn't really talk to each other much. In fact, they had whole different ways of speaking about it.
Internet policy. Cyberspace. You know, there were whole different ways of even talking about the issue. And there was I think some distrust. The economic people were saying, those security people are trying to slow us down. And the security people are saying the economic people, who wanted to innovate, which was really important, were crazy because they weren't talking about security and thinking about things like smart grid and issues like that. What I've seen over last eight years is those communities coming closer together and understanding the values of each other and that's an important discussion to have in your country is to have the difference components dealing with different issues talking to each other so that's my one thing I try to preach. So anyway, please.
>> Thank you, Mr. Painter for the briefing. Indeed, cybersecurity is a 24/7 job. As a former employee to the Ministry of Communication and IT where I started also security stuff, establish a team of to work on solving Vegas cybercrimes. I still have some concerns with leaving the government. You mentioned about the capacity building program. Do you have this for governments like, is there any chance we can communicate this to the communication and IT and send a couple of people for engineering level courses or education. There's a big gap between the technical guides and loom. I'm sure Mr. Gattuso remembers the workshop we held in Istanbul with law enforcement and technical guys. Still, the understanding level of the law enforcement was tough. And they were not trying to understand, or it was very complicated for them.
They were taking the issue to a very different level. I would like to know if there is any program for that so we can come coordinate this thing with the ministry. Since I am still involved in cyber related activities, the most recent activities is with MCIT. The time from ISOC, Afghanistan. I'm working with them to find a solution for child online protection. In Afghanistan. Thank you.
>> CHRIS PAINTER: It's a very good question and I'd say we've tried to do capacity works. A lot of what we've tried to do at my office because of limited funding and even more limited personnel to do it is to do regional programs more in terms of cybersecurity policy and also cybercrime policy. We've done a lot in Africa so far, but we're looking to do more, but it's been regional ones because we can't ‑‑ we just don't have the resource to go country by country of the however, there are, depending on what you're looking at, sometimes parts of the US government including FBI who does specific training on specific things, forensics and other issues with specific countries, so that's possible.
There's something called the Global Forum for Cyber Expertise that we're a member of, which is during their big cyberspace conference with governments around the world doing capacity building. So you're right, there's a current need to do more capacity building. This was recognized just recently in this commission report that came out of a commission set up to looking at our cybersecurity issues around the world, and we recognize that's important not just for countries but for all of us since we're all part of the same network.
But, I am happy to follow up and try to point you to some resources, but as far as us individually being able to do it, sometimes we can do it in a very narrow sense but it's just very difficult to do country by country. Rather than talk about best practices and things that are available but sometimes there's individual training available, also things like, Lisel, the USTTI program. Which, although it's largely focused on regulatory policy and others, it ask z have programs on security now. Those can bring people back to DC on that. There are folks interested in that in what they call industrial control systems that are our Department of Homeland Security has tried to make space available, so there are some possibilities but I'd be happy to follow up.
>> When it comes to the cybersecurity issues on a government level, so it's not a one‑man job or one entity's job, but unfortunately, I would say that it's happening back in my country through one single entity, which is not a good practice. So, what would you recommend, because we cannot adapt the structures for sure, but what would you suggest for developing countries? What would be the best combination of different entities in order to fight this cyberwar, I would say.
>> CHRIS PAINTER: So, I don't think there's any one silver bullet. There's no one perfect answer to this. A lot depends on your government, how your country is organized, what the institutions are, what their responsibilities are. What I have emphasized is in some countries they have one entity that tries to do everything. In 1m countries, they recognize that the ability rests in several. I'll tell you, like in the US, for instance. The State Department has a role. Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, the Department of Commerce.
So, what we've decided is rather than trying to create some new group and put everything on that, the most important thing is to have coordination between all those different entities, to leverage capabilities that are there. So, again, you have to map your own government and say, well, where is the expertise, and where is the ability?
I've found, although, again, this can differ from country to country, having a coordinating function for us in the White House has been helpful because when you have it in one agency, there's always jealousy between agencies, and they don't always cooperate. It's not perfect, but I think we've been able to get those agencies to contribute their capabilities whether it be Department of Defense, DHS, DOJ, Commerce, or even other organizations including Energy and others. There's a lot of best practices out there. And this is why a national strategy is really important because if we put a national strategy together, you can figure out who does what and assign roles and responsibilities so people know what the playing field is rather than fighting about it and I think that's helpful. But it really depends on how things are distributed on the ground, but that coordination is the most important part of it.
>> Thank you very much for the information. One important aspect of cybersecurity are the certs. So, in the US, what's the structure of the cert? Does each area have a separate one, and financial institutions have a separate cert? And who is taking lead in the certs? So where is actually the cert located?
>> CHRIS PAINTER: So, the answer is yes. (laughter). There is a centralized government cert. It's U.S. cert in the Department of Homeland Security. It deals with threats to the government, also if the conduit between the government and private sectors, sharing information from the government and trying to gather information from the private sector. There are numerous state certs, numerous certs for different sectors. Also different countries. If you ever go to a form of incident response in cybersecurity meetings, they bring all these certs, company certs, regional certs.
I think that's helpful because they have different roles. The other thing beyond Certs is we have sector to sector sharing, they used to be ISACs but now they're called ISHALS. That's been very effective because we let the private sector organize that and that's been among the government so they're more willing to share among themselves so it's not a cert but a way of sharing information that could come from a cert so I think it's really important, and we've argued this around the world, that every government have a government‑level cert to at least deal with their government but also reaching out to the private sector and I think that's a building component that you need to have.
>> Thank you very much. I also second Mr. Wafa from Afghanistan that there's a big capacity gap. So, what we can do that with the help of CLDP from your agency, we can have a good four or five days workshop in Pakistan. That's possible that where we can have regional countries.
Second is that there is, from the regions, especially Pakistan point of view, that the cybercrime is a big problem. Like, most of the countries must be compliant with the year slot. But most of the cases in law enforcement, we don't have allied solutions from them. So, what is the policy in this regard from the US government?
>> CHRIS PAINTER: So, again, capacity building, we very much think it's an important area. It's just leveraging the right resources and doing it. We've also tried to do webinars and other things, but we can discuss that more. I agree. I think law enforcement is facing a lot of challenges, forensic challenges, training challenges. We think there's a couple core things and it be done. One is we think countries should join this Budapest convention because it allows better substantive law, but also better sharing of evidence.
That's a three‑legged stool. One is having the laws in place, one is abilities to share with other entities around the world and the third is having law enforcement that knows what they're doing. So you have to have all throve those together so I think that's a challenge, I agree. Governments are not prioritizing that because all forms of crime are becoming cybercrime. Either it's an actual cybercrime or the evidence is on the internet so again, I'm happy to think more creatively about how we can reach out, whatever our budget will be next year and talk more about that.
>> JOE GATTUSO: Do we have any questions?
>> CHRIS PAINTER: I think I have time for one more.
>> JOE GATTUSO: I saw some interest, or no. I'm not trying to pull it out. I just thought I saw some.
>> I would just ask a question. I don't know how it sounds. When we are forming coalitions against different terrorists or the wars or whatever, do you think that there will be a need for coalition of governments to fight against the cyberwar? Because some countries are advancing, but some are lagging behind, so how we can fight it together?
>> CHRIS PAINTER: And it's a good question. What we've been focusing on is trying to make this a more stable environment overall, so that's the idea of saying international law applies in cyberspace just like the physical war. If you actually had a cyberwar ‑‑ and we haven't had one yet. People talk about it a lot, but we haven't had one. There's been cyber components to shooting wars but not a separate cyberwar. I'm not sure there will be. But things like apportionality apply just like they do in the physical world.
The idea of channels of communication so things don't get out of hand, A, and the idea of promoting norms of responsible behavior. These are things we've been working on a lot. Things like, country should not attack the critical infrastructure of a country absent war time. War time are different rules, but otherwise, don't do that. The more countries we can get to say, that's a good idea, that makes the entire ecosystem safer.
The worry is you could have bad actors. Now, most country actors, unless countries like North Korea, for instance, have enough interconnections that they don't want to risk having a cyber conflict but you need to have some rules in place and that's what we've been working on, trying to make that safer. Of course, that's been happening in something called the group of government experts in the UN. It got affirmed in the first committee last we're. I think we need to continue that work and broaden that conversation so it's not just a small group of countries but all countries who are thinking about those issues. I think I'm out of time.
>> JOE GATTUSO" Great. This has been wonderful. Thank you so much for coming.
>> CHRIS PAINTER: Sure. Happy to do it. Thank you guys. Good seeing you. See you again next week
(applause)
(silence)
>> Issues we had, especially for the Afghans. So, thank you.
>> Yeah, the trick is to get as many people involved as possible. I want to talk about something else, if I may. We still have time? All right, thank you all. Just some closing things. We've discussed this before. There's nothing new here, although it's in a public forum. Just about the rest of the day and the rest of the week. As you know, this is our last time together in terms of CLDP and you all as visitors until really we get together Friday afternoon for lunch and our closing sessions for those of you who are still here. We've talk before about how we're ‑‑ what we want to get out of the IGF.
So, in the bigger picture, we've talked about, do you have a plan for the week? Do you have a plan for what you do? I haven't really helped very much with those plans, but I will come to each of you, little bit in terms of your organization but individually on what you hope to do and on Friday, I'll ask you what you accomplished, basically. And what you'll take away from this. What you plan to do in the future as a result of being here at the IGFs. For those of you in Washington, you remember our senior council,
Mr. Joe Young said for CLDP support of the activities in the two countries, how can we think about what we might be able to do in the next 12 months following this. So this time together is really setting up accomplishments and results. For today, there are a lot of Day 0 elaborates including, I'm sorry, we won't be able to go to the new person's event which started at 12:00, but I looked at the he schedule and I think you'll find those interesting. For today, it is good that you're not all new. I think we have at least ‑‑ we have three in the room who have been here with CLDP before, and you're the veterans.
It's not all new to you. You have a sense of this and you're not going to be as lost because you have friends here to help. As with other CLDPs on IGFs. We have Judith, Emily is here, I'm here. We don't know the areas, the discussions as well. Judith does, this is why Judith is here to note the issues. We're all here to figure out what would be a valuable use of your time. You don't have to come to us. We're not here as Department of Commerce to testimony you where to go or what to get into. Fortunately, with our colleagues, we're here to facilitate. The three of us will be around all week. We'll be helping to say where to go including what time you want to go home. We'll take a survey this afternoon seeing what time we call our bus for. Those who don't want to leave when the bus leaves, there's the regular shuttle.
>> And we'll find out, you'll be at the bus.
>> And we'll figure out where that bus is going to be. So like I said, we've talked about this before. We're going to have a busy week, a fun week, a productive week. Any questions about what we're going to do other than lunch, which is the next issue?
>> We reserved the room for the whole day in the thought this if we didn't have the pre-Washington seminar, we would need more time for discussions later in the afternoon. But we don't need that now, and so that's why we didn't release the room.
>> That's correct. The IGF reflects the requests I made for the room, and it was a matter of being in Washington, which we didn't first plan when we reserved the room, and the fact that there's so many other things day zero. The fact that we're breaking now is consistent with the printed agenda that we distributed by email and in Washington, so I think I'm consistent. I didn't diverge from that. I did notify the secretary that we would not need this room after lunch and I just did that late, so it's still on the document and online. I think we're all in the WhatsApp group. Unless you all are prepared to tell us now when you want to go home.
>> And there is a reception at a different place.
>> So I'm presuming we go back to the hotel. We won't have a bus to the U.S. reception but we will help with Ubers and taxis. I hope you all can tabbed.
>> Grand Fiesta?
>> Where is that?
>> It's pretty close. But also, if you stay here, the Grand Fiesta is on the shalt bus route. So, if for some reason, the bus is gone and you're still in the session, just find the IGF shuttle that goes to the Grand Fiesta Americana and hop on that bus.
>> And what time is this reception?
>> We're not going to leave anyone behind so if you guys do plan on going directly to the session, please let us know because otherwise we're going to just be sitting and waiting.
>> Because we will leave people behind. Not on purpose. If you want to stay behind, please let us know so we know where you are.
>> The session is at 7:00.
>> Right. So that's why if you're here until 6:00 and you told us, I'm staying for a session until 6:00 p.m., we'll know and you can take the hotel shuttle to that hotel.
>> So, should we say 5:30 as a pick‑up unless we hear otherwise and we'll send out a notice where this bus is going to be?
>> Is that okay? We need to tell the driver what time. So 5:30, I think that gives us enough time to go back to the hotel if people want to change or anything.
>> I have to tell them. That's why.
>> 5:15? I hear more like 5:15?
>> Is 5:15 better for people?
>> It gives us more time at the hotel. All right. So now lunch?
>> And the thing is with lunch is that it's not provided, so we have to buy meal tickets every day. If you go by the gift shop, you can just get their meal ticket. Everyone has their money on them, right? No one forgot money?
>> I'm sorry, CLDP would have been happy to cater lunch as we have in previous IGFs but the IGF has prohibited us from bringing food in, at least last year they did. No food. And sometimes the food is free so last year it worked out. This year, we just buy the tickets. We're good? So, you're free on your own. I think there will be a rush to the ticket window. Thank you very much. Thank you to the IGF staff. Really appreciate it. Any remote questions? Have a good day.
(Session was concluded at 1:00 p.m. CST)