JPNIC recognizes the importance of ITU's role for international tele-communications and supports its purpose, which is stipulated in Preamble of International Telecommunication Regulations, ITR, as "promoting the development of telecommunication services and their most efficient operation while harmonizing the development of facilities for world-wide telecommunications".

In 24 years since the current ITR was ratified in 1988 and until now, the Internet made a dramatic expansion from what was a network for the academic purpose which mainly covered the United States, to the global infra-structure of the Information Society which now connects two billion people in the world.

JPNIC observes that this dramatic and successful expansion has arisen out of the open principles in the operations of the Internet.

The notable characteristic of the Internet, consistent from the early days, is that interested parties in each and various segments are all able to participate and be involved in its development process. It includes areas such as the developments and standardization of fundamental technologies, the technical coordinations and the policy developments of the infrastructure operations, and the developments of Internet services.

Additionally, in the standardization of fundamental technologies, the final selection of the specification is left to operators, who are the users of its technologies. This allows to have a system which incorporates the specification which truly needs to be standardized.

Likewise, having reference materials and information constantly being publicly made available in development processes of standards or operational policies allows new entrants to easily join the process.

Moreover, the network layer specializes only in transporting data from one subscriber to another, and the developments of services using such data transfer function is delegated to various service developers. This is the very reason that innovative services have always emerged on the Internet.

Even if ITR would be revised to enable ITU to fulfill its roles and objectives, JPNIC does expect sufficient and careful considerations to be made, so that any amendment of ITR will not lead to putting the break on the dramatic expansion and the creative innovation of services which the Internet has made it happen, and is still continuing to make it happen, based on its characteristics we have described.

Shigeki Goto
President, Japan Network Information Center (JPNIC)