not at all... the WCIT 2012 concluded without agreement. Hardly the same
thing.
/bill
....? Again? 
---end quoted text---
Yep. _Gloriously_! The US walked out, followed by bunchty others.
<http://www.pcworld.com/article/2020469/opponents-say-itu-treaty-threatens-internet-freedom.html>
At current count, to the best of my incomplete knowledge, approximately 85 countries, led by China, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, and Cuba, have backed the ITU, while approximately 55 countries, led by the OECD countries, have backed the Internet. Yes, this is a radical simplification.
The main unfortunate outcome is that the ITU has managed to get Study Group 3 approved to try to figure out how to override peering agreements with government-imposed settlements. Again, a radical simplification. Happy to discuss in more detail if people like. PP23 of http://files.wcitleaks.org/public/S12-WCIT12-C-0065!!MSW-E.pdf if you want to read it for yourself.
-Bill
The ITU didn't implode and that article gives a ridiculously misleading
impression of what happened. The BBC gives a more balanced viewpoint:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20717774
There's some stuff up on some US news channels (ABC, etc), but some of the
larger players (CNN, NY Times + others) haven't actually woken up to the
extent of this tech/political landgrab, and have no recent articles on the
outcome or the political importance of it.
What actually happened is that the ITU ignored their previous promises not
to have a vote on the ITRs. When a vote was finally called because it was
apparently that there was no general consensus on the articles, 77
countries voted in favour and 33 voted against, causing the treaty to start
the process of becoming legally binding in those countries which voted in
favour.
The current positions are here:
http://files.wcitleaks.org/public/S12-WCIT12-C-0066!!MSW-E.pdf
http://files.wcitleaks.org/public/S12-WCIT12-C-0067!!MSW-E.pdf
Many countries are formally sitting on the fence, including pretty much
every country in Europe which didn't walk out - also enjoy the spat in
declarations #4 (argentina) and #93 (UK).
Now that this landgrab has succeeded in large chunks of the world, the
ITU's position has consolidated, although not nearly to the extent that had
originally been envisaged in the draft ITRs. I don't forsee this debate
dying any time soon.
Nick
WCIT-12 was but one exchange.
The next one is WTPF-13:
"The World Telecommunication/Information and Communication Technology Policy Forum (WTPF) is a high-level international event to exchange views on the key policy issues arising from today's fast changing information and communication technology (ICT) environment. WTPF 2013 will take place in Geneva, Switzerland in May 2013."
Then there is Plenipotentiary in Busan, Republic of Korea from 20 October to 7 November 2014.
"The Plenipotentiary Conference is the key event at which ITU Member States decide on the future role of the organization, thereby determining the organization's ability to influence and affect the development of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) worldwide.
The Plenipotentiary Conference is the top policy-making body of the ITU."
The ITU is not going away that soon. The game goes on.
Gordon
What some of us have been saying since at least 2003 (if not earlier) is that it will _never_ die. Free speech, and the opportunities that an open Internet provide to the people who live in repressed regimes are the most dangerous things in the world to said regimes, and they will do everything in their power to eliminate them.
I'm certain that most of you have already noticed how cutting off the Internet is now on page 1 of every country's list of "Things to do when there is an uprising ..."
Doug
In Egypt, this may actually have led to the opposite of what the regime
in place expected. Not the best source, but to illustrate:
It was argued that because there was no access to the net, and no
other way to find out what was really going on, Egyptian citizens
got off their couches and down into the street, which in some
cases got some people to take sides and join the protests.
Case of damned if you do, and damned if you don't, as far as
censorship goes.
Phil
Or, "Freedom routes around brokenness." 
Do you have any citations for that? I thought they had given up on trying
to interfere with Internet peering and settlement.
Tony.
Do you have any citations for that? I thought they had given up on trying
to interfere with Internet peering and settlement.
http://www.itu.int/net/ITU-T/lists/questions.aspx?Group=03&Period=15
ETNO is very keen on introducing sending-party-pays, and recently brought
out an opinion piece on their intentions to bring this idea forward at the ITU:
ETNO has introduced its views in Contribution C 109 submitted to the
last meeting of the ITU Council Working Group to prepare for 2012 WCIT.
ETNO’s proposal concerns:
[...]
‐ the economic background, advocating for an adequate return on
investment based, where appropriate, on the principle of sending party
network pays;
The Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (i.e. the
representative body of all the EU national comms regulators) came out with
the following statement:
... where they noted among other things:
"ETNO’s proposed end-to-end SPNP approach to data transmission is totally
antagonistic to the decentralised efficient routing approach to data
transmission of the Internet."
It's pretty unusual to get language this strong from a regulatory body.
Nick
Looks vaguely ominous. Do they have a document which gives their
definition of "international telecommunications services" and "NGNs"?
Tony.
dunno - they look intentionally vague to me.
Nick
You can look at the final outcome yourself (no password needed), at
http://www.itu.int/en/wcit-12/Documents/final-acts-wcit-12.pdf
RESOLUTION PLEN/5 on page 27 (by PDF count, out of 30 pages) describes work to be done by Study Group 3 and cooperating members. Note that the resolution is not part of the preceding treaty text.