Strickling Defends NTIA’s Decision to Give Up Remaining Control of Internet
NTIA’s decision to “relinquish” its remaining role in overseeing the Internet in favor of control by the global multistakeholder community was a natural evolution, NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling said in an interview for C-SPAN’s The Communicators. The interview was set to telecast over the weekend. In March, Strickling touched off a firestorm when he announced that NTIA would give up its role overseeing ICANN.
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ICANN has been operating as a multistakeholder organization since 1998, Strickling said. “All we were saying is the time had come for us to step aside and eliminate the remaining vestigial role that we have with ICANN.” NTIA doesn’t have the level of oversight over the Internet that “perhaps some members of Congress think we do,” he said. Management is already handled by “stakeholders,” including businesses, technical experts and “to some extent governments,” he said. “We don’t actually oversee anything."
NTIA’s role in the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority has been “clerical,” just making sure that any changes to the Internet’s root zone file are accurate, Strickling said. “We've simply said we'll step out of that role.” Asked if NTIA could have done a better job of explaining what was happening, he said the agency’s message was clear from the start. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, companies like AT&T and Cisco and trade associations “have all come out in very strong support of this,” he said.
"I think we were facing questions because it’s not determined exactly what the transition plan will be,” Strickling said. Some on Capitol Hill “wanted to know exactly how this would play out,” he said. Strickling said he remains confident that the multistakeholder process will deliver a “very strong and well concerned transition plan,” but he acknowledged that until that happens, questions will remain. “We'll work with Congress,” he said. “We'll continue to explain what’s going on."
On spectrum, Strickling said federal agencies remain committed to an administration goal of identifying 500 MHz of spectrum for broadband by 2020. “The problem is we have a finite amount of spectrum,” he said. “We have federal agencies whose demands are growing."
Strickling said he has no opinion on the likelihood that FirstNet will be largely funded, mostly through the AWS-3 auction, before the TV incentive auction starts. Congress has authorized FirstNet to use up to $7 billion in auction monies, he said. “I'm confident those dollars will be raised,” he said. “It’s not particularly important to me which auction.” Strickling said he is pleased with the progress FirstNet is making.