Future of Internet – Towards Balkanisation?

Experts have warned that internet could one day be broken up into separate networks around the world. According to a BBC report, Nitin Desai, ‘a leading light in the development of the net’ and chairman of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), warned that concerns over the net's future could lead to separation and a 'Balkanisation' of the net. He was speaking at a conference in London organised to discuss the development of internet. The conference had been organised by Nominet, the UK body in charge of .uk domain names, ahead of the first-ever Internet Governance Forum to be held in Athens, Greece later this month.

Mr. Desai said there were tensions about the future regulation of the net and over specific issues such as international domain names. Five years from now, there will be many more internet users in Asia than Europe or America and there will be more Chinese web pages than English pages, according to him. People are concerned about whether the system we have now will also work five years from now.

Other speakers at the conference also echoed the concern. Professor Howard Williams of World Bank said the debate around future regulation of the web rested on the assumption that there would be a single web in the future. "Why would the technology we have at the moment be the ubiquitous technology across the world in the future?" he asked, while saying that 'Balkanisation' was already happening. The BBC report titled "Warning over 'broken up' internet" can be accessed at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6037345.stm.

The debate on various issues related to internet governance is expected to generate more heat in the coming months. The issues will figure prominently at the forthcoming IGF Athens 2006, the inaugural meeting of the IGF (30th October – 2nd November). IGF is a body set up by the UN to accommodate multi-stakeholder policy dialogue in the field of internet governance. It seeks to bring together all stakeholders - states, private sector and civil society. Inaugural Meeting of the Forum will focus on the overall theme of “Internet Governance for Development” and the sub-themes of “Openness” (freedom of expression, free flow of information, ideas and knowledge), “Security” (creating trust and confidence through collaboration), “Diversity” (promoting multilingualism and local content) and “Access”(internet connectivity: policy and cost).