The Public Voice in Electronic Commerce
La place du citoyen dans le commerce électronique

OECD  Paris - October 11th, 1999
OCDE  Paris - 11 Octobre1999

Presentation from
Alain Baron

My name is Alain Baron. I've been working in telecommunications for the last 23 years. I am one of the national leaders of SUD-PTT, which is the second largest trade union in France Telecom and the Post Office.

 

Basically, the French situation is very much the same as in other countries, where are the same trends and measures towards liberalisation and privatisation taking place as elsewhere. The only differences concern form and pace.

 

1) It goes without saying, that we are all convinced that communication technologies, and in particular, Internet, have a major role to play to bringing about greater justice and greater equality of opportunity and democracy

Internet offers immense possibilities for information exchange and access to culture.

Here are some examples of information exchange successes where Internet can be shown to have enabled the following issues to be discussed on a global level :

- the mobilisation of international action against anti-personal mines,

- the means to communicate and make known both the Zapatistes struggles and the human rights movement in China,

- the awareness of citizens of MAI, (Multilateral Accords on Investments), its implications, and eventual help in terminating the project.

2) Yet this potential dimension of Internet is contrary to the commercial objectives of those industrial and financial interest groups that dominant the world.

These particular interest groups treat Internet as rich source of profits and as a means for increasing their market share. That is how neo-liberalism manages to combine privatisation and liberalism objectives

a) Behind the current wave of liberalisation in telecommunication markets is an attempt to apply the same commercial rules and regulations applicable to other goods and services so as to put a monetary value on every facet of services in direct proportion to its cost price. Evidently, this kind of economics calls into question the existing tariff structures whereby small consumers are financially supported by big consumers.

b)The policy behind privatisation is structured in such a way as to allow private capital investors to reap profits through the exploitation of the telecommunications network :

-by accepting financing new operators from private capital,

-by partial or complete privatisation of public sector operators.

3)How this neoliberal framework renforces inequalities.

The following examples speak for themselves. Today, there are more telephone lignes in Manhattan than in all of Africa, south of the Sahara. South-East Asia has more than a quarter of the world's population and represents only 0,04% of the total global number of people connected to Internet.

This flagrant inequality of opportunities, is also to be found among the richer developed countries, although the consequences have a less dramatic impact.

For example, we find in France price alignments are based on typical neo-liberal practises and can notably be observed by :

- a reduction of 20 to 30% in business telecom bills,

- an absence of lower telephone bills for the majority of private clients, (these differences are even more noticable when we include hand phones or Internet)

On a geographical level, the same trends can also be seen :

- the suppression of all telephone boxes that are not profitable,

- the criteria of development of access to Internet rapid by ADSL "in relation to the market".

4) How policies in France put a brake on the democratisation of Internet.

a) existing tariff structures for local communications remain far too high.

b) France Telecom has fixed a limit of 1 million connections to ADSL by the year 2003.

FT only wants to invest at the most, 2 billions french francs spread over 3 years, whereas FT is perfectly willing to pay out 33 billions french francs in order to buy the cable operator NTL in Great Britain, or around 11 billions french francs to buy E-Plus stake, a german mobile phone group.

Access to Internet rapid, either by cable or by ADSL, is still far too expensive for potential users on modest incomes who are certainly less likely to pay around 400 FF a month, if we include subscription rates of most access providers.

5) Methods for attacking the market rules.

Multinationals see Internet primarily as a another means of profit-making. So it is necessary to prevent the transformation of communications into just a simple mercantile commodity.

This requires a tactic of encouraging communications development in fonction with the social needs of the vast majority of the population and in respect of ethnic people's identities.

a) fight for the growth and development of a non commercial Internet : the right to information, such as freee speech, access to information sources including press,

b) oblige all operators and commercial access providers to respect regulations that cater for the needs of the majority

6)The growing weight of multinationals.

Multinationals are well organised to impose their own concept of Internet development .

This is the purpose behind "Global Buisness Dialog on Electronic Commerce" (GBDe). This organisation includes the heads of the biggest multinationals in the communication business : IBM, NTT,AOL, France Telecom, Vivendi, etc...

Set up in January 1999, this organisation has a lobby role and last met in Paris on September 13, 1999, in particular to preach for :

- minimum government intervention and "self-regulation" by and for the industry the abolition of all customs duties on electronics transactions.

It is clear that the World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations in Seattle, presents a golden opportunity for us to get involved in the fight against the multinationals' attempts to impose their rule of law over the world.

 

7) Public intervention is even more necessary than ever.

In the absence (or weakness) of a regulatory system, the "law of the strongest" predominates. This in turn leads to increased inequalities and greater domination by North American capitalism. If we look at the current situation, we see that 65% of all world-wide communications are made by the USA!

However, public intervention is not automatically synonymous with justice and equality : everything depends on the provisions of adopted legislation, and also on the strength of opposition that the social movement, trade-unions and civic society is capable of mobilising.

Consequently, if we want to bring about equal access to Internet that also respects the diversity of cultures, our contribution has to be a way of acting as a counterbalance to both the power of multinationals and to authoritarian tendencies of governments

This leads me to think that it is important to act simultaneously on two levels. For example :

a) It is necessary to bring pressure on operators to prevent them from raising tariffs and to get :

-reductions in tariffs that benefits the greatest number of people, in particular, those on low incomes,

-an equipment and network that covers the whole country.

While the government still remains an important share holder in operators' companies, the government is responsible to citzens and is answerable for the way it uses its power/control over operators.

b)Actions to modify current regulations in force.

Take the example of Internet use in educational establishments in France :

France Telecom offered very low tariffs orer to encourage the introduction of Internets in schools.

Even if it were possible to say that there were commercial motives behind their offer, this have helped to generalise introduction of Internet throughout school establishments.

But France Telecom's offer of low tariffs has not yet been authorised because other competitors are incapable of offering similar tariffs that are also advantageous. The outcome is that for the same price, schools are now being offered less advantageous connexion time!

Responsiblity for ensuring equal access to Internet in schools comes under local governments and through them, the local tax payers.

Already a gap is opening up that forewarns of growing inequality between the regions.

This ridiculous situation is a direct result of strict application of laws and regulations in force.

It also serves to shows that in order to encourage provision of Internet access that respects the ideals and values of public service, we urgently need to modify the existing legislation.

European and French texts refer to the maintenance of universal service. Therefore it is clearly necessary to include Internet as part of the provision of universal services.

This argument is even more pressing, because by the year 2002, future estimates of Internet services are calculated to reach 50% of all local communications in France, compared to 9% in 1998 and 17% in 1999.

Two important deadlines face us and give us an opportunity to organise :

- the opening of the French parliamentary debats on the communication bill in the beginning of the year 2000

- the revision of European directives on telecommunications : the European Commission plans to publish a communication document on that subject.