EoW November 2012

29 / 104

Transatlantic cable
November 2012 27
The administration of President Barack Obama had already
declared it the intention of the US to stick with the current
system.
The assertiveness out of Washington was prompted by
the approach of the World Conference on International
Telecommunications (WCIT), the treaty-writing conference that
the ITU will host 3rd-14th December in Dubai.
American o cials expect other countries to urge the ITU to take
Internet governance away from the Internet Corporation for
Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and other organisations
now under DOC supervision.
As well as pushing for international Internet tra c taxes, some
countries may also be expected to push for more surveillance
of Internet users in the name of ghting spam or fraud. It is
here that the House resolution, sponsored by Representative
Mary Bono Mack, throws down the gauntlet.
The unanimous vote, Ms Bono Mack said in a statement, “sends
a clear and unmistakable message: the American people want
to keep the Internet free from government control and prevent
Russia, China and other nations from succeeding in giving the
UN unprecedented power over Web content and infrastructure.
We cannot let this happen.”
The California Republican, who asserted that the United Nations
has for nearly a decade been “angling quietly” to become the
epicentre of Internet governance, warned against back-room
wheeling and dealing at Dubai. Secret negotiations leading
up to WCIT could be “devastating” to Internet freedom and
economic development, she said.
Several US tech trade groups supported the House
resolution. In a blog post to the IDG News Service (3rd August),
Ken Salaets, director of global policy at the Information
Technology Information Council, wrote: “[The vote] was an
important step to underscore for the world that the United
States will stand rmly against regulation of the Internet and
strongly for online freedom.”
The practical e ect of all this position-taking may be doubted, as
the US cannot be forced to comply with any alterations to the
International Telecommunications Regulations (ITR).
This is the treaty that sets out rules for the ow of tra c among
telecom networks and the calculation of charges for tra c
exchanged between carriers in di erent countries.
The rise of the Internet and mobile devices has led to calls for
revision, and representatives from at least 178 nations will be
reviewing the 1988 treaty at Dubai. But the ITU has made it clear
that any changes to the treaty must have unanimous support,
and says it would block an attempt by any signatory to put any
matter to a vote.
In brief . . .
† Even in the age of smartphones some 83 per cent of
Canadians maintain an active phone landline, according to a
survey commissioned by Primus Canada, a subsidiary of the
largest alternative telecommunications service provider in
Canada.
For keeping in touch on a regular basis email does
top the home phone, but only slightly. Some 33
per cent of Canadians customarily choose email,
30 per cent a phone call, 23 per cent social media, and
11 per cent a text message.
† When it comes to the total amount of time Canadians spend
online, email accounts for most of it, followed by general
research, banking, news and social networking.
The online survey among 1,516 randomly selected
Canadian adults was conducted on one day in May by
Vancouver-based marketing research organisation Angus
Reid Forum. The results were statistically weighted to ensure
a sample representative of Canada as a whole, including
French-speaking Québec.
Futures Markets
Betting on derivatives over stocks and
bonds, the Chicago exchange CME
envisions a London outpost in the New Year
With plans for a derivatives market in London by mid-2013,
Chicago-based CME Group Inc, owner of the world’s
largest futures exchange, is setting up in competition with
European counterparts Li e and Eurex, owned by NYSE Euronext
and Deutsche Boerse, respectively. Those operators had
their plan to merge blocked by European antitrust authorities
in February.
Phupinder Gill, CME’s chief executive o cer, said in a 20th August
interview in London with Nandini Sukumar of Bloomberg News
that his company would start with currency futures for all of the
G7 nations.
The new exchange, CME Europe, will use its own CME Globex
electronic trading system; and its London-based clearinghouse,
CME Clearing Europe, will process the transactions.
CME planned an early ling with the securities regulator of the
United Kingdom as the rst step in the process. Ms Sukumar,
who is Bloomberg’s pan-European market structure and
exchange correspondent, noted that CME Group has become
the most valuable exchange operator in the world, capitalising
on the higher pro tability of derivatives while the value of
equity trading has declined.
The CME Group was formed from the 2007 merger of two of
Chicago’s largest futures exchanges: the Chicago Mercantile
Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade.
Running exchanges in which investors can trade in energy
and metals and other commodities, ten years after going public
the company controls 98 per cent of the US futures market.
Richard Perrott, exchange analyst at the London o ce
of Berenberg Bank, Germany’s oldest private bank, told
Ms Sukumar that CME’s new site selection “makes sense, given
that close to half of global OTC (over the counter) activity
occurs in London.”
† Today, the value of outstanding derivatives contracts has
surpassed by many times the value of such traditional
nancial products as stocks and bonds.
To promote greater market transparency, regulators across
the globe have been pushing to move derivative trades onto
exchanges.
The establishment of its London outpost indicates that
CME has recognised that this trend holds opportunities for
established players.