The International Telecommunication Union opened its four-year policy conference in Doha on Monday with 277 proposals on the table and an unusually consequential dispute over where Internet policy should be made.
Delegates from the ITU’s 194 member states will meet through November 27 at the 2026 Plenipotentiary Conference, known as PP-26. The meeting sets the UN agency’s strategy and work program for the next four years, approves its financial plan and elects senior officials and governing bodies.
Buried among the 270 proposal documents are competing revisions to Resolution 102, the ITU text that covers Internet public policy and the management of resources such as domain names and addresses. One regional proposal would extend an ITU government working group’s remit into artificial intelligence, DNS policy and country-code domains. A European proposal would reinforce the existing division of labor among the Internet Governance Forum, ICANN, the IETF, regional Internet registries and other organizations.
None of these proposals is an agreed outcome. They are starting positions for an 18-day negotiation, and the final language may combine, narrow or reject them.
Why an ITU conference can affect the Internet
The ITU does not run the public DNS, assign IP addresses or write most of the protocols used on the Internet. Those jobs are distributed among organizations including ICANN, the regional Internet registries, the IETF and the World Wide Web Consortium. Companies, civil-society groups, researchers and governments participate in those systems through different multistakeholder processes.
The ITU has a different structure. National governments are its voting members, while companies and other organizations participate as sector members. Its core work spans radio spectrum, telecommunications standards and development programs. Plenipotentiary resolutions determine which subjects the agency studies, where it develops recommendations and how broadly it interprets its mandate.
That makes PP-26 less like a product launch and more like a change to the map of who gets to make future rules. A resolution will not reroute traffic or alter a DNS record on November 28. It can, however, create years of studies, standards work, funding programs and government negotiations that influence national policy and network investment.
One proposal would pull AI and DNS deeper into an ITU forum
An Arab States proposal to revise Resolution 102 adds AI, quantum technologies, data-center interconnection, cloud computing and rising demand for Internet addressing resources to the resolution’s scope. It would direct the ITU’s Council Working Group on International Internet-related Public Policy Issues, or CWG-Internet, to consider how AI affects connectivity, infrastructure, affordability, security and the management of Internet resources.
The group could develop reports, guidelines and best practices for the ITU Council. The proposal also calls for studies covering technical and policy aspects of internationalized country-code top-level domains, including their delegation and operation, and for more capacity building on AI-related Internet policy.
Those are not purely technical housekeeping changes. Country-code domains such as .uk, .in and .jp are operated by national or territorial managers, with global coordination through ICANN’s country-code community. Moving more discussion of delegation and operation into an intergovernmental forum could overlap with that system.
The Internet Society’s proposal analysis argues that the Arab States text could expand the government-only working group’s reach across Internet governance through its AI provisions. That is the organization’s assessment, not a finding by the ITU, and the proposal itself repeatedly calls for cooperation with relevant stakeholders.
Europe’s text points back to ICANN, the IETF and the IGF
The European regional proposal takes a different approach to the same resolution. It would state that the private sector should continue to lead the Internet’s day-to-day operations and explicitly recognize the roles of ICANN, the regional Internet registries, the IETF, the W3C and other technical bodies.
It also describes the UN Internet Governance Forum as the primary multistakeholder venue for Internet-governance discussion. The text would open more CWG-Internet meetings to stakeholders, particularly participants from developing countries, and frame the ITU’s role in Internet-resource management as advisory and supportive.
The practical difference is institutional. The Arab States proposal gives the ITU working group a broader program that includes AI and Internet resources. The European text emphasizes coordination with organizations that already operate those systems and gives non-government participants more direct access to the ITU discussion.
The agenda is broader than a control fight
Reducing PP-26 to a contest over government control would miss much of the conference. An African common proposal on IP networks calls for concrete plans to lower international connectivity costs for landlocked and developing countries, expand Internet exchange points and improve access to financing for regional fiber and long-haul infrastructure.
Other proposals in the ITU’s public proposal system cover cybersecurity, child protection, AI, satellite coordination, space sustainability and a review of the International Telecommunication Regulations. The Internet Society is also watching for traffic cost-sharing models sometimes described as “sender pays,” alternative network architectures and any move to convene another treaty conference on international telecommunications.
Some of those debates cut across regional lines. Countries seeking cheaper connectivity may support stronger development action while disagreeing on DNS governance. A government can favor open technical standards and still want a larger role in cybersecurity or AI policy. The final resolutions are likely to be negotiated packages rather than clean victories for one bloc.
What network operators and Internet users should watch
Five outcomes will show whether PP-26 changes the balance of Internet governance:
- Resolution 102: whether the final text expands CWG-Internet into AI, DNS and country-code domain policy or keeps the ITU in a more clearly supporting role.
- Participation: whether companies, technical groups and civil society gain access to the working group’s main sessions or remain largely outside its government deliberations.
- International regulations: whether members pursue a new treaty conference that could reopen the disputes last seen during the 2012 telecommunications-regulations talks.
- Network economics: whether any cost-sharing language changes how the ITU approaches interconnection, content delivery and the expense of carrying cross-border traffic.
- Emerging technology mandates: how far resolutions on AI, quantum systems and future networks extend the agency’s standards and policy work.
The first plenary session begins Monday afternoon in Doha. Negotiations continue until November 27, so early draft language should not be treated as a decision. The result worth watching is not a single declaration about “the future of the Internet,” but the collection of mandates that determines which institution gets to keep working on each part of it.
