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A looming land grab for internet governance by the United Nations' International Telecommunications Union (ITU) could spell a drastic change for governments and internet service providers alike.

However, misguided or not, the union's motivations are far from a desire to annex the internet, observers say.

Representatives from 193 nations will convene in Dubai this December to redefine the scope of the ITU's International Telecommunications Regulations (ITR) treaty, a set of principles governing global telecommunications interconnects and cost structures last re-negotiated in 1988.

The treaty currently covers operational, regulatory, economic and legal concerns in telecommunications, including things as banal as the 'accounting principals' behind interconnection fees.

But the ITU intends to update the treaty to account for the biggest single change since its negotiation: the global spread of the internet.

The regulations, primarily aimed at traditional voice networks, were developed well before the advent of Skype, and before VoIP as a technology began eating into the core voice revenue stream telcos traditionally relied upon.

According to iiNet's chief technology officer. John Lindsay, new delivery models have given the "old world" of government-owned telcos an impetus to fight back.

"The ITU would love to make the messy unregulated world of VoIP and online content go away," Lindsay told iTnews.

Though seen by countries and some ISPs as an attempt by the ITU to 'fix' the problem, Lindsay said it is also the one the union initially created.

"The ITU can be thanked for sky-high global roaming charges, high international voice terminating access prices, and codifying the Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing plan," he said.

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Censorship vs economics in battle for internet control