This new era is blurring the traditional distinction between public and private. Where state-run telecom carriers long operated as public utilities, commercial Internet service-providers compete aggressively. While the "public-switched telephone network" (PSTN) is governed by the United Nations' International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the Internet, in regulatory terms, is a private data network.

—US Ambassador to the UK Phil Lader, The 2000 Tacitus Lecture, The Guildhall, London, February 15, 2000

http://www.usembassy.org.uk/ukamb16.html