ITU and the European Telecommunications Standardization Institute (ETSI) have agreed on a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that will smooth the way for regional standards, developed by ETSI, to be recognised internationally.

In addition, the new MoU creates a single framework through which to channel ITU, ETSI collaboration. The agreement will replace existing MoUs with ITU-T and ITU-R, signed in 2000 and 2002 respectively.

ITU and ETSI possess complementary roles as Standards Development Organizations (SDOs), with ITU recognized as an international standardization body in the ICT field and ETSI as the European standardization organization for telecommunications.

The agreement between ETSI and ITU follows last year’s MoU between key Asian standards developers ARIB, CCSA, TTA and TTC. See press release here.

Mutual cooperation between SDOs is key to ensuring a coordinated approach to standards development. International standardization re-engineers regional standards to allow them international reach, or reconciles regional standards to form cohesive international standards.

Clear, coordinated action from standards bodies, will provide the business community with greater clarity regarding standards under development. This increased certainty will promote a faster, more efficient adoption of standards in products manufactured; leading to greater economies of scale and lower costs to consumers.

Hamadoun Touré, Secretary-General, ITU: “ITU standards allow international access to the innovations progressing our Information Society. This is achieved through cooperation with national and regional standards bodies to uncover the most valuable innovations and standards, no matter where they originate. It is thus very encouraging to see an extension of ITU’s MoU with ETSI, an action which will ensure ITU standards reflect the current ‘state of the art’ in European ICT standardization at the international level.”

Luis Jorge Romero, Director General, ETSI: “ETSI isrecognized by industry for its work in standards for ICT in the fixed, radio, mobile and broadcast domains, and our drive for excellence can be seen in our continuing focus on testing and interoperability. Our membership has grown to become global and in many cases is common with the ITU, which has resulted in a strong partnership and common goals being built up between us. Today we welcome the renewal of our relationship with the ITU and the extension of our co-operation into new fields.”

Further to the agreement between the Director, ITU Telecommunication Standardization Bureau and the Chairman of the Internet Engineering Taskforce (IETF) detailed in the ITU-T Newslog of November 14, the agreed statement has been included in a proposed compromise from the Japanese administration. The relevant documents are publicly available at: http://www.itu.int/oth/T0A0B00000C.

Ahead of IETF’s 82nd meeting Malcolm Johnson, Director of ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB) has issued a statement underlining ITU’s commitment to a collegial working environment for ICT standards.
 
"Wherever appropriate, ITU will continue to reference the deliverables of other standards bodies rather than duplicating their work, and as far as possible we try to avoid the development of competing standards. By doing so we can best serve the needs of the international ICT community."
 
The statement underlines ITU core principles on cooperation detailed in ITU-T’s strategic plan (contained in Resolution 71 (Rev. Guadalajara 2010)) : “Cooperation and collaboration with other standardization bodies and relevant consortia and fora are key to avoiding duplication of work and achieving efficient use of resources, as well as incorporating expertise from outside ITU.”
 
Full details on generic procedures for including references to documents of other organizations in ITU-T Recommendations can be found in ITU-T Recommendation A.5.
 
Consequently Mr Johnson and Mr Russ Housley, Chair of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) have agreed that MPLS, including MPLS-TP, is defined exclusively in the standards-track RFCs. The ITU-T will reference the IETF RFCs for MPLS-TP from its Recommendations providing there is consensus that they meet the needs of its members. By mutual agreement some other specific aspects, including the equipment model and protocol-neutral management information model (G.8121-series, G.8151, G.8152), developed in ITU-T are considered part of MPLS-TP.
 

2011-10-14 – World Standards Day is celebrated each year on 14 October to pay tribute to the efforts of thousands of experts worldwide who collaborate within IEC, ISO and ITU to develop voluntary International Standards that facilitate trade, spread knowledge and disseminate technological advances.

The theme of World Standards Day 2011 is, “International standards – Creating confidence globally”.

The World Standards Day message is signed by the leaders of the three principal international standardization organizations: Dr. Klaus Wucherer, President of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC): Dr. Boris Aleshin, President of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and Dr. Hamadoun Touré, Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The three organizations are the partners making up the World Standards Cooperation (WSC).

Their message points out that international standards for products and services underpin quality, ecology, safety, reliability, interoperability, efficiency and effectiveness. Standards do all of this while giving manufacturers confidence in their ability to reach out to global markets safe in the knowledge that their product will perform globally.

This is because international standards provide interoperability which in turn creates economies of scale and ensures that users can obtain equal service wherever they travel. So international standards benefit consumers, manufacturers and service providers alike. Importantly, in developing countries this accelerates the deployment of new products and services and encourages economic development.

“In today’s world we need to have a high level of expectation that things will work the way we expect them to work,” the three leaders affirm.

“We expect that when we pick up the phone we will be able to instantly connect to any other phone on the planet. We expect to be able to connect to the Internet and be provided with news and information instantly. When we fall ill, we rely on the healthcare equipment used to treat us.  When we drive our cars, we have confidence that the engine management, steering and braking, and child safety systems are reliable. We expect to be protected against electrical power failure and the harmful effects of pollution.”

The heads of IEC, ISO and ITU underline that international standards create confidence globally, adding, “Indeed one of the key objectives of standardization is to provide this confidence. Systems, products and services perform as we expect them to because of the essential features specified in international standards.”

In addition, international standards create confidence by being developed in an environment of openness and transparency, where every stakeholder can contribute.

The three standardization leaders conclude by emphasizing that the objective of IEC, ISO and ITU is to “facilitate and augment this confidence globally, so as to connect the world with international standards”.

Download the World Standards Day poster here.

ITU has underlined its key role in green ICT with a raft of announcements today by Study Group 5 of its Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T).

A meeting of the group in Seoul, Korea has seen agreement on a globally-recognized set of methodologies to assess the environmental impact of information and communications technology (ICT). It also saw agreement to produce a report on due diligence guidelines for conflict minerals supply, and to study environmental protection and recycling solutions for batteries for mobile phones and other ICT devices.

Estimates of how much ICTs can reduce global emissions – and estimates of the emissions generated by the ICT sector itself – still vary widely, due to the application of different measurement methodologies. After the problem was raised by delegates to ITU’s ‘ICTs and Climate Change’ symposium in 2008, ITU took on the challenge and has pioneered adoption of a new globally-agreed set of standards.

To ensure consistency between different approaches, the new methodology has been developed in cooperation with other standardization organizations such as ISO, IEC, ETSI and ATIS. The new methodology is also aligned with the Digital Agenda of the European Commission. 

Dr Hamadoun Touré, Secretary General, ITU: “This methodology has been developed by ITU's industry members. This will be important in ensuring it gains wide acceptance by the world's ICT industry. An internationally agreed methodology means estimates of the impact of ICTs on greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption will now have much greater credibility. It will also show just how significant a contribution ICTs can make by reducing global emissions in other sectors.”

Neelie Kroes, Vice President of the European Commission: “I'm pleased that the industry is taking the task of measuring its own footprint so seriously. And I'm pleased that the ITU, as a UN agency, is doing such good work facilitating negotiations, reaching out globally to industry sub-sectors and to other standardization initiatives.”

New guidelines on conflict minerals

New ITU work on ‘conflict minerals’ will also begin in response to a request from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). ITU will make a survey of existing due diligence requirements and guidelines concerning sources of conflict minerals (in particular, those that are smelted into tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold), as well as their use in conformity with recognized international treaties and national legislation, where this exists.

Rare earth minerals are used in consumer electronics products such as mobile phones, DVD players, video games and computers. The report will provide guidance to ICT entities seeking to exercise due diligence on, and formalize the origin and chain of custody of, conflict minerals used in their products and on their suppliers to ensure that conflict minerals used in their products do not directly or indirectly finance armed conflict or result in labour or human rights violations. Agreement to address this issue demonstrates the ICT industry’s commitment to sustainability at all levels of the value chain.

Following on from the success of ITU’s Universal Charging Solution for mobile devices (Recommendation ITU-T L.1000), the meeting also agreed to study the benefits and disadvantages of the standardization of batteries for mobile terminals and other ICT devices, looking at energy efficiency over the battery life cycle, eco-design information, battery lifetime and exchangeability, safety and environmental protection, recycling and reuse. This could lead to a reduction of harmful materials used in batteries and an increased lifespan of ICT products. Battery manufacturers, device manufacturers, operators and users will all benefit, say experts. 

Ahmed Zeddam, Chairman of ITU-T Study Group 5: “This has been the most productive and significant meeting in the long history of Study Group 5. Twelve new important standards have been agreed, including many critical to methodologies to assess the environmental impact of ICT and the protection of home networks and next generation network (NGN) equipment from electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) and environmental effects. The meeting also saw revisions to a key set of standards on resistibility to overvoltages or overcurrents of telecoms equipment. ITU is the only organization producing these important global standards.”

For more information, please contact:

Toby Johnson
Senior Communications Officer
E-mail: toby.johnson@itu.int
Tel: +41 22 730 5877;
mobile: +41 79 249 4868

Sarah Parkes

Chief, Media Relations and Public Information,
E-mail: sarah.parkes@itu.int
Tel: +41 22 730 6135;
mobile: +41 79 599 1439

Geneva, 6 July, 2011 – ITU has signed an agreement with key Asian standards developers that will mean new technologies come to market quicker and at lower cost. ARIB, CCSA, TTA and TTC have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with ITU recognizing ITU as the pre-eminent global ICT standards body. The agreement seeks to smooth the way for regional standards, developed in these four key regional bodies, to be internationally recognized.

The MoU will build on the good relationship ITU has built with all four bodies over many years, increase transparency between the organizations, avoid duplication of work and increase efficiency in the publication of standards. All of which means that product manufacturers will be able to more efficiently incorporate globally standardized solutions in their products, leading to greater economies of scale and lower costs to consumers.

Full press release

• Why the former CEO of Mitsubishi believes that standardization and certification are now crucial for Japanese companies' continued success
  
• Why the CEO of Rockwell, the world's largest automation company, recommends that businesses participate in standardization work
  
• How a 50-employee SME succeeded in opening up the European market for its medical devices 
  
  

A group of twenty-three leaders from the information and communication technology (ICT) sector and senior management of the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) met for the second annual meeting of Chief Technology Officers (CTO) in Paris. They agreed on a set of recommendations to modernize the current ICT standardization landscape and set priorities for new issues in standards work.

The CTOs reaffirmed that standardization is one of the essential building blocks of the Information Society and of the global ICT networks that power trade, commerce, sustainable development, healthcare, education, literacy, and entertainment. Today, standards are not only the technical blueprints necessary for interoperability and connectivity within global information infrastructures. They are also tools with significant public policy and economic consequences.

Faced with an ever-growing number of standards bodies and consortia, the CTOs called for immediate steps to streamline and modernize the standards landscape and endorsed the need for a new approach, based on collaboration, cooperation and coordination, to improve the efficiency of standards work, reduce duplicating and conflicting standards and promote a seamless, interoperable future global communications network. As a result of the review, the CTOs initially identified, in addition to ITU, a number of regional and national standards bodies that are key standardization organizations. It was recognized that additional work is needed to further develop the concept into multi-dimensional ecosystems for different markets and technologies, pre- and post-standardization, and appropriate links and cooperation among the different bodies, given the technological convergence that is taking place.

Full press release

Geneva, 21 October 2008 — Yesterday, the first-ever Global Standards Symposium closed in Johannesburg, South Africa with broad agreement from industry and standards bodies on the need to take aggressive action to streamline standards work and end confusion and duplication.

ITU will host a workshop to address international public policy issues on the migration to IPv6, as well as the economic aspects related to IP address allocation 4-5 September in Geneva.

With the massive deployment of Internet-related resources worldwide and the integration of IP-enabled consumer devices connected directly to the network, the issue of the depletion of IPv4 addresses is becoming pertinent. Indeed, there is wide recognition of the need for better awareness of the availability of IPv4 addresses and the deployment of IPv6.

Despite the use of network address translation (NAT) as a strategy for reducing the use of public IPv4 addresses, several experts forecast depletion in the next few years. In addition to other features, IPv6 with its 128 bit address space is aimed at addressing the current shortage of public IPv4 addresses. However the transition from IPv4 to IPv6 is going at a rather slow rate, with both versions being used in parallel. Many informed observers attribute this to market forces and other economic considerations.

There is growing interest in IPv6 especially among the organizations involved in its management. ITU is organizing this workshop in order to foster dialogue and international cooperation on IPv6 related issues.

The workshop will provide a platform for dialogue where key players in the field, including all ITU sectors, as well as other interested entities will be able to discuss and address international public policy issues on the migration to IPv6, as well as the economic aspects related to IP address allocation.

The workshop is designed to stimulate discussion and interaction with the audience, rather than offer a string of presentations and speeches provided by panelists and speakers.

The ITU/MICKyoto Symposium on ICTs and Climate Change closed 16 April with agreement that ITU should play a significant role in the global effort to combat climate change.

A number of actions were recommended for ITU. Among them was a task for ITU’s Standardization Sector (ITU-T) which was tasked with the development of an internationally agreed standard methodology to measure the impact of ICTs on climate change, both in terms of the direct emission of greenhouse gases, and the savings that can be generated in other sectors of industry through the application of ICTs.

Director of ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB), Malcolm Johnson, supported the meeting’s recommendation that an ITU-T Focus Group would be an appropriate vehicle to take forward this work. He said that he would propose the formation of a new group to ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Advisory Group (TSAG) at its next meeting in July. However, to move quickly, he encouraged the submission of proposals on the terms of reference for this group, as well as initial proposals on methodologies, to: tsbtechwatch@itu.int.

Johnson also proposed that a draft Resolution would be presented at this year’s World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (WTSA-08), in Johannesburg, October. The document is expected to outline ITU-T’s responsibility in identifying the role that ICTs should play in the mitigation and monitoring of climate change and target reductions for the industry.

Experts agreed that the chairman’s report of the Kyoto event provides an excellent start point for the Resolution which will be discussed in further detail at the second ITU symposium on ICTs and climate change, 17-18 June 2008 in London. More information is also available in the meeting summary and the ITU background report.

The chairman’s report of the Kyoto symposium will also be forwarded to upcoming meetings of the World Economic Forum, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) ministerial meeting in the Republic of Korea, the G8 meeting in Japan and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The second ITU symposium on ICTs and climate change, will be held 17-18 June in London, hosted by BT. The London event will also be broadcast as a live Webinar. Register: [more information]

Presentations from Kyoto can be viewed here.

See also climate change news feed for more detailed reports on the Kyoto event.

Following an ITU-T workshop on accessibility last year at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Rio, a Dynamic Coalition on Accessibility and Disability (DCAD) has been established by ITU-T. The DCAD will facilitate interaction between relevant bodies and ensure that information and communications technologies (ICT) accessibility and tools to facilitate it are included in the key debates around Internet governance.

DCAD aims to help build a future where all sectors of the global community have equal access to communications and online information as well as the ability to participate in IGF discussions and seminars. The initiative takes into account the fact that all communities can benefit from ICTs and improve their quality of life, a view supported by the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

The coalition is currently composed of eight organizations, and is open to any entity or individual working in the field. If you wish to be part of this effort please contact the Dynamic Coalition Secretariat.

Further information on ITU and ICT accessibility can be found here.

An ITU event will bring together the best academic minds from around the world to present their future visions for next generation networks (NGN). The three best papers will be awarded from a prize fund donated by Cisco totaling $10,000.

Innovations in NGN, 12-13 May, Geneva is the first in a series of conferences under the banner ‘Kaleidoscope’ that will bring closer ties between ITU, academia and research organizations. The event, technically co-sponsored by the IEEE Communications Society attracted around 140 contributions with its initial call for papers. From this, 54 of the most visionary papers have been selected by a review panel of 140 experts from around the world for presentation at the conference. The event will also host the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between ITU and IEEE Communications Society.

Innovations in NGN will highlight technologies, services and applications five years and beyond that will capitalize on the NGN infrastructure and lead to the ubiquitous network society in which information can be accessed anywhere and anytime by anyone and anything. It will also cover multidisciplinary aspects related to the deployment of NGN, including analysis of regulatory and societal challenges.

Malcolm Johnson, Director of the Telecommunication Standardization Bureau: “Technology is a critical determinant of sustainable growth and poverty reduction. And, education is key to the accelerated development of information and communications technologies (ICT) and contributes to the increased use of these technologies all over the world. Without the involvement of the world’s universities and other academic and research institutions we would not have reached the level of innovation that we see today. The Kaleidoscope series is an excellent innitiative to capitalize on the fruitful relationship that we already have with academia and take it to another level.”

ITU has a long history of collaboration with academia and many standards (ITU-T Recommendations) have been developed with academic input. Some leading Study Group positions are held by university professors. The Kaleidoscope initiative will encourage a new type of engagement along the lines of an academic conference. Authors whose works are selected for the event’s proceedings will gain extra academic recognition by being published online by IEEE. The standards world will profit from new ideas for possible future development.

Innovations in NGN is to inspire contributions towards a kaleidoscopic view of communication habits for the future. We know what NGN is in terms of the underlying technology, but we don’t know what services will emerge, how NGN will affect the marketplace for ICT, and how society will be affected. This, first in the series of Kaleidoscope conferences is free for anyone to attend and will shed light on some of these questions as well as inspire debate and future work on the future of ICT and ICT standardization. Please register at www.itu.int/ITU-T/uni/kaleidoscope/.

ITU-T is seeking sponsors to join Cisco, ICF and Sun Microsystems and help fund the various activities connected to the event including publication of proceedings, coffee-breaks and reception. For more details contact kaleidoscope@itu.int.

ITU together with G3ict is holding a joint Forum to review areas of challenges and opportunities for international ICT accessibility standards in light of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

The event will take place at ITU Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland on Monday, 21 April 2008. See previous story on ITU’s latest work in the field of accessibility.

The Convention has been signed by an unprecedentedly high number of UN Member States in a relatively short time – 126 since 30 March 2007. This makes it all the more urgent to promote ICT accessibility standards that will support a better and faster implementation around the world of the many dispositions of the Convention regarding ICTs.

For the first time since the Convention was adopted by the UN General Assembly, an international group of experts from industry, standards development organizations, NGOs representing persons with disabilities, international development institutions, governments and academia will examine in detail its many implications for ICT accessibility standards. Proceedings will be edited to serve as a reference for future accessibility standards developments.

The event will review existing and in-progress technology standards and standardization of product development methodologies; discuss the role of public policy and procurement in support of standardization and the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and identify follow-up actions to facilitate its implementation.

ITU experts have reported a good spirit of cooperation following a meeting with counterparts from the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) on the topic of T-MPLS, during February’s Study Group 15 meeting in Geneva.

The Ad-Hoc Group on T-MPLS met to iron out perceived inconsistencies between MPLS developed by IETF and T-MPLS developed in ITU-T. The meeting appointed Malcolm Betts as ITU representative and Dave Ward from IETF.

A joint working team (JWT) has been created with experts from ITU-T and IETF.

Previously the IETF requested that the ITU-T either: (1) Work in cooperation to extend the IETF's MPLS technologies through the IETF Standards Process or: (2) Decide to use its own Ethertypes and maintain separation of codepoints in the future, change the name of the technology so it is not easily confused with IETF MPLS and work independently.

The JWT will allow the IETF and ITU-T to work in close collaboration on T-MPLS to understand the implications of these options and facilitate the subsequent development of solutions that ensure that the required degree of MPLS/T-MPLS compatibility, consistency, and coherence, recognizing that the sole design authority for MPLS resides in the IETF, and the domain of expertise for Transport Network Infrastructure resides in ITU-T SG15.

It is expected that the group will use remote collaboration tools and make a decision on which way to progress by April 2008. See also previous newslog entry here.

MPLS is widely embraced in backbone networks as a way to speed up routers. Lately some have advocated its use further downstream in access networks, there have even been suggestions to extend this as far as customer premises. ITU’s work seeks to support this, but additionally to allow the seamless interworking between Ethernet and MPLS. This has been progressed in SG 15 through the completion of a new set of Recommendations for Transport MPLS (T-MPLS), a technology which uses a subset of the components defined in the MPLS Layer Network Architecture of Recommendation G.8110 to support packet transport applications that adhere to ITU-T layer network architecture principles. A T-MPLS layer network can operate independently of its clients and its associated control networks (i.e., multi-carrier or single carrier networks (MCN, SCN) and can carry a variety of client traffic types. This independence affords network operators the freedom necessary to design robust packet transport networks for their own use and to transport customer traffic. T-MPLS is designed to behave consistently with existing transport technologies, thus offering the operational characteristics, performance and reliability that network operators require from carrier-class technologies. The new Recommendations for this technology cover the T-MPLS layer network architecture (G.8110.1/Y.1370.1), interfaces for the T-MPLS Hierarchy (G.8112/Y.1371), and T-MPLS Equipment (G.8121/Y.1381).

IEEE Communications Magazine has issued a call for papers: ITU-T International Standards in Information and Communications Technologies. Contributions are solicited for an issue focusing on ITU-T's role in developing global standards for ICTs.

Contributions should include but are not limited to the following areas:

Overview of the ITU-T standardization mechanisms and process: Building consensus, alternative approval process (AAP), WTSA, TSAG, Study Groups, Focus Groups, IPR policy, the role of TSB etc.

• ITU-T Strategy
• Bridging the standardization gap
• Hot standardization topics in ITU-T including standards coordination aspects
  
• Access technologies
  
• Transport technologies
  
• Advanced Multimedia System (AMS)
  
• ICTs for climate change
  

The manuscript submission date is April 15, 2008 .

More details here.

ITU, together with Telcordia, are again collaborating to organize a multi-company interoperability demonstration featuring gigabit passive optical network (G-PON) equipment built according to the ITU-T G.984 Recommendation. Participating companies are now being finalized, with interested companies being requested to contact Rob Bond (rbond@telcordia.com), G-PON Pavilion Coordinator, by Monday February 25, 2008. Any optical access system, customer premises equipment, or G-PON device vendor with commercial products compliant with G.984 series Recommendations are eligible to participate.

The interoperability demonstration featured in the ITU G-PON (G.984) Pavilion at NXTcomm 2008 may include both traditional FTTP-focused G-PON technology, as well as emerging applications such as G-PON fed xDSL services, Enhancement band operation (G.984.5), and G-PON Reach Extender demonstrations (G.984.re). More information is contained in the ITU G-PON Pavilion fact sheet.

The quadrennial event that defines the future direction for the ITU’s Standardization Sector (ITU-T) – the World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (WTSA) – will take place for the first time in Africa in 2008. It will also be the first chaired by a woman (Ms Lyndall Shope-Mafole, Director-General of the South African Department of Communications), and for the first time is preceded by a Global Standards Symposium (GSS). WTSA-08 will be held 21 - 30 October 2008, at the Emperors Palace, Convention Centre, Johannesburg, South Africa.

An official ‘Circular’ letter has been issued encouraging Member States and ITU-T Sector Members to participate in discussions on the future structure of the Sector: the study groups (including regional tariff groups under Study Group 3); and the Telecommunication Standardization Advisory Group (TSAG). WTSA-08 will also be unique in that the term limit for chairmanships agreed at the WTSA-2000 will apply for the first time and many of the current chairmen and vice-chairmen will retire. Although this will mean the loss of much experience, it does offer the opportunity to consider a major restructuring of the Sector. Member States and ITU-T Sector Members are therefore advised to await the outcome of the next TSAG meeting in July, when a new structure for the Sector should be clearer, before submitting candidatures for chairmen or vice-chairmen.

The Global Standards Symposium (GSS) will be held at the same venue on 20 October 2008. It will see leading figures in the telecom/ICT field, both from government and the industry, give their vision of the future, and suggest ways of increasing the involvement of developing countries in the development and implementation of standards (bridging the standardization gap). Additionally the event will examine global ICT standards challenges, such as accessibility, climate change and collaboration among standards development organisations (SDOs). Although not formally a part of the WTSA-08, the GSS will provide a report to the WTSA for information and action as appropriate, giving participants a unique opportunity to provide input to the event that decides the future direction for ITU-T.

ITU will team up with ISO and IEC for a third time in 2008 to present the Fully Networked Car. The three organisations working together under the World Standards Cooperation (WSC) banner will host the workshop and exhibition at one of the world’s leading automotive events, the Geneva International Motor Show.

Key for 2008 is the question: How can ICTs in vehicles help mitigate and monitor climate change? The Honda Racing F1 Team has kindly agreed to display, as the key feature of the exhibition, its new 2008 F1 “Earthdreams car” to give special emphasis to the environmental theme. Experts believe that more sophisticated traffic management and driver assistance systems can help reduce the environmental impact caused by motoring.

2008 will see a keynote speech from Max Mosley, president of the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile), organizer of the Formula One World Championship.

In general, the event, 5 - 7 March, will focus on information and communication technologies (ICT) in motor vehicles and specifically standards that will facilitate the convergence of these industries.

ICT in vehicles represents a significant value-add for consumers in terms of safety, comfort and mobility. Predictions for the size of the market run into billions of dollars and stakeholders agree that standardization is key to the development of new technologies and that coordination between the traditionally remote vehicle manufacturing and ICT industries is crucial.

The Fully Networked Car brings together experts ranging from top decision-makers to engineers, designers, planners, government officials, regulators, standards experts and analysts. The workshop programme features speakers from some of the biggest names in the ICT and automobile industries. The panel of high-level global experts that will frame the major issues and engage the audience in discussion on this important topic come from companies including: BMW, Connexis, Fiat, Ford, Freescale Semiconductor, Honda, Intel, Motorola, Oracle, SVOX, Telefonica, Telcordia, Toyota-InfoTechnology Center, T-Systems, Volvo and Wavecom.

Among other topics to be discussed are the radio spectrum used for car-to-car and car-to-infrastructure communications; the convergence of telematics and infotainment and systems and standards related to safety.

Press release

Click here for a document detailing some ITU-T highlights for 2007.

A new report from ITU-T shows how Information and communications technologies (ICTs) contribute to global warming, but also how they can be used to monitor climate change, to mitigate its effects, to improve energy efficiency and to reduce carbon emissions in other sectors of the economy. The report -- ICTs and Climate Change -- is the third in the new series of Technology Watch Briefing Reports, launched by ITU-T in October 2007. It has been submitted to TSAG for further discussion at its upcoming meeting, 3-7 December. It is planned that an ITU symposium on this topic will be held in 2008.

Since 1970, the production of greenhouse gases has risen by more than 70 per cent, and this is having a global effect in warming the planet, causing changing weather patterns, rising sea-levels, desertification, shrinking ice cover and other worrying long-term effects. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) foresees a further rise in average global temperatures of between 1.4 and 5.8 degrees centigrade by 2030. Climate change is a concern for all of humanity and requires efforts on the part of all sectors of society, including the ICT sector. Although ICTs contribute only an estimated 2.5 per cent of total greenhouse gases, this share is set to grow as usage of ICTs expands globally, growing at a faster rate than the general economy.

ICTs are thus part of the cause of global warming, but they can also be part of the solution, for instance through the promotion of carbon displacement technologies. ICTs are also vital in monitoring the spread of global warming. One specific contribution ICTs can make is through the substitution of travel by electronic forms of communication, such as telephone calls, email or video-conferencing, all of which benefit from ITU-T¡¯s standardization work. In particular, high-performance video-conferencing, or telepresence (the topic of the second Technology Watch Briefing Report), can give the impression of 'being there, without going there'. Furthermore, ITU-T itself is also contributing to a greener future through its decision to make ITU-T Recommendations freely available online. In the mid 1990s, more than one million publications were printed by ITU but, with free Recommendations now available in electronic form, this has been cut to just a few thousand that are still printed, and carbon emissions from transport of printed copies and CD-ROMs has been greatly reduced.

A standard that allows a warning message to be consistently disseminated simultaneously over different systems and applications has been approved as an ITU-T Recommendation.

The Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) v.1.1 developed by OASIS was the basis for the text that will be published as an ITU-T Recommendation following approval on 12 September. Publication as an ITU-T Recommendation (X.1303) will help ensure that CAP is deployed worldwide giving technical compatibility for users across all countries. The goal of public warning is to reduce the damage and loss of life caused by a natural or man-made hazard event.

CAP is a simple, lightweight XML-based schema that provides a general-purpose format for the exchange of emergency alerts for safety, security, fire, health, earthquake and other events over any network. CAP associates emergency event data (such as public warning statements, photographs, sensor data or URIs) with basic metadata such as time, source and level of urgency, and with geographic locations. The original V.1.1 specification was enlarged by a binary ASN.1 specification of the CAP messages that will enable the transport of CAP messages to VoIP terminals using H.323 among other systems. Experts say the use of ASN.1 significantly reduces the size of the message and therefore the potential for network congestion. OASIS Emergency Management Technical Committee has also adopted the same extension.

CAP is successfully in use by a number of public emergency services and land management agencies today, and works with a wide variety of devices and messaging methods.

The news reflects the increased attention being given by ITU-T to wideband audio and other codec-related quality issues, especially regarding their subjective testing, such as for superwideband and fullband.

Work has progressed over a number of meetings, since the beginning of 2007, of the Focus Group From/In/To Car Communication on draft Recommendation - P.Carhft - under development by ITU-T's Study Group 12. The Focus Group concept allows for non-members, in this case the auto industry to participate. While first concentrating on narrowband speech (3.4kHz), the group working under new banner - FitCarCom - will move into better quality - wideband (8kHz).

Participating companies include Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya, DaimlerChrysler, France Telecom, Harman/Becker, Head Acoustics, Mitsubishi, Nortel and Volkswagen. The first meeting of the group is expected to be March or April, 2008.

Following completion of four deliverables by The Focus Group on Identity Management, ITU-T's Study Group 17 has recommended to the Telecommunication Standardization Advisory Group (TSAG) that a Global Standards Initiative on Identity Management (IdM-GSI) is established. If the December meeting of TSAG initiates the IdM-GSI and the related Joint Coordination Activity (JCA), a meeting has already been planned for January 2008 to enter into a new phase of work on IdM based on these groups and existing ITU-T studies.

The four IdM deliverables have been transferred to relevant Study Groups via Study Group 17 and also to ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27 for further consideration and possible development as ITU-T Recommendations and a potential common text with ISO/IEC on entity authentication assurance. Indeed work on three new ITU-T Recommendations and the ITU-T/ISO common text standard has already begun.

The term IdM is understood as "management by providers of trusted attributes of an entity such as a subscriber, a device, or a provider." IdM promises to reduce the need for multiple user names and passwords for each online service used, while maintaining privacy of personal information. A global IdM solution will help diminish identity theft and fraud. Further, IdM is one of the key enablers for a simplified and secure interaction between customers and services such as e-commerce. A key issue for the Focus Group was to provide interoperability between existing solutions.

Herb Bertine, Chairman of Study Group 17, lead Study Group on security in ITU-T said: “We are very pleased with the productivity and efficiency of the Focus Group. We now have the building blocks to enter the important next phase where the world’s service providers can profit from international standards for IdM services. Clearly identity management is an important topic and one that industry has put significant weight behind in order to turn out standards that will provide an IdM framework for global interoperability.”

The deliverables were supplied to a meeting of ITU-T’s Study Group 17. Essentially IdM-GSI will be an umbrella title for IdM work that will be distributed across all Study Groups. A joint coordination activity (JCA) will ensure that there is no duplication of work, oversee strategic/planning issues and work assignments and develop a roadmap for the development of a global ID management standards. IdM-GSI will enhance harmonization, in collaboration with other bodies, among the different approaches to IdM frameworks and capabilities worldwide.

The publicly available deliverables are:

• Report on Identity Management Ecosystem and Lexicon
  
• Report on Identity Management Use Cases and Gap Analysis 
  
• Report on Requirements for Global Interoperable Identity Management 
  
• Report on Identity Management Framework for Global Interoperability
  

The first meeting of IdM-GSI including the JCA-IdM is planned to be held during the January 2008 NGN-GSI event in Seoul, Korea.

Experts from the standardization sector of ITU (ITU-T) and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) have agreed to recommend progression of Transport-MPLS (T-MPLS) standards work in a way that ensures compatibility, consistency, and coherence of MPLS technology when used in transport networks. The recommended approach, which recognizes and leverages ITU-T and IETF design expertise and authority, is expected to resolve concerns raised regarding usage of common Ethertypes for IETF MPLS and T-MPLS when running over an Ethernet backbone. Broader review and approval of the proposal by the two standards bodies is expected in the coming months.

The experts proposed in a joint statement that "The IETF and ITU-T will work in close collaboration on T-MPLS" and that "a joint working team of experts from the IETF and ITU-T be established to propose how to progress the various aspects of the requirements, solutions, and architecture for the T-MPLS work." The initial goal of the working team will be to examine T-MPLS work, and foster "an agreement on leadership roles and the modifications necessary to develop an architecture that it is compatible, coherent and consistent between both transport and IETF MPLS technologies."

Yoichi Maeda, Chairman of ITU-T's Study Group 15, home of the T-MPLS work said: "This type of agreement is a characteristic of the spirit of cooperation that exists between ITU-T and IETF. Both organizations understand that in order to meet the needs of industry it's imperative to quickly resolve differences and avoid duplication of work."

"Future work," the proposal states, "will be progressed by first analyzing the requirements and desired functionality." Since T-MPLS utilizes MPLS functionality extensively, the experts recommend that, "The IETF Standards Process will be used for extensions or modifications of IETF MPLS Technology." It was clearly noted that there are aspects of the problem space that lie outside the domain of expertise in the IETF or straddle both organizations, e.g., management of transport equipment, and some aspects of OAM and survivability. The working team will be tasked to help identify which of these aspects are best standardized in IETF RFCs and which in ITU-T Recommendations.

T-MPLS has been under development for three years in ITU-T with four specifications published, including an architecture document, a network-to-network interface (NNI), an equipment specification and a protection switching document. T-MPLS draws extensively on IETF MPLS, a foundation of more than 50 RFCs published by the IETF MPLS and PWE3 Working Groups over the last eight years.

The government of Rwanda generously hosted ITU’s first ever global Forum on Bridging the ICT standardization and development gap between developed and developing countries, in Kigali, Rwanda, 2-4 October. Participants welcomed the recent establishment of a special fund for voluntary contributions from world governments and industry to address the issue.

The ICT standardization gap refers to the shortage of human resources in developing countries, relative to developed ones, in terms of being able to participate effectively in the standards-making and implementation process. Standards are an essential tool in bridging the digital divide, in reducing costs, and bringing vital aid to developing countries in building their infrastructure and encouraging economic development.

Over 160 participants from 38 countries took part in the meeting, with several countries being represented at government Minister or company CEO level. The conclusions of the Forum, outlining the importance of addressing the standardization gap, will be provided as input to the upcoming Connect Africa summit to be held in Kigali, 29-30 October.

The Forum was formally opened by H.E. Albert Butare, Minister of State in charge of Energy and Communications. He drew attention to the country’s National Information and Communications Infrastructure (NICI) Plan where the aim is to focus on the benefits of ICTs for national development and prosperity so that by 2020 Rwanda will have achieved middle-income status as a knowledge-based economy. The Minister welcomed the support being given by ITU and the international community in helping Rwanda to achieve its goals.

Mr. Malcolm Johnson, Director of the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Bureau, speaking in Kigali at the opening of the Forum, said: “The significance of the standardization gap is that it contributes to the persistence of the wider digital divide in ICTs. That is because one of the underlying causes of the digital divide is unequal access to technology and the ability to implement and use that technology. The process of technology transfer and implementation will happen much faster when African engineers can participate in standards development, particularly at the requirements-gathering stage, and are familiar with the relevant standards.”

Meeting participants agreed that a sustained commitment to raising standards awareness and to capacity-building is of particular importance and the meeting called on the ITU to step up its efforts, welcoming ITU’s organisation of a Global Standardization Symposium to address the issue. This will be held on 20 October 2008 just ahead of the next World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (WTSA-08), planned for South Africa.

A chairman’s report from the Forum is available online as well as a full set of presentations: here.

ITU is holding a workshop - Making accessibility a reality in emerging technologies - at the second meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Rio de Janeiro, 13 November, 1430-1600.

ITU’s standardization arm - ITU-T - has a long history of providing standards in the field of accessibility. It started in the early 90's with the international text telephone standard, ITU-T Recommendation V.18, which ties together text telephone protocols allowing different textphone types to communicate.

ITU-T’s accessibility experts have helped to incorporate accessibility needs into standards for multimedia, network interoperability, multimedia service descriptions and multimedia conferencing.

The latest work has focused on taking accessibility needs into account in the development of all standards. For this reason an ‘Accessibility Checklist’ has been created for the makers of standards to ensure that they are taking into account the needs of those to whom accessibility to ICTs are restricted, the deaf or hard-of-hearing for example. Experts say that such a list will help to ensure that accessibility needs are taken into account at an early stage, rather than ‘retrofitted’.

An area of current intensive standardization activity is that on the next generation network (NGN). Accessibility features have been included at the first stage of standards work where requirements are defined. However it is important that these needs are taken into account as work progresses.

This workshop, organized by ITU, as part of the Internet Governance Forum brings together experts from around the world to examine how best to take into account accessibility needs in emerging technologies.

Further information here (ITU page) here (IGF page).

World Standards Day is celebrated each year on 14 October to pay tribute to the efforts of thousands of experts worldwide who collaborate within IEC, ISO and ITU to develop voluntary International Standards that facilitate trade, spread knowledge and disseminate technological advances.

International Standards help citizens to exercise their rights and to meet their obligations within the Global Village. This link between standards and global citizenship is the theme of this year's World Standards Day message, “Standards and the citizen: Contributing to society”. The message is signed by the leaders of the three principal international standardization organizations: Mr. Renzo Tani, President of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), Mr. Håkan Murby, President of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and Dr. Hamadoun Touré, Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

The three leaders point out that standards solve problems in all spheres of activity and give the following examples: “A world without standards would soon grind to a halt. Transport and trade would seize up. The Internet would simply not function. Hundreds of thousands of systems dependent on information and communication technologies would falter or fail — from government and banking to healthcare and air traffic control, emergency services, disaster relief and even international diplomacy.”

International Standards are ubiquitous in the modern world, making many everyday tasks easier and safer. The heads of the three standardization organizations point out that even the simple act of reading the World Standards Day message on a computer screen depends on hundreds of standards that allow the computer to function, provide access to Internet, or simplify the printing and distribution of hard copies through standardized paper sizes.

The leaders of IEC, ISO and ITU underline how much standards underpin our daily lives: "Without standards, consider how difficult — or even dangerous — it would be to carry out ordinary, daily tasks. Safety standards for machinery protect us at work and at play. At home, standards keep electrical appliances connected to the national grid and keep our refrigerators and air conditioners compliant with environmental safeguards to prevent global warming. Our audio systems, television sets and DVD players, mobile phones and WiFi all comply with standards to make them compatible with other systems. From mobile videos and music to online education, telemedicine, e-banking and satellite navigation systems for our cars and aircraft — where would we be without standards in an increasingly networked world?"

Through their work in developing standards, IEC, ISO and ITU help to open up markets, promote environmental protection, safety, security, health and access to information, and to break down barriers between rich and poor nations. Their standards also foster technological innovation, healthy commerce and fair prices.

The leaders of the three organizations conclude their message, "As we move into the future, the work of IEC, ISO and ITU will continue to facilitate the development and diffusion of new technologies that will drive the world economy, contributing to the well being of all of the world’s inhabitants."

A call for abstracts has been issued for ITU, ISO and IEC’s now regular event focusing on information and communication technologies (ICT) in motor vehicles.

For the third year running The Fully Networked Car is being organized by ITU, ISO and IEC, working together as the World Standards Cooperation (WSC). Taking place at one of the world’s leading automotive events, the Geneva International Motor Show, the event will comprise a workshop with demonstrations and will take place between 5 and 7 March 2008.

Authors wishing to present papers should submit a half-page abstract, including the title of the paper and the author’s full name, short biography, address, telephone and e-mail, to tsbcar@itu.int by Friday, 16 November 2007. A new topic area for 2008 is ICT and the environment, suggestions for other topics can be found on the event's webpage.

This year’s event will feature a keynote speech from Max Mosley, president of the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile) which is also the organizer of the Formula One World Championship).

The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) will host the results of an interoperability demonstration at ECOC 2007, Berlin, Germany. The event will show how a suite of ITU-T standards enable on-demand Ethernet services.

Seven global telecommunication carriers taking part will provide test facilities, engineering staff and network connectivity.

The demonstration will highlight dynamic Ethernet services over multiple, control plane-enabled intelligent optical core networks, including:
- Ethernet Private Line service
- Non-disruptive bandwidth modification
- Graceful recovery from control plane or signaling network failures

See the OIF’s press release.

IEEE Communications Society has been announced as Technical Co-Sponsor of the International Telecommunication Union’s upcoming Innovations in Next Generation Networks event to be held in Geneva, Switzerland May 2008. The partnership means that IEEE Communications Society will encourage members to respond to a call for papers issued by ITU.

The call for papers is to inspire contributions towards a kaleidoscopic view of communication habits for the future. We know what NGN is in terms of the underlying technology, but we don’t know what services will emerge, how NGN will affect the marketplace for ICT, and how society will be affected. Innovations in NGN is the first in a series of events, under the banner “Kaleidoscope Conferences”, that aims at increasing the dialogue between academia and experts working on the standardization of information and communications technologies (ICT).

By viewing technologies through a kaleidoscope, these forward looking conferences will also seek to identify new topics for standardization. Innovations in NGN will bring together visionary ideas on the future of NGN. It will highlight technologies, services and applications five years and beyond that will capitalize on the NGN infrastructure and lead to the ubiquitous network society in which information can be accessed anywhere and anytime by anyone and anything. The event will also cover multidisciplinary aspects related to the deployment of NGN, including analysis of regulatory and societal challenges.

ITU-T has issued a call for papers for an event - Innovations in Next Generation Networks - to be held in Geneva, 12-13 May 2008. The event is the first in a series that will increase the dialogue between academia and experts working on the standardization of information and communications technologies (ICT). Awards will be granted to selected best papers, as judged by the organizing and programme committee. Details will be announced later.

Innovations in NGN is to inspire contributions towards a kaleidoscopic view of communication habits for the future. We know what NGN is in terms of the underlying technology, but we don’t know what services will emerge, how NGN will affect the marketplace for ICT, and how society will be affected. The call for papers lists a number of suggested topics.

Innovations in NGN will bring together new and visionary ideas on the future of NGN. It will highlight technologies, services and applications five years from now that will capitalize on the NGN infrastructure and will lead us to the so-called ubiquitous network society in which information can be accessed anywhere, at anytime, by anyone and anything. The event will also cover multidisciplinary aspects related to the deployment of NGN, including analysis of the regulatory and societal challenges that the deployment of NGN will bring.

NXTComm, June 18-21, Chicago will see ITU-T members, and guests stage an interoperability showcase for fibre to the premises (FTTP) related standards.

ITU, together with Telcordia, have collaborated to organize a multi-company interoperability demonstration featuring gigabit passive optical network (G-PON) equipment built according to the ITU-T G.984 Recommendation. PON technology is used in the local loop environment to cost effectively connect residential and Small and medium enterprises (SME) end users premises in an all-fibre network.

The G-PON Pavilion features live demonstrations of G-PON equipment interoperability; with interoperability being a critical enabler to reducing G-PON equipment costs. Triple-play interoperability demonstrations are provided by the following device and equipment manufactures: Alphion, Cambridge Industries Group, Hitachi, Huawei, iamba Networks, LS Cable, PMC-Sierra, Tellabs, Terawave Communications, TXP Corporation, XAVi Technologies, ZTE Corporation. Corning is providing the optical distribution network components over which the 2488 Mbps/1244 Mbps (downstream/upstream) G-PON systems will be operating.

With PONs, signals are carried by lasers and sent to their destination without the need for active electronics in the outside plant of the telecommunications network. Carriers can realize significant savings with fiber sharing in the local loop, equipment sharing in the Central Office and by eliminating the dependence on expensive active network elements.

ITU-T Recommendations in the G.984 series detail gigabit PONs (G-PON), the latest generation of PON technology. Increasing capacity to gigabit levels should more than satisfy foreseeable customer demands, offering video applications, high-speed Internet access, multimedia and other high-bandwidth capabilities. G-PON maintains the same optical distribution network, wavelength plan and full-service network design principles of broadband PONs (B-PON) defined in ITU-T Rec G.983. As well as allowing for increased network capacity, the new standard offers more efficient IP and Ethernet handling.

ITU and the IEEE will hold a workshop on carrier-class Ethernet, 31 May - 1 June.Much work has been done in both organisations to progress Ethernet, developed as an enterprise technology, into a carrier service. The event will focus on opportunities for further collaboration. Long-recognized as the ubiquitous LAN technology, Ethernet is now seeing increased attention as a carrier-grade service. In part this is due to the convenience of being able to simply provide end-to-end service, but also carriers can realize savings both in terms of capital and operational expenditure.

Ethernet services are becoming popular because they allow carriers to offer considerably improved flexibility to customers through a much simpler and lower cost interface. Ethernet allows users to specify exactly how much bandwidth they want between the 10Mbit/s and 1Gbit/s range currently offered. Further, Ethernet provides reduced operation complexity and improved scalability for carriers. And as operators look to NGN and the use of the Internet Protocol (IP), Ethernet is seen as the best fit, especially given the rise of such services as IP VPNs, VLANs and dedicated Internet access.

The event will start with an overview of the standards work from ITU-T and IEEE and will then drill down into detail with sessions focusing on: Ethernet based and Ethernet capable access networks; Ethernet network transport; Ethernet Bridging architecture; Ethernet OAM and management; Ethernet QoS, timing and synchronization. A closing session will bring together reports from all of the session chairs in order to identify the direction of future work.

A Seminar on Standardization and Development of Next-Generation Networks for the Arab Region, will take place in Manama, Bahrain from 29 April to 2 May (morning) 2007.

Hosted by the Bahrain Telecommunications Company (BATELCO), the event is organized by the Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT) and the Standardization Bureau (TSB) of ITU.

The seminar will be followed by a Workshop on NGN Interconnection from 2 to 3 May 2007. The objectives of the seminar are two fold: first, to discuss the current trends, status and future evolution of NGN technology and standardization. Second, NGN regulatory and policy issues which will allow developing countries to exploit its full potential will be discussed.

The objective of the interconnection workshop is to look at the challenges for regulatory and policy frameworks associated with the deployment of NGN in the region. It will focus, in particular, on what kinds of interconnection arrangements make sense in an NGN world.

A call for papers has been issued for the 10th Asia-Pacific Network Operations and Management Symposium (APNOMS 2007).

The event will be held in Sapporo, Japan from October 10 to 12, 2007 with the theme “Managing Next Generation Networks and Services.”

From the call for papers: “Recently, various convergences in wired and wireless networks, and convergence of telecommunications and broadcastings are taking place for ubiquitous multimedia service provisioning. For example, broadband IP/MPLS wired networks are actively converged with IEEE 802.11e wireless LAN, IEEE 802.16 Wireless MAN, 3G/4G wireless cellular networks, and direct multimedia broadcast (DMB) network. For efficient support of service provisioning for ubiquitous multimedia services on the broadband convergence networks, well-designed and implemented network operations and management functions with QoS-guaranteed traffic engineering are essential.”

“In APNOMS 2007, the topics of interest include, but not limited to, network & service management for broadband convergence networks, business operations & management, service-oriented managements (e.g., SLA/SLS, security, billing), management architecture and technologies, various experiences, and recent standardization activities.”

ITU-T will hold a Workshop on Multimedia in NGN, Geneva, 10-11 September.

Multimedia applications and services are migrating towards a single converged user-centric communications network. The “internet of things” represents one of the key challenges for NGN standardization.

This migration, or evolution, has been recognized in ITU-T and a number of initiatives have started for the development of global standards in specific areas like IPTV, GRID, networked aspects of identification (including RFID aspects), sensor networks and more.

An aim of the NGN is to provide the necessary service capabilities to support present and future multimedia applications and services.

This workshop will contribute to the NGN vision of supporting future multimedia services and applications, and will facilitate experience and knowledge sharing between the NGN community, multimedia service and application experts. The various sessions will identify future developments at the service and application level and their impact on NGN capabilities.

The workshop will investigate future trends driven by technology and business needs in the area of multimedia services and applications, including those resulting from fixed-mobile-broadcast convergence.

Two vice chairs of ITU-T’s IPTV Focus Group will guest edit an upcoming issue of IEEE Communications Magazine. Chae-Sub Lee, of ETRI, Korea and Simon Jones, of BT, UK will edit the issue for publication February 2008.

A call for papers has been issued on the broad topic IPTV Systems, Standards and Architectures. Papers are solicited on topics including IPTV standards progress, architecture for IPTV systems, deployment challenges, performance considerations, content management and security. Articles should be tutorial in nature, further guidelines can be found here.

Reinhard Scholl, Deputy to the Director of the Telecommunication Standardization Bureau, ITU will speak at a seminar titled Global Standards and Developing Economies: Broadband Access and Infrastructure 9-10 May, Tunis, Tunisia.

The event hosted by the IEEE-Standards Association (SA) in collaboration with the Tunisian Ministry of Communication Technologies will bring together leaders from industry, government and international standards organizations to share their insights on how local entities can participate in and optimize global standards and best practices to help close the digital divide.

An in-depth introduction to international standards activities and highlighting of the scope of the IEEE and its relationships with ITU and other standards bodies will be given. Through interactive presentations, the seminar will provide an overview of the issues being faced by today’s policy makers and industry leaders and provide real world examples of how standards are making a difference in emerging economies.

In addition to discussion of broadband access and infrastructure standards via presentations and case studies, challenges and opportunities for developing countries regarding intellectual property rights (IPR) and standardization will also be addressed. For further information see here, or call the IEEE-SA Corporate Standards Office at +1 732 562 5342; E-mail cag-conference@ieee.org.

The Fully Networked Car workshop held during the Geneva Motor Show has closed today, Friday 9 March, with participants and speakers declaring the event a great success. 191 people participated in the event according to the organizers. 

Malcolm Johnson, Director of the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Bureau, underlined his commitment to working with other standards bodies at the opening of the recent Fully Networked Car event in Geneva. "We are now placing great emphasis on bringing together the various standards bodies to avoid duplication of effort and to address convergence in areas such as the one addressed in this workshop,” he said. “That is why I am so pleased to have had the cooperation of ISO and IEC in the organization of this workshop."

The workshop (accompanied by an exhibition on 6-10 March) was the latest initiative organized by the three partner organizations of the World Standards Cooperation (WSC): IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission), ITU (International Telecommunication Union), and ISO (International Organization for Standardization).

ISO Secretary-General Alan Bryden remarked: “Following the previous workshops that we have organized with IEC and ITU on health technologies and the digital home, this workshop on the fully networked car is another example of the initiatives we have taken in the area of converging technologies."

The workshop addressed the market for information and communication technologies (ICT) in motor vehicles, which represents an ever-increasing share of innovation and added value in the automotive sector. The “fully networked car", taking full advantage of ICT for vehicles and road transport systems, is expected to offer a range of benefits including improved safety, reduced traffic congestion and pollution, and a smoother driving experience.

The WSC event provided a forum for the key specialists in the field, from top decision makers to engineers, designers, planners, government officials, regulators, standards experts and others. It helped to identify how and which standards can speed the development of the fully networked car and its introduction into the market.

Participants at the Fully Networked Car Event.