ITU Council has endorsed “ICTs and improving road safety” as the theme for 2013’s World Telecommunication and Information Society Day acknowledging that information and communication technology (ICT) standards have the potential to significantly reduce driver distraction and road accidents.
 
World Telecommunication and Information Society Day (WTISD) aims to help raise awareness of the possibilities that the use of the Internet and other information and communication technologies (ICT) can bring to societies and economies, as well as of ways to bridge the digital divide. It takes place on 17 May every year, which is the anniversary of the signing of the first International Telegraph Convention and the creation of the International Telecommunication Union.

Given the critical need to filter the provision of information in such a way that it does not distract drivers’, ITU-T’s Focus Group on Driver Distraction (FG Driver Distraction) has been bringing together experts from government agencies; standards development organisations; academic and research institutes; and the automotive, telecommunications and consumer electronics sectors since the beginning of 2011.
 
Open to participation by all interested parties, including non-members of ITU, the group is essentially undertaking the groundwork required to launch ITU-T standardization activity in the field of driver distraction.
 
Malcolm Johnson, Director of ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Bureau: “Intelligent transport systems will enable vehicles to communicate to optimize the flow of traffic, decrease greenhouse gas emissions, increase safety, and significantly improve the driving experience. With the advent of the Internet of Things there is the potential of a ‘fully-networked car’ that can save millions of lives.”
 
ITU standards will fight driver distraction in two complementary ways:
 
Standards will define a communications interface to the vehicle allowing drivers to interact with external devices and applications through the vehicle’s user interface. In this scenario, all driver interaction with ICTs is channelled through a centralized point of control able to manage the degree of distraction experienced by the driver.
 
ITU's international standards will also aid application developers, network providers, device manufacturers and Driver Vehicle Interface (DVI) designers in building systems that minimize the distraction and cognitive workload demanded by in-vehicle ICTs. Such standards will provide guidance on ergonomic design principles and requirements for safe interaction with applications, and will define the functional requirements of systems managing distraction and cognitive workload.
 
For more information on FG Driver Distraction, please consult the group’s webpage here...

Meeting announcement (TSB Circular 283)

Registration Form

The first meeting of ITU-T’s new Focus Group on M2M service layer (FG M2M), 17-18 April, attracted a large number of experts from the healthcare and ICT fields to discuss the M2M standardization requirements of vertical healthcare markets.
 
The open meeting was well-attended in Geneva and via remote participation, receiving 57 delegates from 17 countries; representing members and non-members of ITU, and composed of four government representatives, twenty-six from the private sector and nine from academic and research institutions. Among the delegates were seven representatives of healthcare organizations including World Health Organization (WHO) and Continua Health Alliance.
 
The Focus Group’s structure and working methods were central topics in this foundational meeting, as was its work plan laying out the group’s objectives and deliverables. The FG will focus on M2M in the healthcare context and was divided into three Working Groups; the first looking at M2M use cases and service models, and the second at determining the requirements and architectural framework of the M2M service layer. The third deals with M2M Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and protocols and will begin its work when sufficient progress has been made by the first two Working Groups.
 
Also of note was the appointment of the group’s Chairman and Vice-Chairmen:
 
Chairman:
Heyuan Xu, CATR (China)
 
Vice-Chairmen:
Marc Berrebi, eDevice (France)
Marco Carugi, ZTE (China)
Robert Istepanian, Kingston University (UK)
Hyoung Jun Kim, ETRI (Korea)
Monique Morrow, Cisco Systems (USA)
 
The next meeting of FG M2M will take place in Beijing, 26-28 June 2012, hosted by CCSA/CATR. The deadline for contributions to this meeting is 18 June. Provisional dates for the third meeting in Geneva are 29-31 August, and the fourth will take place in November, in the USA (TBC).
 
To follow the activities of FG M2M, see the group’s webpage here.

ITU’s new Focus Group on the Machine-to-Machine service layer (FG M2M) will meet for the first time at ITU Headquarters in Geneva, 17-18 April 2012. M2M service layer standards will act as important catalysts for the market’s growth, and an earlier newslog announcement of FG M2M’s formation has attracted the interest of an array of M2M-focused organizations, both within and outside ITU’s membership. See FG M2M’s homepage here.

The M2M market is expected to grow rapidly over the coming years and, as part of the more broadly-defined Internet of Things (see ITU’s JCA-IoT), will encompass a wide variety of industry sectors. Some forecasts predict that 50 billion devices will be connected to the Internet by 2020.

Considering the wide range of M2M’s possible applications – enabling services across vertical markets including healthcare, logistics, transport, utilities and countless others – this prediction may hold true; but certainly not without the interoperability enabled by global ICT standards. A common M2M service layer, agreed at the international level by stakeholders in the M2M and relevant vertical markets, will provide a cost-efficient platform able to be easily deployed in hardware and software, in a multi-vendor environment, across industry sectors.

FG M2M will identify a minimum set of requirements common to vertical markets, and thereby create the knowledge-base needed to begin the development of open, international ITU standards. In analyzing the requirements of vertical markets, the group will initially focus on the healthcare market by investigating application programming interfaces (APIs) and protocols supporting e-health applications and services.

The deadline for submission of input documents is 10 April, and the meeting is open to all interested parties from ITU Member States. Registration for both on-site and remote participation is available at http://www.itu.int/reg/tsg/3000361.
   

A workshop on ICT Innovations, embedded within the first meeting of ITU's new Focus Group on ''Bridging the Gap: from Innovation to Standards", takes place at ITU headquarters in Geneva, 20-21 March. The goal of this workshop is to showcase ICT innovations of both developed and developing countries, with a view to determining which will demand future standardization.

The workshop runs from  9h30 until 12h30 on Tuesday the 20th, and 9h30 till 13h00 on Wednesday the 21st. To participate remotely, enter the room as a ‘guest’ by providing your full name, organization and country here: http://itu.adobeconnect.com/fg-innovation/. 

First meeting of FG Innovation and Workshop on ICT Innovation, Geneva, Switzerland, 19 and 21 March 2012

Meeting announcement

Meeting and Workshop Registration

Focus Group on Audiovisual Media Accessibility (FG AVA)

On-line registration

The January meeting of the Telecommunication Standardization Advisory Group (TSAG) has established a new Focus Group on Bridging the Gap: From Innovation to Standards (ItS). Standardization converts innovations into internationally-accessible tools to aid the growth of new markets and bridge the digital divide. The Focus Group will seek to reduce the lag between innovation and standardization; an action to ensure key innovations spread as fast as possible in the global ICT market.

Of particular importance to the group will be the identification of ICT innovation in the developing world, and the task of ensuring such innovation achieves international recognition through its inclusion in the standards produced by ITU-T.

The group will carry out the following specific actions:

• In cooperation with ITU-D, document case studies of successful examples of ICT innovations, including those that have emerged in developing countries, and identify relevant standardization gaps.  Particular focus should be on the socio-economic impact of ICT innovation emerging in developing countries;
  
• Analyze the innovations that may be standardized and identify best practices facilitating the implementation of such innovations in other parts of the world;
  
• Identify case studies which developing countries can adopt to enhance their ICT innovation and standardization capabilities and associated socio-economic welfare;
  
• Identify the difficulties faced by developing countries in bringing their ICT innovation to ITU-T.
  
• Suggest future ITU-T study items and related actions;
  
• Examine how other Standards Development Organizations, forums and consortia address ICT innovation and its integration into standardization activities;
  
• Promote its activity at the World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (WTSA) meeting in November 2012.
  

Focus Group on Audiovisual Media Accessibility (FG AVA)

Meeting announcement

Online Registration

ITU Workshop on "Cloud Computing and Smart Grid", Geneva, Switzerland, 9 January 2012

On-line registration

Convening Letter (TSB Circular 241)

ITU Workshop on "Cloud Computing and Smart Grid"

Ninth meeting of FG Smart, Geneva, Switzerland, 18 - 21 December 2011

Meeting announcement

On-line Registration

Focus Group on Smart Grid (FG Smart)

Eighth meeting of FG Cloud, Geneva, Switzerland, 12 - 16 December 2011

Meeting announcement

Meeting registration

Focus Group on Cloud Computing (FG Cloud)

Third meeting of FG Distraction, Geneva, Switzerland 12 - 13 December 2011

Meeting announcement

Meeting registration

Focus Group on Driver Distraction (FG Distraction)

Meeting of FG-FN - Focus Group on Future Networks

Salt Lake City, USA, 16-20 November 2009

Registration form

See ITU-T TSB Circular 57 for more information.

FG-FN Home

Third meeting of the Focus Group on ICTs and Climate Change (FG ICT & CC)

24-27 March 2009, Hiroshima, Japan

Registration form

Practical information

See TSB Circular 11 for more information.

FG ICT & CC Home

Fourth meeting of the Focus Group on From/In/To Cars Communication II (FG CarCom)

Geneva, 06 March 2009

Registration form

See Invitation letter for more information.

FG CarCom Home

A meeting of the world’s leading ICT standards bodies has urged members to support the ITU-T Focus Group on ICTs and Climate Change. The ITU group formed earlier in July is working on the development of methodologies for the analysis, evaluation and quantification of greenhouse gas emissions from the ICT sector and the reductions that may be achieved through the use of ICTs in other sectors, and is open to any interested organisation.

A Resolution named ICT and the Environment from the Thirteenth Global Standards Collaboration (GSC-13) meeting asks that participating standards organizations (PSOs) share their views and experiences on this topic with ITU. The Resolution gives high priority to standards development related to ICT and climate change and encourages PSOs to closely collaborate on the topic. The Resolution promotes the following areas:

- awareness of changing environment and impacts of ICTs
- energy-saving definitions, reference models, gap analysis, measurement methods, quantification methods, and requirements in a harmonized way
- development of ICT standardization that have a positive impact on the environment
- electronic working methods and its tools
- use of ICTs (e.g. USN, RFIDs etc.) for monitoring and measuring climate change.

Malcolm Johnson, Director of the ITU's Standardization Bureau said, "This Resolution promotes a spirit of collaboration and mutual support in order that this globally important issue is tackled with the utmost efficiency. ITU gives all the world's standardization bodies the opportunity to work together to apply the power of ICTs to this greatest of all challenges".

The Thirteenth Global Standards Collaboration (GSC-13) was hosted by the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) in Boston, Massachusetts. One hundred participants attended. They included representatives from the Association of Radio Industries and Businesses (ARIB) of Japan, the China Communications Standards Association (CCSA) of China, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), the ICT Standards Advisory Council of Canada (ISACC), the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) and Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) from the U.S., the Telecommunications Technology Association (TTA) of Korea and the Telecommunications Technology Committee (TTC) of Japan.

GSC-13 is the latest in a series of such events that commenced in Fredericksburg, Virginia, in 1990. The events provide a strategic opportunity for dialogue among senior officials from national, regional and international standards bodies. The next GSC meeting will be hosted by the ITU, the 13th to 16th of July 2009 in Geneva, Switzerland.