A new ITU-T Technology Watch Report entitled “Standards for Technology-enabled Learning” investigates the technologies and services quickly emerging as viable tools to breed more dynamic, more affordable and far more inclusive approaches to education and training.

With the potential to overcome challenges posed by distance or levels of economic and infrastructural development, information and communication technologies (ICTs) role in education policy in both developed and developing nations is sure to strengthen.

The report distinguishes between purpose-built learning devices and all-purpose ICTs, and notes a trend in the shift from specialized educational devices towards developing educational apps running on existing all-purpose devices; contributing to the increasing scalability and sustainability of “ICT-in-education” initiatives. The report also explores the content of educational resources as well as the strategies through which they are distributed; highlighting, for example, the Open Educational Resource (OER) movement gaining support from a number of the world’s most prestigious academic institutions, and some of the many “classroom-management” tools today available to teachers and their students.

By identifying emerging innovations in the tech-learning field, the report aims to highlight the characteristics common to the most successful “ICT-in-education” models. Noting no shortage of research, development or examples of successful implementations, the report concludes that standards will have a key role to play in addressing the current disparity between the development and implementation of tech-learning products and services. In this regard, the report provides an overview of the standardization work already underway in this field, and additionally recommends the coupling of technical standards with supplementary best-practice guidelines on the rollout and maintenance of tech-rich education systems.

The report and additional resources are available at http://itu.int/en/ITU-T/techwatch/Pages/learning-standards.aspx.

Experts from industry or academic and research institutes are invited to submit topic proposals and abstracts for future reports in the ITU-T Technology Watch series. Interested experts are encouraged to contact the TechWatch team at tsbtechwatch@itu.int.

The latest ITU-T Technology Watch report discusses the privacy concerns associated with cloud computing, the role privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) could play in alleviating them and the standardization activities currently engaged with the topic.
 
Cloud computing represents a major change in the way information is managed, especially as it relates to personal data. Cloud is expected to positively impact users’ IT budgets and costs of ownership, but could also threaten the relevance of traditional security, trust and privacy mechanisms.
 
The rollout of cloud services has introduced a number of questions related to information privacy and security:

• Who are the stakeholders in the cloud computing market?
• What are their roles and responsibilities?
• Where is the data stored?
• How is the data replicated?
• Which legal frameworks are applied to data processing in a cloud environment?
• How will service providers meet expected levels of security and privacy?

The adoption of privacy-enhancing technologies will depend on the existence of uniform ways to handle personal data, which must be agreed at the international level. Developing technical standards in this regard is a means to achieve international consensus on such issues, and compliance with these standards will aid in demonstrating countries’ and businesses’ adherence to the associated legal and regulatory frameworks.
 
Authored by Stéphane Guilloteau, France Télécom Orange, France and Venkatesen Mauree of ITU, the report, as well as additional information on cloud-computing privacy, is available at http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/techwatch/Pages/cloud-computing-privacy.aspx.
 
Experts from industry, academia and research communities are invited to submit topic proposals and abstracts for future reports in the Technology Watch series. For more details, please contact the Technology Watch team at tsbtechwatch@itu.int.

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.

The two latest reports from ITU-T’s Policy and Technology Watch Division – on video games and digital signage - feature prominently in the January issue of ITU News. Published in all six official ITU languages, the issue provides a snapshot of today’s ICT ecosystem and the global ITU activities and events which aid in giving it shape.

Video games today entertain a broad cross-section of consumers and represent an extremely profitable and still rapidly growing industry. September 2011’s Technology Watch Report on “Trends in Video Games and Gaming” brings light to the major gaming terminals and platforms, game forms and genres, and how the advent of social media and mobile gaming are augmenting an already highly-networked gaming culture.

Digital signage is poised to become a very large industry, in a very short space of time. Standardization is key to the development and accessibility of digital signage technologies, and a December 2011 workshop in Tokyo, organized by ITU and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Japan, aimed to share ideas and insight on advanced digital signage service features and requirements, current best practices and existing standardization activities of key players. The event addressed digital signage technologies and the related standardization work being undertaken in ITU-T Study Group 16. For an in-depth view of digital signage and its market, see November 2011’s Technology Watch Report, “Digital Signage: the right information in all the right places.”

Experts from industry, research institutions and academia are invited to submit topic proposals and abstracts for future reports in the Technology Watch series. Please contact tsbtechwatch@itu.int for details and guidelines.

Geneva, 30 November 2011 – The arresting digital displays of Times Square, Piccadilly Circus and Shibuya are just a foretaste of a brave new world of cityscapes illuminated by interactive, dynamic and highly targeted signage, according to a new ITU-T Technology Watch Report, Digital signage: the right information in all the right places.

Advances in display technologies, declining manufacturing costs and a retail boom in emerging economies are all contributing to the rapid spread of large-scale high-definition display networks. But the proprietary nature of current digital signage solutions is restricting the integration of applications across different networks and vendors. Interoperable global standards will be crucial to the future development of this emerging market, unlocking enormous value not just for display system developers, retailers and newscasters, but for governments and the community at large.

Tomorrow’s dynamic signage can play a crucial civic role in areas like traffic management, public transport systems, safe crowd management at large events, control of people flows in public areas and private venues, and emergency response systems. But to do that effectively, standardized platforms will be crucial.

Full press release

The latest report from the ITU-T Technology Watch series surveys some of the hottest developments in the world of video games, describes the most common gaming platforms and terminals, highlights new technologies enabling a better gaming experience, and identifies future standardization activities.

Over the past 30 years, video games have become an important part of contemporary global entertainment and media. Games and gaming have evolved from dedicated, single-game units to massively multiplayer online role-player games with millions of players. Today they are a huge media business worth billions of dollars, and its bestsellers continuously beat blockbuster movies in sales revenue.

The ever increasing expansion of the Internet has significantly contributed to the growth of gaming on dedicated video game consoles and PCs. The possibility to compete with other players around the world is taken for granted by most players. Mobile broadband and the growing penetration of smartphones brings further movement into the gaming ecosystem. Independent developers and small start-up companies are able to compete in the market and deliver their games to huge audiences. The latest step is the rise of social network games on platforms with hundreds of millions of users. These transformations have not only changed the way games look today, they have also influenced the audience and the business models of the gaming industry.

Consumers are beginning to struggle with the ever-increasing number of set top-boxes, satellite receivers and gaming consoles. It is a logical and certainly desirable goal to integrate these closely related technologies on to a multipurpose , standards-based multimedia platform. Incorporating a variety of audiovisual technologies into a single 3D TV device is understandably a task demanding a great degree of standardization work. ITU will bring together service and content providers, including games developers, to attempt to standardize communication protocols, toolboxes, middleware and security frameworks.

The report and additional sources of information are available at http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/techwatch/Pages/video-games-standards.aspx.

Experts from industry, research and academia are invited to submit topic proposals and abstracts for future reports in the Technology Watch series. Please contact the team at tsbtechwatch@itu.int for details.

The latest publication by ITU-T’s Technology Watch looks into the major technological challenge of powering increasingly complex portable ICT devices.

Advances in processing power and new-generation communications links have increased mobility and driven the demand for mobile phones, laptops and other gadgets. Battery packs are a crucial ingredient of new technologies, not only in the ICT sector, but, also in other industries such as automobile. One report suggests that the $71 billion-a-year world-wide battery market – rechargeables accounting for two-thirds – could grow by 4.8 percent annually through 2012.

From a standardization perspective the report notes that to date, no common methodology or standardized procedure is available to provide exact and comparable information on battery runtime of ICT devices.

Batteries for portable ICT devices summarizes the trends and developments in battery technologies for mobile ICT devices. Today’s research on mobile power supplies mainly focuses on (a) incremental advances to current power solutions (e.g., Li-ion), (b) application of known alternative power supplies (e.g., photovoltaics, fuel cells) to mobile devices, and (c) the development of new battery concepts including nanotechnology. Advances in power supplies for mobile phones and other ICT devices are also important in bridging the digital divide and to address environmental issues.

Batteries for portable ICT devices is the second publication in a series of TechWatch Alerts (the first Alert addressed the topic Mobile Applications). Alerts are intended to provide a brief but concise overview of emerging technologies and trends in the field of ICTs.

ITU-T’s Technology Watch invites any interested party to submit comments and feedback, as well as papers of a non-commercial nature (max. three pages). Please contact tsbtechwatch@itu.int .

On the occasion of the third Symposium on ICTs and Climate Change, which will take place on 8-10 July 2009, in Quito, Ecuador, ITU has revised and published a background paper on this important issue.

The paper reflects recent work done in the three ITU Sectors, including the work of the Focus Group and the creation of an ITU-T Study Group on Environment and Climate Change, and addresses key issues in the Latin American region, such as deforestation and emergency communications.

The rise in the number of extreme weather events, such as hurricanes in the Caribbean, threats to low-lying areas from rising oceans are evidence of the impact of climate change on developing countries and in the Americas. Latin America is particularly impacted by deforestation, which, according to estimations, contributes nearly one-fifth of total global greenhouse gas emissions.

For developing countries, implementing climate change solutions raises questions of funding, financing and access to technology, and thus this updated background paper addresses these issues and presents examples of national plans and innovations in technologies to reduce emissions. The annex provides an inventory of work underway in ITU on climate change.

The background paper can be downloaded here.

Bookmark with Del.icio.us

A new white paper by Polycom highlights “G.719: The First ITU-T Standard for Full-Band Audio”.

Recommendation ITU-T G.719 describes a coding algorithm for conversational speech and audio supporting the full human auditory bandwidth (from 20 Hz to 20 kHz), that is, all sounds that a human can hear.

The paper concludes that “major technical achievements of the G.719 codec are its high quality and low complexity that make it perfect for devices ranging from telephones and low-power mobile devices to soft clients and to high end video and telepresence systems.” First products implementing ITU-T G.719 are expected to appear in 2009/2010.

The standard was developed in Study Group 16, ITU-T’s lead Study Group on multimedia coding, systems and applications, and adopted in June 2008.

Continue reading

Bookmark with Del.icio.us

A new ITU-T Technology Watch Report titled The Future Internet surveys the current debate on Internet architecture.

The Internet has grown from a small experiment into a collaborative network with more than one billion users. The rise of mobile access poses additional infrastructure challenges including addressing, routing and security, which might require a review of the architecture.

The report examines the design and architecture of the Internet, and contrasts different views calling for evolutionary to radical changes to the Internet. Emerging trends and features of the Internet are identified in an attempt to provide pointers for future standards work for consideration by the ITU-T membership and the broader standards community.

The Future Internet, the tenth report of the Technology Watch series, is available to download here.

Bookmark with Del.icio.us

A new Technology Watch report focuses on Standardization Activities for Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS).

The seventh in a series of ITU-T Technology Watch Briefing Reports covers next generation networks (NGN) and energy efficiency.

The report examines the relationship between climate change and NGN by analyzing energy efficiency and applications.

NGNs are seen by many as the new network architecture that will unify today’s fixed, mobile and broadcast networks. This innovative technology is expected to bring about greater energy efficiency than legacy networks by, for example, reducing the number of switching centres and increased temperature tolerance within those centres. NGNs are expected by some commentators to reduce energy consumption by 40 per cent compared to today’s public switched telephone network (PSTN).

This report presents an overview of the main characteristics of NGN and looks at how NGN can minimize the power consumption of the network, transmission and end-user equipment and in data centres. It examines the energy savings that can be indirectly obtained from greater NGN usage, such as remote collaboration and ITU-T standardization work on NGN and climate change.

Download the report here.

The second ITU symposium on ICTs and climate change closed June 18 with a call for ITU to increase its activities in three areas: reducing energy consumption of ICT equipment; promoting efficiencies to be gained through the use of ICTs in other sectors; encouraging behaviour change – both in business and consumers.

"We are here because we are seeking to find the best ways to make ICTs a critical element in addressing climate change, and to identify the work that must be carried out in standards development, environmental monitoring, climate change mitigation and adaptation," said Malcolm Johnson, Director of ITU's Telecommunication Standardisation Bureau.

In a message to the symposium, UN Secretary-General, Mr Ban Ki-moon commended ITU for working with partners inside and outside the UN family to give high priority to actions in this field. "The information and communication technology sector has much to offer in creating a cleaner, greener world," he said.

Since the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol, in December 1997, the number of ICT users has tripled worldwide. The ICT Sector produces between two to three per cent of the total emissions of greenhouse gases, but if applied to reducing emissions in other industry sectors such as energy, transportation and buildings, could reduce global emissions by between 15 to 40 per cent depending on the methodology used to make these estimates.

The first ITU symposium on ICTs and climate change, held in Kyoto April 15-16, and co-organised by MIC Japan, drew attention to the wide variation in estimates on the impact of the fast paced ICT evolution on the global climate and recommended that ITU standardise methodologies for estimating the impact of ICTs on climate change both directly and indirectly. This was confirmed in London.

The chairmen’s reports of the two symposia will now be forwarded to the G8 Summit, to be held at Lake Toya, Hokkaido Prefecture in July 2008, and to other relevant meetings.

“We must remind ourselves that this is only a first step on the long road to finding and implementing global solutions to the challenge of climate change through the use of ICTs. What is important is not so much what we say this week, but how we act and follow up on the momentum we have created” said Johnson.

Speaker Luis Neves, chairman of the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI), a group comprised of key technology companies and organizations (including ITU) said that communications technology is a part of the climate change solution. A GeSI study on facilitating the low carbon economy in the information age has been published.

The London symposium was chaired by Mr. Tom Walker, Director, Europe and international Business Relations, Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR), UK.

During the opening session BT chairman Sir Michael Rake accepted a Queen's Award for Enterprise - recognizing the company’s efforts in the field of sustainable development. The award - also received by BT in 2003 and which runs for five years - was presented by the Lord Mayor of the City of London Alderman David Lewis on behalf of Her Majesty the Queen.

The ITU is expected to conduct most of its work using remote collaboration tools. It may also undertake a gap analysis of work being carried out among other standardization development organizations so as to better focus its activities. In the closing session Johnson strongly encouraged all the attendees, as well others, to participate in this work.

Presentations from Kyoto and London can be viewed here.

See also climate change news feed.

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.

Press release.

“Increase productivity, save time and money while reducing your company’s carbon footprint”; this is the ambitious sales pitch for a new family of tools that promise to offer the 3Cs - communication, collaboration and coordination - without the requirement for physical travel. For ITU-T, whose basic mission is to encourage collaborative work among a global membership on the development and adoption of international standards, remote collaboration is a daily necessity.

A new report, the fifth in a series of ITU-T Technology Watch Briefing Reports, describes how Remote Collaboration Tools can facilitate collaboration with colleagues, and support businesses in overcoming the geographical limitations of everyday work. Remote collaboration tools can be used alongside, or integrated with, traditional office applications (such as e-mail, word processing, spreadsheets) or as an enabler of collaboration, communication and coordination. Using online meetings, collaboration that might not have occurred otherwise (as a consequence of tight schedules, long distances, or the high cost of business travel), may now take place.

For developing countries, remote collaboration tools can thus be seen as a helpful instrument in overcoming the digital divide and for “Bridging the Standardization Gap”, an ITU initiative to facilitate the participation of developing countries in the standards development process.

Furthermore, replacing long-distance travel by online meetings makes remote collaboration tools a clean, green technology, which is particularly important in the context of current global concerns over climate change. In 2007, ITU-T organized and provided logistical and secretariat support for some 85 meetings/workshops, representing a total of 339 meeting days, as well as numerous smaller informal meetings, such as rapporteur groups of steering committees. Holding even a small number of those meetings online would reduce travel and therefore have a significant impact on ITU-T’s carbon footprint.

Two upcoming ITU Symposia on ICTs and Climate Change (April 15-16 in Kyoto, Japan, co-organized and hosted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) and 17-18 June 2008 in London, supported and hosted by BT) will be available as a webinar in order that remote participants can see and hear presentations from wherever they are in the world. Provision will also be made for remote participants to submit comments and questions.

Download Technology Watch report on Remote Collaboration Tools

When you enter a modern office building, such as ITU-T’s office in Geneva, it is quite common for the glass doors to open automatically and for lights to come on as you enter a darkened room. This “magic” is achieved by motion sensors. But entering a building in the future, you might be welcomed by name with a personal greeting and given security access suitable to your status (e.g., employee, delegate, newcomer). To do this without human intervention would require not only intelligent sensors but also perhaps ID tags and readers and interaction with a database.

In a new Technology Watch briefing report from ITU-T, the term “Ubiquitous Sensor Networks” (USN) is used to describe networks of intelligent sensor nodes that could be deployed “anywhere, anytime, by anyone and anything”. The technology has huge potential as it could generate applications in a wide range of civilian and military fields, including ensuring safety and security, environment and habitat monitoring, real-time healthcare, landmine detection and intelligent transport systems (ITS).

Sensor nodes may vary enormously in size, cost and complexity. Their characteristics are highly application-specific. Depending on the sensor type, the links between sensors may be provided by either wired or wireless communication. Energy-efficient operation is an important requirement for scenarios where sensor nodes are deployed in hazardous or inaccessible environments.

The variability of USN poses a challenge to researchers and a number of different standards development organizations (SDOs) are already engaged int this field. Within ITU-T, USN standardization is being carried out under the auspices of the Next-Generation Network Global Standards Initiative (NGN-GSI). The new report, the fourth in a series of ITU-T Technology Watch Briefing Reports, describes the different components of USN, notes the standardization work currently going on in ITU-T, and gives an overview of the different fields of applications of USN in both, developed and developing countries.

Download Technology Watch report on Ubiquitous Sensor Networks

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.

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, together with other partners, demonstrated how using information and communication technologies (ICTs) and telecommunications networks could result in considerable savings in power-grid infrastructure and electricity consumption, reported the Network World on 22 October.

The test network allowed consumers to select their usage preferences via a web portal. Smart controls-based devices such as virtual thermostats were interconnected with a service-oriented architecture (SOA) through middleware, and using broadband internet. The so-called GridWise project showed that both the power demand at the SOA electricity marketplace could be managed more evenly and customers were in better control of their energy consumption.

For more information on the project, please click here.

This article was originally published in the ITU-D CYB Newslog.

Imagine a future in which cars will be able to foresee and avoid collisions, navigate the quickest route to their destination, making use of up-to-the-minute traffic reports, identify the nearest available parking slot and minimize their carbon emissions. Indeed, imagine a future where cars can largely drive themselves, leaving their passengers to use the free time to watch the sports game on live TV.

All of these possibilities already exist within the laboratories of car manufacturers and some are already available commercially. But they rely on communications links that must be increasingly high-capacity and long range to deal with the full range of requirements of future transport users. The generic technology they use is called Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS). The requirement for future standards in the ITS field is to be able to provide multiple services, over multiple different platforms, that will work in different countries (as vehicles can easily cross borders), while maintaining a simple-to-use interface that requires minimum intervention from the driver.

This, then, is the rationale behind an ongoing effort, launched by the International Organisation for Standardization (ISO) in 2003, under the auspices of Working Group 16 of ISO Technical Committee 204, and promoted by the more recently created industry association - The CALM Forum - to develop a new family of ITS standards with the overall branding of Continuous Air-interface, Long and Medium range (CALM).

A new ITU-T Briefing Report on CALM has been released as part of the Technology Watch function, which evaluates its potential as a new area for ITU standardization work (for instance, integrated with Next-Generation Networks) and its likely implications for developing countries. The report notes the work currently going on in ITU on ITS, including the forthcoming Fully Networked Car III workshop, to be held on 3-5 March 2008 in Geneva. It is planned that this will be the first of a series of new Briefing Reports looking at emerging new technologies.

A group of young African researchers presented their project MalariaControl during the Global Forum on Youth and ICT for Development (Geneva 24-26 September 2007), co-hosted by the Global Alliance for ICT and Development (GAID) and ITU.

MalariaControl, is a partnership comprising the Swiss Tropical Institute, the University of Geneva, the European Organization for Nuclear Research and the NGOs International Conference Volunteers and Informaticiens sans Frontières. Using Volunteer Computing (VC) it develops simulation models of transmission dynamics and health effects of malaria. The models represent an important tool for malaria control - optimal strategies for new vaccines or chemotherapy can be determined.

VC is used because the simulation of the full range of transmission patterns relevant for malaria control is complex and extremely computer intensive. The approach was popularised in 1999 with the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence: SETI@home.

The use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) plays a key role in reaching Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs were agreed at the Millennium Summit (New York, 6-8 September 2000), where 192 United Nations Member States and all the world’s leading development institutions agreed to try to achieve the - eight - goals by the target date of 2015. The goals range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education.

In VC, a type of distributed computing, software clients installed on privately owned computers around the world perform calculations to progress in complex research fields. Home computers are idle most of the time. Owners donate their computer's idle CPU time, memory and network connection for distributed research. VC contains aspects of Grid Computing, see the three point checklist by scientist Ian Foster (PDF).

The open-source software client for VC, called BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing), can be downloaded for various computer platforms.

VC has also been discussed as a tool to carry out research on environmental phenomena and disaster prevention.

ITU hosted a Workshop on Multimedia in Next Generation Networks (NGN), 10-11 September 2007, to discuss future multimedia services and applications. Among many presentations, Peer-to-peer (P2P) telecom solutions, by Ning Zong, research engineer at Huawei Technologies (China), considered the use P2P technology in the field of person-to-person communications.

It is only recently with the increased popularity of video sharing that P2P traffic has lost premier position in Internet use statistics to HTTP – web – traffic. Traffic generated by P2P applications now accounts for 37 per cent of Internet traffic.

Perhaps best known as the technology which enabled music file sharing, P2P technology can also enable applications such as video or voice over IP. The technology is deployed by Skype, which claims some 198 million registered users worldwide.

In contrast to the traditional centralized client-server approach, which requires a high level of investment in servers and bandwidth, P2P networks exploit connectivity between the individual participants of a network. Users (peers) virtually deploy their own network, and this can assist with scalability and roll out in developing countries.

One example of an application that exploits the potential of P2P to establish so-called ad hoc networks includes the One Laptop Per Child initiative which was launched during the Tunis Phase of the World Summit on the Information Society in November 2005. Another example comes from the Swedish company TerraNet, which has the vision of using real-time P2P technology to provide mobile communication without a regular mobile network by modifying users’ handsets to become base station antennae. TerraNet has launched field tests in Tanzania and Ecuador This model of deployment could represent an important advantage of P2P enabled VoIP over mobiles – especially in developing countries, where cost savings are a major drive for deploying NGN.

The latest version of Adobe Systems' popular Flash Player technology will support the ITU-T H.264 codec video compression standard now available in Blu-ray systems, HD-DVD players, and TV set-top boxes. See story InfoWorld story here.

According to an analyst report, the internet is heading for a crash unless it increases its bandwidth capabilities. A study conducted by ABI Research claims that cable firms face the biggest challenge as their technology will reach saturation point first.

Stan Schatt, research director at ABI, told Ars Technica: "Uploading bandwidth is going to have to increase, and the cable providers are going to get killed on bandwidth as HD programming becomes more commonplace." He adds that the solution to the problem is to change to digital switching and move to IPTV.

Researchers from Cisco Systems seem to agree with this claim. Cisco found that American video websites currently transmit more data per month than the entire amount of traffic sent over the internet in 2000. The company estimates that file-sharing makes up at least one-third of today's internet traffic. The Cisco report predicted that video streaming and downloads will increase to make up to 30 percent consumer internet traffic in 2011, up from the 2006 figure of nine per cent.

With the release of the BBC's iPlayer online television service in the UK, bandwidth concerns with internet service providers increase even more. However, Orange reports that the internet overload does not appear to have started yet.

Continue reading the article here at vnunet.com.

This article was originally published in the ITU-D CYB Newslog.

A new Question – ITU-T’s term for work area - to advance work on the third generation multimedia system that will eventually replace the currently used H.323 will start work pending formal approval at the next meeting of Study Group 16.

H.323 is the ITU standard for interoperability in audio, video and data transmissions over IP. It is the most widely used voice over IP (VoIP) communication protocol worldwide. It is estimated that systems using H.323 carry billions of voice minutes each month. The rollout of the next generation network (NGN) will bring with it in a new era of multimedia communications and with it the need for a new protocol.

In the mid-1990s, the ITU began work on H.323, which quickly became the dominant protocol for LAN-based videoconferencing, as well as a protocol used for transporting voice calls around the world. H.323 was developed in parallel with the Internet Engineering Task Force’s (IETF) Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), and was effective in facilitating a migration from circuit-switched networks to packet-switched networks. Sharing similar capabilities and similar design philosophies and being produced in the same time period, H.323 and SIP are classified as second generation systems.

Now, more than 11 years since the introduction of second generation systems, ITU-T SG 16 is again looking toward the future of multimedia systems as the ITU-T also undertakes a study to introduce the next generation network (NGN). The NGN holds the promise of revolutionizing communication as we know it and multimedia will be an important part of any new network technology.

Work on the third generation multimedia system will entail the creation of multiple new ITU-T Recommendations that will specify system architecture, system components, and one or more protocols at the service and application layer. The primary objective is to deliver a new advanced multimedia system that operates on NGN, taking advantage of its features, and will also operate on non-NGN packet-switched networks.

This Question will examine technologies such as various IP technologies, wireless technologies, and distributed computing capabilities in order to realize a system that will enable users to communicate using, as examples, voice and audio, video, electronic whiteboard, application sharing, real-time text, and file transfer across one or more communicating devices (e.g. smart phones, TV set-top boxes, game consoles, handheld game/entertainment machines, digital cameras and Internet “appliances”).

Unlike previous generation systems, this new system will enable independent application developers to create system components that are able to seamlessly interface with the system in order to deliver any one or more of the aforementioned modes of communication. There is a strong desire to move away from the “monolithic applications” that were distinctive of second generation systems, to a system that enables components to “plug in” to the system, either locally or remotely using various wired or wireless technologies, to deliver an enhanced user experience. To meet that objective, this Question will study the various interfaces between these components and the technologies that might be used to tie them together.

The study includes among other subjects:

• Downloadable codecs

• System decomposition

• Discovery of services

• Support for transcoding functionality (e.g. text to speech)

• Dynamic device discovery

• Application plug in

• Consideration of various business models

• Integrated QoS, security and mobility functionality

Experts have set deadlines for the Identification of Requirements - Q1/2008, and basic architecture - Q1/2009.

Recognizing that satellite systems could be an important part of emerging Next Generation Networks (NGN), an ITU-T Workshop entitled “Satellites in the NGN?” will take place 13 July 2007 in Montreal, Canada. Following the workshop, the third meeting of the Intersector Coordination Group on Satellite Matters (ICG SAT) will take place.

The objectives of the workshop, hosted by ATIS, include examination of the role of satellite systems in NGN, and development of a perspective on current and future NGN standards. Participation is open to all interested parties.

Sessions will give an overview of NGN, examine QoS and QoE (E for experience), IPTV and mobility support, network management and requirements for disaster relief.

The role of the ICG SAT is to monitor and coordinate the work programmes of the relevant Study Groups in ITU-R and ITU-T in relation to the use of satellites. It aims also to draw the attention of the relevant Study Groups to emerging technologies and perform gap analysis to identify new work areas.

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.