ITU-T Study Group 15 Chairman, Yoichi Maeda, today presented a compromise proposal developed by several delegations which cleared the way for approval of Recommendation ITU-T G.9980. The standard defines requirements for service providers’ remote management of networked devices in customers’ homes.

The compromise was achieved after including a statement in the scope of the Recommendation which reminds implementers and users to comply with all applicable national and regional laws, regulations and policies.

This post originally from The Assembly a blog covering WTSA12
full release

An upcoming workshop entitled “Bridging the Standardization Gap: Sustainable Rural Communications” is set to discuss information and communication technologies (ICTs) as enabling elements of socio-economic development in emerging markets. The event will focus on sustainable business models to extend telecommunications and broadband access to people living in rural or remote areas.
 
Taking place in Bangalore, India, 17-18 December 2012, the event is hosted by the Global ICT Standardization Forum for India (GISFI) together with ITU. It is supported by Huawei India, and will be followed by the Eleventh GISFI Standardization Series meetings, 19-20 December 2012.
 
Participants will discuss the difficult task of increasing access to ICTs in remote areas by providing sustainable incentives for network operators to extend high-cost infrastructures to currently low-revenue markets. How ICT standards might encourage such infrastructure investment will be a key topic of discussion, as will ICT innovations and emerging technologies in this arena.
 
Also of key relevance will be discussions around the need to aid developing countries in the establishment of national standardization secretariats that can help to define a country’s standardization requirements and channel participation in regional and international standardization work.
 
“Bridging the Standardization Gap” is one of the core objectives of ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T). Expanding the standardization capacities of developing countries will lead to international standards that truly reflect the needs of all the world’s countries. It will enable standards-savvy policy makers and private-sector executives to implement standards as best-practice tools in rolling-out broadband infrastructure and driving homegrown ICT innovation.
 
More information on the workshop here...

e-health, the use of ICTs in healthcare, has been a strong feature of this Assembly. The extensive discussion in GSS and a dedicated side event complement the Committee 4 agreement on a new Resolution on e-health.

Pending final WTSA-12 Plenary approval, Information and communication technology applications and standards for improved access to e-health services instructs the Director of TSB, Malcolm Johnson, to collaborate with Brahima Sanou, Director of ITU’s Telecommunication Development Bureau, to prioritize and coordinate work on e-health in the years to come.

This post originally from The Assembly a blog covering WTSA12
full release

Recent events have clearly demonstrated the need for telecommunications networks to be resilient to natural and human-induced disasters, as they are critical to rescue efforts and restoring normality in the wake of disasters.

The third and last side event – 23 November, 18h00, Room E – will review aspects of network resilience and telecoms infrastructure recovery following disasters and how these requirements can be reflected in ICT standardization. In addition, the panel will showcase ICTs supporting disaster relief for individuals (e.g., to enable victims to notify next of kin) and disaster relief guidance (e.g., to guide those affected to evacuation shelters or hospitals).

This post originally from The Assembly a blog covering WTSA12
full release

A cash prize of USD 5,000 is offered to the winner of a new ITU Application Challenge seeking to uncover apps extending the reach of mobile health, mobile money, e-learning, e-government and intelligent transport systems.

The ICT Innovation Application Challenge was launched tonight at the ICT Innovations side event. The challenge aims to promote sustainable, equitable economic growth in emerging economies by unearthing apps targeting the social and economic inclusion of traditionally underserved communities.

More at http://www.itu.int/go/challenges/ictinnovation.

This post originally from The Assembly a blog covering WTSA12
full release

The second of the three WTSA side events will take place at 18h00 on Thursday 22 November in Room E, here at the Dubai World Trade Center.
 
Malcolm Johnson, Director of ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Bureau, will open the event and four invited speakers will share their experience on ICT Innovations in emerging economies.
 
Ajay Ranjan Mishra is the Chairman of ITU-T Focus Group bridging the gap: from innovation to standards and will moderate the side event. He will also give a talk about the objectives of the Focus Group, and  on the progress made so far.

This post originally from The Assembly a blog covering WTSA12
full release

WTSA-12's opening session under the Chairmanship of Mohammed Gheyath (Executive Director, Policies & Programs/Information & E-Government Sector, Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, UAE) saw the approval of committees' structure and leadership.

This post originally from The Assembly a blog covering WTSA12
full release

At an event dedicated to academia at WTSA-12, academic members of ITU-T have expressed their belief that ITU-T membership represents a valuable opportunity for academics to bring their research to life through standardization, exchange ideas with other experts,  and raise the profiles of their institutions.

This post originally from The Assembly a blog covering WTSA12
full release

Behind the scenes, The Assembly met with Heidi Thomas. Heidi works for Caption First, a captioning service provider.

A realtime text stream from WTSA-12 is available at http://www.streamtext.net/player?event=CFI-WTSA.

This post originally from The Assembly a blog covering WTSA12
full release

Despite the remarkable potential of e-health as an agent for improvement in quality, safety, accessibility and cost-effectiveness of healthcare, adoption has been slow. While more and more countries adopt e-health solutions, lack of interoperability is a barrier to adoption and scalability.

The first of three WTSA side events will take place at 18h00 this evening in Room B, here at the Dubai World Trade Center.

Four invited speakers will share their experience in the e-health domain and address challenges faced in the adoption of ICT-enabled healthcare services and applications.

This post originally from The Assembly a blog covering WTSA12
full release

Participants at WTSA-12 have approved key standards (ITU-T Recommendations) on a technology for multiprotocol label switching – transport profile (MPLS-TP) required by telecoms operators to increase network efficiency while also reducing capex and opex costs.
 
Recommendation ITU-T G.8113.1, “Operations, Administration and Maintenance mechanism for MPLS-TP in Packet Transport Network (PTN),” is an extension to the IETF’s MPLS protocol developed in cooperation with the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). MPLS can carry packets of different types, allowing telecom operators to offer private connections as well as IP services. Many network operators expect MPLS-TP to work under the same principles as longstanding ITU transport network technologies like SDH and OTN. MPLS-TP provides network operators with a reliable packet-based technology, the operation of which aligns with current organizational processes and large-scale work procedures. Its deployment may reduce the need for layer 3 routing in an operator’s network.

This post originally from The Assembly a blog covering WTSA12
full release

Participants at WTSA-12 have approved key standards (ITU-T Recommendations) on a technology for multiprotocol label switching – transport profile (MPLS-TP) required by telecoms operators to increase network efficiency while also reducing capex and opex costs.
 
Recommendation ITU-T G.8113.1, “Operations, Administration and Maintenance mechanism for MPLS-TP in Packet Transport Network (PTN),” is an extension to the IETF’s MPLS protocol developed in cooperation with the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). MPLS can carry packets of different types, allowing telecom operators to offer private connections as well as IP services. Many network operators expect MPLS-TP to work under the same principles as longstanding ITU transport network technologies like SDH and OTN. MPLS-TP provides network operators with a reliable packet-based technology, the operation of which aligns with current organizational processes and large-scale work procedures. Its deployment may reduce the need for layer 3 routing in an operator’s network.

This post originally from The Assembly a blog covering WTSA12
full release

Speaking to delegates at WTSA-12, Malcolm Johnson, Director of ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Bureau, has presented a summary of ITU-T’s major achievements over 2009-2012, taking stock of work over ITU-T’s last study period as WTSA-12 participants prepare to agree priorities for the next.

This post originally from The Assembly a blog covering WTSA12
on wtsa12.wordpress.com

The 2012 World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly was officially inaugurated yesterday morning.
 
Representing the host of the Assembly, H.E. Mohamed Nasser Al Ghanim, Director General of the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA), United Arab Emirates, welcomed participants to Dubai for the first-ever WTSA in the Middle East. The decision to host the Assembly, WCIT and, earlier this year, ITU Telecom World, reflects the strong belief of the UAE Government in the importance of information and communication technologies.
 
In his opening remarks ITU Secretary-General Dr Hamadoun I. Touré praised the host country as a success story in harnessing ICT as driving force of economic growth, social development and modernization. Standardization and interoperability are at the core of WTSA and ITU and permit hundreds of million citizens around the world to connect. Dr Touré expressed confidence that the decisions and resolutions formulated at this WTSA will be directed by the needs of the global community and steered by ITU’s mission to Connect the World.

This post originally from The Assembly a blog covering WTSA12
on wtsa12.wordpress.com

WTSA-12 is showcasing live video streams deploying ITU-standardized IPTV technologies and running over ITU’s IPTV Global IPv6 Testbed. The transcontinental test is demonstrating the maturity of both IPv6 technology and ITU-T’s suite of IPTV standards; particularly Recommendations ITU-T H.721’s IPTV set-top boxes, ITU-T H.761‘s Ginga/NCL and ITU-T H.762‘s Lightweight Interactive Multimedia Environment (LIME) for IPTV services. Applications being showcased include ‘e-health’ using Continua Health Alliance compliant devices to demonstrate how new services can be integrated to provide users with better services and service providers with new revenue streams.
 
The test runs 20-21 November at WTSA-12 in Dubai, receiving live video from ITU’s headquarters in Geneva and from Hokkaido Television Broadcasting (HTB) in Hokkaido, Japan.
 
Other ITU-T IPTV standards also formed part of the infrastructure: H.770 IPTV Service discovery, H.721 IPTV terminal for VoD and Linear TV, H.701 IPTV Error correction, H.750 IPTV Metadata, and the Primetime Emmy Award winning H.264 Video compression codec. The experiments also used Openflow, PCE/VNTM and sa46t.
 
For more on ITU’s IPTV standardization work, please see ITU’s IPTV Global Standards Initiative here.

This post originally from The Assembly a blog covering WTSA12
on wtsa12.wordpress.com

Video in all six official languages of the Union and realtime captioning in English are available at http://www.itu.int/ibs/ITU-T/wtsa12/.

This post originally from The Assembly a blog covering WTSA12
on wtsa12.wordpress.com

Yesterday’s Global Standards Symposium (GSS) resulted in the adoption of a set of key conclusions (available here) providing guidance and food for thought for ITU-T’s decision-making World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly, set to start today.
 
Three expert panels focused on innovation in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector and its impact on standardization; the opportunities and enabling effects of ICT in other economic sectors, such as transportation and healthcare – and the challenges that come with it; and the status of collaboration between national, regional and international standards organizations, forums and consortiums.

This post originally from The Assembly a blog covering WTSA12
full release

Some 20 high-level industry executives exchanged their views with the senior management of ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Bureau in advance of WTSA.
 
Topics under discussion included: the landscape of standards development organizations, software-defined networks (SDN), machine-to-machine communications (M2M), smartphone security, conformity and interoperability. A communiqué will be released shortly.
 
More pictures of the event are available on the ITU-T Flickr stream.