​

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Secretary-General, Ministers, Excellencies, ITU elected officials, and respected colleagues. On behalf of Avanti Communications Group Plc, I thank the government of the United Arab Emirates for their generosity and hospitality and I congratulate the International Telecommunication Union and the Government of UAE for organsing this important conference and welcoming us to the amazing city of Dubai. Mr. Chairman, we wish you the best, we are confident you will be able to guide this conference to establish the work of the ITU Development Sector for the next four years. Mr. Brahima Sanou, as Director of the BDT, we thank you for your tireless efforts at the ITU and your dedicated work for the preparation of this landmark WTDC conference.  Dr Hamadoun Touré we thank you for the hard work, commitment and achievements over the years as ITU Secretary General.

Avanti Communications is a satellite operator providing innovative and affordable satellite data communications services in Ka-band to telecoms companies to supply broadband services in many countries of ITU Region 1 and 3.   Our collective challenge these two weeks at WTDC-2014, and going forward, is to harness the tremendous power of Broadband and ICT to unleash sustainable growth and innovation across all sectors of society.   Discussions at this WTDC-14, will set out to hone global ICT and Broadband development priorities, and agree the projects and initiatives to implement them for the next four years. 

Encouragingly, we see active steps being taken by the ITU and various Member States to recognise the important role of satellite systems to help bridge the digital divide, and to extend the full benefits of satellite broadband services for inter-alia rural and suburban / urban communities.  This is evidenced by the introduction in this WTDC of three contributions from three major regions, the CEPT, ATU and CITEL of proposed WTDC Resolutions in which satellite systems are recognised as playing a significant role in providing Broadband services.  Clearly, these regions bring success stories from their member countries around the world of lessons that can be learned of the benefits of satellite broadband systems and services.  The ITU-D provides the perfect platform to discuss these practices and Avanti looks forward to WTDC-2014 setting the development agenda of the ITU-D. We come together with the knowledge that we all benefit when new communities and users are connected to Broadband services. This can only be achieved if a technology neutral infrastructure investment approach is adopted that includes satellite systems to complement and supplement terrestrial networks in the provision of Broadband services. We therefore hope that WTDC-14 will recognise that satellite technology is a long-term sustainable enabler for development of Broadband.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.