Buenos días y bienvenidos a todos
Muchas gracias al Ministro Molano por su presencia hoy aquí, y por acogernos en este foro.

Estoy muy satisfecho de haber organizado este evento conjuntamente con el gobierno de Colombia y la CITEL, y muchas gracias también al Secretario General Clovis Baptista por su colaboración.

Es un gran placer para mí estar aquí, en la hermosa ciudad de Cartagena de Indias, conocida como la ciudad heroica y la puerta de las Américas.

Diego Molano Vega, Minister of Information and Communications Technologies, Republic of Colombia
Clovis Baptista, Secretary General, CITEL
Hector Carril, Alternate Chairman of PCCI, CITEL
Distinguished colleagues,
Ladies and gentlemen,

 

Welcome to this two-day workshop on Quality, Control and Surveillance of ICT services. In ITU-T these topics are handled by ITU-T Study Group 12, which focuses on performance, quality of service quality of service and quality of experience.

 

Quality of service is an area where ITU has a long history of success. Thanks to ITU standardized performance criteria and measurement methods, people can enjoy good quality telecommunication services all over the world. Now, with customers expecting the quality of service of traditional telephony in new IP-based services, it has become crucial to be able to measure new parameters such as packet loss and jitter, and know their user impact.

 

As you can see from the programme, this workshop will discuss a wide variety of hot issues related to quality of service. In addition to distinguished delegates from the Latin American region, I am pleased to welcome two active members from ITU-T SG12, Dr Hans Gierlich from HEAD Acoustics, and Mr Joachim Pomy from Opticom.

I am sure that the presentations and discussions during the workshop will trigger new ideas to progress the work in Study Group 12 and I very much hope that these technologies will accelerate the deployment of high quality services in the Latin American region. In I hope this workshop will encourage greater participation from the region in Study Group 12. It is one of a series of workshops we are holding in the Region, starting with a workshop on electromagnetic fields in Quito in August, a workshop on spam jointly with CITEL and the Internet Society in Mendoza 7 October, another joint workshop with CITEL on e-waste on 9 October also in Mendoza, and a workshop on smart sustainable cities in Lima on 5 December. All details can be found on the ITU-T website. I very much hope you will be able to participate.

I am very please we have Mr Hector Carril with us for this workshop. Hector is helping us greatly with our attempts to raise awareness in the Region of the work of ITU-T.

In relation with the Study Group activities, I would like to mention our Regional Groups.  A Regional Group is established under a parent Study Group to facilitate discussions in the region.  It assists the region to participate in, and contribute to, the parent Study Group meetings and other activities.  Currently, SG2, SG3 and SG5 have Regional Groups for the Americas, the latter chaired by Hector Carril with Oscar León as a vice-chairman.  Although SG12 does not have a Regional Group for Americas, it could be a good way to facilitate the activities on quality of service in the Latin American region.  The SG12 Regional Group for Africa has greatly facilitating activities on quality of service in the African region.

I would also like to point out that it is now possible to actively participate in our study group meetings remotely, saving on the cost of travel to the meetings, and we now offer interpretation at our study group plenary meetings. We are also trying to have more meetings of our study groups in the region, for example our Study Group 5 will meet in Lima in December this year.

So in conclusion, I am very pleased to be here to welcome the experts from Colombia and other Latin American countries. As you can see the programme for today and tomorrow is fully packed with sessions on very important topics, and I would like to thank all the moderators and speakers.

 

During these two very busy days, I invite you all to profit from this opportunity and work towards outcomes that can further develop the ICT sector in the Latin American region.

I wish you all an enjoyable and fruitful two days.

Thank you for your attention.

Muchas gracias.