"The Summit aims to develop a common vision and understanding of the information society and to draw up a worldwide concerted strategic plan for realizing this vision." M. Harbi
Photo: A. de Ferron (ITU 0004255)
The Islamic Republic of Iran has signed a landmark project agreement with ITU that puts the country on the path to restructuring its telecommunication sector. This new project sets out to establish a fully operational regulatory authority and to separate basic policy-making, regulatory and operator management functions within a year, starting in January 2001. At present, these functions are spread out among different units of the Ministry of Post, Telegraph and Telephone (MPTT) and the Telecommunication Company of Iran (TCI), the country's sole operator.
Signing the agreement at ITU Telecom Asia 2000, Iran's Deputy Minister for Planning and Development, Nasrollah Jahangard, stressed the significance of this project in making telecommunications the first sector in the country to undergo restructuring.
"By opening up the telecommunication market, we hope to involve private sector participation and increase national coverage to all the 36 000 villages in the country, mainly through fibre-optic connections. We are delighted to have ITU as a partner in our restructuring efforts", Mr Jahangard also said.
Under the terms of the agreement, ITU will, through its Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT), serve as executing agency of the project, providing advisory services to MPTT in what will be Phase 1 of the restructuring process estimated to cost some USD 200 000. This amount will be funded in a 50-50 partnership by the Government of Iran and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The agreement follows a decision of the Government of Iran in March 2000 to include the restructuring of telecommunications as one of the strategic objectives in the country's five-year plan (2000-2004).
Hamadoun I. Touré, Director of BDT welcomed the tripartite partnership with the Government of Iran and UNDP. "We are pleased to see Iran's own initiative to reform its telecommunication sector and include this process in the country's five-year plan", Mr Touré said. "This is a good example of how ITU can assist its Members in fostering telecommunication development", he added.
At present, Iran boasts a fixed-telephone network of more that 8 million lines and a mobile network of over 800 000 lines, covering major cities in the country's 28 provinces. The telephone penetration rate is around 13 main lines per 100 inhabitants. Access to the Internet is being provided free-of-charge to students, with nearly all universities in the country connected.
"As providers of the backbone infrastructure, we support this project and the five-year plan that foresees the participation of the private sector in a number of segments of the telecommunication services industry. We also hope to benefit from the overall transformation of the sector", remarked Barat Ghanbari, Acting Managing Director of TCI.
The ultimate goal of the restructuring process is to reduce monopoly control in the telecommunications market and foster liberalization. Subsequent stages of this process will depend on how effectively the exercise of separating basic functions is carried out during 2001.
The International Telecommunication Union announced on 7 December 2000 the establishment of a Virtual Learning Centre at its Asia-Pacific Centre of Excellence (ITU ASP CoE) in collaboration with the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore and the Office of Telecommunications Authority of Hong Kong's Special Administrative Region (SAR).
This Virtual Learning Centre will help support ITU's Centre of Excellence vision of developing telecommunications as a means to connect people and societies. In particular, it will help develop the tremendous human resource potential in the telecommunications field in the Asia-Pacific region.
"Developing human resources is a key element in our global development strategy", said Hamadoun I. Touré,
Director of ITU's Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT). "This initiative brings one step forward our action
plan in creating an environment in which knowledge and expertise in telecommunications and information communications
will be more readily accessed and exchanged", he added. Mr Touré underlined the unique nature of the project in
that it originates in the region for the benefit of the region and qualified it as model partnership.
| This Virtual Learning Centre will help develop the tremendous human resource potential in the telecommunications field in the Asia-Pacific region |
The Virtual Learning Centre will provide a multimedia platform and meeting point to collate all ITU ASP CoE activities and create an e-community of learners among the Member countries. Proposed at the initiative of IDA, the Virtual Learning Centre was endorsed at an ITU ASP CoE Steering Committee meeting held on 2 December 2000 in Hong Kong SAR. An important step has been taken in this direction with the launching of the Virtual Learning Centre at www.e-llumine.net, an e-learning environment focusing on telecommunications, the Internet and information technology (IT). The website is sponsored by IDA, Get IT multimedia (a fully operational Singapore-based multimedia production house), PF Net (a US facilities-based provider of fibre-optic communications infrastructure) and EnterAsia (a Singapore-based Internet-centric learning solution provider).
"IDA is excited about working with the private industry to support ITU's Centre of Excellence vision", said Leong Keng Thai, IDA's Deputy Chief Executive and Director-General (Telecom). "We are just beginning to realize the potential of e-learning and are looking forward to working with ITU to bring the benefits of this project to Member countries", he added.
Equally significant, is the OFTA initiative, which was also endorsed at the ITU ASP CoE Steering Committee meeting. OFTA is offering e-learning modules, which will provide policy-makers, regulators and senior level corporate managers information to help in the development of national sector policies and regulations, focusing on the role of independent regulators, competition safeguards, interconnection and spectrum management.
The OFTA site is linked to the IDA Virtual Learning Centre. "OFTA has a wealth of information it can share with other ITU ASP CoE Members. The OFTA experience in setting up and managing one of the most deregulated telecommunication sectors in the world can benefit many of the countries of the region", said OFTA Director-General, Anthony S. K. Wong. "We are delighted to share our own experience and expertise with countries of the region who wish to deregulate their telecommunication sector and are striving to ensure that the new competitive framework is implemented in such a way that serves the best interests of their people", Mr Wong stated.
For more information, please contact: "Mario Maniewicz, Head of Human Resources Development, ITU/BDT (Tel.: +41 22 730 5421. Fax: +41 22 730 5484. E-mail: mario.maniewicz@itu.int)" or "Arthur Morse, Project Manager, Asia-Pacific Centre of Excellence, ITU Regional Office for Asia-Pacific (Tel.: +66 2 574 8565. Fax: +66 2 574 8328 E-mail: arthur.morse@itu.int )".
On 7 December 2000, away from the hustle and bustle of ITU Telecom Asia 2000, a workshop took place at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), located at the serene Clear Water Bay. Hosted by the University's School of Business and Management, the workshop explored global trends in telecommunication development and discussed ITU's new strategic initiatives.
ITU was represented by Houlin Zhao, Director of the Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB); Mohamed Harbi, Head of Strategic Planning, External Affairs and Corporate Communication Units; and Tim Kelly, Coordinator of Strategies and Policy Unit. The workshop attracted many participants from academia and the info-communications industry, represented respectively by Professor Xu Yan of HKUST and Ei Sun Oh, CEO of Brighton Technologies Corporation.
Professor Otto Lin, Vice-President of HKUST, in his welcoming speech noted that the workshop was the first occasion for the University community to learn more about ITU and exchange views with the Union's officials. He stressed the need for this important collaboration to continue in the future.
Professor Xu spoke of his research on the development of mobile communications in the Asia-Pacific region. He remarked that of the top ten mobile operators in the world, four were in Asia. Moreover, in some Asian countries, including Japan, mobile-phone subscribers had already surpassed fixed-line subscribers. In fact, mobile cellular services are sometimes seen as new solutions for achieving universal service in the region. Professor Xu however voiced some policy concerns over the rapid rise of mobile services — for example, the degree of foreign direct investment in these services and calling party pays versus receiving party pays billing schemes.
Mr Zhao underlined important milestones in the Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T), including the results of the World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (WTSA-2000), held in Montreal in September-October. One of these milestones is the approval process for standards. While in the past it took years to approve ITU-T Recommendations, the average approval time in the 1997-2000 study period had been reduced to nine months, and even five in exceptional cases. Furthermore, the adoption of an alternative approval procedure and other electronic consultation measures means that the approval time would be shortened further to around two to six months in the 2001-2004 study period.
Mr Harbi informed participants of the 2003 World Summit on the Information Society, which will be held under ITU's leadership in close cooperation with interested United Nations agencies. He said that the private sector was expected to play an important role and that partnerships were being actively sought for this purpose. The Summit is expected to bring together Heads of State, executive heads of UN agencies, industry leaders, as well as representatives of non-governmental organizations, media and civil society. In particular, the Summit aims to develop a common vision and understanding of the information society and to draw up a worldwide concerted strategic plan for realizing this vision, Mr Harbi said.
Mr Kelly summarized the state of the industry in four areas: fixed lines, mobile telephony, the Internet and competition. He predicted that worldwide mobile subscribers would overtake fixed lines in 2002, earlier than previous projections. Similarly, mobile service revenues would see the fastest projected growth and the phenomenal growth of the Internet worldwide was expected to continue.
Mr Oh, who also advises the United Nations Working Group on Emergency Telecommunications, spoke of international efforts in this area and how the Tampere Convention is expected to remove the often frustrating obstacles in relief operations. This Convention, which ITU helped develop, defines an international legal framework for the provision of telecommunication resources for disaster mitigation and relief operations. Mr Oh added that the private sector could be of tremendous help in pooling communication resources capable of rapid deployment, and in making available spare telecommunication links at little or no cost to aid agencies.