WTSA-2004
World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly
Florianópolis, Brazil
5 October 2004

Opening Address

Yoshio UTSUMI
Secretary-General
International Telecommunication Union

Honourable Minister,
Distinguished delegates,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Let me first extend a welcome to all of the delegates and my special thanks to our Brazilian hosts for their warm and gracious hospitality.

It was almost a year ago that 50 Heads of State, along with leaders of industry and civil society, gathered in Geneva for the World Summit on the Information Society.

This Summit, convened by ITU on behalf of the United Nations system, delivered a shared vision of the future of an Information Society for the first time in the history of human kind. The world’s leaders unanimously recognized the important role information and communication technologies can play in human development. They also agreed on the basic principles that should govern the coming information society and have committed themselves to closing the digital divide by taking the necessary actions that will bring the benefits of ICTs to all of humanity. The result of this work will be a more just and equitable society.

The Summit also reinforced the central mission of ITU, which for almost 140 years has been to help the world communicate.

While the Declaration of Principles endorsed by the Summit underlined the importance of standardization, it also highlighted a need for ITU to change the way we look at it.

For almost the entire history of the Union, standardization activities remained rather simple. Ever since Alexander Graham Bell showed the world that it was possible to transmit the human voice through electrical impulses, the propagation of the human voice, in the 3.4 KHz range, dictated the nature of our work. Standardization activities were dedicated to establishing agreed protocols that would secure interoperability of networks within this framework.

However, inexpensive methods are being created almost daily that can bridge the differences of protocols between technologies. This has enabled competing protocols, technologies and companies to thrive easily.

And today the telecommunication marketplace is no longer just about the human voice. It’s about video images, data transfer, and multi-media interaction between people and even between machines and chips. We are just beginning to understand the potential impact this will have on our society and economy.

The reality of this exciting new world of information and communication technology means ITU must also reexamine the way it looks at its standardization activities.

I believe the most important role ITU can play today is to develop global agreements among all of its stakeholders: governments, operators, manufacturers and users, for the concept of new services which have the potential to form a basic global infrastructure. This is possible because it is only ITU whose membership represents all of the stakeholders necessary to do this work.

Once we have identified and defined these new service specifications, different technologies can then be developed to compete amongst each other for delivery of these services. The industry will play a vital role in developing the technologies that will ensure these services are compatible with the agreements.

We have already made important moves into this area. IMT-2000 is a good example. ITU’s definition of IMT-2000 has set the foundation for the development of 3G technologies and networks.

We must never forget the fact that we are the only intergovernmental organization in the world that can bring government and industry together to develop a common agreement on what new communication services are needed.

The proof of this reality is in this room today. Industry and government are both well represented at this Assembly and both remain committed to fulfilling the vision of the Information Society that ITU helped define at our Summit in Geneva.

We must look beyond the tradition of ITU standardization activities. We must prioritize our work by spending more time developing a vision for the communication services that will serve humanities needs. We must not waste time and resources on what others can do.

I hope that in the days ahead you will rise to this challenge and you will adapt to the mission that ITU-T is expected to play in this fast-changing environment.

I wish you the best success in the tasks that lie ahead and again my thanks for your commitment to our Union.