Opening Address
by
Yoshio UTSUMI, Secretary-General of
the International Telecommunication Union

Monday, 18 March 2002

His Excellency, Mr. Ahmet Necdet Sezer,
President of the Republic of Turkey,
His Excellency, Dr. Oktay VURAL, Minister of Transport and Communications,
His Excellency, the Governor of Istanbul,
His Excellency, the Mayor of Istanbul,
Your Excellencies, Distinguished Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen

It is my pleasure and distinct honour to declare open the third, ITU World Telecommunication Development Conference and to welcome you to Istanbul, a city that is a blend of tradition and modernity -- a city where East meets West.

Turkey is a land of plenty with the proven vigour to achieve a great deal in a short time. This was ably demonstrated in Istanbul's successful hosting of the biggest-ever WRC in 2000. So when we were looking for a suitable venue for this WTDC meeting, we were especially pleased that the Turkish Government responded with alacrity and warmth.

And so, here we are today, again in this beautiful city.

Just this morning, gazing across the Bhosphorous from my hotel window, I was reminded of the writings of the great Sufi master Jalaudin Rumi, who lived in the 13th century not far from here.

In his words:

Leave the shallow stream behind
And flow into the river deep and wide
Don't be an ox pulling the wheel of plough
Turn with the stars that wheel above you …

On musing these lines, I couldn't help pondering that this is the third WTDC we have convened. And how much have we achieved in real terms since 1994? Have we turned with the stars, or are we still in the shallow stream?

Yes, I am going to be provocative today and pose some hard questions for all of us to think about.

Have we done enough for the development of telecommunications in the world? Have the benefits started to flow to the hardy peasants toiling in the Himalayan ranges of Nepal, the tribes of Papua New Guinea, the Indians of Brazil, or the people of Africa?

Unfortunately not !
Even though we have made progress since the first WTDC, was held in Buenos Aires in 1994, there was only one fixed telephone line for every 25 developing country citizens. By the time of Valletta in 1998, there was one line for every 15 citizens and now, in 2002, there is one fixed telephone line for every 10 citizens.

But, is this rate of development enough in the fast-paced world of today?

No, I am afraid that the distance we have traveled is still smaller than the distance we have yet to cover.

• 83 countries still have a teledensity of below 10 lines for every 100 inhabitants.
• 29 countries still have a teledensity below one percent.
• In the case of the Internet, 63 countries have less than one percent.

As a child I remember imploring my mother to talk to me about the days of her childhood, her school, her dreams. Among the many things she told me was: "I wanted to marry a man who had a telephone at home." Her dream was unfulfilled as she only got a telephone after becoming a grandmother.

In the yesteryears of our parents it was a luxury to have a telephone at home. But in today's world, telecommunications is a necessity. Without it you cannot work efficiently, you cannot be part of the modern world and you cannot partake and participate in the benefits of a prosperous economic life.

My message today is that the telecommunications sector must take urgent steps to bring basic telecommunications to all the world's inhabitants. We must take a fresh look at our policies, and modify them to fast track our objectives. As we review our programmes and their implementation, we should do some honest introspection and ask ourselves, "has the telecoms fraternity been working to bridge the digital divide, or is it unwittingly and systematically contributing to widening the divide?"

Many initiatives have been taken on the digital divide. From the Maitland Commission more than 15 years ago to the G8 DotForce and the UN ICT Task Force. There is no time to discuss again, in yet another committee, the reasons mired in a deep bureaucratic maze which prevents us from providing basic telecoms to the inhabitants of the world. No, the need of the hour is to launch an offensive, on a war footing, to make sure that every village in the World is connected before the World Summit on the Information Society, two years from now.

To make this happen we need an active partnership of the private and public sectors. After all, we have the same objectives in mind-we all want to see the world inter-connected. We should be driven by our common objective, not divided by our different views of how to get there.

Now, more than ever before, the challenge is to harness the strengths of both sectors to achieve the synergies and benefits for the populace - especially in the least developed countries where our success in achieving teleaccessibility has been limited.

This is so because I feel there has been a lack of fusion on the vision of the private and public sectors. In many countries the emphasis has been on filling the coffers of the state, through license fees, at times unmindful of the vicious circle - the higher the fees, higher the tariffs. On the other hand the private sector has not fully envisaged the long term business potential of global telephony.

Let me give you some points to illustrate the potential of global markets.

• In 2001, the one billion or so fixed line telephone subscribers worldwide generated revenues of around US$570 billion. If developing countries were to reach teledensity levels similar to those of developed countries, the industry could expect global revenues in excess of US$1.5 trillion per year, or three times the amount of today.
• In 2001, the world's mobilephone users generated revenues of just under US$300 billion. When mobilephone penetration rates in developing countries reaches that of developed countries, those revenues will be around US$1.2 trillion, or four times the level today.

In fact, most telecommunications growth today is taking place in countries with poor telecommunications infrastructure where demand is high and supply is inadequate.

Last year, three out of every four new fixed lines installed was in a developing country. In 2001, China overtook the United States as the world's largest mobile market and China Mobile now has more than 65 million subscribers, making it the largest mobile company in the world

Yes, the global customer resides in the north and in the south as well as in the east and west, with plenty of business opportunities for all. You do not have to create the new demand - it is there, waiting for you in the developing world

Therefore, today, I call on both the public and private sectors to propel the world into a new age of plentiful and omnipresent telecommunications, harnessing the advantages that new technologies are offering, and providing these services at rates that are affordable to local users. I repeat: the key issue is not to make telecommunications affordable in dollar terms, but affordable in the local environment of the developing world, where the majority of the population is to be found in rural, isolated and low-income areas.

A call from Geneva to the U.S. costs less than five US cents a minute, which is the same price as calls to neighboring cities in France. However, a call to many parts of Africa from Geneva costs over one US Dollar, or twenty times more.

If the prices came down, Africans would be better able to join the world.

The people of Africa, like people everywhere, need modern technology to communicate and gain access to the world of information. People living in the rural areas all over the globe do not need sophisticated and expensive services. What they need is reliable and affordable services.

We talk excitedly of Internet services, yet the majority of the world's population does not even have access to basic voice telephony. Does this make sense? Aren't we asking someone to drive a car when they cannot even ride a bicycle? Are we so caught go up in the Internet wave that we have forgotten that there is an immediate requirement, to provide basic connectivity all over the world?

We should plan a logical progression of technology to go hand in hand with education and health. Let us be in a hurry to increase teleaccessibility; let us have a global goal to provide connectivity to every village all over the globe by the time the World Summit takes place in 2003.

At this conference, I would like you to come up with a mutli-pronged, concerted action plan, with realistic deadlines and targets, innovative funding ideas which rely not on grants and loans but which would fuse the synergies of the private and the public sectors so that the whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts.

This week, we must make a significant beginning towards this end.

I conclude with the words of Dag Hammarskjold
"He who keeps his eye on the far horizon will find his right road."

We must find the right road to total teleaccessibility, and find it fast.

Merci, Muchas Gracias, Shukaran, Shei-shei, Spasibo, Thank you —
And, to the city of Istanbul and people of Turkey, a tchok Teshekker!