Please indicate the priority (high, medium or low) you would attach to the proposed topics below:
Possible topic, with brief description
Priority (High, Medium or Low)
1. Promoting Broadband Networks
High Medium Low
The next great challenge facing the telecommunications sector is to upgrade today’s narrowband fixed and mobile networks to support broadband multimedia content. The investment required is vast and demand is still unproven. Some countries, like the Republic of Korea, have been successful in rolling out broadband networks but the majority of others have found growth slower than expected. What are the most effective policies for promoting broadband? Is it sufficient for governments just to create the right conditions for broadband competition, or should they do more?
2. Mobile Overtakes Fixed: What Happens Next?
During 2002, mobilephone users will overtake the number of fixed-line telephones worldwide. In some countries, the number of fixed lines has started to decline while elsewhere the fixed-line network continues to grow apace. What makes the difference? How should commercial strategies evolve in order to sustain fixed-line growth? What changes may be required to a country’s regulatory regime when it is the mobile service providers, rather than fixed-line operators, who have significant market power?
3. Billing in a Converging World
Although technological change is accelerating the process of convergence between traditional telephony and data networks, the future is still unclear as to the appropriate billing paradigms for multimedia communications. Now with real-time services delivered over data networks (e.g., voice over IP, streaming media) and non real-time services delivered over voice networks (e.g., SMS), new pricing paradigms clearly need to emerge. Should users be billed by flat rate, volume-based metrics or a combination of both? Are there inherent technical or policy bottlenecks? Do regulators need to care?
4. Management of the Internet Domain Names and Addresses
With the growing popularity of the Internet, the naming and addressing resources underlying this network are of critical importance to our societies. The creation of ICANN launched an unprecedented experiment in global governance, but has not succeeded in pleasing all parties. Many topics that are currently being raised, such as the introduction of multilingual Internet names or the allocation of IP addresses for 3G mobile, go well beyond ICANN’s original mandate. Who should set the rules for the allocation, management and control of multilingual Internet names? Are current private sector approaches sufficient or is there a need for a more formal coordinated role at the international level?
5. Improving the Reliability of ICT networks
In an increasingly automated world, we are increasingly dependent on the reliability, inter-operability and security of the Internet and other communications networks. But those networks are increasingly shared between multiple, commercially motivated owners in which operations are often outsourced. Cost effective risk management is often based on ensuring compensation in the event of failure (e.g., through service level agreements) rather than through a strategy of risk avoidance. Disaster recovery systems typically only gain management attention after the event. Can security systems be entirely a private responsibility and remain effective? What role is there for regulators and policy makers in promoting more reliable ICT networks?
6. Emergency Response Services in Telecommunications
The provision of emergency response services depends on the availability of networks, fixed or mobile, to transmit emergency calls. This has two sides. The networks need to be available to transmit distress calls, but the network also needs to be available to authorities and rescue workers. Communications networks can become quickly overloaded, as the events of September 11, 2001 demonstrated. What can be done to protect national and international information infrastructures, to guarantee the availability of a minimum set of communication tools in the event of a disaster, and to ensure rapid response to an emergency, wherever it might occur?
7. Changing Technological Trends: Interaction and Convergence of Radiocommunication Services
Current radiocommunication (wireless) technology offers integrated voice, data and Internet access. In the near future, much higher capacities (broadband) will be available, via cellular, satellite and fixed wireless access networks. The merging of the broadcasting, telecommunications and computing worlds is already a reality, which threatens to make current ITU definitions of radiocommunication services inoperative, as well as challenging current international and national allocation methodologies and national licensing practices. How should regulators react to these new challenges and how can the competing demands on the spectrum be reconciled? How can service definitions and allocation and licensing practices be revised, with a view to providing sufficient flexibility for future developments?
8. How should Telecom Regulators be funded?
One of the key elements to ensuring the independence of a regulatory agency is that it should have a reliable, independent source of funding. But if this funding comes from the industry, there is a risk of compromising independence. How are regulators around the world funded, and what might be considered as “best practice”? At what point does cost recovery become an unacceptable tax on the industry?
9. Interconnection in a Digital World
Most countries have based interconnection regimes either on revenue sharing or on per minute usage. Such methodologies are not particularly well adapted for the digital networks of the future, which will be a rich mix of broadband and narrowband, fixed and mobile platforms, with different business models for pricing access to content. Does capacity-based interconnection represent a viable alternative to existing systems? Should interconnection regimes take into account the value of the content being transmitted or services offered? When, if ever, should regulators intervene in interconnection negotiations?
10. Limiting Junk e-mail (spam)
The US Federal Trade Commission has announced it will launch an attack against deceptive junk e-mail or “spam”. Last year, the European Union estimated the global cost of spam at US$ 8 billion annually. Almost all of these costs are paid for by recipients or operators rather than by the sender. Experts predict that an average user will soon receive over 1’000 pieces of unsolicited e‑mail per day. With advanced mobile networks, spam has now begun to arrive on mobile handsets. What technical, economic, policy and legal tools are available to deal with the growing problem of unsolicited e-mail? Can national approaches deal with this problem or will spammers simply move “offshore”? What role, if any, is there for regulators and policy-makers? Is there a need for a coordinated international approach to stopping spam?
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