EMPOWERING PEOPLE-TO-PEOPLE CONNECTIVITY THROUGH DEVELOPING STRONG AND SMART GLOBAL OPEN PLATFORM NETWORK AS A PART OF GLOBAL COMMUNICATION ECOSYSTEM
POLICY STATEMENT
BY
PROF. DR. KALAMULLAH RAMLI
DIRECTOR GENERAL OF POSTS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AFFAIRS,
MINISTRY OF COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY,
THE REPUBLIC OF INDONESIA
AT THE HIGH LEVEL SEGMENT
2014 ITU WORLD TELECOMMUNICATION DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE
(WTDC-14)
DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES, 31 MARCH 2014
Mr. Chairman,
Mr. Hamadoun Touré, Secretary-General of ITU,
Mr. Brahima Sanou, Director of Telecommunication Development Bureau of ITU,
Excellencies, Distinguished Delegates,
Assalamu 'alaikum Wr. Wb.
First of all, allow me on behalf of the Indonesian government to express our sincere congratulations to you on your election as Chairman of this Conference. We believe that under your able chairmanship, this conference should proceed smoothly to a fruitful conclusion for the setting of telecommunication policies, regulations and development agenda across the world for the next five years.
I wish to convey my profound gratitude to the Government of United Arab Emirates for hosting this conference, and for the warm hospitality extended to all of us. We also would like to extend our appreciation to BDT and the staffs of ITU for organizing this very important Conference.
Your Excellencies, Distinguished Delegates,
This forum is quite significant for Indonesia because it is a good opportunity to invite all ITU members and stakeholders, to come up with a set of strategies for optimization and acceleration of telecommunication development, and the roles of telecommunication and ICT to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.
Like all the other member states, we are aligning our efforts in developing the telecommunication and ICT sector along with our national development as a whole. We recognized that our focus should begin by transforming our telecommunication industry into a broadband industry.
Indonesia is known to be among the world's highest growth of mobile subscribers during the past decade. However, our efforts to complete the digital switch over and re-farming of spectrum to open the opportunity for implementation of LTE, or even the next generation of broadband, still remains as ongoing processes.
This conference is the moment in which we all could set ITU's agenda for the good of policies, and regulations for the development of a strong ecosystem of broadband in a global context. This ecosystem should also fulfill the requirements of quality and security accordingly.
Having mentioned the above, please allow me to introduce the overarching idea of this policy statement, which is: Empowering people-to-people connectivity through developing strong and smart, open, global, platform network as a part of the global communication ecosystem
Your Excellencies, Distinguished Delegates,
Our development agenda in telecommunication should be the provision of global connectivity which ensures the empowerment of people-to-people connection, which in turn should be proliferated across borders to community-to-community connection. In this regard, sustainability of global development as stated in the goals of MDG can only be achieved by providing ICT applications within the global connectivity as tools for improvement of the quality of life of the world's population.
These attractive and productive ICT applications such as e-Education, e-Health and e-Government hold the real values of global connectivity. Certainly, this ecosystem must also comprise of strong and definite quality and security assurances along with endorsements from ethical and legal perspectives.
Development of global connectivity in an ecosystem framework is the fundamental requirement for us to prevail in empowering the global community. It is an essential consideration for us as policy makers and regulators in the telecommunication sector.
Your Excellencies, Distinguished Delegates,
ITU member states and stakeholders should consider possible approaches in developing global connectivity towards a global platform network. Global platform network is developed from open and interconnected intermediate networks in countries and regions to bridge between people and applications. With definite quality and security, global platform network could be an alternative strategy to encourage the development of attractive and productive ICT applications which would ultimately serve the true purpose of people-to-people connectivity.
Through this approach, it is crucial to also encourage business-to-business processes in private sectors to open and interconnect their networks as a prerequisite for the provision of a smart global platform network, which in turn should further promote the accessibility of local ICT applications to the world.
While the growth of local ICT applications is equally important, the requirements of quality and security should also be raised and maintained according to global standards.
Your Excellencies, Distinguished Delegates,
We recognized that global connectivity starts from people-to-people connectivity at a national level. In Indonesia's case, people-to-people connectivity has been acknowledged as a part of the Presidential Master Plan for Acceleration and Expansion of Indonesia's Economic Development, which is then thoroughly reflected in the Indonesian Broadband Plan. Our approach to develop a strong domestic ecosystem has been met with a tremendous set of challenges. In terms of policies and regulation, the definition of network services, open intermediation for ICT applications, and quality and security are essential.
As a result, I would like to point out that there emerges a grievous need for the ITU to devote more of its resources to assists member states, particularly the developing states. Given the fact that each developing country has its own specific environment, and unique stage of development, these facts must be considered in the development of a strong global ecosystem which covers a smart, global, open platform network, so as to empower people-to-people connectivity.
As we all know that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, a strong global connectivity ecosystem could only be materialized from strong interconnected ecosystems on domestic levels.
Your Excellencies, Distinguished Delegates,
Security is an inseparable requirement of global connectivity. As we all have known, ITU and member states have initiated programs specifically to advance the global security agenda. On this note, Indonesia has already established a national internet incident response team since 2007, as well as a number of national regulations on internet security and lawful interception.
In spite of this, we cannot further emphasize the importance of international cooperation regarding security of global connectivity. The ecosystem of a global open platform network relies heavily on security as well as mutual trust. The security framework of a global, smart and open platform network, along with its technical and business aspects, should be a part of ITU's development agenda in the forthcoming years.
We are confident that through international cooperation, we should be able to facillitate development in both developed and developing member states.
Your Excellencies, Distinguished Delegates,
Before I conclude my policy statement, I would like to underline that Indonesia ha s always been committed to the work of the ITU , which has been reflected in Indonesia's past contributions to ITU and its council. Therefore, t he government of Indonesia would like to invite the kind support of fellow member states towards our candidature for re-election as a member of ITU C ouncil R egion E , for the period of 2014-2018 at the forthcoming 14th ITU Plenipotentiary Conference in Busan, Republic of Korea , in October this year.
I thank you for your kind attention.
W assalamu 'alaikum Wr. Wb.
