ITU to build united front against technology fakers
ITU will host high-level talks in a bid to improve global coordination in the application of information and communication technologies (ICT) as part of strategies to combat counterfeit and substandard ICT devices.
Discussions on 'Combating counterfeit and substandard ICT devices' will be held at ITU Headquarters in Geneva, 17-18 November 2014 to take stock of the global challenges posed by counterfeit and substandard ICT products and the role to be taken up by ITU in response. Leading experts representing industry, governments, regulatory authorities, international organizations and standards bodies will participate.
A focus of the event will be to examine the role of ICT innovations such as Big Data, Cloud Computing, Identity Management and the Internet of Things in tracing counterfeit goods and identifying their origins. A Call for Contributions open to the public is inviting input to this discussion until 3 November.
Full Press Release
Smart Sustainable Cities: A global development priority
Strategies for the sustainable development of cities in Asia and the Pacific will be driven to a large extent by information and communication technologies (ICT), agreed participants at the fourth ITU Green Standards Week held in Beijing, 22-26 September.
More than half the world's megacities – home to more than 10 million people – are located in Asia and the Pacific. Cities are powerful engines of economic growth, accounting for 70-80 per cent of Asia-Pacific's GDP, but the inability of city infrastructures to develop at a pace matching rates of urbanization has given rise to a strong correlation between urbanization and environmental degradation.
Full Press Release
Vision of the "Tactile Internet" explored by latest Technology Watch Report
Imagine connectivity so strong that an expert musician could connect with your senses to demonstrate how it feels to play an instrument, or that medical students in a range of locations could learn how it feels to perform advanced surgery through the eyes and hands of a surgeon at the top of their field.
ITU-T's latest Technology Watch Report articulates a vision of the Tactile Internet, a future Internet characterized by latency so low – and availability, reliability and security so high – that ICT networks will connect people and things to an extent that completely nullifies the constraints of time and distance.
The report can be downloaded free of charge here.
Un principle, all of our human senses can interact with machines, and technology's potential in this respect is growing. The Tactile Internet will enable haptic interaction with visual feedback, with technical systems supporting not just audiovisual interaction, but also that involving robotic systems to be controlled with an imperceptible time-lag.1-millisecond end-to-end latency is necessary in Tactile Internet applications. For technical systems to match humans' interaction with their environment, our natural reaction times set the targets that technical specifications must meet.
The new Technology Watch report describes the Tactical Internet's demands on future digital infrastructure and its expected impact on society.
The report explores the promise of the Tactile Internet in application fields ranging from industry automation and transport systems to healthcare, education and gaming, concluding with a brief discussion of the role to be played by the ITU framework.
More information on the Technology Watch series can be found here, and experts interested in authoring or contributing to future Technology Watch reports are encouraged to contact the TechWatch secretariat at tsbtechwatch@itu.int.
ITU, ISO, IEC collaboration yields fundamental cloud computing standards
ITU, ISO and IEC have approved two new international standards fundamental to the cohesion of cloud computing's development. The standards provide a terminology foundation to be applied universally across the industry as well as a reference architecture to enable the development of interoperable cloud computing systems and services.
The new standards are the product of collaboration between ITU-T Study Group 13 (Future networks and cloud) and Subcommittee 38 of ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1 (Information technology). The three international standards bodies are developing baseline standards for cloud computing in the interests of promoting the growth of a competitive market, free of the risk of vendor lock-in and ripe to benefit from economies of scale.
The new standards have been approved as ITU/ISO/IEC common texts and are currently available in pre-published form as they undergo final editing (access restricted to the ITU membership).
Full text
Disaster relief systems, network resilience and recovery: Technical Reports
The ITU-T Focus Group on Disaster Relief Systems, Network Resilience and Recovery (FG-DR&NRR) has presented the conclusions of its study in nine Technical Reports to inform related standardization work in ITU-T Study Groups. The reports can be downloaded free of charge from the group's homepage.
FG-DR&NRR was established in January 2012 by the Telecommunication Standardization Advisory Group (TSAG), a decision motivated to a large degree by the 2011 meeting of ITU-T's Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Group. As part of the meeting's Communiqué, CTOs called for further attention to emergency communications to identify and address any demands yet to be reflected by ITU-T's range of standards in this domain.
The Technical Reports feed into the standardization work of the lead ITU-T group in emergency communications, ITU-T Study Group 2 (Operational aspects), as well as ITU-T Study Group 15 (Transport, access and home).
The reports provide a comprehensive view of the technical frameworks underlying emergency communications and their emerging standardization needs, including:
Case studies on the performance of communications systems in recent disasters and a review of the standards available to support disaster mitigation.
The identification of standardization 'gaps' ripe to be addressed by ITU-T, building on an analysis of promising technologies and use cases in disaster management, associated standardization activities and the networks and technologies employed by national and international disaster relief bodies.
Baseline texts for ITU-T standardization, drawing from an evaluation of the technical systems supporting early warning, disaster relief and network resilience and recovery; in particular the aspects of these systems to benefit from common specifications and overarching international standards.
ITU and International Paralympic Committee IPTV Application Challenge
The 3rd ITU IPTV Application Challenge is asking coders to apply their creativity in challenging the definition of disability. Register here to secure your right to participate in a competition to conclude with an app showcase and award ceremony at the Rio 2016 Paralympics.
The Challenge is organized by ITU in partnership with the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) and is in search of innovative IPTV apps for a better quality of life.
As highlighted in an IPC Press Release, the Challenge's promotion of novel IPTV ideas will raise awareness of the importance of multimedia and multimodal audiovisual accessibility, in parallel assisting ITU's standardization work in this arena.
Entrants and interested supporters can keep in tune with the Challenge through IPC and ITU social media, receiving advance notice of key dates and deadlines as well as any guidance required over the course of the competition.
Participation in the Challenge is free of charge and open to all. The innovations uncovered will feed into ITU-T Study Group 16 (Multimedia), the expert group leading ITU's international standardization work to improve the accessibility of information and communication technologies (ICTs).
The Challenge is calling for apps running over Recommendation ITU-T H.762's Lightweight Interactive Multimedia Environment (LIME) for interactive IPTV services and ITU-T H.761's Nested Context Language (NCL) and Ginga-NCL. Optionally, entrants may employ ITU-T H.763.1's cascading style sheets for IPTV services or ITU-T H.764's IPTV services enhanced script language.
There are two phases to the Challenge. A Call for Concept Notes will precede an implementation phase. The best proposals put forward will be selected as the finalists, charged with building their envisioned IPTV apps with the aid of the Challenge's technical supporters, among others, OKI Electric Industry (OKI), Federal University of Juiz de Fora (UFJF) and Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio).
Individuals and small-to-medium enterprises (profit or non-profit) with fewer than 50 employees are competing for a first prize of USD 5,000.Large corporates or public-sector organizations are invited to compete for a non-cash award.
All participants are eligible for awards of additional honourable mentions.
Key dates:
Learn more about the 3rd ITU IPTV Application challenge
SDN signalling requirements and protocols near completion
Standardized signalling requirements for software-defined networking (SDN) are on course for approval by the first quarter of 2015 following a meeting of ITU-T Study Group 11 (Protocols and test specifications), 9-16 July.
SG11 has given priority to its SDN work in response to strong demand from industry for standards. SG11's work on SDN's signalling requirements and protocols aligns with the SDN functional requirements and architectures under development in ITU-T Study Group 13 (Future networks and cloud).
Work-in-progress international standards (ITU-T Recommendations) for SDN include a document detailing scenarios and signalling requirements for software-defined broadband access networks, to which both SG11 and SG13 are contributing. A software-defined broadband access network (SBAN) simplifies network configuration, easing the deployment of new services and improving broadband service provision. Working document Q.SBAN is available here (members only).
SG11 continues to advance its work on a signalling framework for SDN, the subject of a new Supplement to the Q-series Recommendations based on Recommendation ITU-T Y.3300 "Framework of software-defined networking". SG11's July meeting brought new additions to the Supplement, ensuring support for end-to-end services when SDN is divided across multiple domains; limiting the challenges posed by caches, firewalls and network address translations, for example, as they relate to interaction with higher layer control systems; and defining the interface needed to provide for detailed or abstracted views of the network able to translate applications' requirements. Working document Q.Supplement-SDN is available here (members only).
Related work in SG11 is nearing the completion of a standard describing the scenarios and signalling requirements for a unified intelligent programmable interface for IPv6 service deployment. Working document Q.IPv6UIP is available here (members only).
This progression of SDN deliverables has motivated the Joint Coordination Activity on SDN (JCA-SDN) to task a drafting group with the production of a global SDN standardization roadmap, soon to be available online. JCA-SDN coordinates SDN standardization work across ITU and in cooperation with other standards bodies.
The next physical meetings of the groups focusing on SDN are planned for November 2014. For updated information, see the homepages of SG11, SG13 and JCA-SDN.
For more information, see the ITU-T SDN portal.
ITU work on addressing counterfeit ICT devices gains momentum in ITU-T
ITU discussions to address the growing problem of counterfeit ICT devices was actively participated, contributed to and progressed at the latest ITU-T SG11 (Protocols and test specifications) meeting held in Geneva from 9-16 July 2014.
A group of experts from various administrations and industry, as well as international organizations including the World Trade Organization (WTO), World Custom Organization (WCO) and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and the Mobile Manufacturing Forum (MMF), contributed to the progress of the draft Technical Report on "Counterfeited and Substandard ICT Equipment", which is anticipated as a baseline document for further developments in this area.
Several forums and conferences have called for ITU's assistance in addressing the growing problem of counterfeit telecommunications/ICT products and devices, which is adversely affecting all stakeholders in the ICT field (vendors, governments, operators and consumers). As a result, ITU-T SG11 agreed to revise the terms of reference of its Question 8(Q8/11) 'Guidelines for implementations of signalling and protocols, and for addressing counterfeit ICT devices', which is the group dealing with this work.
Mr Isaac Boateng, National Communications Authority, Ghana, and Rapporteur of Q8/11 said: "The study on Counterfeit ICT devices currently going on in SG11 was driven by Resolution 177 (Guadalajara, 2010) of the Plenipotentiary Conference, on Conformance and Interoperability which 'instructs the Director of the Telecommunication Development Bureau, in close collaboration with the Director of the Telecommunication Standardization Bureau and the Director of the Radio communication Bureau, to assist Member States in addressing their concerns with respect to counterfeit equipment'. I expect that the publication of the Technical Report could support the ITU Member States, particularly those in developing countries, to develop policies and regulatory framework to combat counterfeit devices in their national telecommunications/ICT stragies."
Full text
ITU-T Global Portal launched with special focus on regional participation
In 2004 Resolution 54 (Rev. Dubai, 2012) approved at the World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (WTSA) resolved to support the creation of regional groups within Study Groups. This resolution aims to increase the participation of developing countries in standardization work and ensure that their needs and interests are understood and taken into consideration.
In response to this resolution, a new Global Portal entry on regional participation has been launched. This portal provides information on ITU-T activities in Africa, Asia Pacific, Arab and Americas regions with core focus on activities carried out by the 5 regional groups in Africa, 3 in the Americas, 3 in Arab states and 2 in Asia Pacific. The launch of this portal forms a part of the raising awareness activities carried out under the Action Plans launched by Malcolm Johnson, Director of Telecommunication Standardization Bureau.
ITU-T to fulfill its mandate, has organized a number of meetings and workshops in the different regions to facilitate dialogue with the concerned developing countries
and increase their participation in the development of standards and ensure they reap the economic benefits associated with technological development.
The different events have covered a range of subjects including mobile roaming, future networks, e-waste management, Quality of Service, smart sustainable cities, and best practices in standardization.
Full text
ITU publication on Standard-Essential Patents
"Understanding patents, competition and standardization in an interconnected world" provides an introduction to standardization and intellectual property systems and the various means with which ICT standards bodies manage their intersection.
The publication puts into context the recent increase in litigation involving standard-essential patents (SEPs), providing readers a basis with which to understand the benefits, tensions and conflicts surrounding the inclusion of patented technology in standards.
Parts I and II build an understanding of the standardization ecosystem, patent law and competition law and the interaction of the three fields in supporting innovation and technological advance.
Part III discusses ICT standards bodies' governing frameworks for the contribution of patent-protected innovations to the standardization process, following with an introduction to the issues at play in ongoing SEP litigation and surrounding policy debate.
Part IV is a practical guide to ITU's standardization process and Patent Policy geared towards current and future participants in ITU's international standardization work.
Download free of charge
Other news:
ITU blog:
Improving the protection of ICT equipment against lightning strikes by Ahmed Zeddam and Phil Day here
Mobile Money: getting banking services to the poor by Sacha Polverini here
Green Cables for climate monitoring and disaster warning by Chris Barnes here
