Executive summary of the SG2 meeting

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Executive summary:

Meeting of ITU-T Study Group 2
(Operational aspects of telecommunications and ICTs)
Geneva, 5-14 February 2025

1     Overview

ITU-T Study Group 2 held its first meeting of the study period from 5 to 14 February 2025.

The meeting adopted the agenda (SG2-TD1R3/PLEN) and held its plenary on Monday, 10 February. The meeting was attended by 200 participants, with 36% of female participants, from 49 countries (44 Member States were represented). Participation details can be found in Section 9 below.

The meeting received 81 Contributions (analysis in SG2-TD9R1/PLEN) and handled 296 TDs. Delegates reviewed 99 incoming Liaison Statements and agreed to send 41 outgoing Liaison statements (SG2‑TD9R1/PLEN).

Given that the next full SG2 meeting will take place only from 2 to 11 February 2026, the following interim meetings are planned:

• A fully virtual meeting of WP2/2 and its Questions from 25 to 28 August 2025, and
• A SG2 plenary on 5 September 2025, preceded by a series of WP1/2 Rapporteur group meetings from 1 to 4 September.

The complete schedule of meetings may be found in SG2-TD87R3/PLEN.

2     Major outcomes

The Study Group took the following decisions:

• Not assign resources under E.164 CC +881 until the conclusion of the work on draft revised Rec. Explanation provided in SG2-TD97/PLEN;
• Grant permission to Phonegroup (once requested) for purposes of the demo by WGT.  Further to the submission of the revised application for shared E.164 and E.212 numbering resources by World's Global Telecom SA (SG2-C75), it was agreed to carry out a test during the Q1/2 RGM in September 2025, for which Phonegroup's assigned numbers are intended to be used.
• Redesignate E.164 CC +883 as “IoT/M2M," and to send a note to all current assignees of CC +883 ICs to inform them of this change, making it clear that this amendment does not impact any current assignment of numbering resources from this range.
• Two Recommendations were approved under TAP;
• Four Recommendations were determined under TAP;
• Ten Recommendations were Consented;
• It was agreed to delete one Recommendation;
• One technical report was agreed;
• Five new work items were initiated.

2.1    Recommendations Approved during closing plenary (TAP, Resolution 1)

Comments were received on Determined revised ITU-T E.190 from Russian Federation and Sweden, and on Determined new E.1120 (ex. E. gap) from Russian Federation, Sweden and UK during the TAP consultation phase. These issues were resolved by the SG2 experts, and an updated version of the text was Approved at the closing plenary.

2.2    Recommendations Determined during closing plenary (TAP, Resolution 1)

2.3    Recommendations Consented during closing plenary (AAP, ITU-T A.8)

2.4    Texts for deletion

2.5    Technical reports Agreed during closing plenary

2.6    New work items

SG2 initiated five new work items:

3     WTSA ma​​tters​

Further to WTSA-24, SG2-C1R1 containing the revised mandate was presented.  The list of the extended management team as agreed by the Study Group is contained in SG2-TD70R2.

4     Numbering

Since the previous ITU-T Study Group 2 meeting (Geneva, 19-28 June 2024), the Numbering Coordination Team (NCT) held five meetings and carried out further consultations through email correspondence. The NCT has worked on six new or pending applications for international numbering codes and five other requests. Details can be found in SG2-TD36R3.

One application for international numbering resources was considered at the current SG2 meeting:

• World's Global Telecom:

This application continued to be discussed based on a revised application (SG2-C75) submitted to this meeting.  Concerns were expressed by Members on whether the proposed service would meet the criteria defined in Recommendation E.164.1, keeping in mind that whatever service would also need to comply with the national framework of whatever country it operated in, and whether the service intended aligns with service definition of the global text relay defined in F.930.

The meeting agreed to focus on a physical demonstration of the intended service to the Q1/2 September 2025 meeting with the view of addressing the two points above.  The demo is to be confirmed by WGT.

The demonstration would be accompanied by the following elements, although additional questions may be raised during the demonstration:

-           Regarding E.164 Criteria: 

o          The application for the E.164 IC that describes how the criteria applicable to Codes for Networks defined in E.164.1 are met. In particular, this application should elaborate on the criterion that relate to how national regulations are met

-           Regarding the service definition:

o          The differences (if any) between the intended service and the Text relay service / F.930 and whether there is the voice component of the service and real-time translation.

o          The cost elements and the revenue share if any

o          Ethical implications of the use of AI

o          The replicability of the service by third parties

The meeting agreed that using a few numbers assigned to PhoneGroup was acceptable for the demonstration and agreed to advise the TSB Director to authorise such use upon request by PhoneGroup.

No reports of potential misuse were received during this period.

5     Logistics

1. Registration worked very well and was up significantly up from previous meetings.
2. MyMeetings was used for all sessions without interpretation, with four sessions in parallel most days. No major technical issues were experienced. Delegates are satisfied with MyMeetings.  119 out of the 200 participants to this meeting connected remotely and the study group agrees that this functionality should continue to be provided.
3. Liaison Statement coordination was done before and during the meeting.  No dedicated sessions took place, instead being addressed during the management team meetings.  Two LS Rapporteurs were appointed, one per WP.
4. DDP: there were numerous glitches with this system, which “jumped" a number five times out of the 80 external contributions.  Manual intervention was required to fix this.
5. DMS worked fine.  Nothing to report.
6. Captioning was highly appreciated by the experts. It was provided for SG2 and WP1/2 opening and closing plenaries, as well as for two half-days of Q1/2 meetings when it was envisaged that accessibility topics would be discussed.  There may be interest in captioning also the session dedicated to the approval of the Q1/2 report.

6     Other activities

The following ad-hoc sessions were held:

1. Newcomer session (10 February 2025) – presentation slides in SG2-TD6/PLEN.
2. Developing countries session (12 February 2025) – report in SG2-TD42/PLEN.
3. Vocabulary and terminology (11 and 12 February 2025) – report in SG2-TD45R1/PLEN.

7     Future meetings

The meeting agreed to the Chairman's proposal for future SG2 meetings and interim activities (SG2‑TD87R1/PLEN).

·                WP2/2 meeting, 25-28 August 2025 (virtual);

·                SG2, 5 September 2025 (one-day meeting) (Geneva);

·                SG2, 2-11 February 2026 (Geneva);

·                SG2, 2-11 September 2026 (date and venue TBC);

·                SG2, 3-12 March 2027 (date and venue TBC);

·                SG2, 1-10 December 2027 (date and venue TBC);

·                SG2, 5-14 July 2028 (date and venue TBC).

Interim activities planned by Study Group 2

8     Contribution summary

81 Contributions published:

• One contribution to Qall/2 on SG2 title, mandate, lead roles, points of guidance and Questions for the new study period;
• Fourteen Contributions on updates to existing numbering-related Recommendations (E.101, E.118, E.118.1, E.156, E.164, E.164.1, E.195, E.213);
• One Contribution on an existing Q3/2 Recommendation (E.370.Suppl-ICT);
• Ten Contributions on new numbering-related work items (WP1/2);
• Six Contributions on other numbering related matters, including five on country experiences on various numbering topics and one on relay services;
• One Contribution on national emergency telecommunication plans;
• 33 Contributions on new network management work items, and one Contribution on an existing network management work item (WP2/2);
• Four NWIs in WP1/2;
• Nine NWIs in WP2/2.

9     Participation statistics

​10     SG2 membership activity

New SG2 Associates since July 2024:

1. Karrier One Inc. (United States)
2. IMSI.AI (United States)
3. Rapid.Space International (France)
4. GlobalCell LLC (Georgia)
   
5. Bondio Limited (United Kingdom)
6. Giesecke+Devrient Mobile (United Kingdom)