Hello, ITU Newsletter readers!

Here are your key ICT trends and insights this week: Facebook's OpenCellular, Airbus's plans for autonomous flying taxis, and how satellite imagery and AI can better predict poverty trends. Plus, gold-leaf temporary tattoos that control wireless devices? Read on.

Spotlight

Will Facebook help boost remote internet access? Facebook’s OpenCellular aims to connect the world’s most remote places. Will the open-source, software-defined hardware initiative face regulatory hurdles?

ICT Trends

Autonomous vehicles: New solution to urban congestion? Airbus have announced plans to build a fleet of autonomous flying taxis. A prototype test is scheduled for 2017, but challenges remain. Meanwhile, Uber says passengers in Pittsburgh will be able to hail self-driving cars later this month as Volvo joins as a partner, and Ford hopes to join ranks with self-driving fleet by 2021. [Read more about ITU’s Collaboration on ITS Communication Standards]

Regulation: Guyana's government will begin negotiations with Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GTT) about the end of GTT's monopoly on international voice and data services next month, but wider liberalization plans could see fierce opposition from operators.

NGMN Industry Conference & Exhibition 2016 in Frankfurt, Germany, 12-13 October, headlined 5G - Status of Demand and Delivery, will feature the views of leading operators and vendors on the development of the mobile ecosystem as well as use cases and related business opportunities to be enabled by the 5G technology platform. Learn more…

QoS: Kenya's communications regulator has proposed a new framework to assess telcos’ quality of service due to rapid adoption of new technologies and services. (The three main operators have failed to meet quality targets.)

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT...

Regulation: China’s new regulatory controls on mobile apps went into effect earlier this month.
Digital Finance: Iraq Wallet has introduced Pay with ZainCash to help stimulate e-commerce, and economic and social development across Iraq.
Competition policy: Spark New Zealand has formally opposed a proposed merger of Vodafone New Zealand and Sky Network Television, saying that “national sports […] are 'must have' rights for media content providers.”
ICTs for Development: Researchers say they have developed a new method to more accurately track and predict poverty in Africa using high-resolution satellite imagery and artificial intelligence. [Read about ITU’s activities to track the Ebola outbreak using telecommunications data.]
R&D: Apple will open an R&D centre in China, where it has been facing growing competition and regulatory hurdles.
Wearables: MIT researchers have developed DuoSkin, a gold-leaf temporary 'smart' tattoo that can turn your skin into a touchpad which can be used to control wireless devices.

Insights

Women in tech: more than a ‘pipeline’ problem Teaching girls to code won’t solve the gender balance, writes Rachel Thomas who lays out some solutions that might. Meanwhile, critics claim Facebook's incentive program to improve diversity isn't working.

Can FTTH bring an end to capped services in South Africa? Increased market competition from fibre rollout and the growth of OTT services will bring a new round of price drops, predicts Brian Timperley.

Keep up to date with ITU

UPCOMING EVENTS

- Global ICT Capacity Building Symposium; Nairobi, Kenya, 6-8 September 2016

- Focus Group on IMT-2020; Palo Alto, United States, 6-9 September 2016

- Young ICT Leaders' Forum 2016; Busan, Republic of Korea, 7-9 September 2016

- New videos! On ITU’s YouTube channel

- Read the latest ITU News Magazine here

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