Miyazaki Prefecture, Japan, 14 March 2012

Address

Ladies and Gentlemen
Colleagues and friends

It a great pleasure to be with you today for the first CJK meeting since ITU and CJK signed our MoU July last year. I am very pleased that there was such enthusiasm for this MoU from all parties and we were able to agree the text of the MoU so easily. It is real confirmation of the great spirit of collaboration that exists between ITU and the four SDOs in the three countries: China; Japan; and Korea.

This meeting was postponed due to the tragic events of 12 months ago and I would like to express again on behalf of ITU our sincere condolences to the Japanese people. Their incredible courage and determination in the face of such terrible circumstances is an inspiration to us all.

In the last few days I have had the great privilege to welcome the University of Tokyo as an Academy Member of ITU-T and to meet a number of professors from other Japanese universities. I have been greatly impressed by the interest shown in ITU activities and the enthusiasm to participate in our work and we look forward to many more universities from CJK joining ITU. We now have two academia members from Japan and four from China. I am sure their contribution will be extremely valuable to our work – helping to integrate standardization thinking at the research and development stage and allowing academia to profit from collaboration with the best engineers from around the world.

In September this year Waseda University in Tokyo will host an event that will bring together a number of ITU academia members to identify the best working practices between ITU and academia.

Ladies and gentlemen

Turning to our MoU we are sure it will build on the good relationship ITU has enjoyed with all four standards bodies ARIB, CCSA, TTA and TTC over many years, and will increase transparency between the organizations, avoid duplication of work, and increase efficiency in the development of standards. It is our wish to make a meaningful contribution to the effectiveness of CJK participation in ITU.

As the ITU Secretary-General said at the time: “China, Japan and Korea have been at the forefront of the development of many of the technologies that underpin the information society. At the same time, all three countries have shown a commitment to the development of the international standards that provide the interoperability needed to seamlessly connect the world. This agreement cements the relationship between ITU and four premier standards organizations in the region.”

The MoU underlines the great support that the CJK countries have shown for ITU by recognizing ITU as the pre-eminent global standards organization.

The governments of China, Japan and Korea make a significant financial contribution. 15 per cent of income from Member States is from the CJK region. In addition the private sector of the three countries combined equates to 20 per cent of income from private sector.

The number of contributions to meeting has also shown a significant increase. CJK made 38 per cent more contributions in 2011 than in 2009. During this time the number of delegates has also increased: by 39 per cent from Japan; 37 per cent from China; and 55 per cent from Korea.

This shows an astonishing level of commitment and we are exceptionally grateful for this.

It is with this in mind that I must express my surprise that ITU has been excluded from the discussions on the establishment of the so called OneM2M. I can understand the reasons why some other standards bodies would wish this but with such a strong commitment with ITU demonstrated by the level of financial and intellectual contribution from the governments of the three countries and most of the industry players in these countries, I would expect that you would wish to take full advantage of your membership of ITU.

It would only seem logical that OneM2M be an ITU group covering both ITU-T and ITU-R matters and with the ITU Secretariat providing the support that you know is far superior to that of any other standards body. ITU has the latest meeting room technologies, electronic working methods, and excellent facilities for delegates. This is all available to membership free of charge, so why pay a lot of extra money to support the secretariat of another standards body?

ITU is more likely to attract the involvement of the vertical sectors in our work that a purely ad hoc entity. A good example is in the e-health area where WHO actually approached ITU rather than ITU needing to persuade it to join us.

I am concerned that keeping OneM2M outside the umbrella of ITU could lead to duplication of work (with ITU’s Internet of Things Global Standards Initiative and the new Focus Group on the M2M service layer), may not lead to interoperability on a global scale, and will exclude the emerging markets.

The new Focus Group on the M2M service layer is open to all interested parties – you don’t have to be an ITU Member.

It is led by Mr Xu Heyuan from CATR China.

Focus Groups have proved to be very successful. They have great flexibility. Essentially, they can decide their own working methods and are free to organize themselves, decide how often they meet etc. In summary, they are totally responsive in adapting to the specific needs related to the topic under study in an efficient and timely basis.

Participation, membership and interest levels in ITU are on the rise.

For example, in addition to the statistics that I mentioned before for this region, since 2007 over 40 new countries have started participating in ITU-T’s work. Last year alone we welcomed 16 countries that had never before participated in ITU-T before.

This means that we now have most of ITU's 193 countries participating in our standards activities.

We have also increased the collaboration between the ITU-T and the ITU-R Sectors and the proposal to create inter-sector groups on new standardisation issues of interest to both Sectors has been welcomed by membership. This is only logical as in many new areas convergence and IP-based solutions are blurring the current boundaries.

Our effort to involve emerging economies in our work is also very important. They represent huge new potential markets. These countries now have a sure way to have their voices heard and to have their specific requirements included in our standards.

Their involvement in our work allows developing countries to gain an increased understanding of ITU standards and we are providing them with training on how to implement them.

As you know the ITU logo carries a lot of weight in these emerging markets.

Driven by developing countries, we are launching a public database where products meeting ITU standards will be listed. Vendors will be able to use an ITU reference on their products or related documentation.

There could be resistance to any standard that has been developed outside ITU to the exclusion of ITU members.

Let me suggest ways in which ITU Secretariat could contribute to the effectiveness of CJK in ITU:

We could participate in your working group meetings to assist in the formulation of coordinated CJK positions for ITU meetings. For example we were able to assist in the development of a coordinated compromise approach toward the MPLS issue at the last Study Group 15.

We could help formulate input documents to ITU meetings taking account of the positions of others and advising on the best approach to achieve success. For example on the universal battery in Study Group 5 a more gradual approach might have been more successful than starting by submitting a proposal for a draft Recommendation.

I am aware that some issues are difficult to reach consensus on in CJK and are brought to ITU meetings with conflicting views amongst CJK members. This does not help CJK or ITU. Maybe a third party such as ITU Secretariat could act as an arbitrator to help achieve a compromise within CJK so that a common view can be presented to ITU.

Some other work areas in ITU which we could take forward with CJK in the context of the MoU includes smart grid, cloud computing and security, intelligent transport systems (ITS), and the work of ITU-T Study Group 5 in particular on universal battery and universal power supply.

These are just some ideas that I and my colleagues Fabio Leite, Deputy Director of the Radio Bureau, and Bilel Jamoussi Chief of the TSB Study Group Department would like to explore with you during this meeting.

I look forward to discussing with you how ITU Secretariat can work with CJK to help us meet the objective of interoperable, non-discriminatory international ITU standards meeting the requirements of CJK and the wider international community.