During the course of the World Telecommunications Standardisation Assembly (WTSA04), the Brazilian authorities presented the candidacy of their citizen Roberto Blois, currently Deputy Secretary General of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), for the position of ITU Secretary General, who will be elected at the next Plenipotentiary Conference (PP06).
WTSA04 was held on 5-14 October in Florianópolis, Brazil, and saw decisions made on various and important standardisation-related issues with impact on the telecommunication industry's future, as well as on management of the Standardisation Sector of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU-T).
The decisions resulting from this Assembly can be grouped in three main areas: next generation networks (NGN), internet and cyber-security.
Regarding next generation networks, a decision was made to set up a new study group (SG) on this issue, which will co-ordinate all activities of other SGs related to this topic.
In the internet context, a resolution was adopted that calls for preparation of a report on existing international initiatives on unsolicited electronic communications (spam), asking Member States to take appropriate steps to combat spam. With regard to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), the Assembly decided to set up a group to organise the first meeting, scheduled for 2005, of the ITU Council Working Group on WSIS, which will discuss technical aspects of telecommunications networks used by the internet. The Assembly also adopted new resolutions on electronic numbering (ENUM), and internationalised domain names (IDN) and country code top-level domains (ccTLD). A resolution on cyber-security was also adopted.
The Assembly also resulted in the adoption of measures to encourage more involvement of developing countries in standardisation activities, with the action plan based on five specific programmes for that purpose standing out, along with the creation of regional groups to discuss those countries' respective needs.
Besides these decisions, the Assembly took steps to reorganise its working methods and organisation of ITU-T study groups.
The Portuguese delegation took part under general guidelines to promote more efficient and transparent ITU management and more autonomy for ITU-T in particular, which led to its participation in close co-ordination with the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT), playing an active role in this WTSA's preparations in the project team of the ITU Working Group for WTSA04 (PT WTSA04).
The Portuguese delegation seconded CEPT's positions, to that end defending six ECPs (European common proposals) submitted to WTSA04 and ratified by Portugal, by intermediary of the ANACOM Board of Directors, concerning: the SG on NGN; the SG chairs and vice chairs; ITU-T working methods; enhanced ITU-T capacity with respect to undue use of numbering resources; co-localisation of SG meetings; and strengthening the co-ordination role of the Telecommmunications Standardisation Advisory Group (TSAG).
The six ECPs met with success and their respective matters were included in the results of WTSA04, some by arrangement with other proposals.
