Geneva served as venue last 27-30 September for the 5th meeting of the ITU Council working group preparing for the World Conference on International Telecommunications (CWG WCIT-12).
At this CWG meeting Portugal’s Manuel da Costa Cabral was appointed the group vice-chairman representing Europe, while Sherif Guinena of Egypt was appointed the group vice-chairman representing Africa.
The 19 contributions submitted to this group meeting were presented. One of them was submitted by Portugal, presenting consensus positions within CEPT. This contribution basically served to publicise CEPT’s position regarding the set of proposals made by third parties to revise articles of the International Telecommunications Regulation (ITR).
Other contributions sought to introduce new theme topics in the Treaty, such as improper use of numbering resources, presentation of calling line identification, fraud, number resources for global telecommunications services and cyber-security.
The CWG meeting thus served to present the different proposals and to seek a first reconciliation of the various positions in question. But this first attempt did not have positive results. The stances remained very firm with no apparent willingness to achieve consensus.
The differences basically centre on the degree of regulation to be established for international telecommunications. Some countries hold that international telecommunications should be governed by a broad range of regulatory rules, while others believe the ITR should set a number of general principles governing such international telecommunications.
The next meeting will be held in Geneva on 27-29 February 2012.
