A workshop jointly organised by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and the European Telecommunications Network Operator Association (ETNO – representing incumbent network operators) was held last 19 April in Brussels, focusing on preparations for the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT-12). Note that WCIT-12 will be held on 3-14 December, with the aim of finishing the International Telecommunications Regulations (ITR) review process.
The workshop’s speaker panel comprised representatives of the European Commission, via its Director General for Information Society, the ITU, CEPT and various operators.
The participants generally agreed that the ITR review should be a general one, containing only high level principles.
Note that during the question and answer session ETNO chairman Luigi Gambardella (Telecom Italia) raised an issue that may be controversial if debated at WCIT: the price of data traffic termination and transport. He defended the idea whereby content providers who do not have their own infrastructure (such as Apple, Facebook or Google) are responsible for the exponential traffic growth terminating in operators’ networks, without the latter receiving proper compensation.
The workshop’s full programme and the presentationshttp://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/Workshops-and-Seminars/itrs/Pages/programme.aspx have been posted online.
