ITU has been undertaking numerous activities to foster the development of an enabling environment worldwide including information sharing, creation of tools, national and regional assistance, creation of training materials and opportunities on regulatory and policy issues as well as on economic and finance issues including costing and pricing. We may have close to 6 billion mobile cellular subscriptions worldwide by the end of 2011, but two-thirds of the world’s population still have no access to the Internet. Looking at penetration levels of Internet users by region, we know that there is a wide disparity among the regions. To give an example, Europe is the region with the highest level with 74.4% while Africa remains behind with 12.8 %. Despite the progress in mobile telephony and the Internet, particular efforts need to be made to support availability of infrastructure and services in underserved and rural areas. Your participation confirms that these topics are very important and high on the agenda, and we are pleased to provide you with the opportunity to meet and share your views through the organization of this workshop. The main goal of this workshop is to present the current situation with respect to origin identification (including numbering misuse/misappropriation) and alternative calling procedures (including call-back, refile, and “IP telephony”) and to discuss and consider proposals for future work. We have invited high level panellists with an extensive experience in the area of numbering misuse, alternative calling procedures and IP telephony. The Deputy Director expressed his warm thanks to all of them and to the Chairman of ITU-T Study Group 2 who has kindly agreed to chair the workshop. The Deputy Director took the opportunity to remind all delegates that two very important events will take place in 2012 namely: The 2012 edition of the Forum on Telecommunication/ICT Regulation and Partnership in Africa (FTRA-2011) to be held in Libreville (Gabon) from 18 to 20 June 2012 under the theme Digital transition ; The 2012 edition of the Global Symposium for Regulators (GSR) to be held in Colombo, Sri Lanka, 2-4 October 2012; GSR will focus on: Why regulate in a global networked society? He thanked the participants for their attention and wished them productive debates and fruitful discussions. Introductory remarks by the Deputy-Director of TSB Reinhard Scholl, Deputy-Director of TSB, made some remarks on behalf of the Director of TSB. He welcomed the participants and the speakers.
ITU has been undertaking numerous activities to foster the development of an enabling environment worldwide including information sharing, creation of tools, national and regional assistance, creation of training materials and opportunities on regulatory and policy issues as well as on economic and finance issues including costing and pricing. We may have close to 6 billion mobile cellular subscriptions worldwide by the end of 2011, but two-thirds of the world’s population still have no access to the Internet. Looking at penetration levels of Internet users by region, we know that there is a wide disparity among the regions. To give an example, Europe is the region with the highest level with 74.4% while Africa remains behind with 12.8 %. Despite the progress in mobile telephony and the Internet, particular efforts need to be made to support availability of infrastructure and services in underserved and rural areas. Your participation confirms that these topics are very important and high on the agenda, and we are pleased to provide you with the opportunity to meet and share your views through the organization of this workshop. The main goal of this workshop is to present the current situation with respect to origin identification (including numbering misuse/misappropriation) and alternative calling procedures (including call-back, refile, and “IP telephony”) and to discuss and consider proposals for future work. We have invited high level panellists with an extensive experience in the area of numbering misuse, alternative calling procedures and IP telephony. The Deputy Director expressed his warm thanks to all of them and to the Chairman of ITU-T Study Group 2 who has kindly agreed to chair the workshop. The Deputy Director took the opportunity to remind all delegates that two very important events will take place in 2012 namely: The 2012 edition of the Forum on Telecommunication/ICT Regulation and Partnership in Africa (FTRA-2011) to be held in Libreville (Gabon) from 18 to 20 June 2012 under the theme Digital transition ; The 2012 edition of the Global Symposium for Regulators (GSR) to be held in Colombo, Sri Lanka, 2-4 October 2012; GSR will focus on: Why regulate in a global networked society? He thanked the participants for their attention and wished them productive debates and fruitful discussions. Introductory remarks by the Deputy-Director of TSB Reinhard Scholl, Deputy-Director of TSB, made some remarks on behalf of the Director of TSB. He welcomed the participants and the speakers.