CTOs Tapped to Help ITU Interoperability Efforts

GENEVA -- Several major countries raised concerns during a council meeting last week with ITU’s efforts to spur telecom equipment interoperability with a conformance database, interoperability testing and other measures. Developing countries were largely supportive of the intergovernmental organization’s efforts, but commercial worries weren’t directly addressed. The ITU initiatives were prompted by a 2008 resolution agreed to by almost 100 countries (CD Oct 31/08 p10).

The U.S. said industry concerns remain. ITU databases may raise equipment costs, increase the time to market and stymie trade, the U.S. said. Any needed testing between vendors and operators should remain in the standards development process and the private sector, the U.S. said. Industry says there’s not a direct relationship between conformance and interoperability, according to the U.S.

Proposals from the U.S. and the Americas region suggested more clearly defining the problems that need solving (CD April 14 p10). Germany and Sweden want a workshop to further clarify developing countries’ needs and the proposed program. Conformance and interoperability testing were on the agenda for most of the 30 workshops held by the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB) in 2009, an official said, so a lot of information has already been gathered and more workshops are planned. Countries at the 2009 ITU Council meeting urged more study before implementation, Germany said, and the TSB agreed to consider the comments. Certain conceptual issues should have been clarified before implementing an approach, Germany said.

The concern is that the ITU might offer services to countries before an assessment of demand is made. Interest in interoperability is also growing in other venues, Germany said. Interoperability spurs globally available services and helps avoid technology dependency on any single manufacturer, it said. South Korea sympathized with developing countries having interoperability problems, but said the real issues with conformity assessment and interoperability testing aren’t well understood. The ITU programs will fail without a clear understanding, Korea said, backing Germany and Sweden’s call for a workshop and the U.S. proposal.

Developing countries can’t afford to wait years as the U.S. and CITEL proposals would have, Egypt said on behalf many African and Arab countries. Work can go forward with the proposals now in parallel, Egypt said. The number of complaints is rising, the country said. Some vendors use the suppliers’ declaration of conformity to take advantage of the lack of experience in developing countries, it said. Financial and economic abuse and anti-competitive practices are common in the region, Egypt said.

Cooperation between operators and vendors has frequently resulted in the adoption of high-cost proprietary technology by developing countries, Brazil said. It backed the idea of an ITU conformance database as a way to benefit from economies of scale that wouldn’t pose much enforcement challenge because it wouldn’t mingle with national rules. The database could assure a country when it has no certification body, Brazil said.

Russia wants more radiocommunication involvement in the initiatives. India supports the TSB program. China backed the TSB program, the call for workshops and efforts to mitigate worries that have emerged. Morocco and Burkina Faso backed the African group proposal. Australia backed the workshop, and the ideas from Canada and Korea. Conformance and interoperability testing is fundamentally important to developing countries, Mexico said in support of the workshop and meetings between the ITU and other standards development organizations as a way to harmonize criteria for interoperability.

The TSB program must move forward as quickly as possible, South Africa said. Initiatives to deal with interoperability problems will spur the market, said South Africa, which also backed the U.S. proposal, and a workshop may only delay progress. Canada also wants a better understanding of interoperability problems experienced by developing countries through the proposed workshop and possibly meetings between the director of the TSB with industry chief technical officers and standards development organizations. The U.S. asked the CTO group to prepare a document on the feasibility of implementing the conformance database from the point of view of industry.

The European Telecommunications Standards Institute does interoperability tests on gear to see if it meets ITU standards, the TSB said. The first informal interoperability event in July will test ITU standards on IPTV, TSB said, but an interoperability database hasn’t been proposed.