The Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB), the Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT) of the International Telecommunication Union jointly with the Permanent Consultative Committee I – PCC – I of the Inter-American Telecommunication Commission - CITEL – in close collaboration with Secretaria de Comunicaciones del Ministerio de Planificación Federal, Inversión Pública y Servicios y Comisión Nacional de Comunicaciones de la República Argentina organize a forum on bridging the standardization gap between developed and developing countries.

The Seminar, that will take place on 24 September 2007 in Mendoza, Argentina, is open to participation of all interested parties in addition to ITU Member States, Sector Members and Associates, and is addressed to manufacturers, operators, service providers, regulators and administrations, will provide a panorama on recent technologies and technological convergence in information and communication technologies (ICT) that have created major standardization challenges for all stakeholders such as NGN, multimedia, Voice over IP (VoIP), IPTV, security and regulatory issues.

The seminar will highlight opportunities and tools to enhance cooperation and participation in standardization activities and, moreover, to facilitate standards implementation in developing countries.

The overall objectives of the seminar are to develop guidelines and propose initiatives to encourage the participation in standardization activities and the adoption of international standards that support interoperability, interworking and Quality of Service. These guidelines and initiatives should respond to the needs of the end users and the common approaches that all of the stakeholders could take in order to increase awareness of international standardization benefits in the public administrations, private sector and universities.

In particular the seminar will:

• explore the various dimensions of the telecommunication divide;
• identify strategies to address these standardization gaps;
• identify potential roles and responsibilities of government an telecommunications regulatory bodies in promoting standardized solutions;
• develop a better understanding of the economic and competitive advantages of deploying networks and systems based on ITU-T Recommendations and other international standards developing organizations (SDOs); and
• prepare a standardization work plan, identifying actions to overcome the standardization divide in the region.