Brussels, Belgium, 19 April 2012
Closing Address
Thanks once again to ETNO – Luigi especially and Caroline who has worked so hard in the background. And thanks to Belgacom for providing such excellent facilities.
All the presentations will be available on the ETNO and ITU websites.
Also thanks to the very distinguished speakers and moderators, we have been fortunate to be able to listen to them this morning.
In ITU-T we organize about 50 ITU workshops a year around the world – all open to anyone and free of charge. In all our workshops we like to draw some conclusions/recommendations/actions at the end.
So let me just give you some items I have noted:
- The new treaty should address the current disconnect between sources of revenue and source of cost to ensure a win-win for all players.
- It should facilitate the benefits of Internet being brought to all the peoples of the world in particular by encouraging broadband roll-out and investment.
- It should focus on telecom issues without involving the geopolitical agenda, in particular Internet governance, and emphasise the importance of liberalization and privatisation, and should recognize the role of the private sector and market based solutions.
- Should remain high level principles providing light touch regulation that encourages investment and innovation and that any economic aspects should have a stringent impact analysis taking account of the different levels of development in countries around the world. It should be flexible recognising that tomorrow’s world will be very different to today’s.
- Should foster the right conditions to allow markets to flourish within a long term vision backed by sustainable business models.
- That WCIT will be an opportunity to address many of the concerns of industry and so industry should be active in the preparatory process, in particular an input on behalf of ETNOs membership would be very welcome.
- That ITU should organise an information session after all the regional groups have concluded their preparations possibly in September.
Finally let me thank all of you for your participation and I hope you have found it as equally rewarding as I have.
Please continue to show your interest and continue to participate in the preparations so that the Dubai Treaty adds value to the development of the sector and brings its benefits to all the citizens of the world.
Thank you all.
