ITU TELECOMMUNICATION STANDARDIZATION ADVISORY

UNCLAS STATE 048479


PASS IEA FOR D.SALAZAR

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: ECPS AORC ITU
SUBJECT: ITU TELECOMMUNICATION STANDARDIZATION ADVISORY
GROUP MEETING, APRIL 28-30, 2009


1. Summary. This is a report of the results of a meeting of
the Telecommunication Standardization Advisory Group (TSAG),
which met for three days in Geneva from April 28-30, 2009.
TSAG is a meeting of Member States and Sector Members of the
International Telecommunication Union (ITU). It is
responsible for reviewing the ITU Telecommunication Sector
(ITU-T) priorities, work programs, operations, financial
matters and strategies. It provides guidelines for the work
of the study groups. It advises the Director of the TSB on
corrective measures to achieve the objectives set forth in
the operational plan.

There were eleven people on the U.S. delegation. The
delegation was led by James Ennis, EEB/CIP/MA from the State
Department. The delegation included representatives from
Commerce (NTIA),FCC, and DHS. From the private sector,
companies represented on the delegation included AT&T, Cisco,
Alcatel-Lucent, and Telcordia. These individuals included
the Chairmen of two of the ten ITU-T Study Groups.


2. As an initial matter, we understand that the current
Chair of TSAG, John Visser, formerly of Nortel, may not be
able to continue because he has no funding to attend future
meetings. If he does not find funding and has to step down,
he would be replaced by one of the current Vice-Chairs of
TSAG. The front runner to replace Visser would probably be
the U.S. Vice-Chair, Steve Trowbridge. However, Steve says
that he is in an operational part of his company,
Alcatel-Lucent, and would not be able to devote the 80% of
his time that the Chairmanship of TSAG would require.


3. Another item of note is that the Director of the TSB,
Malcolm Johnson, appears to be already running for
re-election, and to this end is courting the votes of
developing countries. This manifests itself in various ways.
An example at this meeting was his strongly expressed desire
to hold the next TSAG meeting on dates that are adjacent to
the meeting of the Telecommunication Development Advisory
Council (TDAG) meeting, to enable developing countries to
attend both meetings. This would have placed the TSAG
meeting in the middle of the week when Geneva is having a car
show and when there are no hotel rooms to be had at a
reasonable price. (The decision as to the location of the
next TSAG meeting is now being re-studied.)


4. This meeting itself was a preview of several issues that
will be probably be discussed at the ITU Council at its
meeting in October 20-30, 2009.

ITU Mark. WTSA Resolution 76 addresses the issue of the
creation of an ITU mark. It instructs the Director of the
TSB to take a number of steps in that regard. He is to:
(a) conduct exploratory activities in each region in order to
identify and prioritize the problems developing countries
face related to achieving interoperability of ICT equipment
and services;
(b) based on the results of (1),study the effect on the ITU
and the manufacturers; the legal and international regulatory
implications; the costs of setting up a testing facility and
location of such a facility; and what needs to be done to
build-up the human resources necessary for such an effort;
(c) study the concept of establishing an ITU mark to indicate
that equipment that conforms to the ITU mark has a degree of
interoperability with other such equipment;
(d) to study the financial and legal implications for the
ITU-T and for ICT industries, and all other concerns raised;
(e) to involve experts and external entities as appropriate.

WTSA Resolution 76 also instructs the Study Groups to
identify as soon as possible existing and future ITU-T
Recommendations that would be candidates for interoperability
and to modify them so that they could serve as a basis for
conducting conformity and interoperability tests.


5. The Director gave a summary of where the TSB is in this
process. He said that the experts in (4) above were
volunteers and that they were from various regions and he was
relying on them to address (a) above, namely to identify the
problems that developing countries had with interoperable
equipment. It was agreed that other experts could ask to be
on the TSAG team. However, the question remains whether the
Director,s approach meets the spirit of the obligation to
conduct exploratory activities in each region in order to
identify the problems they face in achieving
interoperability. It was the view of the delegation that the
Director has already concluded that there is a need for an
ITU Mark and therefore is only paying lip service to the Res
76 requirement that he investigate the nature of the
developing-country problem that we are trying to solve.

The U.S. joined with Portugal and Finland in associating with
a German contribution that stated that the Director of the
TSB needs to be complete the first three work items in
paragraph 4 above before the Study Groups should have to
identify recommendations that are potential candidates.
However, this was a minority opinion.


6. Climate change. TSAG decided that the Study Group 5
should be the lead Study Group on climate change. The name
of Study Group 5 was changed to "Environment and Climate
Change." In addition, a Joint Coordination Activity (JCA) "
which is a coordination activity involving all the Questions
in all the ITU-T Study Groups that have an interest in
climate change and the environment " was created. It will
report to SG5, but TSAG will also be kept informed of the
JCA,s work. The terms of reference for this JCA were
drafted and approved at this meeting. The U.S. supported
these decisions but took a reservation on the new name for
SG5 because it believed the title should not include the word
change.


7. Paperless meetings. The U.S. submitted a contribution
to the TSAG meeting saying that in its view, completely
paperless Study Group meetings were not desirable and that up
to two sets of the most important documents at a Study Group
meeting should be made available to each delegation upon
request. Subsequently, the U.S. modified this position to
apply only to policy-level ITU-T meetings, namely Study
Groups 2, 3, and TSAG. However, at the meeting the chairman
of Study Group 17 (a technical Study Group) said Study Group
17 also did not want paperless meetings. Study Group 17
proposed twenty sets of documents, to be made available on a
first-come, first-serve basis. The final language that was
agreed upon was that "it was generally agreed that we should
aim for less paper at meetings and for as many paperless
meetings as possible." This language, in the view of the
delegation, provides no specific direction for the ITU-T to
follow and therefore will not resolve the matter.


8. Duration and frequency of TSAG meetings. The U.S.
submitted a contribution saying that TSAG meetings should
typically be five days long in order for it to deal with its
work. It also proposed that TSAG meetings should coincide
with Study Group meeting cycles, or about every 8-9 months.
France strongly supported the U.S. However, the Director
argued that the Council, at its meeting in November 2008, had
dictated that there would only be one TSAG meeting in 2009.
With respect to TSAG meetings in 2010, notwithstanding the
U.S. position, the Chair concluded that TSAG should have one
meeting for three days in the first quarter of 2010. He
gave no explanation as to why he reached this conclusion.

In the view of the U.S. delegation, the decision to recommend
a three day TSAG meeting next year was an extremely poor
decision which should be reviewed by Council. This current
meeting was a three-day meeting and it was manifestly obvious
that there was not enough time to get through the work.
Whole blocs of issues were adopted without any discussion.
Other issues were postponed to the next meeting. Still
others were given only cursory discussion. It was also clear
to the delegation that almost all the cost of a TSAG meeting
is the cost of translation. Since translation is not
necessary except in the plenary meetings, the length of a
TSAG meeting can be extended to five days without
significantly increasing the cost of the meeting simply by
meeting in Working Party sessions for three days, sandwiched
between opening and closing plenary days.


9. Changes to ITU-T Recommendation A.23. This agenda item
illustrates the problems caused by a three-day meeting.
ITU-T Recommendation A.23 relates to collaboration with ISO
and IETC. Annex A to A.23 is a Guide this collaboration. It
is a normative part of the recommendation. A 75-page
contribution modifying this Annex was submitted to this TSAG
meeting. It contains changes throughout the Annex. No one
introduced this document or explained what the changes were
about. The Chair asked that it be determined at this
meeting, meaning that all the parties present at the meeting
considered that the changes were acceptable. The explanation
the chair gave was that there was no time to review the
document and that any fixes to the language could be made
during the TAP review period that follows determination.
Germany, Russia, and the U.S. objected, saying we had no idea
what these changes were. France supported the Chair,s
proposal. Despite this, the Chair concluded there was
consensus in favor of approving/determining the document.


10. The next meeting of TSAG is scheduled to be held in
Switzerland for three days in the first quarter of 2010. The
exact date has not yet been decided.


CLINTON