The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) hosted Dr. Chaesub Lee, director of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB), for a roundtable on telecommunications, information and communications technologies (ICT), and related industries on November 13, 2015.
ITU is the specialized agency of the United Nations for telecommunications and information and communication technologies (ICT). Founded 150 years ago, ITU is today made up of three different sectors: ITU-R, ITU-D, and ITU-T, which focuses on establishing international standards for telecommunications.
Following opening remarks from ANSI president and CEO S. Joe Bhatia, Dr. Lee gave a presentation detailing his strategic vision for ITU-T, including his future plans and priorities for the organization.
One of Dr. Lee's chief goals is to increase collaboration and harmonization between and among ITU-T and the many standards developing organizations (SDOs) and consortia working in the ICT field, as well as the open source community. He described such cooperation as "essential" and chief among his reasons for accepting ANSI's invitation to the roundtable.
Standards are an essential component to the creation of what Dr. Lee called a "safe and smart information society." He cited several hot topics in ITU-T, including large, complex data sets (big data); smart cities; the Internet of Things (IoT); IMT-2020 which is 5th generation mobile networks (5G); digital finance; and global roaming services and the over-the-top (OTT) industry, which includes popular communications services like Skype and What's App.
Following Dr. Lee's presentation, the roundtable moderator - Phil Wennblom, director of standards at Intel - led the 30-person audience of industry representatives in an interactive Q&A session. Discussion topics included:
Conformity assessment
Need for better coordination of work programs to avoid duplication, including the specific example of standards for mobile power adaptors, which are currently being developed by both ITU and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).
"In order to continue our forward-thinking perspective and maintain leadership in telecom, ICT, and IT innovation, the international standardization community must commit to communicating openly and working together towards solutions," concluded S. Joe Bhatia, ANSI president and CEO.
"There is no doubt that these industries will continue their meteoric growth, and of course each ICT company may feel that different standardization approaches and venues are valid for its particular needs. But we hear one thing time and again: industry doesn't want to do the same work in multiple venues at multiple times. That's why we need to keep our lines of communication open, and why I am glad that Dr. Lee was able to join us today for this excellent discussion."
In addition to the November 13 roundtable, Dr. Lee addressed ANSI's Executive Committee on November 12.