+and+Global+ICT+Standardization+Forum+for+India+hold+a+joint+workshop+on+%E2%80%9CBridging+the+standardization+Gap+%E2%80%93+Sustainable+Rural+Communications,+in+Bangalore.jpg "International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and Global ICT Standardization Forum for India hold a joint workshop on “Bridging the standardization Gap – Sustainable Rural Communications, in Bangalore")
Hosted by Huawei, a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider, the ITU-GISFI joint-workshop and Standardization series meetings saw participation from major International Standards Development Organizations including ITU, IEEE, CTIF, OMA, world renowned telecom solutions providers like NEC, Huawei Ericsson, NIKSUN, Tata Consultancy Services, Cisco, International Interoperability Testing (IIOT), Global Interoperability Testing (GIOT), SAI Technologies, HP Lab, Samsung India, professors from world renowned academic Institutions, representatives of Telecom Regulatory Authority of Bangladesh, representatives of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), representatives from Telecommunication Engineering Centre (TEC), Department of Telecommunications (DoT), TERM Cell of Department of Telecommunications, representatives of Department of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India, representative from United International University Bangladesh, and a good number of representatives from consulting organizations.
Shri. ISN Prasad, Principal Secretary to Government, Department of Information Technology, Biotechnology, Science & Technology, Government of Karnataka graced the conference in the capacity of Chief Guest.
Mr. Malcolm Johnson, Director - Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB), ITU, welcomed the international speakers to the workshop and conveyed his good wishes and was hopeful that the workshop will witness quality discussions.
Mr. Johnson said currently only multinational companies having establishments in India have contributed to global standards, and there was need for Indian companies, which are rich in talent, to join the movement.
Mr. Johnson said ITU was also keen to come out with standards for cyber security and hoped India would play a lead role. Already a proposal was on to promote a council for telecom security in the country. The Telecom Security Council of India would play a major role in coming out with common standards for security adoption by various companies, he said.
Mr. Johnson stressed the need for greater contribution from India in the development of standards in the ICT sector. In this connection he highlighted the role taken by Huawei in research activities in Software Defined Networking (SDN) in India that could be vital for the global industry to have a common network solution for various systems and next generation projects.
Malcolm Johnson while addressing the workshop’ applauded GISFI’s efforts contribution, cooperation and coordination with ITU for organizing joint ITU- GISFI events in India.
Prof. Ramjee Prasad, Pioneer and Founding Chairman of Global ICT Standardization Forum for India (GISFI) said that the Forum aimed to play a pivotal role in promoting standardization culture among Indian telecom industries so that standards for Indian telecom products and components are evolved. This could also help in taking it to the ITU and get global standard specifications to enable Indian companies extend their reach.
Professor Ramjee Prasad, in his introductory speech spelt out the long association of GISFI with ITU. Professor Prasad mentioned that this is the third conference with ITU. Besides this workshop, GISFI had organized two conferences jointly with ITU in India at earlier occasions.
Professor Prasad also mentioned that GISFI had organised two important workshops on Network security.
i) Joint GISFI – TEC workshop on Network Security at Telecommunication Engineering Centre, New Delhi on 21 June 2012.
ii) Joint GISFI Mobile Operators’ workshop on Network Security issues and Testing methods at IIT Delhi on 22 June 2012.
The Founding Chairman of GISFI in his address also mentioned how GISFI has been collaborating with International Standards Development Organizations:
§ GISFI was represented by him as guest of China –Japan-Korea (CJK-11) meeting in Miyazaki, Japan jointly with ITU during March 2012.
§ Founder Chairman, GISFI attended workshop on IoT and Future radio Network held on 12 March 2012 in Tokyo (Japan) to kick off GISFI standardization collaboration with ARIB & TTC (Japan).
§ On March 09, 2012 GISFI signed MOU with Yokosuka Research Park (YRP-http;//www.yrp.co.jp) Japan. YRP houses R& D centre of NTT Docomo etc. as well as foreign and domestic research institutions like NICT, KDDI R& D laboratories.
§ The Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) invited GISFI to sign a letter of Intent (LOI) for opening opportunities for GISFI & OMA to cooperate across the broad range of work areas.
Professor Prasad further pointed out how GISFI’s achievements are applauded by by international SDOs:
i) GISFI has been first Indian Standardisation Organisation to be part of a global international standardization event outside India. GISFI was part of Second Global Standardization Symposium (GSS-http://itu.int/en/ITU-T/wtsa-12/gss/) held in Dubai, preceding the World Telecom Standardization Assembly (WTSA-12)
GISFI contributed to Session 2: Bridging the Standardization Gap; from Innovation to Standards”. There GISFI was a part of discussions about main challenges faced by developing countries to sustain standard making efforts and about the importance of developing countries to become involved in elaboration of global ICT standards.
ii) GISFI organized joint GISFI- ITU-DS-CTIF Standards Education workshop at Aalborg Denmark on 08-09 October 2012
Mr. R K Arnold, Member, Telecommunication Regulatory Authority of India, Govt of India, during his Inaugural Speech spelt out TRAI’s recommendations and Government of India’s aspirational plans for bringing broadband to Rural India. The theme of the workshop was “Sustainable, Affordable Rural Broadband Communication”.
Mr. Sethuraman, Executive Director, Huawei Telecommunications, provided a comprehensive overview of the digital divide in terms of the penetration of mobile voice as well as broadband in India; highlighted the key challenges and the status of ecosystem stake holders in proliferating broadband, the initiatives being taken by the Government of India in this direction as well as the focus by the Industry infrastructure players in addressing these challenges, and finally concluded by bringing out the benefits of Broadband to the masses and importance of optimizing the end-to-end delivery mechanism for a sustainable broadband solution for the nation.
Prof. Ramjee Prasad, while addressing the workshop categorically mentioned that GISFI is looking forward to fruitful association with Telecommunication Engineering Centre (TEC), Department of Telecommunications (DoT), Govt of India, as a step forward to become Indian TSDO. He also mentioned that GISFI has forwarded a proposal to Member (Technology), Telecommunication Commission, Department of Telecommunications (DoT), Govt of India to allow DDGs of Telecommunication Engineering Centre (TEC) to become Vice Chairs of all seven technical Working Groups of GISFI, namely
1. Security & Privacy ( S&P)
2. Green ICT (GICT)
3. Internet of Things (IoT)
4. Cloud & Service Oriented Network ( CSeON)
5. Future radio Network(FRN)
6. Special Interest Group ( SIG)
7. Spectrum
Conference proceedings followed with wrap up and vote of thanks by Mr. T R Dua, Vice Chairman, GISFI. The key messages and discussions of the conference revolved around:
— More than 2.5 Bn. people (about 40 per cent of the world’s population) live in the rural and remote areas of developing countries where access to telecommunications is still very limited
— ITU, all Governments around the world, UN give high priority to communications for rural and remote areas.
— Connecting Rural communities for Societal reasons + future growth, tremendous growth announced: Aggressive growth targets announced by Prime Minister (government to ensure infrastructure and low tariffs, …)
— Local contents at regional / village level: Contents/Apps to serve local needs (family, business,), Same Apps for fixed / mobile with same “look & feel”, Technology / Device type agnostic with ease of use, Standardized platform(s) with portability across devices. Ease of use for illiterate or elderly population as well
— Key to connecting Rural India: Awareness (what?), Access, Affordability (device + ARPU) Empowerment of all (local) stake-holders (Primary, community, infrastructure, ISP, Apps/technology. Work together! Not just government & telecom experts but all stake-holders.
— New wireless technologies for sensors/devices, apps, Mobile, broadband, sensors, light-wave Smart home, industries, agriculture, intelligent terminals, M2M, Privacy and Security/Robustness against cyber attacks
— Applications will become critical, Common API, Device Management, e-Everything platforms,
— Strategic nature of standardization: Long term investments, globalization, SDO partnerships
— ITU Methodologies to access environmental impact : Cooperation (partnerships) with ETSI, ISO/IEC, EC, GeSI, …
— Energy efficiencies: new players for energy supply and base station towers to reduce CAPEX/OPEX , Specific network architecture and topologies, Remote operations and maintenance.
On Day two of the ensuing workshop, two special invitees addressed the session:
i) Inaugural Speech by Dr. Surendra Pal, President Institute of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers (IETE). Dr Pal spoke at length, how satellite Communication can solve the rural broad band needs of a vast country like India.
ii) Special lecture was delivered by Mr. Anil Kaushal, a visionary and telecom expert, Senior Deputy Director General, Telecommunication Engineering Centre (TEC), Department of Telecommunications (DoT), Ministry of Communications & Information Technology Government of India. Mr. Kaushal outlined the Govt of India’s plans to bring broad band to rural India in conformity with National Telecom Policy (NTP-2012).
Some of the other renowned telecom experts who spoke at the workshop include:
1. Mr. Ahmed Zeddam, Chairman, ITU-T Study Group - 5 France Telecom on ITU activities in the area of ICT environment and climate change.
2. Mr. Kelvin Houston, Carbon Masters, a member of independent expert panel advising European Commission on ICT standardization
3. Prof. Dr. Knud Erik Skouby CTIF Denmark
4. Mr. David J Martin, CCDB & CESG, UK
5. Shri N K Goyal Chairman, CMAI on demystifying rural communications
6. Mr. Seth Newberry & Mr. Eshwar Pittampali ,OMA USA
7. Mr. Venkat Rayapati, SAI Technology USA
8. Mr. Akio Motai, President YRP R&D PC Japan
9. Dr. Neeli Prasad, CTIF USA
10. Mr. Ajay Ranjan Mishra, Chairman, focused group innovation to standards ITU
11. Mr. Collin Langtry, Chief Study Group BR ITU
12. Mr. Toby Johnson, TSB, ITU
13. Mr. Mahabubul Alam, Cisco USA
14. Mr. Sudhir Dixit HP Lab India
15. Dr. Anand Prasad, NEC
16. Dr. P Bala Muralidharan, TCS
17. Mr. Niranth Amogh Huawei
18. Mr. Pawan Kumar Garg, RRB ITU
19. Mr. Krishna Sirohi i2 TB-SPPL
Park, Japan and Mr. A Sethuraman, Executive Director – Huawei India.
About ITU:
ITU’s role as creator of the world’s most universally-recognized infocommunications standards dates back as far as the organization itself. Since its inception in 1865, the Union has been brokering industry consensus on the technologies and services that form the backbone of the world’s largest, most interconnected man-made system. In 2007 alone, ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) produced over 160 new and revised standards (ITU-T Recommendations), covering everything from core network functionality and broadband to next-generation services like IPTV. For more information about ITU, visit www.itu.int.
About GISFI:
The Global ICT Standardization Forum for India (GISFI) is an Indian standardization body active in the area of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and related application areas, such as energy, telemedicine, wireless robotics, biotechnology.
GISFI addresses the research and product development of ICT in India and provides a bridge towards the globalization of the Indian achievements; the issues of technology, governance, and development; and a platform for raising an awareness of the importance and the internationalization of the higher education in the field are supported by the joint partnership with the Government of India. The working groups organized in GISFI will draw knowledge from academia, business, civil society, and Government/policy-making circles. For more information about GISFI, visit www.gisfi.org
