ATU Strategy for Digital Migration, WCIT-ATU Strategy for Digital Migration, WCIT-12 and WTSA-1212 and WTSA-12

Presented by: Abdoulkarim Soumaila Secretary Generale-mail : sg@atu-uat.org; a.soumaila@atu-uat.org Website: www.atu-uat.org

PRESENTATION PLAN

1. WHAT IS ATU?

2. BACKGROUND ON DIGITAL MIGRATION

3. ATU ROADMAP ON DIGITAL MIGRATION

• Digital Migration Summit

• Frequency Coordination on Transition

• Timeline• Way forward

ATU Strategy on World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT-

12)• 1. What are the ITR’s

• 2. Key Principles for Revising the ITR’s

• 3. ATU Preparatory Process

• 4. Way Forward

ATU Strategy on World Telecommunications Standardization

Assembly (WTSA-12)• Background

• Outcome of the Durban preparatory meeting

• Way forward

Creation: ATU was created in Addis Ababa in 1977 as:

Specialized Agency of the AU 44 Member States 18 Associate Members Headquarters : Nairobi (Kenya)

ATU was established with a vision to make Africa an equal and active participant in the Global Information Society and a mission to promote the rapid development of info-communications in Africa in order to achieve universal service and access, in addition to, full inter-country connectivity, in the most effective manner

One of ATU’s core activity is to Co-ordinate Africa’s contribution to the work of global decision-making conferences for treaty-making, standards-setting and policy-formulation with the aim of ensuring Africa gets an equitable share of globally allocated resources.

WHAT IS ATUWHAT IS ATU

BACKGROUND DIGITAL MIGRATIONBACKGROUND DIGITAL MIGRATION

Regional Radiocommunication Conference 2006 (RRC-06)

Frequency plan for the digital terrestrial broadcasting

Deadline to switch over for region 1 countries: 17 June 2015 (some countries and bands 2020)

Allocation of Digital Dividend Broadcasting services (e.g. provision of more programs, high

definition, 3D or mobile television)

Other services, such as the mobile service, in a frequency band which could be shared with broadcasting (e.g. short range devices) or in a distinct, harmonized allocation (e.g. IMT).

In Africa, the use of the digital dividend spectrum presents a critical opportunity to enhance the delivery of broadband, especially in rural and remote areas of Africa.

ATU ROADMAP ON DIGITAL MIGRATION

Digital Migration Summit

ATU saw the need to initiate a broader discussion on a continental level on how to meet the deadline of 2015 for the migration and maximize the use of the valuable spectrum resource in the African region. In this regard ATU organized a three-day summit which was held in Nairobi from 29th November to 2nd December, 2011.

 

This Summit was organized to serve as a forum for African policy makers, senior government officers, telecommunications and broadcasting regulators, telecommunications operators, broadcasters and the telecommunications industry to:

See the possibilities of how African countries can have a common understanding of this digital migration,Share their current digital migration progress,

Learn from experiences of other countries that have or are in the process of transitioning from analogue to digital television,

Evaluate the use of the spectrum resulting from the analogue-to-digital television transition (the DD) and the approaches to introduction of new services, technologies and applications, and

Consider policies related to the released spectrum among ATU Member States in a timely and efficient manner.

Summit recommendations

• Summit came up with 12 recommendations including organization of two frequency coordination workshops, annual summit and timelines to be achieved

Frequency Coordination on Transition

Following the Recommendations of the ATU Digital Migration and Spectrum Policy Summit, ATU organized two workshops:

• The first one was held in Bamako, Mali, on 12-16 March 2012 for Western and Central African countries

• The second was held from 16-20 April 2012 in Kampala, Uganda for Eastern and Southern African countries.

Those meetings on frequency coordination focused on re-evaluating the frequency plan adopted by the ITU Regional Radiocommunication Conference in 2006 (GE06 Plan) for terrestrial television broadcasting in the 174-230 MHz and 470-862 MHz bands.

The coordinating workshops concluded:

1. In order to ensure equitable and efficient access to the spectrum, provision of a minimum number of four multiplexes with national nationwide coverage for each country in the region in the band 470-694 MHz (UHF channels 21 to 48).

2. The provision (in the case of DVB-T2 and MPEG-4) of up to 80 nationwide standard definition television programs (4 x 20 programs) or up to 20 nationwide high definition television programs (4x5 programs), which is likely to satisfy most requirements of countries in the region.

Timeline

In order to meet the deadline specified by the GE-06 for the cease of analogue transmissions the timeline was set out as follows:

 September 2012: ATU 2nd Summit on the transition to digital TV and harmonization of the digital dividend.

September 2012: end of informal frequency coordination discussions and start of formal activities for the modifications of GE-06 Plan.

December 2012: adoption of a common digital TV

standard at sub-regional or regional level in Africa.

June 2013: Finalization of the establishment of national legislative and regulatory frameworks for the transition to digital TV and the allocation of the digital dividend.

June 2013: End of frequency planning activities (national and international) for the deployment of digital TV and analog switch-off

September 2013: Start of deployment of digital TV June 2014 : start of analog switch-off in the UHF band 17 June 2015 : end of analog switch-off in the UHF band

Way Forward

• The 2nd summit is planned for September, 2012 to take stock of the achievements and strategize on the way forward

• Urge governments to drive the process by establishing appropriate policies to enable transition

• Governments urged to carry out nationwide campaign to sensitize the public on the importance of digitization and the expectations of the various sectors

ATU Strategy on ITU World Conference on International

Telecommunications (WCIT-12)

What are the ITR’s?What are the ITR’s?

ITR’s are a binding international TREATY

on

“International Telecommunications Regulations”

(similar to the Radio Regulations, the RRs)

• The ITRs should contain, inter alia, high level strategic and policy issues;

• Should not be limited by current technological constraints;

• Flexible and sufficiently broad to apply over a considerable period of time;

• Security in the use of ICTs• International roaming

Key Principles for Revising the ITRsKey Principles for Revising the ITRs

ATU Preparatory Process

• Africa is highly engaged in the ITRs revision

process.

• Africa is concerned with connectivity, costing and

accounting, QoS and security issues, among

others.

• Africa should come with a unified common

proposal.

•Organized two regional preparatory meetings in Cairo Egypt in November 2011 and Durban, South Africa in May, 2012 to develop African Common Proposals (AFCPs) on ITRs

•The two meetings highlighted Africa’s support for the review of ITRs

•Agreed that ITRs should remain at treaty level rather than technical

Way forward

• Urge member countries to prepare and submit contributions towards WCIT-12

• African countries to work together to defend the interests of our continent

• Urge African countries to attend the ITU Council Working Group (CWG-WCIT)

• Encourage African countries to attend and participate in WCIT-12 due to be held in Dubai in December 3-14, 2012

ITU World Telecommunications

Standardization Assembly (WTSA-12)

WTSA-12 Preparatory Process

• WTSA-12 will review the Resolutions adopted by WTSA-08 held in Johannesburg, South Africa

• At WTSA-08, Africa presented 12 African common proposals. Seven were approved and five were put in for further study

• WTSA-12 will review the work of the Study Groups for efficiency and to focus on key objectives

• WTSA-12 will elect Chairmen and vice Chairmen of the ITU-T Study Groups and TSAG for the period 2013-2016

Outcome of the Durban preparatory meeting

• Meeting felt it necessary to pre-coordinate the positions of Chairmen and vice chairmen including TSAG taking into consideration geographic representation

• ATU mandated to prepare progress report on implementation of WTSA-08 resolutions

• ATU Mandated to coordinate candidatures between Africa and Arab region

Way Forward

• Governments urged to take keen interest of available vacancies in the management of ITU-T Study groups and TSAG

• Identify appropriate personnel that meet the requirements of these positions and submit names to ATU for compilation and onward transmission to ITU

• Take note and honor the deadlines of all submissions as set by ITU

Other Initiatives to boost ICT in Africa

• ATU supports the ICT INDABA initiative and pledge to work with South Africa in order to make it a platform for high level engagement in ICT Infrastructure gap in Africa and the opportunity it can pose for Africa to determine the future of its own economic prosperity,

• Set up Africa Telecom event on a bi-annual basis with the support of our partners,

• Development of broadband infrastructure and achievement of regional interconnectivity,

• Develop capacity building of its citizens.