ATU Strategy for Digital Migration, WCIT12 and WTSA-12
Presented by: Abdoulkarim Soumaila
Secretary General
e-mail : [email protected]; [email protected]
Website: www.atu-uat.org
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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 (WCIT12)
• 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
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WHAT IS ATU
 Creation: ATU was created in Addis Ababa in 1977 as:
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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.
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BACKGROUND DIGITAL MIGRATION
 Regional Radiocommunication Conference 2006 (RRC-06)
 Frequency plan for the digital terrestrial broadcasting
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 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.
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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.
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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
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?
ITR’s are a binding international TREATY
on
“International Telecommunications Regulations”
(similar to the Radio Regulations, the RRs)
Key Principles for Revising the ITRs
• 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
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.