Brazil's strategic participation in the ITU

 

Werter Padilha (ABES), Tiago Barros (CESAR), Alexandre Zanon (Anatel) and
Rodrigo Santana dos Santos (Anatel)

To share some of the experience and knowledge of his participation in the ITU event in Cairo (Egypt), Werter Padilha, coordinator of the ABES IoT Committee, interviewed João Alexandre Zanon, who is Anatel's regulatory coordinator and also works at the secretary executive of CBC3 (Brazilian Communications Commission – Telecommunications Standardization).
 
At the invitation of MCTIC, Padilha was pleased to participate together with Zanon from the Brazilian delegation in the meeting of the Study Commission on IoT and Smart Cities, promoted between May 6 and 16, 2018 by the ITU – Union International of Telecommunications, the agency United Nations specialized agency for information and communication technologies (ICTs).
 
Check out the exclusive interview on the ABES Portal:
 
Why does Brazil participate in the ITU?
The ITU is an organization in which Brazil and Anatel have always made a point of participating, as different from other standardization organizations, which generates; only counts on the participation of industry members, it also counts on the direct participation of the countries and, thus, we find here representatives of governments such as China, the United States, Canada, South Korea and African countries, among others. So, it is here in this forum that countries express their wants and needs in terms of standardization and the discussions are carried out with a lot of involvement of its members, who present their technical arguments aiming to influence the recommendations and standardizations. Therefore, it is key for Brazil to be with its delegation in this highly qualified decision-making space.
 
How does Brazil benefit from this participation?
Here, we follow how other member states present their needs in terms of regulatory policies and strategic planning. This is important for us to know what is being defined in other countries, we identify whether Brazil is coherent, what we can add and also internalize some of these trends, to show entrepreneurs, research institutes and regulatory bodies in Brazil, always considering the Brazilian reality, which presents in the same country characteristics of developed and developing countries, due to its geographical dimension. We know that our country has technologically advanced regions and others in which we are still investing for digital inclusion. Thus, in addition to sharing Brazilian needs, we can learn about the needs of other places and take these demands so that the Brazilian industry can even develop solutions and export products and services in the future.
 
What is the role of the ITU in this accelerated process of technological development that we are experiencing?
The ITU has a very important role in the standardization of matters concerning the use of radio waves and telecommunications in the world. It is the only international body capable of doing this, of defining the frequencies that will be used for various technologies, such as satellites, terrestrial communications (such as cell phones) and other more specific applications (such as autonomous cars). There is a great deal of debate, because at this level of discussion there are several interests at stake. The ITU also has a relevant role in regulatory discussions, when defining the standards that the industry will have to follow, because, due to the weight of the institution, it is common for governments to consider the standards defined in the ITU recommendations in their regulations and tenders. Brazil is a country that recognizes this role and many of Anatel's regulations are based on ITU standards and recommendations, which tends to facilitate, for example, compliance with regulations for exports of products and services and the development of the Brazilian market. of technology. The ITU works a lot in partnership with several standardization bodies, such as ISO, IEC, ETSI, which gives even more weight to the recommendations.
 
How did the IoT discussions get to the ITU?
The IoT and Smart Cities Study Group (SG20) is recent here at the ITU and was created from the issues raised by Asian, African and European countries, mainly, which are very active in this forum due to their national strategies. It is common, for example, for Chinese and Koreans to propose standards at the ITU based on technologies that have already been developed internally by their industry, which generates a great competitive advantage for them with the conversion of these technologies into international standards. Brazil can learn a lot from this strategy, especially now, considering that the IoT ecosystem is a new business, which is experiencing ample growth. So this area has a lot of room for innovation. And the IoT ecosystem has an additional advantage: in this segment, startups and small or medium-sized companies have the opportunity to create relevant products and services, innovations that were previously concentrated in large global industries. Brazil can and must improve partnerships between government entities and technology developers in order to bring strategic technological innovations here to the ITU. It is important to show the world that Brazil has the technical capacity to produce technology and, with that, value its intellectual capital.
 
Where has Brazil stood out here at the ITU?
Brazil has stood out in different groups, such as those that discuss the performance of OTTS (Over-The-Top Services), the practices of reducing roaming fees, the fight against stolen and counterfeit devices and the models for measuring the quality of broadband. We have brought Brazilian expertise, positioning ourselves as a reference in these matters, contributing strongly to the definition of international standards and, consequently, creating business opportunities for Brazilian companies. Now, with the advent of the IoT Chamber discussions, we seek to replicate this model also in the 20th study committee (IoT & Smart cities), but for that we need to work together, government and industry, to demonstrate our potential and gain respect. from other countries in the world.