'It is a difficult question about who can establish the fund and who can implement the action plan'

Yoshio Utsumi, secretary general, ITU was recently in India for the 2nd

International Conference on Communications Convergence organized by Indian

Merchants’ Chamber. Instrumental in shaping telecom policy, Utsumi has over 30

years of experience in handling policy, both at the national as well as

international level.

In the first seven of those years, he helped shape Japan’s domestic

policies at the Communications Policy Bureau. For the last 23 years, Utsumi has

been associated with ITU at different positions before being elected as

secretary general of ITU in 1998. A strong believer of ICT, he was re-elected

for the post in 2002.

In an exclusive interview with Pravin Prashant, senior assistant editor,

VOICE&DATA, Yoshio Utsumi focused on the role of ICT in bridging the digital

divide, technology options for bridging the digital divide, and the changing

role of ITU. Excerpts:   

Yoshio Utsumi, secretary general, ITU

Recently, ITU conducted the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) and

it turned out to be a grand success. What is the roadmap that ITU has chalked

out after the event?



We recently conducted the WSIS in Geneva. The event was successful as we had

a consensus in chalking out our future plans. Our objective is to connect all

villages and to provide community info-centers, to connect all local, central

and state governments, to connect all primary and secondary schools, and to

ensure all world languages on Internet. The ITU has set 2015 as the timeframe to

achieve this.

Head of states, political leaders, industry and other stakeholders have all

committed themselves for this. All stakeholders have to play an important role

as one organization like ITU cannot do much and all have to come together like

government, private sector, international organizations, and NGOs and make a

concrete plan to implement these pledges. It is still a pledge and a detailed

implementation plan is not yet planned. We have to plan what we should do in the

future and how we can implement the above plan.

How are you preparing yourself for the second phase to be held in Tunisia

in 2005?



The second phase of summit will be held in November 2005 in Tunisia where we

will chalk out a more detailed implementation plan and establish key issues for

the second phase. Monitoring of process will also be done for making action

plans on what is happening, what action government is taking, what action

industry is taking, and what action organizations are taking. Monitoring will be

an important element as it will help in converting the action plans into

reality.

The second phase is more important than the First phase. In the second phase

we have to just confirm and endorse those things so that we can move closer to

our objectives.

The targets that ITU has set up will help in bridging the digital divide

not only in one country but all across the world. But how are you planning to

fund such large magnitude project?



It is a very difficult question about who can establish the fund and who can

implement the action plan. Detailed implementation plan does not mean technical

questions but it means political questions.

To bridge the digital divide, what are the technologies that ITU is

weighing for deployment in developing and under developed countries?



We are planning for affordable technologies. Technologies that are less

expensive and is suitable for remote areas i.e. connecting villages with the

world. The industry world should focus on development of not sophisticated but

rather simple suitable technology for remote areas like India has developed C-DoT

exchanges for rural areas which are cheap. One should develop similar

technologies or products and the industry should be committed for connecting

villages.

There are technologies like GMPCS. On the GMPCS front, the existing

capacities are presently being wasted and this can be put to best of use. The

main reason, it was not put to use was the fact that the companies could not

make good business model. One can use this technology for connecting villages.

We can have one GMPCS phone per village and we can connect 1.5 million villages

and it works. We have no clue how to do such things but we can approach business

people and work out some arrangement for using those capacities. Even Wi-Fi, PHS

and other radio technologies are inexpensive compared with fixed line. Even,

Internet telephony can bring a tremendous impact in achieving the objectives.

For e.g., in Japan, ADSL is expanding not because of Internet but due to

Internet telephony. People are subscribing broadband for using Internet

telephony and so broadband installation cost has reduced.

For e.g., Yahoo Japan is not from the establishment but has a big

contribution in terms of spreading technology. Though they have been criticized

by the establishment, they have been innovative and is using the technology to

bridge the digital divide.

So, what is lacking is the commitment to close the digital divide. The

government, private sector, civil society, and all stakeholders should try to

work together and see how they can utilize the technology.

Over the years ITU’s focus has shifted. Earlier, the focus was on

development of telecommunications where technology development was the prime

focus but now it is more on telecommunications for development. How do you look

at the two scenarios and where is ITU moving?



ITU was focusing on technology. It was a technical organization when it was
looking after telecom as it used to focus on telephones but when communication

technology has transformed into ICT, ITU cannot remain a simple technical

organization. ITU is making efforts so that it can be more policy oriented and

there is more commitment in bridging the digital divide. This is a great

opportunity for human kind not in terms of digital divide but in terms of

digital opportunity.

All this helps developing countries to leapfrog, people in remote areas can

have social activity with people in the city and even handicapped people can

work. That’s the power of ICT. We have demonstrated one successful summit on

information without specialized agencies like the UN. People are motivated and

they can work with increased productivity.

Pravin Prashant