The Seventh Global Symposium for Regulators (GSR-07) was organized by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) of the UN & hosted by the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of the UAE (TRA), and took place at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre, Dubai World Trade Centre, on February 5 – 7, 2007; entitled: «The Road to Next Generation Networks (NGN): Can Regulators Promote Investment and Achieve Open Access?».
The number of participants reached more than 500 senior executives representing telecommunications regulatory authorities, major telecommunications companies and international organizations from all over the world. A number of presidents and senior officials of these authorities, companies and organizations participated directly in the symposium via delivering presentations and chairing and participating in discussion panels. These direct participants came from the Arab World, Asia, Africa, Europe, North and South America, Oceania and the United Nations. Hence, they came from the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, Morocco, Sudan, Lebanon, India, Malaysia, Pakistan, Japan, Singapore, Mongolia, Indonesia, Bermuda, Samoa, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Argentina, Uruguay, Zambia, Uganda, South Africa, Romania, Lithuania, the UK, Germany, France, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Canada and the United States, along with the ITU, the World Bank (WB) and the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The symposium was inaugurated by H.E. Sultan Bin Saeed Al-Mansouri, UAE Minister for the Development of Government Sector and the Chairman of the UAE Supreme Committee for the Supervision of the Telecommunications Sector. The Opening Ceremony, however, included presentations by H.E. Dr. Hamadoun Touré, ITU Secretary-General, H.E. Sami Al-Basheer, Director of the ITU Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT), and H.E. Mohamed Al Ghanim, TRA Director General and Chairman of the GSR-07.
The symposium addressed numerous topics related to NGN, such as the international telecommunications level of progress towards an NGN World; the NGN Roadmap and how to understand the difference between NGN and Telecom Worlds; the ways for investing in an NGN World; the interconnection in an NGN World; the pricing and interconnection in an NGN Multi-Platform World; competition in an NGN World; what can be done for consumer protection, quality of service and cyber security issues; universal access/service; and international Internet interconnection. Afterwards, regulators and policy makers interacted in informal, moderated roundtable discussions on key topics, moving from table to table, to foster best practice exchanges and to answer questions such as the reasons for holding a public consultation on NGN and establishing NGN industry forums, whether regulators should require operators to compensate one another for terminating traffic in an NGN World, what can be done about bottlenecks, leapfrogging technologies, consumer protection and quality of service, legal and regulatory implications of VoIP,
what would follow the WTO Telecom Negotiations, and regulatory issues for convergence.
The final session rapped up the whole event by tackling the issue of the best way to go forward, through discussing the best practice guidelines, new thinking, new regulatory approach, and the new role for regulators.
In the final analysis, the success of such an important global event regardless of the two-year of age of the host, has proven the merit of the TRA by gaining the commission of the ITU and succeeding, and was a reflection to the brilliant progress and development of the UAE on the international level in general, and the telecommunications growth it has been witnessing that labeled the UAE as a leading international player in this vital sector.
