This should be subtitled: Utsumi selects
group who tells him what he wants to hear
and attempts to suppress other views.
(Bill fortunately found the press.)
It's also disingenuous because only States
can be ITU "members," and it is only the
members that have any power in the ITU.
--amr
=============================================
Utsumi's CEO think-tank to shake up ITU By
David Molony
04 October 1999
The secretary general of the International
Telecommunication Union has unveiled a major
initiative that will involve chief executives
from the telecoms sector helping him to
determine the ITU's future.
In a hard-hitting interview with
Communications Week International, Yoshio Utsumi
has warned that a failure to adapt to the
modern communications environment could mean
that the ITU will disappear.
As part of a plan to secure the ITU's future,
Utsumi is establishing an advisory panel made
up of top-level industry figures to advise on
the "direction the ITU should seek." The first
meeting is due to take place during Telecom
'99, the ITU's flagship industry exhibition.
"If the ITU cannot find a means to cope with
the present situation, it will disappear," said
Utsumi.
However, the plan has not met with a friendly
reception from Internet service providers, who
say they have no interest in sustaining a
monopoly-based industry.
"I don't think I can imagine a circumstance in
which PSINet would be interested in joining the
ITU," said William Schrader, chief executive of
PSINet Inc., Herndon, Virginia. "Nor do I think
I can imagine any changes to the ITU's charter
or style that would occur in a fast enough
time-frame to be relevant."
Schrader said he was not one of the industry
executives invited to the meeting.
The secretary general would not give a
comprehensive list of who will sit on the
high-level advisory committee; nor can he be
sure that the committee's advice will be taken
by the membership at large.
But Utsumi did say that it would consist of
"top people" from America, Asia, Europe and
developing countries. So far about 20 people
have agreed to attend the first meeting,
although the final tally could be as many as
40.
And some of the executives he hopes will join
the panel are from companies and organizations
outside the ITU. These, said Utsumi, are
"potential members," and for that reason he is
as concerned to get their opinions about the
form and direction of the ITU, if it is to
become relevant to their needs.
This is not the only advisory committee the ITU
has ever called on, but it is the first to be
drawn substantially from senior private sector
business people. The chief executives from
service providers and equipment vendors would
be supplemented by regulators, including a
senior representative of the Federal
Communications Commission, Washington DC.
Internet
interests will be represented by Don Heath, the
president of the Internet Society.
Utsumi said panelists would be drawn from
beyond the conventional telecoms boundaries and
would include the presidents of Sony Corp.,
Tokyo, and Japanese broadcaster NHK. "You can
think that the ITU is a club for BT or Deutsche
Telekom. Today it shouldn't be like that. The
ITU should become for those people [in the]
broader sense of telecoms."
In fact, some U.S. industry representatives
have given Utsumi's plan a cautious welcome.
"The idea has potential, but only if the work
of the group is constructive and taken
seriously," said Eric Nelson, vice president,
international affairs, at the
Telecommunications Industry Association, a
mainly vendor-based organization in Washington
DC. "Advising an inter-governmental bureaucracy
can be frustrating because they have a number
of different reasons for doing the things they
do - not all of them logical."
The move to set up the advisory committee is in
line with Utsumi's election pledge of making
the ITU more business friendly.
As part of the preparations for Telecom '99,
consultants Ernst & Young, London, polled
nearly 100 chief executives and other senior
executives about the way the industry is going
(CWI, 7 June, p.3). The results clearly
indicated a perception that the telecoms sector
must broaden its horizons to understand what is
going on in computing and entertainment
sectors.
"We made it clear that it was going to be fed
into Telecom '99, and many of the participants
were delighted that the ITU wanted to listen to
their views," said Hugh Jagger, head of the
European technology, communication and
entertainment practice at Ernst & Young.
The consultancy also has been charged with
devising sessions for the Telecom show's
forums, which have a strong commercial
orientation: "How do you get shareholder value
out of customer relationships rather than what
what makes ADSL a good technology," said
Jagger.
Utsumi said he is trying to make Telecom more
open to economic and social policy-makers, not
just telecoms experts. "We have asked many
ministers and international organizations
besides telecoms organizations."
He has not given any details of the agenda for
the industry committee's separate meeting in
Geneva. But he said he is inviting its members
to make wide-ranging comments and suggestions
about the ITU and how well it serves the
communications industry.
"I am expecting this group will make very high
level, very public, very clear
[recommendations] to us," he said. "I am hoping
this will take the ITU a big step forward,"
he added.
The committee will not be empowered to make ITU
policy or set its reform program; any
recommendations will have to be considered by
the ITU Council and eventually submitted to
members.
But Utsumi made it clear that the committee's
advice would be the basis of the secretary
general's report on further reform of the ITU
after 2000, a report commissioned by the ITU
Council at Minneapolis.
"I am making the best use of the framework,"
said Utsumi. "I am not under any instructions
[as to] what form the report should take."
Utsumi said the ITU can only maintain influence
in next-generation communications if it has the
active support of the most senior industry
leaders, because their opinions will persuade
engineers and developers throughout the
industry that the ITU must be taken seriously
and factored into project plans.
At the same time, he argues that the ITU itself
will benefit from an injection of constructive
criticism from industry leaders.
"Within the ITU, experts tend to become rather
conservative because they face a lot of
difficulties," said Utsumi. "I want this ...
initiative to give them new heart, because
[people within the ITU] will see they have big
companies behind them."
