Zim Hosting International Telecommunication Union Meeting This Week

Zimbabwe is hosting an International Telecommunication Union meeting in Victoria Falls this week. The meeting started on Monday and the Minister of ICT Kazembe Kazembe was at hand to officially open the meeting that will run until next Friday.

The ITU-T Study Group 13 meeting will focus on future networks that are expected to be implemented as prototypes/phased deployments around 2020. ITU has a number of Study Groups and according to their website they focus on the following:

future networks (FNs) – networks of the future beyond NGN – expected to enjoy early realization sometime around 2020 in prototyping or phased deployments. The group is standardizing FNs with the objectives of service, data, environmental and socio-economic awareness. This study resulted in the completion of standardization efforts to support network virtualization, energy saving for FNs, and an identification framework. Future plans are to develop different facets of the smart ubiquitous network, requirements of network virtualization for FNs, framework of telecom SDN (software-defined networking) and requirements of formal specification and verification methods for SDN.
SG13’s standardization work also covers network aspects of the Internet of Things (IoT), additionally ensuring support for IoT across FNs as well as evolving NGNs and mobile networks. Cloud computing in support of IoT is an integral part of this work.
The group also looks at network aspects of mobile telecommunications. This work includes IMT-2000 and IMT-Advanced (ITU-R standards commonly referred to as 3G and 4G, respectively); wireless Internet; mobility management; mobile multimedia network functions; internetworking; and enhancements to existing ITU-T Recommendations on IMT.

Cloud computing is an important part of SG13 work and the group develops standards that detail requirements and functional architectures of the cloud computing ecosystem, covering inter- and intra-cloud computing and technologies supporting XaaS (X as a Service).

This work includes infrastructure and networking aspects of cloud computing models, as well as deployment considerations and requirements for interoperability and data portability.

Given that cloud computing relies on the interplay of a variety of telecom and IT infrastructure resources, SG13 develops standards enabling consistent end-to-end, multi-cloud management and monitoring of services exposed by and across different service providers’ domains and technologies.

Zimbabwe’s involvement with the ITU is not a particularly new thing and most recently, Hon. Kazembe Kazembe spoke at the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference.