Open doors and open questions: interpreting the results of the 1998 ITU Minneapolis Plenipotentiary Conference

The 1998 ITU Plenipotentiary Conference (PP-98 in ITU jargon) took place in Minneapolis from 12 October to 6 November. As well as electing a new team of officials to lead the organization and establishing a financial envelope for the next four years, PP-98 faced two main issues. The first was to conclude the work begun at the 1992 Geneva Additional Plenipotentiary Conference by amending the ITU Constitution to give greater rights and responsibilities to the ITU’s private sector members. The second was to adopt strategic policies and plans to guide the Union into the 21st century. After first situating the Minneapolis conference in the context of the ITU’s unique organizational structure, culture and working methods, the paper describes the main results of the Minneapolis conference with respect to these two issues. It highlights constitutional amendments made which open the ITU to greater participation by the private sector, as well as to give non-governmental actors a greater role in providing advice and making decisions on technical issues. The paper then outlines the five strategies adopted by the conference to guide the activities of the Union in the next four years. In conclusion, it attempts to assess the principal challenges facing the ITU in terms of policy and organizational development.     

Understanding the service infusion process as a business model reconfiguration

This study conceptualizes service infusion as a business model reconfiguration by using a process perspective. Service infusion is therefore understood as a process affecting the business model dimensions of transaction content, structure, and governance. The service-related reconfiguration of the business model is explained by underlying knowledge conversion mechanisms, which provide insights into the development of reconfiguration capacities as important enablers for business model change. Furthermore, this study introduces the concept of service defusion as an important counterpart to service infusion. Both concepts together are found to fully capture firms' strategic options with respect to their service offering components (transaction content), their engagement with, and disengagement from, important business partners (transaction structure), and also their interactions with these important business partners (transaction governance). The conceptually derived understanding of the service infusion process and mechanisms are exemplified via a multi-actor longitudinal illustrative case study. A conceptual grounding for understanding service infusion processes for further theory and concept development is provided, and managers gain an understanding of how to effectively manage the processes underlying service-related business model reconfigurations.     

The ITU and development assistance: North,South and the dynamics of the CCIs

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), like other UN agencies, has been called upon to assist the developing countries in establishing a telecommunications infrastructure. This article charts the change of the ITU from being an organization concerned solely with matters of technical coordination to one which is involved in development assistance. The development of its various International Consultative Committees is also explained. The author argues that the developed countries have had to accept the change in the ITU's purpose demanded by its Third World members because of an imperative to consolidate the worldwide operation of telecommunications networks. As the industrialized nations' stake in those networks increases, the higher is the cost of breaking up the collective arrangements which make their operation possible.     

Why has multilateral space and spectrum resource management become more difficult?

This paper explains why the coordination of satellite orbits and spectrum use among nations may become more contentious and protracted. The potential for greater risks, delays, and conflicts may occur, despite treaty-level commitments by most nations to promote the peaceful uses of outer space and access to radio spectrum and satellite orbits free of signal interference and collision risk. Heretofore, specialized sectors of the United Nations (“UN”) have worked effectively in forging multilateral consensus on these matters.Since the onset of artificial satellite technology, the UN has created five space-related treaties covering such issues such as freedom of exploration, liability for damage caused by space objects, the prevention of harmful interference with space activities and the environment, the notification and registration of space activities, exploitation of natural resources in outer space and settlement of disputes. The International Telecommunication Union (“ITU”), a specialized agency of the UN, has largely achieved the goal of preventing harmful signal interference, formulating technical standards promoting equipment compatibility, and establishing uniform, operational rules of the road. Until now, month long ITU spectrum planning conferences have reached closure on both mundane and critical matters, albeit at a slow and methodical pace.The paper explains how several chronic and emerging factors challenge the successful record of multilateral consensus building on space and spectrum resource management issues. The probability of collisions of spacecraft with other objects, including space debris and harmful signal interference has increased, because the United States has opted to make domestic satellite rules and frequency allocations and in advance of final ITU consideration. Additionally, initiatives by China and Russia to expand the ITU’s mission to include elements of Internet governance could promote balkanization of Internet access and recognize the sovereign right of individual nations to surveil and control access to broadband networks.The paper assesses whether and how UN agencies can continue to establish timely and effective policies and procedures for reducing space debris and the potential for spacecraft collisions, and preventing harmful signal interference. The paper concludes that China, Russia, and the U.S., should renew efforts to promote collegiality, consensus building, and longstanding, shared goals at UN and ITU conferences.     

5G and the notion of network ideology,or: The limitations of sociotechnical imaginaries

Transnational communication networks are produced in contestation between and among multinational corporations and nation-states. In the study of the governance of communication networks governance in science and technology studies, traditionally the emphasis has been on sociotechnical imaginaries (Jasanoff & Kim, 2015) which encapsulate joint futures that produce institutional configurations and the discursive roles in the power tussle between various stakeholders. I argue that next to the studying of power over infrastructures and their governance by sociotechnical imaginaries, there is an increasing need to study how power is distributed and control is exercised through the shaping of the technological materiality of infrastructures, as is happening for instance in the process of standardization. To describe the workings of the distribution of power and the exercising of control through networks, governance, and standardization, I expand the concept of network ideologies (Bory, 2020) to show how several network ideologies are at play in the shaping of 5G networks. I base my analysis on the qualitative analysis of standard-setting processes through document analysis of mailinglist conversations, standards, and policy documents, as well as through the parallel operation of experimental 5G networks. The analysis shows that sociotechnical imaginaries are insufficient to show the political process of the distribution of power and opportunities for control through the production of transnational communication infrastructures. The notion of network ideologies might provide a basis to study the merging of internet and telecommunication infrastructures, their standard-setting, and their governance as well as the excommunication of the user by relinquishing its ability to understand and configure infrastructures.     

The missing link: a political hot potato

The Maitland Commission's report, The Missing Link, contains a cascade of recommendations - political, financial, institutional and operational. But, by setting a timetable for implementation of its recommendations before the next ITU Plenipotentiary the Commission has ensured that The Missing Link will be a political hot potato for the rest of the decade.     

Freedom of access to the radio spectrum for satellite communications

A conference will open on 8 August 1985 under ITU auspices to consider major procedural changes in the international regulation of the use of the radio spectrum by geostationary satellites. There has been strong pressure for the introduction of a priori orbit/ spectrum planning for, for example, the fixed-satellite service from countries which foresee that they may lose their option to set up domestic satellite networks under the present ptocedure. However, reform of the present procedures, rather than radical change, would give better assurance that the real needs of all countries will be met.     

公司治理前沿问题的哲学思考

文章从哲学的角度对公司治理学科中的前沿问题进行了思考。围绕公司治理的内涵,从公司治理的发展历程、公司治理中的利益导向及新兴治理、集团治理和网络治理的特点出发,结合哲学中的发展和变革、系统理论、普遍联系和人的价值对公司治理的前沿问题做了简要分析。     

ITU Plenipotentiary Conference and beyond : A case for serious foreign policy

The ITU Plenipotentiary Conference held in Nairobi in the Fall of 1982 was a significant international instrument for the conduct of telecommunication foreign policy. Growing demand for telecommunication services and products coupled with the economic and sociocultural impact of new technologies have resulted in greater global interest in the problems, issues and technical complexities of maintaining order in global telecommunication. A major theme of this article is that ITU deliberations and decisions are all part of the growing telecommunication foreign policy agenda and that the benefits of successful diplomancy are usually worth the costs of effective and coordinated domestic and international policy development.     

Assessing the influence of the organization in the supply chain management using NK simulation

Supply chain management advocates that the whole supply chain (SC) from the material suppliers to the end customers must be managed by adopting an integrated approach. However, different forms of governance can be adopted to pursue integration, ranging from the pure market to the hierarchy. While integration has been extensively investigated in the literature by adopting an operative perspective, the organizational perspective has been less used. However, the way the SC is organized influences the SC performance. This topic is investigated by using a recent tool offered by complexity science, namely the NK simulation model. In the proposed NK model, N represents the decisions that SC firms should make and K the interdependencies among the SC decisions calling for integration. The model reproduces how the different SC forms of governance evolve and adapt to the landscape corresponding to a SC specific integration problem. A simulation analysis is carried out to identify the SC forms of governance appropriate to the SC integration problems.     

The politics of relevance and the ITU

Ruben Näslund has done the telecommunications community a service by stimulating debate on the issues facing the ITU in the wake of the Nairobi Plenipotentiary Conference. The Nairobi Conference was important for both what was said and resolved and what was unsaid and unresolved. When sovereign nations meet for six weeks there is an interplay of emotions and perceptions which imperceptibly mould policy formulation well after the event. A Plenipotentiary Conference is a political event, however much the engineers, technicians and PTT administrators of the telecommunications community prefer or pretend that is not. The purpose of this article is to examine some of the outstanding ITU issues in light of certain basic facts which structure the interests of member countries.     

Toward international settlement reform: FCC benchmarks versus ITU rates

The global telecommunications service market is undergoing significant change as more countries privatize suppliers, liberalize national markets, and encourage entry. Despite these changes, international settlement rates remain significantly higher than the cost to terminate calls and many carriers reap substantial monopoly profits from the settlement payments they receive. Annual US settlement payments approximate $5 billion. Settlement rates are declining but the progress has been slow. High settlement rates, by raising the cost of international telephone service, result in high calling prices. To accelerate a reduction in settlement rates, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted a set of maximum rates, called benchmark rates, which it expects US carriers to use in their settlements with other carriers and created a process designed to insure the implementation of these rates. The FCC benchmark rates vary primarily on the basis of a country's level of economic development. When the FCC took its action, the benchmark rates, which range from 15 to 23¢, were significantly below the rates in effect with most countries. The FCC action was widely criticized even though the rates exceed costs, vary according to countries’ levels of economic development, and will be phased in over five years to give countries time to adjust. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) took an unprecedented step of proposing an alternative set of settlement rates for its members. The ITU rates differ significantly from the FCC rates, being much lower for economically advanced countries and significantly higher for less developed countries. The ITU rates vary according to a country's teledensity but the rationale for the ITU categories lacks support. In addition, other, arbitrary categories are part of the plan. Neither the FCC nor the ITU approach to reducing settlement rates address the problem of reforming the international settlement process and replacing it with an economically efficient, market oriented payment scheme. The first stage of the FCC policy went into effect in 1999. Complemented by changing market conditions, the policy has lead to lower US settlement rates, but most rates still exceed competitive market levels. Virtually all US minutes in the FCC's top two income categories comply with the prescribed benchmark rates. In fact, many countries in these two categories have rates with US carriers that are below benchmark levels. Several less developed countries have also negotiated rates with US carriers that conform to the FCC plan. As a result, US carriers benefit from the FCC policy as their average settlement costs decline. These cost reductions make possible lower calling prices but the market structure of US international communications service industry may inhibit the flow-through of these savings to US consumers. US consumer's prices were falling before the FCC acted on settlement rates. The FCC action seems to have increased the pressure to further reduce these rates. At the same time, however, service markets are being increasingly segmented and price discrimination is more widely practiced so only some US consumers benefit from lower settlement rates.     

The changing nature of the ITU Plenipotentiary

The Plenipotentiary Conference is the supreme organ of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Since the Nairobi Plenipotentiary in 1982, there has been much debate about the role of the Plenipotentiary and even the future of the ITU in the continuing telecommunications revolution. This article explores the major attributes of the Plenipotentiary by comparing the Nairobi Conference with the five post-second world war Plenipotentiaries that preceded it. Criticisms are evaluated and suggestions for improvement are made.     

Guanxi as a governance mechanism in business markets: Its characteristics, relevant theories, and future research directions

With a growing interest in doing business in a Confucian society, scholars and managers have given much attention to Guanxi as a governance mechanism. Yet, little has been known the unique aspects and the effectiveness of Guanxi-based governance. To address such gap, we specify three distinct aspects of Guanxi in a business setting. First, Guanxi is a fine balance among three key elements: qing (emotion or feeling), li (reciprocity) and liyi (utilitarian benefits). Second, Guanxi pertains to dynamic, interactive relationships at both individual and organizational levels. Third, Guanxi is unalterably linked to the concept of Guanxi-networking (or more precisely, quanzi). Based on these unique aspects, we argue that industrial marketing scholars can borrow theories from veracious disciplines and call for more effort in the empirical examination of the interactions among the three aspects of Guanxi-based governance, the efficacy of Guanxi-based governance, the developmental process of Guanxi networks, and the interactions of interpersonal Guanxi to organizational Guanxi.     

Independence and the regulatory state—Telecommunications in Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom

In the autumn of 2014 the residents of Scotland, but not other parts of the UK, will vote on whether to leave the UK and to become a separate state, with a positive vote leading to an independent parliament expected to be elected in 2016. It would remain within the EU and in compliance with its acquis communitaire. This paper identifies issues that would have to be addressed in preparing for and creating a new system of governance for telecommunications markets on that tight timescale.     

WARC-ORB-85: Guaranteeing access to the geostationary orbit

The measures that have been introduced to regulate the use of the geostationary orbit are considered by the vast majority of ITU members to be inadequate in their ability to guarantee access to the orbit by all states. In the absence of any powers of enforcement for the ITU, it would seem that ORB-85 may decide that only a long term plan, for the fixed-satellite service, could guarantee access to all states. An alternative is suggested that could meet the objectives of all states.     

上市公司董事会专业委员会的设立及其在中国的现状分析

董事会作为公司治理的核心,一直是国内外学者研究的热点。由于董事会本身的内生性缺陷,因此在董事会下设立相应的专业委员会作为常设机构来弥补董事会的自身不足成为公司治理的重要构架。在中国股份制改革下．许多上市公司的董事会依然欠缺独立性,而且专业能力不足。文章在介绍董事会专业委员会基本理论及有关国家经验的基础上,分析了董事会专业委员会在我国的发展现状．并提出了完善我国董事会专业委员会制度的建议。强调为强化上市公司董事会功能,设置专业委员会是必要之措施。     

Development of policy in the ITU

As one of the oldest functional-purpose international organisations, the ITU is dedicated to voluntary agreements. These concern allocation of a scarce, internationally shared resourced, the radio frequency spectrum; standardisation of telecommunication services and systems; and joint planning. The organisation's policy making in pursuit of these objectives is outlined. Powers given to different organs are explained. Several cases are cited as illustrations of policy problems and their solutions. In summary, the rationale for the ITU's complex, federated structure is described.     

Forecasting telecommunications data with linear models

For telecommunication companies to successfully manage their business, companies rely on mapping future trends and usage patterns. However, the evolution of telecommunications technology and systems in the provision of services renders imperfections in telecommunications data and impinges on a company's’ ability to properly evaluate and plan their business. International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Recommendation E.507 provides a selection of econometric models for forecasting these trends. However, no specific guidance is given. This paper evaluates whether simple extrapolation techniques in Recommendation E.507 can generate accurate forecasts. Standard forecast error statistics—mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), median absolute percentage error and percentage better—show the ARIMA, Holt and Holt-D models provide better forecasts than a random walk and other linear extrapolation methods.     

Lessons from broadband development in Canada,Japan, Korea and the United States

Broadband network development does not always track closely a nations overall wealth and economic strength. The International Telecommunication Union reported that in 2005 the five top nations for broadband network market penetration were: Korea, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Denmark and Canada. The ITU ranked the United States sixteenth in broadband penetration.Aside from the obvious geographical and demographic advantages accruing to small nations with large urban populations, broadband development thrives when it becomes a national priority. Both developed and developing nations have stimulated capital expenditures for infrastructure in ways United States public and private sector stakeholders have yet to embrace. Such investments have accrued ample dividends including the lowest broadband access costs in the world. For example, the ITU reports that in 2002 Japanese consumers paid $0.09 per 100 kilobits per second of broadband access compared to $3.53 in the United States.Economic policies do not completely explain why some nations offer faster, better cheaper and more convenient broadband services while other nations do not. This paper will examine best practices in broadband network development with an eye toward determining the optimal mix of legislative, regulatory and investment initiatives. The paper will track development in Canada, Japan and Korea as these nations have achieved success despite significantly different geographical, political and marketplace conditions. The paper also notes the institutional and regulatory policies that have hampered broadband development in the United States.The paper also will examine why incumbent local exchange and cable television operators recently have begun aggressively to pursue broadband market opportunities. The paper will analyze incumbents’ rationales for limited capital investment in broadband with an eye toward determining the credibility of excuses based on regulatory risk and uncertainty. The paper concludes with suggestions how national governments might expedite broadband infrastructure development.