Fast Facts on United States Submitting Initial Proposals to World Telecom Conference

On August 3, 2012, the United States will submitted its first group of proposals to the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT), which will be held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, December 3-14, 2012.

The US proposals include:

• Minimal changes to the preamble of the International Telecommunications Regulations (ITRs);
• Alignment of the definitions in the ITRs with those in the ITU Constitution and Convention, including no change to the definitions of telecommunications and international telecommunications service;
• Maintaining the voluntary nature of compliance with ITU-T Recommendations;
• Continuing to apply the ITRs only to recognized operating agencies or RoAs; i.e., the ITRs’ scope should not be expanded to address other operating agencies that are not involved in the provision of authorized or licensed international telecommunications services to the public; and
• Revisions of Article 6 to affirm the role played by market competition and commercially negotiated agreements for exchanging international telecommunication traffic.

The U.S. will carefully monitor and study the proposals submitted by other countries. The U.S. is concerned that proposals by some other governments could lead to greater regulatory burdens being placed on the international telecom sector, or perhaps even extended to the Internet sector -- a result the U.S. would oppose.