Nicaragua and its position at the ITU's processes for assessing compliance and interoperability testing

1. Nicaragua and its position at the ITU's processes for assessing compliance and interoperability testing Ing. José Guillermo Valdivia Rojas Director of Control and Supervision TELCOR-Nicaragua July, 06 2010

2. TELCOR-NICARAGUA TELCOR is the regulator of telecommunications in Nicaragua It is a member of ITU since 1929 Member of the regional organization COMTELCA Among its functions is to guarantee the quality and safety of all Nicaraguan telecommunications

3. BACKGROUND Nicaragua does not implement any process for assessing compliance, or interoperability testing, this from a regulatory point of view and therefore this results in a number of problems

4. Problems due to lack of conformity to standards or to lack of interoperability of equipment or services Terminals enter the market illegaly Questionable quality of network equipment The market is full of poor-quality of terminals equipment

5. What are theproblemsthatarise? Hardware Software Partial non conformity for expected functionalities Out of service Signaling Safety requirements Overhead configuration

6. Themainreasons are: No conformity to standards Poorinteroperabilityequipmentsamevendor Poorinteroperabilityequipmentdifferentvendor Poorinteroperabilitysameoperator Poorinteroperabilitydifferentoperator

7. Thissituation has effectson: Cost increase to the need to replace some existing equipment or to buy additional equipment to solve problems Negative impacts on customers Negative image with respect to competitors Limited or no access to required services Delay in restoring Impact on effectiveness of services for civil society and emergency (for example public phones could not handle a three-digit numbering, wich are the emergency numbers

8. Our Position Strongly support the program objectives of the ITU in reference to Resolution 76 of WTSA-08, which consist of: assist developing countries in capacity-building and training opportunities in conformity and interoperability testing; assist developing countries in establishing regional or sub-regional centres suitable to perform conformity and interoperability testing as appropriate;

9. What do weneed? Implement the provisions of the resolution 76 of the ITU to increase the probability of interoperability between different manufacturers, suppliers and operators. The implementation of certification laboratories

10. About the Council-09 We strongly support the provisions of Council 09 Creation of a conformance database Assist establishment of test facilities in developing countries Creation of human resources capacity building opportunities

11. In Summary We support all procedures that ITU is developing to carry out excellent conformance and interoperability of telecommunications systems. We believe that in developing countries should avoid these problems, affecting both operators and end users and the application of Resolution 76 of the ITU is a way to avoid many problems if we apply it immediately. Compliance testing and interoprabilidad and database are indespensible tools to achieve our objectives.

12. Thanks for your attention