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November 2013 Brussels to Host 25th 2014 Biennial Conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Spotlight on Corporate Results of 2013 ITS ITS Journal, Telecommunications ITS Conference Committee Announces 2015 Regional Conference in Accra, Ghana News from the ITS Board:
——————- To ensure uninterrupted delivery of the ITS membership journal, Telecommunications Policy, as well as e-mail announcements of upcoming Calls for Papers, publications, conference registration discounts and similar news of potential interest sent via the Don Romaniuk, ITS Secretariat at secretariat@itsworld.org —————— Editor: Don Romaniuk Graphic Design Artist:
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Dear ITS Colleagues: I'm writing this message from back home in Sweden after having returned from beautiful Florence, Italy where I participated in the 24th European Regional ITS Conference late in October along with 160 other guest speakers, paper presenters and general attendees. I am delighted to report that the Florence Conference was by every measure a tremendous success for ITS. The theme of this year's European Regional Conference was Technology, Investment and Uncertainty. The proceedings began with a thoroughly engaging panel discussion on the future of European regulation involving the Chair-elect of BEREC, Mr. Göran Marby, DG of the Swedish NRA (PTS), Dr. Lucilla Sioli, Head of the Economic and Statistical Analysis Unit of the Information Society and Media Directorate-General European Commission, and Professor Steffen Hoernig, Universidad de Nova Lisboa. This was followed by a lively exchange of views and ideas in the Conference's plenary sessions and two and half days of multiple concurrent sessions featuring a great many outstanding papers. Overall, the Conference offered attendees an exceptional social and educational experience from the first-rate scientific program and extraordinary hospitality offered by the Conference hosts, all of which took place in a remarkable venue — an ancient, restored monastery with a stunning view of Florence – to the wonderful Tuscan cuisine and accompanying wines, and a truly memorable gala event at the Villa Medicea di Castello atop the hills overlooking Florence.
On behalf of ITS, I wish to offer my sincerest thanks to the following key organizers of this event without whose dedication, efforts and inspired leadership it would not have been possible: Pier-Luigi Parsu, Director, Florence School of Regulation, Robert Schuman Center for Advanced Studies, European University Institute (EUI), together with Elisabetta Spagnoli and Marie Luisa Stasi also with EUI, plus Jason Whalley, Newcastle Business School and Brigitte Preissl, ZBW. I also wish to thank the graduate students and discussants who participated in the 5th ITS Ph.D. Seminar immediately following the Florence Conference for their well-prepared presentations and papers and insightful comments thereon. The calibre of papers presented at this year's Seminar was one of the highest since ITS first began organizing this event. My deepest thanks as well go to ITS Board member, Brigitte Preissl, for her unstinting and tireless efforts in organizing the 2013 Florence Ph.D. Seminar. The Regional Conference and Ph.D. Seminar in Florence were the final two ITS events of 2013. We currently have three conferences planned for 2014-2015: (1) the 25th European Regional ITS Conference to be held in Brussels, Belgium, June 22-25, 2014, together with the 6th ITS Ph.D. Seminar June 25-26; (2) the 20th ITS Biennial Conference which will take place in Rio de Janeiro, November 30 – December 3, 2014; and (3) the first ever Africa Regional ITS Conference to be held in Accra, Ghana in May 2015. I am also very happy to report that the ITS Board met for a full day immediately prior to the Florence Conference. The meeting was very well attended with the Board focusing on the future direction of ITS. Guiding the Board in its deliberations was a strategic review led by Andrea Renda, together with a report from Stanford Levin summarizing the results of a membership survey undertaken by the Marketing and Promotions Committee earlier in the year. There was also an engaging discussion led by ITS Vice Chair, Stephen Schmidt, on the need for more inter-committee collaboration and improved coordination of the numerous Committee tasks and undertakings as the organization moves forward. The Board emerged from its meeting as enthusiastic and united in its outlook for, and as energized in its commitment to, the long-run success of our organization as it has ever been. This bodes extremely well for ITS as it continues to build on its track record of success over the past quarter century. In other Board related news, I am delighted to announce the election at our Florence meeting of our newest Board member, Dr. Ting Jie Lu. ITS members may recall that Dr. Lu had earlier served a six year term on the ITS Board (2006-2012) and was the principal organizer of the very successful 2006 ITS Biennial Conference held in Beijing. The Florence meeting also saw the departure of Mr. Sam Parker as an ITS Board member. Mr. Parker had been the Board representative of ITS Global Corporate member, AT&T, since 2008. With his decision to retire from AT&T, however, Mr. Parker advised the Board that he will also, of necessity, be stepping down from the ITS Board. It gives me great pleasure to warmly welcome back Dr. Lu to the ITS Board and, at the same time, I wish to extend to Mr. Parker my sincerest gratitude for his many years of service to ITS and best wishes for a happy, healthy and rewarding retirement. As always, I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible in the months ahead at one or more of our upcoming Conferences and to engaging you in discussions on the issues and subjects of greatest interest and concern to the telecommunications and broader ICT industry. This being the final issue of Interconnect in 2013, I wish you all the very best for the upcoming holiday season and extend to you my sincerest best wishes for health, happiness and continued success in the New Year. Sincerely, ————————————————– Spotlight on Corporate Members: Orange
Long-standing ITS Global Corporate member, Orange (formerly France Telecom), is one of the world's leading telecom operators with total sales of 43.5 billion euros in 2012. As at June 30, 2013, Orange had 168,000 employees worldwide, including 103,000 in France. Orange operates in 32 different countries providing fixed, mobile and broadband services to over 230 million customers. Measured by the number of customers it serves, Orange is the 9th largest telecom operator in the world. Under the brand name Orange Business Services, the Group is also a leading global provider of ICT services across the entire enterprise market – serving SMEs, large businesses, multinationals and governments – with one of the world's most extensive coverage areas spanning 166 countries. Orange's top corporate priorities over the next 3 to 5 years focus heavily on its people, its customers and the rollout of networks for the future. An original initiative within the telecom industry, the Orange People Charter was launched in 2011 and reflects the Group's commitment to being a socially responsible employer promoting people's growth and a quality work environment, as the foundation for creating an outstanding customer experience and unparalleled satisfaction. This dedication to customers is focused on bringing simplicity and richness to the customer experience, paying particular attention to proximity – in sales and service relationships – and privacy protection. Beyond these humanist orientations, Orange also wishes to retain leadership in technological excellence and is committed to meeting the explosive growth in demand for bandwidth, while maintaining the highest standards in service quality and reliability. This will be achieved through continued investment in extending next generation broadband coverage and infrastructure modernization, under sustainable standards. The same Orange values also steer the Orange Foundation's involvement in charity and community level non-profit initiatives. In particular, the Foundation focuses on fostering relationships between individuals and making communication easier for those who are excluded for any reason, be it illness, handicap, poverty or other conditions. By fighting against sensory isolation, promoting greater individual autonomy in everyday life and in professional environments, and encouraging social and cultural development, the Orange Foundation works to make the world more open and accessible. For example, the Foundation has worked hand-in-hand with charities to create and develop care, training and research centres to improve the lives of people with autism and their families. The Foundation also supports improved access to medical testing, diagnostic services and healthcare, especially for women and children. Facilitating access to education, training and professional instruction, with a focus on digital literacy, remains a core priority of the Foundation, both within and outside Europe. For example, in Africa, where the Group has numerous operations, the Foundation relentlessly continues to promote literacy, school attendance and access to culture for children and underprivileged adults, especially women and young girls. Vianney Hennes — Orange's Representative on the ITS Board
Mr. Vianney Hennes is Orange's Director of European Public Affairs in Brussels, Belgium, a position he has held since 2007. His primary responsibility in that capacity has been representing the Orange Group before various European institutions. A graduate of Ecole Polytechnique (1982) and Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications (1984), Mr. Hennes started his career with France Telecom Orange serving in various operational roles in the Paris area (1984-1987). He was later assigned responsibility for Europe within France Telecom's International Affairs unit, where he contributed to business development strategies for the Group in Western and Eastern Europe (1990-1998). His next assignment within the Group was managing mobile and fixed activities in Switzerland, the UK and Germany (1997-2003). Along with this extensive operational experience, Mr. Hennes is well versed in industrial economics, regulation and regulatory policy-making, a knowledge base and skill set that served him well during his tenure as Senior Vice-President of International Strategy (2003-2005) and Head of European and International Regulation (2005-2007) for France Telecom Orange. Mr. Hennes has been Orange's representative on the ITS Board since 2006. ————————————————– ITS Conference Committee Approves Proposal for First Ever Africa Regional ITS Conference The ITS Conference Committee is pleased to announce that it has approved a proposal from the Center for Communication, Media and Information Technologies (CMI), Aalborg University, Denmark in cooperation with Ghana Technology University College (GTUC) to host a two-day Africa Regional ITS Conference in Accra, Ghana in May 2015. Further details about this Conference will be disseminated by CMI via the ITS-L and will be published on the ITS web site at www.itsworld.org in due course.
————————————————- ITS Conferences 2014 June 25th European Regional Conference November-December 20th ITS Biennial Conference Rio de Janeiro, Brazil • November 30 – December 3, 2014 2015 African Regional Conference
Other Conferences of Potential Interest 2013 November DigiWorld Summit 2013 2014 January Pacific Telecommunications Council (PTC) Conference March EuroCPR2014 June 13th International Conference on Mobile Business International Institute of Forecasters (IIF) July International Association for Media and Communication Research |
Brussels to Host 25th European Regional ITS is pleased to announce that the 25th European Regional ITS Conference will be held in Brussels, Belgium, June 22-25, 2014. This will be the first ever ITS Regional Conference to be held in that city. The Conference is being hosted by iMinds (formerly IBBT) an independent research institute, founded by the Flemish government, the mission of which is to stimulate ICT innovation. The theme of the Brussels Conference is Disruptive Innovation in the ICT Industries: Challenges for European Policy and Business. The Call for Papers for this Conference will be issued in mid- to late November via the ITS-L and will be published on the ITS web site at the same time. Topics to be addressed at the Conference might include the following:
The Conference Organizing Committee currently comprises Pieter Ballon, Caroline Pauwels, Sven Lindmark, Luciano Morganti and Hans de Canck of iMinds SMIT; Sofie Verbrugge of iMinds IBCN; and ITS Board members: Andrea Renda, of CEPS; Brigitte Preissl, of ZBW; and Jason Whalley, of Newcastle Business School. As iMinds noted in its proposal for hosting this Conference, Brussels is not only the capital of the Kingdom of Belgium, it is the capital of the European Union. Together with its immediately surrounding region, this cosmopolitan city and international financial centre serves as the permanent home of the European Commission, the European Council and the European Parliament among other major European institutions, not to mention over 120 international governmental organizations and more than 1400 NGOs. The city-region also hosts 159 embassies and the offices of over 1300 multinational corporations, as well as the international headquarters of hundreds of scientific organizations. For those interested in attending this Conference, it is worth noting that Brussels has as much to offer the first time visitor as it does the seasoned traveller and frequent guest. Brussels is a multilingual (French, Dutch and English) and multicultural city, with diverse and captivating architecture, a vibrant artistic community, and an international reputation (especially among gastronomes) for outstanding cuisine that extends well beyond its exquisite chocolates, waffles, moules frites and truly impressive offerings of quality beers. Further details on this Conference, including the Call for Papers, and information on registration and accommodation, will be disseminated via the ITS-L and published on the ITS web site at www.itsworld.org as soon as it becomes available. In the meantime, please be certain to add the 25th European Regional ITS Conference in Brussels to your calendar for 2014.
————————————————– 2014 ITS Biennial Conference in The 20th ITS Biennial Conference will take place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil from November 30 to December 3, 2014. It will be held at the luxurious 4-star Sheraton Rio Hotel and Resort. The Conference host will be ITS Global Corporate member, TIM Brasil. The theme of the 20th ITS Biennial is The Net and the Internet: Emerging Markets and Policies. The preliminary program for the Conference envisions five main tracks:
Inherent in these five tracks is a layered approach to the study and analysis of emerging markets' policies in cyberspace. Among the core issues to be addressed are (1) the tradeoffs between encouraging large-scale (and profitable) investment in new infrastructure while facilitating vigorous competition for the benefit of consumers; (2) optimal approaches not only to “net neutrality”, but to emerging analogues including “search neutrality” and “cloud neutrality”; (3) the sustainability of for-profit content creation, broadcasting and copyright protection in light of evolving new media platforms and new internet business models; (4) future national and international internet governance initiatives; and (5) re-envisioning the role of broadband communications as simultaneously enabling, enhancing and transforming economic, social and political activity and interaction at all levels of society. It is anticipated that a number of similar and equally challenging policy issues directly affecting social welfare, economic growth and development and, increasingly, the very foundations of modern society will also be addressed in the Conference program. Present plans are to issue the Conference Call for Papers (CFP) by November 30, 2013 and to have the Conference web site fully up and running by that time as well. The CFP will be disseminated via the ITS-L and posted on the ITS web site at www.itsworld.org as soon as it is issued by the Conference organizers.
————————————————- Results of 2013 ITS Membership Survey Earlier this year, the ITS Membership and Nominations Committee, led by Christian Dippon (with technical assistance provided by ITS Global Corporate member, NERA), conducted a survey of approximately 1300 subscribers to the ITS-L Listserv distribution list. Responses were received from 151 individuals, 112 of whom were ITS members. The 112 respondents who were ITS members were asked to evaluate the benefits they receive as members. 91% said that Telecommunications Policy was highly or somewhat valuable. Registration fee discounts at regional conferences (86%), and access to both the listserv (79%) and Interconnect, the ITS newsletter (71%) were also valuable, although the results were more skewed toward “highly valuable” for Telecommunications Policy. Based on all responses received, the most valuable membership benefit provided by ITS is the complimentary subscription to the ITS journal. Significantly, when asked an open-ended question about what other membership benefits ITS could or should offer that are not currently being provided but which would be of value to members, respondents – by an overwhelming majority — indicated that they were happy with their current benefits and had no suggestions for additional ones. A few members, however, suggested that regional conference registration fees should be lowered even further for ITS members. When asked how valuable biennial and regional conferences were to them, 93% of those members responding found biennial conferences highly or somewhat valuable, while 86% said the same for regional conferences, with responses being skewed towards highly valuable, especially for biennials. Networking opportunities were found to be highly or somewhat valuable at biennial conferences (91%), regional conferences (85%), and in general (83%), with responses being skewed towards highly valuable, especially for biennials. The survey asked the 39 respondents who were not ITS members why they had not yet joined. The response form allowed individuals to select more than one reason. Of the 39 respondents, 21 said the membership fee was too high, while 13 said they prefer to be involved only occasionally. Eight said it had simply not occurred to them to join, and 5 said there were not enough benefits. Two said they didn't have the time. An open-ended question asked what additional benefits would be required to persuade them to become an ITS member. There were only a few responses to this, but most of those indicated the membership fee was too high or the conference topics were not sufficiently of interest. Overall, the survey would appear to suggest that ITS members are very satisfied with the benefits they receive, particularly their annual subscription to Telecommunications Policy, that the program content of regional and, especially, biennial conferences is valuable to them, and that they derive a great deal of value from the networking opportunities afforded to them by attending ITS conferences, especially biennials. ————————————————– ITS Journal, Telecommunications Policy, Achieves High “Influence Score” According to a widely used industry metric, Telecommunications Policy scores in the top quintile among peer journals in terms of its influence on its targeted readership. Each year, Thompson Reuters publishes an annual “impact factor” for thousands of academic and scientific journals in its Journal Citations Report. The impact factor is one of several bibliometric indicators used to measure the influence of journals. The Thompson Reuters journal impact factor measures the average number of references or citations in any given year to the papers published in a particular journal over the previous two years and/or five years. By way of example, the 2012 two-year impact factor for papers published in any single journal is calculated as follows: # of citations in the year 2012 to “source items” A “source item” is defined as a full paper and includes original research articles, reviews, full length proceedings papers, etc. but excludes “non-source items” such as editorials, short meeting abstracts, errata and the like. This notwithstanding, non-source items receiving citations will still be included in the numerator but not the denominator of the calculation. According to Elsevier, which publishes several thousand journals, “the Impact Factor can be a useful way of comparing citability of journals, if the comparison is limited to a given subject field and the type of journals being compared (review, original research, letters) are similar. The absolute Impact Factor is of limited use, without that of other journals in the field against which to judge it… [The] “Impact Factor” can be affected by subject field, number of authors, content type, and the size of the journal.” Based on the Thompson Reuters journal impact factors for the past two years, Telecommunications Policy was ranked 12th out of 72 in influence among Elsevier-published journals focusing on similar subject matter in 2011 and 13th out of 73 comparable journals in 2012. In absolute terms, total citations in 2011 to articles published in Telecommunications Policy in 2009 and 2010 numbered 822. Total citations in 2012 to articles published in 2010 and 2011 increased to 961. The reported two-year impact factors for Telecommunications Policy in 2011 and 2012 were 1.539 and 1.594, respectively. The corresponding five-year impact factors for Telecommunications Policy were 1.680 in 2011 and 1.672 in 2012. ITS Chair, Dr. Erik Bohlin (Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden), is Editor in Chief of Telecommunications Policy. He is assisted by Associate Editors, Dr. Johannes Bauer (Michigan State University, USA) and Dr. Gary Madden (Curtin Business School, Australia), and Book Reviews Editor, Dr. Jason Whalley (Newcastle Business School, UK). For a complete list of members of the Telecommunications Policy International Editorial Board, please see: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/telecommunications-policy/editorial-board/. Readers are reminded that a complimentary subscription to Telecommunications Policy, which is published 11 times a year,is included in the annual membership fee paid by ITS members. ————————————————– Arrivals and Departures The ITS Board held its annual meeting in Florence this year on October 20, 2013 just prior to the start of the 24th European Regional ITS Conference. At that meeting, the Board elected Dr. Ting Jie Lu to serve on the Board until 2018.
Dr. Lu is Assistant President of Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT), and continues to serve as Dean of the School of Economics and Management at BUPT, positions he has held since 2008 and 2003, respectively. He has also been a Professor at BUPT since 1996. Dr. Lu received a Bachelors degree in Radio Engineering from BUPT in 1982, a Masters degree in Management Engineering from BUPT in 1985, and his Ph.D. from Kyoto University in 1991. He also spent 6 months as a visiting scholar at the AT&T Business School and Bell Labs in 1994. Dr. Lu has published 6 books and some 40 academic papers, primarily in the area of e-commerce, mobile commerce and management theory. In 1995, Professor Lu won the Japan TELECOM social scientific price for his research on 'China National Telecommunication Infrastructure and its Impact on Economic Development' published in serialized form in Japan IEICE magazine. ITS is delighted to welcome back Dr. Lu as a member of the Board and looks forward to a long and very productive relationship with him in furthering the work of ITS in advancing scientific inquiry and social and economic policy development in the ICT domain. The ITS Board also saw the departure of one its members at its October meeting in Florence. Sam Parker, who served on the Board for the past several years as the representative of ITS Global Corporate member AT&T, announced his retirement from that corporation and, consequently, from the Board effective the end of October. ITS Chair, Erik Bohlin, thanked Mr. Parker for his many years of dedicated service to ITS and extended to him, on behalf of the entire organization, his fondest and best wishes for a long, healthy and most enjoyable retirement. Mr. Parker's replacement as AT&T's Board representative will be determined by the Board prior to the end of 2013 and will be announced to the general membership in the next issue of Interconnect early in 2014. |
