25th Biennial Conference of the International Telecommunications Society (ITS)

Tokyo, Japan, June 28 – July 1, 2026

 

Opening Remarks of ITS Chair, Stephen Schmidt, 29 June 2026

 

 

Returning to Tokyo: Where the ITS Journey Began

 

Good morning!

おはようございます。   ようこそ、東京へ

It is an immense pleasure and honour to welcome you to Tokyo, to Waseda University, and to the 25th Biennial Conference of the ITS.

This is a special gathering for ITS.

This is a world-class policy conference  in a world-class city.  But it is more than that.

今回は、40年前にITSが東京で、初めて開催した記念すべき場所です.

(Kon-kai wa, 40-nen mae ni ITS ga Tōkyō de, hajimete kaisai shita kinen subeki basho desu).

 

We are returning to our birthplace

The first communications policy conference, under the ITS banner, took place here in Tokyo – 40 years ago, in 1986.

In 1986, we were invited to Japan, and we were drawn to Japan, because the country was pioneering new policies around telecommunications interconnection, competition, and privatization.

  • and indeed was amongst only a handful of countries in the world who were doing so, at that time.

What the Japanese people, government, and industry were doing was visionary and brave. 

  • They were entering unexplored territory,
  • with no clear maps
  • and no settled answers to the central policy questions around:
  • Telecommunications, interconnection, competition, and privatization.

All of which made gatherings like this essential, so we could learn from each other and so we could learn from the example and leadership of Japanese people.

  • Japan’s early leadership in telecommunications policy innovation was an extension of its extraordinary policy-led, post-war economic transformation.
  • In a deeper sense, the country’s long tradition of modernization reaching back to the Meiji period.

 

ITS / Continuity and Change

If we can continue the image of ITS being “born” in Japan, it is worth saying something about the “parents”.  

The idea of ITS was conceived by a group of thinkers and practitioners, at the time, spanning Japan, Canada, the United States, England and France.

ITS was created as a meeting place – a forum to facilitate the sharing of  research and to facilitate dialogue.  And we would do so:

  • in friendship,
  • around the world, and
  • amongst stakeholders in government, academia and industry.

That vision continues, today, on an even larger scale – through our global conferences, our leading journals, our webinars, and more.

In a fractured and challenging world, the idea of coming together – in friendship, in order to facilitate scientific inquiry –  is more important than ever. 

 

Our Conference

Today’s conference reminds us how much has changed since 1986 – but also how much endures.

The familiar questions – of competition, interconnection, pricing, discrimination, and remedies – have not disappeared.

Rather, these questions have reappeared, with new names and a greater scale, in the language of platforms, cloud, artificial intelligence, and digital sovereignty.

Beneath the new vocabulary and the new technologies, we can still recognize the enduring continuities. 

So, perhaps we have travelled very far – technologically and temporally – only to find ourselves back home intellectually:

  • back to Tokyo, where this ITS journey began;
  • back to the enduring questions that have always animated communications policy; and
  • back to the reasons for gatherings like this. 

Against that backdrop, it is no surprise that we are returning to our home with gratitude, affection and a sense of continuity.

はじめて開催した場所にもどってきました

[Hajimete kaisai shita basho ni modotte kimashita].

ただいま.

 

Thanks and Close

It takes thousands of hours of volunteer efforts

  • along with institutional support from the host university, from industry and from government to make an event of this scale and quality happen.

So, on behalf of the ITS Board, I want to express our deepest thanks to our hosts and organizers for their generous support.

Thank you to:

  • the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC),
  • the KDDI Foundation; and
  • The Telecommunications Advancement Foundation

Thank you, as well, to our conference sponsors:

  • NTT, Inc. and
  • KDDI Research, Inc.

Thank you to our academic host Waseda University, including:

  • the Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies and the Dean, Professor Atsushi Kato,
  • the Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, and
  • the Institute for Digital Society.

Thank you to:

  • the Japan Society of Information and Communication Research (JSICR)
  • We are especially grateful to Professor Hitoshi Mitomo and local organizing committees and everyone else whose careful, thoughtful work made this conference possible.

開催に関わった皆さん、ありがとうございました。

[Kaisai ni kakawatta minasan, arigatōgozaimashita]

And I reserve my biggest thanks for all of you.

  • Institutions and committees make a conference possible;
  • but people bring it to life through research, questions, generosity, and your smiles.
  • Thanks, in particular, to the record number of students that are attending our conference. We are excited to hear your research and look forward to supporting you.

Over the next few days, I hope you will listen generously, share enthusiastically and enjoy greatly –  renewing old friendships, and building new ones.

Enjoy Tokyo! 

Thank you.

ありがとうございました。