The 8th Meeting of the Expert Group on Telecommunication/ICT Indicators (EGTI) is taking place in Geneva, Switzerland, on 12-13 September 2017. The meeting will be organized by the Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT) of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and hosted by ITU. The EGTI meeting will be held back-to-back with the 5th Meeting of the Expert Group on ICT Household Indicators (EGH), which will also take place in Geneva, Switzerland, on 14-15 September 2017.
RIA’s senior researcher, Onkokame Mothobi will be attending the meeting and be participating in the EGTI sub-group to propose revisions to ITU’s methodology for collecting ICT prices. He will be sharing insights from the RIA African Mobile Pricing Index (RAMP).
“As a member of the ITU Expert Group on Telecom/ICT Indicators, sub group on the revision of ICT price sub-basket I will be participating in the discussion of the proposed revisions to the ICT price data collection and methodologies. Our take as Research ICT Africa is that the guidelines should reflect consumption patterns of both low income and high-income consumers. This stand is motivated by the income disparities in developing countries especially Africa”.-O. Mothobi, 2017.
On the 15th Mothobi will be presenting in the 5th Meeting of the Expert Group on ICT Household Indicators (EGH), Country Experiences on Implementing ICT Household Surveys. He will be presenting RIA’s finding on the state of ICT in Lesotho. A study that was conducted through a demand side household survey and supply side sector performance review.
The objective of the 8th EGTI meeting is to examine the contributions received from members of the EGTI online discussion forum over the current working period, with a view to finalizing the items under discussion. The outcome of the discussions will be subsequently presented at the 15th World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Symposium (WTIS), which will be held in Tunisia, from 14-16 November 2017.
The main statistical topics to be discussed during the EGTI meeting will be: revisions of the ITU ICT price baskets; new fixed-network coverage indicators; fixed-broadband speed tiers; the definition of broadband; OTT services and IP convergence; IoT indicators; cybersecurity indicators; improving the quality of international Internet bandwidth data; and indicators for wireless spectrum allocation.
