TRA Sponsors ITU's Remote Meeting Platform

The General Authority for Regulating the Telecommunications Sector, TRA, has signed a sponsorship agreement with the International Telecommunication Union, ITU, for the Multilingual Interactive Remote Participation, MIRP, platform, which ensures that the ITU members can participate in remote meetings using any of its six official languages.

This sponsorship is a contribution from the UAE in maintaining continued ITU meetings, which have a significant role in decision-making and ensuring the normal functioning of life in different parts of the world.

This sponsorship reaffirms the TRA’s commitment to supporting innovative solutions given the major development witnessed in the ICT sector locally and globally, as remote work and virtual meetings have become the norm for many international organizations and companies to continue their work.

Commenting on this agreement, Hamad Obaid Al Mansoori, TRA Director-General, said, "The major development of the ICT sector, especially with the rollout of 5G networks, has led to a substantial change in business concepts and methods in all countries of the world. We started to see the prevalence of virtual conferences and remote meetings, which will be part of a mainstream working style in the coming period. Hence the importance of this step taken by the ITU, namely the MIRP, which is supported by the UAE government in the context of its privileged relationship with the ITU, and its constant desire for global interaction to serve international cooperation. The MIRP, available in the six official languages of the ITU, will allow us to efficiently manage the sessions of the Council based on our expertise in dealing with the status quo."

The TRA’s sponsorship of this platform will contribute to conducting feasibility studies of the current system, webcasting operations and solution documentation, as well as improving the quality of sound and video in main conference rooms, facilitating the integration of technology into such rooms and simplifying day-to-day operations in the ITU building. Participants in remote meetings will be able to see what is shown on the main screen and share their desktop content.

The ITU established the first MIRP platform in early 2010, which allowed delegates to remotely take part in meetings during the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano in 2010, causing massive disruption in air travel across Western and Northern Europe. Later that year, all Member States unanimously adopted a resolution on "enhancing the ITU's capacity in electronic meetings and means to advance the work of the ITU." This prompted the organisation to maintain its work on system improvement.