Dear colleagues, This year has already brought a deluge of news and commentary about the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), but I wanted to share a couple of recent developments that may be of interest to the members of this Working Group. ITU IPv6 Group --------------------- Established by ITU Council in 2009, this group was tasked with reporting on a number of issues raised by ITU Member States regarding the distribution of IPv6 address space and the deployment of IPv6. Further details about the group, including its full Terms of Reference, can be found here: http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/others/ipv6/Pages/default.aspx At the fourth meeting of the ITU IPv6 Group in June 2012, the participants agreed that the group's mission, as laid out in the Terms of Reference, had been fulfilled. The report of that meeting recommended that ITU Council officially close the group, and Council has now accepted and acted upon this recommendation. Also contained in the report of the fourth meeting were the following findings: • That "current IPv6 allocation policies and processes met the needs of stakeholders." • That "future work of IPv6 human capacity building activities and project on technical, policy and economic aspects of the transition from IPv4 to IPv6 will be continued and led by ITU-BDT in collaboration with interested partner entities (RIRs, NAv6, Cisco, etc.) and partner States (Czech Republic, Sudan, Sweden, etc.)." WCIT and the ITRs -------------------------- The most recent ITU Council meeting also discussed the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) and the revision of the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs). The Internet technical community (including the RIPE NCC and other RIRs) and other ITU stakeholders have been arguing strongly for greater openness and transparency in the WCIT process. Council has now agreed to make public the working draft of the revised ITRs (CWG-WCIT TD-64), although access to the individual proposals will remain restricted to ITU Members. The ITU Secretariat will post the draft ITRs online at: http://www.itu.int/en/wcit-12/Pages/default.aspx Finally, the RIPE NCC has updated the ITU-related information on its website, which now includes links to a number of articles by APNIC Chief Scientist Geoff Huston that are relevant to discussion of the ITRs: https://www.ripe.net/internet-coordination/internet-governance/multi-stakeho... If you have any questions regarding the RIPE NCC's engagement with the ITU, we are happy to discuss the subject on this mailing list (<cooperation-wg@ripe.net>). Best regards, Chris Buckridge, RIPE NCC