55th General Assembly of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute took place in Cannes on 30-31 March 2010.

The Assembly gathered together around 150 delegates from 40 European Countries participated in the conference representing ETSI, ERO, ITU, CELENEC secretariats, Network Administration from 18 European Countries, major manufacturers (Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Networks GmbH & Co. KG, Intel Corporation (UK) Ltd, Hewlett-Packard, Panasonic, Samsung, Huawei, QUALCOMM UK Ltd, Sony UK Limited, MOTOROLA Ltd, Cisco Systems Belgium), Operator and Manufacturers Association (GSMA, UMTS Forum, TETRA Association, Association of Service Providers, National Information Communications & Consumer Electronics Technology Industry Association, Association Européenne de Radiocommunications, Low Power Radio Association (LPRA)) as well as European Operators (Orange, Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica, France Telecom, TELECOM ITALIA S.p.A , MOBITEL d.d.etc.).

55th General Assembly of ETSI was devoted to reporting of ETSI activities in 2009, strategy considerations for 2010, ETSI buildings issues, Forapolis future considerations, ETSI representation in Brussels, budgetary and business plan approval.

The Assembly considered reports and reviews of the European Commission, CEN/CENELEC, regional standardization bodies (like ARIB), IEEE, Association of operators and manufacturers TETRA, OMA, NGMN and IPTV Forum.

More than 40 documents (http://portal.etsi.org/docbox/ga) were discussed at the meeting. Members of the department "Information and telecommunication technologies" of RANS attended the 55th General Assembly of ETSI.

Additionally the adoption of new ETSI members was done. The Russian system integrator of leading telecom vendors MERA was adopted as a new ETSI member from Russian Federation (www.meranetworks.com).

The Director-General of ETSI pointed out the following main topics:

• ETSI published 2480 standards in 2480 in 2009. It’s 1017 more than in 2008. The forecast for 2010 is 2555 standards.
• ETSI continues its activities on DVD distribution, creation of ETSI Libraries, and ETSI WEBstore.
• 3GPP: Release 9 (frozen in December 2009) and Release 10 is under preparation (containing more than 70 new features/studies including IMT-Advanced).
• European Commission: EC White Paper was issued in summer 2009 detailing implementation proposals and a way forward for the use of fora deliverables in public policies.

 The Director General pointed out also some new activities in ETSI. In particular:

• M2M (Machine to Machine) is defining end-to-end high level architecture for provision of value-added M2M services based on a horizontal market models. M2M coordinates ETSI’s work on smart metering interoperability mandate (M/441).
• MCD (Media Content Distribution) produces standards for digital media distribution across unicast, multicast and broadcast networks.
• AERO/JTFEA: Mandated standards in support of the Single European Sky Interoperability Regulation and HSs under R&TTE Directive for ground ATM equipment and support interoperability of the European Air Traffic Management Network (EATMN).

Members of ITT RAEN attended the 55th General Assembly of ETSI. The minutes of the General Assembly and the report made by the ETSI Secretary Dr. Walter Weigel are available upon request.