 We're here at the World Telecommunication Development Conference 2014 in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates and I'm extremely pleased to be joined by Jean-François Birro, who is Director of Institutional Affairs for UTELSAT. Jean-François, thank you very much for being with us today. It's a pleasure for me. Today we're here at the Development Conference and I would like to ask you why is UTELSAT concerned with development issues? Because it's a big challenge for everybody. UTELSAT is a satellite operator. We are providing broadband for many countries, many regions, and we are absolutely convinced that broadband is a key part of the development in the future. So being here is also a way to address the coming challenges, is a way to address the best solutions, and is also a way to engage with governments, officials, regulators about their plans. We believe that the satellite is indispensable in the future for the broadband development because it provides a very useful tool to fight the digital divide. Digital divide is a real challenge for everybody and the satellite is a part of the answer. It's not a part of the problem and we believe that providing broadband to the most remote areas, to the people who will never be connected by the terrestrial networks is obviously of much importance. I was going to ask you how can UTELSAT provide this connectivity to ITUD member states? I would say that first of all we provide connectivity by our own investment. We are investing half of our revenues in new satellites. We have been the first satellite operator to develop a new generation of satellites which is called high throughput satellites. Now you have at the moment quite 30 satellites which are under construction of this new generation and we provide services to connect the schools, for the governments, for the safety, for the security, for the complementarity between the terrestrial networks and the other usages. I mean that when you will look at connected TV in the future it will come from the satellites as well as it comes from the terrestrial networks. So we have a lot of applications, eHealth, eAdministration are also part of what we can do and all these applications obviously provide answers to big questions the governments are facing. And this is an affordable proposition? We believe it is, yes. When you look at the plants to develop the broadband the key question is not so much how to connect the center cities. The key question is how to connect the last mile and the people who are living in the most remote areas and the satellite has a very specific business model I would say. In the case of the satellite the marginal cost is exactly the same as the average cost. It means that the last person who has to be connected will not cost more than the first one which is a bit different from the other solutions. And that's why we make a plea for technological neutrality because we believe that all the solutions have to be on the table and that they have to be compared with regard their own qualities and in many cases we believe that if you look at a balanced development strategy if you look at the purposes the governments have in mind they have to include and they do, they include the satellite as a component of their plans. And what specific developmental issues can a company such as UTELS take? Well, when we look at the partnership we have with ITU development we are working for providing connectivity for the schools. It is a key part of what we already do and we understand that for the future the young people want to be familiar with the new technologies from the very beginning of their scholarly. Secondly, we have with the satellite appropriate solutions to provide the broadband capacity for many schools at the same time. For example last year we have been in charge of equipping 4,000 schools in Turkey we did it in less than six months. So in a very short period of time really the schools and the life of the students has very much changed for the best and we believe that there are big needs, there are wide needs for that activity. Another part of what we do is to look at how to strengthen the ITU capacities for disaster relief situations. As you know the satellite is the only solution which is available when people are facing disaster situations. And as we heard yesterday from the Japan minister in the film we saw it has been widely appreciated in the last period of time in Japan because of the tragic events we have in mind. So promoting connectivity for schools, helping the ITU with disaster relief capacities these are the two main actions we are looking at. But we also take stock of the experience we have now. For example we have been providing capacity for Afghanistan and the minister made a reference to it yesterday and we believe that this work with the Afghan government will give new capacities for more and wider services. Finally we are here at the World Telecommunication Development Conference. What would you hope will come out from this conference once every four years? It's a big conference. It's the place where everybody is here and we are engaging with the ITU, we are engaging with the governments, with the regulators. What are we expecting from that meeting? We are expecting a clear strategy for the broadband development. It's clear that there is no one solution fits for all. We believe that, as I said, technological neutrality is a key element of a strategy and we only wish that the satellite services can be offered in a very open and fair competition but also cooperation with the other solutions. We are in a complementarity process. There is a need for building up all the resources and we are at a time where money is quite rare. We need to find affordable solutions and we believe that the satellite can be a part of it provided that the technical conditions, I mean the spectrum, the access to the spectrum can be guaranteed and it will be also another story which will come back to the ITU very soon, I believe. Jean-François Bireau, thank you very much indeed for being with us today. I thank you very much, it was a pleasure to meet you and to be in a situation to address your audience. And thank you very much for watching.