 Welcome to ITU Telecom World 2019 here in Budapest, Hungary where I'm very pleased to be joined in the studio today by Mr. Mario Madovic who is the Director of the Radio Communication Bureau for the International Telecommunication Union and we're very pleased to have him in the studio. Thank you. I'm very happy to be here. Now, Mr. Madovic, perhaps we could talk a little bit about the theme of this event is innovating together connectivity that matters. From where you sit, what makes connectivity meaningful? Well, connectivity has become as important as any basic service like electricity or water and broadband connectivity in particular is driving all the sustainable development goals. So it is key in our societies for the future development of them. It has improved education by bringing digital content and e-education. It has improved health by telemedicine and by bringing more information to people. It has improved the financial aspects of our society with the e-banking and other services. So it has the potential to drive all the sectors of the economy and promote development. From the social perspective it has also changed the way in which people communicate and interact. So obviously it has become a need for all of us both personally and professionally. Now the Radio Communication Bureau has obviously been focusing very much on technology for many, many years now. Which innovative technologies, policies or approaches do you think nowadays have the greatest power to transform lives everywhere? Well, I think this transformation will be produced by a mix of technologies. It's not only one that will drive it. But obviously we are all talking about 5G or IMT 2020. This of course will be one of the key ones. They have the power of increasing the way in which we communicate today in speed and capacity and possibilities to reach everywhere, everybody at incredible speeds. But also it has the power of communicating objects between themselves and creating their opportunities for the industry. Also this low latency and high reliability applications that will allow us to have self-driving cars and carry out surgical operations at a distance. So obviously this is one of the key technologies that will bring the change. But also there are others like HABS, the high altitude platforms that will enable to connect rural areas and low populated areas by bringing connectivity to them and having the backhauling of these areas. Also these new networks of non-justice satellites that will bring more capacity and reduce price to broadband connectivity via satellite reaching all the places of the world. So all these technologies will be playing together in order to bring this change. Coming back to 5G I wondered whether you could possibly bring us up to speed a little bit on this in terms of the fact that there's been obviously some concern around the globe about the proliferation of the antenna, its health effects. Perhaps you could elucidate us on the actual position for that. Sure. As you know when we are using mobile communications we are exposed to a radiation regardless of the technology. This is not new for 5G. This was also true with the previous technologies for G3G2G because this is how we transmit these signals through radio spectrum. Obviously there are levels of radiation that are safe for the human body, for the human being. And those are the ones that are recommended for all countries to utilize. So there is a bit of a misperception sometimes when people think I want to be as far as possible from an antenna. But what they don't realize is that it's their phone that is emitting and receiving signals and the further you are from an antenna the more power the phone uses in order to reach the signal so you are receiving more radiation in fact from your terminal. Maybe not from the antenna but from the terminal. So if we respect the levels that are let's say studied by the international organizations like the World Health Organization and the ITU guidelines on that there is no proof or no evidence of any harm to the human health. For 5G this has become an issue because when we go to high frequencies what we call the millimeter bands for this heavy let's say data exchange in urban areas then the antennas have to be closer to each other. But those are very low power antennas that will be installed so less and less exposure to the human being. So as long as the administrations and the countries enforce this respect of the power levels we are sure that there are many other activities that the human beings carry out that are far more risky than using the phone. And how important is collaboration between industry players sectors and nations in achieving digital transformation? Well collaboration has become more important than ever. As we are saying in the future every object that can be connected will be connected to the network so we will have an ecosystem that will be all connected and talking to each other be it human being or objects or machines so obviously this opens the door for the industry and for all these verticals of the industry that can benefit from that so there is a room for collaboration among all of them and obviously the government and most in particular the ministry of ICTs has to collaborate with all of them in order to make sure that all the efforts are conducive to what we want in our society in economic development. The ICT has got a major conference coming up in Shama Sheikh I understand in October and November this year. Absolutely we have the World Radio Communication Conference 2019 which modifies the treaty that binds all member states around what we call the radio regulations which is the international regulatory framework for the use of frequency bands and satellite orbits and one of the topics that we are going to study there is additional frequency bands for IMT 2020 which is the official name of the ITU standard for 5G. We here at ITU Telecom World 2019 is an important event in ITU's calendar what's the role of the event such as this for you do you think on a global sphere and what are the highlights of ITU as participation in the event. Well I think this is an excellent platform for the industry or under all the sector in fact to come together and discuss not only the operators and the manufacturers but also the service providers the government the regulators and they exchange views and create partnerships and synergies in order to make all what we discussed before happen so this is very conducive in that regard we as the radio communication sector we have contributed with several sessions on spectrum related issues we started with new radio technologies so it's exactly what you mentioned before what are the new technologies that we can see in the future that will help connect people and things then we have two sessions on 5G one ministerial room table and another one on the state of play of 5G and then the fourth one about regulatory challenges for 5G and what is that we can expect from WRC 19 the World Radio Conference that we just discussed so I would say that everybody is contributing with the key topics that are now discussed at the level of the sector and I would say that it's a unique opportunity for participants to get involved and to get acquainted with all these changes and all these let's say trends for the future and finally have you got a message for participants here in Budapest and also a wider audience is watching and listening to this well I would say that if they if you are here in Budapest then you should take advantage of this event to see the new technologies what is coming what is being experimented even that will come in the future discuss with your peers discuss with potential partners and prepare yourself for WRC 19 it's going to be a tough conference but very important one for the future wonderful well Maria Milovic thank you very much for joining us in the studio and we will look forward to catching up with you again at WRC 19 my pleasure thank you thank you