 Welcome to the ITU studio in Geneva, where I'm pleased to be joined by Fabio Cavalliere, the rapporteur for Question 6 within ITUT Study Group 15. Question 6 is a working group that looks at characteristics of optical components, subsystems and systems for optical transport networks. Fabio, thanks for joining us. Thanks for giving me this opportunity to illustrate the Question 6 work. Now, as end users, we see on our phones 5G, we typically are on the move. Could you explain the importance of optical networks to all the services we enjoy today? They're of key importance, but perhaps not that apparent to all users? Yes, they're correct. We all use smartphones in our life, but a few people know that behind this technology there is a capillary user infrastructure that is made of optical components, fiber and system. And this is exactly what Question 6 deals with. And what happens is that with 5G, the challenges for us became higher and higher because 5G is pushing for new demands in terms of bandwidth, new demands in terms of real-time services that decrease the latency. And these, of course, add R&D challenges that are not easy to deal with, and there's also standardization challenges. And it is not easy to take these challenges because in any access segment like the 5G mobile transport, the cost must be low, but it is not easy to keep low the cost in presence of such a formidable complexity that 5G is asking to optical networks. So new topologies, new architectures, new requirements like the need for the network to self-configure. So you need just to plug and play your equipment without any expensive and long configuration. You need to be fast and accurate. And this is the challenge we are taking in Question 6. And standardization can help in this, definitely. All right. And Question 6, the particular role that you play, the value that you deliver industry, could you describe that? Yes. Optical systems, as I've said, are the motorway on which information travel. And Question 6, take care of standardizing optical equipment for transmission of optical signals. So switching the optical signal, routing optical signal from one side to the other, or to your home, in some cases, and of putting these all together with the other layer of the networks because there are, of course, different levels of processing that the optical signal must undergo. And you need to take care of the interface with these aspects that are, of course, taken by other questions. So in other words, we specify the interface of these optical components toward the optical fibers and between them. Modulators, optical switches, transmitter, at 100 gigabit per second, or even more today. And what are some of the specific areas you work on, the interfaces that your standards address, and perhaps also some of the new work you're looking to complete? Yes. A recent example is the standardization of 100 gigabit per second. Then the wavelength division multiplexing system is a complex name, but basically means that you use different wavelengths, different colors, so colored colors to transmit different signals on the same fiber. So you have a huge aggregate capacity in such a way. And each of these colors, of these wavelengths, has 100 gigabit per second transmission speed. And this is not easy because optical fiber, as any propagation medium, introduces distortion on your signal. You need to compensate for this distortion. And of course, this is the first challenge. The second challenge is that you need to compensate for these distortions in such a way that equipment that belongs to different vendors are interoperable each other. And this is where the standard, question six, as a value, was not easy. But at the end, we succeeded in releasing this recommendation. And now, looking at the future, the work is continuing. We are looking at the four-time higher capacity, 400 gigabit per second interfaces, and 800 gigabit per second interfaces. And thanks to our optical experts from all countries worldwide, I pretty confident we will succeed in that. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.