It has been a couple of months since my last update on NGNuk, however work has continued, in particular on establishing a framework within which to focus the information gathering, preparatory work for Workstreams and the Terms of Reference for the Workstreams. In the meantime we have published the minutes from the NGNuk Executive meeting of the 26th of June and today we publish the minutes of the NGNuk Executive meeting of the 27th of July. The membership has grown, but not as much as we would have liked at the participating level. We look forward to wider interest as the Workstream Programmes become fully developed.
Highlights during the period were:
- The NGNuk Draft Constitution has been agreed.
There were a number of iterations with members and potential members. The Constitution is now in place. Members and stakeholders, who expressed an interest, have agreed to support the initiative and see how it performs. If the Constitution does not meet the needs of members and stakeholders then we can evaluate it at the six month review point. One trade association, ITSPA, is not prepared to support the current Constitution or give it the opportunity to demonstrate it can work. - A Draft Vision and Goals has been created and agreed with the NGNuk Executive
The Vision and Goals try to pull together the Desired Outcome for NGNuk and the Key Deliverables needed to make it happen. - A seminar was held for potential members, the session was well received, twenty five delegates attended, a good debate was had, and we have subsequently had some participants join.
- We welcome Colt Telecommunications who has joined as an executive member and Carphone Warehouse who intend to join in the near future also as an executive member.
- We are pleased to welcome Gamma Telecom, LINX, Tiscali, Verizon Business and Viatel who have joined as Participating members.
- Peter Ryde has been appointed as Commercial Director NGNuk. Peter has a successful commercial history in the wholesale and interconnect world of telecoms.
- We have established a framework, an approach to the Workstreams and an initial Schedule which can be found in the Workstreams & Programmes area of this site.
- Liaison with NICC has been strengthened as can be seen in the Minutes of the last Executive Meeting. This relationship will be further strengthened over the coming months as NGNuk takes a higher profile role in the input of, and agreement to, requirements for the NGN Interconnect 'Green Release'.
I am pleased with progress so far, however it is important now to get the work-streams active and involve as wide a membership as possible. The NGNuk Secretariat will focus on moving the work-streams forward. Although August and September are difficult due to holidays, we will be working hard during this time to ensure we have the most useful set of input information we can make available for the Work-Stream kick-offs during September.
Peter McD. Black
Executive Chairman
