The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has honoured Mr. Joshua Peprah, Director of Regulatory Administration at the National Communications Authority (NCA) for his contribution towards telecommunication globally.

The honour in the form of a citation was bestowed on Mr. Peprah at the last conference of the Union in Geneva, Switzerland, for what it described as his immense contribution towards the ITU-T Telecommunication Standardisation Advisory Group.

This was contained in a release signed by Ms Gloria Forson, Public Relations Officer, Consumer and Corporate Affairs Division NCA and copied to the Ghana News Agency in Accra on Friday.

ITU-T, the Telecommunication Standardisation Sector of the ITU reviews the priorities, programmes, operations as well as financial matters and strategies for the telecommunications sector.

It also ensures that work programmes are accomplished while restructuring and establishing ITU-T study groups amongst other duties.

The citation was in recognition of the contribution of Mr. Peprah to the ITU-T Telecommunication Standardisation Advisory Group and the excellent work he performed as Vice Chairman of the Telecommunication Standardisation Advisory Group; serving as convener of the correspondence group on bridging the standardisation gap and developing country issues and liaison to ITU during the 2009–2012 period.

With an MBA in Operations Research and Marketing and a first degree in Electrical/Electronic Engineering, Mr. Peprah was a member of the team that introduced the famous Digital Signal Processor chip that had become an integral part of most Telecom and Computing Systems, when he worked as a Design and Applications Engineer with the Semiconductor Division of Texas Instruments in Dallas, Texas, US.

Currently as the Vice Chairman for Africa Region on the Telecommunications Standardisation Advisory Group at ITU, Mr. Peprah has extensive experience in telecom standardisation through his active participation in the ITU-T system which has made him part of the expert group working on the implementation of the WTSA-08 Resolution 76, after guiding its successful acceptance at the World Telecommunications Standardization Assembly in 2008 (‘WTSA 2008’) in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Locally, Mr. Peprah led the introduction and implementation of Mobile Number Portability (MNP) in Ghana, one of the most successfully implemented MNP projects within Africa and served as the Chairman of the national multi-stakeholder committee established by the Government of Ghana to develop policy recommendations for the attainment of a timely, cost effective and environmentally responsible migration from analogue to digital broadcasting.

He is currently the Chairman of the Technical Committee of the Digital Broadcasting Migration Committee, the body established to oversee the implementation of the television migration project in Ghana.**