Senior Expert at the National Telecom Regulatory Authority (NTRA) Ahmed Said has been elected as the Chairman of Study Group 3 (SG3) of the International Telecommunication Union’s Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T), for a three-year term, becoming the first Egyptian and Arab to hold such position.
 
SG3 is concerned with tariff and accounting principles including related telecommunication economic and policy issues. It has 150 member experts, who were elected during the World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (WTSA), held with the participation of 193 countries.
 
Over the years, the Egyptian contributions to SG3 helped ITU make successful recommendations related to online applications and mobile financial services. Recommendations on online applications were adopted by ITU in 2018, after NTRA—represented by Said—led the Arab and African Group to support the ITU recommendation. Egypt, also, led the African and Arab Group in producing recommendations on mobile financial service and supporting African countries in developing such services given their significance for Africa and the Arab World.
 
SG3 is responsible, inter alia, for studying international telecommunication/ICT policy and economic issues and tariff and accounting matters (including costing principles and methodologies), with a view to informing the development of enabling regulatory models and frameworks. The Group is also tasked with the study of the  economic and regulatory impact of the Internet, convergence (services or infrastructure) and new services, such as OTT, on international telecommunication services and networks.