September 10, 2018

The welcoming speeches of the 81st 3GPP Plenary meetings included an inspiring traditional indigenous people’s 'welcome to country' from Luther Cora, who brought a personal and very human greeting containing his people’s best wishes to all of the visitors to these lands this week.

The Australian Secretary of Communications, Mike Mrdak added the Government’s voice to the warm welcome. Mr. Mrdak told the assembled TSG RAN and CT delegates “Investment in technology is for long term gain, it takes years to design and build the networks of the future… The work you are doing here this week is important to a nation such as ours, because you are setting the standards that enable the next generation of investment… We all carry the responsibility to make clear decisions, with less uncertainty and that specifically help regions and communities to have opportunities in the future.”

The CEO of Telstra, Andrew Penn also welcomed 3GPP to the Gold Coast, he said “We at Telstra are proud to host this week’s meetings – the first time that you have held the plenaries in Australia… An important part of our work is to ensure that standards take Australia’s unique conditions in to account. This is a large modern country with challenging demographics; 5G standards need to work here.” On 5G he told the meeting “We now have the challenge to plan for the unknown, as 5G enables things that we have yet to imagine. It is no wonder that the eyes of the world are on your work.”

The RAN, CT and SA Plenary meetings are taking place this week, September 10 – 14, 2018 in Gold Coast, Australia – hosted by Telstra. Welcome to Country - Luther Cora

Mike Mrdak, Australian Secretary of Communications Andrew Penn, Telstra CEO