The telecom world gets more complicated. Even before the sector meltdown starting in 2001, deregulation and technology were major and unpredictable drivers. Now, in a time of recession, at least in developed markets, policy-makers everywhere face still more challenges. Over the coming years, governments, NGOs and the private sector alike must address significant questions for planning and regulating an "information society" - along with the potential global economic impact they entail.

Currently, there are more questions than answers: What does equal access mean in a broadband information age? How should ICT services be licensed in an era of convergence? Is it even necessary to license certain fixed wireless access (e.g. WLAN and WiMax) and similar advanced services? Are telecommunications and ICTs a critical infrastructure, and if so, how should they be protected? What about planning for the world's least developed nations - how do they enter the information age? What are the important social and human considerations in a rapidly changing technological environment?

For both developing and developed economies, applying the right regulatory and policy model can help attract sufficient investment and promote infrastructure deployment. Experience has clearly shown that market liberalization alone is not sufficient; there is a need for a balanced regulatory environment, with effective competition, transparent rule-making, fair implementation and a consumer-driven focus. For developing economies, which have struggled with tough obstacles to developing communications infrastructures in the past, the stakes are probably higher particularly in a region like Africa where network infrastructure is limited and household incomes low.

State of the telecoms world

ITU retains a bedrock role in many of these questions. "Although not mandated to make policy itself, it provides a much-needed resource that offers impartial advice and support to those who do - the 189 Member States and over 600 Sector Members-comprised of private companies and NGOs- around the world", explains Tim Kelly, Head of the ITU Strategy and Policy Unit. The Unit, a function within the Office of the Secretary-General, supports this activity through research and analysis and also provides internal policy guidance in terms of implementing the ITU's own strategic plan.

His words are echoed by specialists within ITU who target policy and regulatory issues of developing countries. "We cannot impose choices," says Pape Touré, Head of Policies, Strategies and Financing within ITU's Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT). "We can talk about policies. We provide comprehensive relevant information. We give facts and best practices. We enable countries to make sound decisions".

The Instanbul Action Plan, agreed at the ITU World Telecommunication Development Conference (2002) mandates BDT to assist Member States and national regulatory authorities in developing and implementing policies, legislation and regulations aimed at sustained development, access and use of information and communication technologies (ICT).

How does the BDT fulfil this mandate? "We provide a range of regulatory products and services" notes Doreen Bogdan, Head, a.i., of BDT's Regulatory Reform Unit (RRU). One of the key services is the Global Symposium for Regulators (GSR), which has become the global venue for regulators to share best practices and develop guidelines to enable them to be more effective. ITU also publishes annually a reference document for regulators, policy-makers and operators worldwide called Trends in Telecommunication Reform as well as a Regulatory Database based on the results of our annual regulatory survey sent to all 189 ITU Member States. "Our survey and database are now celebrating their 10th anniversary", Bogdan explains. "No other database houses such extensive regulatory data. Much of it is provided for free on our website. In addition to including regulatory data, we provide a series of case studies (effective regulation, interconnection dispute resolution and convergence regulation), regulatory news updates, interconnection self-learning training modules, and hundreds of links to key regulatory resources" Bogdan adds.

ITU often plays a catalytic role, forging synergies between its members. "The Global Regulators' Exchange, or G-REX, is a classic example of this key ITU role," said Susan Schorr, Regulatory Officer and Hotline Moderator for the G-REX Regulators' Hotline. G-REX is a password-protected website for regulators and policy-makers to exchange views and share best practices. The hotline is its most popular feature. Regulators from around the world pose queries on the pressing issues they face and seek input from their colleagues the world over. More and more regulators and policy-makers are joining G-REX every day. Not only are they asking questions, they are providing very useful replies to their colleagues. Exchanges occur on-line, between regulators from both developed and developing countries, from every region of the world and in three languages: English, French and Spanish. G-REX is enabling information-sharing opportunities that simply did not exist before it was launched in May 2001. One recent posting included an exchange between Botswana, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Hong Kong (China), Nigeria, Peru, Uruguay and Zambia.

ITU can provide the tools to enable regulators to select the right mix of policies and regulatory decisions and assess their effectiveness once implemented. One of them is ITU's World Telecommunication Indicators Database which provides a formidable range of statistics across fixed line, mobile and Internet penetration around the world for the last 40 years. It is arguably the single most comprehensive indicators information resource in global telecoms. With this data, policy-makers can drill down and find data for almost every market development, determine their growth patterns and benchmark against other markets.

Building on this are in-depth case studies analyzing particular experiences in telecoms, such as mobile and wireless communications, interconnection and convergence issues. These initiatives promote best practice examples for other countries to emulate. For many, a policy myopia might otherwise exist. "There is a tendency to look only at one's immediate neighbours and think they are the total goldfish bowl," says Kelly, "whereas in fact the bowl is much larger". ITU also responds to thousands of specific and often highly detailed requests from around the world on topics ranging from licensing to number portability.

Packaging of information is also a key value-added resource in itself. Workshops and fora are regularly convened to focus on specific issues. In 2004, these have included Internet governance, spectrum management, broadband technologies, the future mobile information society. Substantial publications are often produced in conjunction with these interactive fora such as "The Portable Internet", (to be released in the second half of 2004) and the "African Telecommunication Indicators Report" (released at TELECOM AFRICA 2004).

Another service offered by G-REX are virtual conferences in which regulators, policy-makers and members of the private sector meet through a dedicated online service enabling them to share powerpoint presentations and other documents in real-time. G-REX hosted its most recent virtual conference on 30 March 2004 on the growing problem of Spam, uniting regulators from Australia, Brazil, Japan, Jordan, New Zealand, Thailand, the United Kingdom and the United States as well as the European Commission. "We have also hosted virtual conferences on interconnection dispute resolution and the use of Wi-Fi technology for rural and public access" says Schorr. "Virtual conferences are an ideal way to foster an exchange between a small group of regulatory and policy stakeholders. They are much less expensive than hosting in-person meetings and are very efficient."

Universal access: Moving forward?

Africa clearly has a long way to go in realizing its ICT development goals. While mobile penetration grew by 13 million new subscribers in 2003, a figure equivalent to the total number of telephone subscribers in 1995 and Internet users numbered around 12.5 million at year-end 2003, up from just 4.5 million two years ago, Africa still has the lowest overall mobile penetration rate of any region, just six per cent in 2003. Likewise, although Internet users are growing at as fast a rate as any world region, the vast majority of African citizens are not Internet users.

"Africa has witnessed a mobile miracle," says Bogdan, adding that "the time is ripe for Africa to build on its recent mobile success story and extend ICT development to include Internet and other ICT services" "Wireless services will be the future of Africa's ICT development, now that promising fixed wireless access technologies like Wi-Max, Wi-Fi and ultra-wideband can be deployed." Tim Kelly agrees. "By leapfrogging the onerous rollout of fixed-line infrastructure to deploy more versatile wireless technologies, African countries may find themselves able to "catch up" faster, thereby reducing the digital divide". The key rests in effective regulatory and policy frameworks to harness the full effects of competition, innovative business models and low-cost technologies.

The good news is that regulators and policy-makers now share a common understanding on the way forward. "ITU undertook a consultation on regulatory principles for achieving universal access. This consultation culminating in a series of universal access regulatory best practice guidelines which were agreed by participants in the 2003 Global Symposium for Regulators (GSR). These consultations showed that market reform is the first step in achieving universal access goals while other measures, such as universal funds, are designed to be used in a competitive framework and to be limited to meeting the needs of users in areas that remain unaffordable even in the face of effective sector reform.

"The mobile miracle is proof that market liberalization works as a universal access tool. It attracts investment and grows subscribers. Mobile services are no longer exclusively for the wealthy" notes Schorr. Mobile services are used by all income groups. Pre-paid cards, the reselling of minutes and relying on less expensive SMS services has extended the affordability threshold. "Mobile technology, regulation and business models have done more to extend universal access than any other strategy. The trick now is to extend the mobile miracle to a broader array of ICTs" she adds.

"Regulators can rely more on incentives and less on obligations, for example offering lower spectrum charges in exchange for increased rural coverage. Universal access policies can be adopted that recognize the important role mobile services are already playing in achieving universal access. Mobile phones can be incorporated into a whole host of innovative policies", says Schorr. Some examples include deploying payphones that use a mobile rather than fixed line network or authorizing village women or postal workers to resell mobile minutes in rural areas. Internet development can be fueled by fixed wireless technologies, many of which operate in license-exempt or lightly regulated spectrum bands as well as the creation of national and regional Internet Exchange Points (IXPs).

Regional policy issues are involved too, as governments contend with the implications of the need for equal access to the information society within their own national boundaries. Again, the case study approach is useful. "In the Republic of Korea, 60 per cent of families living in urban centres were early customers of broadband, but there is an outlying 40 per cent that might have been less well served," Kelly contends. "In fact the Korean strategy is to deploy a variety of different technologies from metro Ethernet, WLAN to satellite, to complement DSL and cable modem technologies. These are the sort of lessons from the cutting edge which can be extremely useful for other markets." Sharing regulatory data is also essential. Botswana, for example, last year agreed to set interconnection rates based on data published by the European Commission. ITU compiled this data and published it in one of its interconnection dispute resolution case studies. But where does competition begin and cooperation and national policy-making end? "We are working with regulators to examine the role of telecoms regulation within the broader context of national competition and consumer policy" says Bogdan.

A developing challenge

In this light, should there be different policies for developing and developed countries? Touré thinks not. "Policies worldwide are generally universal. But how you apply them is different". He contends that, without similar revenues and margins, a particular country may simply not have access to the same service. In many cases, he argues, services that are self-evident in developed countries are missing in developing ones. "So, the way to apply policy experience depends on the population or consumer, and some policies may apply perfectly to a developing country but some are different or differently emphasized," he points out. It's a big job, even a long-term one, but there are payoffs. Touré points to his own country, Senegal, as a success story. "The impact of ITU in what happened in that country was tremendous," he says. "I was a young engineer in 1983 when the Government decided to solve the communications issue, because the country had declined from being Number One in African telecoms when it gained independence in the 1960's to Number 19 over the next 20 years". Under a government mandate, a group of communications specialists became a think tank tasked with studying all the available information (mainly ITU), discussing the implications and formulating policy advice.

"We said, 'we have to change this'," recounts Touré. "We created new plans, and the Government decided to reorganize national telecoms provision through private shareholding and reduced state control".

Resourcing ITU

In terms of resourcing ITU internally, Kelly indicates that this is an ongoing process both as a result of decisions made by the Plenipotentiary Plan concerning ITU activities from 2004 to 2008, but also because of the telecoms meltdown worldwide. "We are obviously working in a changed environment, including a reduction of resources, but also with additional work programmes such as the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)", he says. "It is no surprise that ITU takes the same medicine as the rest of the industry, but, for an international non-profit-making organizations, it does require creative approaches". Inevitably, priorities have to be identified.