Statement of Estonia
by S.E. Mrs. Mrs Liina Tõnisson
Minister of Economic Affairs, Transport and Communications of Estonia

Mister Secretary General
Your exellencies
Ladies and Gentlemen

First of all, allow me to greet you all participating in this conference in very nice and historic red city Marrakech.

The present conference is of utmost importance to us as this year it will be 10 years since Estonia joined ITU. During this period a lot has been done in the field of telecommunications modernisation. The role of telecommunications has been important in the rapid development of Estonian economy.

Right after the Republic of Estonia regained its independence in 1991, we started quick development of telecommunications. The first steps to modernise the existing communications systems were the establishment of both mobile as well as fixed telephony joint ventures with Finnish and Swedish telecommunications companies.

With the objective to build quickly modern, well-functioning digital telecommunications network covering the whole Estonia, the state gave exclusive rights for international and long distance calls to a recently established fixed telephony company until the end of 2000. During this period a fibre optical backbone network was developed. Total opening of fixed telephony service market took place since January 01, 2001. In order to guarantee it, our Parliament adopted new Telecommunications Act in 2000 and in 1998 an independent regulatory body - Estonian National Communications Board was established.

At present there are more than 50 operating telecommunications network operators and 60 service providers, including 15 fixed telephony and 3 mobile telephony operators in Estonian communications market.

During these 11 years the development has been remarkable. As in 1991 there were 21 telephones per 100 inhabitants, then by today the number is 37. Extremely rapid increase can be noted regarding mobile telephony. At the end of 1991 there were a couple of hundred users of analogue NMT mobile phones, by today the penetration of GSM mobile telephones per 100 inhabitants has reached as high as 59. In the conditions of dense competition tariffs are being continuously decreased and new innovative services have entered the market. Popular are paying for car parking and public transport ticket by mobile telephone and of course different internet-based services.

At the moment we have submitted to the Parliament an amendment to the Telecommunications Act handling the third generation mobile telephony. We hope to issue the mentioned licenses the next year. In the nearest future we wish to start digital broadcasting which is of great interest also to companies engaged in the field of data communications service.

Looking into the future, the development of opened telecommunication market continues. The Republic of Estonia is a candidate country for the European Union membership. This means also development of legislation in telecommunications area and gives new oportunities to our telecommunication industry.

The present conference has a historic role in developing and improving the ITU and the global communications sector. In addition to member states and telecommunications industry it would be important to bring along to ITU also regulatory bodies as their significance increases together with continuing process of opening of telecommunications market in more and more countries.

I wish the conference success in its activities!