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The Role of Governments Governments, however, have an opportunity to leverage this engine to boost Internet access and foster national and local content, in local languages and with immediate relevance to communities. To generate the kind of broadband capacity needed in most countries, there will need to be both distance-learning students and social networking subscribers. There will need to be both commercial content (some of it international) and national and local content. That is because investment will not happen unless there is pent-up demand, and demand will not happen until there are sustainable and essential services and apps to draw people onto the web. Governments themselves can play a strong role in generating content through e-government services and sponsoring cultural content, local app development and increased broadband access.Governments also cannot ignore the ongoing challenges posed by the digital economy – and the larger digital ecosystem. Along with the immense positive aspects, there are some well-known problematic implications such as identity theft, phishing and other Internet frauds, malware of all kinds, privacy abuses and lack of control over personal information, dissemination of inappropriate material, psychological dependence or “addiction” to the Internet or Internet content, etc.On the economic side of things, the challenges posed by the potential systematic hacking and theft of commercial data have been all too real. On the other hand, regulators also must guard against abuses of market power, in which operators may try to limit competition in downstream markets by “locking in” content providers or end users to their proprietary networks or content. Discussions and debates in recent years over “network neutrality” issues convey the high stakes for competition and consumer protection.Clearly, many of the challenges involve protection of consumers – including vulnerable populations such as the elderly (often dubbed “digital immigrants”) and children (usually seen as “digital natives”). Telecommunication sector regulators may well be practiced at the art of protecting consumers from operator price-gouging or quality-of-service violations. The new challenges posed by the digital ecosystem, however, are often outside their jurisdictions and beyond the scope of their legal authorities.This does not mean, however, that sector regulators have no responsibility or capability to help protect consumers in these areas. They can cooperate and collaborate with other government offices and regulatory authorities to generate innovative educational and enforcement approaches to safeguard the integrity of networks and services and to help consumers defend themselves. There is a clear need for cross-sectoral cooperation among legislators, policy-makers and regulators, with multi-disciplinary teams needed to address non-traditional problems. Moreover, there is an opportunity to work with the experts in the private sector to harness their resources, capacities and experience, either through public-private partnerships or monitored self-regulation. Perhaps the greatest challenge for policy-makers and regulators is to step back and survey the current state of their own telecommunication and ICT markets. They can then define with more accuracy the requirements and goals that must be addressed, as well as the highest-priority issues and challenges that must be addressed first. Once these goals and objectives are identified, governments can then look to their current procedures and laws to determine whether they have the proper regulatory instruments already in place to tackle their top priorities. If not (and perhaps even in cases where they do), regulators need to assess whether a strong government intervention is needed, or if it would do more harm than good. In many instances, a “lighter-touch” approach involving mediation or negotiation among operators, or providing greater awareness and education to consumers, may be a logical approach – or at least the best starting point. Even where regulatory intervention is required, it should be targeted to achieve the desired result with the narrowest-possible impact.In the middle of the second decade of the new century, the world can no longer ponder the “if” or “when” of the digital economy – which is, in fact, a digital ecosystem. Many of us are living in it, and many of our children are being raised in it. For those of us who are not, the clock is ticking on a generation that must catch up to it or potentially Trends in Telecommunication Reform 2016 153 Conclusion