Trends in Telecommunication Reform 2010-11 3.5 Cooperation among Technology regulates content related to the Inter-net. Regulatory Authorities in Different Sectors 3.5.2 Expanding the ICT Regulator’s Mandate to Include Competition Matters Due to the influence of converged ICTs on all other sectors, ICT regulators are in a special position to en-sure that the benefits of ICTs permeate throughout the If jurisdiction over competition matters is delegated economy. This section addresses how governments have expanded the role of regulators to better address the convergence of telecommunications, broadcasting and information technology. In addition, it examines how most telecommunications and electronic commu-nications to an ICT regulator, other challenges may arise depend-ing on whether or not the country has a set of general competition laws and a separate regulator to handle these issues. For countries without general competition laws, the electronic communications laws or regula-tions laws recognize the ICT regulators’ expertise by are likely to expand the mandate of the ICT regu-latory granting them the authority to decide matters broader than ICT-specific issues, particularly regarding competi-tion. authority to guard against unfair or anticompetitive conduct. For countries with regulatory authorities overseeing general competition laws, the challenge is to establish rules clarifying how overlap-ping Finally, it looks at how ICT regulators must either decide these broader ICT-related issues independently or in cooperation with other regulatory entities, as well as how these decisions affect regulations in other sec-tors jurisdiction will be handled in order to avoid con-flicts between agencies. of the economy addressed above, such as the envi-ronment, 3.5.2.1 Expanding the ICT regulator’s mandate health, and banking. to address competition 3.5.1 Expanding the Regulator’s Mandate For many countries without a long-standing com-petition law framework, liberalization of the ICT sector In most countries, the telecommunications/ICT regulatory authority operates separately from the broadcasting and video content regulator. However, nearly 30 countries have chosen to establish a con-verged is one of the first instances of the state-owned mono-polies transitioning into private, competitive markets. As such, the mandate of ICT regulators often has been expanded to include the regulation of competition mat-ters ICT regulator by expanding the role of the tele-communications regulator to include authority over related to the telecommunications market. Under broadcasting, content (e.g., video programming) and Internet services. The rationale for this trend is that a converged regulator is better able to adapt and re-spond this expanded mandate, regulators are tasked with re-solving complex issues related to competition laws without reference to any legal frameworks in the coun-try. to an environment where distinctions based on For example, the Kingdom of Bahrain does not have any general competition laws;121 however, one of the main responsibilities of the Telecommunications Regu-latory services and networks are becoming blurred. With a converged regulator, service and consumers are able to look to a single agency for all matters relating to the communications sector. Countries with converged regu-lators Authority (TRA) under the Telecommunications Law is to “promote effective and fair competition among new and existing Licensed Operators.”122 The Telecommunications Law requires the TRA to investi-gate include Australia, Finland, Italy, Kenya, Mali, Ma-laysia, South Africa, Singapore, Uganda, United States and United Kingdom. instances where licensed operators are believed to engage in anti-competitive conduct, which requires the skills to analyze, for example, whether there has been abuse of dominant position, collusion or price fixing, or whether a merger would harm competition in the mar-ket. Despite this trend, most OECD countries still have separate regulators for broadcasting and for telecom-munications. Additionally, content regulation is typically 123 Despite the lack of a general competition legal addressed by a separate ministry or government au-thority (e.g., in India and Saudi Arabia) or by the broad-casting authority (e.g., in Botswana, Chile and framework, the TRA has effectively introduced compe-tition to each ICT market, including local and long dis-tance fixed services, international gateways, mobile Colombia). For example, in India, there are two entities responsible for content regulation. The Ministry of In-formation services and Internet services.124 and Broadcasting monitors content related to broadcasting and film while the Ministry of Informa-tion 108 Chapter 3