INTUG - International Telecommunications Users Group Access: a user perspective on access to telecommunications services

A presentation by Ewan Sutherland to the OECD Emerging Market Economy Forum (EMEF) on electronic commerce in Dubai, UAE, 16-17 January 2001

 

 

As’salam alikoom

Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen.

Thank you very much on behalf of INTUG for the invitation to speak here today. As one of the founders of the Alliance for Global Business (AGB) we are very much concerned with the developments in electronic commerce. In particular with the telecommunications facilities and services necessary to make that a success.
 

Introduction

E-commerce encompasses a range of forms:

It can also be fixed or mobile. The services can be In order to deliver on the economic and potential of e-commerce, businesses require:

Market conditions

There is a presumption that those requirements are delivered by market liberalisation. The message from the OECD for some time and from INTUG for even longer, has been that opening markets benefits all parties. That applies equally to dominant incumbents, the former state-owned PTTs.

The tests of liberalisation are a declining market share for the ex-PTT, but of a more rapidly growing market. There will be new entrants, at least some of which will survive and prosper.

Market opening for new entrants requires:

Choice must be effective. Often it is extremely limited. It can be quite different in central Frankfurt or Los Angeles from the locations further out from city centres where companies wish to establish call centres and factories.

It is not all one-sided. Businesses are looking for partnerships with the best telecommunications providers.
 
 

National regulatory authorities

INTUG and its national associations have long-standing and very good relations with National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs).

To be effective, NRAs must have:

It is possible to enumerate many problems which have arisen. In Norway, the introduction of Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) was approved by the NRA. However, it was blocked because the appeal was to the minister who wanted to protect the incumbent operator. In South Africa the regulator, SATRA (now ICASA) was being ignored by the incumbent operator. ICASA had to ask the government for additional resources to allow it to appeal a court decision against its ruling.

On the other hand, the separation worked well recently in Sweden. The government has very substantial state shareholding in the dominant incumbent, Telia. Despite this, the regulator, PTS felt able not to award Telia a licence for third generation mobile telecommunications.
 
 

Customers

Whether directly or through operators and outsourcing contracts, users require access to:

The current issues are


Conclusions

There has been considerable progress since the Ottawa Ministerial in October 1998. There has been an accumulation of considerable experience, both from successes and failures. We are still learning a lot about auctioning spectrum both for third generation mobile and for fixed wireless access.

The message of the successes of liberalisation have been considerably reinforced.

We have also seen that the need for sensible, flexible, but still powerful regulatory interventions are necessary to ensure that access is ensured and those with entrenched positions do not distort markets or abuse their positions.
 
 

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Ewan Sutherland is Executive Director of the International Telecommunications Users Group (INTUG).
 

copyright (c) INTUG, 2001.
http://www.intug.net/talks/ES_Dubai_EMED_2001.html