With liberalisation of Guyana’s telecoms sector imminent, is the policy and regulatory environment in the Caribbean aligned with global trends?
Liberalisation of telecoms in the Caribbean began about 15 years ago. The introduction of competition, coupled with new entrants offering low cost mobile/cellular service has led to a revolution in the countries where it has occurred. As a result, consumers enjoy lower rates, a wider range of services and access to newer technologies, consistent with what might be available in more developed countries. More importantly, these liberalised and competitive telecoms environments are part of the essential foundation for the global thrust towards Information Societies and knowledge-based economies.
With the anticipated end to the monopoly telecoms environment in Guyana, which could be as early as July, with the long overdue promulgation of its Telecommunications Act, the country is poised to realise significant gains. These benefits will not be limited to the specific segments that will be liberalised, but to the entire sector and the society as a whole, thanks to the knock-on effect likely to be experienced.
Is a focus on telecoms enough?
Whilst liberalisation and ensuring adequate regulation is indeed a good thing, the question that begs asking, is whether it is still prudent to focus almost exclusively on telecoms? As indicated above, globally the emphasis is building Information Societies: critical to that end, is ICT.
To be clear, telecoms is a key building block of ICT, so its importance is not in dispute. However, telecoms, in and of itself, does not encompass all that ICT entails. It could be argued that if a country is still limiting its focus to telecoms, it might not be properly positioning itself to harness all that ICT has to offer.
Having said this, it is important to highlight the fact that the expertise to regulate and oversee ICT is not as developed when compared with what exists for telecoms. Most of the available resources are still geared towards telecoms policy and regulation. Further, the information that is supposedly on ICT policy and regulation, in many cases, appears to be a facsimile of what had been prepared for telecoms.
Is a focus on infrastructure enough?
Beyond any debate on telecoms versus ICT, it may be prudent to also consider whether or not, or the extent to which the current policy and regulation posture is still appropriate. To date, many of the policy and regulation regimes in the Caribbean focus on telecoms infrastructure, particularly for mobile/cellular networks. Hence matters that still continue to receive considerable regulatory attention include access to and availability of services, and retail calling prices. Although the Internet/data services are beginning to come to the fore, those efforts appear hesitant and disjointed, since there is a marked lack of knowledge, experience, and access to best practice in that area.
However, in addition to realising Universal Service – be it for mobile/cellular and/or Internet service – it is becoming increasingly critical for the populace to harness those technologies and services to facilitate personal, and by extension societal, wealth creation. Through the current suite of policies, governments have created enabling environments for access, i.e. matters related to the infrastructure, but to date, the same level of effort has not been given to encouraging use, innovation and entrepreneurship.
As reflected in our most recent Snapshot of network readiness in the region, in the eight Caribbean countries included in the exercise, they performed relatively well, with regard to infrastructure readiness, but lagged behind considerably on use and the economic and social impact. These two elements are critical, as they not only demonstrate the extent to which technology/ICT is being integrated in day-to-day life and activities, but also would point to its positive and transformational impact on the lives of the individual and the society as a whole.
Image credit: Terry Freedman (flickr)
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Good read. There are 2 points I would like to note:
First, Guyana’s ICT4D policy as outlined in her annual Budgets (i.e. 2013, 2014) focuses on 5 areas: telecoms liberalisation, mass distribution of netbooks, IT literacy training, ICT infrastructure (i.e. national fiber optic network) and laisons with the Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO) area of the ICT private sector. So the focus is not ‘almost exclusively’ on telecoms policy and regulation. On the contrary, it has been rather slow going on the liberalisation of telecoms in Guyana – just ask Digicel.
However, and this is the second point, this five-fold approach can indeed be adequately (and unfortunately) described as a “current suite of policies [through which government has] created enabling environments for access (at best), i.e. matters related to the infrastructure, but to date, the same level of effort has not been given to encouraging use [as opposed to access], innovation and entrepreneurship.” Certainly not to the extent of having a “transformational impact on the lives of the individual and the society as a whole.” The current limited and even hodge-podge focus on and approach to ICT related regulation, infrastructure, access and private sector incentives without a holistic focus on significant and meaningful diffusion and use of IT across the socio-economic landscape have only resulted in a limited unlocking of ICT4D potential in Guyana to-date. For example, the 2014 budget states that ICT – as a sector – will contribute 7% of GDP (a reasonable enough figure I suppose) but it has been at 7% since 2010. No growth inspite of the stated suite of policies.