The regulators gathered today, to discuss four additional important topics related to Universal Access Policies, IP and Traditional Telecom (voice) Interconnection, Mobile Terminations Regulations, and Market Entry in a Converged World.

During the fourth session of the GSR 09 titled ‘Universal Access Policies In The 21st Century’, Mr. Edwin San Roman, Senior Telecom and writer of the background paper ‘Bringing broadband to rural areas: a step-by-step approach, the experience of the Dominican Republic’ shared with the audience Peru’s experience in bringing telecommunications to rural areas and emphasized on the importance of bringing broadband to rural areas as it is considered to be a basic service like water & electricity and has proven to impact the economic growth of the country ( GDP increases by 1.3 percentage-point for every 10 percentage-point increase in broadband penetration). After exposing the challenges and the lessons learned in the development of rural broadband projects Mr. San Roman summarized the best practice guidelines as follow:

• National Policy and regulators should support broadband connectivity projects
  
  
• It is important for the regulator to share its vision of rural broadband projects with service providers being potential partners in realizing these projects.
  
  
• To offer available spectrum as part of the tender can serve as a useful incentive to get operators to participate in the process of awarding rural broadband licenses.
  
  
• Given the particularities of the telecommunications sector, official public approval processes should be shortened.
  
  

Following Mr. San Roman’s presentation, the moderator of this session, requested the panelists to comment on the points raised. The interactive discussion raised the following points:

• Collective access to the Internet is the primary form for groups to enter into the ICT world and is the most important factor in people life changes.
  
  
• Connection to rural is necessary not only as a way to provide access but also to retain population in the region where they live and to diminish the unemployment rate.
  
  
• Voice access is much easier to provide to underserved areas than internet and broadband access.
  
  
• As per the Latin America experience, it is not usually successful to implement Universal Service Status without the intervention of the government.
  
  
• Universal Service is an important tool to feed competition.
  
  
• Political support is very important to succeed in implementing Universal Service; however it is not enough if not accompanied by a clear policy framework
  
  
• Universal Service Policies should take into consideration needs of special people (handicapped persons)
  
  
• Access should be available, affordable and sustainable.
  
  

In conclusion, different countries have adopted diverse approaches to Universal Service with greater or smaller level of success; one important task is to evaluate which tool is most effective to achieve digital inclusion.