Regional telecommunication sector meets in Dominica

A workshop geared at providing telecommunication providers with the legal and regulatory framework for addressing dispute resolution and ensuring the regulatory certainty in a competitive environment has been launched in Dominica.

The workshop dubbed “Dispute Resolution and Competition Law in the Telecommunications Sector” will see the participation of a number of telecommunications service providers form across the Caribbean from April 22nd to April 24th, 2014.

Addressing the opening ceremony on Tuesday morning at the Fort Young Hotel, Minister for Information and Telecommunications Ambrose George explained that the government has been working closely with other member governments to develop harmonized telecommunication space.

“This will definitely call for a new level of collaboration among service providers, government, regulators and civil society knowing that each of the above mentioned entities though seeking to utilize a common platform will have different expectations of service hence there will be differences of opinions and ideas which must be resolved for the common goal,” he said.

According to George he expects service provider, regulators, governments and consumers to work together in the interest of unity within the sector so that all can “mutually benefit from the liberalization process which started over a decade ago.”

“The telecommunications sector in the Caribbean has seen a fundamental shift in structure from monopoly to competition where state owned operators have either been privatized and/or the telecommunications market liberalized,” he stated. “However in most recent times we have seen yet another paradigm shift in the sector where mergers and acquisitions as industry players seek to gain either a greater market share or to reposition themselves as dominant players in the sector with increase portfolios of products and services.”

George pointed out further that the convergence of telecommunications services and constantly emerging technological innovations mandate the necessity to enact relevant legislation, formulate policies and regulation for ensuring an effective, competitive environment while fostering the long term development of the telecommunications and information communication technology market

“In order to ensure the benefits of liberalization and to minimize, if not avoid conflicts and challenges regulators, legislators and policy makers must continuously seek to introduce and enact new laws and establish new measures to minimize disputes between operators and regulators and importantly between service providers and consumers,” he said.