Global Meeting in Senegal Focuses on Broadband Empowerment

WASHINGTON, November 10, 2010 – Policy makers from around the globe met in Senegal today to discuss information and communications technologies and how they can better empower the world.

The meeting, hosted in Dakar by the International Telecommunications Union, will focus this week on key issues surrounding the development of the mobile and wireless market and their impact on ICTs.

Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré said at the opening of the meeting that the world’s ICT regulators should “do for the Internet and broadband what we have now so successfully achieved with mobile.”

He also noted that Africa has made great strides in communications development, saying that cellular penetration has reached 44 percent across the nation – a large improvement from the 15 percent penetration just four years ago.

With the theme “Enabling Tomorrow’s Digital World,’ this year’s conference focuses on broadband, looking at the challenges for regulators in “stimulating nationwide broadband deployment through adaptive and targeted regulation and out-of-the-box tools,” according to program materials.

A main output of this Global Symposium for Regulators is a set of best practice guidelines and this year these guidelines are expected to focus on best practices for enabling open networks. The guidelines are designed to assist regulators in global markets to promote open access to ICT networks, services, applications and content.