Issues in Telecommunications Development

When the 850 or so delegates to the second World Telecommunication Development Conference entered the hall of the Mediterranean Conference Centre, it was with a serious and urgent purpose: to try to find new ways of rapidly advancing telecommunications development in the non-industrialized world, in an attempt to bring developing nations into to the fast-emerging Global Information Infrastructure.

It is an oft-cited fact that, whilst developments in telecommunications are moving along in leaps and bounds throughout the world’s richer nations, some developing countries are lagging ever further behind. More than half the people living in the developing world still do not have access to a simple voice telephone. Communications capabilities that those of us living in Europe, the Americas, or the wealthy nations of the Pacific Rim take for granted everyday – telephone, fax, voicemail, e-mail, mobile cellular and paging – are a world away from the everyday lives of people living in the vast majority of countries around the world. In reality, the new communications revolution has touched only a very few nations, which have the networks, development capital and large user base necessary to support growth and deployment of new services.

This gap between North and South, affluent and poor, has long been a problem and source of concern for those, like the ITU, who work to further the global provision of basic telecommunications. Today, new gaps are emerging: between urban and rural areas, in valued-added services, in Internet access. As the United Nations specialized agency for telecommunications, the ITU has as one of its primary mandates the fostering of telecoms network growth with the purpose of extending access to communications services to as many of the world’s people as possible.

Global Telecoms Development

Back in 1984, the Union set about ascertaining the real state of the world’s telecoms networks, commissioning a special report, known as the Maitland report. The report, prepared by the Independent Commission for Worldwide Telecommunications Development, spoke of a 'missing link' – the lack of a reliable telecommunications infrastructure – which was holding back countries in the developing world from reaching their full economic potential. Teledensity figures, which count the number of main telephone lines for every 100 people, continue to hover around 1.0 to 3.5 in most of the developing world, while wealthy nations enjoy rates around 50. Indeed, most carriers industrialized markets are now experiencing the most growth in demand for second or third phone lines for family members, fax machines, or connection to the Internet.

The findings of the Maitland report, and the establishment of a specialized sector within the ITU (ITU-D) to deal with development issues, led to the first World Telecommunication Development Conference in Buenos Aires in 1994. The aim of this conference was to develop programmes specially targeted at the needs of the developing world, which would translate into real and rapid improvements in telecommunications infrastructure. These programmes have have not all produced the expected results. Hearteningly, quite a few developing nations, including many in Asia and several in Africa, have begun to respond to development efforts and notch up impressive improvements in teledensity and telecommunications access. Countries like Botswana, China, Chile, Thailand, Hungary, Ghana and Mauritius have all made good progress in extending telecommunications access in the last two to three years.

However, there remain some nations, particularly many of the 48 UN-designated Least Developed Countries, in which the situation has little or not improved, when they have not worsened. While the number of new lines installed in these countries frequently has actually increased from between 20 to 30% over the last 10 years, this increase has often not been sufficient to keep up with the rise in population, causing teledensity figures to fall in real terms. Furthermore, since most lines in the developing world are concentrated in and around the major city, the situation for people living in rural areas is frequently much worse than even low teledensity figures would indicate.

The problem for some nations is now becoming acute. The growing use of electronic processing systems in business throughout the industrialized world is making it harder and harder for countries with poorly developed communications networks to win a share of trade and commerce in richer world, effectively cutting off the major source of hard currency and earnings. For people living in much of the developing world, the new Global Information Infrastructure proposed by Vice President Al Gore at the ITU’s first World Telecommunication Development Conference must seem a long way off, and getting ever more distant.

With changes in the telecommunications environment taking place at lightning speed, it has become imperative that urgent methods be found to improve the communications infrastructure in those countries which have failed to make significant progress under the development schemes currently in place. If not, we risk these countries falling so far behind that catch-up may well be almost an impossibility.

Signs of Change

Four years after the ITU’s first World Telecommunications Development Conference in Argentina, there are nevertheless good signs of change on the horizon in much of the developing world. Indeed, in parts of the African continent, which is home to 33 of the 48 LDCs, some are even beginning to speak of an Africa renaissance generated by the opening up of formerly closed markets. According to the International Monetary Fund, Africa should record growth of 4.7%, putting it just behind world growth leader Asia. Furthermore, Uganda and Botswana are forecast to be among the ten fastest growing economies in the world this year.

The Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT) of the ITU has worked hard to create a paradigm shift in telecoms development whether advising on appropriate institutional structures, networks and services for efficient telecommunications or assisting in mobilizing the financial and human resources necessary to introduce technological innovations. Over the years, it has largely contributed to a change of attitude from an inward-focused approach to an outward-oriented route to telecoms development.

In that new evolving environment, operators are taking advantage of foreign investment and partnerships to build and expand their networks with it fast results in many countries.

New technologies such as mobile cellular telephony and wireless local loop are helping to increase access for urban populations living in the developing world. In rural regions, where the cost of installing private lines is often prohibitively high when compared with the revenue that these lines generate, the emphasis is now on improving access rather than bringing a line into every home. Initiatives such as community telecentres, which give rural dwellers access to a central telecommunications facility where they can make and receive calls, send and receive faxes and e-mail, and even surf the Internet, have great potential to bring the benefits of modern communications to formerly isolated towns and villages in a way that is economically viable.

A trial project of so-called Multipurpose Community Telecentres is already underway in Uganda, through a partnership between the ITU, UNESCO and the Canadian International Development Research Centre (IDRC). It is envisaged that this MCT, based at Nakaseke in the country’s south-west, and equipped with a range of communications equipment, could generate US$450 a month in revenue once fully operational i.e. half of the annual current revenue per line.

Market Liberalization

Further evidence of a shift in attitudes in parts of the African continent is the move to embrace the free-trade principles of the World Trade Organization. Seven African countries have already joined the WTO – Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Mauritius, Morocco, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia – and a number of other countries, including Cape Verde, Guinea, Guinea Bissau and Sao Principe and Principe have begun to liberalize their markets in the same spirit, but outside the framework of the WTO.

In addition, five African operators were privatized between 1996 and 1997, compared to only one in the five years between 1990 and 1995. More than a dozen new private mobile cellular companies have begun operations since 1995, while more than 100 Internet service providers have started operations in sub-Saharan Africa. But, regulatory regimes that reduce impredictability will be essential to attract investors and policies will need to be put into place to ensure a level playing field.

Why a World Conference?

In addition to the Union’s considerable on-the-ground activities, the Union’s four-yearly global development conferences bring the world’s telecommunications community together to focus regional and national development efforts, and to serve as a think-tank for the development of innovative strategies that could be used to improve telecommunications access in the world’s under-served regions.

The first World Telecommunication Development Conference in 1994 defined twelve programme areas which required special efforts for the improvement of telecommunications infrastructure: policies strategy and financing; human resources management; business plan development; maritime radiocommunication development; computer-aided network planning; frequency management; maintenance; development of mobile cellular systems; integrated rural development; broadcasting; information service development; and development of telematics and electronic networks, such as the Internet.

The plan that was developed at the first WTDC to address each of these programme areas, the Buenos Aires Action Plan, will be reviewed at the forthcoming WTDC, to see where it has succeeded, and in what respects it has failed to live up to expectations. Despite overall good results, changes in the global telecommunications environment, including new global trading arrangements ushered in by the World Trade Organization agreement on trade in telecommunications services, will necessitate new approaches. The second WTDC will be looking closely at policies which could improve access to telecommunications and information technologies throughout the world’s underserved regions.

What’s On the Agenda?

First and foremost, the second WTDC will review the comprehensive Action Plan developed at Buenos Aires. The conference will attempt to ascertain from delegates working on the ground in countries targeted by the programme whether the strategies developed are bringing about real improvements in network development, and what further steps could be taken to improve the situation. This review will provide the input for the development of the next four-year plan for the work of the ITU’s Development Sector, and give an indication as to whether policies are moving in the right direction.

Specific areas of discussion will centre around new ways of developing mutually beneficial partnerships for development, innovative funding arrangements, new technologies and their application in developing countries, and the need for new regulatory structures to meet the needs of the evolving global telecommunications environment.

Certainly, at the end of the day, every delegate at the WTDC will hope that the conference can come up with a new four-year plan that is not only idealistic, but which is able to be implemented at grass roots level. As the uptake of telecommunications-based information services accelerates throughout the developed world, the time for platitudes and lofty, unrealistic projects is long behind us. If we fail to make real progress in the countries currently lagging behind, instead of creating a Global Information Infrastructure, we will have merely cemented in place the old inequalities which have kept poor countries from benefiting from prosperity and growth. For this reason, many are already citing the Malta conference, as a ‘make-or-break’ event for telecommunications development.

Today more than ever, there are good reasons for optimism for the future of global telecommunications development. Deregulation and liberalization of markets is already bringing an injection of foreign capital and helping to jump-start the telecoms infrastructure of many developing nations. New technologies, from community telecentres to satellite-based GMPCS phone systems, are offering great possibilities for overcoming the tyranny of high costs and remote locations, which have plagued operators and administrations in the developing world since they first began building their networks. And information distribution systems, such as the Internet, do provide real opportunities for bringing education and information within the reach of all.

The key issue surrounding most of these technologies and systems is price. At the moment, almost all of these options are well-beyond the range most inhabitants of developing nations could be expected to pay. Costs will have to come down, and one of the tasks of the WTDC will be to consider how this might be feasible while at the same time maintaining private sector interest and participation in local markets.

Some would say telecommunications development is at a crossroads. While the concern over the need for rapid progress in the developing world is justified, the tools for change are in our hands. The ITU’s Valletta conference just needs to work out how to use them.