In a move to shape and align the strate­gic ICT agen­da in the re­gion, the Caribbean Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Union (CTU) brought sev­er­al re­gion­al ICT stake­hold­ers to­geth­er at the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel, Port of Spain, Trinidad on De­cem­ber 5 and 6.

In at­ten­dance were se­nior of­fi­cials rep­re­sent­ing gov­ern­ments, reg­u­la­tors, CAN­TO, Cari­com, net­work op­er­a­tors and oth­er ICT stake­hold­ers.

Top­ics dis­cussed in­clud­ed roam­ing charges, Over the Top (OTT) providers, net neu­tral­i­ty, num­ber porta­bil­i­ty and in­cen­tivis­ing broad­band de­vel­op­ment in the re­gion.

One high­light of the meet­ing was the es­tab­lish­ment of a new Caribbean ICT Col­lab­o­ra­tion Com­mit­tee with a man­date to make rec­om­men­da­tions to Caribbean gov­ern­ments on key ICT is­sues af­fect­ing the re­gion.

Chair­man of the new­ly formed com­mit­tee, Lu­cien Black­moore, Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of In­for­ma­tion, Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy, Do­mini­ca, gave his com­mit­ment to this col­lab­o­ra­tive ap­proach and looked for­ward to work­ing with all the stake­hold­ers to en­able ICT de­vel­op­ment in the re­gion.

Vice chair­man of the Caribbean ICT Col­lab­o­ra­tion Com­mit­tee and CAN­TO chair­man, Ju­lian Wilkins com­mend­ed the CTU on the es­tab­lish­ment of this ini­tia­tive. He added that CAN­TO was de­light­ed to be part of this his­toric event and he looks for­ward to col­lab­o­rat­ing and co­op­er­at­ing with ICT stake­hold­ers.

He con­clud­ed that this is a great op­por­tu­ni­ty to make progress on a num­ber of key ICT is­sues af­fect­ing the Caribbean.

CAN­TO is recog­nised as the lead­ing trade as­so­ci­a­tion of the ICT sec­tor for shap­ing in­for­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion in the Caribbean. Found­ed in 1985 as a non-prof­it as­so­ci­a­tion of 8 tele­phone op­er­at­ing com­pa­nies, CAN­TO has now grown to over 120 mem­bers in more than 31 coun­tries. A board of di­rec­tors ap­point­ed by the mem­ber­ship di­rects pol­i­cy of the as­so­ci­a­tion. This strat­e­gy is ex­e­cut­ed by the staff of a per­ma­nent sec­re­tari­at based in Trinidad and To­ba­go.