KINGSTON–Dig­i­cel yes­ter­day said it wel­comes the move by the Caribbean Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Union (CTU) to es­tab­lish a Caribbean ICT Col­lab­o­ra­tion Com­mit­tee (CI­CC) re­spon­si­ble for shap­ing and align­ing the strate­gic ICT agen­da for the Caribbean.

With rep­re­sen­ta­tion from a com­bi­na­tion of se­nior mem­bers span­ning reg­u­la­to­ry, Gov­ern­ment and the tech­nol­o­gy in­dus­try (op­er­a­tors), the com­po­si­tion of the Com­mit­tee will be de­ter­mined at its sec­ond Col­lab­o­ra­tion Fo­rum cur­rent­ly tak­ing place at the Hy­att Re­gency in Port of Spain.

A range of in­dus­try is­sues are tabled for dis­cus­sion at the Fo­rum with a view of de­vel­op­ing a de­tailed re­port with rec­om­men­da­tions to re­gion­al Gov­ern­ments on top­ics in­clud­ing the treat­ment of VoIP and OTT providers, Net Neu­tral­i­ty, num­ber porta­bil­i­ty, and the ex­am­i­na­tion of roam­ing charges with­in the re­gion.

Specif­i­cal­ly, in terms of net neu­tral­i­ty, Dig­i­cel is in favour of a com­mer­cial­ly open In­ter­net which serves the in­ter­ests of cus­tomers and which gives net­work op­er­a­tors the con­fi­dence to be able to make sig­nif­i­cant in­vest­ments in the roll out broad­band for every­one.

"With the on­go­ing ICT rev­o­lu­tion, com­bined with the forces of glob­al­iza­tion, there is no doubt that a col­lec­tive ap­proach is need­ed for ad­vanc­ing ICT-en­abled de­vel­op­ment in the Caribbean–a long­stand­ing and key area of fo­cus for Dig­i­cel," said Kier­an Meskell, group head of Reg­u­la­to­ry Af­fairs for Dig­i­cel, Caribbean and Cen­tral Amer­i­ca.

"We com­mend the re­spon­si­ble and ef­fi­cient man­ner in which the CTU has moved to ex­e­cute this all-im­por­tant rec­om­men­da­tion for a com­mit­tee and we will look for­ward to work­ing with all stake­hold­ers to de­vel­op and shape the vi­sion of ICT with a goal of po­si­tion­ing the Caribbean strong­ly in the glob­al knowl­edge econ­o­my."