The Telecommunications Authority has made the decision to allow Cable and Wireless (C&W)–when it acquires the assets of Columbus Communications in T&T and the region–to operate locally under the condition that C&W divests within 18 months its 49 per cent shareholding in TSTT. The Communications Worker's Union has been against this decision and has asked the Government to reconsider it. Concerns range from the unethical behaviour of C&W through the return of a monopoly, whereas the intent of the liberalisation of the industry was to promote competition, to C&W regaining its dominant position in the Caribbean in direct competition with Digicel.
Bernard Mitchell, former chief operating officer of TSTT, sees that as long as C&W divests itself of the 49 per cent shareholding, TSTT should not suffer any negative consequences.
My concerns, however, address the larger canvas of how are we preparing ourselves to obtain a big broadband infrastructure, which we need to facilitate both the diversification of the economy and producing the human resources that can use such a telecom infrastructure that is becoming as important as an efficient highway system?
The first question to ask our government and TATT is: what is the supply (infrastructure) and demand (human resources, new companies, etc) policy with respect to the broadband infrastructure and the areas of ICT in which we should become globally competitive?
Policy is indeed important. For example, the US, because it has left the development of its broadband system to the market–particularly as it applies to the Internet–has encouraged area monopolies and has found itself left behind in both broadband speed and cost to consumers as compared with the UK (driven by BT and now its G-Fast technology), Japan, Singapore and South Korea.
It appears that the regulator, TATT, thinks that by encouraging mobile phone competition and neglecting to regulate the Internet access, will provide the telecommunications broadband that we require to compete globally.
In the 2011-2012 Budget statement, it was announced that, together with the World Bank, our government was preparing a strategic map to roll out a high speed (100Mb/s at least?) broadband network within two years. The financing for such a plan was being negotiated. This plan was to ensure that the un-served and under-served communities of T&T get the required access to the Internet.
At the moment the whole of T&T is either under- or un-served given our dependence on market forces with no TATT/government broadband policy in place. It is now 2015 and neither the proposed broadband network nor policy has seen the light of day. Surely, TSTT is a valuable asset and will be even moreso when we finally decide to implement a broadband policy and build a physical network. For this reason alone what we do with TSTT shares is important.
I do not believe that if we were to fully divest TSTT shares to our risk averse public, or even to another foreign investor, there will be the foresight/desire to invest in the long term returns of a big broadband network. In a previous contribution I recommended that the government should provide TSTT as a fully publicly owned utility with a broadband fund that can complement, if they so desire to participate, the private sector providers in the deployment of a high-speed broadband shared network of at least 100Mb/s (scalable up to one Gb/s) to every home and business as a fundamental part of our socio-economic development.
It is interesting to note that our Telecommunications Act provides for contributions by the providers to a Universal Service Fund which could be used in such a broadband project. Though this fund exists in the act it does not in practice; with no government policy for infrastructure expansion this is understandable though regrettable.
If we were to look on the demand side, it is clear the country needs to produce highly skilled ICT practitioners. This demands that our educational/training system be restructured to produce this resource. Indeed we are giving laptop computers to secondary school entrants but this is but part, and irrelevant, if the rest of the training system is non-existent. The ITU tells us that:
"Smart public policies to foster broadband should always take into account both sides of the market viz supply (investments in broadband networks, adequate products and services, affordability of devices) and demand (expanding ICT education, digital skills, entrepreneurship policies and support for start-ups).
"Teachers are central to achieving these policy objectives. According to new global projections from UNESCO, chronic shortages of teachers will exist beyond 2015 for decades if current trends continue."
The supply of laptops to students–in circumstances where teachers are untrained in the digital technologies and there is no content or organised systems of ICT and ICT based instruction–is useless as a development strategy.
I did the feature address at the T&T ICT Business Innovation Symposium in November 2010 in which I recommended that ICT could indeed form part of our economic diversification thrust. I looked at the models adopted by India, Ireland and Costa Rica. My view is that we should become proficient in, say, an engineering or medical technology that uses ICT to enhance new applications of the technology.
At the time of the address, the Ministry of Planning was conducting a foresighting exercise to choose technologies for ICT application as part of the creation of a national diversification system. Nothing appears to have come out of that initiative.
The deployment of a broadband network is an integral part of our economic diversification objectives and strategy. Since the market–Digicel, C&W, Flow–cannot provide the required broadband infrastructure (at least on its own) then, what we do with TSTT is critical to our diversification thrust.
A TSTT completely engaged in competition in the market in the short term cannot build the required broadband network. The union is correct that the government should take another look, but not simply at the decision to let the enhanced C&W operate in T&T. TSTT should become a publicly owned strategic utility, funded in part by the Universal Service Fund for the building of our broadband network as a shared resource among the providers.
Mary K King
via e-mail
