3.5 Challenges and Opportunities for Developing Countries

Establishing a regime to develop and implement interconnection rates, terms and conditions, and other provisions can place significant demands on a developing country’s legal and administrative infrastructure. This section considers particular challenges that may be significant for developing country regulators.

Many of these challenges apply to all countries, but are more difficult in countries with weak legal systems or no tradition of decision-making by independent regulators.

Key challenges include:

• The physical state of telecommunications networks in developing countries,
• Transparency and access to information,
• When state-owned operators are part of the industry,
• Free trade negotiations, and
• Dispute resolution.