3.6.2 Policy integration
- Communications regulation must be seen in the broader context of policy measures related to the development of ICT infrastructures and services. However, the principle of independent regulation must be upheld in order to secure a reliable, stable and accountable regulation. Most regulatory provisions will be similar in the vast majority of countries. There will, however, be some differences, especially with respect to the emphasis on the different areas of regulation. The mix of policy initiatives and the more specific features of the different kinds of policy initiatives will vary.
- Regulation should contribute to opening the sector for innovations and be seen as part of a broader national strategy for innovation of the communication area. The issue of innovation clearly illustrates that the relationship between technology change and regulation goes two ways. It is not solely a question of adapting regulation to technology changes, but regulatory changes and flexibility are necessary in the promotion of technology and organizational innovations in the area.
- There is also a two-way interrelationship between competition and innovation. This means that not only will competition enhance innovative market offerings; innovations will also increase competition. There is, furthermore, a two-way relationship between network and application, service and content development. Network developments will lead to the implementation of new applications, services and content, and the demand for applications, services and content will act as a driver for network capacity expanding initiatives.
- Apart from the establishment of Internet specific organizations with responsibility for the development of the Internet including standards, the most outstanding feature of the new standardization environment is the establishment of a wide range of specialized forums for specific technologies with standardization as one of their major tasks. One of the results is that the influence of smaller and/or economically less strong nation states is weakened and that national public authorities in many countries only have very limited influence on standards for telecom networks. This, however, does not mean that standardization activities are no longer relevant for national regulatory authorities, but it does mean that the focus and direct influence of national authorities have shifted from the network aspects towards the application and service aspects. There is an important public task in promoting the use of standards and specifically open standards in and between public institutions, thus influencing the use of standards not only between public institutions and citizens and private enterprises but also among citizens and private enterprises. Another important area for public policy and regulation is the choice between intra- and inter-standard competition. This choice is very complex and there is no one right answer. It depends on the specific technology area and the specific situation. However, there is presently a preference for allowing/promoting more inter-standard competition, e.g. in relation to the uses of unlicensed radio frequencies and in relation to the trading of radio frequency licenses. A final critical issue is the national character of type approval processes. This often creates very lengthy type approvals, which, in addition, may be subject to corruption. One of the ways to speed up type approval and to limit the problems of corruption is to implement a system of mutual recognition.
- Public-private partnership (PPP) is often part of a privatization discourse. However, it can easily be disentangled from this discourse and made part of a development of the potentials and problems in public-private cooperation in the build-up of infrastructures and the delivery of services. The issue of public-private partnership should be seen in light of the aim of developing a coherent policy for the establishment of national infrastructures and service provisions. The fact that communication services increasingly are subject to mechanisms of supply and demand renders it more relevant to examine the ways in which public sector initiatives can help build infrastructures, in the cases where private operators are unable to develop a market, for instance in geographically peripheral or poor areas. Instead of limiting the partnership arrangements to the public sector and private companies, there should be room for other individual and collective actors, including civil society organizations, non-governmental organizations resulting in Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships (MSPs).
- Societies today are far more dependent on technology mediated communication than before. Furthermore, the security issues related to the present communication systems including Internet are more wide-reaching than security issues in the period where telephony was, by far, the dominating service. This combination poses a significant challenge, where regulation has a role to play. The important issue to be dealt with in connection with network and information security is to construct the appropriate combination of technology and legal measures, taking the broader market and norms environment into consideration. Regulators are increasingly approached in security issues, but there are other organizations looking into these matters, for instance the national Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs). There can be many models for the organization of security work, partly or to a larger extent, involving communication regulators.
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