Our vocabulary is evolving. Existing words assume new meanings – burn, rip, text, game, cookie - or appear in new combinations – cyber crime, file sharing, instant message, search engine, navigation bar. Some vocabulary is entirely new – blog, podcast, Wikipedia. The range of acronyms continues to expand – MP3, P2P, SMS, BPO, DRM, NGN, VoIP, VoBB, WiMAX. This evolving vocabulary can even evoke the experience of an era – “dotcom bubble.” The common factor here is ICTs and this reflects the growing and highly significant contribution of ICTs and the Internet in particular to a new landscape of economic and social activities and relations. The new landscape is populated by new ways of performing existing activities as well as entirely new activities – in terms of the evolving vocabulary - the “Information Society” and the “New Economy.”
Electronic communications infrastructure and services (previously known as telecommunications) are central components of ICTs and the associated networked landscape. The key characteristic of these components is that they are regulated by government administrative agencies. Consequently, there is a direct link between the performance and development of the New Economy/Information Society and the regulation of ICTs. Furthermore government regulation of ICTs extends into many adjacent areas, such as content, copyright, privacy, culture, mergers, and market entry and exit, which extends the impact of regulation in the New Economy/Information Society.
Importantly, as the Toolkit demonstrates, the substance of regulation of ICTs has itself continued to evolve. The liberalization of ICT markets has stimulated cumulative interacting innovations in products, services, and technologies, and a general convergence or blurring of distinctions between platforms, products, and services in an IP or Net-centric world. These developments necessitate some form of regulatory response either to support or impede them. The evolutionary nature of regulation is evident in the moving target of European Union (EU) regulation. There have been successive “packages” updating the framework from 1987, to 1998, to 2002. This framework is being adopted by increasing numbers of countries as they accede to the EU or become candidate members.
Consultations and recommendations on a new framework with new subjects took place in 2006 with a continued shift to less sector-specific and more ex post regulation in the EU. Significantly, these EU regulatory packages have been forcefully linked to broader policy objectives concerning inclusiveness, innovation, job creation, growth, energy, and environmental issues in the New Economy or Information Society. The EU is not alone in this process; most ITU members have implemented ICT strategies.[1]
ENDNOTES
[1] For example, Singapore http://www.ida.gov.sg/idaweb/media/infopage.jsp?infopagecategory=&infopageid=I3881&versionid=1 and Rwanda http://www.rita.gov.rw/laws/nici_plans.html