 Welcome to the Global Symposium for Regulators 2023, GSR-23 being held here in Shamal Shake in Egypt. We've got the great pleasure of being joined in the ITU studio today by Dr Shiv Bakshi, who is the Vice President of Industry Relations for Group Function Technology for Ericsson. Dr Bakshi, welcome to the studio. Pleasure to be here, Max. Now let's start talking a little bit about your presence here at GSR-23. Why is GSR and in fact ITUD important to Ericsson? I work for Ericsson. We are a technology company. But I have always loved coming to GSR and engaging with the ITUD. And part of the reason is that I think all discussion of technology comes down to how can we improve society. And GSR is that perfect forum where issues of social justice, issues of inclusiveness, issues of reaching out to those at the bottom of the economic pyramid in terms of geographical space, in terms of financial structures, that is what is discussed out here. And I think that is absolutely critical to focus us on how to use technology in society and remember to what end we are developing all these technologies and what we are trying to achieve. It is social justice, it is social parity and those issues of inclusiveness, of connecting the unconnected, of bridging the digital divide. Those moral issues are discussed at the GSR. So I absolutely celebrate coming to the GSR for that reason. And ITUD? Why is ITUD important? ITUD, as I understand it, is a coordination platform where the world comes together to share ideas, to coordinate technologies, to build coordinate standards and so on and so forth. ITUD is about development and this is where we coordinate best regulatory practices. We coordinate issues on what we agree on where the world should go. That kind of discussion does not take place when you are talking about spectrum alone. That does not take place when you are talking about standards alone. There has to be a platform where we can discuss the socio-political, socio-economic and moral issues as to where we should go. And that is the platform that ITUD provides. So I think it is absolutely wonderful to have the opportunity to come and engage with ITUD. Now you mentioned spectrum before. There has been a lot of discussion between licensed spectrum and non-licensed spectrum. What is your feeling about that? So spectrum is an asset, right? And it should be utilized for whatever policy goals we have. I work with mobile technology. I represent Ericsson. So we are of course very happy with the idea of licensed spectrum. But I think society needs both licensed and unlicensed spectrum. And I know whenever I say that society needs unlicensed spectrum, some finance ministry guy in some administration is possibly crying into his beer. So be it. But we do need unlicensed spectrum. But the licensed spectrum is something that actually provides us the opportunity to meet many of the policy goals. When you license spectrum and when we harmonize that licensed spectrum, we achieve two things. One of them is scale, which is very, very important because technologies unless they have scale, we can't bring the prices down. That is so important for that reason. There is another thing. When you have licensed technology, you can actually promise a quality of service because there is a promise that they will not be interference from any other technology. And it is good not only for mobile, but for other technologies also. So if you're a satellite, you don't want interference of your signals. So licensed technology allows you to do that, to have an opportunity to make sure that A, you can build scale, B, you can make sure there is no interference. And those are very, very important things. There is yet another thing. The economist Joseph Stiglitz very famously remarked that unfettered markets, spectrum license markets do not necessarily lead to social justice. And not only that, they are not even efficient. And part of the reason is the tragedy of the commons. When the spectrum is not licensed, it is an invitation for anybody to come and try to provide a service on that. And that can create a lot of noise, number one. And number two, when a technology is not licensed, you do not find investors very willing to invest in that technology and exploit the spectrum for social good. The money is needed for investment, the know-how needed for investment. The amount of time and effort needed to build standards, to harmonize spectrum, to achieve common views is very, very important. That can happen most often and most likely in the regulated, in the licensed environment. So I think while we do need license and unlicensed spectrum, there is a tremendous amount of reason to look at licensed spectrum. And finally, for one more reason, then not all spectrum is equal. Some spectrum is given as propagation characteristic. Some spectrum is more towards what we would call prime spectrum critical for certain purposes. Question that begs itself is how should society deal with this prime spectrum, this great asset for social good? Should it be left to the whims and vagaries of the marketplace in an unlicensed environment? Or should it be licensed so that the policymaker and the regulator on behalf of the society can direct markets and industry players in socially desirable directions by imposing conditions of say coverage, et cetera, et cetera. So license has that benefit that it allows the policy makers to direct the market in socially desirable directions. That's what it is. Finally, what you hope will be some of the key takeaways from this particular symposium? I have been attending most of the sessions as many as I could and it has been absolute delight to see how articulate and how passionate various industry people are and various policymakers are and all are driving regardless of the technology you represent or I represent. We are all trying to drive the discussion on how we can achieve inclusiveness, how we can achieve meaningful connectivity, how we can achieve universal service, how we can sort of make sure that those at the margins of society, whether economic or geographic terms are not left behind. So I think the discussion here is absolutely first rate and absolutely necessary to be able to sort of move towards and achieve the social development goals that the UN has set and that the ITU is trying to push and help achieve. So this is absolutely marvelous to be here, to be able to engage with my friends and of course there is the great opportunity to meet a lot of friends across the industry and across the regulatory landscape. So this is absolutely wonderful for that reason. It's been wonderful having you in the studio. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you very much for the opportunity. And look forward to catching up with you again very soon. Meet Max. Thank you. And do check into our YouTube channel as well as our SoundCloud channel where or wherever you get your podcast from for more interviews from GSR23. Until next time, thank you very much indeed.