 Welcome everyone, thank you very much for joining us today for the launch of ITU's flagship regulatory report Trends in Telecommunication Reform. This report is produced by ITU each year and is widely recognized as the definitive global snapshot of the regulatory environment worldwide. We're delighted to have with us today two special guests who are both regulatory experts. We have Mario Manjevitz who is Chief of Infrastructure Enabling Environment and E-Applications and Nancy Sundberg, she's Senior Program Officer in the Regulatory and Market Environment Division and it's her unit who organizes ITU's annual Global Symposium for Regulators. Thank you very much both of you for joining us. Let's have a look at the content of this year's report, let's start with you Nancy. Could you give us just a brief overview, sum up the main thrust of the report this year? Yes, thanks Sarah. I think that perhaps the most important finding is that ICT regulation now has moved much higher up the list of national priorities in many countries and the government worldwide now acknowledge the vital role that technology plays in their national prosperity and getting them into international competitiveness. So what we often say is that ICT networks are the backbone of today's society and of just all the modern services that are being provided in a digital environment. If you think of banking, commerce and to the delivery of public services just like education and health. The government now understand that getting the right mix of regulatory regulation has a huge impact on ICT rollout and on service costs to the local population and to businesses as well. So in recognition of this, 160 countries have now established a separate regulatory agency. But the big challenge for these agencies is now to find ways of managing increasingly complex and trans-border markets because the environment is changing and changing very rapidly as we've seen. Mario, that's indeed the theme of this year's report, Transnational Globalized Markets for ICT Goods and Services. Could you tell us what that would mean for the work of a regulator? Well, it certainly implies that the regulatory work in the ICT sector is increasingly complex, it's becoming more and more complex. So these transnational players coupled with the regional networks that are being used to deliver services and content that not necessarily belong to what we traditionally call telecommunication services makes this very challenging. So on one hand, we have this convergence between the broadcasting and the telecommunications. On the other hand, we have these new applications and new services, for instance, the cloud services. We have their issues of ownership, issues of privacy that were not there before. And for instance, in the cloud services, the data is not situated in the same country or the service is not even situated or given, provided in the same country that you are hiring it. So obviously these transnational issues are making this regulatory environment more complex. Does it mean that a national focus for regulators is effectively outdated? Do they all have to be looking further afield or is there still a role for a nationally focused policy? Well, certainly the national regulatory framework is key in order to ensure that we have a level playing field that will promote competition and that will foster the rollout of networks and services. But of course, there is a change of the game, let's say, for the regulators because they have to also consider a transnational perspective. So the national networks are key for the development of the sector and of the socioeconomic aspects of the country, but these networks will be much less useful if they are not strongly connected to other, let's say, international networks and regional networks. As well, from the spectrum perspective, if we have a harmonized spectrum plan for a region, then we will be able to accommodate much more this boom of the mobile services, including the mobile broadband. Nancy, we're going to go back to you. I'd just like to tell all of our participants, we will be inviting them to ask questions via the chat pod on the Adobe Connect interface or you can send them in via Twitter. But let's go back to the report. Any other key findings that you would like to summarize? Yes, one of the main points that really comes out is that future ICT policies will need to focus even more closely on consumer needs and consumer concerns. And this is certainly clearly shown through the research we've done on cloud computing, data protection and privacy issues. As the regulatory environment is getting more and more complex, consumer protection becomes an even increasing issue. With social media affecting that, are you finding pressure on operators via social channels if they may be criticized? Yes, it certainly plays a big role. What we're witnessing now is a complete change in consumer behaviors, but also a complete change in business practices. And what we do see is that increasing transparency is really one important and major goal. And one of my colleagues just told me this morning, maybe the key regulatory tool today might be transparency. And what we've seen is an obvious area where this is important is in mobile rooming. For example, we saw that the new provisions to increase price transparency for mobile calls were agreed in Dubai in December during the WICCIT meeting where the new international telecommunication regulations were adopted. And what we now need to see is how operators will now implement strategies that are going to help consumers determine exactly how much they are paying when they are traveling abroad. And this doesn't apply just for voice services but also increasingly for data. And I think we all know of friends that have come back from holidays and from trips abroad and have had to face enormous bill for data download. I think some people don't even realize that they are downloading. It's not that sometimes this happens. They don't even know that they were accessing the internet. So this is certainly a big issue. And also what we see is that as machine to machine communications and automatic update of web feeds and instant access to online news and videos are increasingly becoming the norm, the industry is going to have to find a way to accommodate the need to make a good return from the services. They deliver with consumers new usage patterns and new lifestyles and new habits. Maria, could we talk a little bit, just to explain to the people who've joined us on the webinar, the origins of this report. This comes out of the Global Symposium for Regulators. It's one of our to use most popular, most successful events. I would say has a very, very loyal community of policymakers and regulators and takes place every year. This report is effectively the result of the three days discussion during that. And it's usually quite an intense and frank debate. Could you tell us why was the GSR set up? Who is it pitched at and what are its aims? Why did we establish it? Well, the GSR, the Global Symposium for Regulators, or GSR as we call it for short, started in 2000 and the idea was to gather all the regulators around the world in order for them to discuss the issues of concern and to share experiences and to come up with a set of best practices that they would agree upon that would guide the work of the regulators in the various topics that they were discussing. So at that time, there were not so many regulators around the world. We have gone from 40 to 160 today. And this gathering has continued to be the preferred meeting point of the regulators in order to share among peers the concerns they have, the difficulties they have. Many of the topics we've been discussing and the challenges they pose to regulators. And by sharing experiences and exchanging points of view, they get to a set of best practice guidelines, as we call them, that are issued at the end of the event, that are agreed upon all regulators and that although they are not binding for anyone, I mean, they provide a good guide for all regulators, mainly for the new ones, the ones that are being set up that are not as experienced, but for all in terms of how to do about important topics. So this year, we will have the 13th edition of the GSR and it will be in Poland, in Warsaw, from the 3rd to the 5th of July. And the main topic of the event is the 4th generation regulation. So just to show how the regulatory framework has evolved that we are in such a short timeframe already in what is considered the 4th generation of regulatory measures, mainly to foster broadband to all, both fixed and mobile broadband. That conference normally sees a very rich level of debate, if I could say. And I think that must be partly because it's a peer-to-peer discussion. It's quite a very experienced community of people working in the same field, facing similar challenges. Absolutely. And it started as a peer-to-peer discussion and in a framework that was, let's say, closed to them. So they felt confident enough to share their concerns and their experiences, good or bad. But as time evolved, we faced increasing pressure from the private sector for them to be part of the dialogue. So after consultation with the regulators, then we agreed on devoting part of the time of the event to a dialogue between the regulators and the private sector. So that part of the event, we call it GRID for Global Regulators Industry Dialogue. So we have industry leaders that are coming for the first two days of the event and they are engaging in this dialogue with the regulators. And then we go to the classical or the traditional, let's say, closed part for the regulators only. So it has evolved in that sense. But we think in a positive way because, of course, the regulators cannot be in a vacuum. So they have to be surrounded by the service providers and the other members of the industry. And probably in the future, also the consumers will have, as they imagine. I'm happy to say that the first day of the GSR is open to media and to analysts. I would very much encourage those of you joining us today to come to that event. This year in Warsaw, as Mario said, very, very interesting debate. We have a great program and anyone who would like more information, please just get in touch with me. Let's go back to Nancy for the moment, though. And look at some of the more in-depth key topics that this report focuses on. What are the key areas? So to answer some of the pressing needs of regulators, we've, and to try to bring an exchange of experiences and to draw best practices on really key regulatory issues regulators are facing today, we've decided last year to address the issues of net neutrality and the traffic management measures, sorry, what are the factors that are driving their use and the regulatory approaches that have been taken by the different countries. We're looking at spectrum policy for future mobile growth, looking at the high-level principles that underlie an effective policymaking. We're looking at international mobile-rooming prices and best practices. We're also looking at global and regional IP interconnection and cloud computing, looking at the cloud computing regulation, but also looking at another aspect of cloud services, which is data protection and privacy in the cloud. And in this report, we also start with an introduction chapter that sets the scene on what are the latest regulatory and market trends. Let's look at the net neutrality issue, because that debate's been ongoing for some time and it doesn't look like it's going away. From the discussions at last year's GSR in Sri Lanka, do you think what some people would call a multi-tier internet where better services are available for those who can afford to pay more? Is that an inevitable model for future web access? And if it is, what does that mean for consumers and for global internet uptake access? I think it is, we're already seeing it today. It is inevitable, as it is happening for other services and the provision of other services. But I think the main issue here is to ensure that operators and service providers do not try to block or downgrade the traffic and by using the traffic management practices that may be, that consumers may not be aware of and that by doing so, they will restrain access to the internet. There's a risk that operators may make the lower level packages rather cludgy to try to encourage people to move up some more spaces. Yes, to move up and to go to the next, let's say, subscription level. And this is something that regulators may need to be cautious of and this is again where the issue of transparency is really important. And it is really important that consumers are informed but also they can get access to what are some of these quality of services that are the basic requirements. So operators would be required to report yearly, let's imagine a scenario where they would be required to report yearly on the kinds of management practices, policies that they use and maybe even the software and the KPIs and whatever. So that consumers can understand what they are buying and what are they getting for the kind of service they are looking for. And this is really also to ensure that everybody can get access to the internet but at reasonable and under reasonable and fair terms and conditions and that they are not downgraded because of some traffic management practices that would be at their detriment but just for the benefit of the operators to generate more revenues. There are some questions coming through now but I'm just going to ask Mario to talk quickly on spectrum policy because this area is always a highly contentious one. We always hear mobile operators crying out for more spectrum and we're probably on the brink of a new paradigm shift. I know ITU has finished pretty much the standardization of next-generation mobile so the IMT advanced platform that would see mobile broadband speeds move up to effectively 1 gigabit per second. That will inevitably put more pressure on limited spectrum. What will that mean? We already have a spectrum crunch and even in some developed countries I think anyone who's traveled to New York understands that. It's a difficult environment already. How are we going to cope with the new demands of mobile broadband? Absolutely. Well, the pressure on spectrum availability will continue. I mean, it's here to stay. Of course, it is not only, let's say, because of the use of mobile services as we know them but also because of the increasing use of machine-to-machine communications over the top services like VoIP and the increased use of cloud services, for instance. So the expectation is that the data traffic will grow 18-fold from today to 2016. So obviously the pressure on the spectrum availability will continue. So for the time being, there are two measures that are being taken until the next WRC, the World Radio Communication, takes place. One is to provide the spectrum management best practices and to try to, let's say, convince regulators to use them more and more, like the spectrum reforming, spectrum reuse, the liberalization of spectrum. These measures can ease the need for available spectrum. And also in terms of spectrum licensing, to try to go to more agile and market-oriented mechanisms for licensing and not those bureaucratic-based procedures that took so long. So this kind of auctioning and in-band migration and the spectrum sharing, these kind of licensing mechanisms that are more agile and that can respond better to the demands of the market. If we were to favor an auction, do we not risk pushing the cost of price up? As we saw with the 3G licenses, people paid a fortune to get a hold of that spectrum and it must have had an impact on the cost of services eventually and maybe you're still impacting the cost of services. Is that not a concern? I think we have learned from the experience of that time and now the people are much more cautious on the business model that they will use for the auctioning. It's also a way of really, let's say, making sure that spectrum usage responds to demand or to a real need. And not if spectrum is granted for free, but then you run the risk of people accumulating or keeping chunks of spectrum that are not used. Just in case. I can sell it later on. It's a way of, yes. Yes. What about the next World Radio Communication Conference? As many on the webinar would know, it's ITU that handles the global allocation of spectrum to different services. The next Radio Coms conference comes up in 2015. Will we see new allocations? Do you think at that conference for mobile cellular? Absolutely. No doubt about it. It's already taking care in the agenda. There are even two agenda items that are dealing with this issue to allocate spectrum for 3G and 4G services. And there are already some groups working on trying to find available spectrum in order to be able to decide on its allocation. For instance, in region one, as America's region is called in the radio sector, has created a task force where users of spectrum, like satellite operators, broadcasters, and mobile operators are looking into areas of the spectrum that could be released and could be reallocated for new services. I'd like to take a couple of questions coming in from those who joined us today. One is, or the first one I see is, how much difference can regulators really make when so much power is now concentrated in over-the-top players who are often not subject to the same regulatory constraints as the traditional telcos? I don't know which of you would like to have a go, or maybe both of you. Yeah. Well, this is a concern, certainly. And this is something where, it's an area where we see that collaboration and international cooperation and collaboration among regulators is key. This is where you need it. It really highlights that, what we were saying, the transnational aspects of regulation today, countries cannot operate in a silo. I mean, they are not alone. They can't just be operating in their own country. They need to discuss, they need to exchange, and they need to develop with other countries policies, maybe to address these issues. And certainly the ITU and the GSR venues where we provide the opportunities for regulators to see how they can best meet these concerns and address these concerns to ensure that these OTTs do not like, how do you say, operate with, going, providing anti-competitive practices, but that they do so in a transparent and fair environment and not at the detriment of traditional telecom operators. Questioning on the GSR, noting that civil society and consumer groups are increasingly important, and we mentioned that already. The question is, is there provision for funding civil society to participate? I think not for funding, but certainly it's open on day one to a civil society organization, if I'm right, one that would be working in this area. Well, the GSR is addressed to ITU members. So either member states, which are the governments and the regulators, or what we call sector members, which is the private sector, the academia and other organizations that are members of the ITU. Indeed, which includes civil society organizations. Which includes civil society, but they have to be members in order to be able to participate in the event. Worth noting that civil society organizations, I think, can join, often the membership fees are waived in the case of smaller NGOs who may find it difficult to, not that the membership fees are particularly high, but nonetheless, I know that ITU does sometimes do that. So I think we're trying to be as inclusive as we can be in this event. Let's go back to the report and look, Nancy, I wanted to ask you about global and regional IP interconnection. What does the report tell us about the trends in that area? I see three key main message in this chapter. The first one is that the development of an effective global market for connectivity through the commercial agreements for the exchange of IP traffic has been key in the growth of internet and IP traffic that we are witnessing today. And we see that the model of peering and transit is very well understood by the majority of companies as peering agreement can now even be concluded on a handshake basis without even the need for a written document. This was one of the outcome of the chapter. Second, what we see is what's important is to note how the transnational internet connectivity market has responded, in fact, to the changing traffic mix by adding investments in internet exchange points, for example, in content delivery networks and in long-haul facilities, all of which in fact help to improve service quality and reduce costs and costs and prices. And IXP in particular have played a key role in the growth of the internet. And the establishment of an IXP in country or in region can become part of what the report mentioned, refers to as a virtual circle of investment in internet assets, as it may encourage further investment in backbone and local access networks, IT related businesses, and even encourage domestically produced content. And third, what I see is really a key message that we can see throughout the report is that countries with effective and liberalized policy frameworks are best positioned, in fact, to promote a virtual circle of investment in growth. Okay, let's go to a topic close to everyone's heart, I think, which is mobile roaming costs. Nancy mentioned that we did see this issue come up in Dubai and actually it made its way into the new international telecommunication regulations, provisioned for new levels of transparency in mobile roaming costs. Maria, could I ask you, well, do you think that this inclusion in the ITRs will make any difference to consumers? Haven't Telcos traditionally built their bundled packages and service offerings in a very complex way that makes it almost impossible for anyone to work out what they're paying? Well, it's a difficult issue because what was good about the discussion in Dubai about the international telecommunication regulations is that it was clear to everybody that the retail prices for mobile roaming remain very high. But not only that, they don't have any relationship with the costs of the mobile communications in the home country. And even worse, they are not related at all to the costs at all. Seeing as a cash cow, is it? If you're wealthy enough to travel, we can also hit you for some additional telecoms charges. And you don't have any choice because at the end of the day, normally when you choose your operator at home, then you look at the package they offer you for the national services, let's say, because it's what you are going to be using 90% of the time. So nobody is looking at the cost of roaming when they choose their national career. So the problem is then the surprise when you travel, as Nancy was saying earlier, and the bill shock that is called when you come back. So here is where the transnational issues come. When regulators can try to work, let's say, with the other regulators in other countries of the world in order to try to put a limit to this kind of cap, to this kind of prices in a bilateral agreement or multilateral agreement. For the time being, what is being done is trying to empower the consumer by being more transparent with the costs. That at least when you go to a given country, then you will get some messages on your phone saying, welcome to whatever operator you are connected to. And these are the prices that you will find here so that you at least don't have the bill shock. You know what you are going to pay and you can eventually look for other carriers in the same country that would be more competitive. But it's still an open issue. Nancy, let's go back to the GSR. And I remember from last year's event that cloud computing was probably the hottest topic. It came up over and over again. Could you explain some of the issues around that technology? Why is it generating so much debate? It is generating a lot of debate because it relates to personal information and data that you may be storing somewhere in the cloud, somewhere that you're not sure where it is hosted. You don't know exactly how you will get access to this information if you want to delete something. If you want to take the case, for example, of pictures that you could put on the social networks and you would like to delete, you don't know how to do that. Consumers may not be educated on how to address these issues. They may not always read what are the rights and obligations that they sign when they submit or they join a network. And also what we're seeing is that there is, what data protection laws that have been adopted, have been adopted in the era when internet was not around, in a time where internet was not around. So they don't really match the need of today's environment and data protection and privacy issues of a digital environment. The issue is not just for the consumers, but it is also for the businesses and governments. If you want to host information on the cloud, then you need to make sure that you know where it is hosted and you need to make sure as well that access will be secured, that you will need to have always on access, but also that if you want to move your server or if you want to move your information or your data from one cloud provider that you can be able to do so. So the interoperability is also an issue that may be a concern for not only the users, the end users like you and me, but also for the businesses. But there is no question that cloud computing has a lot of, cloud services and cloud computing brings a lot of benefit for the government, for the businesses and also for the citizens. But what is really needed right now is the right framework to ensure rights are protected, to ensure that those are using your data and not selling your data without you being aware of that, that you at least get the benefit of the information that you provide. And I think that the one of the danger is really that people or maybe the younger generation now are used to putting information and displaying any kind of information out there, but without noticing that it is personal information and that personal information that is there might be there and might stay there. I notice, in fact, I think we're all aware that the data mining systems that are being developed are incredibly sophisticated now. I read an article a couple of weeks ago on a company that had just trawled through people's public Facebook sites and had been incredibly accurate in predicting various elements of their consumer behavior or orientation, all sorts of things about them that I think people would, that were not explicitly declared when they specifically looked at sites where it was not specifically declared. So, Mario, do you think that data privacy is sufficiently well-addressed? And do you think that consumers are getting the levels of protection they deserve and do you think they're naive at the moment about the levels of privacy they still have? Absolutely. This is one of these transnational issues that if a global effort is not undertaken, it will never be solved because, as Nancy was saying, the provider of the service is not in the same country as the user of the service and maybe not in the same country as the storage of the data is situated. So, the only way to have some consistent, let's say, legislation policy framework for this is to have a transnational agreement, a global agreement on these kind of issues. So, I do believe that as older people might be more careful about the privacy of the data and that's why maybe they don't feel at ease with these new applications and then they use it. The younger generation are totally naive about them and they are not only the object of this kind of scamming but also the object of much more serious issues like cyber threats and cyber criminality. So, the important message here is that we shouldn't be saying that this is not to be used or this is not to be developed because it's really the future but that we have to work together, all of us, all the world has to work together towards defining a framework and enforcing it in a global way. We have some more questions coming over Adobe Connect, one from Carla and this one's a specific national question, perhaps not a surprising one given the momentous development. She says, in Mexico, we are living in a process of reform and telecommunication laws. What are the topics that the Mexican government would need to consider when undertaking such a big reform? Well, to understand what is exactly the reform they are undertaking? Is it to create a conversion regulator? Is it to address media under the same umbrella as the telecom? We would need to know a little bit more what is exactly the current reform taking place but what we could say is that certainly all of the issues that have been discussed in the past GSR and in the past edition of TRANS and some of the best practices that have been adopted certainly provide guidance for regulators to understand what other countries have done in areas such as expanding the mandate of the regulator, such as what are some of the measures to consider in this new environment we're living in? What is it about open access? How to ensure infrastructure sharing? How to ensure that more services becomes more affordable and that roll out of networks, broadband networks are being done in a more efficient manner? So these are all the issues that we certainly can consider but I don't know exactly what is the particular reform that is taking place in Mexico right now but what we've seen as a current trend is like, yes, expanding the mandate of the regulator to cover not just the pure telecom sector and the traditional telecom sector but expanding to include broadcasting and even include broadcasting content, media, internet issues, cybersecurity. So this often requires an institutional change and the design of the regulatory authority but also requires changes in the laws and the legislation and regulations that are governing the sector. That convergence has really accelerated, I think. We've all seen that. I notice now with my own stepsons that there's been just as much time watching television content on their computers as they probably do, maybe more in their rooms than they do watching it on TV now. So broadcasting and telecoms really have come together. So it's very difficult now to say who is regulating the content if you are looking at it in your computer. So it's a broadcasting issue or it's a telecom issue or it's an ICT. So that's why this tendency to have converged regulators which is a regulator with a bigger mandate and the more the ICTs permeate the other areas of the economy then the more this issue will come into play. As we know, the ICTs are being used now in order to provide health services, education services, agricultural services to all the population. So it's more and more across sector activity. So this is an increasing challenge for the regulators. This issue of cybersecurity, as Nancy was mentioning, that is also being put on the shoulders of the regulators or who takes care of these cyber threats and where is the framework and how do we enforce it together with the police and the judiciary system is another responsibility for the regulators because many of the scams or let's say criminal acts that you mentioned using data or accessing people in many countries, mainly developing countries they are not even in the legislatory framework they are not even characterized as crime. So we have to update all these framework and in order for them to be crimes and then to be pursued. Nowadays some of them they don't even exist in the legislations of the many countries. I can imagine if you've picked up the GSR program Nancy that's because you have a session on this at the forthcoming GSR. Exactly, we are going to have a session on fourth generation regulation and also a session that's going to entitle moving to the next level looking at new apps and new delivery platforms and the role of broadcasting and audio visual and online content who's in charge? Is it the broadcasting authorities? Should it be the telecom regulator? Are there new mechanisms? Who should be doing what? There will be questions that are really putting the regulators in the market in front of new issues. And in fact this is why we've said this year we're going to be looking at fourth generation regulation because in a conversion environment there are many things that need to be done from a regulatory perspective to not only raise awareness of regulators of some of the issues that they may not be dealing with today like cybersecurity may have not been in the mandate of many regulators like five years ago and we see now that's why you mentioned that increasingly it is becoming part of their mandate. So another aspect is like yes, on the media content and also like financial services for example is another issue. When we see that a lot of more and more financial digital transactions are being carried out over using mobile networks, fixed networks so who should be in charge when there is an issue who is responsible who should be looking after these questions and providing guidance not only to the market players but also to consumers. And as I mentioned at the beginning consumer education and awareness is I think going to be a very important issue in the coming years. Interesting, we have two questions coming in both of them relate to Latin America from Cesar Salvucci he says are there any specific challenges for Latin America's regulators? Well I think the challenges are those that are common to all developing countries. The issue is how to become from a let's say police type of regulator somebody that is looking at the rules and enforcing them so that all the market players respect them to now become a partner of these market players of these operators and service providers to facilitate the provision of services to the whole of the population. So this is the change of paradigm in Latin America and in other developing countries where the first step has been accomplished that means the sector is open we have several players be them public or private or a mix of both and let's say there is a reasonable penetration rate in urban areas and in for the business purposes and all that but we have parts of the population let's call it that way that are still underserved so people in rural areas people in underserved areas people that are minorities like indigenous people in Latin America this is an issue particularly but also let's say people with disabilities or women and youth so all this part of the population that are not accessing services or that are accessing a very restricted let's say package of these services have to be let's say helped to get accessibility and to be able to be connected and to get not only voice that was the old let's say ambition but to get really broadband to get internet in order for them to get access to information, to education to health services and to all these services so the regulator has now shifted or has to shift from just a controller to an enabler to a partner of these let's say market players in order to ensure that this roll out of services is done for all another question this one is from Alejandro Gutierrez in Colombia he mentions that Colombia is about to have a 4G auction and he wonders if there are best practices that you would recommend for the implementation of this service to be successful and he says to incentivize competition in OTT markets is there a kind of best practice framework that the GSR has come up with for we did a paper last year two years ago sorry on the spectrum valuation and on auctioning and how to conduct that refers to different auctioning mechanism and it may provide some useful guidance and best practices guidelines were also developed for spectrum looking at spectrum management and how to ensure that the conditions are there to ensure that the auctioning is carried out well for the benefit of the end users afterwards with regard to OTT this is an interesting question what we do see is that some of the OTT and I'm not too sure if this is what he is referring to are now trying also to enter the mobile market to enter the traditional let's say the network the infrastructure market so this is a new change as well but according to the current regulatory practice and environment they should be treated as any other players that is willing to enter the market to launch the auction to join the auctioning so the documents you mentioned can media and analysts find those online and they can certainly provide you with the link to that document and to the best practice guidelines fantastic thank you I think we've got time just for one last question we've only got a couple of minutes left and I have one in it says last mile delivery access to rural areas has always been a major challenge and remains a major challenge what should regulators look at in terms of building an ecosystem that would look to delivery of services and focus on availability of low cost devices and rich local content with local low tariffs it's a big ask but I guess a lot of countries face this challenge even developed countries like my own Australia where we have a very remote rural population difficult to serve but some European countries also face that and of course many developing countries yes well there are several measures that can be taken and in fact there is a mix of measures which is the best approach so some of them are related to let's say subsidize the infrastructure development to the rural areas and for that there is normally universal service funds that are established in all countries where all the operators that have licenses to provide services telecommunication services that are not providers of universal service they contribute to the fund so the fund can be managed by the regulator in order to facilitate access to those that don't have another possibility is to promote infrastructure sharing that means that when we build either between operators themselves so that when we build infrastructure to the rural areas it is shared by several operators so that the cost is divided among all of them or even sharing different let's say areas like energy and telecommunications so when you land a cable for telecommunications or for electricity you do the telecommunications one together so that the cost of this let's say infrastructure building is shared between the two aspects that's another example another possibility is also to have public partner partnerships which is in fashion now in many developed countries of Australia is an example that you mentioned the government has realized that the private sector initiative has a limit so in the past it was said well leave it to the private sector they will do it if there is a business case they will go for it and there is a limit for that so when we want the broadband for all it's not happening then the Australian government has entered into this public private partnership and is investing money in order to ensure that this broadband rollout is carried out and is a partner with the private sector in order for it to happen so it's a developed country and the market forces alone are not guaranteeing this service for all so they are investing obviously the mix of all these ideas can be a good solution for that regarding the low cost solutions that was mentioned I think by the person that asked the question there are more and more of such solutions that are coming to the market with the advance of technology and we can now have high cost solutions for wireless connectivity of rural areas where you can have a central cell let's say and all the village can connect to this cell wirelessly without major cost the most important thing here is to have the community buying into this solution so be it a telecenter mode or be it in the village library or even a private kind of endeavor the important thing is that the whole village buys into this solution and they all contribute to its sustainability because we have been helping in many of these pilot projects in order to show the the viability of these solutions but if the the community doesn't get engaged and they involve themselves in not only the use but also the maintenance and the improvement of these technical solutions they will just drain down when the provider of the solution you know falls back so it's important that the solutions are there the ways of bringing connectivity are there but it's important that they embrace it that the community buy in exactly and for that I think content was mentioned also in the question for that local content, relevant content for the local people is key it's the driver for the network to be valuable that's what they are going to look for we're overtime I think we're going to have to wrap it up I'd like to thank Mario Manjevitz and Nancy Sundberg for joining us today I'd like to remind everyone as well that the press release accompanying this launch is available directly for download off the Adobe Connect website there's a live summary and the full report if you have any follow up questions of course don't hesitate to get in touch and an archive of this webinar will be available on the ITU newsroom in about an hour's time thanks very much indeed for joining us