 Hi, I'm Alan Horn, I've been a telecommunications regulator for the last six years in Vanuatu and in Bahrain, and prior to that I was advisor to many governments throughout Middle East and Africa and Europe on establishing liberalised environments and establishing regulators. I'm the moderator for the subject of convergence of regulation at IT World on Tuesday the 19th of November. This particular debate is going to look very importantly at the debate of how we regulate our telecommunications sector in the coming years. Governments now recognise that broadband communications is vitally important to economic and social development. Government recognises that broadband communications has to be connected to even the remotest of communities and as we know in a competitive world the private sector will not invest in these communities if there's not a clear economic case and therefore governments and regulators have to have policies and approaches in order to be able to lay and invest in infrastructure into rural communities. Over these broadband communications we're very well aware now there's been a convergence of services, media, television, radio, internet as well as voice and with convergence of services many argue there should now also be a convergence of regulation. If for instance I'm now viewing my TV over my internet broadband connection and not over a television set then I may not, depending upon the regulation of the country, may not have to pay a TV license. Is that what governments want? I was in San Diego recently at the Global eHealth Foundation and a number of the providers of smartphones who are providing health applications over their smartphones were concerned slightly that their smartphones now needed to go through another regulatory process with the US Food and Administration authorities. So authorities and regulators whether we're regulating broadcasting spectrum telecommunications medical devices etc need to talk together. When I was in Vanuatu I had a call from the banking regulator the central bank and they wanted to discuss consumer protection because the local mobile operator was introducing financial services. So regulators have to talk together but governments are now trying to debate what is the best way to structure regulation what's the most efficient and effective way to structure regulation given the convergence of services. What should the regulatory model be? Should we once again look at just having a utility regulator which is concerned at ensuring those universal connection of technology neutral infrastructure with another regulator looking at the consumer protection and the competition of services over that particular infrastructure. So the the debates in at World Telecom will be looking at some of these questions. They'll be asking are today's regulators too big too complex outdated regulation? How should we go forward? Which way should we split the regulatory cake? Should we do anything? Can we just deal with co-regulation, deal with good dialogue and have the regulator working very much concerned about the bigger picture and prioritizing its actions in order to ensure good connectivity. So we very much look forward to seeing you there and joining in that debate and helping to shape the future of the regulation of converged services throughout the world. I look forward to seeing you then.