 Welcome to the Global Symposium for Regulators, GSR23, being held in Shamal, Shaking Egypt, where I'm very pleased to be joining the studio today by Lele Modisse, who is the Group Chief Legal and Regulatory Affairs Officer for MTN in South Africa. Lele, welcome to the studio. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Now, I know that obviously that regulation is your business, but I believe this is the first time you've been to GSR. I really wanted to get your impressions of it. Why do you think this is an important event to attend? Yes, it's a wonderful event. It's the one place where you have policymakers, governments, industry bodies, and obviously service providers such as MTN coming together to particularly focus on what we need to do to transform policy, to enable business, and to facilitate collaboration with government. I think that it is an important conversation that will drive our industry forward. Now, what are some of the main elements of the conversations that you've been hearing here? Well, I think firstly, we all agree that no one should be left behind. We all agree that our policies should be accelerated to match the pace at which technology is advancing, so that our policies are reflective of the changes that we want to see and how we want to encourage accountability to service providers and support our governments in providing regulation. Now, I know some of the challenges regulators are universal, but what are the particular ones that you're facing in South Africa? Well, MTN operates across various markets in Africa, and we see several themes that are common across the markets in which we operate. We think that technology neutral spectrum regulations are key to enable us to be able to deploy new technologies so that we close the coverage gap. We see various and multiple taxation, which if they were reduced and simplified, would enable further investment, again, acceleration of acquisition of technology such as spectrum, and rolling out of an investment in infrastructure such as fiber, subsea cable, and the like. I was going to say, is that really what's going to be holding you back, the rollout of infrastructure, or is it something else that you think will be facing you in the future? Yeah. Well, most of Africa is an emerging market with very little infrastructure. It's important that infrastructure is put in place, as well as collaborating with other technology providers to also in parallel accelerate coverage. The investment in infrastructure is a key element for us as MNOs in ensuring that we close the coverage gap, such that we also are able to deploy spectrum. For us, spectrum is our lifeline. That's how we bring service to the people. Now, as a mobile network operator, I'm sure you're getting more and more demands as people want to access more data, hungry applications and video, et cetera. How do you cope with that at MTN? It's true that we see the rise of data across all our markets and the decline of voice, actually. That shows that there's a growing need for data for accessing services, healthcare, education, but also in Africa, we are live to the usage gap. That is because we have a device affordability challenge in addition to a coverage challenge. When we close these gaps, we'll be able to deploy more coverage, we should enable more usage of data and therefore enable people to access services that they need in order to drive their businesses and run their livelihoods. And also government services and all of those kind of things that require, of course, a phone that is capable of accessing data and of using data in a sensible way. In terms of the outcomes for this year's GSR, what do you hope they will be? What do you think will be the key takeaways in your opinion? Number one, we need to drive acceleration of harmonization of legislation. Number two, we need regulators to help us by simplifying policies but also enabling spectrum that is technology usual. Three, reduction of taxes and charges such that we're able to free up capital and invest more in infrastructure, in coverage, in providing digital skills as well as supporting initiatives such as affordable devices, working across industry with OEMs and so on to be able to get those in the hands of the people that need them. And what does the future landscape look like, do you think, in terms of connectivity for South Africa? Well, I mean MTN operates across various markets and we see newcomers coming into the industry that would enable us to provide more coverage and therefore better connectivity. We think that it's important that regulators also recognize that while partnership with new technologies is important, regulation that encourages accountability and parity is also key. So it's important that our regulators work with us on an accelerated basis to ensure that our regulations again reflect how far our technology is moving, such that when we provide coverage using different methodologies, we're able to do that in a way that is accountable and fair. Let me say well thank you very much for joining us in the studio today. I hope that wasn't too onerous for you and we hope very much to catch up with you again very soon. Thank you, thank you so much. And do check out our other interviews from GSR23 on the ITU YouTube channel, as well as our podcasts on our podcast channels too on SoundCloud, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. And for further information visit our website at www.itu.int. Thank you very much.