 touch with the loved ones who might be unable to travel due to restrictions caused by the pandemic, online shopping and banking to minimize time spent on long queues and the list goes on. So, as the regional regulators for electronic communications, we are excited to work with our partners and the governments in our five number states to ensure the passage and implementation of the DC bill. Without further ado, I now invite one of the students and kids to deliver the opening remarks. To the enactment of thank you, Madam Moderita, Hector Council of Ministers, Chairman of the Hector Board of Directors, Mr. Dwyne Noel, other members of the Hector Board of Directors, Acting Managing Director of Hector, Ms. Sheryl Hector-Fontenelle, General Council of Hector, Ms. Sally Ann Cotter, staff of Hector, NTRCs, the OECS Commission, the ECCB, the World Bank, the CTU and the ITU, representatives of ministries of telecommunications and the legislative drafting units, electronic communications service providers, governments and people of the Hector member states good day. It is my privilege to open this event, which marks the start of a very exciting campaign aimed at sensitizing citizens of the Hector member states of benefits that will accrue to them with the enactment of the electronic communications bill, as we usher in a new chapter for the electronic communications sector. It has been a long journey to get to this point, but in many ways the new EC bill is quite timely as it will form the foundation of the new digital economy for the member states. The Telecommunications Act, which has been enforced in the Hector state since 2000, was enacted to liberalize the telecommunications sector and to introduce new licenses, new services and increased choices to consumers. The liberalization of the sector was a resounding success, thanks to advocates and champions like former minister responsible for telecommunications in St. Lucia, Mr. Khalix George. The subregion moved from a sector with mobile voice penetration of 7.8% in 2002 to the significantly higher rate of 95.9% in 2020. In 2002, internet access was via dialogue service, with a penetration rate of 4%, and by 2020, fixed broadband penetration was 22.4%. Mobile internet service was introduced in 2012, and today we have a mobile broadband penetration rate of 73.1%. We celebrate these successes, but we know that for the new digital economy, it is imperative that all citizens have access to what the International Telecommunications Union and Alliance for Affordable Internet has termed as meaningful connectivity. This means that everyone must be able to enact and to connect to the internet every day, using an appropriate device, having enough data with a fast connection. I know some persons may think that we have already achieved this, you may say, everyone I know has a mobile phone. This may well be true, as mobile penetration across the actual member states is recorded at roughly 96%. Given this, it would appear that almost everyone could have internet connectivity through mobile broadband. However, this is not the case, as mobile broadband penetration was recorded at approximately 73%. This means that we have a usage gap, meaning internet is available to persons, but they are not using the internet. This must be addressed if we want to participate in the digital transformation of our economies. New regulatory tools are required, therefore, to address these challenges in the electronic communications sector. The enactment of the new EC bill will mean a significant upgrade to the tools available to regulators and benefits to consumers. The ITU identifies five generations of ICT regulatory systems. We now have a third generation regulatory system in the actual member states, heavily focused on promoting a competitive environment, but with very limited consumer protection. While this approach was fit for the era of liberalization, it is woefully inadequate for the new era of digital transformation. It is time to move the sector towards a fifth generation regulatory system. This means that the legislation and regulations must be aligned with the economic and social policy goals of the governments of the actual member states, and must also allow for cross-sector collaboration. Four of the actual member states have embarked on a digital transformation of their economies under a new Caribbean digital transformation project funded by the World Bank. This project aims to modernize the public sector to deliver digital services to individuals and businesses, provide training for employment opportunities in digitally enabled professions, and adopt digital financial services. This effort at ensuring digital inclusion for all citizens will be frustrated if the broadband usage gap in the actual member states is not closed. A major strength of the EC Bill over the current telecommunications app is that in addition to ensuring open entry into the sector for licenses and regulatory certainty through harmonized policies in the electronic communication sector of the actual member states, it includes a number of provisions to address the current mobile broadband usage gap and to create an enabling environment for the digital transformation of the member states. The GSMA has identified the main reasons for the usage gap as affordability of mobile broadband and lack of digital skills. In the actual member states, the concern over quality of service has also emerged as a barrier for the adoption of mobile broadband service. We have been living with COVID-19 pandemic for almost two years now, and as we were all forced to transition to the digital environment, there was significant divide between households where persons were able to transition almost seamlessly to online learning and working from home and households where persons had either limited access to broadband service or could not afford broadband access. The pandemic has reinforced the need to address the inequity caused by the broadband usage gap, which puts unconnected households at a significant disadvantage. The Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development established by the ITU and UNESCO has determined that broadband is affordable when it costs less than 2% of monthly gross national income and has set a target of 2025 for all economies to meet this benchmark. At present, the cost of mobile broadband in the excel member states ranges between 2.74 and 7.2% of monthly gross national income. This means that many of our citizens are at a disadvantage compared to economies like the Republic of Barbados, which has already met the target with the cost of mobile broadband at 1.88% of monthly gross national income. The new EC Bill provides for the regulation of entry-level services packages for all licenses. This is a powerful tool that will provide the opportunity to address the affordability concern and move us closer to eliminating the broadband usage gap in the member states. Quality of service on both fixed and mobile broadband networks has been a challenge across the excel member states. Under the new regulatory framework, excel will propose updated quality of service regulations. These will replace outdated regulations, which are no longer fit for purpose and do not allow the regulator to acquire useful information from service providers to address the numerous complaints from consumers. Updated regulation will allow for use of new tools for monitoring and measuring the quality of service afforded by providers and, importantly, the quality of customer experiences when using broadband and other electronic communications services throughout the region. In addition to the challenges of affordability and quality of service, we must also address the concern of limited digital skills affecting some of our citizens. To totally benefit from affordable, high quality broadband service, persons must have the requisite digital skills. We should not merely focus on having the skills to consume social media and to serve the net, but also the skills necessary for digitally enabled professions, including programming, data visualization, digital design, and remote working with digital teams. There are also opportunities for digitally skilled entrepreneurs to use social media as a platform for their services. The EC bill does not directly provide digital skills training. This is an important component of the Caribbean digital transformation project, and the enactment of the EC bill is crucial to the success of this project. ECTEL has recommended the new EC bill to the member states, and to date the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis has passed the EC Act, though it is not yet enforced. In the other member states, the EC bill is under active consideration at the level of the Cabinet of Ministers. At the second part of the 42nd meeting of the ECTEL Council of Ministers on 12 November 2021, the Council committed to the enactment of the EC bill in the first quarter of 2022. Mindful of the challenges posed by the new Omicron wave of COVID-19, the Council remains committed to this important task to bring benefits to the citizens of the ECTEL member states. The success of the digital transformation of our economies and the projects planned by our governments under the Caribbean digital transformation project will depend on the efficient provision of digital services over resilient networks, and affordable access to those digital services by all consumers. Today, the focus of this event is the EC bill. However, ECTEL has also recommended a mobile electronic communications or roaming services bill to the member states. It is proposed that both bills be enacted together to provide optimal benefits to the region. The EC bill is focused on addressing affordability of broadband and other electronic communication services locally. The roaming services bill, on the other hand, is complementary and will allow for the elimination of roaming charges for citizens traveling within the ECTEL member states, resulting in affordable broadband and other electronic communication services across the ECTEL member states. On behalf of the ECTEL Council of Ministers, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the staff of ECTEL and the NTICs for getting us to this point. And I reiterate the commitment of the Council to the enactment of the EC bill and accompanying roaming services bill to bring a new regulatory regime that in focus on consumer welfare regulatory certainty for licenses and will serve as the foundation on which the new digital economy for ECTEL member states will be built. I thank you. Thank you, Minister King, for your informative remarks which show the importance for there to be meaningful connectivity for everyone to carry out their daily tasks as well as the need to bridge the digital divide to boost efficiency throughout our member states. We now have the welcome remarks by Mr. Dewey Noel, Chairman of ECTEL's Board of Directors and Member for Greta. Thank you, Madam Moderator. Chairman of ECTEL Council of Ministers, Honourable Stevenson King, Senior Minister and Minister for Infrastructure, Ports, Transport, Physical Development and Urban Renewal, St. Lucia. Hector Council of Ministers, Members of the ECTEL Board of Directors, Acting Managing Director of ECTEL, Ms. Cheryl Hector-Fontel, General Council of ECTEL, Ms. Salyan Kota, National Telecommunication Regulatory Commissions, Regional and International Partner Organisations, Representative of Ministries of Telecommunication and Legislative Draft and Units, Electronic Communication Service Providers, Governments and People of the ECTEL Member States. Good day. As Chairman, I am honoured to represent the Board of Directors at this important event, to kick off the Education and Public Awareness Campaign for the new Electronic Communication Bill. I believe that the enactment of the ECBIL is crucial to the continued development of the electronic communication sector and is in line with the purpose of ECTEL on the Article IV of the ECTEL Treaty. As the Chairman of ECTEL Council of Ministers indicated, the ECBIL is expected to bring significant benefits to the citizens of the ECTEL Member States and to provide new tools to ECTEL and the NTRC to adjust current challenges in the sector. Today, I want to focus on the role of the ECBIL in promoting a robust broadband supply chain in support of elimination of the broadband usage gap in the Member States, identified by the Chairman of Council in Indian Marks. Unpresent, across the ECTEL Member States, there are two major suppliers of broadband services that are vertically integrated operators. They own or operate the submarine cable providing international connectivity. They own or operate a national terrestrial network and they provide last mile broadband connectivity to customers via fixed and mobile networks. This is not necessarily problematic on its own, but the absence of a clear infrastructure sharing regulation to allow other operators access to potential bottleneck infrastructure can frustrate efforts to deliver competitively priced broadband services to consumers. Recent disasters like Hurricane Mary, which severely affected the electronic communication network in the Commonwealth of Dominica, as well as our almost complete dependent on broadband services in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, has made it clear that we need resilience and a redundant network. Investment in robust infrastructure by all service providers is essential to ensure network resilience and redundancy in the electronic communication sector. This is therefore encouraged and supported by the ECBIL. However, we also recognize that under some circumstances, it may be necessary for one service provider to access the network of another service provider. For example, access to submarine cable capacity is essential for broadband service, but it is not practical for every service provider to deploy a submarine cable. It may therefore be necessary for service providers to seek access from the submarine cable operator. The Telecommunication Act do not include provisions on the tone and conditions under which a service provider can access capacity from a submarine cable operator, which is a significant challenge in the ECTEL member states. Infrastructure sharing is not however limited to access to submarine cable capacity, and ECBIL includes clear terms and conditions to be included in the infrastructure sharing agreements at all points along the broadband infrastructure value chain, including access to the submarine cable capacity, national, terrestrial networks, and last mile access where broadband reaches consumers' homes. As we turn as we transition to a digital economy and move more of our daily activities, such as healthcare, education, and financial transactions online, we must take a holistic approach to the network resilience and redundancy. This includes promoting investment in infrastructure and enabling sharing the infrastructure when necessary. It is also important that we collaborate with other agencies, including energy regulators and ministries of infrastructure to expand opportunities for infrastructure sharing to ensure that we have robust electronic communication networks. As I close, on behalf of the Board of Directors, I would like to acknowledge the dedication of the staff of the ECTEL Directorate in getting the ECBIL to the point where it has been submitted to the member states for consideration. I also recognize the commitment of the Council of Ministers to the enactment of the ECBIL. ECTEL will continue to engage with the member states to bring the ECBIL into force to allow citizens of the member states to benefit from the new regulatory system. Thank you. Thank you so much, Chairman Noel, for those remarks. It was interesting to learn that the ECBIL has provisions to encourage other service providers to access the sector and provide more competitive price broadband services to consumers. So it is time for quiz number one. Take a screenshot of the question and please remember it's for anybody participating via Zoom or Facebook. So here's a question. Which ECTEL member states has already passed the Electronic Communications Act and on what date was it passed? State of month, day and year again, which ECTEL member states has already passed the Electronic Communications Act and on what date was it passed? State of month, day and year. So here's the instruction. Please do not put your responses on Facebook. That will not come. So here's the instruction. All answers must be emailed to etelquiz at etel.int. That's etelquiz at etel.int by Friday, January 28th. That's tomorrow, 4 p.m. The subject nine should read ECBIL virtual launch quiz. ECBIL virtual launch quiz. Participants may answer both questions. However, a person can only win one. We will then face the names of everyone who submitted correct answers in a digital wheel and go live on our Facebook page to select one winner for each question. And the prize is a 50 U.S. dollar voucher Amazon gift card. So I heard the minister give a part of the response in this address as a clue, but for the other parties you need to search go to our website www.etel.int and ensure you'll find the answer right there. Okay, so we are going to have a very free musical interlude. Sit back and relax as Mr. Donovan Edwin serenades us with a song. Drop the beat there. The last song by St. Lucia's very own citizen John. Thank you so much for that. We do have many gifted musicians in the Caribbean so stay with us until the very end because Mr. Edwin will be performing a few more songs for you this afternoon. So it's time for an interactive Q&A session on the ET bill where you'll learn how the benefits to consumers in active member states. So let's see how much you know, but if you don't know too much, don't despair as you've been good hands. And I'm going to my colleagues, Ms. Cheryl Pontanel as active action manager director and Ms. Dahlia Enquater, Actors General Counsel and Secretary to the Board of Directors. Thank you very much Corrector. Good afternoon everybody. I'm going to have, but this time unfortunately no prizes, but we are going to ask your assistance with providing us, sorry we're going to ask your assistance in identifying some of the benefits and the new tools that Mr. King spoke of in his address. We have three months and we're going to ask the persons who are participating by Zoom who are participating on Facebook, we have not let you out. We're going to ask you to submit your response and in that case we're going to ask you to just identify the number and the letter for the answer. So for example if you think for question number one is A, you can put into the chat number one A when we come to that question. In presenting his remarks he identified a number of benefits that the ET bill will bring to consumers and we're excited about that and that is why we are very excited to have his launch and throughout the course of the year we will continue to have programs on our Education and Awareness project. We also will identify a number of new regulatory tools and I think we identified one so far which is allowing the regulators access to regulating the terms and conditions under which submarine fibre is offered by submarine cable operators. But we also think that the ET bill will provide clear and clear guidance to service providers about all the regulatory initiatives. I'm now going to hand you over to the general council who will start with question number one and two and then I'll come back for question number three. Scott. Thank you Ms. Fontenelle. So again you have 30 seconds to respond and to click your answer. The first question what is the main principle of net neutrality? Again what is the main principle of net neutrality? I believe the poll is now locked for our respondents. We have 100% of our viewers getting the correct answer and it should be 1A. So those of you on Facebook if you have also indicated 1A that is the correct answer. Essentially the ET bill includes provisions on net neutrality which will require all internet service providers to ensure that they treat all internet equally. However net neutrality does not prevent an internet service provider from adopting reasonable network managing practices but information on these practices must be made available to internet users. So thank you that was excellent. We move on to question number two. So get ready. What is transparent billing? Again you have 30 seconds. What is transparent billing? Okay I think the poll has now locked and we have our response. It's unbelievable it's another 100%. So it seems that our viewers actually know all our answers and for those on Facebook if you selected 2B essentially the ET bill will allow for transparent billing in such a way that all service providers are to ensure that the customer receives a monthly bill but that bill is to be simple and easy to understand. Also all you build is to ensure to have all the required information including all the services that you have actually used. And finally once a customer requests an electronic copy of their bill that electronic copy needs to be accessible for at least 12 months. This is one of the key aspects of our consumer protection under the EC bill. So thank you for your responses and now I'll hand you over to Ms Cheryl for the last question. Okay thank you Sally Anne and we've been doing very well so far so I'm thinking we'll have another 100%. So we have again 30 seconds of question number three and this time it's to do with retail tariff. The question is what does retail tariff regulation mean? 30 seconds results. I think we stopped the audience a little bit with this one. This one had a little bit of a trick and you have to read the two of the responses very clearly to get it correct. So we have 73% of respondents getting incorrect and retail tariff regulations really mean so the answer is C and for those persons who put in their answer on Facebook we are saying number three what the answer was C is ensuring that reasonable prices as well as terms and conditions are offered for services to end users. The important point is that the services in question must be offered to customers like you and me and the little trick was those persons who answered B the difference here was that we were looking at services from one service provider to another in that case in the telecommunications sector sorry the electronic communication sector will refer to those as wholesale services. So again we want to thank you for your participation. Just note in terms of the retail tariffs the first two questions focus on benefits to consumers net neutrality as well as clear and all ambiguous billing and the third one is a combination of both there will be a benefit to consumers from regulated retail tariffs but also it's a tool that is provided to the regulator and as indicated and again just to reiterate what was said by the Chairman of the Council Minister King the ECB framework will provide for the regulation of entry-level services and in particular as we said the point is not just to have benefits to customers but also clear guidance to service providers so that will be done in consultation with service providers the regulator will then set a quality price standards and conditions for all entry-level services including for advances again thank you for your participation great job everybody thank you thank you so much the sponsor that was exciting and learned quite a bit so some of the terms in the ECB may be rather technical but this session has provided us with more knowledge about neutrality, retail tariff and consumer protection so please visit www.ector.it and read the ECB to get greater detail and become more familiar with the benefits to consumers so we're going to jump to quiz number two and a brief presentation on what some of the activities in the cascade will look like so number two name the five ECTEL members states the year the treaty was signed to establish ECTEL to establish ECTEL and where the treaty was signed once more in the five ECTEL members states the year the treaty was signed to establish ECTEL and where the treaty was signed and the instructions look the same as before but are repeated all answers must be emailed to ectel quiz that's ectel quiz that's ectel.it by Friday January 28th that's tomorrow at 4 p.m. the subject line should read ECB virtual launch quiz but the sponsor may answer both questions however a person can only make bots people then face the names of everyone who submitted correct answers in a digital wheel and pull live on our Facebook page to select one winner for each question again we're giving away another Amazon gift card value that 15 US dollars so if you're excited about those prizes and that you are researching your responses and the winner can be getting some emails in our inbox so on to the presentation here are a few activities that will form part of our ECTEL education public awareness campaign we will be creating and sharing infographics on our various social media platforms which I'll share with you later we hope that these creative piece of information will help to prioritize provisions of the ECTEL and help consumers to gain a greater appreciation of its benefits we're going to launch a social media viral challenge this challenge will encourage students in our member states to use their creativity whether through poetry or stop to outline the benefits of the ECTEL to consumers especially to our youth they will post their entries on our Facebook page and encourage their peers and family members to view and like their posts in an effort to make them go viral next we're going to use our existing Facebook by show called ECTEL buys to zone in on various topics relating to the EC bill this show is on our Facebook page at ECTEL every last Wednesday of the month next we're going to have a competition for Caribbean media practitioners cause spotlight on the EC bill and at this juncture we're going to share various topics relating to the EC bill with the Caribbean journalists and they'll be challenged to create interesting stories that will be shared on their various news platforms throughout the region we're going to also stage virtual talks we'll be collaborating with our partners to stage virtual talks in our five member states on the EC bill and then we're going to have popular theater production we're hoping to do this in person but we have to rethink it considering the pandemic and so we're going to start off with virtual theater productions and we're hoping that this will help the ordinary persons understand what EC bill is all about they're very making it a household name so to keep on top of everything that's happening I'm encouraging you to follow us on social media you can find us on Twitter and on Instagram at ECTEL authority and on YouTube and Facebook at ECTEL so if you've not yet followed us started to follow us please go live and follow us for more information and to keep abreast of the many activities of the EC bill and other projects that we'll be staging at ECTEL thank you so very much and we look forward to your participation in all our activities so I now invite Ms. Ferdon Felix-Polius ECTEL's active director of economics and finance to deliver the voter pass thank you madam moderator pleasant afternoon to all participants of this virtual launch of the electronics communication the EC bill education and public awareness campaign it is my pleasure to deliver the voter fans on behalf of the eastern caribbean telecommunications authority ECTEL to all who have made this event a success I would like to firstly thank the honorable Stevenson King chairman of the ECTEL council of ministers senior minister and minister for infrastructure ports transport physical development and urban renewal in St. Lucia for his speech by highlighting the current state of use of electronic communications the the council chairman's address has set the tone for education and public awareness campaign on the EC bill I wish to also record our sincere appreciation to Mr. Dwayne Noel chairman of the ECTEL board of directors for his remarks on securing the broadband value chain in which he emphasized the importance of eliminating the broadband usage gap I would like to thank our acting managing director Ms. Cheryl Hector-Fontinelle general council Ms. Sally Ann Cotter and the entire ECTEL team for their on-ravering commitment to this process more importantly I would like to thank the ECTEL council of ministers ECTEL board of directors ECTEL management and staff both past and present the national telecommunications regulatory commissions the legislative drafting units of the ECTEL member states the ministries of telecommunications and the electronic communication service providers in the ECTEL member states for their valuable contribution in the development of the EC bill sincere thanks to our communications and media relations manager Ms. Coretta Crooks-Charles for conceptualizing the format for this virtual launch and to our still panpanist Mr. Donovan Edward for so skillfully and melodiously performing at our event thanks also to the GIS's across the eastern Caribbean as well as to UE TV for sharing the live stream on their respective Facebook pages finally I would like to thank our local regional and international partners and the general audience across the various media platforms for participating and for playing a part in promoting this event we are excited about the advance advancement in electronic communications for learning work and for business we know that the EC bill will continue to contribute to the revolutionization of the electronic communications landscape which will improve improve the lives of citizens in the ECTEL member states thank you thank you so much Ms. Coretta for delivering the voice of thanks who are indeed grateful to everyone who was instrumental in bringing the EC bill to this stage and to those who will join us along the way as we roll out this exciting campaign so it's now time for the virtual group photo my apologies to those on Facebook but still smile just I encourage those on zoom to put your cameras on for a quick second so you can take this photo and I let you know as soon as you're done and then if you're sitting free to stay with us for a little while because Mr. Donovan Edwin is going to play a few more tunes to take us out for this afternoon awesome I see the cameras on a few more to go so many faces so just keep smiling until I tell you it's complete you have to go through a few pages so just give our colleague Loana a chance to go through the pages the practice to get everybody why don't you just ignore us when you're complete with a photo please thank you thank you so much oh and thanks to everybody who are taking this time to spend with us as we launch our EC bill education and public awareness campaign again our heartfelt thanks to you for joining us via zoom and on Facebook and to everyone who gave their part in this launch the work continues to support your support as we strive to promote the passage and effects implementation of the electronic communications for EC bill for short in our member states so please share this link with at least one person one friend or family member as we shine the spotlight on the EC bill and the many benefits to consumers thank you once again and do keep safe take care and do stay tuned if you so desire to listen to Mr. Edwin based on more thoughts so thank you