 A very important aspect of technology is how well the users would adopt it. For that, the policy makers and the regulators keep worrying about it. In this module and the subsequent modules, we shall talk about the issues which surround the regulations and the business aspects of technology. We must convince ourselves through the motivation. Then we'd look at the need which exists against every technology. We'd explore some interesting business aspects and then we'd look at the concept of pricing and the challenges associated with pricing. The primary motivation for spreading certain technology is that it has to be adopted by the users to provide different kinds of services. As far as the broadband technologies are concerned, which are part of the next generation networks, the availability of certain infrastructure, such as the twisted pair and the coaxial cable, makes the adoption, penetration and certainly the business deployment of these technologies very convenient. The DSL-based broadband and the DOCSIS-based cable modem access for the internet are realized in the shortest possible time. This however is unique to the developed countries because for developing countries, the infrastructure does not exist. In North America, Japan and South Korea, the widely deployed access and transport networks on the coaxial cable and the underground UTP allows the penetration of broadband through fixed broadband the highest. Therefore, when we look at the other side, we realize that this critical infrastructure is missing. So in emerging economies such as Pakistan, it is very important to look at the alternate technologies which are based on the requirement to not have the infrastructure in place. For that, the fixed wireless and the broadband wireless are the best alternatives, YMAX being the candidate for fixed broadband and the UMTS-3G, 4G, LTE and mobile YMAX are the alternatives for mobile broadband. So with the broadband technology at hand, the International Telecommunication Union Telecom broadband consortium identified certain millennium development goals. These goals cover a lot of issues ranging from gender equality, poverty, alleviation, education for all, reducing the digital divide. All these can actually be accommodated in certain business sectors, that is ranging from banking to the e-governance, government administration, trading, whether it is local or international, shopping, retail, wholesale, collaborative learning environments such as distance learning and an improved and value-added communication framework for providing conversation either audio or video or multimedia. So it means different business aspects emerge. For these business aspects to be realized, the price has to be borne. The price is usually borne either by the end user as such or the telecom service provider and sometimes it is also shared in by the government through subsidy. So the pricing is the most important aspect that essentially determines the successful deployment and sustainable usability of technology. There are various perspectives from which pricing can be considered. However, broadly speaking, there are two main categories, broadband penetration at the wholesale level and the broadband penetration at the retail level. The parties which are affected include, if we just don't consider government for now, the service providers, that is the network provider, the service provider which provides different services. The content provider which is providing the content to the user and the user itself. Now if the government is also party to it, then providing subsidies also has a major toll on what the government can do. The first and foremost challenge for pricing management and regulation is that the technology has to be deployed, it has to be permeated across the society as much as possible. So the availability of the technology in modern times is given. So for the next generation network to be available to everybody and that too at affordable price, it is a challenge for the regulators to enforce and for the policymakers to come up with the initial framework and then to keep revising it so that the market dynamics are not going to make the system crumble. While doing so, there is a requirement to make this activity purely from the network and service providers so business viable that they keep their interest in investment both at the short term as well as the long term. For that, there is a requirement to differentiate between what the existing networks can offer, what the new deployments can offer. And accordingly, different tariffs or different rates can be levied because sometimes it is easier to provide broadband technology to certain neighborhoods in certain large cities. But when there is a requirement to deploy it in rural areas, in suburban areas, then certain investment has to be borne in by the government or the government can allow these service providers to increase the rates. In subsequent lectures, we'd look at some specific examples either in fixed networks or in mobile networks and we'd look at certain other challenges.