The idea circulating in some news articles that the U.N....

remarks. The last set of changes to the regulations, in 1988, “paved the way for market liberalization and the spectacular growth” in telecom, “including the ‘mobile miracle’ and the global spread of the Internet,” Toure said. ITU’s membership did a “great job” of preparing for future needs in 1988, and “we are confident that they will do so again” at the treaty conference to revise the International Telecommunication Regulations later this year in the United Arab Emirates, he said. “In the broadest terms, this means governments and industry will come together in Dubai to lay the foundations for a broadband-enabled future, for everyone,” Toure said. “I expect a light-touch regulatory approach to emerge,” he said. This means establishing “broad, forward-looking principles that support a transparent, efficient framework for investment,” he said. “We need to reach consensus on balanced and predictable rules to ensure fair competition and to stimulate innovation and the spread of information and communication technologies,” Toure said. The GSMA estimated that $800 billion would be needed in mobile infrastructure investment by 2015 to handle the rapidly-growing demands of mobile broadband users, Toure said: “Unfortunately, many national policy and regulatory regimes were not designed with the current shift from voice to data-centric networks and services in mind. And, the current ITRs are not properly equipped to deal with this challenge either, which raises the question of how all this new infrastructure will be paid for?”