Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
BAHRAIN, the UAE and Qatar are the Arab World’s highest adopters of telecommunication services. UAE tops the Arab world overall, but Bahrain leads the way in broadband usage.
The annual results of Arab Advisers Group’s Total Country Connectivity Measure (TCCM) reveal substantial, mostly cellular service driven, improvements in overall scores.
UAE’s TCCM score of 261.4 per cent is the highest in the Arab world, followed by Qatar at 255.6 per cent and Bahrain at 233.9 per cent. Saudi Arabia comes in at 173.5 per cent, Kuwait 161.8 per cent and Oman at 137.5 per cent.
But the Arab World still lags behind developed countries in the penetration and use of broadband Internet and Internet access at large.
Although Bahrain leads the Arab world with a 5.79 per cent Internet broadband penetration (total broadband accounts by total population), it is nowhere near Denmark’s 32 per cent, South Korea’s 29 per cent or the United States’ 20 per cent.
Moreover, the Middle East region is still far from realising the full benefits of information and communication technology (ICT).
The problem resides in the fact that ICT development continues to suffer from an over-emphasis on telecom development without seeing the larger picture.
A comprehensive ICT policy should lay stress on development of digital services in a number of domains such as education, health, media, general government activities and other commercial transactions.
According to Booz Allen Hamilton, the single biggest hurdle is the lack of a holistic ICT development agenda at a national level in most Middle East markets. Definition of a developmental plan at a market level across the main facets of ICT is mostly non-existent in the region.
This position does not undermine the successful formulation and early implementation of sector specific ICT plans, such as e-government, e-education, and broader e-commerce activities in markets such as the UAE and Jordan. Nevertheless, it does underscore the prevailing state of fragmentation region-wide.
The accumulation of these soiled initiatives is creating an inefficient allocation of resources and substantive delays in delivering meaningful services to end users that can truly improve their lives.
Experience has demonstrated that free and open competition benefits individual consumers and societies as a whole by ensuring lower prices, new and better products and services and expanded consumer choice.
Bahrain’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) says it is determined to introduce genuine competition into the sector, enabling a greater range of services and lower prices.
The leading telecom provider Batelco does not think it is a level playing field. It feels it is being unfairly penalised by the TRA and being forced to subsidise its competitors.
Seven other telecom companies are licensed to operate full mobile networks in Bahrain, but until recently Batelco has monopolised most of the physical infrastructure on the island.
The benefits of competition are readily seen in today’s telecom sector the world over. Dynamic technological change is resulting in new services and systems that provide innovative solutions to communications needs across the globe.
As a result, telecom is becoming increasingly important to the efficiency and effectiveness of private and public sector institutions.
In this environment of rapid change, a competitive marketplace will tap the potential of the telecom sector to serve the economic and social wellbeing of all citizens.
A competitive market promotes innovation by rewarding producers that invent, develop, and introduce new and innovative products and production processes.
By doing so, the wealth of the society as a whole is increased. In a competitive environment, businesses that fail to understand and react to consumer needs face the loss of customers and declining profits.
In other words, competition rewards entrepreneurship, responsiveness, and enthusiasm; it punishes sluggishness and indifference.
Because of the increasing importance of the telecom sector to the overall economy, Batelco must at the earliest agree to a fair pricing mechanism that will allow rival operators to use its infrastructure.
Rather than be stuck with just telecom and the notion that it is losing the competitive advantage Batelco should take the lead in providing customers with the entire gamut of ICT products and services.
ICT that is widely available will give the Bahrain economy the very element it needs to maintain competitiveness in the near and long term future with technologically advanced economies across the world.
Also, better regulation is needed in the telecom sector throughout the Arab world to ensure the orderly entrance of new competition. Having said that it should be ensured regulation did not punish companies already established in the region.
To ensure healthy growth and benefit to all stakeholders, regulators should focus on the task of creating value in the market and not transfer it from the incumbent operator to new entrants.
Good regulation would result in benefits to the consumer, operators, vendors and governments who will be, as a result, creating job opportunities, encouraging foreign and local investment and democratising access to communications services.
Talking Business
K S Sreekumar
sreekumar@tradearabia.net
