FCC Comr. Abernathy lauded the approval of regulatory best practi...

countries, Abernathy told us from Geneva. “The focus of this meeting was on universal access - - how do we as regulators move forward to promoting universal access for all parts of the globe, whether urban or rural,” Abernathy said. The GSR’s universal access best practice guidelines are scheduled to be delivered to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) this week in Geneva. The ITU said the best practice guidelines called for support for regulatory reform “at the highest level of government,” including treating information and communications technology as a development tool, not a revenue source. Abernathy said regulators backed best practices that included technologically neutral licenses, independent telecom regulatory bodies and clear and transparent rules. She said they marked “all the themes that the U.S. has been pushing globally.” She said the lessons of competition in the wireless arena -- including the possibilities created by unlicensed competitors and the potential for multiple competitors -- were cited by regulators as applying more broadly to universal access. “The fact that the regulators now agree to these kinds of guidelines and regulators sends a strong signal,” Abernathy said. Among the topics discussed was the extent to which unlicensed spectrum through Wi-Fi could address last-mile issues, she said. The 2-day meeting, which ended Tues. in Geneva, made clear the extent to which a wide range of countries had embraced competition and regulatory reform, with an emphasis on the need for an independent regulatory authority “so that you can’t have undue pressure exerted by an incumbent,” she said. Even 6 or 7 years ago, those themes wouldn’t have been on the table, she said. Toward the end of the conference, discussion turned to funding mechanisms for universal access, including the possibility of an auction approach in some cases, she said. The ITU said that “the regulators agreed that the lessons learned from developing countries’ initial experiences with mobile cellular services should now be applied to a broader range of ICT services to foster universal access.”