In the last few years we have seen dif­fer­ent devel­op­ments in the telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions sec­tor, from mar­ket reform to net­work and ser­vice con­ver­gence. Most of these devel­op­ments have been hap­pen­ing on the oper­a­tional side of the sec­tor. Con­ver­gence has been the com­mon denom­i­na­tor of the com­mu­ni­ca­tions indus­try in the last few years. The advent of IP based net­works both fixed and mobile enables the abil­i­ty to merge voice, data and mov­ing images onto a sin­gle device. Fur­ther tech­no­log­i­cal devel­op­ments enable the pos­si­bil­i­ty to seam­less­ly switch between fixed and mobile net­works using IP tech­nol­o­gy. Cur­rent tech­no­log­i­cal devel­op­ments enable con­ver­gence at the ser­vice deliv­ery lev­el, with the merg­er of broad­cast­ing, media and telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions ser­vices. In the Caribbean region we have seen mobile and fixed line oper­a­tors take advan­tage of these devel­op­ments. Oper­a­tors are build­ing cen­tral­ized net­works and expand­ing their foot­print in to dif­fer­ent Caribbean juris­dic­tions cre­at­ing lever­age through increased economies of scale. While this is a pos­i­tive devel­op­ment it does cre­ate some reg­u­la­to­ry and pol­i­cy chal­lenges. In order to man­age this ever-chang­ing envi­ron­ment, the region­al telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions and broad­cast­ing author­i­ties must also use the capa­bil­i­ties of tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ments in their efforts to reg­u­late the sec­tor.

In the spir­it of the CARICOM SINGLE MARKET and ECONOMY (CSME) ini­tia­tive, Tele­Con­sul­tan­cy aims to assist reg­u­la­to­ry author­i­ties of small island states to ben­e­fit of greater crit­i­cal mass, pooled resources and achieve greater economies of scale, as it relates to instru­ments and resources to assist in the enforce­ment of rules and reg­u­la­tion in the region­al telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions sec­tor. It is our objec­tive to assist in the cre­ation of har­mo­nized rules and the imple­men­ta­tion of com­mon reg­u­la­to­ry instru­ments that will facil­i­tate infor­ma­tion exchange among region­al author­i­ties. This approach will enable reg­u­la­tors of small island states to bet­ter address the chal­lenges as a result of tech­no­log­i­cal devel­op­ment in the sec­tor.