Therefore, the governments have to be honest before enacting policies including telecoms. Universal access to telecoms and ICT solely depends on the service providers’ uninterrupted (Not unregulated) access to markets. No market should become a regulatory minefield littered with mindless decrees after the operators’ entry. It ruins the business plan, hampers competition and dampens the growth. And affects the job market.

As a result the governments fail to achieve the targeted earnings.

But the governments, seduced by greed like a losing gambler, impose more taxes and fees to increase the exchequer’s cash flow. That surely never works. Yet such inept governments are the loudest crybabies about digital divide.

The CSOs and NGOs are often found sympathetic to such hypocrisy.

It took the fixed telephony 125 years to acquire first billion users. Mobile telephony did that in 10 years and now the industry is growing with in excess of three billion users. And GSM has been the dominant force of this thrust. Evidently the mobile industry has effectively narrowed the digital divide.

But governments are yet to recognize this accomplishment of the mobile industry, which is the best possible vehicle to deliver affordable broadband everywhere. Governments rather prefer imposing hefty fees on broadband-centric 3G mobile licenses. Governments are also found in bed with proprietary broadband options like WiMAX in the name of bridging the digital divide.

It actually serves only the vested group. This is what the CSOs and the NGOs are to capture in their spirit of policy advocacy for telecoms and ICT. Let’s be honest first while the rest can wait.