Even as 3G covered 85% globally, only half of the world is connected—Taylor, CTO boss
More discoveries made at the recent Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO) ICT Forum’17 held in Maputo, Mozambique have emerged.
A communiqué issued by participants’ and signed by the Secretary General of the CTO, Mr. Shola Taylor, showed that among the consensus reached from the discussions include that the journey to the digital future is both individual and collective.
Besides, “Public investment is a necessity to connect the unconnected, as although 3G covers 85% of the world, only half of the world population is connected to the Internet”.
The conferees agreed that “Countries must develop coordinated multi-sectoral strategies for ICTs, to include broadband infrastructure, health, education, agriculture and other areas”.
Other key decisions reached included that Internet of things (IoT) and augmented reality may require less and but more flexible regulation and that there is need to balance open data with privacy.
CTO also called on governments to lead by deploying e-government services, noting that competitive digital economies require government to create the enabling conditions, laws and frameworks, including for machine-to-machine communications.
Stakeholders also called on member state governments to make cybersecurity a priority for the protection of both public and private sector data for economic development.
Business Hilights recalls that CTO ICT Forum is the annual ICT conference of the Commonwealth.
Hosted this year by INCM Mozambique, it is attended this year by ICT ministers and regulators, national information technology agencies, universal service agencies, civil society leaders, technology solution providers, telecoms companies, consulting firms, social media companies and financial and investment institutions from 21 countries.
