Huawei Advocates Friendly Industry Policies for a Better Connected Asia

[Hong Kong, April 28, 2016] Huawei successfully held the Industrial Policy Roundtable today at the Hong Kong stop of the UBBS World Tour. In attendance were 20 attendees from communications bureaus and regulators from Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, China, and other countries as well as ANACOM (Portuguese National Communications Authority) and industry analytics company Current Analysis to discuss how to develop effective industry promotions and regulatory policies to spur national broadband development in Southeast Asia.

The broadband development in India and most Southeast Asian countries is below the global average, with overall fixed broadband penetration at only 2.3%, far lower than the global average of 10.4%. Meanwhile, Southeast Asia (including India) is home to 1.7 billion people, accounting for 1/4 of the world's population. Driven by demographic dividends, the pace of broadband growth is much higher in Southeast Asia than the global average. To promote national broadband development in Southeast Asia to allow even more people to access affordable Internet services and enjoy the tremendous social and economic benefits of information technology, governments must place a leading role in actively creating a healthy industry ecosystem and to foster a competitive ICT market.

The four proposals raised by the roundtable were unanimously supported by attendees: provide capital subsidies to improve broadband coverage, particularly for remote areas; encourage infrastructure collaboration and open rights of way to reduce construction costs of broadband infrastructure; expand fixed-line licensing to accelerate broadband construction; and stimulate user demand through training, terminal subsidies, and other incentive policies to stir broadband demand.

“Governments should lead the industry in improving network sharing and increasing cooperation for better rights of way to make the Internet ubiquitous in South East Asia,” said Dustin Kehoe, Current Analysis Asia-Pacific ICT Research Director. “It is also important that policy makers work closely with the private sector to encourage investment in next generation networks. Community outreach initiatives will also be essential for driving usage and supporting the next wave of one billion users coming online for the first time by 2020.”

Huawei, as the world's leading national broadband one-stop solutions provider, advocates the national broadband construction philosophy of “superfast, ubiquitous, affordable” and is committed to building better connected nations. To date, 33 countries around the world have selected Huawei as their national broadband solutions provider.