The Minister of Telecommunications and E-commerce will sit down with industry leaders for the next two days to review how the telecommunications industry is regulated in the face of converging technologies.

It is hoped that the results of the meeting will be made the subject of a green paper which will ultimately serve as a guiding policy for the telecommunications sector for the next 15 years. Four months ago, Minister Michael Scott called on his department to launch the regulatory review as part of a wider bid for Information and Communication Technology Regulatory Reform.

The ministry examined how to facilitate the general public?s access to technology and comes at a time when technology for wireless, cable and telephone is giving providers the ability to offer similar services.

However, specific licences granted by the ministry currently restrict what each service provider can and cannot offer.

For instance, CableVision?s digital technology means the company could act as an internet service provider, but it is unable to do so since there is a moratorium on ISP licences.

Cellular One?s new wireless data access service ?The Bull? has also come under legal scrutiny after ISPs claimed the service infringed on their Class 2 licences. Minister Scott said yesterday he saw the forum as an opportunity to review all of the challenges and reform the telecommunications industry.

The three classes of the industry ? internet service providers (SP), international carriers and mobile carriers ? which have been operating since 1999 in Bermuda under managed competition, has worked well for some sectors, but getting these three sectors operating in a rational market structure and viable profitability poses the challenge. ?We decided to hold the two-day review to come up with a long-term business plan for the industry, both liability and sustainability,? he said.

Minister Scott added that it was always good to have a long-term plan as to how telecommunications will look in the long-run.

?Our core businesses, international business, capital insurance, mutual funds and financial services, are all dependent on Information technology and communications.?

Director of E-commerce, Nancy Volesky added that this was not something specific to Bermuda and was happening internationally.

?The EU just held an ICT visioning exercise to take them into 2010; North America is undergoing top communications infrastructure reviews and trying to determine what the future is going to look like because the landscape has changed,? she said.

Which is why, she said, Bermuda was looking at the same type of exercise.

The fixed market of 37,000 customer users in Bermuda are currently serviced by a family of 13 telecommunications and communications businesses ? all vying for a fixed market of customers and ?minutes? that are available produce challenges.

Minister Scott said this drove the need for shaping the structure of the market, shaping the competitive models and reviewing the regulatory provisions that are in place to make sure that business models are sustainable.