SAARC communication industry CEOs to meet in Kathmandu

Over a 100 CEOs, representing both the service providers and regulators from the SAARC region, are converging for their sixth annual CEO conference here on Thursday to decide on strategies on how to provide telecom access to the millions living in second and three tier towns, semi-urban and rural areas.

Kathmandu Oct.24 : Over a 100 CEOs, representing both the service providers and regulators from the SAARC region, are converging for their sixth annual CEO conference here on Thursday to decide on strategies on how to provide telecom access to the millions living in second and three tier towns, semi-urban and rural areas.

Accordingt oa Strategic Communications-Cyber Media release, CEOS from India, Pakistan , Sri Lanka, Bangladesh , Nepal, Bhutan and Maldives will spend their time devising strategies for taking telecom beyond cities and learn from experiences of the individual countries.

Speaking on the eve of departure before the conference, Pradeep Gupta, Chairman, CyberMedia, the publishers of Voice and Data, Dataquest and Dare said, "With the emergence of Internet, telecom is becoming a meta resource for economic development of developing nations.

"Leaders from the seven SAARC nations will shed their geographic boundaries to carve out strategies to deploy telecom to accelerate economic development in the region," Gupta added.

The industry representatives will also discuss crucial areas like telecom penetration, quality of service, adoption of new technologies, and above all affordability. Prasanto K Roy, Chief Editor of Voice and Data says that the three-day Voice and Data CEO Conclave will bring together the industry think tank together on one platform to facilitate the creation of a plan to address major access, affordability and technology issues.

The CEO Conclave will also use the opportunity to identify and present SAARC Innovation Awards for the Telecom Industry.

The Conclave will also host the first summit of the SAARC Telecom Advisory Council (STAC) that will draw up a roadmap for telecom for 2008 and beyond.

The sixth Voice and Data CEO Conclave will also address opportunities for SAARC cooperation for meeting individual country telecom targets.

Shankar Prasad Koirala, IT and Telecom Secretary, Ministry of Information and Communications, Nepal and Dinesh Kumar Sharma, Chairman , Nepal Telecom Authority will represent the host country.

From India , Kulbeer Goyal, CMD, BSNL, R N Prabhakar, Member of TRAI and S K Vasistha, MD Railtel will spearhead the discussions.

Suren Jeevaka Amarasekera, CEO, Mobitel, Sri Lanka; Ravi Sankar, COO, VSNL Lanka; Nayeem M Chaowhury, Director. WorldTel, Bangladesh; Sultan ul Arfeen, Chairman, Telecard Limited, Pakistan and Ahmad Maumoon, Broadband and Fixed, Dhiraagu, Maldives will be eminent telecom leaders from their respective countries.

The eminent private sector players will be represented by Hari Dev Khosla, Deputy Chief Operating Officer, Tata Teleservices Maharashtra Limited and Bharti Airtel's CMO-East Hub G.V. Krishnan and Satyen Gupta, Chief Regulatory Advisor, SAARC Region, British Telecom Global.

ANI