Bermuda Telecom Bill Delayed

In early July, the Ministry of Energy, Telecommunications and E-Commerce (METEC) in Bermuda announced that the tabling of the new telecommunications legislation would be delayed.  METEC Minister Michael Scott had previously told the industry that he would table the legislation prior to the summer recess.  According to a July 2 report in The Royal Gazette, "The Minister will update industry on its new time table as early as possible". 


As previously mentioned on this blog, the telecommunications legislation in Bermuda is in serious need of modernization. The fact that Bermuda does not have an independent regulatory body responsible for telecom and broadcasting regulation is clearly at odds with international best practices.  The International Telecommunications Union, for instance, in its most recent report on Trends in Telecommunication Reform (2009), describes the need for independent regulatory agencies as follows (see page 7 of Executive Summary):

The creation of separate ICT regulators has been one of the main building blocks of regulatory
reform worldwide since the 1990s. Regulators have played a leading role in creating an enabling
environment fostering innovation and investment. They have gradually opened fixed line services to
competition totaling 124 competitive markets for basic fixed-line services as of 2009, almost
inevitably privatizing the national fixed-line incumbent along the way. The overall objective of
regulators has been to ensure that public policy objectives for the sector continued to be met and
even exceeded.

Despite the need for legislative change in Bermuda, METEC's decision to delay the tabling of this legislation appears to be reasonable, given the feedback received from industry stakeholders.  The cost of the new regulatory agency was estimated to be approximately US $9 million per year.  This amount was heavily criticized by industry stakeholder, both in their regulatory submissions and media reports.  Indeed, this amount seems very high when compared to similar jurisdictions such as the Cayman Islands, where the regulator's annual budget is US $1.8 million (see page 269 of this budget document).  In the Bahamas, where the population is 330,000, or five times the Bermuda population, the annual budget of the telecom regulator is approximately $5 million (see page 21 of this draft annual plan).  Hopefully, the Government of Bermuda will rectify these issues in the near future to ensure that Bermuda's telecom regulatory framework is consistent with international best practices.