MedicineLakex

Ntrc.vc2

THE NATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS REGULATORY COMMISSION
ICT NEWSLETTER
NTRC ICT NEWSLETTER ISSUE #68
December 2015
Cyber Tips
Realize that you are an attractive target to hackers. Don't ever say "It won't happen to me." - management. Use a strong mix of characters, and don't use the same password for multiple sites. Don't share your password with others, don't write it down, and definitely don't write it on a post-it note attached to your monitor. unattended. If you need to leave Debon Moses with a trolly of groceries at Bodanies Supermarket your computer, phone, or tablet for any length of time—no matter how short—lock it up so no one Debon Moses wins NTRC's Christmas
can use it while you're gone. If you keep sensitive information on Giveaway
a flash drive or external hard drive, make sure to lock it up as Miss Debon Moses is happy to have won $500 worth of groceries from Bonadies Supermarket No. 2 compliments the National Telecommunications Regulatory Always be careful when clicking Commission (NTRC) via its Facebook Christmas Hamper Giveaway. on attachments or links in email. If it's unexpected or suspicious for The Christmas Hamper Giveaway was the NTRC's final public awareness promotion any reason, don't click on it. for 2015 to improve its relations on social media platform Facebook. To enter the Double check the URL of the competition, persons were required to "Like" the NTRC's Facebook page (NTRC website the link takes you to: bad SVG), and enter their contact details to gain one entry. To gain additional entries actors will often take advantage of spelling mistakes to direct you to and improve their chances of winning, persons were required to invite their friends to a harmful domain. Think you can join the competition. For each invited friend that joined, entrants were awarded two spot a phony website? additional entries. At the end of the competition, Miss Debon Moses was selected as Sensitive browsing, such as banking or shopping, should only be done on a device that belongs The Commission held several other promotions on Facebook throughout 2015 to you, on a network that you where persons won tablet computers and back to school vouchers. The competitions trust. Whether it's a friend's phone, a public computer, or a held resulted in an increase in fol owers by over 2,000. An increase in followers cafe's free WiFi—your data could provided a larger social audience by which the Commission could disperse be copied or stolen. information about topics such as Cyber security related issues, the Commission's activities amongst others. The Commission has also used Facebook to further advise the public who publicly share their telecommunications related complaints. For 2016, the Commission wil be continuing its efforts to disperse information and interact with the Vincentian public using Facebook and other popular social media platforms such as Twitter and Instagram.

FLOW Tech Kids Project
Chairman of ECTEL
"a resounding success" in
concerned about Cable &
Dominica
Wireless and Columbus
Communications merger
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – Attorney General and
Minister of Communications, Honourable Vincent Byron Jr. said that the Government is concerned about telecommunications company Cable and Wireless and Columbus Communications to form FLOW will have on the telecommunications market in St. Kitts and Nevis and the wider Eastern Caribbean. Cable and Wireless, the parent company for LIME, announced in March 2015 that it has completed its US$1.85 bil ion acquisition of 100 per cent of the equity Telecommunications Company Flow is giving a high of Columbus Communications Inc., the operators of rating to the hosting of its first Kids Tech Project hosted at FLOW. The merger has sparked concerns and debates the newly opened Experience Centre. The inaugural around the Caribbean that the merger could create a project which was held on December 18, 2015 brought telecommunications monopoly, which was removed in large part with the arrival of DIGICEL as LIME's main together five children between the ages of four to nine for telecommunications competitor in 2001. a one of a kind experience into the exciting world of Minister Byron, who is also the chairman of ECTEL (Eastern Caribbean Telecommunications Authority), the telecommunications regulatory body for the The children, accompanied by their parents arrived at the Eastern Caribbean, said that the merger is a concern store on Saturday morning for two hours of fun, games for St. Kitts and Nevis, considering that the and entertainment. The first order of business was to Government is a majority shareholder in The Cable, participate in the popular Temple Run game. After two the main cable television and internet provider on St. Kitts that competed with LIME. He said the priority rounds of competition, four year old Kayla Astaphan should be for consumers of the sub-region to get good emerged as the winner with the highest score. quality telecommunications services at an affordable The second activity tested the children's' ability at design. He also said that ECTEL wil also be addressing other Using the provided tablet device, the technology savvy issues, including number portability, the removal of children were instructed to dress-up Santa Claus on a roaming charges within the sub-region and the free use Christmas card. The final design produced by each child of over the top services such as WhatsApp. is posted on the Flow Dominica Facebook page. The Byron went on to stress the importance of ECTEL design with the most likes will be named as the winner member states having the proper legislative framework in place in order to implement some of these and the designer wil be awarded a grand prize. Fans, developments in telecommunications. family and friends are encouraged to visit the page to It is also the goal over the next five years of ECTEL vote for their favourite. that every household is connected by broadband technology, and that everyone has a smart phone and "Saturday's activity is the first of many by the company access to these services. aimed at introducing children into the fascinating world of telecommunications and technology" said Flow's General Manager Jeffrey Baptiste. He said the objective of the Flow Tech Kids project is to provide a live platform to allow the children the opportunity to demonstrate their competency in using computer devices, and online programmes.

Government of Barbados
enters into Contract with
Digicel that will result in
cost savings
Taiwan Ambassador Mou and Sen. the Hon.Dr. James Fletcher The Government of Barbados has entered into a contract with telecommunications company Digicel that wil cut its Taiwan donates US$145,000
telephone costs in half. Prime Minister Freundel Stuart made the revelation on to St. Lucian Government for
December 16, 2015 during debate in the House of Assembly. EDRMS projects
The Prime Minister sought and received approval of Parliament for the first payment of $776,800 to apply Digicel's Wide Area Network (WAN) system to the Ministry of The Government of the Republic of China (Taiwan) has the Civil Service, the Personnel Administration Department, come to the assistance of the Government and People the Ministry of Energy, the Telecoms Unit, and the Civil of Saint Lucia by making a donation of EC$ 389,789.00 Aviation Department, beginning this month. (US$145,000.00), towards the Government island wide Network (GiNet) and Electronic Document and Offering an example of the savings in store for Government Records Management System (EDRMS) projects. through removal of the old telecommunication system and implementing WAN, Stuart said: "The current accumulated EC$80,646 (US$30,000) of that amount is al ocated for phone calls for the Ministry of the Civil Service and the the GiNet Project, while the remainder, EC$309,143 Personnel Administration Department is $180,000 annually. (US$115,000) as the second disbursement will be used for the Electronic Document and Records Management "During the first year of this project, December 2015 to November 2016, of the new telephony installation, Government will pay nothing for the phone system. Both of these projects are under the Information and "From December 2016 and onwards, the cost of phones will Agreement between the Government of the Republic of be reduced to $90,000." China (Taiwan) and the Government of Saint Lucia. He added: "When other departments become connected, the According to the new Taiwanese Ambassador to Saint [WAN] solution wil observe savings of up to 53 per cent". Lucia, His Excellency Ray Hua-Wei Mou, "My Emphasising that the saving "was not an option that government has taken the initiative to assist with the Government could frown on", he said, "We are concerned GiNet Project. We are working on free or low-cost about the chaotic use of information and communication "Wireless Local Area Network, WLAN" in public technology in the public service" areas. Internet penetration wil be enhanced. Also, government and enterprises will be motivated to Stuart described the move to WAN as "a giant step" in the provide a wide range of innovative applications on this direction towards e-Government. public Internet infrastructure". He said that as the largest organisation on the island it The EDRMS primarily includes e-document authoring, should be enjoying reduced costs owing to size, but online handling and approval, exchange, filing and "separate entities in Government go off on their own and the archive sub-systems. The aim of this system is to al ow advantages of economies of scale are not realized". the Government of Saint Lucia to create process and The Prime Minister told the Committee of Supply of manage documents and records electronical y. Parliament that the $776,800 payment was the first in a The technicians have already completed the training of series of periodic disbursements that the administration will the Second Phase on how to use the system and are make to Digicel, which was awarded the contract based on it now at Phase III, which is the Development of Archives making the best offer in a tendering process. Module. Archiving wil help in reducing the time in "It was agreed that a managed services wide area network processing the documents, and improve the solution at a cost of $2.4 mil ion, VAT inclusive, for the first organization's internal and external communication three years would be implemented." efficiency, and reduce the risk of government critical information loss. The Archive Module wil also support management, and compliance with the e-Laws regulation. Source

India's Internet Regulator Puts
FCC questions T-Mobile,
Facebook's ‘Free Basics' Program
AT&T, and Comcast over
free data programs
Facebook's plan to provide limited Internet services for free in India has run into a roadblock, with the Commission has sent letters to T- country's top Internet regulatory body requesting its Mobile, AT&T, and Comcast asking local partner to temporarily suspend the program. for information on programs that The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) allow their customers to stream music, videos, or other asked Reliance Communications to cease providing content without having it count toward their data cap. The Facebook's Free Basics program to its customers inquiry is a big deal. Net neutrality advocates argue that until further notice, the Times of India reported on these programs violate the Commission's rules, giving a December 23, 2015. distinct competitive advantage to the apps and services that they let customers use data free; upstarts, they argue, will always fail in comparison. The FCC avoided Free Basics, part of Facebook's Internet.org initiative directly addressing this issue when it established its new to bring underprivileged citizens of developing net neutrality rules earlier this year, but today's inquiry countries online, provides certain free web-based suggests that it shares some of these competitive services to subscribers of Reliance — its telecom partner in India. However, it has become controversial "We want to ensure that we have al the facts to in the South Asian nation — the social-media giant's understand how these services relate to the largest user base after the U.S. — where critics say it Commission's goal of maintaining a free and open violates net neutrality, the principle that prevents internet while incentivizing innovation and investment Internet providers from favoring particular websites or from al sources," the FCC writes in each letter. It's asked the three companies to make staff available to them for discussions within a month. "The question has arisen whether a telecom operator should be allowed to have differential pricing for The three internet providers argue that their services do different kinds of content," a senior government not violate net neutrality. T-Mobile, which offers data-free official told the Times. "Unless that question is music and video streaming for select services, tel s answered, it will not be appropriate for us to continue that its program "encourages competition, and we to make that happen." believe it is absolutely in line with net neutrality rules." Comcast, which offers its own data-free streaming TV Facebook, which has consistently insisted that Free service, argues in a statement to the Los Angeles Basics is a purely philanthropic initiative, encountered Times that it's offering a "cable service" not subject to net even more backlash for asking its Indian users to neutrality rules, as opposed to a streaming service that send TRAI a message of support for the program and goes "over the public internet." AT&T, which lets conducting a widespread advertising campaign companies pay to offer data-free services, tries (and across the country's newspapers, television and fails) to sound super punk, saying, "We remain even bil boards. committed to innovation without permission and hope the FCC is too." Contact Us
National Telecommunications Regulatory Commission
2nd Floor NIS Building, Upper Bay Street Kingstown
St. Vincent
Tel: 784-457-2279 Fax: 784-457-2834 Email: [email protected]
ntrc svg

Source: http://www.ntrc.vc/docs/newsletters/ICT_Newsletter_December_2015.pdf