Rely on the wisdom of your people to choose among competing providers. Competition will increase services and decrease prices, and it will stimulate investors to build your nation s infrastructure, so that you can more fully participate in the new global economy. But, he added, in the rush to the future, we must not leave anyone behind. Universal access, he declared, is important for fairness and practicality, as more of society s basic functions are performed electronically. But it also makes good business sense.
Competition lowers prices and expands service areas, so that more customers come onto the network.
Once more customers are on the network, competition in all types of services is stimulated, he said. Kennard challenged the business leaders to wire local schools to the Internet, and set up computer labs to teach today s survival skills to youths and their teachers. He also urged government officials to get their political leadership behind universal support systems, to which every competitor contributes proportionally. He also encouraged the Hungarian Government to give its Hungarian Telecommunications Authority plenary authority over regulatory matters as Hungary prepares to open its market fully to competition in January 2002. Earlier in the day he had signed a development partnership agreement with President Gabor Frischmann of the Hungarian Telecommunications Authority.