NEW YORK-Telecommunications carriers, equipment manufacturers, regulators and financiers are invited to attend the second steering committee meeting Nov. 9 of a new organization being formed to promote competitive markets and capital availability in developing nations.
The Association for Competitive International Telecom is modeled after the International Private Energy Association and is housed at IPEA’s Chevy Chase, Md., headquarters. IPEA is a group of companies involved in independent power projects in developing countries.
Jay McCrensky is executive director of the five-year-old IPEA and acting executive director of the fledgling ACIT. Judith O’Neill, an attorney with Thelen, Reid & Priest L.L.P., is charter chairman. Additional members of the steering committee include representatives from AT&T Corp., Bell Canada International, Bellcore, Emerging Markets Online, France Telecom Group, GTE Corp., USA Global Link and Technology Investment Capital Partners.
“This will be a roundtable group to create ministerial-level dialogues, to facilitate an exchange of views for promoting a competitive environment in developing nations,” McCrensky said. Formation of ACIT also has been prompted by “the growing crisis in finance for telecommunications projects that aren’t financed by (equipment) vendors and/or multilateral finance agencies like the World Bank,” added McCrensky.
