Telecom Regulatory and Policy Environment in the Maldives Results and Analysis of the 2008 TRE Survey

The Maldivian telecom sector has gone through partial liberalization in the mobile and broadband sectors in the past few years. The incumbent Dhiraagu (a joint venture between the government of Maldives and Cable & Wireless of the UK) faces competition from the newcomers Wataniya in the mobile sector and Focus Infocom in the broadband sector. The fixed sector is a monopoly, but Dhiraagu’s exclusivity is scheduled to end in 2008. The 2008 Telecom Regulatory Environment (TRE) survey asked informed stakeholders of the Maldivian telecom sector to assess the regulatory and policy environment along 7 dimensions (market entry, access to scarce resources, interconnection, tariff regulation, universal service obligations, regulation of anti-competitive practices and quality of service regulation) for the three (sub) sectors of telecom (fixed, mobile and broadband) , on a Likert scale of 1 to 5 (1 being highly unsatisfactory, 5 being highly satisfactory, with 3 being considered average). The respondents were selected from 3 categories: those directly impacted by policy and regulatory actions of the government (operators, equipment vendors), those who broadly follow the sector (consultants, lawyers) and those who represent the public interest in the telecom sector (consumer groups, other government officials, journalists, etc).