WTO Agreement on Basic Telecommunications Services
The WTO Agreement on Basic Telecommunications Services (BTA), which is an annex to the Fourth Protocol of the General Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS), was implemented on February 5, 1998. It improves market access for telecommunications equipment suppliers, vendors and service providers by ensuring that all service suppliers seeking to take advantage of scheduled commitments have reasonable and non-discriminatory access to and the use of public basic telecommunications networks and services.
Services covered by this agreement include voice telephony, data transmission, telex, telegraph, facsimile, private leased circuit services (i.e., the sale or lease of transmission capacity), fixed and mobile satellite systems and services, cellular telephony, mobile data services, paging, and personal communications systems. Value-added services were not covered in this agreement, but they have since been included in more recent telecommunications services negotiations.
By becoming party to the BTA, countries commit to a set of definitions and regulatory principles embodied in the WTO Reference Paper. In addition, countries make specific commitments to open up their telecommunications services markets. These specific country "offers" vary, but ultimately the objective is a completely open market.
New Round of Services Negotiations
Written into the GATS is a commitment by WTO member governments to progressively liberalize trade in services. Article XIX (paragraph 1) committed them to start a new round in 2000. Telecommunications, like all services, is included in the new services negotiations, which are now under way.
WTO Members are tabling proposals regarding both the structure and the content of the negotiations that began in 2000. Active negotiations began in 2002.
Who Has Made Basic and/or Value-added Telecommunications Services Commitments?
In all, nearly 90 distinct territorial entities (countries) have made commitments in either basic and/or value-added services telecommunications services.
All Current Telecommunications Commitments and Exemptions
The results of the negotiations on basic telecommunications, while impressive, are only a partial view of the commitments the WTO has achieved in this sector. Prior to the agreement entering into force, 69 WTO Member governments had listed telecommunications in their schedules (counting commitments in both the Uruguay Round and in the subsequent accessions of new Members). Twenty-six of these had committed in some form within basic telecommunications, and 50 had committed in some or all within value-added services.