Bringing ICT into daily life 64. The benefits of ICT are best realized when ICT are in regular use. The Government considers that “bringing ICT into daily life” must be a principle of ICT policy, so that businesspeople, teachers, public servants, students, the elderly, politicians, farmers, children, and Solomon Islanders from all walks of life can communicate and use information as part of their day-to-day lives. Pro-competitive business conditions 65. Competition in the telecommunications sector, particularly among mobile network operators, has so far proved very beneficial to Solomon Islands. Competition among other ICT services may be expected to prove similarly beneficial. 66. The Government considers that ICT policy must promote pro-competitive conditions for ICT business in the Solomon Islands, in the expectation that competition will lead to market efficiency, driving providers of ICT goods and services to strive to win customers by better meeting their needs and reducing costs of supply. Technology neutrality, Technology aptness 67. Very commonly, policies concerning technology insist on “technological neutrality.” This expression is “a sweeping statement that can be put to many uses”. 26 26It may refer to the effect of regulation or the wording of regulation. It may require online and offline conduct to be treated alike. It may require regulation not of technology itself but of the use of technology. It may require that particular technologies not be favoured over other technologies. 68. Aiming for any of these objects is unobjectionable. But “technological neutrality” will seldom provide strong guidance on many policy choices. To the extent that it requires one kind of technology not to be given favourable, or different, treatment relative to another, it must be qualified. While the near-ubiquity of the Internet Protocol means that virtually any content may be reduced to similar form and transmitted “digitally”, this does not necessitate that all content and all media be treated alike. Different kinds of content, different kinds of media, and different 26 Koops B, “Should ICT Regulation be Technology Neutral?” in Koops B, Lips M, Prins C and Schellekens (eds) Starting Points for ICT Regulation: Deconstructing Prevalent Policy One-Liners (Asser Press, 2006) at 103. Page | 25 Solomon Islands National ICT Policy