National ICT Strategic Plan Government of St Kitts and Nevis essential for effective competition to bear fruits and to guarantee the reliability, innovation, and technological neutrality of the ICT infrastructure. Related strategic moves include: x Rural, isolated or ill-favoured communities which commercial operators are not willing to offer high quality services to within the year following their introduction into the more densely populated and easily accessible areas should be granted the right to use any suitable alternative for local and wide area networking and obtain for themselves or their providers all required licenses. x An annual audit of the implementation of the deregulation of the telecommunications sector should be conducted in conjunction with the National Round Tables, its results made public and appropriate adaptations brought into the Telecommunications Act and related policy positions. x Ongoing evaluation should be conducted on the need to issue new telecommunications licenses to respond to demand and to improve the competitive environment. x Government should enforce regulations that allow for providing services adjudged essential at a socially acceptable cost e.g. by compensating users for price differences resulting from localization constraints or abuse of dominant situations. x Government should pursue the efforts underway with a view to reclaiming the administration of the Internet Top Level Domain Names for the OECS countries and establish suitable and effective registry operations. x Government should develop plans by which all citizens can obtain a free electronic mail address and organisations a domain name address at an appropriate cost under the countries top level domain name, with a view to expand the visibility of OECS countries on the Internet. Ministry of Finance, Sustainable Development, Information and Technology November, 2006 25