LONDON, August 15, 2011 – The inaugural meeting of the Board of
Directors of the CTO Ventures endorsed the launch of a low-cost
`borderless Commonwealth’ mobile data roaming service for its member
countries and beyond. CTO Ventures is a commercial subsidiary of the
Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation initiated to develop, expand
and enhance CTO’s existing operations to facilitate transactional business
opportunities in member countries and beyond.
Speaking on the occasion of the launch, the CTO-V’s Chairman, Dr. Ekwow
Spio-Garbrah, said, “This is yet another contribution of the CTO to the
development of ICT. With a focus to complement member countries’ ICT
requirements and growth, this service will provide cheap, fast and
sustainable telcocommunication solutions to both, the business and leisure
travellers.
Moreover, with globalization and the constant need to move from one country
to another this offering will bring much ease and convenience to people
looking to stay in touch and avoid communication gaps.”
Stressing on a “borderless society”, the CTO-V’s CEO, Mr. Bashir Patel said,
“From a thorough
investigation of the telco scene regarding roaming data services to frequent
travellers, it is obvious that there are distinct needs of travellers,
which may include web access, email service, high bandwidth for a variety of
office and home applications, security and social networking applications.
With the available alternatives such as roaming services provided by
traditional MNOs being very expensive or having limited coverage, features
or capacity, coupled with the forecasted growth in travel and tourism,
the CTO-V will provide cost-effective borderless services to one and all.”
The CTO-V portfolio of services will initially cover fifteen key markets
spanning over four continents;
North America, Asia-Pacific region, Europe and Africa, but will later go on
to expand other
Commonwealth regions and the world.
The CTO-V Board of Directors is made up of the Chairman, the CTO-V CEO, the
CTO CEO and regionallybased non-executive directors for specific
geo-political regions. The inaugural meeting, which was held in London on 27
July, 2011, and attended by Dr. Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, CTO-V Chairman and CTO
CEO; Mr.
Bashir Patel, CTO-V CEO and CTO COO; Dr. Robert Horton, CTO-V Board member,
former Chairman of
the Australia Communications Commission, and now CTO Ambassador for
Australia, New Zealand and the
Pacific regions; Dr. Ernest Ndukwe, CTO-V board member, Chairman of the
Openmedia Group, and
former Executive Vice Chairman and CEO of the Nigeria Communications
Commission; Amb Anthony De
Bono, CTO-V board member, Malta’s Ambassador to Jordan, former CEO/General
Manager of Telemalta
and former Chairman of the CTO Council; Dr. Ham Mukasa-Mulira, CTO-V Board
member, former Minister
of ICTs of Uganda and now Senior Presidential Adviser on ICT, Uganda; Dr.
Marianne Treschow, CTO-V
board member, former Director-General of the Swedish Post and
Telecommunications Authority, and CTO
Ambassador of Scandinavian Region and Mr. William Humphrey, CTO-V board
member, former CEO of
Guyana Telecoms and Managing Partner and CEO of the Prometheus Group, USA,
also entailed
discussions on future projects including Cell Broadcasting, Commonwealth
Cloud Platform and Broadband
Network Deployment in some of the members countries. About The Commonwealth
Telecommunications Organisation (CTO)
The CTO is an inter-governmental organization which provides technical
assistance services to its
member countries through research and studies, consultancies and advisory
services, capacity building
and training workshops, and through knowledge-sharing events. With a history
dating back to 1901, the
CTO is a partnership between the Commonwealth and non-Commonwealth
governments, regulators,
businesses, civil society organizations and other ICT stakeholders. The
CTO’s mission is to reduce global poverty through the more efficient
utilization of ICTs, and its development agenda reflects the priorities set
in the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
For more information, please visit www.cto.int.
About the CTO Ventures Ltd (CTO-V)
The Commonwealth Telecommunications Ventures Limited (CTO-V), the commercial
subsidiary of the
Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO), provides a portfolio of
smart, innovative and
seamless ICT solutions to serve local communities within the Commonwealth
and beyond. Accomplished by focusing on operational excellence, CTO-V’s
strategies are based on the markets’ requirements, providing the most
innovative telecommunications solutions across all communication channels,
including data, fibre and mobile communications, whilst embracing innovation
and state-of-the-art technologies and maintaining efficient, sustainable and
affordable propositions.