A recent telecom summit has urged Arab Leaders to accelerate the region's involvement in intelligent next generation networks revolution, and "turn it into wealth to serve socio economic development."

The Arabcom Summit tackled several key telecom issues and also shed light on the most outstanding horizons and challenges facing the Arab world under the new Intelligent Next Generation Networks, said Katia Tayar, founder and president of Arabcom Group.

The annual Arab International Telecom development summit for the Arab states held in Beirut witnessed a huge turnout of 620 delegates including 15 Arab Ministers of Telecom and 35 regional operators/carrier, Telco CEOs,  government delegations, the League of the Arab states and The International Telecommunication Union members.

According to Tayar, there was an urgent need to develop a national plan at the highest level in the country for an urgent project adopting the development, upgrading and expansion of networks.

She also called for introduction of the services of broadband and mobile internet within a specified period of time that meets the current accelerated developments in the world of telecommunications.

Tayar urged leaders and communities to turn the new communication revolution into a real wealth to serve the nation and its interests.

She referred to man's right of access to communication and renewed her pledge to continue working in order to provide communication and knowledge to all in pursuit of economic and social development for the entire nation.

The summit's opening ceremony was attended by 10 Ministers of Telecom, and hosted under the patronage of the Minister of Telecom in Lebanon Jibrane Bassile, patron of Arabcom, who presented a political paper for the sector of telecommunications and provided a vision to form the information community, calling for partnership between the two sectors and the neighboring countries.

Furthermore, the Iraqi Minister of Telecommunications, Farouq Abdel Rahman, has called for approving the Arabcom Document and for further cooperation between the Arab countries and the two sectors.

The key recommendations of the summit include:

* Co-ordination and cooperation with the relevant authorities to introduce the wide area networks and broadband, in addition to training individuals on using the new applications through an awareness-raising program.
*Encourage issuing licenses for call centers in the Arab world
*Following the ICT policy to develop all economic sectors
*Developing constant regulatory frameworks on which investors could rely in the long term while taking investment decisions.
*Observing impartiality in network technology and supporting the participation in infrastructure which could pave the way for affordable broadband services.
*Providing rare sources for radio spectrum and public rights of way in a fair, transparent and competitive way so that they may be utilized effectively.
*Supporting competitive, balanced market to manage supply and demand on broadband services.
*Paying more attention to the end-user by providing contents and applications that are suitable to the Arab world interests and emphasizing the protection of consumer rights.
*Making use of broadband network and providing IP TV for users through such network.
*The need of government intervention if traditional and regulatory policies fail or in case they turn out to be slow in developing the broadband market.
*Proposing to provide the mobile TV service for free for an initial period in order to encourage users
*Capitalizing on the experience of Arab university graduates around the world and Arab scientists
*Reaching effective cooperation between telecommunication service providers and information agencies in order to provide users with information content in order to move the broadband service forward.

The summit's agenda t