International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Secretary-General, Dr Hamadoun Touré has urged governments to slash or even abolish onerous taxes on ICT equipment and services that could stifle the future growth of the mobile telecom sector. Dr Touré warned against unfair taxes levied on ICT goods and services by governments hoping to take advantage of the buoyant state of the technology sector. He noted that some tax administrators have recognised the importance of ICT to the development of their countries and had therefore slashed some taxes off ICT equipment and the sector, but other seem to take advantage of the buoyancy of the sector to impose heavy taxes. "It is encouraging to see a growing number of tax administrators recognize that ICT services are different from other services, because of their capacity to stimulate economic growth and social development. "Governments who have committed to following best-practice ICT regulation are now reducing or even eliminating some sector-specific taxes - ITU would like to see all governments follow their lead," he said. In Ghana, telecom operators are battling hard against numerous arbitrary taxes, levies and charges by Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs), as well as some government agencies on installation of telecom equipment, not to think of taxes on importation of telecom equipment and even a 20% import tax on SIM cards. Business operating permit alone cost telecom operators 1,000s of percentages higher in Ghana than it costs other equally big companies like banks, insurance companies and the other utility providers. Dr. Toure noted that the Internet is dependent on the ICT networks like fibre, cable, mobile and satellite so high taxes and levies on the installation of such infrastructure threaten the expansion for internet to deprived communities, particularly in Africa where internet penetration is relatively very low. He said there was the need for the ICT and telecom sector to be encouraged to deploy advanced technologies across the globe so the world could realise the full advantage of the ‘mobile miracle’ "If we are to translate the 'mobile miracle' of the past decade to wireless broadband, we need to take full advantage of the faster speeds IMT-Advanced will bring, ushering in the next exciting wave of innovation through creative new applications and services," said Dr Touré. ITU's recent Radiocommunication Assembly officially endorsed the two selected technologies that will form the basis of IMT-Advanced next generation high-speed cellular broadband. LTE-Advanced and Wireless MAN-Advanced both qualified as IMT-Advanced compliant, capable of supporting theoretical peak download speeds of 1 Gbit/s while stationary and 100 Mbit/s while in motion. Dr. Toure said consumers today expect to be connected to the Internet, to their social networks and to their data anywhere, anytime for high-speed premium services like live video streaming and new applications not yet dreamt of. "Operators who move fast to deploy IMT-Advanced technologies, and who price their services competitively, will reap the full benefit of the next wave of explosive growth."