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The
Annex requires each Member to ensure that all service suppliers seeking to
take advantage of scheduled commitments are accorded access to and use of
public basic telecommunications, both networks and services, on reasonable
and non-discriminatory basis.
Members
incur these obligations whether or not they have liberalized or scheduled
commitments in the basic telecommunications sector. This is because the
Annex addresses access to these services by users rather than the ability
to enter markets to sell such services; the latter is addressed in
schedules of commitments. As such, the beneficiaries of the disciplines in
the Annex will be firms that supply any of the services included in a
Member's schedule of commitments; not only be value-added and competing
basic telecommunications suppliers, but banking or computer services
firms, for example, that wish to take advantage of market access
commitments made by a WTO Member. The annex obligations strike a fragile
balance between the needs of users for fair terms of access and the needs
of the regulators and public telecommunications operators to maintain a
system that works and that meets public service objectives.
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