Regulatory frameworks and legislations must continuously support innovation and competition for convergence to be successful across the West Africa economies, ICT regulators have said.
This was the submission of the stakeholders and experts a. WACC is the annual stakeholders’ forum on convergence trends in West Africa, organized by Knowhow Media & Market Intelligence International Limited.
According to regulators who were the 8th West Africa Convergence Conference (WACC) in Lagos, technology convergence has inherently meant the fusing of otherwise separate technology platforms for regulators and policy makers. Hence, the challenge has remained on the sustainability and maintenance of the market, as well as fairness to all parties considering the increasing trends of disruptive technologies.
Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, Executive Vice Chairman, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) delivering his paper on “Regulation, Technology Neutrality, and New Telecom Services in the Era of Convergence.
He noted that “Convergence poses a unique challenge to all regulators and increasingly, they must adopt positions that best serve all interests.”
NCC have opted for technology neutrality because technology cannot be regulated, but operators could be regulated to comply with the policy goals of the country as it concerns the telecom sector.
“Nigerians are all experiencing different technological changes and the convergence of services and their effects on regulations especially, technology dependent rules which are made obsolete by these changes.
We have learned from these experiences that, in developing regulations, we need to consider technology neutrality. We equally understand that technology dependent regulations could hamper, slow down or restrict innovations, development, and deployment of new services,” he added
According to him, as a regulator, NCC has observed emerging trends and evolution of new technologies and services from time to time.
“Technological changes such as Over The Top (OTT) services whose mode of operations are technically different from the traditional services have emerged.
OTT services are competing with traditional services, for example, voice calls are routed differently from the existing system which used structured numbering plan developed for routing and billing purposes, for a technically different platform which establishes a call using applications (apps) sitting on phones connected through the internet to their hosting servers,” he said.
“The Commission would continue to provide the enabling environment including the formulation of technology-neutral regulatory frameworks to promote growth and development in the industry.”
Speaking at the event, Olusola Teniola, President, Association of Telecoms Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), said: “Majority of the operators are anxious about leveraging on technologies to enhance service and advantage competitiveness operating on the fringe of existing regulatory frameworks.
He added that the pressure to meet market and technology dynamics often results in conflict with a slower regulatory process.”
The Director-General, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Dr. Isa Ali Pantami, who spoke on “Convergence, IT Regulation and the Promotion of Local Content,”
He said regulation remained essential to sustaining real growth and the building of indigenous capacity, and with convergence, it becomes even more imperative to ensure that the country leverages on converged platforms not just as a consumer but as a producer.
“Without regulation, you cannot, in any way, promote our local content; you cannot in any way encourage and motivate people to patronize it.
Look at our local industries all over, they are complaining about patronage, and why is it so,” Pantami said.
