Golden Sibanda Senior Business Reporter
THE Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe says the current service specific licensing framework is being reviewed because the obsolete regime stifles growth of the industry.
POTRAZ is working to overhaul the system it says is no longer sustainable, as it has been overtaken by dynamics in technology revolution, and replace it with a technology and service neutral framework.
The old adopted licensing framework was service specific and in some instances went further to prescribe the technology to be deployed. Sections of the Telecoms Act provide for an option to licence either services only or infrastructure only or to combine both services and infrastructure. The current scenario where service-specific licensing is being used is no longer sustainable in a converged environment, POTRAZ said, as it has been rendered obsolete in addressing market conditions and definitions emerging due technological changes.
“An extensive international benchmarking exercise done by POTRAZ identified that the existing licensing regime falls short on flexibility; stifles innovation and is also not in line with current international practice,” POTRAZ said in a consultation paper on convergence.
In keeping with its values of transparency, responsiveness and predictability, POTRAZ is consulting on changes it proposes to make to the licensing framework to accommodate recent advances in technology and changes in consumer needs, tastes and expectations. Technological evolution means traditional market boundaries are increasingly getting blurred. Multiple services can now be offered over a single platform opening up opportunities for operators to exploit economies of scope and scale to offer services at lower costs.
This means service specific licences are no longer sustainable as they hamper the ability to take advantage of efficiencies brought about by technological innovation in order to respond to consumer demands. As such, POTRAZ has proposed changes to the licensing framework to cater for evolving consumer needs, advent of multimedia services (triple play and quad-play); next generation networks and modern business models for the fast changing ICT sector.
Digitalisation of transmission, main streaming of internet protocol (IP) and computerisation of consumer devices has led to the obliteration of the hitherto distinction between data and voice services.
Today’s user devices such as smart phones, iPads, laptop (device convergence) are capable of receiving and transmitting voice, video and data while on the move, the essence of device convergence.
Access network, wireline or wireless (Access Network Convergence (3G, WIMAX, LTE, WIFI): can carry voice, video and data. Today’s core network (Core Network convergence (All IP) is predominantly all IP and is therefore capable of processing triple play or quadruple play in a manner transparent to the user.
POTRAZ said different nations and institutions globally are adapting new policies, regulations, and institutional frameworks to keep pace with an increasingly converging telecommunications sector.
The International Telecommunications Union-Development Sector (ITU-D) identified the need for service and technology neutral licensing and tasked its Study Group 1 (SG1) to prepare a simplified roadmap to assist regulatory authorities with convergence and transition to next generation network (NGN) environment. The roadmap comprises three stages, POTRAZ said, the first is specific-licence per service, the second being consolidation of closely related service-based licence categories with the final stage being that of technology and service neutral licences (unified licence). Trends in Tanzania, Nigeria, Malaysia, India, Zambia, Kenya, among others confirmed that most developing countries have adopted the roadmap.
Mature markets such as USA, Japan, France and UK are already at the last stage of the ITU roadmap and are now implementing light touch regulation.