The
Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, Prof Umar
Garba Danbatta, last week in Lagos, said that fears being expressed that the
Commission wants to start regulating over the top (OTT) services in the country
are totally misplaced as the regulatory agency has no plans now or in the
immediate future to regulate such services.
Speaking
through Mr. Tony Ojobo at the Social Media Week, Danbatta explained that what
may have given rise to the speculations is a document titled, An
Overview of Provision of Over The Top (OTT) Services put on the
Commission’s website by the Policy, Competition and Economic Analysis
Department intended mainly to elevate discourse on this new genre of telecoms services
occasioned by what the industry refers to as disruptive technology.
In
his explanation, “OTT services are services carried over the networks, delivery
value to customers, but without any carrier service provider being involved in
planning, selling, provisioning, or servicing them, thereby implying that
traditional telecos cannot directly earn revenue from such services. These
over-the-top services include services such as Internet Protocol (IP)
telephony, live streaming and other social media applications.”
Therefore,
operators are complaining that services offered by Whatsapp, Facebook, Skype,
Viber, among others are putting pressure on the revenue stream of traditional
telecom service providers and there is outrage globally about the activities of
these modern day service providers who have been accused of “eating the lunch
of the traditional operators” as they (OTT service providers) make money out of
the investment and sweat of others.
Addressing
a gathering consisting mainly of youths, the type who from their look and dress
sense, have no room for traditions and the hermetic strictures of yore, mostly
the Facebook and Whatsapp denizens, Danbatta noted that as a responsible
regulator, what the Commission wanted to
achieve with the document was to elevate the level and quality of discourse.
Danbatta
expressed satisfaction with the reactions to the document so far but advised
that more attention should be paid to reading the complete document in order to
come to full understanding of what the Commission is saying about OTT.
Reiterating
his earlier position that the Commission has no plans to regulate OTT services,
Danbatta noted that one salient point in the conclusion of the document is that
while acknowledging the fears of traditional telecom service providers that
traditional telephony and SMS revenues are under threat from newer, IP based
alternatives like WhatsApp, Skype, Viber, etc. the document also recommended
that the Commission should encourage network providers in Nigeria to innovate
and explore more efficient business models that would enable them compete
favourably with OTT service providers.
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