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What NCC should do over licence or regulation of VOIP services  (2)

Was there a clamor before to licence data networks running on voice infrastructure? I am not aware of this. So why are we clamoring to licence a data network that wants to carry voice as an application?

This clamor to licence or regulate is based fundamentally on our understanding of technology. The internet revolution is still shaking out the way technology is used by humanity and voice technology as it was known is becoming a casualty of technology.

The way of the Future

Voice, while still a dominant application is gradually being supplanted by data. When we are building our national technology infrastructure today, the dominant consideration will not be to use it to carry voice traffic but to make it data ready as this is the way of the future.

Voice will only ride on this data infrastructure just like email, SMS, video etc. If we are licensing VOIP, we may at one point also consider doing the same for SMS, instant messaging, picture messaging etc. On IP networks, these are all treated like voice traffic. Our mindset today however is to see voice as the dominant application upon which the telecommunication infrastructure is built. While this may be so in Nigeria for today, the developed world is moving away from this and we may just see this as an opportunity to join the rest of the world.

So what should NCC do?

I believe NCC should acknowledge VOIP as a technology that holds a lot of promise in our quest to develop urgently our technology infrastructure. NCC should see it as a duty to ensure that operators who want to deploy VOIP do so for the ultimate benefit of the consumers.

If this means very reduced calls as we have already seen, better. NCC should infact encourage operators to expand their VOIP infrastructure to enable them develop a national VOIP infrastructure instead of what we have now that targets international operations only.

This will allow operators to offer flat national calls without any trunk charges. The current telecommunication players should see it as a technology that allows them to deliver service to their customers at a cheaper price. And they should jump into the bandwagon and allow customers benefit from the technology or risk going the way of NITEL.

NCC should therefore draw up a guideline and a time frame to make VOIP available as a national infrastructure. It should then work with PTOs to make this possible in the shortest possible time.

 

Avoid Undue Regulation

However, if there is need to license additional PTOs to take advantage of this technology; this should be done without preventing present PTOs from freely using the technology. It will be counter productive for NCC to unduly regulate a technology it cannot control. I doubt if NCC has achieved anything when it tried to licence the WIFI technology.

By licensing FWAs on 3.5 GHz, NCC tried to remove those who were operating on the 2.4GHzand 5.8Ghz spectrum. This only achieved a stifling of the internet availability it was trying to achieve. Which FWA operator has given us mass oriented internet technology almost 3 years after their licensing? And what would happen to the operators when WIMAX comes? NCC is not supposed to licence technology like GSM,WIFI, WIMAX or VOIP.

I once heard NCC Vice chairman, Mr. Ndukwe say that during the GSM auction, it was not meant to be a GSM licensing as the operators had a choice on whether to use GSM or CDMA. That we ended up with the GSM technology was just a coincidence. And I doubt if despite the GSM hype, we would not have achieved a better telecommunication infrastructure if companies like Intercellular, Multilinks and co had had the guts to roll out nationwide CDMA infrastructure.

It is scandalous that while technology like CDMA allows us to make cellular calls at =N6 per minute, we are thanking the GSM companies for reducing their call rates to =N20 per minute. NCC should never licence a technology.

They should sell any available spectrum and allow operators to use the best technology available to provide service within that spectrum. That way, hotshot technologies will be implemented by existing or new operators as they become available without waiting for a statement from NCC

This will allow operators to deploy such technologies like WIFI, WIMAX and VOIP as soon as it makes financial sense and the technology can be implemented within the frequency licence allocated to them.

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