Imperatives of Convergence in ICT Regulation
The need to converge regulatory authorities in the communications industry, in line with the current realities of global convergence in information technology, was the focus of this year’s West Africa Convergence Conference,
Information and Communications Technology (ICT) experts who gathered at this year’s West Africa Convergence Conference in Lagos last week, called on government to consider the urgent need to converge the regulatory roles of broadcasting and telecommunications in Nigeria, in line with global realities. They expressed worries that despite concerted efforts made by industry stakeholders in the past to ensure the convergence, government is still reluctant to converge regulatory roles of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), which regulates the broadcast industry, and the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), which regulates the telecommunications industry.
They argued that global technology evolution has helped in removing the demarcation between telecommunications and broadcasting and has created a very thin line between both entities. The experts insisted that government must wake up to its responsibilities of collapsing both regulatory bodies into a single regulatory body, since technology has made it possible for people to use a single device for broadcasting and telecommunications.
Imperatives of harmonisation One of the major issues for critical evaluation and discussion among stakeholders at this year’s conference, was the imperatives of effecting the harmonisation of some critical regulatory bodies, overseeing different aspects of the nation’s ICT industry.
The conference looked at the current state of infrastructure challenges in the country and how convergence could make the difference in terms of costs reduction, among other objectives.
Issues with regulatory convergence The forum, with the theme: “Addressing Infrastructural Challenges in a Converged Market” turned out to be a gathering of stakeholders, who called for the need for a converged regulation in the ICT and related sectors, namely the telecoms, broadcasting and postal service.
The stakeholders advocated for a merger between two key agencies of government, NCC and NBC and possibly the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and the Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST).
According to the stakeholders, the world is increasingly experiencing a convergence of technologies, where the lines between telecoms and broadcasting regulations are becoming thinner by the day and where regulatory merger has become expedient for efficient resources management for accelerated economic growth.
President of the Association of Telecoms Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), Lanre Ajayi, who is a strong advocate of convergence, said: “Today, the reality is that technologies are converging and the industry has also recommended the merger of NCC and NBC so as to ensure efficient utilisation of spectrum and other resources. This is one reality we cannot run away from.”
He, however, said that broadband development remained key to driving convergence by getting policy and actions right to attract private sector investment in broadband infrastructure.
Executive Vice Chairman of the NCC, Prof. Umar Danbatta, said other nations around the world were already witnessing technology convergence, insisting that converging the communications regulators in Nigeria, might also be a necessary condition to achieve much efficiency.
But the NBC Director-General, Mr. Emeka Mba, maintained that while broadcasting sector has a lot to benefits from the ongoing convergence, even as the country plans to achieve digital switch-over from analogue to digital broadcasting by 2017, government policy on convergence is still cloudy.
Mba further explained that the issue of convergence should go beyond merging of agencies, explaining that such move also requires effective management of available resources to spur economic growth.
“What is most significant is how we see convergence. It cannot just be the issue of merging entities. The major issue has always been who controls the spectrum,” he said.
He however said the policy of merging the regulatory agencies should be left to the new Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu and the new cabinet to decide, saying it is beyond the regulatory agencies themselves.
IT convergence Information Technology (IT) convergence has become a global phenomenon, following the evolution of new technologies that have made convergence a must policy for nations, through the manufacture and use of a single device for voice and data communications, broadcasting, video streaming, teleconferencing, among several other functions.
Chief Executive Officer, Knowhow Media International, promoters of the convergence conference, Mr. Segun Oruame, in his address, drove home the way convergence is shaping individuals and the entire world.
According to him, the future is convergence and the need for Nigerian government to take action on convergence, is now.
“ICT convergence has become part of our daily lives. Convergence impacts on everything and everyone.
There are no longer separate fields on how we use technology at home or in the workplace, or while we are on the go. You cannot tell if the mobile phone can best be called a standard television screen. Telecoms operators and broadcast regulators must engage each other because the traditional broadcast media has long lost viewers to the new audience in converged media,” Oruame explained.
The communiqué that was issued at the end of the event, which chronicled key deliberations and recommendations of the convergence conference, laid more emphasis on the need for convergence, as discussed by participants numbering over 250. The participants noted that the lack of industry convergence in the Nigerian ICT sector has resulted in fragmentation and inefficient management of resources.
On last-mile connectivity Another area touched by stakeholders was the issue of data penetration, which is considerably low when compared with the 107 per cent voice teledensity growth in the country.
According to them, growth in the data segment is said to be lagging far behind at less than 30 per cent and with broadband standing at just 10 per cent of the population compared to that of voice services where teledensity is above 107 per cent growth. Nigeria has total active internet subscription of over 97.8 million currently.
They noted, however, that though a huge bandwidth capacity of over nine terabyte per second landed at the shores of the country via four submarine cable operators, inter-city transmission for last-mile connectivity has been a major issue.
Meanwhile, the federal government is promoting the rapid establishment of additional cable landing points to other coastal states in the country, even as it is also looking into ways to facilitate the distribution of the current landed fibre capacity of over nine terabyte per second (Tb/s) at the shores of Lagos to fast track lastmile connectivity penetration in the country.
Also, stakeholders said the current 30 per cent targets by the government to have 3G/LTE Wireless Broadband coverage, as a minimum, to 80 per cent of the population, and fixed broadband based on fibre to at least 16 per cent of the population by 2018, is welcome, but stressed the need for political will to drive this target by the government.
President, Medallion Communications, Mr. Ikechukwu Nnamani, said there was need for stakeholders to come up with the incentives for stimulating broadband infrastructure rollout across the country by reducing import duties on devices, agree financials for infrastructure sharing.
According to the stakeholders, funding options for accelerating broadband infrastructure rollout must be stepped up and the need to have a framework for costing and pricing across board in the broadband implementation regime, must be well articulated.
Issues on ICT infrastructure The need for state governments to open up their states for faster infrastructure deployment to rip its economic benefits, need to drive local contents, government directive on getting its services online through Galaxy Backbone, the promotion of Nigerian cloud based services and necessary financial stimuli, as well as efforts being made by NBC towards meeting the 2017 new date for digital switch-over (DSO) for the broadcasting industry, also formed the discussion at the convergence forum.
Also, the role that a good policy on outsourcing can play in the provision of employment for the Nigerian youths and how satellite resources managed by the Nigerian Communication Satellite Limited (NIGCOMSAT) can complement the fibre to drive and improve broadband penetration in Nigeria, among others were also highlighted.
Local contents In all of these, the stakeholders stressed the need for local content penetration in the country, which they said, would facilitate convergence in ICT.
The President, Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NIRA), Mr. Sunday Afolayan, in his presentation, underscored the importance of encouraging Nigerian local contents in the Internet convergence, to address the coexistence of voice, data and video communication within the same network of the Internet.
“With this rate of convergence of the Internet of the world, local contents from all over the world are being rapidly uploaded and promoted. Nigerians need to join the world to upload our local contents to project Nigerian images online worldwide, thus advertising Nigerian culture, products, stories, among others. This will help in educating the world about Nigeria, Nigerian people, our culture, our rich and natural resources,” he said.
The solution In proffering lasting solution to convergence challenge, the conference called for a harmonised regulatory platform for ICTs, telecoms and broadcasting, insisting that regulations alone do not solve problems but the evolution of creative thought leadership.
Other recommendations centred on the need for strategic efforts to ensure deeper penetration of ICT infrastructure, especially broadband access in the private and public sectors, calls for the government to consider merging regulator authorities as technology platforms converge and a need for the implementation of public enlightenment on the digital switchover project, among others.
The participants also noted that for Nigeria to reach its projected growth by 2020, it must engage more of the opportunities in outsourcing, do more to ensure the continuous development of Nigerian contents on social media platforms.
The call for convergence and local content development has been ongoing and there is need for government to heed to this call in order to place Nigeria at the forefront of global development in ICT, and to achieve its millennium development goal of becoming the first twenty economies of the world by 2020.