The question of whether over-the-top (OTT) services need to pay for the infrastructure they use has come up again – this time in South Africa, where an industry organisation wants digital content and service providers to help pay for the roll out and upgrade of network infrastructure .
Nomvuyiso Batyi, the CEO of the Association of Comms and Technology (ACT), described as a unified voice for the ICT sector in the South Africa economy, has reminded OTT platforms that the continued success of the OTT model is dependent on the availability of high-quality, reliable and efficient network infrastructure.
'Fair share' arrangements, as they are known, have been a talking point for some while. Batyi is not alone in suggesting that OTT providers should contribute to the costs of building, maintaining and upgrading the infrastructure that supports their business.
Such support would also create an incentive for network operators to invest in network infrastructure in order to support the growing demands of digital services, as ACT said in a paper published on Tuesday.
Reuters suggests that mobile operators such as the Vodacom Group and the MTN Group spend up to US$2 billion annually in expanding their network. OTT providers, it seems, are benefiting from such expansion.
The ACT paper proposes that an OTT provider contribution should be determined through mutual agreements on usage charges, though admits that working out who owes would be a complex task.
Reuters says that ACT wants a collaborative approach that looks at how OTT service providers can be regulated like network operators and brought into the country's licensing and policy regime.
It’s not without precedent. As MTN Group CEO Ralph Mupita says, the tech sector has helped subsea cable investment around the continent.
This question is unlikely to go away soon. In fact in February this year there was a strong statement from GSMA Latin America calling on policymakers to enable flexible schemes in which all participants in the digital ecosystem “can contribute equitably to the deployment of digital infrastructure that will be key to economic and social development”.
In January meanwhile, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) issued a new white paper calling on OTT players who generate huge amounts of traffic to share network upgrade costs with Indian telcos to make the telecoms industry more sustainable.
