Regulatory Workshops

eGovernment Workshops

INA Academy has successfully completed the training workshop on “Telecommunication and Media Sectors Convergence: Implications for Policy Makers and Regulators”. The workshop was addressed to Policy Makers, Regulators, Corporate Executives and Managers dealing with regulatory and business issues related to telecoms and media convergence. The workshop was held at the Monotoring Centre of the Agency of Electronic Communications in Skopje, former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia over the period 14 - 16th December 2009.

The participation in the workshop has been very high with attendants coming from W. Europe, S.E. Europe and Balkans. The total number of attendants exceeded 40, the majority of whom coming from NRAs, ICT institutions and organizations, as well telecom operators and vendors. It is believed that the whole spectrum of the ICT industry has actively participated in the workshop, meeting and/or exceeding initial expectations.

Throughout the three days of the workshop several interesting presentations and discussions took place. All participants, as indicated above, engaged into very insightful and thought-provoking debates that assisted into developing some overall directions on the subjects examined. As it is well understood, it is rather hard to reach tangible and specific conclusions in the underlying areas that have been thoroughly addressed, since any conclusions are greatly dependent on market and country’s respective characteristics and aspirations. However some overall directions/recommendations have been concluded. These are summarized below :

• Policy makers and regulators are requested to review all existing regulatory levers to migrate to the new converged telecoms-media environment, universal service obligations, IP inerconnection, content protection, access to infrastructure, wholesale pricing should be reviewed, taking into consideration that new access technologies and new services become available in the marketplace. Hence, some of what are today considered ‘regulatory truths’ may be questioned. The new regulatory approach should be primarily conserned with providing (or at least not stifling) incentives for efficient investment. It should also review and mitigate possible «bottlenecks», which unlike in the case of coper networks unbundling might not only be network but also service generated (e.g., exclusivity terms for content and for devices).

• Policy intervetions should ensure technology neutrality and open access principles should prevail, allowing invloved entities to deploy the best-possible solution, while in parallel warrantying specific speed rates and quality of services (QoS) indicators, for all citizens. For commercial viable deployments, it should be left to operators to decide on the optimal technology applied (e.g. FTTC/VDSL or FTTH solution), based on end-users’ needs and business case attractiveness. However, even in the latter case, regulators should intervene to ensure that a level-playing field is secured for all operators in the market.

• Company and market structures are formed by other factors than convergence such as financial considerations and corporate strategies (conglomerization vs. focus on core competencies). Vertical integration has mainly taken place between content production and distribution. At the same time there has been a growing trend towards disintegration in the telecom sector that will take place through a separation of network provision and telecom service provision. Additionally, many companies have set up new activities in other sectors in order to complement their core business. Content providers such as newspapers and broadcasters become multi-channel content providers, although they keep their main activities within one sector. Telecom companies go into content provision (including broadcast) in order to ensure content to their networks.

• Undoubtedly, content can generate substantial additional revenues for telecommunications operators. Although there is no single telecom-media convergence scenario for Europe, it is accepted that partnerships in the new market could be a key element for success. Partnerships of telecom operators could include TV producers and broadcasters, local content groups/TV channels, content served by internet and hardware leaders and even gaming groups, using the gaming console in lieu of a set-top box for specific market segments. On the other hand, partnerships may also be a means of coping with large scale investments in NGNs to secure necessary funding and optimize risks sharing.

• From a policy and regulatory point of view, convergence in the telecoms and media sectors raise a number of issues. A regulator and policy maker are concerned with the general societal importance of convergence policies, the balance between benefiting from industrial synergies and the problems of media concentration, and access to networks and content. Other issues are related to the infrastructural levels (equipment / hardware and transport / software), where the overall question is to what extent it is possible to subject all infrastructures to the same regulation. At the content level, there are a large number of issues that have to be resolved, including the question of whether all content areas can be treated in similar ways. Other questions deal with privacy protection, security, consumer protection, intellectual property rights, and illegal information. Furthermore, there are concerns regarding the separation of regulations of infrastructure and content and whether a converged regulator is more suitable for managing the new converged environment.