Telecoms experts from Europe, the United Arab Emirates and the US’ Federal Communications Commission (FCC) have urged policy makers and regulators to enable operators to form the commercial agreements needed to make much-needed investments in their…
Telecoms experts from Europe, the United Arab Emirates and the US’ Federal Communications Commission (FCC) have urged policy makers and regulators to enable operators to form the commercial agreements needed to make much-needed investments in their networks.
Speaking at ETNO’s 20th anniversary summit in Brussels, a panel of sector experts – including the CEOs of Telecom Italia, Etisalat, Turk Telekom, Swisscom and FCC commissioner Robert McDowell – agreed major policy and regulatory changes are necessary.
They argued operators need to be able to develop new business models based upon commercial cooperation with all sector players, including OTT operators, to fund expensive network investments, essential for managing exponential and ever-increasing traffic growth.
Ahmad Abdulkarim Julfar, CEO of UAE-based Etisalat, said “drastic changes” are needed to enable operators to develop networks, realise their full growth potential and, in doing so, make optimum contributions to their countries’ economies.
He argued that regulation must be relaxed “to allow the sector to expand and flourish again”.
“We need to get the regulators and policy makers to agree on objectives that are in the best interests of all,” he said.
Threat from OTT players
Turk Telekom CEO Hakam Kanafi was perhaps even more critical of current frameworks, saying changes are needed to enable telcos simply to stay in business.
“We are going through a period of time where we are not talking about margins any more, we are talking about existence.”
He argued that current restrictions prevent telcos from being able to compete with OTT players, which have far greater freedom in terms of investments and pricing.
“There should be the policy that we reap the benefits of our investments because we are not governments … All we are asking for is that there must be a level playing field.”
Like several other executives at the conference, Kanafi expressed a preference for a regulatory regime similar to that in operation in the US.
Unsurprisingly, Swisscom’s Carsten Schloter created something of a stir when he credited OTT players for having invested “billions” into improving network service quality.
Saying regulation has seriously damaged the telecoms sector as a whole, he called for a level playing field for all players in the value chain: fixed and mobile operators, cablecos and OTT players. He argued that requiring the fixed sector to subsidise mobile in the current environment “is totally wrong in context of the challenges we are facing”.
In his view, neither telcos nor OTT players need regulatory protection and, given OTTs have invested so heavily in quality of service, customers are essentially guaranteed a “pleasant experience”. He argued that telcos need to take more responsibility for their own wellbeing and become more “forward-thinking” and “innovative”.
“I fundamentally believe in the future of our business,” he said. “We should stop blaming OTTs for damaging it”.
