100 likes | 204 Views
Regulation of Quality of Service. IADS The Gambia - March, 2014 Gita Sorensen. Berkeley Research Group. Q uality of service regulation. Compliance License conditions and KPIs Customer information Empowering customers to make informed choices of networks and services Competition
E N D
Regulation of Quality of Service IADS The Gambia - March, 2014 Gita Sorensen
Quality of service regulation • Compliance • License conditions and KPIs • Customer information • Empowering customers to make informed choices of networks and services • Competition • Preferential treatment of on-net versus off-net traffic • Delays and refusal to supply wholesale and interconnection facilities
Mobile QoS KPIs from the Lebanon Source: www.tra.gov.lb
Mobile coverage in Singapore Source: IDA, Singapore
Examples of how regulation of QoS impacts the sector • Nigeria, Dispute between NCC and operators on how to address QoS issues (Jan 2014); • Ghana, Publication of QoS performance impacts market shares and margins (Feb 2014); • Kenya, Communication Commission publishes low QoS and demands improvements (Jan 2014).
QoS compliance issues • Collecting comparable data • Operators’ processes vary and therefore sometimes their performance is not accurately portrayed in the QoS statistics • Planning approvals for infrastructure roll-out • Rapid growth in demand
QoS in non-discrimination regulation Non-price discrimination is a significant competition issue • Routing of data/calls across interconnection points • Insufficient capacity • Inferior routing configuration • Delays in provisioning and testing interconnection links • Fault repairs and dispute resolution processes • Service provisioning • In cases where one provider uses the another provider’s infrastructure to offer services (e.g. local loop unbundling) • Fault repairs • Delays in resolving costumer faults, giving impression of lower QoS by other provider.
Enforcing QoS Regulation • Competition should drive QoS improvements • If regulators need to intervene then competition may not be effective • Licence revocation is ‘nuclear’ option – rarely used • But financial penalties can work (if the regulator has the power!) • Publication can act as enforcement as customers vote with their feet • Competition should enforce QoS without need for regulatory intervention • But it can take time to get there
Gita Sorensen Director, Economic Regulation and Telecommunications & Media Berkeley Research Group, LLC 15th Floor, 6 New Street Square, London, EC4A 3BF +44 7789 004509 GSorensen@brg-expert.com Contact Details