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Executive Summary
The global communications industry has evolved over the past decades from an era where it was largely a monopoly dominated by single state owned entities providing basic telecommunication services to the citizens, to an era where the industry has become largely liberalized with multiple players offering various forms of communication services. This liberalization has enabled competition in the industry, which in turn has generated significant growth and innovation making it unarguably one of the fastest growing and most innovative industries in the world.
The Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO) has prepared this input, which is bulleted below for each question. It is based on contributions from government ministries and regulators, therefore, the responses provided to the questions will be based from a public sector perspective. Based on the contributions received, there is a general view that OTTs provide many opportunities with regards to consumer choice, lower costs and competition. However, there are implications for traditional telecom service providers which are now forced to innovate or consider partnerships in order to stay relevant and make profits. Privacy and the lack of legal frameworks for OTT operations were among the major concerns and considerations for policy. It is felt that OTTs should have a greater focus on security and privacy and that there needs to be partnerships or strengthened cooperation between traditional carriers and OTT providers.
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