The emergence of security threats to systems follow the growth of VoIP services that provide a highly convenient and cost effective tool to make and receive calls over the Internet. To ensure the security of calls and information, it is necessary to find a supplier that can deal with the various security threats and potential problems. Here are some questions you to ask regarding security and potential breaches.
1. VoIP service is vulnerable to a DNS attack?
Denial of service attacks can clog VoIP servers deny service to other users. Professional VoIP service providers protect against such attacks by using firewalls, redundant servers, and around the clock monitoring.
2. VoIP calls can be intercepted by hackers?
Although not significant, there are always chances for hackers to listen to phone calls over the Internet. To protect yourself from malicious eavesdropping, should the VoIP provider uses encryption tools.
3. If you use encryption, making it Reduce Call Quality?
Processing increases with encryption. The more difficult the encryption, the greater the sound distractions such as noise, echo, and waiting, on call. Your VoIP service providers should adopt the hardware and software solutions that make encryption transparent to the service users.
4. How to test VoIP Services Software against vulnerability to hacker attacks?
To ensure the establishment of the VoIP systems that will resist attacks from hackers, systems must be tested by security experts for defects and potential problems. Known suppliers combines in-house testing and research with outside testing of VoIP systems by security professionals and specialists, to create highly secure system for you.
5. How to install updates and it is a cost involved in it?
Upgrading of VoIP services can bear unnecessary costs on you. Ask prospective contractors for the distribution of patches and how their systems can be integrated with the company’s own software update protocol to keep costs to a minimum.
6. Can stolen VoIP routers be disabled remotely?
A stolen VoIP router can create enormous problems for your business through information leaks. Ask your VoIP providers on how they deal with stolen routers and if they can be disabled remotely for keeping your account information safe and intact. Be aware of a service that cannot guarantee the security of confidential information.
7. For extra safety, it is possible to dial a VPN?
If you need to keep phone conversations private, even from the phone company, opt for a service that lets you make calls through virtual private networks. But keep all data within the VPN involves additional hardware and software costs.
8. VoIP service is vulnerable to scammers and impersonators?
Scammers can hijack the conversation and publish customer service representatives to collect personal account information. Hackers can access an open port and re-sell the minutes of the company’s VoIP account. To prevent these problems from creeping up, the service provider must regularly monitor VoIP service use looking for unusual activity or packet routing to countries with few known clients.
Even after deploying a VoIP service, it is important to ensure that you receive adequate and upgraded security that can tackle newer security threats over the internet. Creating and maintaining strong relationships with account representatives. In addition, stay informed, keep in touch with service providers and regularly check the vendor blogs.
Monday, December 20, 2010
From Hype to Reality: Communications as a Service
Communications as a Service. Cloud communications. Hosted PBX. You've heard the terms, and you've witnessed the hype. But what are these technologies? And what will they do for your business?
Generally, a CaaS solution involves your business utilizing the resources, equipment and software of a service provider in its network or data center, as opposed to housing equipment, such as a phone system, at your location.
These services can be accessed by your business over the Internet or via a private connection to the service provider. CaaS solutions generally include all of the features of an on-site phone system, along with local and long distance calling. They also often include telephone handsets and connectivity to the service provider and/or the Internet.
CaaS solutions are purchased like power, traditional and cellular telephones, and cable or satellite TV -- on a per month, (largely) per user basis.
One in five enterprise firms already use managed services for their network and telecommunications needs. In fact, hosted Voice over IP (VoIP) is anticipated to be a US$14.6 billion market in the United States by 2012, with the majority of that revenue coming from companies with fewer than 100 employees.
Here's what you need to know before you join the movement.
Why CaaS?
Productivity and efficiency benefits are viewed as key drivers for VoIP adoption by nearly 30 percent of respondents in mid-sized businesses in North America, Research firm Frost & Sullivan claims. VoIP provides significant productivity features to any business, regardless of whether the phone system is located on the customer site or in the cloud.
Features such as Unified Messaging and PC Integration (pop ups, click-to-dial, call control, soft phone, find me/follow me) enhance your employees' ability to stay in touch with customers both in the office and on the road.
However, purchasing CaaS offers various architectural and financial advantages that cannot be replicated with on-site equipment. It is these advantages, and not simply features, that are driving business communications to the cloud.
During the Industrial Age, factories had to control production and create their own power. As more factories
and ultimately businesses and homes required power, utilities built infrastructure to power them. Factories were (happily) out of the power business. Likewise, IP networks are the infrastructure to power CaaS.
By moving communications to the cloud, businesses can experience many benefits:
In a bad economy, companies do one of two things (or both): Increase efficiency or cut costs. A CaaS solution can uniquely provide both. First, new features mean new opportunities for efficiency. Second, when fully analyzed, companies will see real cost savings in moving to a CaaS solution.
In order to find these cost savings, businesses must evaluate hosted technology offerings in light of their Total Cost of Ownership.
TCO is an often overused and misunderstood concept. Many financial decision makers consider TCO as a
soft or sunk cost argument to making an expensive technology decision. While a poorly formed argument can surely seem that way, CaaS can offer a quantifiable TCO that is generally equal to or lower than the traditional alternatives.
The bottom line is that purchasing any technology as a service provides the following:
There are three main factors that affect the quality of a VoIP deployment: latency, packet loss, and jitter. To avoid these issues and ensure your network (whether LAN or WAN) has sufficient bandwidth to smoothly and flawlessly carry voice, a thorough network assessment should be performed in advance of the implementation.
To size the amount of bandwidth needed to cover your voice usage, you will need to understand the CODEC (Compressor/Decompressor) that your CaaS provider uses. Voice sessions can vary in size from roughly 30Kbps to close to 100Kbps. This CODEC will also dictate the quality of the compressed audio.
Network managers should also be prepared to address end-to-end class and quality of service. Class of Service (CoS) refers to a network's ability to classify and treat traffic differently based on the type of data being transmitted. Meanwhile, Quality of Service (QoS) applies to the standards that can be placed on the classified traffic.
Ensure that LAN switches are managed and capable of supporting QoS. WAN links and service providers should provide bandwidth that honors QoS between sites by utilizing Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS).
Unlike traditional handsets, which obtain inline power from POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) phone lines, VoIP handsets are connected to the Ethernet. As a result, power must be provided through a Power over Ethernet switch (POE) or plugged into the wall.
While these considerations should be taken seriously, they should not be seen as obstacles. A well planned and executed CaaS strategy can deliver call quality ratings similar to or better than traditional implementations. It can also deliver on the productivity and financial advantages that prompted you to consider it in the first place.
Generally, a CaaS solution involves your business utilizing the resources, equipment and software of a service provider in its network or data center, as opposed to housing equipment, such as a phone system, at your location.
These services can be accessed by your business over the Internet or via a private connection to the service provider. CaaS solutions generally include all of the features of an on-site phone system, along with local and long distance calling. They also often include telephone handsets and connectivity to the service provider and/or the Internet.
CaaS solutions are purchased like power, traditional and cellular telephones, and cable or satellite TV -- on a per month, (largely) per user basis.
One in five enterprise firms already use managed services for their network and telecommunications needs. In fact, hosted Voice over IP (VoIP) is anticipated to be a US$14.6 billion market in the United States by 2012, with the majority of that revenue coming from companies with fewer than 100 employees.
Here's what you need to know before you join the movement.
Why CaaS?
Productivity and efficiency benefits are viewed as key drivers for VoIP adoption by nearly 30 percent of respondents in mid-sized businesses in North America, Research firm Frost & Sullivan claims. VoIP provides significant productivity features to any business, regardless of whether the phone system is located on the customer site or in the cloud.
Features such as Unified Messaging and PC Integration (pop ups, click-to-dial, call control, soft phone, find me/follow me) enhance your employees' ability to stay in touch with customers both in the office and on the road.
However, purchasing CaaS offers various architectural and financial advantages that cannot be replicated with on-site equipment. It is these advantages, and not simply features, that are driving business communications to the cloud.
During the Industrial Age, factories had to control production and create their own power. As more factories
and ultimately businesses and homes required power, utilities built infrastructure to power them. Factories were (happily) out of the power business. Likewise, IP networks are the infrastructure to power CaaS.
By moving communications to the cloud, businesses can experience many benefits:
1. Scalability. Since CaaS solutions take advantage of large systems owned by the provider, your business will not have to select hardware or software with the growth (or reduction) of your workforce in mind. There's no reason to throw out equipment because you need to get a bigger boat (or a smaller one).
2. Mobility. Services located in the provider's network are intrinsically prepared to support a distributed workforce at multiple locations or at home.
3. Disaster Recovery. Services located in the cloud will remain up, even if there is a local disaster, power failure, or line cut. When a customer calls the office, the CaaS auto attendant picks up and automatically forwards the call to cellphones, voicemail or alternative locations.
4. Manageability. Because they must support a wide range of customers, with various levels of technical acumen, CaaS providers focus their energies on ease of use. As a result, many hosted solutions are easier to manage than on-site equipment or software.
5. Upgradeability. When the provider adds new features, you get them. No upgrades, no fees, no problem.
6. Satisfaction and Service Level. Once a premise-based system is purchased, there is no going back if users are not satisfied with features, or the level of service is not adequate. A CaaS solution, meanwhile, is rented, and generally comes with stringent guarantees.Costs and Savings
In a bad economy, companies do one of two things (or both): Increase efficiency or cut costs. A CaaS solution can uniquely provide both. First, new features mean new opportunities for efficiency. Second, when fully analyzed, companies will see real cost savings in moving to a CaaS solution.
In order to find these cost savings, businesses must evaluate hosted technology offerings in light of their Total Cost of Ownership.
TCO is an often overused and misunderstood concept. Many financial decision makers consider TCO as a
soft or sunk cost argument to making an expensive technology decision. While a poorly formed argument can surely seem that way, CaaS can offer a quantifiable TCO that is generally equal to or lower than the traditional alternatives.
The bottom line is that purchasing any technology as a service provides the following:
1. Reduction of OPEX: Many direct and soft costs are bundled in with CaaS solutions. These include software/hardware maintenance; moves/adds/changes (MACs); training/certifications; power; cooling; selling, general & administrative expense (SG&A) for extra staff; network services (data, IP, voice); and security and compliance.
2. Elimination of CAPEX: There is no need for upfront capital or the liability of a business lease.In most cases, CaaS solutions can provide new features to your end users at a cost savings over supporting your existing system and carriers.
Preparing for CaaS
CaaS (or any VoIP deployment, for that matter) adds an entirely new responsibility to a business's existing network: adding and moving voice through the network. Voice streams are more sensitive to network congestion than data. While a millisecond delay in delivering a Web page is likely not noticeable, that same delay when delivering a voice packet will be experienced as a stutter or moment of silence.There are three main factors that affect the quality of a VoIP deployment: latency, packet loss, and jitter. To avoid these issues and ensure your network (whether LAN or WAN) has sufficient bandwidth to smoothly and flawlessly carry voice, a thorough network assessment should be performed in advance of the implementation.
To size the amount of bandwidth needed to cover your voice usage, you will need to understand the CODEC (Compressor/Decompressor) that your CaaS provider uses. Voice sessions can vary in size from roughly 30Kbps to close to 100Kbps. This CODEC will also dictate the quality of the compressed audio.
Network managers should also be prepared to address end-to-end class and quality of service. Class of Service (CoS) refers to a network's ability to classify and treat traffic differently based on the type of data being transmitted. Meanwhile, Quality of Service (QoS) applies to the standards that can be placed on the classified traffic.
Ensure that LAN switches are managed and capable of supporting QoS. WAN links and service providers should provide bandwidth that honors QoS between sites by utilizing Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS).
Unlike traditional handsets, which obtain inline power from POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) phone lines, VoIP handsets are connected to the Ethernet. As a result, power must be provided through a Power over Ethernet switch (POE) or plugged into the wall.
While these considerations should be taken seriously, they should not be seen as obstacles. A well planned and executed CaaS strategy can deliver call quality ratings similar to or better than traditional implementations. It can also deliver on the productivity and financial advantages that prompted you to consider it in the first place.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
WhichVoIP.co.za takes VOIP to next level
Local service site www.WhichVoIP.co.za has been well accepted by South Africans since its release in September 2010, says site founder Mitchell Barker. “We always knew voice over IP was a topical subject, but we didn't expect to get the traction we have in such a short period of time.”
Through our relationships with the user community and the direct focus on gaining social creds, we have learnt a lot and adapted the way we position the components and content to ensure that the site remains as news-breaking and relevant as possible. We don't want once-off visitors, we want partnerships.
Since inception we have incorporated functionality such as an instant quotation facility, with a full ROI analysis, added some great content to the guide section, and dedicated forums per VOIP provider, which allows a user to see news just on their provider of choice.
This means people no longer have to subscribe to many publications and sift through to find the information they need. If they wanted to see what Telkom (as an example) is featuring in the news, they could log in directly to that forum, and choose the article they wish to read. From day one, the site was developed with ease of use as the number one priority.
We are now at a stage that is so important for us, and will take www.WhichVoIP.co.za to the next level. Many providers have embraced the site, and are now looking at how they can get involved. This is very exciting for us.
Today, site users purchase research reports for their chosen VOIP provider instantly online, tomorrow you may see a new section with reports by the VOIP provider, available for instant download. This will see VOIP providers using the site as a conduit to market for potential end-users and to attract partners.
This is an interesting concept, says Barker. We live in an online world and people are about convenience. What better way to give people what they want, and a repository for all things VOIP from a single portal.
www.WhichVoIP.co.za is South Africa's number one online VOIP research and reporting Web site, and provides users with a central view of VOIP telecoms operators in South Africa.
The site is dedicated to all things VOIP, with the ability to draw research reports on various VOIP providers, browse a directory of reputable providers, resellers, consultants and service partners, learn about VOIP, collaborate with other members in focused forum, have an opportunity to submit blogs, download articles, browse a technical FAQ section and even purchase components of VOIP online.
WhichVoIP.co.za will not only keep people who are investigating the technology and these providers informed prior to negotiation, but will also help providers and resellers benchmark their services, align contracts, and truly be able to offer their customer the best service, best suited to their business.
- ITWeb
Through our relationships with the user community and the direct focus on gaining social creds, we have learnt a lot and adapted the way we position the components and content to ensure that the site remains as news-breaking and relevant as possible. We don't want once-off visitors, we want partnerships.
Since inception we have incorporated functionality such as an instant quotation facility, with a full ROI analysis, added some great content to the guide section, and dedicated forums per VOIP provider, which allows a user to see news just on their provider of choice.
This means people no longer have to subscribe to many publications and sift through to find the information they need. If they wanted to see what Telkom (as an example) is featuring in the news, they could log in directly to that forum, and choose the article they wish to read. From day one, the site was developed with ease of use as the number one priority.
We are now at a stage that is so important for us, and will take www.WhichVoIP.co.za to the next level. Many providers have embraced the site, and are now looking at how they can get involved. This is very exciting for us.
Today, site users purchase research reports for their chosen VOIP provider instantly online, tomorrow you may see a new section with reports by the VOIP provider, available for instant download. This will see VOIP providers using the site as a conduit to market for potential end-users and to attract partners.
This is an interesting concept, says Barker. We live in an online world and people are about convenience. What better way to give people what they want, and a repository for all things VOIP from a single portal.
www.WhichVoIP.co.za is South Africa's number one online VOIP research and reporting Web site, and provides users with a central view of VOIP telecoms operators in South Africa.
The site is dedicated to all things VOIP, with the ability to draw research reports on various VOIP providers, browse a directory of reputable providers, resellers, consultants and service partners, learn about VOIP, collaborate with other members in focused forum, have an opportunity to submit blogs, download articles, browse a technical FAQ section and even purchase components of VOIP online.
WhichVoIP.co.za will not only keep people who are investigating the technology and these providers informed prior to negotiation, but will also help providers and resellers benchmark their services, align contracts, and truly be able to offer their customer the best service, best suited to their business.
- ITWeb
Sunday, December 5, 2010
The changing face of international telecoms
The real test for telecoms companies is only beginning, as the upturn gathers momentum
The recent economic turmoil saw telecoms companies demonstrate resilience and adaptability, with many using the slowdown as an opportunity to retool and regroup to build a solid base from which to capitalise on the recovery.
The real test for telecoms companies is only beginning, as the upturn gathers momentum. Globally, with broadband becoming ubiquitous and the growth of services exploding, the telecom value chain is rapidly fragmenting as many operators are losing out to application, content and device providers who are accumulating much of the new revenues and opportunities which currently exist.
There are six key challenges that need to be addressed by operators, which will assist telecoms companies to be successful in this new business environment and allow them to claim their rightful share of future revenues in the digital era.
Establish customer ownership and understanding
Customer loyalty and brand trust is shifting away from the service operators towards the device itself and the online applications accessed through it. To turn the tide on this trend, operators must reshape their business to put the customer first in all they do.
Monetise new services effectively
The rising penetration of both fixed and wireless broadband has enabled the launch of many new online services with the mobile handset becoming an indispensable converged lifestyle tool handling virtually everything people need. To capture the opportunities and revenues from newer and emerging services the best approach may be through collaborative revenue sharing partnerships which will bring access to critical expertise and speed up the time to market.
Achieve economic returns from the continuing rise in digital traffic
Consumer demand continues to drive huge rises in the volumes of data traffic that operators have to carry across their networks. Although not yet that prevalent in South Africa, we have seen many consumers moving towards fixed-price access plans globally. With the increased broadband capacity in South Africa (due to the landing of various undersea cables, i.e. Seacom, Eassy, WACS) broadband prices are decreasing which may result in similar models going forward.
Under this model, it may become increasingly difficult for operators to sustain economic returns for broadband data usage and going forward, depending on the evolution of the broadband market, operators may have to adopt a user-based charging model for mobile data.
Improving operational simplicity and efficiency
This is a major objective for many operators who have grown by consolidation and the use of "bolted-on" solutions to handle new services. This has left many of them with highly complex and inefficient operating models. One of the key attributes for success both now and in the future will be greater organisational agility in order to respond to both internal challenges and those posed by the fierce competition from the application and device suppliers, who have had some competitive advantage in recent years due to their higher degree of ability and speed to market.
One critical step which many operators have yet to take is to remove customer, product and business intelligence from the various silos and centralise it on an enterprise-wide basis. By unifying all this intelligence into one central entity, the operators will benefit from greater efficiency, agility and responsiveness to external change, whether driven by customers, competitive dynamics or regulation.
Managing regulatory risk
In recent times, regulators have taken a renewed interest in the telecoms industry both at a national and global level. Considering the wide array of matters being dealt with by regulators, especially in emerging markets, it is becoming increasingly important for the regulators and other stakeholders to establish and build strong positive relationships in order to amicably resolve the issues being dealt with.
Creating value through consolidation
Consolidation will continue in the telecoms sector, however the industry will now see deals driven by emerging market giants who may be seeking exposure in developed markets. Consolidation will also be driven by three objectives – economies of scale, fixed/mobile convergence and sustainable cost reduction which will help to provide a robust platform for growth in the digital age. The priority of any deal is to create shareholder value – something which has proved elusive in some instances in the past.
With each technological advancement operators face an exponential rise in the data traffic being carried across their networks which results in a corresponding decrease in the price they can charge customers for carrying each bit of data.
The introduction of the smart phone is an excellent example as it is beginning to rival the computer as a communication tool. Consumers routinely use these devices to view digital content. This capability, coupled with the dramatic rise of social networking, has fundamentally changed mobile communications and is accelerating the migration to digital by providing access to digital content
- My Broadband, written by Johan van Huyssteen PricewaterhouseCoopers
The recent economic turmoil saw telecoms companies demonstrate resilience and adaptability, with many using the slowdown as an opportunity to retool and regroup to build a solid base from which to capitalise on the recovery.
The real test for telecoms companies is only beginning, as the upturn gathers momentum. Globally, with broadband becoming ubiquitous and the growth of services exploding, the telecom value chain is rapidly fragmenting as many operators are losing out to application, content and device providers who are accumulating much of the new revenues and opportunities which currently exist.
There are six key challenges that need to be addressed by operators, which will assist telecoms companies to be successful in this new business environment and allow them to claim their rightful share of future revenues in the digital era.
Establish customer ownership and understanding
Customer loyalty and brand trust is shifting away from the service operators towards the device itself and the online applications accessed through it. To turn the tide on this trend, operators must reshape their business to put the customer first in all they do.
Monetise new services effectively
The rising penetration of both fixed and wireless broadband has enabled the launch of many new online services with the mobile handset becoming an indispensable converged lifestyle tool handling virtually everything people need. To capture the opportunities and revenues from newer and emerging services the best approach may be through collaborative revenue sharing partnerships which will bring access to critical expertise and speed up the time to market.
Achieve economic returns from the continuing rise in digital traffic
Consumer demand continues to drive huge rises in the volumes of data traffic that operators have to carry across their networks. Although not yet that prevalent in South Africa, we have seen many consumers moving towards fixed-price access plans globally. With the increased broadband capacity in South Africa (due to the landing of various undersea cables, i.e. Seacom, Eassy, WACS) broadband prices are decreasing which may result in similar models going forward.
Under this model, it may become increasingly difficult for operators to sustain economic returns for broadband data usage and going forward, depending on the evolution of the broadband market, operators may have to adopt a user-based charging model for mobile data.
Improving operational simplicity and efficiency
This is a major objective for many operators who have grown by consolidation and the use of "bolted-on" solutions to handle new services. This has left many of them with highly complex and inefficient operating models. One of the key attributes for success both now and in the future will be greater organisational agility in order to respond to both internal challenges and those posed by the fierce competition from the application and device suppliers, who have had some competitive advantage in recent years due to their higher degree of ability and speed to market.
One critical step which many operators have yet to take is to remove customer, product and business intelligence from the various silos and centralise it on an enterprise-wide basis. By unifying all this intelligence into one central entity, the operators will benefit from greater efficiency, agility and responsiveness to external change, whether driven by customers, competitive dynamics or regulation.
Managing regulatory risk
In recent times, regulators have taken a renewed interest in the telecoms industry both at a national and global level. Considering the wide array of matters being dealt with by regulators, especially in emerging markets, it is becoming increasingly important for the regulators and other stakeholders to establish and build strong positive relationships in order to amicably resolve the issues being dealt with.
Creating value through consolidation
Consolidation will continue in the telecoms sector, however the industry will now see deals driven by emerging market giants who may be seeking exposure in developed markets. Consolidation will also be driven by three objectives – economies of scale, fixed/mobile convergence and sustainable cost reduction which will help to provide a robust platform for growth in the digital age. The priority of any deal is to create shareholder value – something which has proved elusive in some instances in the past.
With each technological advancement operators face an exponential rise in the data traffic being carried across their networks which results in a corresponding decrease in the price they can charge customers for carrying each bit of data.
The introduction of the smart phone is an excellent example as it is beginning to rival the computer as a communication tool. Consumers routinely use these devices to view digital content. This capability, coupled with the dramatic rise of social networking, has fundamentally changed mobile communications and is accelerating the migration to digital by providing access to digital content
- My Broadband, written by Johan van Huyssteen PricewaterhouseCoopers
Business owners to rethink telecoms in 2011?
SS Telecoms' George Smalberger takes a look at South Africa's changing telecoms environment and the implications of recent structural shifts for business owners.
Over the last five years, South African businesses have put a lot of effort into setting up telephony systems that deliver cost savings in an expensive, mobile dominated marketplace. This work may well have to be re-examined, however, as key structural change impact on market dynamics.
“The most significant short-term change is the drop in interconnect rates,” says George Smalberger, MD of specialist telephony company SS Telecoms. “Least cost routing (LCR) solutions have been essential for most businesses seeking to mitigate against the cost of cross-network calls, but this will change quite significantly now. In fact, there is obvious evidence of this shift around already - the market is evolving fast.”
SS Telecoms has been designing, manufacturing and supporting telephony products across the telecoms spectrum for over 21 years. Its products are utilised in businesses of all sizes across the South African economy, and its extensive distributor partnerships give it interesting insight into the ongoing evolution of the local telecoms sector.
“A lot of companies are excited by Africa's investment in ICT infrastructure, and for good reason,” says Smalberger. “We've got the big WACS cable coming online next year, and another one in 2012. With bandwidth quality improving and costs dropping, we're likely to see the market seriously investigating VOIP solutions. So not only is LCR in some instances no longer essential, but VOIP is starting to appear on the horizon as a real option for any business.”
Smalberger says major shifts are likely to come in the middle range of the market, however, with the larger players adapting seamlessly to structural changes.
“The big guns have the resources and budgets to adapt as things change,” he says. “But in the mid-range and SME segments these kinds of decisions take longer and have a more direct impact on the organisation. Based on our 2010 experience and that of our distributors, this will be the really interesting segment to watch next year.”
So, will the average South African company phone bill shrink in 2011?
“Well, in theory, but in each instance it generally depends on the boss,” Smalberger says. “Getting the phone bill down is about understanding how your business works, and what solution will meet its needs best, and quality is vital, of course. A VOIP solution must actually deliver the right quality. The same goes for performance management. It's no good slashing your phone bill if you have to abandon the ability to control staff behaviour on the phone. So the potential to reduce the bill is there, but it will take good leaders to turn that potential into reality.”
The bottom line for Smalberger is that positive consolidation is occurring in the South African market, which is starting to open up properly for the first time.
“There are a lot of options out there now. Fixed-line, wireless, VOIP and so on,” he says. “This means genuine choice and flexibility for enterprises and organisations, and service providers will be compelled to innovate in their offerings, which is very positive for businesses and consumers. As a result, we expect to see quite a big shift in the way South African businesses approach their telecommunications set-up in 2011, continuing through 2012.”
- ITWeb
Over the last five years, South African businesses have put a lot of effort into setting up telephony systems that deliver cost savings in an expensive, mobile dominated marketplace. This work may well have to be re-examined, however, as key structural change impact on market dynamics.
“The most significant short-term change is the drop in interconnect rates,” says George Smalberger, MD of specialist telephony company SS Telecoms. “Least cost routing (LCR) solutions have been essential for most businesses seeking to mitigate against the cost of cross-network calls, but this will change quite significantly now. In fact, there is obvious evidence of this shift around already - the market is evolving fast.”
SS Telecoms has been designing, manufacturing and supporting telephony products across the telecoms spectrum for over 21 years. Its products are utilised in businesses of all sizes across the South African economy, and its extensive distributor partnerships give it interesting insight into the ongoing evolution of the local telecoms sector.
“A lot of companies are excited by Africa's investment in ICT infrastructure, and for good reason,” says Smalberger. “We've got the big WACS cable coming online next year, and another one in 2012. With bandwidth quality improving and costs dropping, we're likely to see the market seriously investigating VOIP solutions. So not only is LCR in some instances no longer essential, but VOIP is starting to appear on the horizon as a real option for any business.”
Smalberger says major shifts are likely to come in the middle range of the market, however, with the larger players adapting seamlessly to structural changes.
“The big guns have the resources and budgets to adapt as things change,” he says. “But in the mid-range and SME segments these kinds of decisions take longer and have a more direct impact on the organisation. Based on our 2010 experience and that of our distributors, this will be the really interesting segment to watch next year.”
So, will the average South African company phone bill shrink in 2011?
“Well, in theory, but in each instance it generally depends on the boss,” Smalberger says. “Getting the phone bill down is about understanding how your business works, and what solution will meet its needs best, and quality is vital, of course. A VOIP solution must actually deliver the right quality. The same goes for performance management. It's no good slashing your phone bill if you have to abandon the ability to control staff behaviour on the phone. So the potential to reduce the bill is there, but it will take good leaders to turn that potential into reality.”
The bottom line for Smalberger is that positive consolidation is occurring in the South African market, which is starting to open up properly for the first time.
“There are a lot of options out there now. Fixed-line, wireless, VOIP and so on,” he says. “This means genuine choice and flexibility for enterprises and organisations, and service providers will be compelled to innovate in their offerings, which is very positive for businesses and consumers. As a result, we expect to see quite a big shift in the way South African businesses approach their telecommunications set-up in 2011, continuing through 2012.”
- ITWeb
Goodbye ICASA
South Africa will be saying goodbye to its independent communications regulator if the Icasa Amendment Bill goes through in its current form.
South Africa’s post, telecommunications and broadcast sectors are governed by an independent regulator – the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa). Created out of the old South African Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (Satra) and the Independent Broadcasting Authority, Icasa came into being in 2000, per the Icasa Act.
Regulators exist to manage scarce resources (frequency spectrum in this case), to ensure that the interests of the public are served where commercial interests would otherwise dominate, and to ensure, in sectors where monopolies traditionally dominated (so-called natural monopoly sectors) that liberalisation happens, and that everyone plays fair while it’s happening, among other reasons.
Internationally, the trend towards regulating to control sectors has now reversed and deregulation is becoming the norm, with regulators like Ofcom in the UK taking an increasingly hands-off approach.
In South Africa, the regulator has been under-resourced, subject to capture by either political or commercial interests and overall ineffectual, since its creation.
The Icasa Amendment Bill, or as the Department of Communications prefers to call it, the ‘proposed’ Icasa Amendment Bill, was gazetted on 25 June. Respondents were given 30 days to comment on a Bill that has far-reaching implications for the broadcasting and telecommunications sectors. The department intends to take the bill to Parliament this year still.
Says Save our SABC (SOS) campaign coordinator Kate Skinner: “No one knew it existed for the first five days; Icasa didn’t advertise it. We picked it up from the Government Gazette via lawyers we know who scrutinise it. As such, we didn’t have 30 days to consider it, we didn’t have prior notice, we had no information on why the department was introducing it. Reading it, it became obvious the DOC is trying to deal with Icasa’s inefficiencies and slow turnaround times.”
Unfortunately, the DOC is trying to deal with this by putting more responsibility on the Minister and less on the Authority. Dominic Cull, Ellipsis Regulatory Solutions, fears the Icasa Amendment Bill threatens the regulator's independence. The bill amends the existing legislation to do the following things, Skinner says:
- change the position of CEO to chief operations officer (COO)
- clearly differentiate between the functions of the Council and the COO
- improve turnaround times
- establish a Tariff Advisory Council
- improve the functioning of the Complaints and Compliance Committee
- remove Icasa’s frequency spectrum management role
- enable the Minister to assign functions and roles to the chair and councillors
- enable the Minister to appoint members of the Complaints and Compliance Committee
- enable Icasa to continue working even when there are legal challenges on the table.
Some of the above amendments, at least two of which would be welcomed by the sector, are problematic for several reasons.
Undue interferenceFirst problem, says Skinner, is that changing the CEO into a COO will remove the accounting officer from the agency, in direct contravention of the Public Finance Management Act.
Second, by being able to assign roles and functions to the councillors and chairperson, the Minister would be able to directly interfere with, for example, licensing, and influence which licences are granted, or not.
“This is directly at odds with international standards and principles,” Skinner comments.
Says Dominic Cull, founder of Ellipsis Regulatory Solutions: “The amendment gives the Minister the right to assign fields of competency that each councillor oversees. I can’t see how that sits with the notion of independence on the part of the regulator. I appreciate that independence is a relative concept in this context, but in terms of South Africa’s World Trade Organisation obligations, we are obliged to have a regulator independent of government and this proposal infringes that. As far as broadcasting is concerned, it infringes on chapter nine of the Constitution (which says that national legislation must establish an independent broadcasting authority).”
Third, the amendment bill arbitrarily reduces turnaround times by half, so where the Act says 180 days, it would drop to 90 days; where it says 60 days, it changes to 30, and so on.
Says Cull: “We’re quite happy that they are looking at reducing the time periods but certainly not at the expense of the public consultation period. The amended clause says it wants to reduce unreasonably long consultation periods, which is lovely and would be great to achieve, but you can’t do that by reducing the consultation period from 60 days to 30. Some enquiries are by nature complicated and to give public and industry 30 days to research and comment is not acceptable.”
------------------------------------------------------------
The bill in its current form gives every appearance of seeking to undermine Icasa and gives every indication of a deteriorating relationship between Icasa and the DOC. Dominic Cull, Ellipsis Regulatory Solutions.
------------------------------------------------------------
Fourth, that the Minister evaluates councillors is inappropriate. The amended provision gives the Minister the power to chair the Evaluation Panel, says Skinner, which will be responsible for tenure and possible removal of councillors and the chairperson.
“This potentially directly undermines the independence of councillors and again raises the danger of political interference in the workings of the regulator,” Skinner notes.
Fifth, in order to remain independent, she says, Icasa must have the power to appoint the people it feels will best serve on the Complaints and Compliance Committee. Assigning this responsibility to the Minister will undermine that.
Sixth, enabling Icasa to continue working on something while it is subjected to legal challenges is problematic. “The amendment states that the authority must continue with function until a court order directs otherwise. I love the idea,” says Cull, “but I have no idea how it’s going to operate in real life.
“So Telkom, for example, will go and get an interdict that says Icasa cannot implement the call termination rate (CTR) regime when it is published. If Icasa continues in the face of that, it would open itself up to legal liabilities. Say it publishes a CTR regime that says mobile operators must reduce rates from 89c to 65c on 1 March 2011 and an operator challenges that in court, and Icasa carries on until a court decides otherwise. If the operator implements the new rates, it could lose millions in revenue. If the court finds in its favour, it will have lost that revenue needlessly. What does it do then – sue the regulator?”
As for the Tariff Advisory Council, he says: “In principle it’s not a bad idea but we need more information on how it will operate. I do not like the notion of a body sitting in Icasa that is appointed by the Minister and can act at his behest. I don’t see how that will help Icasa function effectively. It introduces a political element and raises the independence argument. The same argument arises with amendments to the Complaints and Compliance Committee, which propose greater involvement of the Minister. Without further information, it is impossible to see how that will improve Icasa’s functioning.”
Lastly, amending Icasa’s function from managing spectrum to merely assigning it is in conflict with the
Electronic Communications Act.
Bolstering Icasa
What the regulator needs, Skinner and Cull agree, is money.
“An independent regulator requires sufficient financial resources to carry out its activities,” said the LINK Centre, Wits University’s ICT research and training arm, in its submission on the proposed amendments. “Icasa should not be subject to any form of financial pressure from the Minister or the DoC, which could be used to punish it for actions or decisions unpopular with the government of the day, or to apply indirect political pressure upon its mandate. And the regulator should further be required to account to the nation publicly and transparently. Icasa is already constrained in this respect, given that its funding comes through Parliament rather than from licence fees, and that both its budget and annual report require the involvement of the Minister, albeit they are approved by Parliament.”
“If we had a proper policy review process, we could look at it to ensure the regulator is funded properly so it can work in favour of users, not private organisations or government,” says Skinner, raising a common complaint – proposed legislation or amendments no longer go through the green and white paper consultation process, which means legislation that is fundamentally flawed gets to bill stage before this becomes apparent once public consultation starts.
“There’s clearly a problem with Icasa,” says Cull. “This is nothing new. Since the dawn of Satra in 1996, the regulator has suffered under capacity and finance constraints and has not been able to discharge its duty in a competent manner. It would be lovely if the bill took the view that we should bolster Icasa and allow it to discharge its current function. The bill in its current form gives every appearance of seeking to undermine Icasa and gives every indication of a deteriorating relationship between Icasa and the DoC.”
That the body at the DoC pushing this legislation forward is an ex-Icasa councillor has probably not helped matters.
-----------------------------------------------------------
...obvious [that] the DOC is trying to deal with Icasa's inefficiences and slow turnaround times. Kate Skinner, SOS.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Said body, Mamodupi Mohlala, director general of the DoC, was on leave pending redeployment at the time of writing, having been fired by the Minister and then reinstated. Should an alternative position not be found for her, she will be reinstated into the department in full. As Cull notes, while she’s been away, it seems as if people at the DoC have been attempting to distance themselves from the document. What these political shenanigans will mean for the bill going forward, however, remains to be seen.
The LINK Centre summed it up succinctly in its submission: “There are certainly problems with the legislation governing the broad ICT sector and with the effectiveness of the regulatory institutions governing the sector. But these cannot be resolved by the introduction of what appears to be a hastily conceived and poorly drafted ‘proposed’ bill, several aspects of which appear to be manifestly unconstitutional, and which deeply undermines the possibility of effective and independent regulation of the sector.
“The LINK Centre, therefore, calls upon the Department of Communications and the Minister to institute a formal, structured, consultative stakeholder process to debate and consider the most appropriate policy and legislative interventions to ensure effective, independent regulation of the ICT sector in the future.”
- ITWeb Brainstorm Cover Story
South Africa’s post, telecommunications and broadcast sectors are governed by an independent regulator – the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa). Created out of the old South African Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (Satra) and the Independent Broadcasting Authority, Icasa came into being in 2000, per the Icasa Act.
Regulators exist to manage scarce resources (frequency spectrum in this case), to ensure that the interests of the public are served where commercial interests would otherwise dominate, and to ensure, in sectors where monopolies traditionally dominated (so-called natural monopoly sectors) that liberalisation happens, and that everyone plays fair while it’s happening, among other reasons.
Internationally, the trend towards regulating to control sectors has now reversed and deregulation is becoming the norm, with regulators like Ofcom in the UK taking an increasingly hands-off approach.
In South Africa, the regulator has been under-resourced, subject to capture by either political or commercial interests and overall ineffectual, since its creation.
The Icasa Amendment Bill, or as the Department of Communications prefers to call it, the ‘proposed’ Icasa Amendment Bill, was gazetted on 25 June. Respondents were given 30 days to comment on a Bill that has far-reaching implications for the broadcasting and telecommunications sectors. The department intends to take the bill to Parliament this year still.
Says Save our SABC (SOS) campaign coordinator Kate Skinner: “No one knew it existed for the first five days; Icasa didn’t advertise it. We picked it up from the Government Gazette via lawyers we know who scrutinise it. As such, we didn’t have 30 days to consider it, we didn’t have prior notice, we had no information on why the department was introducing it. Reading it, it became obvious the DOC is trying to deal with Icasa’s inefficiencies and slow turnaround times.”
Unfortunately, the DOC is trying to deal with this by putting more responsibility on the Minister and less on the Authority. Dominic Cull, Ellipsis Regulatory Solutions, fears the Icasa Amendment Bill threatens the regulator's independence. The bill amends the existing legislation to do the following things, Skinner says:
- change the position of CEO to chief operations officer (COO)
- clearly differentiate between the functions of the Council and the COO
- improve turnaround times
- establish a Tariff Advisory Council
- improve the functioning of the Complaints and Compliance Committee
- remove Icasa’s frequency spectrum management role
- enable the Minister to assign functions and roles to the chair and councillors
- enable the Minister to appoint members of the Complaints and Compliance Committee
- enable Icasa to continue working even when there are legal challenges on the table.
Some of the above amendments, at least two of which would be welcomed by the sector, are problematic for several reasons.
Undue interferenceFirst problem, says Skinner, is that changing the CEO into a COO will remove the accounting officer from the agency, in direct contravention of the Public Finance Management Act.
Second, by being able to assign roles and functions to the councillors and chairperson, the Minister would be able to directly interfere with, for example, licensing, and influence which licences are granted, or not.
“This is directly at odds with international standards and principles,” Skinner comments.
Says Dominic Cull, founder of Ellipsis Regulatory Solutions: “The amendment gives the Minister the right to assign fields of competency that each councillor oversees. I can’t see how that sits with the notion of independence on the part of the regulator. I appreciate that independence is a relative concept in this context, but in terms of South Africa’s World Trade Organisation obligations, we are obliged to have a regulator independent of government and this proposal infringes that. As far as broadcasting is concerned, it infringes on chapter nine of the Constitution (which says that national legislation must establish an independent broadcasting authority).”
Third, the amendment bill arbitrarily reduces turnaround times by half, so where the Act says 180 days, it would drop to 90 days; where it says 60 days, it changes to 30, and so on.
Says Cull: “We’re quite happy that they are looking at reducing the time periods but certainly not at the expense of the public consultation period. The amended clause says it wants to reduce unreasonably long consultation periods, which is lovely and would be great to achieve, but you can’t do that by reducing the consultation period from 60 days to 30. Some enquiries are by nature complicated and to give public and industry 30 days to research and comment is not acceptable.”
------------------------------------------------------------
The bill in its current form gives every appearance of seeking to undermine Icasa and gives every indication of a deteriorating relationship between Icasa and the DOC. Dominic Cull, Ellipsis Regulatory Solutions.
------------------------------------------------------------
Fourth, that the Minister evaluates councillors is inappropriate. The amended provision gives the Minister the power to chair the Evaluation Panel, says Skinner, which will be responsible for tenure and possible removal of councillors and the chairperson.
“This potentially directly undermines the independence of councillors and again raises the danger of political interference in the workings of the regulator,” Skinner notes.
Fifth, in order to remain independent, she says, Icasa must have the power to appoint the people it feels will best serve on the Complaints and Compliance Committee. Assigning this responsibility to the Minister will undermine that.
Sixth, enabling Icasa to continue working on something while it is subjected to legal challenges is problematic. “The amendment states that the authority must continue with function until a court order directs otherwise. I love the idea,” says Cull, “but I have no idea how it’s going to operate in real life.
“So Telkom, for example, will go and get an interdict that says Icasa cannot implement the call termination rate (CTR) regime when it is published. If Icasa continues in the face of that, it would open itself up to legal liabilities. Say it publishes a CTR regime that says mobile operators must reduce rates from 89c to 65c on 1 March 2011 and an operator challenges that in court, and Icasa carries on until a court decides otherwise. If the operator implements the new rates, it could lose millions in revenue. If the court finds in its favour, it will have lost that revenue needlessly. What does it do then – sue the regulator?”
As for the Tariff Advisory Council, he says: “In principle it’s not a bad idea but we need more information on how it will operate. I do not like the notion of a body sitting in Icasa that is appointed by the Minister and can act at his behest. I don’t see how that will help Icasa function effectively. It introduces a political element and raises the independence argument. The same argument arises with amendments to the Complaints and Compliance Committee, which propose greater involvement of the Minister. Without further information, it is impossible to see how that will improve Icasa’s functioning.”
Lastly, amending Icasa’s function from managing spectrum to merely assigning it is in conflict with the
Electronic Communications Act.
Bolstering Icasa
What the regulator needs, Skinner and Cull agree, is money.
“An independent regulator requires sufficient financial resources to carry out its activities,” said the LINK Centre, Wits University’s ICT research and training arm, in its submission on the proposed amendments. “Icasa should not be subject to any form of financial pressure from the Minister or the DoC, which could be used to punish it for actions or decisions unpopular with the government of the day, or to apply indirect political pressure upon its mandate. And the regulator should further be required to account to the nation publicly and transparently. Icasa is already constrained in this respect, given that its funding comes through Parliament rather than from licence fees, and that both its budget and annual report require the involvement of the Minister, albeit they are approved by Parliament.”
“If we had a proper policy review process, we could look at it to ensure the regulator is funded properly so it can work in favour of users, not private organisations or government,” says Skinner, raising a common complaint – proposed legislation or amendments no longer go through the green and white paper consultation process, which means legislation that is fundamentally flawed gets to bill stage before this becomes apparent once public consultation starts.
“There’s clearly a problem with Icasa,” says Cull. “This is nothing new. Since the dawn of Satra in 1996, the regulator has suffered under capacity and finance constraints and has not been able to discharge its duty in a competent manner. It would be lovely if the bill took the view that we should bolster Icasa and allow it to discharge its current function. The bill in its current form gives every appearance of seeking to undermine Icasa and gives every indication of a deteriorating relationship between Icasa and the DoC.”
That the body at the DoC pushing this legislation forward is an ex-Icasa councillor has probably not helped matters.
-----------------------------------------------------------
...obvious [that] the DOC is trying to deal with Icasa's inefficiences and slow turnaround times. Kate Skinner, SOS.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Said body, Mamodupi Mohlala, director general of the DoC, was on leave pending redeployment at the time of writing, having been fired by the Minister and then reinstated. Should an alternative position not be found for her, she will be reinstated into the department in full. As Cull notes, while she’s been away, it seems as if people at the DoC have been attempting to distance themselves from the document. What these political shenanigans will mean for the bill going forward, however, remains to be seen.
The LINK Centre summed it up succinctly in its submission: “There are certainly problems with the legislation governing the broad ICT sector and with the effectiveness of the regulatory institutions governing the sector. But these cannot be resolved by the introduction of what appears to be a hastily conceived and poorly drafted ‘proposed’ bill, several aspects of which appear to be manifestly unconstitutional, and which deeply undermines the possibility of effective and independent regulation of the sector.
“The LINK Centre, therefore, calls upon the Department of Communications and the Minister to institute a formal, structured, consultative stakeholder process to debate and consider the most appropriate policy and legislative interventions to ensure effective, independent regulation of the ICT sector in the future.”
- ITWeb Brainstorm Cover Story
The communications industry settling at last?
It feels as if a tsunami has hit the South African communications industry with one clean sweep of a tidal wave
It feels as if a tsunami has hit the South African communications industry with one clean sweep of a tidal wave moving obstacles out of the way and creating a new environment – and all that in a short space of time.
Politicians and analysts have greeted President Jacob Zuma's axing of Siphiwe Nyanda as communications minister and his expulsion from cabinet with surprise but as good news for the ailing sector.
While changes in cabinet have been on the cards for some time, it was not expected that Zuma would axe Nyanda as he is a close political ally. Nyanda has been dogged by controversy ever since taking office as minister, with allegations that he benefited from dodgy tenders. His dismissal of director-general Mamodupi Mohlala and interference in the digital migration process had the communications industry up in arms. With the huge public outcry President Zuma had little other choice than to part with his strong political ally – after all, payback time cannot last forever.
The appointment of Radhaskrishna "Roy" Padayachie is considered good news for the ailing Department of Communications (DOC) as Padayachie is known to the ICT sector – he served as deputy communications minister from 2004 until 2009, when he took up the position of deputy minister of public service and administration.
During the past year the DOC has been a disaster and through interference by Nyanda became totally paralysed. Actions by the minister almost shipwrecked the television digital migration initiative and the firing of the DG and the turmoil in Sentech added more fuel to the destruction of the communications sector. A huge job awaits Padayachie but judging from his past performance as deputy minister under the late Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri I believe that he is capable of delivering what is expected from a communications minister. He led the Pricing Colloquium in 2005 that ultimately led to the liberalisation of the market as it is today.
Dina Pule, Nyanda’s deputy, has also been replaced. Former parliamentary house chairman Obed Bapela has been appointed deputy minister of communications. Bapela is well known for his criticism earlier this year of MPs, following a report that revealed the majority of parliamentary workers are computer-illiterate.
Talking about pricing, the latest announcement on call termination tariffs and the publication of the new policy in the Government Gazette, although long overdue, took most of us by surprise. The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) has amended its initial proposals on cost-oriented rates to ensure that these regulations achieve the goal of fostering competition as well as maintaining employment and investment in the ICT sector. Over a period of time call termination rates will be dramatically reduced, paving the way to more affordable communication rates.
Telkom’s expected entry into the mobile market caught its rivals by surprise and saw a quick response from Vodacom. It seems that a price war is looming.
Announcing simple and affordable products and services, Telkom Mobile's 8ta executives claimed their services will be regarded in South Africa as the one that will “get people to talk more”.
Managing executive of Telkom Mobile Amith Maharaj told EngineerIT, “we will provide the platform for South Africans to communicate more. I’m not exaggerating when I say that this is the start of a new era in mobile phone communication in South Africa. Consumers will at last have a real choice.”
He promised that 8ta products would offer more value than any other network provider. For the first time in South Africa, all prepaid customers will benefit from free talk time to any network every time they receive calls from a mobile phone – 1 free second of airtime for every three seconds of calls received. This benefit is available all day, every day. It appears that Telkom Mobile has been closely watching the insurance industry, which offers pay back around every corner!
Further, calls from 8ta to fixed line will cost 60% less than typical market rates for similar calls, and there will be a flat rate of R2,50 per minute to over 100 international destinations. Additionally, when you send 5 SMSs in a day, 8ta will give you 50 bonus SMSs at no extra cost to use that same day.
8ta has constructed 800 base stations across the country, and plans to construct a further 3200 base stations over time to improve coverage and connectivity. The services have been built on an end-to-end all-IP 2G and 3G network, which is easily upgradeable to LTE (4G).
As the success of the World Cup still rings in our ears it appears that the communications sector has taken heed of the “Lead SA” campaign of Radio 702 and major newspapers. Let’s hope it doesn't just stay here and that we will get more pleasant surprises in 2011.
- Hans vd Groenendaal, EngineerIT
It feels as if a tsunami has hit the South African communications industry with one clean sweep of a tidal wave moving obstacles out of the way and creating a new environment – and all that in a short space of time.
Politicians and analysts have greeted President Jacob Zuma's axing of Siphiwe Nyanda as communications minister and his expulsion from cabinet with surprise but as good news for the ailing sector.
While changes in cabinet have been on the cards for some time, it was not expected that Zuma would axe Nyanda as he is a close political ally. Nyanda has been dogged by controversy ever since taking office as minister, with allegations that he benefited from dodgy tenders. His dismissal of director-general Mamodupi Mohlala and interference in the digital migration process had the communications industry up in arms. With the huge public outcry President Zuma had little other choice than to part with his strong political ally – after all, payback time cannot last forever.
The appointment of Radhaskrishna "Roy" Padayachie is considered good news for the ailing Department of Communications (DOC) as Padayachie is known to the ICT sector – he served as deputy communications minister from 2004 until 2009, when he took up the position of deputy minister of public service and administration.
During the past year the DOC has been a disaster and through interference by Nyanda became totally paralysed. Actions by the minister almost shipwrecked the television digital migration initiative and the firing of the DG and the turmoil in Sentech added more fuel to the destruction of the communications sector. A huge job awaits Padayachie but judging from his past performance as deputy minister under the late Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri I believe that he is capable of delivering what is expected from a communications minister. He led the Pricing Colloquium in 2005 that ultimately led to the liberalisation of the market as it is today.
Dina Pule, Nyanda’s deputy, has also been replaced. Former parliamentary house chairman Obed Bapela has been appointed deputy minister of communications. Bapela is well known for his criticism earlier this year of MPs, following a report that revealed the majority of parliamentary workers are computer-illiterate.
Talking about pricing, the latest announcement on call termination tariffs and the publication of the new policy in the Government Gazette, although long overdue, took most of us by surprise. The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) has amended its initial proposals on cost-oriented rates to ensure that these regulations achieve the goal of fostering competition as well as maintaining employment and investment in the ICT sector. Over a period of time call termination rates will be dramatically reduced, paving the way to more affordable communication rates.
Telkom’s expected entry into the mobile market caught its rivals by surprise and saw a quick response from Vodacom. It seems that a price war is looming.
Announcing simple and affordable products and services, Telkom Mobile's 8ta executives claimed their services will be regarded in South Africa as the one that will “get people to talk more”.
Managing executive of Telkom Mobile Amith Maharaj told EngineerIT, “we will provide the platform for South Africans to communicate more. I’m not exaggerating when I say that this is the start of a new era in mobile phone communication in South Africa. Consumers will at last have a real choice.”
He promised that 8ta products would offer more value than any other network provider. For the first time in South Africa, all prepaid customers will benefit from free talk time to any network every time they receive calls from a mobile phone – 1 free second of airtime for every three seconds of calls received. This benefit is available all day, every day. It appears that Telkom Mobile has been closely watching the insurance industry, which offers pay back around every corner!
Further, calls from 8ta to fixed line will cost 60% less than typical market rates for similar calls, and there will be a flat rate of R2,50 per minute to over 100 international destinations. Additionally, when you send 5 SMSs in a day, 8ta will give you 50 bonus SMSs at no extra cost to use that same day.
8ta has constructed 800 base stations across the country, and plans to construct a further 3200 base stations over time to improve coverage and connectivity. The services have been built on an end-to-end all-IP 2G and 3G network, which is easily upgradeable to LTE (4G).
As the success of the World Cup still rings in our ears it appears that the communications sector has taken heed of the “Lead SA” campaign of Radio 702 and major newspapers. Let’s hope it doesn't just stay here and that we will get more pleasant surprises in 2011.
- Hans vd Groenendaal, EngineerIT
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Regulatory Issues affecting VoIP in South Africa
Although all the hype and excitement exists, we still have a number of Challenges in our industry today, so, over the next few days I will be sharing specific information around the Regulatory Issues affecting Voice over IP in South Africa. Important to know, even more important to Share!
I will be covering topics such as:
- Interconnect Fees
- Facilities Leasing
- Carrier Pre-select
- Number Portability
- Frequency Allocation
- Local Loop Unbundling
I am really going to encourage you to share your comments and thoughts with me on this one, and welcome any input from fellow members.
----------- ------------- -------------- --------------- -------------- --------------- ---------------- ------
Part 1) Interconnect Fees
Interconnect Fees
With the incumbent mobile operators set to drop interconnect rates even further in 2011, converged communications providers are preparing to take advantage of a more competitive voice market.
The drop in the interconnect rate, while not as substantial as many would have hoped will have far reaching effects for the local market, as a decrease in rates will mean a concurrent drop in mobile-to-mobile and mobile-to-fixed line voice rates. It also opens up the market to competition, as the crossover interconnect rates to other operator networks will become more affordable, meaning smaller players will have lower cost barriers to enter the market.
But what does this drop in the GSM network rates mean for Voice Over IP (VoIP), a technology driven by a cheap on-net call rate value proposition? Honestly the drop in interconnect rates could hurt the VoIP value proposition in the mobile space, but there is more to this than meets the eye.
While it has not been an easy birth, advanced technology has allowed local VoIP providers to survive and even thrive in the high interconnect rate environment. Internet Solutions for example already terminates 40,000,000 VoIP minutes a month. This is testament to South Africa’s ability to provision world class VoIP services in the face of huge hurdles, which offers great value when using on-net voice minutes.
Additionally, the nature of VoIP made it an ideal disruptive technology for smaller players to disintermediate the mobile operators, drawing off-net voice minutes on-net over IP networks at vastly reduced rates. With more people using mobile devices as converged communication tools the potential for mobile VoIP services is growing rapidly, so the market has seen a number of service providers look to move into the mobile VoIP market, a trend driven largely by the massive growth in Wi-Fi technology and accessibility.
A prime global example is AT&T, the biggest voice data carrier in the world, who has allowed iPhone users to use the phone’s technology to terminate VoIP calls, a tectonic shift in the voice industry paradigm. By bringing VoIP into the mobile model AT&T has taken what was generally a cottage industry and, practically overnight made it mainstream. However, with the drop in interconnect rates the need to disintermediate has diminished somewhat, which will be viewed negatively by some. VANS and ECNS providers that offer off-net voice services will now have less of a hurdle to enter the market, causing the disintermediation approach of using disruptive technologies to penetrate markets to lose its appeal.
So, with the current interconnect rate of 89c dropping to 65c in early 2011, which is a substantial drop at 27%, the rate will need to be reduced even further to negate the need to disintermediate the incumbent mobile operators and make the marketplace more competitive. Interconnect rates of around 5 to 10c is ultimately the level the industry needs to reach to really open up the market to price competition from new entrants. In the meantime service providers with sustainable mass on their networks will continue to expand their offerings by augmenting VoIP into their basket of products and services. This is especially true for Least Cost Routing (LCR) service providers, who stand to lose the most should interconnect rates drop further. To survive and offer competitive costs they will need to diversify their voice offerings by augmenting VoIP into their offerings, rather than remaining with blended off-net LCR.
It’s clear to see that there are a number of confluencing events that will make life more difficult for mobile operators, but will benefit South African consumers and the economy. It is estimated that an interconnect rate of 60c can add 1% of GDP growth to the local economy, which is materially good for the country. Lower call rates, be it due to a drop in fixed line and mobile rates, or the increased adoption of VoIP technology will mean companies can conduct more efficient business. And with the introduction of the next generation 4G/LTE mobile network, which is IP multimedia system enabled, the networks will become IP compliant, enabling VoIP over mobile networks, providing further impetus for the move towards a VoIP world.
So, all in all the net gain from the drop in interconnect rates is beneficial for VoIP, especially mobile VoIP, as there is a great deal of room to grow the number of VoIP minutes terminated over off-net networks. Currently the fixed line market is around R20 billion and mobile voice services generate around R80 billion in revenue. With VoIP only accounting for a small percentage of that and interconnect rates not coming down to a level that will truly open up the market, new technologies and a need for cheaper voice calls will continue to place VoIP services at the frontline of the disintermediation battle.
I will be covering topics such as:
- Interconnect Fees
- Facilities Leasing
- Carrier Pre-select
- Number Portability
- Frequency Allocation
- Local Loop Unbundling
I am really going to encourage you to share your comments and thoughts with me on this one, and welcome any input from fellow members.
----------- ------------- -------------- --------------- -------------- --------------- ---------------- ------
Part 1) Interconnect Fees
Interconnect Fees
With the incumbent mobile operators set to drop interconnect rates even further in 2011, converged communications providers are preparing to take advantage of a more competitive voice market.
The drop in the interconnect rate, while not as substantial as many would have hoped will have far reaching effects for the local market, as a decrease in rates will mean a concurrent drop in mobile-to-mobile and mobile-to-fixed line voice rates. It also opens up the market to competition, as the crossover interconnect rates to other operator networks will become more affordable, meaning smaller players will have lower cost barriers to enter the market.
But what does this drop in the GSM network rates mean for Voice Over IP (VoIP), a technology driven by a cheap on-net call rate value proposition? Honestly the drop in interconnect rates could hurt the VoIP value proposition in the mobile space, but there is more to this than meets the eye.
While it has not been an easy birth, advanced technology has allowed local VoIP providers to survive and even thrive in the high interconnect rate environment. Internet Solutions for example already terminates 40,000,000 VoIP minutes a month. This is testament to South Africa’s ability to provision world class VoIP services in the face of huge hurdles, which offers great value when using on-net voice minutes.
Additionally, the nature of VoIP made it an ideal disruptive technology for smaller players to disintermediate the mobile operators, drawing off-net voice minutes on-net over IP networks at vastly reduced rates. With more people using mobile devices as converged communication tools the potential for mobile VoIP services is growing rapidly, so the market has seen a number of service providers look to move into the mobile VoIP market, a trend driven largely by the massive growth in Wi-Fi technology and accessibility.
A prime global example is AT&T, the biggest voice data carrier in the world, who has allowed iPhone users to use the phone’s technology to terminate VoIP calls, a tectonic shift in the voice industry paradigm. By bringing VoIP into the mobile model AT&T has taken what was generally a cottage industry and, practically overnight made it mainstream. However, with the drop in interconnect rates the need to disintermediate has diminished somewhat, which will be viewed negatively by some. VANS and ECNS providers that offer off-net voice services will now have less of a hurdle to enter the market, causing the disintermediation approach of using disruptive technologies to penetrate markets to lose its appeal.
So, with the current interconnect rate of 89c dropping to 65c in early 2011, which is a substantial drop at 27%, the rate will need to be reduced even further to negate the need to disintermediate the incumbent mobile operators and make the marketplace more competitive. Interconnect rates of around 5 to 10c is ultimately the level the industry needs to reach to really open up the market to price competition from new entrants. In the meantime service providers with sustainable mass on their networks will continue to expand their offerings by augmenting VoIP into their basket of products and services. This is especially true for Least Cost Routing (LCR) service providers, who stand to lose the most should interconnect rates drop further. To survive and offer competitive costs they will need to diversify their voice offerings by augmenting VoIP into their offerings, rather than remaining with blended off-net LCR.
It’s clear to see that there are a number of confluencing events that will make life more difficult for mobile operators, but will benefit South African consumers and the economy. It is estimated that an interconnect rate of 60c can add 1% of GDP growth to the local economy, which is materially good for the country. Lower call rates, be it due to a drop in fixed line and mobile rates, or the increased adoption of VoIP technology will mean companies can conduct more efficient business. And with the introduction of the next generation 4G/LTE mobile network, which is IP multimedia system enabled, the networks will become IP compliant, enabling VoIP over mobile networks, providing further impetus for the move towards a VoIP world.
So, all in all the net gain from the drop in interconnect rates is beneficial for VoIP, especially mobile VoIP, as there is a great deal of room to grow the number of VoIP minutes terminated over off-net networks. Currently the fixed line market is around R20 billion and mobile voice services generate around R80 billion in revenue. With VoIP only accounting for a small percentage of that and interconnect rates not coming down to a level that will truly open up the market, new technologies and a need for cheaper voice calls will continue to place VoIP services at the frontline of the disintermediation battle.
Tackling SME disconnectivity
The SA government, through the Universal Services and Access Agency of SA, needs to put a concerted effort to judiciously apply the many millions of rands available to it in order to help solve the problem of lack connectivity that is inhibiting growth of the SME sector. So said World Wide Worx principal researcher, Arthur Goldstuck, presenting the findings of the 2010 SME Survey at the Sandton Convention Centre yesterday.
The survey discovered that the South African SME sector is finding it difficult to breakthrough into profitability because it lacks connectivity. Goldstuck said it only make sense for government to give back to the SME sector because telcos were already contributing money to the agency. “What is required is for the agency to be given direction on where best to spend it – and that is clearly in connecting the unconnected,” he said.
“The digital divide is not always the divide between the 'haves' and the 'have-nots' in the consumer market, but connectivity also plays a pivotal role in business, especially for the emerging businesses,” Goldstuck said.
He blamed Telkom's 15-year monopoly in the telecommunication sector for the widening gap between emerging businesses and their established counterparts.
Alarming statistics
The survey found out that more than a third (37%) of emerging SMEs in SA do not have Internet connectivity at all. According to Goldstuck, this alarming statistic jumped out at the researchers due to the significance of its impact on SME growth. He suggested that this only increases the obligations on government and telco operators to explore ways of bringing affordable Internet access to the emerging SME sector.
He added that the telcos also need to put more effort into rolling out services in these underprivileged areas.
“Everyone harps on about the fact that the cost of data has come down dramatically, but this is of no use if the infrastructure does not exist. And if anything, infrastructure costs have gone up as operators try to deliver services to a wider geographic area.”
Goldstuck also pointed out that these new statistics have come about through a change in the overall sample used in the survey. “By gaining insight into the emerging SME market, we have been able to get a far better sense of the differences between this segment and the more established SMEs. The comparison between these two shows that the digital divide exists among small businesses as much as it exists among the general public,” he noted.
The survey found out that of those that are connected, double the proportion of emerging SMEs (6%) as established ones (3%) use 3G as their primary means of connectivity. A further 2% in each of these categories uses their cellphones, in the form of GPRS connectivity, as their primary form of access.
“ADSL has long been accepted as being the most cost-effective and efficient form of access for the SME sector. It is here that we once again see enormous discrepancies between the two sides of the SME market.
“Of the established SMEs, 74% are using ADSL, while only 51% of the emerging market does the same,” said Goldstuck.
Death of dial-up
The one positive that the survey recognises, he pointed out, is the fact that the death of dial-up – predicted already four years ago in previous editions of the survey – has all but become a reality.
Only around 2% of the emerging sector and 1% of the established market still utilise this means of connectivity, the survey determined.
“It could also be viewed as a positive that half of the emerging SME market makes use of ADSL. However, the fact that half still do not have access to ADSL signifies just how much work remains to be done.”
“While the cost benefits for SMEs using ADSL are well understood, there remains a clear lack of penetration for fixed-line and ADSL in many disadvantaged areas,” concluded Goldstuck.
Speaking during the same event, Steven Ngubeni CEO of the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA), who sponsored the survey, concurred with Goldstuck, saying there is also a direct correlation between connectivity and profitability because businesses that have connectivity are able to respond much quicker to business opportunities.
“The NYDA has, therefore, recognised the need to pursue partnerships with telecommunications organisations in order to complement the existing business support vouchers and provide a complete solution,” said Ngubeni.
The survey discovered that the South African SME sector is finding it difficult to breakthrough into profitability because it lacks connectivity. Goldstuck said it only make sense for government to give back to the SME sector because telcos were already contributing money to the agency. “What is required is for the agency to be given direction on where best to spend it – and that is clearly in connecting the unconnected,” he said.
“The digital divide is not always the divide between the 'haves' and the 'have-nots' in the consumer market, but connectivity also plays a pivotal role in business, especially for the emerging businesses,” Goldstuck said.
He blamed Telkom's 15-year monopoly in the telecommunication sector for the widening gap between emerging businesses and their established counterparts.
Alarming statistics
The survey found out that more than a third (37%) of emerging SMEs in SA do not have Internet connectivity at all. According to Goldstuck, this alarming statistic jumped out at the researchers due to the significance of its impact on SME growth. He suggested that this only increases the obligations on government and telco operators to explore ways of bringing affordable Internet access to the emerging SME sector.
He added that the telcos also need to put more effort into rolling out services in these underprivileged areas.
“Everyone harps on about the fact that the cost of data has come down dramatically, but this is of no use if the infrastructure does not exist. And if anything, infrastructure costs have gone up as operators try to deliver services to a wider geographic area.”
Goldstuck also pointed out that these new statistics have come about through a change in the overall sample used in the survey. “By gaining insight into the emerging SME market, we have been able to get a far better sense of the differences between this segment and the more established SMEs. The comparison between these two shows that the digital divide exists among small businesses as much as it exists among the general public,” he noted.
The survey found out that of those that are connected, double the proportion of emerging SMEs (6%) as established ones (3%) use 3G as their primary means of connectivity. A further 2% in each of these categories uses their cellphones, in the form of GPRS connectivity, as their primary form of access.
“ADSL has long been accepted as being the most cost-effective and efficient form of access for the SME sector. It is here that we once again see enormous discrepancies between the two sides of the SME market.
“Of the established SMEs, 74% are using ADSL, while only 51% of the emerging market does the same,” said Goldstuck.
Death of dial-up
The one positive that the survey recognises, he pointed out, is the fact that the death of dial-up – predicted already four years ago in previous editions of the survey – has all but become a reality.
Only around 2% of the emerging sector and 1% of the established market still utilise this means of connectivity, the survey determined.
“It could also be viewed as a positive that half of the emerging SME market makes use of ADSL. However, the fact that half still do not have access to ADSL signifies just how much work remains to be done.”
“While the cost benefits for SMEs using ADSL are well understood, there remains a clear lack of penetration for fixed-line and ADSL in many disadvantaged areas,” concluded Goldstuck.
Speaking during the same event, Steven Ngubeni CEO of the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA), who sponsored the survey, concurred with Goldstuck, saying there is also a direct correlation between connectivity and profitability because businesses that have connectivity are able to respond much quicker to business opportunities.
“The NYDA has, therefore, recognised the need to pursue partnerships with telecommunications organisations in order to complement the existing business support vouchers and provide a complete solution,” said Ngubeni.
Cheap high-speed mobile broadband: A tutorial by the GSMA
The GSMA gives some tips on how to make fast, cheap mobile broadband a reality in South Africa
“Extremely affordable” mobile broadband services can be had in South Africa, if only a few stumbling blocks are cleared out of the way. So said Ross Bateson, special government adviser at GSM Association (GSMA) during an interview at the AfricaCom conference which was recently held in Cape Town.
Timely allocation of harmonised spectrum is the single biggest problem, Bateson said, but he also identified issues such as drawn out environmental impact assessments and the taxation system on imports in South Africa.
Harmonised spectrum explained
Harmonised spectrum, Bateson explains, means the operational frequency of transmitters and end point devices (such as phones and modems) in South Africa need to be in line with global and regional norms.
An example of an international norm South Africa should adhere to is the so-called “Option 1” configuration of the much sought-after 2.6 GHz frequency band. This band is being used world-wide for the deployment of high-speed mobile broadband technologies such as LTE and WiMAX, Bateson said.
Bateson warned that South Africa should steer clear of trying to roll-out those technologies in bands that the rest of the world isn't using, as it will increase the price of consumer devices or result in devices not being supported on networks at all. He also warned that South Africa shouldn't try to develop a unique band plan, but should adhere as closely as possible to the “Option 1” recommendation as set out by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).
Currently this is impossible in South Africa as a large chunk of the precious 2.6 GHZ spectrum is occupied by Sentech, with a smaller piece belonging to iBurst's Wireless Business Solutions (WBS).
A regional norm South Africa would have to consider very soon is SADC's decision on a digital terrestrial television standard. Proponents of the Japanese ISDB-T and European DVB-T digital broadcasting standards have been doing battle in South Africa for the last few months when the DoC re-opened the debate on which standard SA should use for terrestrial (i.e. not satellite or cable) broadcasts.
An SADC task team is currently evaluating various digital broadcasting standards and is set to report their recommendations on 22 November. Bateson said that the “important thing is to act in a harmonised manner with the rest of SADC” to minimise issues like cross-border interference.
Allocating spectrum
Bateson added that the decision of DTT standard needs to be made sooner rather than later as it's a major obstacle to the roll-out of affordable mobile broadband to rural areas. Once digital broadcasting begins and analog broadcasts are turned off, a valuable portion of spectrum known as the digital dividend becomes available in the frequency bands where analog TV broadcasts from the SABC, e.tv and M-Net used to occur.
This spectrum is so valuable because of it's low frequency compared to bands like 2.6GHz and 3.5GHz. Among other benefits, lower frequencies allow for a single base station to cover a larger area.
Digital dividend spectrum and the 2.6 GHz band will be the first frequencies in which LTE roll-outs occur, said Bateson.
Choosing the right technology
While spectrum remains the greatest stumbling block to the wider deployment of high-speed mobile broadband networks, Bateson said that choosing the right technology is the greatest factor to making access more affordable.
The most affordable broadband comes from mass-market broadband products, Bateson said. To drive down prices it's important to create a marketplace that's as large as possible. “It's very important that I can take advantage of the global market place,” Bateson said. According to Bateson, HSPA and HSPA+ is currently the mass-market broadband standard and in future it will be LTE and TD-LTE.
Bateson noted that regardless of the technologies operators are using currently, almost all have upgrade paths to LTE or TD-LTE. The battle between WiMAX and LTE is over and the industry is backing LTE, Bateson said.
- My Broadband, Jan Vermeulen
“Extremely affordable” mobile broadband services can be had in South Africa, if only a few stumbling blocks are cleared out of the way. So said Ross Bateson, special government adviser at GSM Association (GSMA) during an interview at the AfricaCom conference which was recently held in Cape Town.
Timely allocation of harmonised spectrum is the single biggest problem, Bateson said, but he also identified issues such as drawn out environmental impact assessments and the taxation system on imports in South Africa.
Harmonised spectrum explained
Harmonised spectrum, Bateson explains, means the operational frequency of transmitters and end point devices (such as phones and modems) in South Africa need to be in line with global and regional norms.
An example of an international norm South Africa should adhere to is the so-called “Option 1” configuration of the much sought-after 2.6 GHz frequency band. This band is being used world-wide for the deployment of high-speed mobile broadband technologies such as LTE and WiMAX, Bateson said.
Bateson warned that South Africa should steer clear of trying to roll-out those technologies in bands that the rest of the world isn't using, as it will increase the price of consumer devices or result in devices not being supported on networks at all. He also warned that South Africa shouldn't try to develop a unique band plan, but should adhere as closely as possible to the “Option 1” recommendation as set out by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).
Currently this is impossible in South Africa as a large chunk of the precious 2.6 GHZ spectrum is occupied by Sentech, with a smaller piece belonging to iBurst's Wireless Business Solutions (WBS).
A regional norm South Africa would have to consider very soon is SADC's decision on a digital terrestrial television standard. Proponents of the Japanese ISDB-T and European DVB-T digital broadcasting standards have been doing battle in South Africa for the last few months when the DoC re-opened the debate on which standard SA should use for terrestrial (i.e. not satellite or cable) broadcasts.
An SADC task team is currently evaluating various digital broadcasting standards and is set to report their recommendations on 22 November. Bateson said that the “important thing is to act in a harmonised manner with the rest of SADC” to minimise issues like cross-border interference.
Allocating spectrum
Bateson added that the decision of DTT standard needs to be made sooner rather than later as it's a major obstacle to the roll-out of affordable mobile broadband to rural areas. Once digital broadcasting begins and analog broadcasts are turned off, a valuable portion of spectrum known as the digital dividend becomes available in the frequency bands where analog TV broadcasts from the SABC, e.tv and M-Net used to occur.
This spectrum is so valuable because of it's low frequency compared to bands like 2.6GHz and 3.5GHz. Among other benefits, lower frequencies allow for a single base station to cover a larger area.
Digital dividend spectrum and the 2.6 GHz band will be the first frequencies in which LTE roll-outs occur, said Bateson.
Choosing the right technology
While spectrum remains the greatest stumbling block to the wider deployment of high-speed mobile broadband networks, Bateson said that choosing the right technology is the greatest factor to making access more affordable.
The most affordable broadband comes from mass-market broadband products, Bateson said. To drive down prices it's important to create a marketplace that's as large as possible. “It's very important that I can take advantage of the global market place,” Bateson said. According to Bateson, HSPA and HSPA+ is currently the mass-market broadband standard and in future it will be LTE and TD-LTE.
Bateson noted that regardless of the technologies operators are using currently, almost all have upgrade paths to LTE or TD-LTE. The battle between WiMAX and LTE is over and the industry is backing LTE, Bateson said.
- My Broadband, Jan Vermeulen
Microsoft's Lync fills gaps in VoIP
Despite the name change and hype around its dramatic release candidate and RTM version, the net significance of Microsoft's Lync 2010 release is that it brings the company's unified communications and collaboration (UC&C) platform up to par in some areas with competitors – though it doesn't slingshot past them, experts say.
In particular, additions of VoIP features such as support for E911, better call control and survivable branch infrastructure fill gaps that existed in Lync's predecessor, Office Communications Server. "Some customers will now be ready to look at Lync" for telephony, says Art Schoeller, an analyst with Forrester Research.
Microsoft Lync: What you need to know
"They're much closer to the point where a customer could decide to use Lync for voice and expect reliability and business-class capabilities," says Melanie Turek, an analyst with Frost & Sullivan.
Other vendors – Avaya, Cisco, IBM and Siemens – do better in video, social networking and collaboration with their UC&C platforms, Turek says, but those features are less urgent needs than voice for most customers. Microsoft still has time to develop Lync capabilities in these areas because customers aren't ready to adopt them wholesale. "Microsoft had to spend a lot of time getting parity with voice," she says.
Survivable branch capabilities are key to Microsoft in Lync, Schoeller says. Devices in branch offices that can reconnect to the traditional public phone network when SIP trunks supporting VoIP fail represent a significant addition to Microsoft's offering that Lync provides. The appliances reconnect these branches to the outside world, but also keep local VoIP calls flowing when the branch is cut off from the main Lync Server located in a remote data center, he says.
"This is an area where Microsoft has been playing catch-up. Everyone asks can Lync replace a PBX? Customers may now be willing to consider it," he says.
But they won't trust it without proof, so it may have to be on the market for a couple of years and proven with large-scale deployments by early adopters to win over business telecommunications decision makers. "Telecom tends to be conservative. I'd like to see deployments with 5,000 to 10,000 users," Schoeller says.
Much of Lync's success may depend on how customers look at phasing in UC&C, says Osterman Research in its white paper, "Microsoft Lync Server 2010 and the Unified Communications Market." The infrastructure that customers already have and the new capabilities they need immediately will have an influence.
"For example, should an organization use its existing PBX as the starting point and then add capabilities like video conferencing, e-mail, mobility and presence into that infrastructure? Should it begin with its e-mail system and then slowly add IM/presence, audio conferencing and then finally enterprise voice into the mix? Should it choose a middle route and preserve its e-mail and PBX infrastructures as they are now and simply "glue" them together to provide unified communications capabilities?" Osterman says.
Microsoft and its competitors are vying for control of the customer's desktops, which will be the key to which UC&C platforms businesses adopt over time, Schoeller says. Cisco's client, for example, supports the Lync backend servers. "Both product sets are lining up more and more side-by-side," he says.
In reality, most businesses use what Turek calls best of breed for communications, messaging and collaboration so they may use a mix of products from multiple vendors. With sizeable investments in PBXs and IP-PBXs, customers will be reluctant to rip and replace that gear. As a result, customers may delay decisions three to seven years as they wait for their existing infrastructure to live out its usefulness.
Microsoft touts that it has an integrated suite of collaboration and messaging tools, but its competitors such as Avaya and Cisco recognize its popularity and also integrate with Microsoft offerings, Schoeller says. "If they buy into Microsoft's suite and there's more integration out of the box, that's good," he says. "I'm not going to say it's a dramatic advantage. It's an incremental not a dramatic improvement when you stay within the suite."
Ultimately, it may make no difference which vendor has the most complete set of UC&C features, he says, because customers haven't demonstrated demand for all of them. "How many people are not using instant messaging?" he says. "You walk into video conference rooms and the camera is idle. How many people save cell phone minutes by calling from Wi-Fi hotspots?"
In particular, additions of VoIP features such as support for E911, better call control and survivable branch infrastructure fill gaps that existed in Lync's predecessor, Office Communications Server. "Some customers will now be ready to look at Lync" for telephony, says Art Schoeller, an analyst with Forrester Research.
Sprint Provides Mobile Robust Network Access Solutions: Download now
Microsoft Lync: What you need to know
"They're much closer to the point where a customer could decide to use Lync for voice and expect reliability and business-class capabilities," says Melanie Turek, an analyst with Frost & Sullivan.
Other vendors – Avaya, Cisco, IBM and Siemens – do better in video, social networking and collaboration with their UC&C platforms, Turek says, but those features are less urgent needs than voice for most customers. Microsoft still has time to develop Lync capabilities in these areas because customers aren't ready to adopt them wholesale. "Microsoft had to spend a lot of time getting parity with voice," she says.
Survivable branch capabilities are key to Microsoft in Lync, Schoeller says. Devices in branch offices that can reconnect to the traditional public phone network when SIP trunks supporting VoIP fail represent a significant addition to Microsoft's offering that Lync provides. The appliances reconnect these branches to the outside world, but also keep local VoIP calls flowing when the branch is cut off from the main Lync Server located in a remote data center, he says.
"This is an area where Microsoft has been playing catch-up. Everyone asks can Lync replace a PBX? Customers may now be willing to consider it," he says.
But they won't trust it without proof, so it may have to be on the market for a couple of years and proven with large-scale deployments by early adopters to win over business telecommunications decision makers. "Telecom tends to be conservative. I'd like to see deployments with 5,000 to 10,000 users," Schoeller says.
Much of Lync's success may depend on how customers look at phasing in UC&C, says Osterman Research in its white paper, "Microsoft Lync Server 2010 and the Unified Communications Market." The infrastructure that customers already have and the new capabilities they need immediately will have an influence.
"For example, should an organization use its existing PBX as the starting point and then add capabilities like video conferencing, e-mail, mobility and presence into that infrastructure? Should it begin with its e-mail system and then slowly add IM/presence, audio conferencing and then finally enterprise voice into the mix? Should it choose a middle route and preserve its e-mail and PBX infrastructures as they are now and simply "glue" them together to provide unified communications capabilities?" Osterman says.
Microsoft and its competitors are vying for control of the customer's desktops, which will be the key to which UC&C platforms businesses adopt over time, Schoeller says. Cisco's client, for example, supports the Lync backend servers. "Both product sets are lining up more and more side-by-side," he says.
In reality, most businesses use what Turek calls best of breed for communications, messaging and collaboration so they may use a mix of products from multiple vendors. With sizeable investments in PBXs and IP-PBXs, customers will be reluctant to rip and replace that gear. As a result, customers may delay decisions three to seven years as they wait for their existing infrastructure to live out its usefulness.
Microsoft touts that it has an integrated suite of collaboration and messaging tools, but its competitors such as Avaya and Cisco recognize its popularity and also integrate with Microsoft offerings, Schoeller says. "If they buy into Microsoft's suite and there's more integration out of the box, that's good," he says. "I'm not going to say it's a dramatic advantage. It's an incremental not a dramatic improvement when you stay within the suite."
Ultimately, it may make no difference which vendor has the most complete set of UC&C features, he says, because customers haven't demonstrated demand for all of them. "How many people are not using instant messaging?" he says. "You walk into video conference rooms and the camera is idle. How many people save cell phone minutes by calling from Wi-Fi hotspots?"
Cheap cellphone to cellphone VoIP calls growing
VoIP solutions aimed at smartphone users means low-cost or free VoIP calls may start to threaten cellular providers
Over the last few years the cost of mobile communications has received a fair amount of attention, culminating in mobile call termination rate cuts this year – with further cuts planned for the next three years.
These interconnect rate cuts have resulted in some call rate reductions, but many industry experts have warned that lower interconnect rates will not necessarily translate into lower retail costs.
Competition is the greatest force to drive down prices and the entrance of 8ta into the local market has already resulted in lower call rates.
The biggest competitive forces may not come from the cellular providers themselves, but rather from new Voice-over-IP initiatives which are starting to penetrate the market.
Balancingact-Africa has recently reported that Internet Solutions is already offering its corporate customers a SIP client on their mobile phones that looks for the nearest Wi-Fi hot-spot to route traffic over the Wi-Fi network rather than the cellular network.
"So whether the individual is on the company premises with a hot-spot or near one while he or she is outside the company premises, then their phone will use the Wi-Fi hot-spot rather than the 3G mobile network. Since Internet Solutions controls 80% of the South African hot-spot business, it has made payment alliances with a wide range of the hot-spot providers it supplies,” Balancingact-Africa said.
“Now imagine individual consumers being able to have access to a similar SIP client service. Soon a larger and larger number of people would be able to make IP calls using Wi-Fi and the mobile operators would be left with 'the road.' OK, it won’t be as clear-cut as that but it could certainly provide a seismic shift in traffic. When you turn on your laptop in many African cities, there is a lengthy list of publicly available hot-spots,” said Balancingact-Africa.
Dave Meintjes, MD of Connection Telecom, explains that their PBX technology automatically checks whether a mobile phone with SIP capabilities is on a corporate network when a call to a cellphone is made.
If the call can be routed over the data network using VoIP technology – which is close to free of charge – it will be, completely bypassing the cellular providers’ network and hence generating no revenue for the cellular providers on either end.
With a growing number of mobile handsets shipping with SIP clients, and the ease with which a SIP client can be installed on smartphones, the use of VoIP technology is becoming easier to implement.
It is well known that smartphones with Wi-Fi and VoIP capabilities have been of some concern to the mobile providers which generate most of their revenue from cellular voice calls, but to date the use of VoIP over Wi-Fi in the cellphone arena has not been widespread.
It is however gaining momentum with companies like Connection Telecom and Internet Solutions pushing this technology, and VoIP via Wi-Fi may well become a strong competitive force in future which will mean lower prices to cellular users.
- My BroadBand
Over the last few years the cost of mobile communications has received a fair amount of attention, culminating in mobile call termination rate cuts this year – with further cuts planned for the next three years.
These interconnect rate cuts have resulted in some call rate reductions, but many industry experts have warned that lower interconnect rates will not necessarily translate into lower retail costs.
Competition is the greatest force to drive down prices and the entrance of 8ta into the local market has already resulted in lower call rates.
The biggest competitive forces may not come from the cellular providers themselves, but rather from new Voice-over-IP initiatives which are starting to penetrate the market.
Balancingact-Africa has recently reported that Internet Solutions is already offering its corporate customers a SIP client on their mobile phones that looks for the nearest Wi-Fi hot-spot to route traffic over the Wi-Fi network rather than the cellular network.
"So whether the individual is on the company premises with a hot-spot or near one while he or she is outside the company premises, then their phone will use the Wi-Fi hot-spot rather than the 3G mobile network. Since Internet Solutions controls 80% of the South African hot-spot business, it has made payment alliances with a wide range of the hot-spot providers it supplies,” Balancingact-Africa said.
“Now imagine individual consumers being able to have access to a similar SIP client service. Soon a larger and larger number of people would be able to make IP calls using Wi-Fi and the mobile operators would be left with 'the road.' OK, it won’t be as clear-cut as that but it could certainly provide a seismic shift in traffic. When you turn on your laptop in many African cities, there is a lengthy list of publicly available hot-spots,” said Balancingact-Africa.
Dave Meintjes, MD of Connection Telecom, explains that their PBX technology automatically checks whether a mobile phone with SIP capabilities is on a corporate network when a call to a cellphone is made.
If the call can be routed over the data network using VoIP technology – which is close to free of charge – it will be, completely bypassing the cellular providers’ network and hence generating no revenue for the cellular providers on either end.
With a growing number of mobile handsets shipping with SIP clients, and the ease with which a SIP client can be installed on smartphones, the use of VoIP technology is becoming easier to implement.
It is well known that smartphones with Wi-Fi and VoIP capabilities have been of some concern to the mobile providers which generate most of their revenue from cellular voice calls, but to date the use of VoIP over Wi-Fi in the cellphone arena has not been widespread.
It is however gaining momentum with companies like Connection Telecom and Internet Solutions pushing this technology, and VoIP via Wi-Fi may well become a strong competitive force in future which will mean lower prices to cellular users.
- My BroadBand
Post-recession, telecoms spend is bouyant
Emerging from the recession, industry sentiment is varied: half of businesses perceive the recession on the industry to still be detrimental, while 28% believe it is over. And, while a majority of companies will be spending a considerable portion (30% to 50%) of their budgets next year on telecoms, the overall sentiment towards spending on innovative technologies is not all positive.
These were some of the findings to emerge from a MTN Business survey that was undertaken to ascertain what corporate SA is thinking with regards to IT innovation and maintenance, as well as the apparent business-related benefits. The sample was drawn from key MTN Business clients across business sectors and targeted CEOs, CIOs and IT managers.
Angela Gahagan, executive of MTN Business, comments: “The projected spend for 2011 does show a recovery from the recession. This, coupled with the fact that almost 90% of respondents view telecom investments as essential to business validity, indicates that future investments will not be placed on the ‘backburner’ any further. Where this spend will be allocated, however, is a totally different story."
Despite almost 89% of respondents justifying their telecoms spend on the (the product’s) ability to differentiate their business offerings, only 39% of respondents had a positive sentiment (need to innovate) towards IT/Telecoms spend in 2011; 37% upheld a neutral stance (to maintain and refresh telecom infrastructure where necessary) and 24% stated they need to ‘hold back’ on any investments and continue to save. MTN Business believe this is a conundrum in itself, especially considering that innovative technologies allow the differentiation of business offerings and most respondents (94%) agreed with Gartner’s outlook on the significant link between IT innovation enabling effective CIO decision making (with 61% already seeing and reaping the benefits).
Gahagan adds: “We are certainly not surprised by this conundrum if one considers the impact of the global recession then it’s only natural for recovering businesses to exercise caution on any spend going into 2011. Although less than half of businesses will be actively driving innovation strategies, an equal percentage believe that a year or two of consolidation will not hinder their ability to ‘catch up’ on IT innovation, and both these outlooks are positive for industry recovery and growth.”
Although sentiments are mixed, most respondents agreed on solution focus areas as priorities for their budget spend in 2011. High on the list in terms of telecom spend included voice and data communications (approximately 30%) with networking (28%) and cloud-based services (27%) following respectively.
“These are actually high investment figures for a recovering global economy and MTN Business believe it’s the approach and attitude of itself and other service providers that will make or break the growth and development of telecoms locally in the short term,” adds Gahagan. “We must be ready to assist customers on both innovative and maintenance strategies, and urge our competitors to have a similar outlook, if we are to minimise the effects of the recession and maximise customer innovative priorities in the coming years.
“Gartner rightly indicated that as the recession gives way to growth, there is great opportunity to take advantage of a recovering economy. As a value-added service provider, MTN Business is dedicated to continually building innovative communication solutions and with a strong focus on cloud computing and VoIP, we will continue to make it a priority to understand every customers’ individual requirements and help them take advantage of this growth.”
- IT-Online
These were some of the findings to emerge from a MTN Business survey that was undertaken to ascertain what corporate SA is thinking with regards to IT innovation and maintenance, as well as the apparent business-related benefits. The sample was drawn from key MTN Business clients across business sectors and targeted CEOs, CIOs and IT managers.
Angela Gahagan, executive of MTN Business, comments: “The projected spend for 2011 does show a recovery from the recession. This, coupled with the fact that almost 90% of respondents view telecom investments as essential to business validity, indicates that future investments will not be placed on the ‘backburner’ any further. Where this spend will be allocated, however, is a totally different story."
Despite almost 89% of respondents justifying their telecoms spend on the (the product’s) ability to differentiate their business offerings, only 39% of respondents had a positive sentiment (need to innovate) towards IT/Telecoms spend in 2011; 37% upheld a neutral stance (to maintain and refresh telecom infrastructure where necessary) and 24% stated they need to ‘hold back’ on any investments and continue to save. MTN Business believe this is a conundrum in itself, especially considering that innovative technologies allow the differentiation of business offerings and most respondents (94%) agreed with Gartner’s outlook on the significant link between IT innovation enabling effective CIO decision making (with 61% already seeing and reaping the benefits).
Gahagan adds: “We are certainly not surprised by this conundrum if one considers the impact of the global recession then it’s only natural for recovering businesses to exercise caution on any spend going into 2011. Although less than half of businesses will be actively driving innovation strategies, an equal percentage believe that a year or two of consolidation will not hinder their ability to ‘catch up’ on IT innovation, and both these outlooks are positive for industry recovery and growth.”
Although sentiments are mixed, most respondents agreed on solution focus areas as priorities for their budget spend in 2011. High on the list in terms of telecom spend included voice and data communications (approximately 30%) with networking (28%) and cloud-based services (27%) following respectively.
“These are actually high investment figures for a recovering global economy and MTN Business believe it’s the approach and attitude of itself and other service providers that will make or break the growth and development of telecoms locally in the short term,” adds Gahagan. “We must be ready to assist customers on both innovative and maintenance strategies, and urge our competitors to have a similar outlook, if we are to minimise the effects of the recession and maximise customer innovative priorities in the coming years.
“Gartner rightly indicated that as the recession gives way to growth, there is great opportunity to take advantage of a recovering economy. As a value-added service provider, MTN Business is dedicated to continually building innovative communication solutions and with a strong focus on cloud computing and VoIP, we will continue to make it a priority to understand every customers’ individual requirements and help them take advantage of this growth.”
- IT-Online
Wide spectrum of benefits
Mobile broadband has the ability to contribute 1.8% growth to SA's gross domestic product, or R72 billion, by 2015, and about 28 000 direct jobs, plus related employment outside the industry. This is the view of GSM Association (GSMA) special government adviser Ross Bateson, who attended the AfricaCom conference, in Cape Town, this week.
The Department of Communications (DOC) and communications regulator ICASA must harmonise spectrum allocation in order to create economies of scale and allow for mobile broadband to make a meaningful contribution to economic growth, said Bateson. In particular, Bateson wants to see the release of the 2.6GHz spectrum, currently held by national signal distributor Sentech, but not used by the state-owned entity.
“By giving the full allocation of that spectrum to Sentech for its rollout (which never happened) there is now a situation where this frequency, which has 190MHz of spectrum in it, can now be used for supplying mobile broadband services,” Bateson said. The Sentech allocation was done in a piecemeal manner, he noted, and there is an urgent need to harmonise the allocation by making it a proper standard that will allow for direct economies of scale.
These economies mean cheaper handsets, bringing the country in line with international best practice, and allowing for the full deployment of the next GSM generation, known as LTE, or Long Term Evolution.
Bateson said the GSMA, which is made up of network operators from around the world, has been discussing the issue with the South African government for three years. “Initially, there was some resistance to the idea, because the plan was for Sentech to roll out its services. But that has since failed, and now the government and politicians appear to be warming to the idea of allocating the 2.6GHz frequency,” he said.
In July, ICASA issued an invitation to apply (ITA) for some of this frequency, but that was withdrawn as the full process was not clearly thought through. Bateson said the GSMA hopes the ITA will be re-issued soon.
“The business case for allocating this frequency to business is sound; all that is needed now is the political will.”
- ITWeb
The Department of Communications (DOC) and communications regulator ICASA must harmonise spectrum allocation in order to create economies of scale and allow for mobile broadband to make a meaningful contribution to economic growth, said Bateson. In particular, Bateson wants to see the release of the 2.6GHz spectrum, currently held by national signal distributor Sentech, but not used by the state-owned entity.
“By giving the full allocation of that spectrum to Sentech for its rollout (which never happened) there is now a situation where this frequency, which has 190MHz of spectrum in it, can now be used for supplying mobile broadband services,” Bateson said. The Sentech allocation was done in a piecemeal manner, he noted, and there is an urgent need to harmonise the allocation by making it a proper standard that will allow for direct economies of scale.
These economies mean cheaper handsets, bringing the country in line with international best practice, and allowing for the full deployment of the next GSM generation, known as LTE, or Long Term Evolution.
Bateson said the GSMA, which is made up of network operators from around the world, has been discussing the issue with the South African government for three years. “Initially, there was some resistance to the idea, because the plan was for Sentech to roll out its services. But that has since failed, and now the government and politicians appear to be warming to the idea of allocating the 2.6GHz frequency,” he said.
In July, ICASA issued an invitation to apply (ITA) for some of this frequency, but that was withdrawn as the full process was not clearly thought through. Bateson said the GSMA hopes the ITA will be re-issued soon.
“The business case for allocating this frequency to business is sound; all that is needed now is the political will.”
- ITWeb
The Maturity of 3G Will Bring Mobile VoIP Market Into The Fast Lane
According to media reports, from technology firm Juniper Research’s latest research report showed that with increasing maturity of 3G networks in North America and Europe, the mobile VoIP industry has developed very quickly.
Anthony Cox, senior analyst at Juniper Research says all links of mobile VoIP industry will have a significant improvement by 2012. The market capitalization of Mobile VoIP will more than 3G networks and WiFi networks.
According to the International market research firm ABI Research’s survey data show that the first quarter of 2010, worldwide mobile phone shipments up to 303 million, an increase of more than 19% over the same period last year. 3G mobile phone has sold more than the 2G. In addition, the company also predicted that some of the traditional operators and mobile VoIP service providers will be more in-depth cooperation.
Juniper said, operators “hug” mobile VoIP technology is much better than exclusion. VoIP may lead more new opportunities to mobile operators . The report also shows that the increase of ambulant corporate staff is one of the main driving force of the rapid development of mobile VoIP market. In addition, family market is also a large potential market of mobile VoIP market.
Leading market research firm predicts that by 2013 global mobile VoIP users will be more than 278 million, and 10 years later will be more than half of mobile voice communications network based on end to end mobile phones.
Mobile VoIP Internet telephony can be seen as an inevitable trend of development, but also as a mainstream way in the future 3G wireless mobile communications network environment.
With the mobile operators changing attitude to VoIP, the mobile VoIP market is striding forward development. The emergence of 3G opened the door of mobile Internet, while the mobile Internet let more enterprises have started to pay more attention VoIP.
Recently there is news that a world-renowned domestic telecom equipment manufacturers and operators will be to begin research and development and plans to introduce a built-in VoIP feature 3G data card. This also means that operators fully accepted VoIP.
Anthony Cox, senior analyst at Juniper Research says all links of mobile VoIP industry will have a significant improvement by 2012. The market capitalization of Mobile VoIP will more than 3G networks and WiFi networks.
According to the International market research firm ABI Research’s survey data show that the first quarter of 2010, worldwide mobile phone shipments up to 303 million, an increase of more than 19% over the same period last year. 3G mobile phone has sold more than the 2G. In addition, the company also predicted that some of the traditional operators and mobile VoIP service providers will be more in-depth cooperation.
Juniper said, operators “hug” mobile VoIP technology is much better than exclusion. VoIP may lead more new opportunities to mobile operators . The report also shows that the increase of ambulant corporate staff is one of the main driving force of the rapid development of mobile VoIP market. In addition, family market is also a large potential market of mobile VoIP market.
Leading market research firm predicts that by 2013 global mobile VoIP users will be more than 278 million, and 10 years later will be more than half of mobile voice communications network based on end to end mobile phones.
Mobile VoIP Internet telephony can be seen as an inevitable trend of development, but also as a mainstream way in the future 3G wireless mobile communications network environment.
With the mobile operators changing attitude to VoIP, the mobile VoIP market is striding forward development. The emergence of 3G opened the door of mobile Internet, while the mobile Internet let more enterprises have started to pay more attention VoIP.
Recently there is news that a world-renowned domestic telecom equipment manufacturers and operators will be to begin research and development and plans to introduce a built-in VoIP feature 3G data card. This also means that operators fully accepted VoIP.
Padayachie’s priorities: full transcript of speech
This is the full and unedited transcript of the speech given by newly appointed communications minister Roy Padayachie at his first media briefing as minister in which he set out his priorities for the department and the ministry.
IntroductionMembers of the Media present and Executives from State owned enterprises, friends and colleagues, let me first express a warm welcome to all for having accepted to be present for this Media Conference.
The Minister, Radhakrishna Padayachie (Roy) and Deputy Minister, Obed Bapela have been in office for approximately 11 days. In the course of this period, we have been approached by many journalists who have requested interviews and who have many questions and concerns that they wish to have engaged us on. We must apologise for having turned down these requests in favour of us convening this media briefing which affords us the opportunity face to face to share with you our thoughts on how we wish to implement our work in the DoC. In the first few days we have had to first discuss and receive a handover report from Minister Nyanda and Deputy Minister Pule, the Acting DG, Dr Wesso and the senior leadership of the DoC before we could engage with the media.
Our only regret is that we have not as yet organized an opportunity to meet with the Top Management and the general staff of the DoC, we apologise to the staff and must assure team Doc that this will be done in the coming week.
To the colleagues in the media, I assure you that the Minister and Deputy Minister believe in the principles of freedom of the media. We assure the media that we will always respect the right of the media to engage openly and transparently. It is our view that the media is a critical force in the development of society and has a positive and leading role to play in educating the general public about the importance of ICTs in the advancement of society’s goals and the creation of a better life for our people.
We believe the Ministry / Department of Communications cannot function as an entity in isolation from the people it is there to serve. It is for that reason that we have sought to host this media conference on site here at the DoC. We have invited you here at the DoC to demonstrate to you that the DoC is open for business. We want to do things differently- working faster, harder and smarter. It is our desire that the DoC will understand and implement a culture of public service that is selfless and capable of sacrifice, knowing where people live, what they want and be ever ready to commit to delivery of the best service our people want.
Public servants, in the public service are absolutely important in our plans to deliver a more efficient DoC. Without caring and committed public servants the DoC will not be able to fulfill this mission.
In the past week, I have been enormously encouraged by the overwhelming response we have had by the staff of the DoC to our appointment. There is both a sense of joy and the emergence of a great spirit of unity amongst the staff, from the general staff to the specialist technology experts in the department. We appreciate this and both Minister and Deputy Minister wish to acknowledge the warmth that team DoC have demonstrated and have responded to the call to bring a wave of positive change. The spirit demonstrated by this conduct reminds us how true the slogan is when we say “working together we can do more”.
We are equally encouraged by the enormously positive response that we have received from the general community, the leadership and companies in the ICT sector. Likewise, the colleagues in Parliament, both from the ruling party and members from the opposition have also been very supportive and encouraging.
We take this opportunity to express our appreciation for the contributions made both by General (Ret) Siphiwe Nyanda and Deputy Minister Dina Pule.
Having consulted with the senior leadership in the DoC, under the leadership of the Acting DG, Dr Wesso, we have now consolidated our approach to the kind of interventions that we would like to make in the work of the Ministry in our programme going forward.
The perspective by which we are guided is determined by implementing activities that we will be initiating within 30 days, 3 months and 12 months period. We have identified six critical pillars to our program that will establish a new platform, creating the necessary wave of change that will lead us to actualizing the vision that the DoC has set for itself, that is to be a Global Leader in the Development and use of ICTs for socio economic development and the betterment of People’s lives, the foundations of which can only be achieved through building a people-centered inclusive information society in a sustainable world class ICT environment.
In this context, Cabinet has called upon us to initiate programmes and activities that support the building of a new economic growth path for the country. We seek to guarantee that ICTs will make its substantive contribution as an enabler for economic growth and the creation of new jobs and skills amongst our people as we strengthen the foundation for a knowledge based economy.
1. The first thrust of our intervention is the reconstruction and development of the Department of Communications (DoC)
With regard to Sentech, the Chairperson of the Board resigned at the end of October. I have accepted this resignation with immediate effect. I have therefore appointed an Acting Chairperson of the Board in the person of Ms Leah Khumalo who is a practicing attorney and member of the current Board. We will be working closely with the Board of Sentech to ensure that senior management positions are filled within the next three months. I take this opportunity to express my appreciation to Mr Quraysh Patel, the outgoing Chairperson, for the service that he has provided to the organization. He has assured me that he will continue to avail himself and give support to the work of Sentech. I also take the opportunity to welcome the new CEO of SENTECH, Dr Setumo Mohapi who joined the organization as of 1 November 2010.
ICASA
For the effective functioning of the ICT sector, the Regulator, ICASA, must be strengthened and, at all times, function with confidence and independence. Efforts to strengthen its capacity will include measures to enhance its technical and financial competency. In this regard, we will actively support and promote its collaboration with the international institutions, such as the International Telecommunications Union During the first half of 2011, an ICASA Amendment Bill will be finalized and submitted to Cabinet for approval for introduction to Parliament.
In addition, the Department has begun with the process of developing a performance management system for ICASA as required by the law. We will therefore, during this month finalize our engagements with ICASA on this matter. We hope that the system will be implemented from the 1st April 2011.
USAASA
Universal service and access to ICTs remains our priority. In this regard, the role and capacity of the Universal Service and Access Agency of South Africa (USAASA) will be strengthened to ensure that it deals with the universal service and access issues for the entire ICT sector including postal matters. We are, as part of amending the Electronic Communication Act, strengthening the role, powers and functions of USAASA.
We will accelerate efforts to align the programmes of our state-owned entities with that of government, so as to ensure that SOEs remain the strategic implementing agencies of government.
a. The third thrust will involve forging partnerships with the private sector, academia, civil society organizations and labour. These sectors provide enormous potential for the mobilization of intellectual capital and investment partnerships. We will extend an open invitation to enter into a development partnership with the different sectors to reconstruct and develop the ICT sector.
In the coming weeks we will initiate a series of round table discussions with the different sectors. The first of these initiatives have already been done with the broadcasting industry. The next would involve a round table with the CEOs and Chairpersons of the top 30 ICT companies in the country. Our focus is to ascertain the receptivity to the invitation, to discuss an agenda for such an engagement and to construct an appropriate platform for continuous dialogue.
4. Within the next 12 months, the Department will focus on the following strategic priorities
4.1 Building an integrated National Broadband Plan
5.1 e-Skills Institute
We have an amazing opportunity before us. Working together and by joining hands we could become the change we want to see.
- TechCentral
IntroductionMembers of the Media present and Executives from State owned enterprises, friends and colleagues, let me first express a warm welcome to all for having accepted to be present for this Media Conference.
The Minister, Radhakrishna Padayachie (Roy) and Deputy Minister, Obed Bapela have been in office for approximately 11 days. In the course of this period, we have been approached by many journalists who have requested interviews and who have many questions and concerns that they wish to have engaged us on. We must apologise for having turned down these requests in favour of us convening this media briefing which affords us the opportunity face to face to share with you our thoughts on how we wish to implement our work in the DoC. In the first few days we have had to first discuss and receive a handover report from Minister Nyanda and Deputy Minister Pule, the Acting DG, Dr Wesso and the senior leadership of the DoC before we could engage with the media.
Our only regret is that we have not as yet organized an opportunity to meet with the Top Management and the general staff of the DoC, we apologise to the staff and must assure team Doc that this will be done in the coming week.
To the colleagues in the media, I assure you that the Minister and Deputy Minister believe in the principles of freedom of the media. We assure the media that we will always respect the right of the media to engage openly and transparently. It is our view that the media is a critical force in the development of society and has a positive and leading role to play in educating the general public about the importance of ICTs in the advancement of society’s goals and the creation of a better life for our people.
We believe the Ministry / Department of Communications cannot function as an entity in isolation from the people it is there to serve. It is for that reason that we have sought to host this media conference on site here at the DoC. We have invited you here at the DoC to demonstrate to you that the DoC is open for business. We want to do things differently- working faster, harder and smarter. It is our desire that the DoC will understand and implement a culture of public service that is selfless and capable of sacrifice, knowing where people live, what they want and be ever ready to commit to delivery of the best service our people want.
Public servants, in the public service are absolutely important in our plans to deliver a more efficient DoC. Without caring and committed public servants the DoC will not be able to fulfill this mission.
In the past week, I have been enormously encouraged by the overwhelming response we have had by the staff of the DoC to our appointment. There is both a sense of joy and the emergence of a great spirit of unity amongst the staff, from the general staff to the specialist technology experts in the department. We appreciate this and both Minister and Deputy Minister wish to acknowledge the warmth that team DoC have demonstrated and have responded to the call to bring a wave of positive change. The spirit demonstrated by this conduct reminds us how true the slogan is when we say “working together we can do more”.
We are equally encouraged by the enormously positive response that we have received from the general community, the leadership and companies in the ICT sector. Likewise, the colleagues in Parliament, both from the ruling party and members from the opposition have also been very supportive and encouraging.
We take this opportunity to express our appreciation for the contributions made both by General (Ret) Siphiwe Nyanda and Deputy Minister Dina Pule.
Having consulted with the senior leadership in the DoC, under the leadership of the Acting DG, Dr Wesso, we have now consolidated our approach to the kind of interventions that we would like to make in the work of the Ministry in our programme going forward.
The perspective by which we are guided is determined by implementing activities that we will be initiating within 30 days, 3 months and 12 months period. We have identified six critical pillars to our program that will establish a new platform, creating the necessary wave of change that will lead us to actualizing the vision that the DoC has set for itself, that is to be a Global Leader in the Development and use of ICTs for socio economic development and the betterment of People’s lives, the foundations of which can only be achieved through building a people-centered inclusive information society in a sustainable world class ICT environment.
In this context, Cabinet has called upon us to initiate programmes and activities that support the building of a new economic growth path for the country. We seek to guarantee that ICTs will make its substantive contribution as an enabler for economic growth and the creation of new jobs and skills amongst our people as we strengthen the foundation for a knowledge based economy.
1. The first thrust of our intervention is the reconstruction and development of the Department of Communications (DoC)
- Improve our performance through more efficient and effective leadership, internal communication, planning and budgeting, risk management, staff performance management, information management and process redesign.
- Appoint the Director-General and senior management in the next three months so as to stabilize the leadership of the Department.
- Initiate a change management programme, which also deals with transformation matters. A Transformation Committee has already been established.
- Finalise the institutional review process and fill all vacancies within six months.
- Align departmental programmes to MTSF goals and the twelve Cabinet Outcomes
- Our first priority would be to stabilize the leadership within the South African Broadcasting Corporation and to address its programme of work that will resolve its financial liquidity problems and guarantee that the Corporation will deliver programme content in tune with the needs of the people. What we need is a public broadcaster that functions competently. We will therefore work closely with Parliament, the Chairperson of the Board, the Board Members, its Executive Leadership, the Executive Management and general staff of the Corporation with a view to finding solutions to the problems besieging the Corporation. This would include, amongst others, the finalization of the turnaround strategy and the creation of stability within the Board and the Corporation.
- Furthermore, we will, in dealing with the challenges facing the Public Broadcaster, accelerate the finalization of the Public Service Broadcasting Bill. The main purpose of this Bill is to repeal the Broadcasting Act of 1999, so as to align the broadcasting system to the developmental goals of the Republic. This Bill will also deal with corporate governance matters in general. We envisage that this Bill will be submitted to Cabinet during the first quarter of 2011. Due to huge public interests in the contents of the Bill, the Department will, from the 15-17 November 2010, conduct other public hearings to solicit further input on this critical issue.
With regard to Sentech, the Chairperson of the Board resigned at the end of October. I have accepted this resignation with immediate effect. I have therefore appointed an Acting Chairperson of the Board in the person of Ms Leah Khumalo who is a practicing attorney and member of the current Board. We will be working closely with the Board of Sentech to ensure that senior management positions are filled within the next three months. I take this opportunity to express my appreciation to Mr Quraysh Patel, the outgoing Chairperson, for the service that he has provided to the organization. He has assured me that he will continue to avail himself and give support to the work of Sentech. I also take the opportunity to welcome the new CEO of SENTECH, Dr Setumo Mohapi who joined the organization as of 1 November 2010.
ICASA
For the effective functioning of the ICT sector, the Regulator, ICASA, must be strengthened and, at all times, function with confidence and independence. Efforts to strengthen its capacity will include measures to enhance its technical and financial competency. In this regard, we will actively support and promote its collaboration with the international institutions, such as the International Telecommunications Union During the first half of 2011, an ICASA Amendment Bill will be finalized and submitted to Cabinet for approval for introduction to Parliament.
In addition, the Department has begun with the process of developing a performance management system for ICASA as required by the law. We will therefore, during this month finalize our engagements with ICASA on this matter. We hope that the system will be implemented from the 1st April 2011.
USAASA
Universal service and access to ICTs remains our priority. In this regard, the role and capacity of the Universal Service and Access Agency of South Africa (USAASA) will be strengthened to ensure that it deals with the universal service and access issues for the entire ICT sector including postal matters. We are, as part of amending the Electronic Communication Act, strengthening the role, powers and functions of USAASA.
We will accelerate efforts to align the programmes of our state-owned entities with that of government, so as to ensure that SOEs remain the strategic implementing agencies of government.
a. The third thrust will involve forging partnerships with the private sector, academia, civil society organizations and labour. These sectors provide enormous potential for the mobilization of intellectual capital and investment partnerships. We will extend an open invitation to enter into a development partnership with the different sectors to reconstruct and develop the ICT sector.
In the coming weeks we will initiate a series of round table discussions with the different sectors. The first of these initiatives have already been done with the broadcasting industry. The next would involve a round table with the CEOs and Chairpersons of the top 30 ICT companies in the country. Our focus is to ascertain the receptivity to the invitation, to discuss an agenda for such an engagement and to construct an appropriate platform for continuous dialogue.
4. Within the next 12 months, the Department will focus on the following strategic priorities
4.1 Building an integrated National Broadband Plan
- Building an efficient, competitive and responsive ICT infrastructure network is critical to propel South Africa into a knowledge-based economy. This would require that government continue to implement a programme to ensure the liberalization of the ICT sector in order to promote competition, In this regard, we continue to implement interventions aimed at promoting appropriate cost structures in the ICT sector. We also note the significant progress made in addressing the mobile termination rates. The Unbundling of the local loop remains a critical and important intervention. In this regard we will work closely with ICASA to ensure that the local loop is unbundled by November 2011.
- The digital technologies such as broadband are increasingly becoming an instrument to achieve the national development goals. They offer opportunities to create a variety of new applications. Broadband, and its faster “always-on” connections, is serving to accelerate the process of integration of Internet technologies into everyday life.
- The creation of new applications not only needs large pipes and suitable technological infrastructure, but also an appropriate strategy for service evolution, and an adequate environment for the creation of new content. With digital technologies, the variety and quality of specialized applications — for instance online entertainment or educational material — are set to increase dramatically. The future should be about innovation with a view to take advantage of the new technologies.
- The creation of new applications defines and challenges how content should be regulated. Hence the policy gears itself to ensure that there is an appropriate regulatory environment to regulate digital content. The development of new applications should be promoted. Such efforts will ensure that the development of a competitive ICT industry in general is not compromised.
- Improving and increasing access to government services offered online remains a strategic objective of Government. To realize this objective, there is a need to develop and promote open, simple and secure online e-applications and content bringing new experiences to the citizenry in general.
- Develop South Africa’s ICT infrastructure, skills and regulatory regime so that all South Africans are able to take full advantage of economic, educational and social opportunities offered by the emerging Information Society and Knowled Based Economy.
- Develop programmes and projects to promote the uptake and usage of ICTs on a national scale and contribute to bridging the digital divide.
- Operationalise the e-Skills Institute to lead and be the catalyst to e-skilling the nation for equitable prosperity and global competitiveness that is so vital to our future growth.
- The Information Society and Development Multi-stakeholder Forum which was established this year as a platform of engagement for reviewing the implementation of the WSIS Outcomes as well as the ISAD Plan implementation by government, business and the civil society. The Forum is a Partnership for Development Initiative which discusses key developmental initiatives and programmes for building a people-centred, inclusive information society and knowledge based economy. Several partnerships with the private sector, academia, and civil society have been initiated.
- Establish an internationally appointed Advisory Panel for ICT development in South Africa. This could be a conduit to receive best global experience in our policy practice and implementation for the ICT Sector. Our focus will be on identifying the niche areas in the ICT value chain for South African companies and to facilitate the emergence of global brands for the South African ICT Sector.
- Ensure that regulations in the telecommunications sector are in the interests of South African consumers, businesses and more broadly in the economy
- We therefore recognize the need to develop an appropriate policy and regulatory environment in order to enhance the role of ICTs in advancing the achievement of the national developmental goals. In this regard, a national colloquium on the development of the National ICT Policy Framework will be convened during the first quarter of 2011. The Policy Framework will chart a long-term vision for the ICT sector and its contribution to the economy. The colloquium will be a high level dialogue initiative for key stakeholders to identify and harmonize the institutional and sectoral issues with respect to the development and application of ICTs in South Africa, as well as the key policy issues that need to be addressed.
- We will also continue with efforts to clean the Electronic Communications Act so as to clarify and strengthen the role, powers and functions of the Minister and of ICASA. In this regard, we will, in the next few days, publish the Electronic Communications Amendment Bill for public comments.
- Work with ICASA and industry to maximize the efficient management and utilization of national radio frequency spectrum assets to maximize the benefits to South African consumers and industry.
- The deployment of ICT infrastructure is dependent on how effective and efficient the country is in regard to the management of the radio frequency spectrum – a natural scarce resource. As technology evolves, the country should adopt technologies that are efficient in the usage of the spectrum. In this connection, measures to ensure efficient use of radio-frequency spectrum to meet the developmental objectives shall be accelerated.
- Publication of draft policy directions for public comment on spectrum for broadband applications, radio spectrum usage and spectrum pricing are being considered.
- Create awareness and provide education about cyber-safety and e-security issues in the community.
- Undertake research and consultation to inform policy and deliver programs that better protect South African internet users.
- In an increasingly knowledge-driven and networked world we are prone to external interceptions that are in breach of lawful online conduct, all of which could lead to an erosion of trust and confidence, it is important that measures are undertaken towards creating an awareness of what is desirable and building capacities for the same and by the establishment of an enforcement and compliance regime. An environment of trust and confidence in ICT, particularly the Internet, is an essential pre-requisite for ICT uptake levels to rise.
- A National Cybersecurity Policy has been formulated which is a synthesis of reactive and proactive measures towards building information secure society.
- Whist this policy acknowledges the initiatives taken to develop and implement e-commerce, in going forward, such a policy must be strengthened with a well-established information security system so as to create confidence in the use of the system.
- Digital migration remains a key project of the Department. With regard to the implementation of the digital migration policy in South Africa, our programme will focus on finalizing the set-top box manufacturing strategy, the scheme for ownership support for poor TV owning households and the local and digital content development strategy. We envisage that this will be submitted to Cabinet for approval during the first quarter of 2011.
- Within a month from now we will also pronounce on the country’s position in relation to the digital terrestrial television standard. The finalization of this matter will assist in accelerating the implementation of broadcasting digital migration in South Africa.
- Take the necessary measures to reduce the effects of climate change by developing and using more energy-efficient ICT devices, applications and networks and through the application of ICTs in other fields
- Promote recycling and the re-use of ICT equipment.
5.1 e-Skills Institute
- Technology aware human capital is regarded as the driving force behind technology innovations anywhere in the world. The ICT industry is knowledge intensive and driven essentially by the need for low and high-end skills.
- Therefore the development of an ICT skilled labour force in terms of quantity and quality is crucial. If the country is to increase both the quantity and quality of an ICT skilled labour force, we need to initiate, review and strengthen the current interventions for immediate results through making available outputs that are compatible with industry requirements.
- A process is under way to have the e-SI established as a legal entity and as an accredited educational institution of higher learning.
- High Profile National Seminar/Lecture Series at Regional Knowledge Production Hubs and the e-SI nationally will commence during the 2011 academic year.
- The following three to five months will see the implementation of three e-SI Regional Knowledge Production Hubs; the ICT knowledge and infrastructure design to support virtual offerings; Curriculum development; ie. e-skills for digital inclusion; e-skills for rural development; e-skills for e-democracy; e-skills for business; e-skills for teaching and learning.
- The deployment of ICT infrastructure should bring with it significant benefits to the consumers in terms of enabling the provision of services by multiple operators possible. Less duplication of ICT infrastructure will ensure increased competition in the provision of affordable services to the majority of the population, thus encouraging competition in the sector.
- Due to the fact that ICT infrastructure is biased towards urban and affluent areas in South Africa, there is a need to continue with universal access and service programme. Currently more electronic communications network service licensees have been licensed. It is for this reason that the approach to universal access and service should be reviewed to reflect the current realities.
- The Department of Communications recognizes that the big challenges facing Government, particularly as it relates to the ICT sector’s role in rural areas, are the accessibility of appropriate ICT infrastructure to the majority of people as well as the affordability of ICT services including broadband and internet connection.
- The Department will finalize the ICT Rural Development Strategy by March next year. The implementation of the strategies will see the further roll-out of an additional 90 Digital Hubs throughout the country in under-served areas, support the establishment of 23 new e-Cooperatives with a focus on unemployed youth graduates recruited from rural areas and the finalisation of an e-Commerce portal for Small scale farmers to ensure online trading of agricultural products during the financial year 2011/2012. In addition, 19 low power transmitters will be built to afford about 5 million inhabitants access to television services. Rural technologies such as wireless technology infrastructure is considered as a means of bridging the rural-urban divide in South Africa.
- The Department will continue with the programme to corporatise the Postbank. In this regard, we will, within a month, develop a road map towards the implementation of the Postbank Bill. We envisage that the Bill will be signed into law. We will fulfill the mandate of Government in bringing services to the people.
- The e-Health Connectivity Plan supports the establishment of national health network infrastructure (VPN) in order for the improvement of health care services as well as to improve the health status of South Africans. The Plan is currently being discussed with stakeholders in the health sector and human development cluster of government. In support of the integrated infrastructure planning, this initiative is aligned with other connectivity initiatives especially in relation to education. The Plan will be finalized for submission to Cabinet by March 2011.
- The development of local content has the potential to contribute to a new industry focus. In this regard we will accelerate the finalization of the Local and Digital Content Strategy for South Africa.
- South Africa has been blessed to be awarded a seat on the ITU Council. We look forward to ensuring that South Africa remains committed to the world and will build a strong partnerships for policy development with UNDP, UPU, UNESCO, WHO and OECD.
We have an amazing opportunity before us. Working together and by joining hands we could become the change we want to see.
- TechCentral
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)