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So the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) has decided to investigate the Telenor-Ucom deal to see if Telenor owning more shares will affect consumers. Hopefully they've already paid a visit to Norway, otherwise
Bangkok Post Wednesday, November 02, 2005
So the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) has decided to investigate the Telenor-Ucom deal to see if Telenor owning more shares will affect consumers. Hopefully they've already paid a visit to Norway, otherwise taxpayers might have to fund yet another "study trip" by the Magnificent Seven.
Surely the new regulator has more pressing things to do than worry about Telenor buying more shares in Ucom and DTAC? After all, they've always been involved in the companies and things haven't been too disasterous for us consumers. Makes you think what the role of the new regulator should be. From the sidelines, it looks like the only thing the NTC has done to date is create a great deal of uncertainty in the market, outside of granting a couple of government agencies telecom licences and renewing some ISP deals. Not bad for 12 months' work.
Then again you could argue that any regulator is only there to stifle rather than encourage the communications sector. That might seem harsh, but really I think it's pretty obvious that most regulators around the world are more into controlling communications (otherwise they wouldn't be called "regulators") rather than opening up the market. And first-world countries like the US are doing it just as much as developing countries like Thailand.
So I'd like to propose that we don't need regulators as much as we need de-regulators!
Thankfully, the Internet is a natural deregulator. It's like a balloon in the hands of authorities - squeeze one end and the pressure moves to the other side, squeeze the middle and the pressure goes to the edges, just like traffic and services to the edge of the network. So when an entity like China Telecom puts the squeeze on the likes of Skype, you just know that all they're doing is moving hot air around - the pressure from VoIP and the dozens of Skype look-alikes will continue to be felt.
In fact when it comes to Internet telephony, the balloon has already burst, even if that also kills my somewhat lame metaphor at the same time. Try stopping Skype/eBay, Google, AOL, Microsoft and the gang - companies that are no longer startups but establishment players that most likely have the same or more lobbying clout as the incumbents. And let's face it, lobbying clout and the ability to sweet-talk regulators is one of the incumbents' few strong suits these days.
One of the big initiatives that I guess allows the regulators to think they're earning their money is stuff like E911 in the US, mandating that VoIP providers must provide access to emergency services. Yet events such as the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina highlight the fact that in a real emergency, the most regulated telecommunication services on the planet - fixed and mobile phones from the established players - simply fail. Somehow the largely unregulated Internet manages to route its way around problems and keeps providing services.
And what do they turn to when they want to quickly restore services? Unregulated and unlicensed technologies like WiMax and others that many of the world's regulators are madly trying to keep out of the market through prohibitive licensing fees and obligations.
As it happens, the regulators are doing a fairly average job of keeping communications services out. The ones that are doing a better job, the defacto regulators in many cases, are the established telecom carriers, which don't have to go to the trouble of actually drafting regulations and other mundane tasks, they simply block ports that they know will cut-off VoIP, peer-to-peer and other threatening services. Or else they engage in anti-competitive behaviour, such as refusing to route traffic or not allowing others on to their networks.
And of course this sort of behaviour is all the more effective because at the same time many regulators are busy blocking competitive wireless carriers and the like. With no alternatives, consumers are forced to stay with a carrier even when that carrier blocks access to their favourite services. And to think many regulators around the world create their regulatory frameworks with nonsense goals like bridging the digital divide.
What would be really interesting to see is where governments simply allow all-comers to set up any type of network they wish and start offering service. By all means, let the incumbents block their ports and keep others off their networks to their heart's content. The users will go to the provider that offers the best price and allows them to do what they want to do on their network, whether that's to use VoIP, P2P or any other services.
Worried that there will be no-one to invest in new infrastructure? Don't! The new guys - Google is a good example with its Wi-Fi plans - already know that they have to provide good services. Besides, if things deteriorate carriers might have their goal of being able to offer classes of services that users are finally willing to pay for.
No, like the Thai regulators, there are too many overpaid people that are basically holding back communications. Bring on the de-regulators.
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