We support regulators with a wide range of services and portal solutions. All projects are carried out in close co-operation with regulatory staff to maximise knowledge transfer and sustainability. Part of our project execution includes building systems for our clients that empower them to develop the solutions further as the industry evolves. Services we provide include:

• Designing tariff and type approval processes;
• Performing competition assessments, defining markets and determining dominance;
• Resolving wholesale and retail price disputes;
• Developing regulations to maintain fair competition;
• Conducting ICT sector performance reviews;
• Designing universal access and service programs;
• Conducting Infrastructure audits and gap analysis;
• Establishing monitoring and evaluation regimes;
• Designing policies for evolving information societies;
• Assessing ICT taxes’ impact on GDP growth employment and net tax revenues.

RIS offers practical, hands-on regulatory training that gets tangible results. We train with real data, working on real regulatory challenges and outputs are written by your staff, guaranteeing knowledge transfer. Our training can take place on-site or at our offices in Cape Town or Vancouver.

RIS has designed and managed nationally presentative ICT household and informal business surveys for 20 African countries simultaneously. Our innovative ICT questionnaires are used in Asia and Latin America.

For policymakers and multi-national companies, RIS has designed a tax portal that assesses the impact of ICT taxes on the economy. The portal quantifies the impact of new ICT taxes on GDP growth, tax revenue, employment, mobile operator revenues and mobile broadband and mobile money subscriptions.

For MNOs and multi-national companies, RIS operates the largest mobile pricing portal in the world. We can analyse price trends, design pricing models and build customised pricing indices. The portal includes:

• Price benchmarking: tracking quarterly mobile prices for 135 countries along with customised price indices;
• Price analysis for voice, SMS and data, for bundles and top-ups;
• Assessing the impact of OTTs on operator revenues;
• Evaluating new business models.
• Because we capture all products, including bundles, the price portal is ideally suited towards firms that want new products that are designed to mimic the benefits of OTTs.

RIS has developed an online benchmarking tool for assessing the ICT ecosystem in terms of affordability, access, usage, infrastructure, and competition, in relation to similar countries and regions. The use of a dynamic diagnostic approach, such as the RIS tool, is a far more valid evidence-base for policy and regulatory interventions and practice than existing ICT indices, such as the ITU’s ICT Development Index (IDI) or the Economist’s Inclusive Internet Index.

For policymakers and regulators, RIS has developed Broadband Value Chain analysis to determine cost drivers and competitive bottle necks.

For regulators, we have developed regulatory and UAS portals that have a single point of entry for all sector-specific data:

• Fibre and mobile coverage maps from telcos;
• Population statistics and other administrative data from national statistical organisations and the central bank;
• Operator financials and KPIs.

Licensees input their data using a secure online portal. The data is corroborated using audited financial statements and data from national statistical offices and the central bank. Our portals support a wide range of other regulatory tasks. The following modules are available:

• Online data submission for licensees;
• UAS: Identify gaps, plan broadband rollout and estimate the cost of extending broadband coverage;
• ITU: Generate ITU indicators on demand;
• ICT Sector Performance;
• Market share and competition assessment;
• ICT tax impact: Estimate the impact of ICT taxes on GDP growth, jobs and net taxation;
• M&E: tracking progress toward ICT policy objectives;
• Document management and retrieval.

Our portals have transformed how regulators collect and analyse data, allowing them to provide up-to-date and accurate data in real-time to all stakeholders. Our portals are 100% customised to reflect the requirements of our clients and country-specific legal requirements. They are built together with regulatory staff, in order to train them to maintain and extend the portals independently.