OTT Regulation

The Tanzanian government has proposed a SIM card levy, charged to airtime recharges. Unfortunately, it’s not clear exactly what the proposed levy is, nor how it would work. In this short presentation, RIS analyses two proposals from government in terms of its impact on the ICT sector, consumers and the wider economy. We find that focusing on increasing broadband penetration by 10% would yield USD 178.5 million, more than the tax revenues from either formulation of the SIM card tax. Either proposed SIM card tax will take money out of the sector, potentially threatening the viability of smaller operators and potentially lead to […]

Recommendations to Regulators, Policymakers and Tax Authorities In June 2018, the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO) published its first Over The Top (OTT) Report on the perspectives of several ICT stakeholder groups on OTT services. The results were illustrative of several myths by Governments, tax authorities, policymakers and regulators about OTTs.  The figure below contrasts some key myths against evidence-based facts. This report, co-authored by RIS, debunks these myths using case studies from several countries and an analysis of OTTs within the context of the Internet Value Chain. Download the full report (PDF) here.

In Nigeria, several publications have made the claim that operators have seen a decline in revenue due to OTTs (see here and here and here). The most common claim is that mobile operators lost over US$ 1 billion in revenue because of WhatsApp, WeChat, Viber, Skype and other OTTs. Following the evidence, the data shows that the opposite is true: the GDP contribution of the telecom sector has increased, subscriber numbers have grown and revenues of the largest two operators have grown. Airtel’s voice traffic increased by 20% in Q4 2019 and voice revenues have increased by 24% between June […]

Mozilla, in collaboration with RIS, has released a review of the regulatory and tax treatment of OTTs in Africa. The report looks at the underlying causes behind the recent series of social media taxes across Africa. One of the main challenges is the lack of a common definition of OTTs and this means that issues are often conflated that can only be resolved when treated separately. Linked to the lack of a common definition is a misconceived understanding of the Internet value chain and the role of OTTs. To understand the impact of taxes and regulations targeted at social media, this report […]

The mobile business model is inevitably evolving from voice and SMS to a mobile Internet access model. The first generation of mobile phones provided voice services, the second generation brought SMS to consumers, and ever since 2.5G it has been about better and faster data. Social media applications drive broadband adoption and data consumption. Policy-makers and regulators should be more concerned with stimulating network investment into 3G+ and less with attempting to protect out-dated business models of operators. Read the full article here.

The UCC tweeted out the latest figures on the impact of the OTT taxes. The estimated number of Internet users dropped by nearly 30% between March and September 2018, indicating even more severe consequences of the OTT tax than anticipated in the RIS policy brief based on July 2018 data. The other story behind the data released by the UCC is that Internet users changed the way they use social media. People paying the OTT tax and the number of Internet users both dropped by around 15% between July and September 2018. But tax revenues from the OTT tax decreased […]