Mandatory infrastructure sharing opposed

Commercial broadcasting and telecommunications service providers yesterday vehemently opposed new legislation that would compel them to share infrastructure with competitors in order to benefit competition in the sector. The Communications Regulatory Authority of Namibia (Cran) yesterday hosted a public hearing on proposed regulations that would make it mandatory for players in these sectors, as well as utilities such as Namwater, Nampower and local municipalities, to lease relevant infrastructure in their control or allow it to be used by other carriers. Cran chief operating officer Jochen Traut said the aims of the regulations, in terms of the Communications Act of 2009, were to promote healthy competition, reduce duplication of investment costs and make better use of utilities’ spare capacity such as dark fibre, ducts or towers. “We are trying to take a light-handed approach to these regulations, and if it needs amendments, we will (entertain these),” Traut said. Having received written submissions from companies including Telecom Namibia and Paratus Telecom Namibia, yesterday’s meeting saw further input from Multichoice Namibia, MTC Namibia and the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC). In stating Multichoice’s position, company representatives Werner Schreiber and Ziyanda Buthelezi said it had a number of such infrastructure-sharing agreements in place already, but did not agree with making that mandatory. “People shouldn’t be forced into agreements they are not comfortable with. We consider it a natural process, but it shouldn’t be forced,” Buthelezi said. Both Multichoice and MTC Namibia cited operational challenges that could result from sharing infrastructure, including significant loss of signal quality and the fact that different service providers could see their services affected from a single point of failure. As a worst-case scenario, the Multichoice team cited their own experiences “with reputable service providers”, where troubles faced by the sharing partner affected their own brand negatively. MTC’s Patience Kanalelo and Ludwig Tjitandi suggested that the proposed legislation would cause growth to stagnate in the sector, as newcomers would rather wait for dominant players to initiate infrastructure developments. In defence of the draft regulations, Traut suggested they offer especially municipalities and utilities an opportunity for extra revenue, particularly in the case of those who lost income from electricity to the regional energy distributors (Reds). DENVER ISAACS