👨🏿‍🚀TechCabal Daily – Meta’s ad-verse ruling

If Netflix and WhatsApp had been expecting a meeting with South Africa’s telecom regulator, they can cancel it. The regulator has dropped its planned investigation into how streaming and over-the-top (OTT) platforms such as Netflix and WhatsApp affect local telecom and broadcasting companies.

What happened? On September 30, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) withdrew its notice to investigate OTT services. 

Explain like I’m new here: Before that withdrawal, ICASA put out a notice to investigate how OTT service providers benefit from the infrastructure telecom companies built in the country. 

The regulator, with the approval of the Association of Comms and Technology (ACT), the telecom industry group, highlighted sound reasons why OTT platforms must contribute significantly to the local economy: without broadband penetration, people can’t access the Internet. And without the Internet, Netflix and its OTT cohort of friends cannot reliably target South African users. In a way, telecom and broadcasting companies built the technology that those online services rely on.

OTT services provide video content over the Internet, bypassing traditional cable or satellite, including YouTube and most online entertainment platforms users love.

But was this even a logical argument? Biases aside, the telecom industry group has its reasons for pushing the “fair contribution” proposal, requiring OTT players to financially contribute to the maintenance and upgrade of bandwidth-heavy systems. The regulator, understandably, also had an obligation to listen and conduct its due diligence. Now that it has withdrawn its investigation, two things could be in play: foreign OTT platforms could get mandated in some way to contribute to the local economy, beyond the taxes they pay, or face some of the regulatory obligations that apply to local telecoms and broadcasters (and this may be an overreach).

Zoom out: For now, it’s a wait-and-see. Ultimately, this could decide consumers’ fate. Restricting access to foreign OTT platforms if they fail to comply with a potential requirement could cut off consumers from services they enjoy. On the other hand, the regulator seems keen to take a balanced approach.