South African technology industry luminary Andile Ngcaba has slammed South Africa’s telecommunications operators for wanting to erect toll roads for Netflix and other so-called “over the top” (OTT) companies.
Speaking at the Datacentrix Showcase 2024 event in Sandton on Thursday, Ngcaba – who founded Convergence Partners – said of the move by the Association of Comms & Technology (ACT) to pressure policymakers and regulators over the concept of “Fair Share” is not needed or wanted in the South African context.
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” Ngcaba, who is a previous policymaker in South Africa, told an audience of 1 400 Datacentrix clients and partners. In a previous life, Ngcaba served as director-general of communications but has been in private business for the past 20 years.
He said Fair Share is an idea that has gained popularity among telecommunications operators in Europe, where margins have been pressured in a competitive market.
They argue that OTT companies – which includes streaming video providers such as Netflix, Disney+ and TikTok – should contribute a “fair share” to the development of broadband infrastructure.
Critics have said this is simply a move by infrastructure providers, which have experienced margin compression with the industry’s move from voice to data services, to try to claw back lost profits and that consumers already pay the operators for access.
Ngcaba suggested that South Africa should not necessarily look to Europe to formulate its ICT policies, especially given that the continent squandered its early lead in GSM mobile to the US.
‘Not broken’
“I am arguing that we don’t need that (Fair Share) here,” Ngcaba said. “We must not fix things that are not broken.”
However, ACT – the industry lobby group whose members include South Africa’s six largest telecoms operators – has begun lobbying intensely for Fair Share, or something like it, to be introduced locally.
European operators want what they call “large traffic generators” – these include the likes of Netflix and Google’s YouTube – to pay their “fair share” for access to their networks in Europe. In short, they want to tax Big Tech to help them roll out broadband, a proposal that has drawn fierce resistance wherever it’s been proposed around the world. – © 2024 NewsCentral Media
Read next: ‘Fair Share’: Should Netflix pay to play in South Africa?
