Regulation of Quality of Service IADS The Gambia - March, 2014 Gita Sorensen

Berkeley Research Group

Quality of service regulation Compliance – License conditions and KPIs Customer information – Empowering customers to make informed choices of networks and services Competition – Preferential treatment of on-net versus off-net traffic – Delays and refusal to supply wholesale and interconnection facilities

Mobile QoS KPIs from the Lebanon Source:

Mobile coverage in Singapore Source: IDA, Singapore

Examples of how regulation of QoS impacts the sector Nigeria, Dispute between NCC and operators on how to address QoS issues (Jan 2014); Ghana, Publication of QoS performance impacts market shares and margins (Feb 2014); Kenya, Communication Commission publishes low QoS and demands improvements (Jan 2014).

QoS compliance issues Collecting comparable data – Operators’ processes vary and therefore sometimes their performance is not accurately portrayed in the QoS statistics Planning approvals for infrastructure roll-out Rapid growth in demand

QoS in non-discrimination regulation Non-price discrimination is a significant competition issue Routing of data/calls across interconnection points – Insufficient capacity – Inferior routing configuration – Delays in provisioning and testing interconnection links – Fault repairs and dispute resolution processes Service provisioning – In cases where one provider uses the another provider’s infrastructure to offer services (e.g. local loop unbundling) Fault repairs – Delays in resolving costumer faults, giving impression of lower QoS by other provider.

Enforcing QoS Regulation Competition should drive QoS improvements – If regulators need to intervene then competition may not be effective Licence revocation is ‘nuclear’ option – rarely used – But financial penalties can work (if the regulator has the power!) Publication can act as enforcement as customers vote with their feet Competition should enforce QoS without need for regulatory intervention – But it can take time to get there

Contact Details Gita Sorensen Director, Economic Regulation and Telecommunications & Media Berkeley Research Group, LLC 15 th Floor, 6 New Street Square, London, EC4A 3BF