Oftentimes, human nature bestows on us the instinctive and sprawling capacity and capability to vacillate between extreme options of bad and good demeanour under varying circumstances, but the reality of modern society requires and demands that caution, restraint, modesty, monitoring supervision and reward system are needed and compelling – to establish peace, guarantee orderliness, encourage civility, imbibe fellowship, pursue egalitarianism and promote justice for the smooth, modest, organized and unfettered cohabitation and coexistence of humans everywhere.
Thus, to all intents and purposes, various forms of governance are devised and put in place for the proper management of society to enhance peaceful coexistence, equitable distribution of resources and opportunities, engender smooth interaction within and across borders and foster unity and harmony amongst the people. The basic irreducible minimum required for the smooth running of society is the establishment of the “rule of law” to guarantee peace, order and good governance. Such an arrangement manifests in the “legislation” of virtually every sphere of human endeavour. These legislations manifest as a body of laws, rules, regulations, acts, bills, statutes, enactments and ordinances – all of which form the barometers to drive all the various sectors of society – social, economic and political.
Please observe that all such legislations derive their potency, legitimacy, authority, inspiration and strength from the constitution of the country that ideally and ab initio represents the will, yearnings, aspirations, inspiration and resolve of the hoi polloi. Whilst giving verve to the citizenry and support to all established institutions, the essence of legislation therefore, is to observe, monitor and regulate not only the behaviour of the people as they interact – to avoid skirmishes or breaches of the rule of law, it is also designed to ensure and manage overall best practices in governance, commerce and business – thereby stimulating progress and fostering growth and sustainable development in its full ramifications. This stance and gift of legislation is even more so relevant when the popular and well-acknowledged sanctuary that could underwrite and give succour to the yearnings and aspirations of the people, is the government of the people by the people for the people – this arrangement happens to be the government of the day, here. In fact, political pundits relish and extol democracy as the best form of government currently known to man – the world over.
In the end, every sector of society relies on legislation to operate or function well and be part of world order that is the harbinger of international best practices in all perspectives. Technology and its evolving convergence are surely part of this legislative wholesomeness.
The foregoing is to acknowledge and underscore the incontrovertible importance of legislation as the live wire of a nation more so a developing one as Nigeria. Its impact on the concomitant services generated by the development and deployment of technology – distinct or convergent, is invaluable, as the purpose of technology itself, is to bring about welfare, security, comfort and fulfilment to the citizenry – culminating in growth and sustainable development for the country, at large.
In the quest for comfortable, luxurious, safe and secured living especially, since the outset of industrial revolution, man has constantly and irrepressibly toiled in the cumulus waters of research, dynamic innovations and creativity to discover, develop and deploy technology – the scientific knowledge behind machinery and equipment that are meaningful and useful to humanity in time and space. The continual efforts of researchers – in the ambience of an ever-increasing demand for cognate services at the marketplace, have brought about gargantuan and meaningful developments in various fields across the globe – thus, enhancing growth and sustainable development for the socio-economic and political advancement of society. Incidentally, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has been at the frontiers and over time, at the front burner of development – steering and managing every sector of human endeavour. Today’s ICTs are the drivers of the current global connectivity that has turned the world into a converged global village. Indeed, this growth vehicle (ICT) has turned around small and big economies and still enhancing the fortunes and prosperity of its developers and those that imbibe the culture which Information and Communications Technology (ICT) revolution brought in its trail.
As ICT presents an indomitable and inescapable footprint and launching pad for the development of all socio-economic and political sectors, it is therefore the chosen technology on which platform we could examine technology convergence and its interplay with legislation and regulation at the marketplace. Given its sprawling impact on technology development, economic and commercial influence coupled with its widespread use across the globe, the telecoms technology as epitomized by the mobile cellular phone technology especially the GSM
extraction, is leading the way and direction in the ICT family. The shrinking and ongoing convergence of the erstwhile distinct sectors of telecoms, computing and broadcasting or multimedia, in the face of flourishing broadband technology (fixed and mobile) is the case at issue. It is no longer flummoxing to observe that with a single piece of mobile device you could talk (voice), send text messages (data), browse the Internet (data), watch football matches or drama (video), discuss on live television and radio (media streaming), do online shopping (data), engage in mobile banking (data) or mobile music (voice), enjoy location-based services (data) like personalized weather service or real-time traffic data and also have the benefit of other information services like stocks or horoscope etc. Indeed, the list is virtually endless.
THE CONVERGENCE ISSUE
Technology convergence is the fusion of erstwhile distinct or separate technologies and indeed, technical entities to achieve a desired synergy of functionalities, management and more diverse and bespoke services. Thus, heterogeneous or separate technologies, systems and networks are continually brought together and implemented using common protocols to enhance uniformity, seamlessness and interoperability – thereby, providing a wider range of diverse services whilst, achieving savings in capital (CAPEX) and operational costs (OPEX) for the network and service providers. A very glaring and incontrovertible front-burner case at issue, is the Information Communication Technology (ICT) in which networks merge, markets merge, services merge and users even merge – all, eliciting a total convergence in the evolutionary ICT domain. Indeed, the convergence between fixed and mobile networks and services often referred to as Fixed and Mobile Convergence (FMC) in the ambience of robust broadband technology that is rapidly diffusing and closing the hitherto, distinct boundaries of Telecoms, Computing and Broadcasting or multimedia sectors, has brought about a number of policy, legislative and regulatory issues.
LEGISLATION AND REGULATION
The aftermath of globalization of the recent past culminated in the deregulation of the entire marketplace albeit, in varying degrees and also laden with geocentric hue across the globe. Whilst deregulation encourages and promotes competition thereby allowing markets forces to determine pricing regimes and other market processes and procedures, the need to protect consumers from unwholesome and unbridled practices of some industry practitioners – for instance, incumbent or dominant operators, however, has become exceedingly necessary and imminent.
To all intents and purposes, legislation gives the regulation of ICT – both in its distinct forms and divergent character, the empowerment and teeth with which to bite and reprimand any erring network or service provider who contravenes any provision of the licence conditions in the course of providing services, irrespective of location – within and across borders. Essentially, such sanctions and penalties that regulators impose for market abuse as a post-licence oversight responsibility, range from monetary fines – a percentage of company’s turnover, modification of licence and additional licence obligation, to outright licence revocation.
The policy, legislative and regulatory challenges that are thrown up at the instance of ICT convergence are mainly on licensing with its attendant reverberations. Ab initio, specific services or a generic group of services were deserving of separate licences but with convergence, a service provider can now deliver multiple services (converged) to a customer with a single subscriber number on which one bill is raised, and the customer is also served from a single integrated network rather than two distinct (fixed and mobile) terminals. Incidentally, such a flexible service provisioning that obliges a consolidation of different services in a generic categorization or the unification of all services under a single licence or concession referred to as a “Unified Licence” also promises a reduction in operational costs and complexity.
This convergence posturing that is being adopted worldwide, as opposed to the traditional service-specific orientation, is based on the principles of technology and service neutrality.
There is also the so-called licence-exempt case that is a total departure from the erstwhile licensing procedures. Here, most administrative and traditional formalities are jettisoned giving way to ordinary registration or even simple notification to the regulator of the intent to offering services.
Although a wider range of services have been brought into the fold through these over-simplified and flexible reforms, policy-makers and legislators alike are still mulling over the reverberations these reforms are gradually seeping into the industry and marketplace. However, this challenge does not detract anything from the recognition the reforms are giving the rights and obligations of network and service providers. Other important areas of interest where consideration is essential include, spectrum assignment and use, interconnection and numbering scheme.
•Bello, A former Managing Director of NITEL presented this paper at West Africa Convergence Conference in Lagos
