OVER THE TOP (OTT) is a general term used for services that a customer may use which rides on top of a network to which the customer is connected – on top of the service that customers already have from their providers. Many of these OTT providers have not entered into any agreements with the customer’s service provider to provide the services to the customer, notwithstanding that they must use a network that they did not build.
Some examples of OTT services are Skype, Viber, WhatsApp, and Netflix. Throughout the Caribbean, operators are making huge investments in providing networks that will be data intensive. OTT services ride on these networks without making any contribution to the sustainability of the network Digicel and Cable & Wireless have invested in.
In the Caribbean, voice and message apps usage is large. Rather than pay for an SMS message or a phone call, people may use Skype, WhatsApp, Viber, Voxer or some other OTT service to send messages and videos or make Voice Over Internet Protocol calls for nothing. A data charge may still be incurred but with Wi-Fi access even those charges may be avoided. In the case of one domestic network operator, the number of minutes of traffic for a relatively new OTT voice service grew almost 300 per cent in a three-month period.
The further result is that there is a troubling disparity between the costs incurred by domestic, Caribbean network operators and those incurred by OTT. Caribbean domestic network operators incur all the cost. OTTs incur none of the cost. Accordingly, OTT services are cheaper because they evade legitimate costs which are being borne by the domestic operators – resulting in domestic operators being less competitive than OTT providers. This is discriminatory.
Ultimately, Caribbean operators invest in networks that they will struggle to maintain and upgrade because significant portions of revenues are being siphoned off by OTT operators. This is an unsustainable position for any commercial operator. Caribbean operators reject any notion that they should exert no control over their networks, have no rights, no responsibilities and no claim on how their networks are used.
OTT services are embraced because they are perceived as innovative and cheap. However, this perception is not reality as the cost of the service has been shifted to Caribbean network operators and to Caribbean governments. Just as OTTs evade bearing their fair share of legitimate costs for using domestic networks, so it is they evade paying taxes to Caribbean governments and hurt the ability of the poorest citizens’ to access technology because they also evade contributing to universal service funds.
The Caribbean telecommunications industry simply asks that policymakers require OTT providers to legitimately embrace the costs for operating in Caribbean markets, including entering into commercial interconnection agreements, where their services terminate on a telephone number on a domestic network. Caribbean operators call upon ministers of government and ICT regulators to find paths to balancing innovation, investment and competition. Each must bear its fair share of costs.
CANTO is a trade association representing Caribbean network operators, service providers and vendor partners in the region. These views were expressed in a discussion paper on OTTs.