South Africa Considering Regulating Whatsapp.. INCREDIBLY LUDICROUS!!

Portfolio Committee on Telecommunications and Postal Services have announced that there will be a hearing on 26 January where they are set to discuss “necessary policy interventions on how to govern OTTs (over-the-top services) such as Whatsapp or Google Hangouts,this is aimed at regulating OTTs and their impact on competition.

Vodacom and MTN can’t handle the fact that over-the-top (OTT’s) services such as Whatsapp or Google Hangouts work at a comparatively lower rates than the traditional telephone calls or sms. Another key topic to be discussed is if there's a need for the OTTs to be defined as telecom services (voice or data) or telecom infrastructure, and thus whether they should be subject to licensing and regulatory obligations (such as legal intercept and emergency call access) or not?.

The hearing is planned to be open to the public and there is yet to be a venue set, but more details will arise closer to the date. The problem with bringing down OTTs in figuring out exactly which one to regulate. Many company's will target number in one, in this case South Africa as in many other markets is WhatsApp since it has more than 10-million users in the country. Going after it alone would be foolhardy. Even if courts allowed the banning of one OTT player in South Africa which is whatsapp, people would simply move to another. Lets take an example of Brazil when it brought down Whatsapp the rival app Telegram saw more than a million downloads.

What makes the mobile service providers in South Africa think that by bringing down whatsapp will boost their revenue.....to me that is one very wrong move towards earning more cash. Someone needs to wake up from the 20th Century if at all they have to remain meaningful in today's world. If one wants to increase their revenue you have got to get with the times. Incredibly ludicrous.!!