Government should tread lightly when considering Internet regulations, advises Matthew Tagg, CEO of the Internet service provider, Web Africa.
Tagg says it's best to be wary of what the future holds in terms of network neutrality, because as competition in the local telecoms market opens up, this might become a problem.
Net neutrality, explains Tagg, relates to all Internet sites being treated equally by those that hold the bandwidth key.
“Content providers are at loggerheads with the rulers of the network services underworld,” he says. “Those providing content want to make sure their sites are as fast and easy to access as other content providers' sites, and they want legislation in place to help them.”
However, network service providers, notes Tagg, don't want government regulating their networks.
“Net neutrality needs to be pushed higher up on the telecoms legislation agenda. With more competition and an increasing possibility for local loop unbundling, net neutrality will become more of a contentious issue,” he says.
According to Tagg, Telkom calls the shots on how fast or slowly a user can download certain content in SA at the moment, but says that as other players, especially those with content interests, start having a say over the local loop, things might become a bit more unpredictable.
A good thing, he says, is that with more competition in the local loop, consumers will be able to decide which network provider they want to side with for the content they require. “The reality is that real local loop unbundling is costly and few service providers will have pockets deep enough to implement it in a meaningful way,” Tagg notes.
Tagg suggests net neutrality should be lightly regulated, but government needs to be very cautious, as nobody wants it to say what can or cannot be done on the Internet.
“If we have the correct policies in place which, for example, prohibit the preferential treatment of upstream traffic, we could ensure equal treatment for all online content providers,” he concludes.
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