OccupyGhana demands clarity on ICH

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• George 9 years ago

  How does the law and current policy support the establishment of a centralized ICH? Section 7 of Communications Service Tax, Act 864 inter alia Electronic Communications Amendment Act
  786.
  
  2. How will the establis ...
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  How does the law and current policy support the establishment of a centralized ICH? Section 7 of Communications Service Tax, Act 864 inter alia Electronic Communications Amendment Act
  786.
  
  2. How will the establishment of an exclusive centralized ICH become the ultimate panacea to SIMboxing? Active simboxing detection (not passive) is added to the scope of the clearing. Since the CH is an independent body and is not a direct beneficiary of simbox, it would pursue this aggressively compared to the telco’s who could also benefit when the simbox is terminating on the network. The willingness to address simbox can’t be compared to that of the CH. Ultimately the CH would bring us the desired results.
  
  3. How would an exclusive ICH sanitise the telecommunication sector, ensure proper revenue reporting
  All interconnect minutes will transit the ICH. So NCA and other agency would crosscheck with ICH if the telco’s are declaring the appropriate minutes. Also added to the scope of the ICH is on-net minutes/revenue monitoring. The ICH would report back to NCA and other agency on both on-set and off-set revenue usage. That is a third party would not be required to do this job as ICH would be doing it. With the telco’s knowing an independent body is watching them, they would be more than willing to open up their books for all to see and know they are doing the right thing. This would benefit both the telco’s , nca and consumers as they would not be accusing each other.
  
  4. What are the benefits of such an establishment to the country?
  The right minutes would be declared and known by all parties putting to rest the perception that the telco’s are cheating the nation. On the light side it would also create jobs for Ghanaians and enhance our understanding on interconnect matters
  
  5. In which countries has this proposed solution worked and do these countries have telecommunication industries typical to that in Ghana? Technological improvement or deployment is not limited to which country has done it before. Ghana could be the first to do it and others will learn from us. We should not wait for others to do something that we consider needful at this time. For now, we have established the need to deploy an ICH and we are doing so. How many countries have six mobile operating companies with ownership structures like the one we have. We saw the need to have six operators and we acted accordingly.
  
  6. Was a tender document published, and if so, when, and how many companies responded, and who were these companies, their directors and shareholders? NCA publish on their website ICH and ask for consultation in first week of November. Most interested parties sent queries. Following that a Public consultation held in in mid-November 2014. Interest parties, like all the telco’s, Telecommunication Chambers, potential applicants, parliamentarians, civil society, pressure groups, etc…..were all there to contribute and share ideas. After that a request for application published and received by NCA on the 17th of December 2014. 5 entities submitted application. All 5 entities did a business application oral presentation to NCA in January 2015. The names of the applicants were published in the newspapers. You can check from the registrar generals on the shareholders and directors of the companies that apply. NCA used their criteria of eligibility to screen the applying companies.
  
  7. What legal, financial and “fit-and-proper-person” due diligence was carried out for the selection of the operator of the ICH? The documents submitted by the applying entities were evaluated against the set criteria by NCA as published in the RFA.
  
  8. What expertise does the selected operator have in this area of business?
  The selected operator meets NCA expectation as set forth in the request for application
  9. Why is government compelling Telcos to use an exclusive ICH whose selection they have had no hand in? As permitted by law NCA is carrying out its duties. This is not the government but an independent regulator carries out its mandate by the laws.
  
  10. Why implement a new system with an argument that the existing interconnect architecture is complicated and inefficient yet the redundancy plan will rely 100% on the rejected interconnecting architecture? This is not clear?
  
  SUBSCRIBERS
  1. Does the ICH, in any way, address consumer concerns on privacy?
  Yes. Same data protection laws binding on the telco’s is applicable to the ICH
  
  2. How would an exclusive ICH secure better quality of service for consumers?
  As an independent body, The ICH can easily measure ASR, ACD ect associated with interconnect calls…in real time and issue daily report which the regulator can use to engage parties who fall below the acceptable threshold for immediate correction. This will improve QoS.
  
  3. Are consumer concerns particularly increase in call cost from the cost of inter-connectivity real?
  No
  
  4. If the ICH suffers an outage or a shutdown, will the consumer be able to take any legal action against the ICH?
  The licensing terms and conditions are clear. The same terms and conditions binding on the telco’s is applicable to the ICH.
  
  TELCOS
  
  1. How will an ICH realistically and practically improve reported revenue, as is being asserted?
  Giving independent report on minutes usage and carrying out revenue monitoring will ensure all minutes are properly accounted for. Just like the telco’s have revenue assurance unit. The ICH is also a revenue assurance unit to other agencies. That is
  
  2. Who will bear the additional cost of interconnectivity and SIM registration?
  NCA has explained this over and over again. Please check explanation from NCA. Can you explain what additional interconnectivity cost you envisage? The scope of the CH includes additional activities that they would be paid for so most of the payment is associated with the additional activities.
  
  3. What are the practical and technical risks from an ICH, if any, that Ghana should be concerned about?
  It is just another switch, routing traffic and accounting for the minutes. Same practical and technical risks faced by telco’s are associated with the ICH.
  4. Are any Telcos involved in SIMboxing and revenue under-declaration?
  Please make the names of such companies available in the public domain.
  Each and every day we all receive calls from our friends and families in abroad and we see the numbers as local numbers so we can all come to a conclusion on the possibilities. Are the telco’s committed to fighting this? If so why are we still seeing this? Some have argued that it is as a result of the arbitrage in the system and that we should reduce international incoming calls. Likewise some also argue that we should increase local call charges to match international incoming calls. So again think of the possibilities.
  
  Recently you read in the papers some publication regarding the revenue audit carried out by NCA. Please read careful and check between the lines what the findings were.
  
  All the information is available in the public domain so please check again.

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• dumfeh 9 years ago

  they should go and occupy boko haram areas in nigeria we don't care.

  they should go and occupy boko haram areas in nigeria we don't care.

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• One Ghana for all Ghanaians. 9 years ago

  Here they go again. Always demanding and never adding.

  Here they go again. Always demanding and never adding.

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