Regulating OTT Services in Trinidad and Tobago

TATT has published for comment its consultative document FRAMEWORK ON OVER-THE-TOP SERVICES (OTTS) IN TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO. The deadline for commenting is today and I am very close to being late. The reasoning for regulations as they put it is to foster fair competition between network operators and providers of OTTS. I feel strongly about net neutrality and a free internet and I think that early attempts to chip away at these things should be nipped in the bud. If you woke up tomorrow and Whatsapp was no longer available in Trinidad how would you feel about this? I would be broken. I would want to make noise. I would want to challenge that decision.

A significant number of the population depends on OTT services and use it on a daily basis. TATT has decided to use the following definition of OTTS, "Content, service or application accessed by the public via the Internet that may be a direct substitute for, and/or may compete with, a public telecommunications and/or broadcasting service". This seems reasonable but they should provide a definition for telecommunications and broadcasting service in this document.

I am glad that the document recognises the benefits and needs for OTTS and stated, "OTTS offer essential economic and social features 
beyond traditional communications services". What TATT should study and consider and spell out is the impact of shutting down an OTT service that refuses to comply with their demands. Can they describe a scenario where they have to shut down a service like Whatsapp in Trinidad? Additionally, I feel like smaller OTT services would be at the mercy of the regulator.

One argument is that traditional providers are heavily regulated while OTTS are not. I am willing to sacrifice heavy regulation for innovation and lower cost. TATTs main reason for regulation seems to be unfair competition. They do mention concern for data protection and consumer privacy. They should provide stats to show where this is a problem. I think there should be more reasons spelled out for regulation. It will strengthen their position and get more buy in from the public.

I like the idea of pushing for local content development for streaming services. I think this can be encouraged but not forced. Would a streamer or youtuber be considered a broadcaster? They should specify this. That would be silly. I think that TATT can get buy in for infrastructure investment by showing the OTTS how this helps them. Can we identify what percentage of their profits comes from our small population of users? Can TATT then say what percentage of the percentage of profits would be demanded? I doubt this would be a significant amount. As an aside I would like to see remote jobs for locals at big tech when we engage with big tech. That is a more useful way to give back to our market.

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