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News GVG in The Press CONTROL OF Telecoms, International traffic
| CONTROL OF Telecoms, International traffic |
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CONTROL OF TELEPHONIC TRAFFIC : A BOOST FOR DEVELOPMENT Lack of visibility on international telephonic traffic is a matter for concern Controlling the flow of international traffic is thus of major importance to the institution, as this control will result in the relevance of standards which govern the interconnection between countries and continents. As remarked by Tim Kelly and Mark Woodhall of the ITU in their analysis of telephonic traffic indicators, traffic is the single most important factor of the Telecoms sector and the direction in which traffic flows enlightens us as to the social interaction and trade relations between countries. Nevertheless, they draw our attention to the fact that an ever-increasing share of traffic escapes ITU control and this, for several reasons : - Voice and fax traffic go through networks which are not managed by ordinary telephonic networks ; they go via internet, specialised lines or via frame-relay networks - An ever-increasing market share is held by carriers which are getting smaller and smaller and which are not obliged to disclose their traffic volumes to the Regulators - An increasing volume of traffic no longer goes through traditional billing but rather through other billing systems. With the gradual replacement of traditional billing systems by systems founded on cross-border interconnections, traffic statistics are set to become more and more difficult to obtain as well as less and less reliable. This lack of visibility of traffic volume is of great concern on the African continent which reflects one of the world’s highest growth rates in the number of users – between 2005 and 2009, this figure increased by more than 300% with the estimated number of users at close on 500 million. As the continent is also one of the main points of departure for immigrants to Europe and the USA it is easy to discern a higher flow of traffic going in the direction of Africa, impacting on the telephonic budget balance linking them to the rest of the world. In fact the flow of telephonic traffic towards Africa correlates directly to that of money transfers which, according to the World Bank, tripled between 1995 and 2003 and which continue to increase steadily. The proportional increase in telephonic flow is also due to the fact that each money transfer is accompanied by a telephone call or an SMS whereas the converse is not true. Therefore, whilst Africa’s incoming telephonic traffic is rising significantly, its visibility is decreasing in substantial and alarming proportions! It is therefore – more than ever – a matter of urgency for African Governments and the ITU to be equipped with the technical and institutional structures that will enable them to improve traffic visibility and management. Setting up an intelligent interconnection management system in order to secure greater visibility of international traffic In order to remedy this situation and ensure that role-players in their respective countries benefit fully from the telephonic boom that Africa has witnessed over the past ten years, certain of the continent’s Governments have decided to equip their countries, through the intervention of their Regulatory Authorities, with a system to manage and supervise international incoming traffic. This system, supplied by the technical operator Global Voice Group and called the IMS™ (Interconnection Management System) enables Regulators to manage domestic traffic, to conduct audits on international traffic and to trace all international incoming traffic immediately, thus contributing, at the micro level, a technical solution to the important macro issue of the ITU. Better still, this state of the art system for the intelligent management and supervision of international incoming traffic is extremely effective in the fight against fraud, which is totally out of hand in Africa and which benefits only certain factions to the detriment of Governments and legal operators. The success of this system obviously necessitates : an upgrade of existing infrastructure ; updating the Regulators on the new technology (NGN, or Next Generation Network) ; the setting up of a regular benchmark mechanism in order to stay at the forefront of technological developments ; and the efficient operating of infrastructures in countries where basic infrastructure (electricity, internet etc) is only very limited.
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