Technology writer and communication specialist Suzette Plantema.

In a world where all Mobile National Operators (MNOs) strictly adhered to industry best practices, compliance monitoring systems would be redundant. The regulators would exist solely to define the policies and procedures needed to protect consumers, with compliance departments acting in a purely advisory role to help MNOs apply these principles according to their own unique requirements and structure. Sadly, this is not the case and compliance monitoring systems are a prerequisite.

With technological advancements that have also seen soaring rates of cybercrime, strict regulation and enforcement are now more crucial than ever. Operators must enhance their monitoring and reporting capabilities, and to clearly demonstrate compliance within the current and future Telco environment. The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) underscores the importance of measuring traffic flow for both the industry stakeholders and the regulators, fraud management, spectrum management, mobile money monitoring and network monitoring.

By providing accurate and detailed statistics on telecommunication traffic, compliance systems increase regulators’ visibility over the sector and dramatically improve their billing/collection processes. As far as mobile money is concerned, regulators need to gain more visibility and control as the market grows exponentially.

In the absence of compliance monitoring systems, operators and regulators are likely to be at loggerheads, as is currently the case in Lesotho, where the Lesotho Communications Authority (LCA), the industry regulator, is embroiled in a legal tussle with Vodacom, the country’s largest operator commanding 85 per cent market share. On 8 October 2020, the regulator revoked Vodacom’s unified licence and ordered it to pay a whopping R134 million in fines. The operator only breathed a sigh of relief after going to court and having the licence revocation and fine suspended. Had the court ruled against Vodacom, 1.2 million subscribers and 661,000 M-Pesa users would have been adversely affected.

The conflict would have been averted had a compliance monitoring system been in place. Such a solution would enable both operators and the regulator to optimise revenues, while ensuring greater inclusion and market growth in Lesotho’s telecom sector. According to the Digital 2020 report by Datareportal, there were 946,000 internet users in Lesotho in January 2020, while internet penetration stood at 44%. There were 2.3 million mobile connections in the same period. The number of mobile connections was equivalent to 108% of the total population. Despite growth in connectivity, the kingdom has poor cyber security and inadequate legislation, hence inability to reap dividends of a digital economy.

However, these challenges are not unique to Lesotho as several African countries continue to grapple with compliance issues. Others like Rwanda and Tanzania, which Lesotho should learn from, are now reaping dividends after investing in compliance monitoring systems. For instance, in 2011, Rwanda Utility Regulatory Agency (RURA) commissioned the International Gateway Traffic Verification System (IGTVS), a comprehensive data solution that allows it to independently audit and monitor the networks in Rwanda for a number of purposes, including: traffic measurement, accurate billing, quality of service assessment, market surveillance, interconnection dispute resolution, and fraud management. As a powerful ICT platform used to monitor and enforce compliance with Rwanda's regulations pertaining to domestic and international interconnections, the IGTVS has generated significant additional revenue for both the State and the local operators.

A similar solution was in 2013 replicated in Tanzania, with the deployment of the Telecom Traffic Monitoring System (TTMS), which provides enhanced oversight capacities that benefit Tanzania and all Tanzanians by enabling the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) and the government to see, in real-time, what is really going on in the telecom sector in terms of quality, security, performance, and compliance, thus significantly improving the governance of a sector that plays a major role in the socio-economic development of the country. Through the TTMS system, TCRA had collected over Sh93-billion in revenue over the five years from 2013 to 2018.

With increasingly complex regulation and expanding legislation, operators are required to ensure regulatory compliance, for general metering and billing accuracy and law enforcement reporting. More stringent controls are needed to ensure revenue compliance and no country should be left behind. LCA’s recent issuance of an RFP for the design, supply and implementation of a compliance monitoring and revenue assurance system is therefore a commendable move.