The word ‘convergence’ refers to the notion of moving together or the joining of things. Convergence has become a popular concept in ICT policy debates for a variety of different reasons. For one, ICT technologies have gradually permitted previously different types of services to be offered over the same networks. This is particularly true of IP-based networks, which can provide data, voice and video services – services that were previously offered over separate circuit-switched voice telephone networks, packet switched data networks such at the Internet, and broadband video networks such as cable television and satellite networks.
In general, convergence-based authorization policies promote equal treatment of services or technologies that had previously been licensed or regulated in different ways. Many observers have promoted such ‘regulatory convergence’ as being more technologically and competitively neutral – and therefore involving less regulatory intervention or determinism in communications markets.
Around the world, the implementation of convergence-based policies has very different implications, depending on the local environment and national policies. It has been a particularly ‘hot’ policy concept in countries that had maintained licensing distinctions between different types of technologies or services.
A prime example is India, where two types of service providers, which were licensed under very different licensing regimes, had started to compete with each other in the mobile wireless market. On the one hand, cellular mobile operators held licences that required them to pay very substantial licence fees and to use GSM technology. On the other hand, a subsequently licensed class of service providers called ‘Basic Service Operators’ were permitted to use copper wireline technologies or CDMA wireless technologies. They were charged much lower licence fees than the original cellular licensees. Yet their licence conditions allowed them to provide ‘limited mobility”, effectively allowing them to compete with the cellular licensees. This led to an obvious need for convergence – since two types of service providers competed in the same market, but had very different licence conditions.
In other countries, the term ‘convergence’ is used to refer to different types of policy issues than those that arose in India. For example, in Canada and some other countries, the convergence debate has centred on the different regulatory treatment of traditional telecommunications (i.e. transmission) services and broadcasting (i.e. content) services. New policies in some countries have ‘converged’ the regulatory treatment of transmission services, whether they transmit ‘broadcasting’ content or other information. Examples include the European Union’s regulatory framework which uses the term ‘electronic communications services’ rather than ‘telecommunications’, to signal a converged regulatory approach to a broader range of communications services. Following the introduction of the new EU framework, the United Kingdom responded to the increasing convergence of its communications industries by creating a single communications regulator, OFCOM, to carry out the functions previously carried out by five separate regulators responsible for telecommunications, radio spectrum and broadcasting.
The practice notes set out below provide a detailed review of convergence-based approaches to licensing and regulation that have been adopted in a range of different countries.