National ICT & Digital regulations
IDC offers research and advisory services on ICT and digital regulatory trends, developments and best practices in the Middle East, Türkiye and Africa region. We publish research reports and offer custom guidance to policy makers, national regulatory authorities, and the regulatory affairs units of telcos.
The key topics we address include:
- ICT policy and regulations to enable emerging technology adoption and usage
- The impact of OTT services on regulatory frameworks
- The evolution of policy and regulatory approaches to enable digital transformation and establish healthy ICT ecosystems
The types of studies we provide include:
- Maturity assessment of current national ICT policy and regulatory frameworks
- Benchmarking of national ICT regulations with countries across the region and worldwide
- Best practices for policy and regulatory approaches
- Market assessment to understand consumer and business sentiments for effective policymaking and regulatory framework development
Emerging Technologies
- We are at the beginning of a decade, which IDC expects to be led by invisible technologies and at-scale personalization with innovations causing exponential changes (Autonomy – Chapter 3 of 3rd Platform). The success of National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs) in addressing the regulatory challenges in this decade will depend on their performance in promoting innovation and protecting ICT users across the emerging tech areas such as IoT, Blockchain, Robotics, and Artificial Intelligence (AI), as well as Over-the-Top (OTT) services.
- NRAs need to improve their capabilities around these emerging technologies and innovation accelerators to establish a level playing field for all service providers, which would operate in a competitive environment and contribute to the development of healthy ecosystems, where end users (Consumer/Business) can achieve their Digital Transformation initiatives at reasonable cost.
- International bodies such as Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) have been increasing their focus on areas such as “IoT Indicators” and “Data Economy”. NRAs are currently monitoring the developments in technologies such as AI and Blockchain to be able to assess the potential regulatory approach (heavy handed, light touch, deregulation etc) in the coming years.
Over-the-Top (OTT) Services
- EU and OECD are leading the efforts to bring digital providers into the boundaries of ICT regulatory framework and build a level playing field for all ecosystem players, including network operators, connectivity service providers, and OTTs.
- As the New EU regulatory framework (EU Telecom Code) expands the traditional definition of telecommunications service, OECD is increasing its “digital tax” initiatives to ensure multinational digital companies pay tax wherever they have significant consumer-facing activities and generate their profit.
