Page 77 - SAMENA Trends - July-August 2022

ARTICLE SAMENA TRENDS

players to pay their fair share of the cost of
investing in the networks.” [10]

Recent developments
The impact of global digital platforms on
local markets and infrastructure in different
sectors and the question of “if and how to
regulate or obtain contributions from them”
have been looked at over this past decade
by various industry stakeholders, different
institutions, and organizations. Recently,
calls for contributions from global digital
platforms to the financing and funding of
broadband infrastructure used to deliver
their services have grown louder and more
frequent.

The Florence School of Regulation found in
2019 in its Report “Digital Platforms – The
New Network Industries? How to regulate
them?” that broadband infrastructure
[11]
may become financially unsustainable in
the long-run in the absence of intervention.
“[T]he involvement of online platforms in
the network industries benefits consumers
by fulfilling unmet needs, often efficiently
and at low cost. Platforms do this partly by
exploiting access to existing network infra-
structures that are often vital for national
economic growth and wellbeing. However,
if online platforms are allowed to side-line
traditional network operators, it may mean
that vital investment in building and main-
taining the infrastructures on which these Figure 1 (B): Digital value capture
markets are founded becomes unsustain-
able in the long-term.” In 2019, the Work- Moonshot for Africa” [12] developed a thor- its observations was that “Digital services
ing Group of the Broadband Commission ough roadmap and action plan for 2019, are increasingly provided by non-network
for Sustainable Development (“BBCom”) on to achieve universal, affordable, and good operators and as the infrastructure gap is
“Broadband for All: A Digital Infrastructure quality broadband across Africa. One of caused by a funding gap, innovations to
finance models may of necessity require
obtaining contributions from non-network
operators on a direct or indirect basis.”
Moreover, the Report recommended that
“governments should review the sources
of USAFs and ‘develop innovative models
to ensure the contribution base is broad-
ened to encompass all those who derive
economic benefit from the investment”.
[13] These observations and principles were
further examined and developed in 2020 by
the BBCom’s Working Group on ‘21st Cen-
tury Financing Models for Bridging Broad-
band Connectivity Gaps’ [14] , which recom-
mended in its Report published in October
2021, that all companies who derive benefit
from the use of broadband infrastructure
should contribute towards the cost of its
deployment. The Report found that para-
Figure 2: Discussions on "Broadening the base of contributors" are taking place in different regions
77 JULY-AUGUST 2022