By Zia Khan/Staff reporter
Telecom authorities in Qatar have dropped a hint at allowing new operators enter into what has so far been a tightly controlled market in a significant move to liberalise the key sector ahead of an expected economic and population boom.
The ictQATAR — official telecommunications regulator — said yesterday it plans to introduce new service providers in the telecommunications market at either the infrastructure or service level.
The idea behind the proposal, explained a new regulatory strategy made public to seek comments from stakeholders, is “to develop the ICT market, improve competition and protect consumers.
Another underlined objective of the strategy, said ictQATAR, is to support Qatar in a transition to a connected digital economy in years to come.
But there has not been any firm schedule as to when the regulatory authority plans to issue licence to new players to take advantage of the lucrative market.
The telecom sector in Qatar is currently monopolised by two operators — Ooredoo formerly known as Qtel and Vodafone — both listed at stocks as public limited companies with the government controlling major chunk of shares either directly or indirectly.
Qatar National Vision 2030 — a set policy guidelines laid down by the country’s leadership for future — envisages a free and liberalised telecom market offering people state of the art connectivity.
And now with the country’s population expected to see a jump of half a million over the next five years, it seems, the stage is already set for drastic changes in the telecom regulatory regime.
“The proposed regulatory strategy takes into account the stage of market liberalisation in Qatar,” said the executive summary of the strategy.
“In particular, it acknowledges the Qatari telecoms market was opened up relatively late compared to other countries in the Gulf region.”
While considerable progress has been made in introducing a world class regulatory regime, it acknowledges that key elements are still to be introduced, the strategy went to explain what is still lacking to make the sector more vibrant.
One of the major focuses of the strategy, according to ictQATAR, is to make sure the interest of consumers is well protected through a dispute resolution mechanism that is set to be improved with the feedback from stakeholders.
“There is a lack of effective competition in some areas of the market which has meant consumers have faced higher prices and poorer quality of service,” said the strategy paper.
Improving the compliance and enforcement regimes to make the processes more effective and transparent including plans to introduce powers for the regulatory authority to impose graduated sanctions is another objective behind the exercise.
The release of a consumer policy that aims to improve quality of service and improve the quality of information available to enable consumers to make more informed choices in the market
A statement issued by the ictQATAR said the regulatory authority is seeking comments from interested parties on its proposals for the “strategic directions and actions for its telecommunications regulatory activities”.
“The ictQATAR considers that the development of this regulatory strategy with targeted set of actions is an important step in the continuous development of the regime for telecommunications,” it added.
The proposed regulatory strategy focuses on the five strategic priorities including enhancing the competitive environment, improving the clarity and predictability of the regulatory framework, ensure the efficient management of scarce resources (frequencies and numbers) and safeguard the interests of consumers.
