Parliament urged to rein in and regulate services like Netflix, YouTube
The call was made on Friday by the Association of Comms and Technology during a communications and digital technologies portfolio committee meeting.
Picture: Pixabay/Tumisu
CAPE TOWN - Parliament has received more calls to rein in and regulate over-the-top media services like Netflix and YouTube, who’ve been described as “free riders” in the country.
The call was made on Friday by the Association of Comms and Technology during a communications and digital technologies portfolio committee meeting.
The organisation said that the mostly subscription-based services had been operating in the country without any accountability and wants them to contribute in developing infrastructure.
READ: MPs grill mobile network operators over poor connectivity and pricing models
The Association of Comms and Technology is an industry body that advocates for an enabling policy and regulatory environment and has the CEOs of MTN and Vodacom as board members.
Its CEO, Nomvuyiso Batyi, told the committee that the over-the-top services had to enter into agreements with the mobile network operators because they’d been operating freely in the country.
"So, when I say over the top services, I mean those people that are using a lot of bandwidth, like your Netflix, like your YouTube, like your TikTok. They are free riders. That’s what I would call them. They are here to free ride in our country, and no one is holding them accountable."
She said that when the network operators have to upgrade their infrastructure, the OTT services have to contribute and pay their fair share in terms of building infrastructure in rural areas.