Digital convergence: Whatsapp need regulation?

By Dane Avanzi

As the poet Chandran “not the time for”. It was like that in 90 years and the technological innovations in telecommunications, no longer poetry and became a principle. Increasingly, the innovation life cycle becomes shorter. Does anyone remember the first social network, Orkut, whose launch, heyday and decline occurred in less than a decade? However, while some come and go quickly, others arrive and consolidates, Skype’s case, application that makes voice calls, text (SMS), video conferencing and works both on mobile devices as on any computer.

By the way, this type of application, ensure economic calls or free at lower prices than traditional carriers, not only coalesced, as won competitors such as the Viber and WhattsApp, for example. Ott’s calls, short for “Over The Top”, such applications make calls to cell phones using the packets of data carriers.

Is not that the discussion about the legality or not of this type of application, which steal revenue from mobile phone operators, has been growing. And it’s not for less. We’re talking about a billionaire market throughout the world. According to the ITU-International Telecommunications Union, the UN agency specializing in the subject, 3.2 billion people will use internet (fixed and mobile) worldwide by the end of 2015, nearly half of the Earth’s population.

According to the estimates and statistics of the ITU, 3 g mobile internet coverage in the world has grown from 45% in 2011, to 69% in 2015. Other data pointed to in the report is the increase of 47% in the preference of users of mobile internet access, which has grown seven times in relation to the number of mobile accesses since 2007. Another statistic is that only 1/3 of the planet’s population has access to mobile internet, in other words, the market still has a lot of growing up to do.

Such data delineate a future scenario with an increasing number of people connected to broadband via mobile devices. On the face of it, it’s no wonder that large industry sectors has been mobile phone against applications OTT’s, President of Vivo, Amos Genish, who recently called operator WhattsApp pirate. However, for the TIM and Claro, apparently the OTT’s don’t bother, since recently announced promotions in which hiring a minimum data packet access to WhattsApp and social networks is free. The subject is complex and it’s not just the carriers that diverge, federal government officials too. Last week, the Minister Ricardo Berzoini said that Netflix and WhattsApp should be regulated, while the President of Anatel, João Rezende, States that the service (Whattsapp) is regular.

And the consumer, as is in this story? I think his preference for applications that have global coverage and allow significant savings to users of pre and post paid plans of mobile telephony, should be taken into account. As for the operators, I believe that has protected prices topping up data plans, including blocking the client plan and, through oblique, forcing them to migrate to a more expensive plan. Aside from that, the fact that some offer free access to all major social networks and applications, can intensify the competition between the sim mobile phone operators, which must be one of the main goals of Anatel while regulating.