Telecom Regulations In Cambodia
The Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (MPTC) officially launched the Telecommunications Regulator of Cambodia (TRC) in September of last year. Since then, says Glenn Miller, the Chief Information Officer of Ezecom, it has been making continued improvements to a range of matters regarding the Regulation of the Telecoms industry.
“Every year they grow in the ability to apply their regulations,” says Miller. “The ministry is getting better all the time at applying those regulations, so we see the ministry keeping moving forward.”
Cambodia’s rapidly growing IT and communications sector has the potential to make the Kingdom a major player in the region’s technological future. So, with the many mobile phone operators and internet service providers in operation across the country, it is imperative that the ministry be effective in managing disputes between these providers, allowing confidence to grow among investors.
One issue facing the providers the regulatory body deals with is the constant need to meet the demands of users which, with regards to the mobile sector, constitutes some 86 per cent of the population.
“For what is still a small market there are a lot of players. There are a lot of ISP companies and there are a lot of mobile phone companies.
"What that means, from an industry [point of view], is each one of those companies is competing for a small market share so it makes it difficult for them to keep innovating.”
As such, mobile phone operators such as Hello and Smart have merged, offering consumers and businesses alike greater quality network coverage, capacity and a wider range of products and services. The scale of the combined companies has also allowed them to more heavily invest in the network and more aggressively compete with other providers in the market.
With so much happening in Cambodia’s telecoms landscape in such a short period of time, the TRC has been criticised by some for not keeping up or not operating in a completely independent manner. However, with the resources available to it and without the long-awaited telecommunications law to give an overriding framework for operation, says Miller, the introduction of the TRC has been a successful one.
“They have their priorities and they are actually getting things done. I think they’re doing what they’re capable of doing and they’re applying priority to things which I think is the right way to go.”
By Jemma Galvin for B2B Cambodia