NCA’S CURRENT RESPONSIBILITIES ARE TO • Carry out transparent, independent and efficient sector regulation and licensing • Ensure service affordability and availability in the sector • Protect consumer / citizen rights and promote competition • Ensure there is a level playing field, streamlined licensing procedures and low barriers to market entry for the provision of communication services • Promote and protect investment in the industry • Identify essential facilities and regulate their use • Facilitate interconnection, co-location and infrastructure sharing • Provide efficient, forward looking and fair radio spectrum management in line with ITU guidelines • Mandate mobile number portability • Advise MPTT on compliance of operators, emerging policy trends and universal access strategies • Manage and promote the use of the .so Somalia country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) 1 • Ensure that ICT equipment imported into the country meets international standards • Maintain and regularly publish up to date ICT market statistics and provide market and technical analysis to support policy making • Define quality of service standards and ensure they are adhered to • Represent the Government of Somalia at local and international forums relating to regulatory issues in ICT 5.3 TELECOM/INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDERS/ LOCAL OPERATORS Access providers are an integral part of the sector. They include both fixed and mobile telecom network operators (MNOs) and commercial Internet Service Providers (ISPs). New entrants to the market are anticipated, including data center operators, metro fiber network operators, and potentially a wholesale public private partnership (PPP) to provide national open access fiber infrastructure services on a wholesale basis. 5.4 BROADCASTERS Public and private broadcasters provide radio and television services to the public, and with the ongoing convergence in the ICT sector, are more closely aligned with content provision, which in turn has close relations with the media and the press. This brings the broadcast sector under more direct supervision by the Ministry of Information, rather than MPTT which largely has a technical role in relation to spectrum management and the contention between broadcasters and telecommunication operators for this resource. Fortunately Somalia can take advantage of the now well-advanced global migration from analogue to digital broadcasting, which makes the use of spectrum for broadcasting much more efficient. In addition, with the use of new spectrum sharing techniques based on software defined radio (SDR) this means that there is unlikely to be contention for spectrum in future. 21