Young African mobile applications and content developers are asking telecoms operators to be transparent with the revenue they generate from the download and live online streaming of African content, and to share the revenue fairly with the application developers and content providers. This call came almost immediately after two telecom operators had complained about the unfair operational environment they faced in Africa, with particular reference to multiple and arbitrary charges, fees, levies and taxes on telecom operators. Four young app developers in a panel session at the just-ended West and Central AfricaCom Conference in Dakar, Senegal, set the conference hall ‘ablaze’ with that strong call on telecom operators; and that rattled the cage of at least one operator, who interrupted uninvited and fired back in equal measure. The panel discussion was the finale for the conference, and it was on how young ICT start ups could develop and support access to data in Africa. The Nokia award-winning Developer of ‘My Cash’ app in Nigeria, young Ajibola Aiyedogbon set the ball rolling with a five-seconds-long definitive and straight-to-point response to a request by the moderator for just one thing he thought telcos could do to help young Africa app developers and start ups to grow. “I think the telecom operators should give us open API’s (application programming interfaces) so that we can have access to their billing system and easily bill people who use the applications we are developing by ourselves,” he said. Immediately he made his request, heads started nodding in the entire conference hall, some in approval and others in disapproval; and it was not difficult to tell who the supporters and non-supporters were. Later on Ajibola explained to Adom News Editor Nii Narku Dowuona that app developers like himself, provide the tube for people to download data, and to do live online streaming, but they eventually got peanuts for their creativity. He said the telecom operators, who provide the infrastructure, have a grip on the billing and also have “a nasty revenue share arrangement” with content some providers like music and film producers, where the telcos take about 50 to 60 per cent of the revenue and what was left had to be shared between the content provider and the app developer. This is not different from what General Manager of SMSGH, Alex Adjei Bram recently told Adom News about revenue share between them and the telcos in Ghana for downloads and SMS aggregation; some telcos take up to 65%, whiles aggregators, app developers and content providers share the balance. Ajibola said while telcos maintained such an unfair practice in Africa, they had a fair revenue share arrangement with the bigger international app developers and owners like Google and Facebook, because the big boys had access to bill users themselves, and they also kept the online advertising revenue. He said young app developers like himself were forced to sell their apps and services at a very cheap rate to the telcos, and when the revenue was generated they (the app developers) also got the least. “If telcos give us open API’s to bill users by ourselves it will encourage more app developers into the market and we will develop even more apps to make data consumption even more attractive and that will generate even high revenue for the telcos and for the app developers,” he argued. “We are not asking for handouts we are asking fair revenue share.” Ajibola said it was okay for telcos to maintain a closed billing system on short codes and bulk SMS aggregation revenue, but they had to create a separate system for the app market to encourage young developers to come out of their shells, grow and generate more revenue for long-term mutual benefit. Another young Senegalese ICT entrepreneur, Alassane Deme said telcos needed to understand that formerly, people used to buy music and movies on the market, but now they preferred to either buy them or stream them live online. “The telcos must therefore begin to think about how to channel some of the revenue to the app developers who make the download and online streaming possible, and also to the content providers whose music and movies generate the revenue for the telcos,” he said. Alassane Deme is the General Manager of Nelam Services, and he argued that lately musicians all over Africa complained about low CDs sales, and that was largely because lots of people download African music for peanuts or for free, and share with others, and that was discouraging creativity in the music industry. “People are also watching movies for free online, and that is also killing the cinema industry so it is important for telcos to give some of the revenue back to the movie and music producers and the app developers so that it would encourage more creativity and more revenue,” he said. “We must create an ecosystem where the telcos, app developers, and content providers would benefit from the growth of data sector because voice is fast becoming saturated and the telcos are very much aware that they stand to benefit from such transparent ecosystem where revenue is easily traceable by all the partners,” he emphasized. The Regulators' role Young Omar Cisse is the Director General of ICTC Dakar, and he argued that data consumption was growing very fast in Africa, so industry regulators must begin to turn attention on the revenue telcos generate from data and how they could share some of that with other parties in the ICT industry. “The telcos report on revenue from all other aspects of their operations but they do not report on revenue from data downloads and live streaming and I think they need to be compelled with regulation to report on that and also to support the sector not through CSR but through fair revenue sharing,” he said. Serigne Barro is Partner and General Manager of People Input, and he also argued that operators needed to understand that when they encourage app and content developers to grow, it would also have a domino effect on the use of smartphones and tablets, which would then generate even more revenue for the telcos. “As data consumption grows more people would need smartphones and tablets to have access to good apps and content and the telcos stand to benefit even more,” he said. He said, if encouraged, app developers could come up with more apps relevant and compatible with the many smartphones and tablets models and that would then become another revenue stream for the telcos.