Internet service providers operating in the country have accused the National Communications Authority (NCA) of instituting a regulatory regime that does not support fair and transparent management of the country's frequency spectrum. The ISPs, at the launching of a report on the state of the communication sector in Accra, said they have lost confidence in the national telecom regulator - to the extent that some of the members of the Ghana Internet Service Providers Association (GISPA) have now decided to resort to court actions to resolve disputes. In the 56-page Communication Policy and Research report released by GISPA on the state of the communication sector in Ghana, the ISPs expressed worry about the lack of a transparent frequency spectrum management regime and an effective dispute resolution mechanism as some of the regulatory concerns of the providers that the Authority ought to address if sanity is to prevail in the industry. The 29-member GISPA body said: "for instance, the ineffective dispute resolution mechanisms have compelled one ISP to resort to the more expensive option of going to court to settle a dispute arising from the failure of a telecom operator to honour a contractual obligation to the ISP." The report, which was financed by the USAID under its TIPCEE programme, also touched on the operation of the open-ended licencing regime for internet service and the failure of the Authority to exercise regulatory oversight on the performance of ISPs. It said the provision of internet services have been liberalised so much that the NCA cannot limit the number of service providers and enforce compliance on key performance issues such as the requirement for ISPs to deploy service within 90 days of receiving authorisation and to demonstrate continued provision of service to the public. The Business & Financial Times said it learnt that out of more than 114 ISPs that have been licensed by the NCA, only about 29 are currently in operation. "The NCA needs to act on this policy requirement to restore its credibility," it added. Other regulatory challenges that GISPA say impeded their operations consist of perceived high taxes, including a 20 percent withholding tax in addition to 15 percent VAT on bandwidth purchased from foreign sources. Others include lack of regulatory guidelines for and imposition of restrictions on the commercial deployment of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) by ISPs, lack of policy guidelines to promote the success and growth of the ICT industry, and improper pricing of access to bandwidth, fibre, submarine and other infrastructure. Source: B&FT