ITU partners NCA for quality service training

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has selected the National Communications Authority (NCA) as a training partner for the delivery of Quality of Service Training Programme (QoSTP).

This follows the signing of a licensing agreement with the NCA after the authority has satisfied the requisite conditions set by the global telecommunications body.

Licensing agreement

The licence permits the NCA to deliver ITU-licensed QoSTP in Ghana to interested regulators and operators across Africa and the world.

The Director-General of the NCA, Mr Joe Anokye, signed the licensing agreement on behalf of the authority, with the Director of the Telecommunications Development Bureau of the ITU, Ms Doreen Bogdan-Martin, signing on behalf of the ITU, which regulates the telecommunications space across the world.

A statement from the NCA, copied to the Daily Graphic, said the agreement was signed in Geneva, Switzerland last Thursday on the sidelines of the 2019 World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) Forum.

Quality service

Ms Bogdan-Martin said the ITU was thrilled to be signing the agreement at a time quality of service was a big issue and there was the need to strengthen collaboration on the partnership for the benefit of other developing countries.

She expressed the hope that the programme would boost the quality of communications services, adding that the ITU was ever ready to support Ghana in the delivery of the training.

Feat for Ghana

In his remarks, Mr Anokye said the signing was a great feat for Ghana and that it would result in recognition for the authority and Ghana as a whole.

He expressed his appreciation to the Minister of Communications, Mrs Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, under whose supervision and leadership the NCA was able to further develop its QoS regulatory monitoring.

He said the country was a valuable partner in the development of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and that the active participation of the Minister of Communications and the NCA in ICT and ITU-related issues was yielding results for the country.

Investment

Mr Anokye added that the authority had, within the last few years, invested heavily in technical monitoring equipment, which had enabled the NCA to play its regulatory role effectively and ensured compliance with all required QoS key performance indicators (KPIs) for the satisfaction of consumers.

Among the equipment purchased included the Network Monitoring System 

and the Nemo Quality of Service System for Drive Tests.

He said the authority had, since installing those QoS systems, also installed other systems, including the Broadcast Monitoring System, the NCA Computer Emergency Response Team, the Type Approval and Conformance Laboratories.

He added that some sister regulators had been visiting the NCA on study trips and benchmarking on the systems.

New measures

As a forward-looking regulator, and acknowledging the fact that the communications industry was continuously evolving, the Director General said, it was incumbent on all regulators to adopt new measures of regulating the industry and ensure that consumers who would use new and innovative services would enjoy the quality of experience they had signed up for.

Furthermore, he said, routine monitoring would help support the government’s digitisation agenda by ensuring that the relevant communications network and services on which digital services rode were always available.

Quality of Service Training Programme

The QoSTP was developed in accordance with the ITU Plenipotentiary and World Telecommunications Standardisation Assembly Resolutions on Bridging the Standardisation Gap.

It was developed under the auspices of the ITU Human Capacity Unit and was reviewed by the ITU-T Study Group 12, the lead study group on performance, QoS and Quality of Experience (QoE). The QoSTP has been accredited by the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education.

Modules

The QoSTP has basic, medium and advanced modules for various expertise developments. The basic module provides a broad overview of QoS for senior level management, while the medium provides QoS/QoE, end user equipment, fixed network QoS and mobile network QoS specialists.

The advanced module is for the end user equipment, fixed network QoS and mobile network QoS, with thesis required as part of the training.

The NCA plans to introduce the basic, as well as the medium, module on Fixed Network QoS and Mobile Network QoS from February 2020 and the training will lead to the award of accredited certification from the ITU.

The authority has QoS experts involved in ITU Standards on QoS, as well as facilities, equipment and processes for practical delivery of the programme.