The Film and Publication Board (FPB) believes South Africa’s Wireless Application Service Providers’ Association (WASPA) is a key partner in the country’s fight to protect citizens from the scourge of harmful content online. This emerged from a recent workshop collaboration between the FPB and WASPA aimed primarily at improving the skills of the WASPA personnel at the sharp edge of the fight against child pornography and other illegal content that cannot be marketed via mobile telephones. FPB attendees included representatives of the classification board’s Child Protection Unit, amongst others, while WASPA’s media content testers were accompanied by the Association’s General Manager and compliance staff. WASPA’s compliance department is mandated to monitor the local WASP industry in an independent, objective and transparent manner. Any conduct by members that is not in compliance with the WASPA Code of Conduct is documented, reported and escalated for immediate remedial action. This ensures that consumers are protected at all times and that mobile content and services in South Africa are provided in line with the required provisions of the WASPA industry Code. “Our training workshop with WASPA was the latest in a series of ongoing collaborations between the FPB and industry in the fight against harmful and illegal content that has the potential to damage the social fabric of this country,” said FPB spokesperson, Mrs Lynette Kamineth. According to WASPA General Manager, Ilonka Badenhorst: “It’s a badge of honour for WASPA to be so highly regarded by a government organisation with such a vital mandate. The FPB does a sterling job, with few resources, when it comes to protecting society’s most vulnerable members from harmful content.” The workshop featured presentations on the case law around restricted content versus adult content, the challenges around content takedown and ensuring compliance, child developmental stages and the classification of . . .

Many of us know our total cholesterol number and some of us even know our systolic and diastolic blood pressure numbers. However, when it comes to our business lives, do we have any idea what call quality we’re receiving from our corporate Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) provider? The measured quality of VoIP calls can be reduced to a number and the Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) expects local VoIP providers to deliver a service that’s at least a 3 out of 5 on the Mean Opinion Score (MOS). This is according to independent telco, ICTGlobe.com, which says MOS is a commonly-used subjective, end-user measure of call quality. MOS scores range from 1 for unacceptable to 5 for excellent with VoIP calls usually in the 3.5 to 4.2 range. “Our MOS score is most often a consistent 4.3 and this number is something of which we are tremendously proud. It’s taken massive investments in our own, enterprise-class telecoms network over many years to be able to routinely deliver this kind of above-average MOS score,” says Riaan van Stryp, ICTGlobe.com General Manager. “Conversations around VoIP are mostly around the cost of calls. This is understandable considering South Africa’s historically high-cost telecoms environment. However, now that we’re achieving something approaching reasonable in the cost of voice and data, business and individual VoIP consumers need to start demanding an exceptional quality VoIP experience, because it is possible, as we have shown,” Mr Van Stryp adds. From mobile voice notes to IP-based voice calls, voice is once again dominating communications. Businesses and consumers alike are rediscovering the efficiency advantages provided by person-to-person, voice-based communication and this trend will continue only if call quality rates are maintained and improved. Typically, VoIP communication options come in about 45% more affordable than fixed line. Aside from affordability, VoIP’s strength is that this voice-based, . . .

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