Tifatul promises new regulation on mobile content next year

The government plans to issue a new regulation on mobile content in early 2012, following rampant reports of credit siphoning through mobile content providers, Communications and Information Technology Minister Tifatul Sembiring says.

“[The policy] will be in the form of a governmental regulation on multimedia. We will probably complete it by the end of [2011] and put it into place early next year,” Tifatul said Monday in Jakarta.

He added that the regulation would rule on content services in the telecommunication industry in general, adding that it was a response to increasing reports of credit siphoning by mobile content providers.

Earlier, the government also recently banned value-added mobile services involving such providers.

“I haven’t seen the latest draft, but we once issued a draft government regulation on multimedia content, which was met with protests," Tifatul said, adding that his team was now drafting a new regulation to prevent the public from being harmed.

He added the new regulation would, among other things, tighten government controls over content providers to prevent them from stealing from members of the public, tribunnews.com reported.