What we mean by gentle is seen at: http://lirneasia.net/2009/11/how-broad-is-you-broadband/. A regulatory expert who attended the South Asian Telecom Regulators Council meetings that happened to be held when the ad ran said that we must be very brave, to publicly criticize the regulator and the service providers like this. We do not consider this bravery. But it does take a little more imagination and initiative than carping on closed discussion lists read by like-minded people.

At the session, Mr Afonso asked me about the applicability of my policy recommendations to Brazil. I answered him in detail, saying that the entire basis of the presentation was what one should do when the Budget Telecom Network Model (BTNM) was operational, and that in my presentation I had actually pointed out that Brazil was the “anti-poster child” of the BTNM.

In the presentation I also pointed out the essential condition for the BTNM: competition. What is the requirement for competition? Additional entry. What is the recommendation for Brazil? Additional entry. The other recommendations will flow from that: spectrum, rights of way, access to fat pipes and so on.

But he appears not have heard these things. He always can read the paper that is on the web in multiple places, or even look at the slides.

Then there is the question of the universal service fund. Four billion dollars unspent in Brazil and in India. How many years has this gone on? In India, people are being connected by the mobile operators; they are paying extraordinarily low prices. It is wrong that they should pay universal service contributions that are in any case kept unspent.

Let me reiterate, in countries where the BTNM is operational, the universal service fund is absolutely wrong. In countries that have prevented the BTNM from emerging, this is not the highest priority.

But in any country, if you’re taxing people saying it’s for a certain purpose and not using the money for that purpose, it is unusual to defend that practice. I am sure Mr Afonso is not the first or only person to have declaimed that the fund in Brazil should be run efficiently and the money disbursed. The fact that no improvement has happened should be cause for thought, at least. It was Einstein who said that “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Try something different. I say this not as an outsider, but as one who has actually designed universal funds.

Title: The sad Broadband workshop…
Author: Chanuka Wattegama, Carlos A. Afonso
Source: LIRNEasia
Date (published): 21/11/2009
Date (accessed): 21/11/2009
Type of information: blog post
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
We reprodu…

One key reason for this difference, as I read in Economist some time back, is the massive infrastructure developments in the west during dot com boom. The investments on infrastructure were exceptionally high – anticipating much bigger opportunities that didn’t happen. This gave all these countries enough unused fiber. As for us, there was no dot com boom. So we are still in square one developing the infrastructure the hard way.

This also explains why local loop unbundling (LLU) does not work in any of these countries as Carlos thinks. LLU works in (developed) countries where they already have the infrastructure (fiber) in place. We don’t. For example if you have LLU in Sri Lanka maximum 500,000 users (less than 5%) benefit.

We use very different models here. People will see when you come to LIRNEasia @5. We provide internet on a pure mobile broadband solution. The reason is even at the heart of the city it is easy for us to get wireless than a fiber link.

Finally, the carpenters. I know no carpenters who send their CVs to prospective employers from mobiles, but I do know at least one guy, a son of a carpenter who runs his face book account by mobile phone. It is all he can afford. (pays 0.3 CAD for BB usage per day. Even one hour of Internet use in a cyber café is 0.6 CAD)