Bangladesh has had a monopoly since 1989. The sector was opened in 1996. The Telecom Act was enacted in 2001. The regulator was established under this Act.

During this period the number of mobile subscribers increased significantly, with a peak in 2006. The fixed phone tariff fell dramatically from 2001 to 2002 and again in 2007.

The number of mobile subscribers seem to have grown exponentially, while the fixed subscribers remain much unchanged. There is a sharp rise from 2002 to 2003, this can be explained by the entrance on Banglalink in 2004 into the sector.

The six main mobile operators are AKTEL, Banglalink, Citycell, Grameenphone, Teletalk and Warid. Grameenphone seems to have dropped from over 70% market share in 2001 to 45% in 2008.

Total investment seems to be stable over the period from 2000 to 2003 (ITU). 2003 to 2004 (ITU) saw a sudden increase in investment which can be correlated to the positive effects on telecom revenue.

Fixed sector: The sector is dominated by BTTB. This would recently restructured and renamed Bangladesh Telephone Company Limited (BTCL).However, a separate company manages the submarine and cable related backbone infrastructure. At present there are fourteen private operators offering services, with seven main operators. They are, BTTB, Telebarta, Ranks Telecom, Onetel, National Telecom and Peoples Telecom.

Mobile sector: The sector has intense competition and this has resulted in the producing some of the lowest tariffs. The state owned Teletalk only has 3% market share. The largest mobile operator is Grameenphone wit 45% market share, Banglalink comes in second place with 22% market share. As of march 2008 BTRC reports that mobile penetration has reached 30%.

Rohan: LIRNEasia does not report mobile subscribers, only the number of mobile SIMs.

Rohan: A weighted average for ARPU would be useful to further analyse the data.

Broadband/ Internet: Internet penetration is very low. Broadband data is not existent. However, there is growing access to internet via mobile. The quality of service also needs to be addressed. Broadband is accessed mainly through ADSL and cable internet. There is no HSPA ( due to the lack of 3G technologies).

Helani: Is there a wireless network providing broadband in Dhaka?

Miraj: No…

Methodology: sample size was 27, and the overall response rate was 34.6%. The main response mode was through the online survey (13), face to face meeting (9) and Email (5). The desired level of 15 responses per category was not achievable. Category 2 recieved the lowest response. Some dimensions were problematic to the respondents such as quality of service and USO. Operators were not willing to provide data and this required reliance on annual reports of the parent companies. BTRC was not very helpful in this regard either.

Market entry: the fixed sector received the highest score followed by mobile and broadband. In spite of mobile having a relatively competitive market place it receives a low score. Though the broadband sector allows to issue licenses it does not easily allocate spectrum etc ( a problem of access to resources exists).

Access to resources: allocation of spectrum seems to be a serious concern. BTRC has started spectrum farming and hopes to sell spectrum to operators soon. The backbone sharing will be made mandatory for all operators.

Helani: is the rates mandatory as well or can it be negotiated between companies?

Miraj: will look into further information on that.

Helani: Need to focus on what has been done and not what will be done in the future. It is ok to mention them but with a focus on the fact that it is not implemented.

Interconnection: Received satisfactory scores in all but broadband. Interconnection rates and refusal to connect by the significant market player is a major concern.

Helani: why are broadband interconnection scores so low?

Miraj: 2004/ 05 saw part- operation of an internet exchange which many of the big players are connected to.

Tariff regulation: Tariff circuits are in place. In the fixed sector the tariff is set by BTTB and is matched by the other operators. Broadband tariffs are very high even after there has been significant reductions this year.

Anti-competitive practices: There is no action on the part of the regulator to curb the activities of the incumbent. BTRC usually overlooks anti- competitive behavior by BTTB.

USO: no clear directions and guidelines in existing policy. A significant urban- rural gap exists in mobile adoption. Fixed and broadband has larger inequalities. The regulator has now asked for 100% broadband coverage in a period of 5 years.

QoS: Mobile received a reasonably good score even though there have been definite deficiencies. Mobile operators face problems due to the lack of access to spectrum. Fixed sector score represents the QoS of BTTB. The broadband sector received the lowest score out of the entire survey.

Overall, the mobile sector performed the best while broadband seems to have a lot of negative feeling.

She first went over the overview of the Maldives, both in general and telecommunications.

Previous monopoly partially privatized, and Dhiraagu is established in 1988 and continues to dominate the market.

10% of GDP is attributed to communication services, of which telecom is dominant.IN 2001 mobile prepaid services were launched and hence resulted in a surge in the number of mobile subscribers. In 2005, Wataniya enters the market (through a relatively transparent process).  The anticipation of this entry results in a large drop in the incumbent prices.

The current market: There is a monopoly on fixed: Dhiraagu. However, the exclusivity ends in 2009. There is a duopoly in the mobile between Dhiraagu and Wataniya. Broadband is also a duopoly between Dhiraagu and Focus Infocom.

Dhiraagu does not publish any data, even subscriber numbers. However, the market share of Dhiraagu does not seem to have changed much. This proves that the competitor does not seem to be having an impact on the incumbent. The ARPU is higher than in most South Asian countries. This is the case even though roaming revenues have been removed from the equation. Wataniya who has been in operation for about two years they have not been able to make a profit as yet.

There are two submarine cables. While this gives redundancy, unsure if higher cost justified for a small market.

The regulator (TAM) was established in 2003, and operate on a decree. They are not financially independent but this is due to change soon with the impending elections, new constitution and proposed Telecom Act.

TRE for Market Entry: Mobile and broadband sectors are doing well. However, mobile is below average. The fixed sector has a monopoly. This allows for corruption factors. In regard to mobile there was the selection of Wataniya and hence the higher scores. Broadband has two players and a partial third player.

Scarce resources: Spectrum is allocated free. They charge a 5% royalty fee on gross revenues, minus interconnection charges. In Male, Dhiraagu and MediaNet have fiber rings. Focus has to buy capacity from either Dhiraagu or MediaNet. In the resorts, Wataniya cannot play as Dhiraagu set up towers and refuses to share their towers with competitors. Out of the 88 current active towers, Dhiraagu shares one tower and seven resorts have allowed new towers. So, Dhiraagu maintains the monopoly on 80 islands.

Interconnection: Mobile and Fixed do better than broadband. When Wataniya came up there was an RIO by TAM.  Dhiraagu also published one.  Claim is that prices converged.  Wataniya is not allowed to bring in international traffic & terminate on Dhiraagu network..  So only make close-to-local termination from incoming international.  Could make more if allowed to bring in traffic.

Tariff regulation: Generally good overall with slightly better performances in mobile. Both mobile operators have to inform the regulator 5 days prior, in the event that no questions asked the tariff plan goes ahead. There seems to be price competition in the mobile market.

Anti- competitive practices: Mobile does best in this category. However, the lower scores can be due to the unfair position that Dhiraagu has and soft-touch approach TAM is perceived to take towards the incumbent.

USO: Fixed- available in all inhabited islands but take up seems to be low. Mobile- covers 96%- 98% in inhabited islands.  Wataniya rolled out in 6 months. Broadband is limited to certain places. There is no USO fees/ funds.

QoS: Very high scores in all three sectors. There does not seem to be any active monitoring though QoS data is reported to TAM. The regulator takes consumer complaints seriously and follows up with the operators.

There seem to be high scores overall in the TRE for Maldives. This could be due to the improvements made in recent times. Or due to the small island culture where everyone knows everyone or other reasons.

Recommendations: Wataniya should get access to resorts. This should be both in mobile and broadband. TAM should get legal/ financial independence through the new Telecom Act.  The renewal of Dhiraagu’s license should be handled transparently as possible.

Rohan: The problem is the exclusivity that Dhiraagu is given. This creates a great deal of distortions.

The study: 94% of the survey was done through the internet and 6% was done through paper surveys.

The liberalization was done in 2000, and there has been a large increase in the total number of subscribers. Mobile increases expediently from 2004, this is partly due to the TRAI allocating CDMA subscribers into the mobile category as opposed to fixed.

Year on year growth scores show that the mobile sector is growing as well.

Rohan: It is useful to get the CAGR scores for comparison as well.

Within the mobile sector Bharti is still leading with a market share of 23.74%, reliance comes in second place with 17.54% and Vodafone/ Hutchinson in thrid with 16.90%.

The incumbent defines all interventions in the policy making process.

Market for the fixed operators show that BSNL still continues to operate with 83% of the market, with MTNL only having 9%. This legacy of BSNL has a great bearing on the broadband sector as copper technology dominates. The copper technology has not proven to be a useful substitute.Other operators have not entered the market because netwoek roll out is expensive and prefer to move into the mobile sector.

Rohan: What is the company ‘Hathaway’ providing?

Payal: Its probably providing only broadband.

Helani: Is the local loop unbundled?

Payal: No, so Hathaway is probably using a wireless technology.

Helani: who is using ADSL?

Payal: BSNL, MTNL, and all the private operators. As the prohibition on laying copper by anyone other than the incumbent was liften in 2005. As so now private operators can lay copper, optical fibre for providing broadband services.

When comparing HHI figures, there is a significant increase in competition in the mobile sector between 2003 and 2007. Even in the poor states the competition is increasing as operators move from the rich, urban markets.

Internet and Broadband: There has been a steady growth in the number of internet and broadband subscribers between 2004 and 2007. However, there is a large difference between the number of internet and broadband subscribers. This shows that many people are accessing the internet through mobile using 2G technologies. India does not have 3G technology as yet. And so the unbundling of the local loop is necassary to make the broadband market grow.

However, this has resulted in the private opertators laying out their own networks because they cannot access the backbone being used by BSNL, so this has a positive effect on infrastructure.

Helani: Does TRAI’s figures for wireless subscribers include the mobile internet users?

Payal: yes, the 2G users.

There has been a large number of policy initiatives between 1999 and 2005. Unified licensing was allowed to remedy a problem with previous policies and allowed for any technology to be used to provide mobile telephony.

The roaming tariffs were reduced from 22 to 56% in 2006.

Rohan: Is it when a user goes to another state and uses the same network? or when the user goes to another state and uses a competitors network?
Payal: Both…

Rohan: If im inside my own circle can i roam on another network? or do i have to use my own network?
Payal: no you cannot. You have to use your own network within your circle.

Survey
Most of the survey was through email responses. However, there were problems of confidentiality especially in regard to operators. They wanted non-disclosure agreements etc.

Helani: Did it matter to the mode of the survey? email, online etc..
Payal: Most operators did not respond to emails, and the operators were surveyed at an industry association event. Operators agreed to complete hard copies without putting their name.

Helani: We should not ask them to give their name, address and email address.

The study showed that the questionnaire should not be given the option not to answer parts of the survey as there were entire sections that were left blank. This was especially a problem with fixed and broadband sectors where there are a few operators.

There were 42 respondents in all with 14 in each category. Category 3 were least affected and so were the easiest to responses from while the operators were the most challenging.

Overall results: Broadband (2.4) performs poorly when compared with mobile (2.9) and fixed (2.8).

Payal: We should leave the scores to 2 decimal points.

Rohan: I disagree, as this is a crude measurement device and the importance of decimal points are low.

In both mobile and fixed tariff regulation receives the best scores, with both scoring 3.9 each. The lowest scores were received by the access to resources category. The scores for the fixed sector has improved from 2.8 in (2006) to 2.9 (2007) and in mobile from 2.9 (2006) to 3.0 (2007).

In both mobile and fixed tariff regulation recieves the best scores, with both scoring 3.9 each. The lowest scores were recieved by the access to resources category. The scores for the fixed sector has improved from 2.8 in (2006) to 2.9 (2007) and in mobile from 2.9 (2006) to 3.0 (2007).

Access to scarce resources: There are major issues in the allocation of spectrum. This includes controversies and inter miniterial battles. There have been rigidities in the broadband sector cause by the local loop not being unbundled.
A 3G spectrum allocation policy has been announced but it contains some anomalities.

Interconnection:

Tariff regulation: This area performed the best. There have been many amendments to the TTO 99. However, broadband tariffs are percieved to be very high.

Rohan: Is it tariff regulation or forebearance?
Payal: Forbearance

In both mobile and fixed tariff regulation recieves the best scores, with both scoring 3.9 each. The lowest scores were recieved by the access to resources category. The scores for the fixed sector has improved from 2.8 in (2006) to 2.9 (2007) and in mobile from 2.9 (2006) to 3.0 (2007).

Market entry: The scores for this category are as follows. Fixed: 2.7, Mobile 3.1 and Broadband got 2.8. There is free entry; no cap on license. There is no explicit guidelines for MVNOs. Government’s approval to the use of dual technology. Most of the operators could not begin their operations due to the non-availability of the spectrum
BSNL is still dominating BB though in the metros choice of two or three operators

Access to scarce resources: There are major issues in the allocation of spectrum. This includes controversies and inter miniterial battles. There have been rigidities in the broadband sector cause by the local loop not being unbundled.
A 3G spectrum allocation policy has been announced but it contains some anomalities.

Interconnection:The sectors recived the following scores; Fixed: 2.7, Mobile 2.8 and Broadband 2.8. The IUC regime of 2003 specified the interconnect charges clearly and paved the way for a calling party pays (CPP) regime . Also termination charges made uniform for all types calls – cellular mobile, fixed and WLL (M)
TRAI has expressed its inability to force any operator to honour the interconnection agreement. There seems to be an improvement in the score: telecom operators welcoming the phasing out of ADC

Tariff regulation: This area performed the best. There have been many amendments to the TTO 99. However, broadband tariffs are percieved to be very high.

Rohan: Is it tariff regulation or forebearance?
Payal: Forbearance

Anti-competitive practice: the score for the mobile sector has seen the largest deterioration. Excisting operators should not be able to prelude entry to the new ones. There seem to be many new operators that are willing to come into the market. So the test of competition should be contestability or ease of entry into the industry as the current imcumbent is creating barriers to entry. The competition authority has made observations on this problem but it doesn not have the necassary powers to carry out an intervention to address this issue.

USO: There has been a remarkable improvement in the USO policy. In march 07, a least cost subsidy auctions for infrastructure companies was offered for setting up infrastructure for mobile telephony.Increases in rural teledensity has been a priority for private operators.

Quality of Service: There has been frequent call drops, poor connectivity amongst others. But the survey does not score too low in this category with 2.8 in fixed and 2.9 in mobile. The low ARPU model isnt sustainable as it shows that the operators are cutting back on their investments.

Conclusions: India seems to have followed a ‘text book’ liberalisation. But there have been market failures, such as the monopolistic power of the incumbent, and issues of market entry.  This needs to be addressed by using proper regulatory instruments such as infrastucture sharing. TRAI has recently recommended that, licensing conditions should be amended to allow service providers to share their backhaul.It should ensure fair play, generate competition and discourage any form of cartelization. Overall, the market seems to be doing a good job.

The number of mobile subscribers rose significantly since 1998, this is due to prepaid being introduced. This made access easier to potential subscribers.

Also, after 1993 the number of fixed telephone lines that were installed increased significantly and have remained constant since.

The number of mobile subscribers are very low from 1991 to 1998, this could be explained by the high cost of obtaining a handset amongst other factors.

The main 3 mobile operators are Islacom, SunCell and GCash.

Helani: is it possible to plot the price of a 1 min mobile minute and the price of an SMS?
Erwin: Its a little tricky, cause the SMS price has remained the same over time, and includes bundled offers or unlimited SMS offers.

Movement in data/internet

There seems to be greater investment in data call centers and paging centers (that died due to SMS popularity).

There is also a great deal of growth in the number of ISPs. Smart has 300,000 mobile interbet subscribers (2007).

Helani: is there 3G offers in Philippines? or just GPRS?

Erwin: 3G started last year, but most subscribers are still using GPRS but they are moving towards 3G.

Helani: who has their own backbone to provide internet?

Erwin: PLDT

Market Entry: Low rating for fixed sector with the mobile and broadband sectors doing better which can be explained by the growth potential. Mobile could have got a better score if not for the questions in regard to granting 3G licenses that involved alack of tranparency ( no auction).

Access to scarce resources: 3G licenses were given out at the last quarter of 2007 and was based on a ‘beauty contest’. This resulted in questions arising about transparency.

Helani: does the reselling of spectrum require regulatory approval?

Erwin: There does not seem to be any such procedure in place, in regard to anti-competitive practices.

The impact of the policies in broadband have not been felt as yet. There was some controversy about the backbone for provision of broadband.

Rohan: did they specify that the local companies were excluded.

Erwin, yes, but all local operators have foreign partners. The policy requires foreign investment. There are NBN hearing addressing the issues of some operators been excluded from bidding.

Interconnection: Ratings received between the three sectors seem to be much the same. Mobile scores have increased since 2006 and this shows that some of the issues have been resolved.

Helani: how does interconnection work there?

Erwin: based in individual contracts.

Rohan: is there anything on internet interconnection? with a local internet exchange?

Helani: is there more than one submarine cable coming into the Philippines?

Erwin: yes, there are more than one.

Tariffs: There seems to be no significant difference between the scores for the three sectors?

Helani: are prices regulated?

Erwin: there is a great deal of competition and the rates are set by the market. There is also free SMS…

Anti-competitive practices: Lowest TRE scores, and poses the highest challenge for regulators esp in highly competitive areas like mobile.

Does having unlimited call/SMS from new players lead to predatory pricing? Some players charge a fixed amount for a call regardless of the time of the call ( applies even to calls made from fixed to mobile lines). However, this cannot be provided indefinitely and hence is a promotional tool.

Helani: have any of these being challenged in court?

Erwin: some…

Difficulty if regulation competition:  reuglation for the above area should not include the following;

1) lack of instutional capacity of the regulator to enforce poicy

2) lack of incentive/ motivation for market players to comply with the policy

3) strong political backing of major carriers from the executive and legislative branches of government.

Rohan: there has been a rapid turnover or regulatory commissioner?

Erwin: yes, but difficult to draw a direct correlation between the two.

Also the lack of tranparency and concept of a level playing field seems to be a major concern amongst most respondents.

Universal Service Obligation: Clear USO policy only exists in fixed.

Helani: Most of the new lines weren’t in undeserved areas but in urban areas…

Erwin: There arnt enough lucrative markets and hence there is more focus on the urban areas.

SAS affects the mobile sector negativly. Mobiles have to contribute through building a fixed network and is managed by same.

New USO goals: undertakes a build, operate and transfer of broadband network and will be operated by CICT. Moving away from voice and acknowledges the limitations of the pvt sector to provide broadband services.

Service Quality: Not tracked on a regular basis. Mobile sccored the best in this area with fixed and broadband lagging behind. There is a poor percention of quality of broadband services. However, you can get even a fixed line connection in one working day.

Summary: The mobile sector does best overall with fixed and broadband coming in second and thrid place. However, the TRE average for mobile and fixed is lower than in 2006, with USO and anti-competitive practices pulling it down.

PLDT is still the dominant operator. All operators have international gateways.

Rohan: what could be the cause for the anti-competitive issue in mobile?

Erwin: they have certain promotions that are anti-competitive. This results in the smaller operators finding it difficult to operate at a competitive level.

Rohan: is tere an anti-competitive agency? or is it handled by the regulator?

Erwin: its handled by thr regulator..

The main issues in 2008 where, the allocation of 3G licenses, NBN/ Cyber Ed- establishment of a broadband network and the provision of free SMS ( this didnt come through as the prices that the telcos were offering were even lower than what the regulator wanted).

Rohan: do they do buckets of services? or on a sms by sms basis?

Erwin: if your on a postpaid then you will have a xxx number of sms for a fixed price a month, while if your on a prepaid package then you will have unlimited number of sms for a fixed price a day.

Smart is the largest mobile operator.

Rohan: can a calculation for HHI be done?

Erwin: yes, that can be done.

The total numbers of subscribers have increased significantly since 2001 with the entrance of the 3rd player into the telecom sector. This is the concept of the disruptive new entrant. Until 2001, a duopoly existed and there was a system of price fixing. This changed with the entrance of the new player.

The independent regulator (NTC) came into play in 2004.
HHI in mobile seems to be falling while both broadband and fixed line is rising.

Helani: what is happening in the broadband market?
Deunden: TelecomAsia was able to expand their services, as no real competitors exist. So the large operator just seems to be capturing a larger part of the market.

Fixed line market seems to be following the same trend as before. The HHI continues to rise. The fixed HHI is divided into provincial and metropolitan.

The main channels used to send out the questionnaire were through fax, using public events and through associations.

Deunden: If you have rights of way you can provide the service. There are network licenses, these allows you to provide any of the three services. This includes the access network as well.

Rohan: are the fees made public?
Deunden: yes they are…

Rohan: are there limits on the number of licenses that the NTC can issue?
Deunden: no there is not. Thailand allows for resale of services, however, the type 3 license does not come with 3G spectrum. This may change in the future.

Market entry sees issues with the licensing regime, 3G and wi-max licenses and number portability issue
Access to scarce resources: main issues were delayed number portability, delayed 3G license and discriminatory licensing.

Interconnection:
Fixed: subject to terms/ conditions that are set out in concession contracts and so there does not seem to be interconnection.

Rohan: how long is the concession contract valid?

Deunden: 25 years, the customer needs to pay 200 baht every month. No termination fees. They refused to pay the access fees as they were already paying the interconnection charge.

Mobile: state- owned enterprises are not subject to NTC interconnection rule. NTC seems to fail to protect small players in the settings of interconnection charges by large players.

Tariff:
In 2008, price ceilings were established according to fee schedules submitted by operators.

Rohan: Do have any information on price changes over time? Have prices come down?
Deunden: We do not have price related data. But prices seem to have gone down. The prices of fixed lines are not liberalized and are kept artificially low.

Anti-competitive practices: Main concerns were that there were no clear competition rules and no definition for a dominant provider.

Rohan: do have any information on price changes over time? Have prices come down?
Deunden: We do not have price related data. But prices seem to have down. The prices of fixed lines are not liberalized and are kept artificially low.

USO: Received the second lowest score.
Fixed: The NTC has not passed clear rules concerning the operation and management of USO.
Mobile: Have to contribute 4% of total revenue.

Quality of Service: NTC has failed to implement any QoS and so there is no information on quality of service.
There are a lot of problems with broadband provided by Telecom Asia but there is no way of assessing the quality.

Concluding comments: there seems to be a negative perception of the NTC and this can be explained by the unfavorable regulatory environment. There also seems to be a lack of transparency and political interferences.

Lessons learnt: independence is not a stand alone factor. There are other areas that need to be addressed as well. Need clear and transparent rules and regulations. NTC has to realize that competition can help in alleviating poverty.

Rohan: independence by itself does not achieve anything but rather is a tool for doing regulation. They have a large number of employees (about 800). There seems to be very complex rules that have been adopted from Europe. NTC should be given some credit issuing licenses and creating an environment conducive to competition.

]]> http://lirneasia.net/2008/09/colloquium-telecom-regulatory-environment-study-thailand/feed/ 5 http://lirneasia.net/2008/08/colloquium-sarvodaya-satellite-and-web-radio-as-precursor-to-sarvodaya-community-radio-%e2%80%93-the-way-forward-and-the-challenges/ http://lirneasia.net/2008/08/colloquium-sarvodaya-satellite-and-web-radio-as-precursor-to-sarvodaya-community-radio-%e2%80%93-the-way-forward-and-the-challenges/#comments Tue, 12 Aug 2008 10:42:35 +0000 Lara Alawattegama http://lirneasia.net/?p=1904 The Colloquium hopes to assess how the project can be sustained within the Sarvodaya arena.

Chaminda Rajakaruna opened the presentation with a brief introduction to Sarvodaya. Sarvodaya is a widely expanded grassroots levels organisation. He went on to present the vision of the Deshodaya as well.

Purpose of the intervention was to take the mssge behind Sarvodaya and Deshodaya to the media through text, video and audio. He went on to emphasise that the mainstream media is not adequate to address the grass root levels. He went on to explain in details why TV, print and audio media are not adequate for Sarvodaya’s needs. A better alternative would be community radio. However, those that have been established in the past have faced sustainability problems.

Mainstream media tends to confirm to political views even though an impression of community radio is established. Also community media allows for area specific problems to be addressed.

Chaminda Rajakaruna went on to provide some varying definitions of community journalism.

The overall objective of the Savodaya community radio is to promote a fair media culture based on community journalism among the diverse communities across Sri Lanka.

Also to give unheard ppl a voice, share experiences ( not only a one way information flow but also  provisions for the listeners to improve the quality of the programmes through feedback) and conduct SWOT analysis.

The process involves 5 mini studios in strategic areas in the island. Along with some the Deshodaya team, volunteers ( a large emphasis was place upon the training of both the team and volunteers) and content production. The final step involved a quality check and upload from Colombo.

He then went on to explain the different indicators that will be used to calculate the success of achieving each of the main three objectives.

The audience would be the general citizens that would need to go to the district centers to listen to this radio. However, people that are affiliated to Sarvodaya would be more inclined to participate in this venture.

Helani Galpaya commented saying that the indicators cited cannot be noted to be useful because they cannot be quantified.

She also questioned the frequency of the content management. Rajakaruna responded saying that programmes are repeated upto 8 times a day. New content is introduced on a weekly and monthly basis depending on the content.

Another positive effect that may occur is the youth involvement. All the volunteers trained for the process were between the age of 16 and 18.

At the moment the Moratuwa HQ is operational with upto 7 programmes.

The main challenges that were identified were the language barriers during the training, dependency on volunteers, inadequate computer skills, technical difficulties in WorldSpace satellite.

Main lessons learnt were that a strong commitment is needed by the Sarvodaya staff, that the volunteers need to be well trained and motivating these volunteers.

There are other equipment components apart from WorldSpace that can be used for this venture. These are the Sarvodaya website, GPRS and community radio hot line.

This initiative has been running for 2 months so far. This has consisted of 10 programmes that are altered on a weekly basis.

Professor Samarajiva spoke of the Webhamuwa initiative and attempted to draw parallels between the two. Webhamuwa took into account print form that was put on the internet. He emphasised that this should have been the model that was followed.

Nuwan noted that this is also going to be used as a disaster warning channel and this is the first step in creating it.

Helani noted that if you are aiming this at the Sarvodaya community, then the mainstream media will not be a competitor. Professor Samarajiva noted that the initiative will have to move from the term of community radio to citizen radio. It would not be a centralised model. As community journalism is created by professionals for the mass market.

“To be able to achieve the objectives of the initiative, have to deal with local issues and this would be citizen participation”. However, if the objective is to develop Sarvodaya image then it should be dealt on the professional level with participation of the senior personnel without using the word citizen journalism.

Professor Samarajiva noted that if its a participatory aspect that is what needs to be achieved then a blog format should be followed. However, unlike in the blog culture radio concerns a time constraint. Therefore, a decision needs to be made about what to include and what to eliminate.

One of the programmes with community radio is that a village will not be able to produce much content on a daily basis. And so get it to a more sustainable position Sarvodaya need to produce content on a daily basis. Professor Samarajiva noted that WorldSpace is an expensive option and alternatives need to be considered unless it is being run as a disaster channel.

Sujatha Gamage noted that audio does not allow information to be stored and viewed later like the internet. This can prove to be a disadvantage.

Nuwan commented that communities are not capable of creating print content and hence audio content would be easier to generate.

Nuwan questioned if there is a framework that can be followed to achieve community radio? Professor Samarajiva noted that both the content and the participatory aspects need to be developed simultaneously to be successful. However, for any of this to be successful then the objective needs to be clear and the strategy created accordingly.

Helani commented that if the listener was able to pick and choose what they want, then that is truly participatory. This will require Sarvodaya to create truly unique content. He went on to explain that it was difficult to drive this with merely volunteers.

Bruce Girard commented saying that these problems can be overcome by using pod casts, MP3, CDs etc and other portable equipment as store and use later devices. This is the case in Uruguay.

Nuwan questioned if WorldSpace (does not have a two way system) or mobiles were used which would be more successful? the response was that mobile would…through a system of using pod casts. This increases the participatory aspect of the initiative. The role for WorldSpace is to send information/ content from the village to the district center.

Nirmali questioned whether advertising can be used as method of creating financial sustainability. Professor Samarajiva noted that this is not possible as this would take over from the  “community aspect”. As result in the entire initiative sliding into a commercial arena.

Four examples were identified,

• Community based last mile hazard warning system
• Traceability of agriculture markets- trying to maximize the profit of the produce.
• Dam failure EWS
• Financial EWS- Looks at currency and banking crisis within a country.

Looking at early warning systems in a abstract way.

There are some ambiguous schemes that have been used..

• According to a space of time
• Multiplicity of events
• Decision model
• Domain: financial, flood, tsunami, cyclone etc

Therefore it can be noted that ICTs are used to try and minimize or distance the threat of a impending hazard.

He went on to note explain his classification tree. Mainly divided into operational orientation, complexity of the system and entropy of expected state ( the amount of information that flows. Each one is a process, one wants to knw how long it takes to enter, process and exit the system).

The Govt is planning to put sirens in the villages then this is the no observer model (this is a complete control system) but if we feed information to the people this would constitute a with observer model. The no observer controller model can lead to panic and disarray. With the observer system the people will be able to prepare and hence not panic. They will also knw most details about the impending tariff such as the time for evacuation.

Also should be able to classify whether its a forward or feedback path.

He went on to talk about the EWS at the Yala sancutary. This was a natural system that exists in the sanctuary.

EWS process is as below:

Sensor

Detection

Decision

Broker

Response

Between each of these stages there is a process using some sort of technology.

Nuwan goes on to describe the different types of sensors and the way in which these sensors are trusted. It deals with factors such as precision, sensor error, accuracy, resolution, linearity, hysteria etc. Under the LM-EWS the sensor would be the either the internet or SMS. Information on dependability and availability of the sensor as well. This can be quantified.

He goes on to explain how evidence theory is used to measure the plausibility of multi-systems.

He uses a Gherkin detection example, to show how the technology/ person detects the good or bad gherkins.

There are four detection possiblities,

1. True noise

2. True alarm

3. False alarm

4. Missed surprise

This would allow to seperate sensoring from detection (extracting information from a pool).

Decision systems – Have to make a decision in a limited time. The decision is crucial and has to be made before the warning horizon.

Broker systems – is the intermediary btw decision stage and . Within this system there are other functions such as translation engine, transportation with routing, control flow, rules engine, warehouse for store0n-forward, plugin adapters. He also went on to explain the diff types of topologies.

Within the brokers systems there are providers and consumers. The broker performance is calculated using throughput. Mechanisms for an abstract measure for broker systems is an open process.

There are 5 types of complexities.

1. Time independant – zero, real, imaginary

2. Time dependant – combinatorial, periodic

Axiomatic design framework – And design has the customer domain, functional domain, design domain and process variables.

Nuwan then goes on to explain queing theory.

There has been some argument that detection and sensoring can be coupled but this is not the situation in Nuwan’s opinion and he argues that he needs to be able to prove this.

Proffessor Samarjiva commented saying that Nuwan would need to position himself and the work itself within a space. Firstly, set it within an abstract space ( within systems, queing etc theory) and then move out into academics and practitioners.

Helani Galpaya noted that diff areas can be classified depending on the details that were collected. This would be the ideal outcome for the classification process.

Nuwan noted that terminology also seemed to be a problem as there is not much literature or consensus on theories/ terms.

Prof. Samarajiva noted that for it to be a fair, it should entail that like with like comparision be done. He argued that the most important factor is the outcome of the system itself, regardless of location, technology or process.

Nuwan noted that there are many field that

Comparisons were also drawn between building evacuation systems as well. And therefore there should be a lot of literature in this regard.

Nirmali questioned what the goal of classification is? Nuwan responded sayin that it carries importance for planner and policy makers, be able to recommend a particular system for a scenario, create interest in the field, eliminate ambiguity in the terminology and achieve the optimal design that can be used.

Prof. Samarajiva noted that the design has a weakness in it that it does not take into account any financial impediments. Capital/cost is a large factor in hazard warning.

Sujatha Gamage questioned of an example can be given that is a feed forward, time dependant and where waiting time is greater than service time. Nuwan responded that this can be done… and went on to explain the scenario of where a dam is about to breach.

The Colloquium will focus on the question that came up during one of the LIRNEasia brain storming sessions which was “what can and what can’t the Last-Mile Hazard Warning System do?”; i.e. what are its capabilities and capacities? The answer was “lets classify the LM-HWS”

“During the 3 months I had between submitting the ‘biosurveillance’ proposal and being awarded the research grant, I spent time taking a stab at the open problem of /classifying early warning systems/. The theoretical framework looks at applying system theory, complexity theory, and queuing theory as a basis to derive the classifiers. The belief is that it would be a major contribution to supply a mathematically well defined framework for future academics and practitioners to use as a basis for designing and assessing early warning systems. The aim of this colloquium is to present preliminary work to get a consensus on my approach”

- Nuwan

The Colloquium will be conducted at the usual time of 4p.m (Sri Lanka/ India time). For those of you who will not be able to join us at our office in Balcombe Place there will be an online blogging session at www.lirneasia.net

We will also have a conference call for those who wish to join us virtually. If interested pls drop a mail to alawattegama@lirne.net prior to the start of the Colloquium.

Please find the presentation slides Here

Are their other users to the farmer?

• Elimination of the middle man and hence a rise in profit margins
• A degree of knowledge flow of the technical aspects of traceability
• Ability to market the product as a differentiated good.

Is there a net benefit? what are the cost? who pays for traceability? is it a purely private good?

• Is it a public good? it can be used to avoid national catastrophic national implications of the meeting safety standards. However, is this not also possible with branding?

Studies show that there have been a number of lost opportunities. sometimes people tend to fall out of the traceability process.

Is this because the incentive structure present is not strong enough?

Also the issues surrounded by payment delays and the problem with dealing with the ‘unbankable’ farmers. Dealing with cash has proven to be unsatisfactory as well.

However, the importance of agriculture seems to be dropping with sectors such as telecom taking the lead.

But even within agriculture the traditional crops are contributing a falling percentage to GDP. Most of the other crops such as spices, vegetables, and fruits seems to have a growth potential, out of which Gherkins seems to be the ‘hot’ favorite . However, these can be propelled by adopting traceability.

What is the vision for agriculture?

To transfer from subsistence agriculture to a commercially oriented and develop a highly productive sector. This would include traceability as well. It hopes to:

• Improve competitiveness
• Facilitate marketing related infarstructure
• Improve exports by five-fold.

Whats are the main issues? Need economies of scale. But also shows that the middle man is needed to facilitate the process. Often the middle-man is who manages the entire process, without whom the structure will fall.

Current status in SL

We dnt have any national standards. The only standards that are present are in place are those set by private parties.

Also the information seems to be running in one direction, which is from the farmer to the exporter. Traceability can help rectify this…. as traceability with ICT can be a dynamic bi-directional information sharing system.

How does the farmer benefit?

Can build an incentive structure that is based on information flows from the exporter to the farmer as well.

Rohan Samarajiva argued that ICT and traceability has to be seen as an end to a mean. The better information flows will result in better quality which will transfer into higher prices. This would be the most effective incentive. The farmer can also reduce can reduce the wastage premium. However, this is not possible for all produce as it is based on reactive time to intervention and mutual trust (level of enforceability of contract).

It also allows for branding. This is caused by high quality and traceable product, reputation, communication, need a traceability system for small-holder farmers. However, this process requires a need for a traceability system.

Helani Galpaya noted saying that having an independant certifier will solve a number of the problems with the existing traceability structure.

The next presentation was on transaction costs

Information is crucial for the efficient functioning of markets. This is the argument under the parento efficiency. Therefore it can be deduced that information is costly and markets are not always efficient.

How can ICT’s be used to reduce information costs? which will increase the efficiencies of the the markets and thereby increase welfare.

Please note that this Colloquium is being Skypecast at https://skypecasts.skype.com/skypecasts/skypecast/search.html?search=lirneasia

The Colloquium started out with basic introductions of Dr. Harsha Liyanage and the LIRNEasia crew.

He then went on to explain that he was interested in Telecenters and the Sarvodaya Fusion movement. He went on to tackle the issue of whether Telecenters are sustainable in their own right. He says that there is a negative perception about the sustainability of Telecenters. This is the view often shared by policy makers, regulators, researchers and donors. He went on to speak of the blog site and the telecenter network that has been created to improve the sustainability.

Helani questioned the reasoning behind the reason for focusing on telecenter networks. Harsha responded that prior research had proved that this ensures a greater success.

He went on to say that the reasoning behind telecenters can be divided into four categories. Which are policy, institutional, economic, and social reasons.

He then went on to give some case studies. Studies were done in Drishtee in India, Grameen CIC and D.Net in Bangladesh, Maule Activa in Chile and the Nanasela and Sarvodaya fusion in Sri Lanka.

He then went on to give detailed information on these case studies. With the Grameen CIC example he said that the scheme seems to be making a profit. But he admitted that most of this income comes from mobile reloads rather than for the services offered at telecenters. This could also be because Telenor considers it a corporate social responsibility project and so provides the services at cost.

Next he described the Drishtee case study in India. Telecenters generally reach break even point in 6 – 12 months.

However, the volumes of exports of non plantation crops are extreemly small in comparison to tea. Sri Lanka is the largest exporter of cinnamon. However, China also produces a lower quality cinnamon produce. This proves that there is a great use for traceability. It is clear that the demand on the global market has changed. This is apparent in the demand for organic foods etc. Harsha argued that the out- grower model where the farmer is tied to a companty seems to have certain merit for the above and reason.This lead into the argument for branding. Often branding will allow for farmers to differentiate themselves from the general mass that will be helpful in not only securing a consumer base but also averting disasters.

So what kind of ICT’s does one apply to which type of produce? Why is a gherkin a better tool to prove the importance of traceability? Can this be measured through looking at the level of fragmentation?

Rohan Samarajiva noted that at LIRNEasia we play with economic problems.. therefore what is their incentive to join this programme? Do they get a benefit from engaging in traceability?

Harsha responded that a better incentive structure need to be built into the system. This is problematic as these farmers are already better off than their counterparts as they are already in long term contracts with companies.

Rohan questioned what the incentive for the farmers will be? There seems to be incentives for the companies in terms of quality and delivery but the incentives of the farmers are less pronounced.

Harsha noted that traceability will show up the inefficiencies of the system which will reduce the wastage and thereby increase the income. The shorter the supply chain the more meaningfull traceability will become. However, he noted that it is necassary to bring in an economic incentive to the mix.

Rohan noted that traceability does not cause out-growers. They are formed by companies to bypass the labour and land laws. Harsha responded saying that traceability is an independant measure that will improve the chances for the farmer to sell his produce. Also the buyers will be more disposed to purchase from a farmer that has traceability as opposed to one that isnt. Harsha argued that if the traceability keeps a tab of how many hands the produce changes then there is an incentive to reduce the supply change. He noted that it is therefore an positive externality of traceability. an noted that the harsha needs to be careful when he explains his objectives and advantages derived from traceability as this is an area that can be debated and broken down.

InSri Lanka there is no national traceability agency and this presents a problem for individual farmers that are not in an out- grower market. So it seems like traceability does not seem to be an option for farmers in general.

however, more needs to be done in regard to creating incentives for the farmers.

The next presentation was handled by Shamistra Soysa and was titled, ‘Traceability in agriculture markets’. She went on to explain the project findings and the way in which the project was conducted. The main objective behind the project was to see if traceability increased the gherkin yield and if that yield was of better quality.

She then goes on to explain the four main stages of the Gherkin chain. They are growing, harvesting, transportation and testing. Helani noted that the actors will also need to be identified early on in the presentation. The project involved four main actors who were the farmers, the field managers, the center manager and the manager of the company itself.

Before the project there was no bi-directional flow of information. The company was not able to acquire information on the problems faced by the farmers. This meant that the ocompany was not able to get feed back on its processes. This is what the project aimed to ahieve. This ranged from geting information back to the farmers about their produce and the company being able to get feed back on farmer processes.

The entire process was done through a use of a mobile phone and the internet connection. The mobile phone used a special, tailor made application that was in sinhala and menu driven for greater ease of use. The computer application was in all three languages that was driven by the data personnel.

The project was done in two villages. They were Thalwa and Koswatta. Rohan argued that there should be not a comparison between the two villages. It was decided that the productivity should be calculated on a per acre basis.

There were certain data entry problems that the project faced as well. The younger farmers were more likely to use the mobile phone to enter data as opposed to the older farmers. Helani argued that this was because of a more proactive center manager in Koswatta as opposed to Thalawa. The center manager had a responsibility to ensure that the farmers entered the data.

It was noted that under this system everyone could benefit. Farmers were able to create sms networks and keep track of payments. The Center managers were able to track raw materials, save time, reduce unnecassary costs, take preventive measures for possible defects and improve relationships between the farmer and the company. Overall the improved flow of information resulted in better quality gherkins.

Farmers have a real fear that they will not get paid for their produce. This is pronounced if the price that paid for the gherkins fluctuates on a daily basis. The concept of data entry allows for payments to be done on a daily basis depending on produce of each farmer. However, the farmer will prefer to have a stable income over the entire season.

However, the project came in line with certain problems. They were technical problems, problems associated with incentives and capacity issues.

Under the existing system in place with HJS the middle man takes the hit in regard to quality. Therefore a new incentive system needs to be set in place for the farmer to improve the quality of his produce. But does this mean there should be a penalty for lower quality?

Can phones also be used as money wallets? or a saving scheme?since farmers seem to have an issue with saving.

The next presentation was delivered by Dimuthu Ratnadiwakara on transaction costs in agriculture markets. The presentation was focused on the study done to estimate the cost of information for vegetables sold at the Dambulla market. He started off with looking into some definitions of transaction costs in regard to agriculture. Transactions costs can be observable or unobservable and most situations have a combination of the two.

Therefore the focus of the project was the ‘cost of information’. That is that cost can be reduced if accurate and timely information is available to the farmer. The project attempted to calculate the cost of information of a process that a farmer will have to follow to grow and sell his produce. During every stage if this process there is cost of information.

He then went on to explain how the farmers were selected for the project. There was a sampling error of 5.41% as 315 farmers were involved out of the total 8000 in Matale District.

It was calculated that the transaction costs (i.e. cost of information and cost of facilitating transactions) were approximately 15%. Out of this 15%, 70% was cost of information. The data also showed that the cost of information is felt more by the smaller farmer as it is fixed. Also the highest cost of information is caused in the growing period due to inefficient system of distributing subsidized fertilizer. Often obtaining this fertilizer requires many visits to the center. However the growth phase has 44% of total costs. Therefore its not surprising to have highest percentage of cost of information in that stage. In relative terms the first stage has the highest  percentage of cost of information even though  the growth stage has the higest absolute cost of information.

He then provided conclusive evidence proving that using ICT’s was a cheaper method of getting information as opposed to making a visit. If half of a farmers visits are replaced by phone calls the cost of information will reduce by 33%.

traceabilityv3.pdf

Please note that a Colloquium will be held on Tuesday the 5th of February to review the presentations that will be delivered at the Agriculture Workshop from the 21st – 23rd of Feb

The Colloquium will be conducted by Shamistra Soysa, Dimuthu Ratnadiwakara and Harsha de Silva.

The Colloquium will be blogged in live time and I urge those who cannot attend to participate virtually.

The Colloquium will commence at 4 p.m (SL/ India time) and will be held at the LIRNEasia office in Colombo.

The Colloquium will be be available for online participation through a conference call on Skype

• Please search for the user asia@lirne.net
• Request for details to be exchanged
• Call the user
• Join our Colloquium

A Colloquium will be conducted by Robin Mansell on the 19th of January 2008 at the LIRNEasia office in Colombo.

Robin Mansell, Ph.D., joined the London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) in 2001 where she is Professor in the Department of Media and Communications. She is Honorary Professor at the LINK Centre, Wits Graduate School of Public & Development Management, South Africa, as well as Honorary Professor at SPRU (Science and Technology Policy Research), University of Sussex. She is also a Trustee of IDS (Institute of Development Studies), Sussex, and is an elected academic Governor of the LSE from 2005. She is President of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR). She was elected in July 2004 and serves for four years.

Robin’s research and teaching are concerned with the social, economic and policy issues associated with information and communication technologies. Her research examines the integration of new technologies into society, interactions between engineering design and the structure of markets, and sources of regulatory effectiveness and failure.

Live blogging of the colloquium follows.

Technology has lead to greater efficiency in the past. The main focus a decade ago was how to make existing processes better and faster using these technologies. But today the focus has moved to communication. This leads to the thesis that technologies have moved into communications and the assumption that the single handset can and will solve all problems.

Providing the bandwidth and the network may not always result in the provision of ICT’s and communications to all. This has resulted in the concept of ‘advanced learning’.

However, these new technologies are only limited to the privileged groups within the industrialised countries. Is this therefore the a solution to the problems faced by the world poor?

Robin questions if it can be assumed that the market will ensure that benefits from technology will trickle down to the lower levels of society?

The technology push argument has been thrushed upon the people of the last decade upto a situation where it is not even contested. A situation where it has infiltereated into the minds of people and actions that perminate due to this.

Often the progressiveness of technology is exaggerated so as to justify the large amounts of capital that enters the system. It seems to that environment around technology has evolved to the point where this progression or its direction is not questioned and threatened.

Robin noted that lurking behind most of the dominant thoughts related to technology is based on the rationalist perspective. Is there an alternative to this existing technology paradigm?

She argues that technology needs to be looked at in an endogenous environment where the focus is on people and the relationships between them.

‘Human relationships seem to be an attractive topic that results in much debate however, the core of the problem which is power is ignored’.

The concept of media power in content development and ownership is still rather uncontested. Often the user generated contents are either revised or assembled by professionals. There is also the creation of social networking however even this is often administered and restricted by offices with authority.

She also touched on the problems faced with multiple personalities a struggle that most State governments are attempting to grapple with. This leads to problems associated with radical behaviour that is often downplayed by mainstream media. She noted however that most of the research done seems to be concentrated in the European and American region.

Professor Samarajiva noted that Korea is also generating a significant amount of data in this regard.

She also moves on to the issues relating to hacktivism and now this ties into governance issues. Does a great deal of governance result in an infringement of civil liberties? Are government labelling civil movements that use technology to reach its audience as hacktivism? The concept of cyber crime has now been labelled as cyber terrorism. This has resulted in the lack of importance of civil liberties in the face of cyber terrorism.

She says ‘so what’s new? not much’….. the hype and speculation about the future of technology continues with the government gaining more control due to the concept f cyber terrorism.

Proffessor Samarajiva said that in our countries where technology itself is exogenous it seems to be a platform to change the governance structure. The technology also allows for the ‘shaking up’ of the institutional structure.

Helani Galpaya noted that the use if technology by itself cannot be used to revamp an institution and the ideal situation is a combination of technology, know-how and people’s relationships.

Professor Samarajiva noted that with his experience in regard to the disaster project done by LIRNEasia the technology played the greatest role.

Harsha de Silva noted that problems associated with technologies and civil liberties will not converge for many decades to come. Also with the advancement of technologies parties will have access to superior methods of communication but the final stroke will be determined by those who hold the power.

Robin responded saying that governments will continue to shut down certain organisations and access to technologies that they see fit. She notes that the emphasis should be on whether the direction that technological innovation has taken is in the people’s best interest.

Harsha de Silva argued that maybe mobile telephony is the answer to taking technologies to the lower quintiles of society. This would increase the number of people that could access ICT’s.

Robin noted that there is a need to look beyond the concepts relating to access. She also noted that access brings in advantages and disadvantages when entrenched in social norms and culture.

Helani Galpaya questioned as to what a developing country like Sri Lanka should do? A country where getting access to the people is a greater priority than the societal consequences.

Robin argued that access is important but deciding that social implications of technologies need to be addressed as well.

Professor Samarajiva noted that access also allows the empowering of people. It creates a conducive environment for people to be able to debate about a spectrum of issues.

Harsha de Silva noted that the discussion regarding the adaptiong of technologies takes place within the developing world in the real world… often with the stakeholders leveraging their power as the debate continues.

Luxman Siriwardena noted that the initiative e-Sri Lanka was an unique one. The objective being to reform the public sector through an e-gov system. There was a push for a much more broader objective that the mere ‘technology push’.

Robin noted about the problems surrounding meta data. Is there more effective ways of converting technologies and social science to the real world?

Professor Samarajiva noted that University academics/research often do not get involved in the initial stages of an initiative.

Harsha de Silva also noted that this depends on how dynamic the university literature is.

Professor Samarajiva noted that can be assumed that there is two types of knowledge, one that deals with university generated knowledge and the other that generates tacit knowledge.

Robin argued that in today’s context it can be argued that the luxury to having segments of knowledge does not exist any more?

Nirmali Sivapragasam questioned as to why the beneficiaries of this research studies are never brought to the decision table? Robin responded saying that including people into the debate is required and essential but it does not eliminate the power struggle that exists within that system. Therefore the more important factor is to learn from previous studies and build on what is already present.

Robin responded to the question on virtual organizations as saying that online world cannot exist without the offline world.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are those that help in measuring the success of the day to day activities of an organization. This means that the KPIs would lead to KRIs.

First the mission statement was reviewed, with comment on the structure to highlight the important areas.

Dimuthu Ratnadiwakara noted the critical success factor that would feed into the strategies and thereby facilitate the mission statement. However, critical success factors cannot be measured and hence can prove to be problamatic.

Rohan Samarajiva noted that the concept of productive partnerships need to be included in the critical success factors.

Dimuthu Ratnadiwakara noted that the Performance Indicators (PIs) are the factors that can be measured. However, KPIs are what drive the PIs.

Shamistra Soysa noted that a new KRI had been included. This was the ration of regular employees to non- regular employees.

Rohan Samarajiva noted that this is not comprehensive to our needs. As all persons working for the organization may not indicate the type of employment.

Helani Galpaya noted that maybe this wording should be changed to be destination specific.

Harsha de Silva noted that this too may not prove to be very accurate.

Rohan Samarajiva noted that maybe LIRNEasia can adopt a system of FTEs. Thereby, having a minimum number of personnel from each country.

Nirmali questioned if this would increase the efficiency of the research done by LIRNEasia. Rohan Samarajiva responded saying that it does have an impact as the location and geographical proximity of the personnel is crucial to the outlook they would have on the gound situation.

Dimuthu Ratnadiwakara questioned how the consultants who worked repeatedly on projects will be measured.

Helani Galpaya responded saying that this was a personnel indicator. She also proposed that Chanuka Wattegama should spearhead this indicator.

Rohan Samarajiva noted that LIRNEasia will not be submiting many proposals but if connect asia comes up it should be useful.

He also noted that the increase in the overall budget should be included.

Harsha de Silva noted that there should be two indicators. One for the overall budget that is cited. And another that will indicate how much of this overall budget was utilised on a per person basis.

However, merely counting the numbers cannot be taken as the success of a policy intervention.

Sujatha Gamage noted that counting the number of interventions should be one way to quantify this. Ayesha Zainudeen noted that maybe each intervention can be grouped under a theme so making the process of quantifying success more meaningful.

Harsha de Silva noted that branding of LIRNEasia as an organization and the personnel within it are crucial and need to be quantified.

Rohan Samarajiva questioned which of the KPIs is the most important. Harsha de Silva and Helani Galpaya noted that the number of consultation papers and the number of responses made to the consultation papers as the most important. Rohan Samarajiva argued that this was not the case. Stating that the media coverage would be more significant.

He suggested that if so, the KPI-number of consultation papers should be renamed to instead reflect the number of policy interventions.

Harsha de Silva noted that there seems to be no clear distinction between KPIs and KRIs.

Nirmali noted that the number of invited talks seems to be more a KRI than a KPI, as one has little control over the outcome. Rohan Samarajiva responded saying that it need not be so, as there is a great deal of background work the organization does to get that invitation. He also noted that often been invited to event facilitates the growing of the organization.

Dimuthu Ratnadiwakara noted that within our type of organizations it is difficult to have day to day indicator measures. This makes compiling KPIs a difficult task.

Sujatha Gamage noted that a distinction should be drawn between a regional/ international event and one that would be the result of intervention.

Natasha Udugama noted that maybe the dissemination of event need to be included as a KPI as well. Dimuthu Ratnadiwakara noted that it can be included as a subset within the KPI-number of stories.

In regard to the KPI- citation, what would be the definition?

Helani Galpaya noted that citations in newspaper/ magazine articles were as important as citations in journals.

Dimuthu Ratnadiwakara then drew attention to the PIs.

Rohan Samarajiva noted that in citing the number of papers per persons would be difficult as there maybe a large number if authors on one paper. He noted that this can be achieved through a weightin system, giving each author due credit.

Harsha de Silva argued that this is wrong as most of the papers done by LIRNEasia are hung on previous data. This means that all those involved in the process need to be given due credit.

Rohan Samarajiva noted that the percentage can be used as a threshold to show the importance of each contribution. This could maybe feed into a system where if one is below a ‘floor’ percentage would be included as an acknowledgement.

Harsha de Silva noted that a distinction need to be drawn between referencing and giving credit as a co-author. He stated that if there was an intellectual contribution made to the paper at the time they need to be co-authors.

Rohan Samarajiva noted that the percentage methodology would be useful to resolve this problem.

Harsha de Silva suggested that this threshold should be from 15-20%.

Rohan Samarajiva noted that the order of which the authors are listed are also important. But this too can be resolved through the percentage methodology.

The Colloquium started off with review of the sessions and programme of the workshop.

Sujatha Gamage stated that the term ‘Last- Mile’ should be used in conjuction with the First Responder Action title for Session III to maintain consistancy. Nuwan argued that this is not the case as the term last- mile is more related to the concept of communication rather than the last respondent.

Professor Rohan Samarajiva questioned if the message relay function can be seen to be as a seperate operation to ICT networks. He noted that we need to stay with either the Government or Sarvodaya model. He questioned what the value of breaking them into two was? Nuwan responded that the IT Networks operate independantly and so have to be considered as a seperate entity, whilst the message relay function is more human intensive with a person physically pushing a button.

Rohan Samarajiva noted if the ICT guardian can be considered to be part of the ICT Network? Nuwan responded saying yes, the argument being that they get the message to the ERP node and hence play a role. However, the guardian is not a technical part and do has a degree of discretion.

Rohan Samarajiva noted that the final results should be stated early on in the presentation, as this is shows something fresh and interesting. Nuwan responded with the results of the reliability and effectiveness of the segments of the disaster warning chain.

Natasha Udu-gama went on to explain the Sri Lanka experience with the Disaster warning process. It was noted that the Foreign Meteorological Agencies report to the local Meteorological department and they relay it to the Disaster Management Center.

Rohan Samarajiva noted that the presentation should be based on the situations and experiences that have occured instead on theory.

Harsha deSilva noted that the focus should be on the recent tsunami alert on the 12th of September and how the existing disaster mechanisms dealt with the crisis. Moving on to a critique of the systems in place.

Rohan Samarajiva noted whether a safety net needs to be made in regard to the ICT Guardians. Should there be only one person per village? One person who has total control over how the alert will be interpreted and determine if it is a high or low priority.

Chanuka Wattegama questioned the value of providing alerts to low priority alerts. Nuwan replied saying that the final decision lies in the community, as they have the right to determine how they will want to respond. The objective behind the scheme is to keep the people informed. Also he said that though it is not built into the system the ICT Guardian would check with another party for his/her own assurance.

Is it realistic to assume that Hazard Information Hub can have a zero reaction time? No. But this will be changed, with a time set for reaction time. The negative impact will be counted after this time.

Chanuka Wattegama noted that reliability cannot be only determined by efficiency, as it is merely based on reaction time.

Rohan Samarajiva noted that the term should then be changed to either efficiency or reaction time.

Nuwan went on to describe the training of the ICT Guardians which were conducted at the Provincial and Village level.

Practical problems with the alerting system were as follows:

The signal strength not being adequet, user accidentally deleting the SMS, Mobile phone battery having zero energy amongst others. These latter reasons are difficult to quantify but are real life problems faced by the users and the system.

One observation made by experience from the project was that through the combining two or more technologies yielded better final results in respect to effectiveness and reliabilty.