Though it claims only little signs of any improvements to freedom of expression in Sri Lanka despite the end of war, the report is not as pessimistic as anybody anticipates it to be. Internet users, it still says need to be weary of attempts to ban online pornography and more general bans on ‘indecent advertising’ as concerns about ‘decency’ could be the start of a slippery slope towards a wider censorship program. Internet Filters that are established to remove pornography today can be used to remove a political dissent tomorrow. Sri Lankans need to be especially vigilant about such possibilities, warns the report, given the existing socio political climate that has little tolerance for alternative views or values.

Download the full report Freedom of expression and the Internet in Sri Lanka

ICT for Disaster Risk Reduction (ICTD Case Study)
Published by: United Nations Asian and Pacific Training Centre for Information and Communication Technology for Development (UN-APCICT/ESCAP)

Demonstrating the true impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in any other field has never been easy. Robert Solow’s cynical remark has certainly outlived its time. If not for ATMs, credit cards, online check-ins and unprecedented drop of snail mail we would still have been arguing whether computer age is seen in productivity statistics.

Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) is one area where ICT’s role is more evident. ICTs are important tools for lessening the risks brought on by disasters through early warning, coordinating and tracking relief activities and resources, recording and disseminating knowledge and experiences, and raising awareness, says a joint preface by the publishers, Xuan Zengpei, Director, IDD-ESCAP and Hyeun-Suk Rhee, Director, UN-APCICT/ESCAP. The challenge, according to them, is gaining commitment to incorporate ICT tools effectively DRR and providing favourable political, social and economic conditions for identifying and applying an appropriate mix of ICTs to address vulnerabilities in different contexts.

Easier said than done. Not every national government understands this role, and even if they do, not many see it as populist. And too arduous is to replicate. Perhaps convincing them of the need to learn from others is what, as a ‘trainer’, UN-APCICT intends by presenting this collection of seven case studies. Commendable the effort, no doubt, but one is not fully convinced of its efficacy.

Christine Apikul does the introductory chapter reviewing ICT for Disaster Risk Reduction efforts. She emphasizes the increased hazard risks in Asia-Pacific and provides a brief overview of ICTs used in each phase of the DRR cycle. The key focus, not surprisingly, is on Early Warning Systems. Apikul discusses the pros and cons of different modes varying from armature radio to cell broadcasting. Apart from few minor inaccuracies this is an excellent attempt to summarize a wide range of DRR efforts that generously use ICTs. There is, of course, ample room for presentational improvement. The text-only format might not keep a lay reader engaged for long.

Shantana R. Halder and Tasdiq Ahmed then elaborate the Bangladesh Comprehensive Disaster Management Program and its use of ICTs. The only complaint one can make on this informative narration is its length. The chapter would have been more useful to policy makers, who are always pressed for time, if fewer words have been used with a strong message. The budget details etc, with similar information not directly relevant to the topic, could have moved to an annex. Anyway, it is a great overview of what’s going in Bangladesh.

Given the depth of the first case study the need for augmenting it with another from the same country is unclear, especially when the latter is more on the communication infrastructure than DRR. The chapter ‘Integrated Information and Communication System for Emergency Management in Bangladesh’ by Manzul Kumar Hazarika, Dwijendra Kumar Das and Lal Samarakoon could have been easily merged with the previous one for a better result. Standing alone, it provides important information.

The case study on ‘Space Technology Application for Disaster Management in China’ by Li Jing, Shen Li and Tang Hong provides insight into little known efforts in China to predict hazards. Establishing and Institutionalizing Disaster Loss Databases: Experience from UNDP too discusses a topic that rarely draws one’s attention. In this chapter, UNDP’s Asia Pacific Regional Program on Capacity Building for Sustainable Recovery and Risk Reduction highlights its experiences in maintaining databases to assist DRR professionals involved in the recovery process, in three countries India (Tamil Nadu), Sri Lanka and Thailand.

It has two Sri Lanka case studies. ‘Reaching the Last Mile through Community-based Disaster Risk Management’ by Gabrielle Iglesias, Novil Wijesekara and Nirmala Fernando is a brief and somewhat incomplete description of community initiative that extended the early warning to the last mile. It would have been more useful if authors paid more attention to presenting the lessons learnt. Whether anyone could gain adequate information for a successful replication from this case study is doubtful. The other Sri Lanka related case study is ‘The Sahana Free and Open Source Disaster Management System in Haiti’ by Chamindra de Silva and Mark Prustalis, in spite of somewhat misleading title. This is an excellent description of the Sahana disaster management system developed in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami of Sri Lanka.

Arguably the weakest case study in this publication is the last one. Contribution of blogs in the aftermath of tsunami, not only in sharing critical information, connecting individuals etc but in fund raising as well is not insignificant. Peter Griffin’s ‘SEA-EAT Blog’ instead of summing up these developments narrates the story of a single blog. Griffin boasts about the tsunami in traffic – ‘thousands’ of hits per a hour’ – but this is not unnatural in the wake of a massive disaster. Most tsunami blogs might have experienced the waves. The success, of course, is not the hits rates but what has been achieved. The attempt was with good intentions and was successful if the blogger wanted, as he hints, “putting a candle in your window to show that I cared.”, but a publication should have made a stronger case for the use of citizen tools in DRR.

‘ICT for Disaster Risk Reduction’ is no doubt informative, but if the intended audience is policy makers and not general readers, its efficacy is uncertain. It looks as if little effort was made to make the case studies representative of Asia-Pacific. For example, there are no case studies from developed countries like Korea, which could have helped policy makers in developing Asia. Also nothing from Indonesia, the prime victim of the 2004 tsunami. The lessons are summarized at the end of the introductory chapter, where it looks rather out of place. The publication could also have been enriched by an executive summary.

Apart from these minor issues, this is a book worth reading by any DRR professional, especially those in the Asia-Pacific. We hope Asia-Pacific policy makers will take note.

NB: This publication can be downloaded from here.

There is another reason too. As Anusha Pelpita says to Daily Mirror online blocking sites will reduce internet speed. “It will affect the country’s reputation in the technological aspect,” says, he. This might make a cynical broadband user blaming the speed drop on Tamilnet ban, but let us be happy. It is good to learn that TRC is genuinely concerned about the broadband quality.

Daily Mirror adds:

Facebook; a social network site which has immense popularity universally was blocked in Pakistan in May when certain individuals had created a blasphemous page regarding Prophet Muhammad. However, two weeks later Pakistan lifted the ban and said it would continue to block individual pages containing “blasphemous” content.

Similarly, Bangladesh also banned Facebook in May after the arrest of a youth in connection with uploading satiric images of some politicians including the prime minister and the leader of the opposition. The Bangladesh Telecom Regulatory Commission (BTRC) accounted reasons such as posting anti- religious and pornographic links by users across the globe were some of the reasons for restricting the access. In June, a week after the ban on Facebook was implemented the government lifted it.

Read the full story here.

LIRNEasia’s preliminary round of mobile broadband quality testing in selected locations in Western Province unveils both hopes and issues. The good news is that the quality of both key pre-paid mobile broadband services is satisfactory, in majority of locations. However, unusual quality drops in several places indicates that this performance is not always a certainty. In general, a mobile broadband user in Western Province can expect a reasonable quality unless a rare issue like the distance from a tower or a higher number of simultaneous users hinders it.

LIRNEasia tested the broadband quality of the popular pre-paid High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) broadband connections of the two key providers. Packages offered by the third provider were not tested only because the operator prevented pinging from outside the network. Mobile test applications newly developed and released by Zamsana PLC, were used on mobile handsets for testing. To further simulate the true conditions the tests were done on public transport.

We saw little reason testing mobile broadband quality from fixed locations. It should be done on the move as that is how it is used. We could have done it from a car, but purposely did it from a bus to examine how conditions beyond our control can affect the performance.

Testers used mobile test applications developed for Symbian and Windows CE, the two most popular mobile operating systems used in Sri Lanka. They took both stationary and on the move readings at key points along four main roads from Colombo to Kalutara, Negombo, Avissawella and Nittambuwa. Apart from the download and upload speeds, the two most common parameters the tools recorded Return Trip Time or RTT (the time taken by data packets to reach a destination server and return), Jitter (the variation in RTT), Packet Loss (what percentage of packets were lost on the way) and the availability. The actual values were compared with the promises of the operators or, if no operator specifications were available against international standards.

Mobile broadband quality testing is a part of LIRNEasia’s broadband Quality of Service Experience (QoSE) benchmarking work. With its partner organization‐ the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, LIRNEasia has been testing broadband quality since the beginning of 2008. The first tests were conducted manually. Later the test methodology was standardized and a software application was developed to get more accurate results. First round of testing was done only in Colombo and Chennai, but now the scope is expanded to cover New Delhi, Dhaka, Mumbai and Bangalore.

A direct approach to monitor Quality of Service Experience (QoSE) would be for the regulator to reach deep into the innards of the telecom network to install monitoring equipment and take remedial actions as per the licenses or the governing statute whenever the data indicate below‐standard performance, says LIRNEasia. Dearth of financial and human resources can be a key challenge for such an approach. The second approach is based largely on user activism. Educated users are expected to voluntarily contribute their time and computing resources towards building a performance database which in turn will be used in creating the bigger picture.

A comprehensive methodology to benchmark Broadband Quality of Service Experience (QoSE), based on the latter approach has been developed jointly by LIRNEasia and the TeNeT Group of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT‐M). While there is no barrier for regulators to use it, the methodology is largely user centric. Instead of depending on one time pinging, this methodology uses AT‐Tester, an open source software tool to monitor all crucial QoSE broadband metrics over a longer period, on both weekends and weekdays, covering peak as well as off‐peak traffic. The traffic is also monitored within segments, ISP, local and international.

(The figure above shows the average peak time download speed to an international server offered by the pre‐paid mobile broadband packages of the two key mobile broadband providers on a selected date. The ceiling is the promised speed of 1 Mbps. Speeds may vary depending upon the type of the handset, time of the day, number of simultaneous users connected to a tower and the weather conditions. Please click on image for an enlarged version.)

Illustrating Sarvodaya’s contribution to the disaster recovery process in response to a series of natural disasters including the cyclone in 1978, the Kantalai tank bund breach in 1986 and the tsunami in 2004, Dr. Ariyaratne explained the lessons learnt and how that changed the institutional attitude. For example, he has observed that many recovery issues are often addressed subjectively without a scientific basis, and recommended a greater degree of internal and external coordination, information sharing and regulatory mechanisms between concerned parties. He also emphasized the need for community-level capacity-building, arguing against a solely top-down approach to disaster risk reduction. Important lessons can be learnt from the communities and the training by the community should be for the community.

Commenting on Sri Lanka’s national policy on disaster management, Dr. Ariyaratne observed that although the policy comprehensively covers both natural and man-made disasters, ineffective implementation mechanisms have prevented us from seeing effective results.

The floods of May 2010 was an eye opener to many, highlighting the gap between policy and practice. Multiple factors that have caused this disaster have emphasized the need for a comprehensive, multi-level, multi-disciplinary approach to disaster management in the country. Observing a notable drop in attention by governmental authorities once the floods recede, Dr. Ariyaratne questioned the extent to which the general public can be guaranteed of a non-repetition of the same series of events in the future.

S.R. Jayasekera, Deputy Director, Department Of Meteorology and Ainsley Alles, Director, General Insurance, AvivaNDB Insurance PLC also spoke at the event highlighting the roles in government and private sector disaster risk reduction.

Click on the links for presentations by Prof. Samarajiva and Dr. Ariyaratne
LIRNEasia and disaster risk reduction – Rohan Samarajiva
From Recovery to Risk Reduction – Vinya Ariyaratne

The latest issue features an e-interview with LIRNEasia’s CEO Rohan Samarajiva, but it is not the only reason why we thought of highlighting the issue. The content is interesting and very readable. We publish two e-interviews from July 2010 issue here fully, as they are not available on public domain.

Apart from Samarajiva, This issue carried e-interviews with Alison Gillwald, Indra de Lanerolle, Christoph Stork and Muriuki Mureithi.

If you are interested in future issues please register at http://lists.apc.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/chakula

The need for competitive research for policy influence
e-interview with Alison Gillwald

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“High quality, rigorous research…is required to compete and complement with each other for policy influence… In mature economies researchers from multiple universities would be debating and refining the positions governments should be taking on everything from regulating next generation networks to demand stimulation for broadband.”
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Alison Gillwald is Executive Director of RIA. She is also Adjunct Professor at the UCT Graduate School of Business, Management of Infrastructure Reform and Regulation, and a member of CPRafrica’s organisation and selection committee.

CHAKULA: You have just held the CPRafrica conference in Cape Town. What are you hoping to achieve through the conference?

ALISON GILLWALD [AG]: There is almost no scholarly research being undertaken in the field of ICT policy and regulation on the continent. A Google scholar search on the subjects throws up around five scholars on the continent who are published in peer reviewed or accredited journals. It is this kind of high quality, rigorous research that is required to compete and complement with each other for policy influence. In mature economies researchers from multiple universities would be debating and refining the positions governments should be taking on everything from regulating next generation networks to demand stimulation for broadband. Although there are pockets of applied research being undertaken there is no tradition of critical intellectual engagement in this area on the continent. The purpose of CPRafrica is to provide a forum for nurturing and showcasing research in the area of ICT policy and regulation on the continent and enhancing its quality through rigorous academic review and debate. The conference is complemented by a young scholars programme to expose young scholars who may be excluded from such peer-review, paper-acceptance-only style conferences without such a category. Some of these are part of the IDRC- [International Development Research Centre] funded PhD programme to encourage doctoral research in ICT policy and regulation. The idea here is to build a cadre of policy intellectuals on the continent able to critically engage government on the basis of relevant research and contribute meaningfully to research and policy excellence. This will further enhance Africa’s standing in international research and governance fora, in which its participation has historically been suboptimal.

CHAKULA: Reviewing some of the papers presented at the conference, it strikes me that there are a couple of threads that are emerging. Two in particular stand out: the notion of “innovation” in the telecommunications space, and the challenges around convergence and policy when two distinct sectors with different ways of doing things are brought into conflict with each other. I also went back to Research ICT Africa’s 2008 M-banking policy paper, which raises similar themes, and I would like to use that as a starting point. First, on the issue of ‘innovation’. In the M-banking paper, the following assertion is made: “Policy-makers and regulators need to ensure that evolving systems serve the broader objectives of economic growth and development as well as protect consumer interests, while creating an environment that encourages and rewards innovation”. In what ways can policy inhibit or encourage innovation in the telecommunication’s sector?

AG: Indeed, providing certainty to investors and operators while retaining the levels of flexibility to enable innovation in a fast-changing environment is one of the most difficult balancing acts that policy-makers and regulators have to perform. I think the linkages and catalysts between technology, market and regulatory innovation are becoming clearer all the time. New technologies and service offerings have prized open markets and the entry into less policy and regulatory constrained markets has made taking certain technologies to market more viable. This has triggered further possibilities across historically distinct platforms, not only between broadcasting and telecommunications, but between fixed and mobile services and even entirely separate sectors such as telecommunications and banking. The challenges to the expansion of such services are really regulatory now rather than technological – and that is not to say that one does not want or need public interest regulation either in the telecommunications or banking sector, but it has to be done in new, innovative ways that enable to extension of these services to those who currently don’t enjoy them. Once these various forces are unleashed they are able to intersect and create new opportunities and innovative ways of doing things that have not been done before.

CHAKULA: Innovation here seems necessarily to be tied to market gain – the objective is to increase or capture market share. In both your M-banking paper, and the case study of the mobile operator One Network in Kenya, preconditions exists that facilitate innovation. With M-banking there are low-income earners who are ‘unbanked’ and who could benefit from some kind of low-cost transactional instrument, and with One Network, there is a significant level of cross-border traffic that makes a seamless network attractive.
AG: It is true that innovation is often driven by market forces and pursuit of profits, and, traditionally, with new technologies have focused on high-end markets. But much of the ICT innovation we are witnessing in developing markets is focused on what has been referred to as the ‘gold at the bottom of the pyramid’ – very profitable turn-over of high volumes of sometimes minuscule margins on products that, by breaking them up or making them available at cost, the masses at the bottom of the economic and social pyramid can enjoy things like pre-paid phone vouchers, or transferable airtime vouchers. And many of these products have been commercialised innovative practices by the poor in order to access and affordably use communications services – such as missed calls, multiple sim card usage that allows for same net rates, or ‘plastic roaming’.

CHAKULA: If we consider Indra de Lanerolle’s fascinating case study on the South African convergence scenario, we see two sectors (broadcast and telecommunications) in conflict with each other because policy decisions are made according to different frameworks: simply put, economic versus public interest. In fact, Indra does seem to suggest that these are in competition with each other, and resolves this in an interesting way. It feels hard to believe that ‘consumer interest’ is the same as ‘public interest’?

AG: I think with the shift from public utilities to competitive markets many of the public interest objectives of delivery and service are met through serving the consumer interest. Nevertheless there is public interest regulation that is required to improve wider and collective consumer welfare – to provide access to ‘uneconomic areas’ for example – though with new more cost-effective, rapidly deployable wireless services, this concept in markets that enable competitive entry is regularly not proving to be the case. But as long as we have the large number of poor that we do, we will need some level of social regulation – even though a lot of the current pent-up demand could be met with greater market efficiency (more competitive markets offering better prices). And then there are the more traditional content regulation issues either to restrict certain ‘harmful’ content or activities or to enable it, such as local content regulation. That too may be found to be highly profitable, but may need either protection or encouragement.

CHAKULA: Indra’s paper, like your M-banking policy paper, shows that regulating convergence is tricky because of the ‘convergence’ of two or even more sectors; whether broadcast/telecommunications or telecommunications/banking etc. What are some of the key challenges that policy-makers can expect to face in Africa?

AG: The key challenge for African regulators is that they are still trying to deal with legacy regulation around first and second-generation infrastructure and access. At the same time, if they do not want the agenda to be set for them in international fora, they need to deal with next-generation issues, not only of converged IP [internet protocol] networks and services and the next-generation regulation issues of network and service-neutral regimes, but of cross-cutting issues of electronic commerce frameworks, intellectual copyright rights, security and privacy issues, and so on. And you have to do it all or be left behind…

CHAKULA: One frustration is that when one reads a good paper that seems to offer a solution to a problem, one is also met with the feeling that those with decision-making powers are probably not going to read that paper, or seriously consider its arguments. Do you feel the same? If so, how do you think CPRafrica picks up on this challenge? Is it just a case of repeating issues until policy-makers take them on board?

AG: No. CPRafrica is one of several strategic strands towards having evidence-based ICT policy on the continent. This is about organic and indigenous knowledge creation and contribution, at the national level, at the level of regional association and continentally, and also about global engagement and influence. For too long have the solutions come from the developed world. Of course, there are lessons to be learnt and we don’t need to reinvent the wheel, but we also have different challenges and Africa has demonstrated remarkably innovative responses to these when they are informed by sound policy, effective regulation or thorough and appropriate business plans. The indicator research done by RIA and its analysis in order to assess policy and regulatory outcomes is fed into several initiatives, globally and locally. RIA provides the only comprehensive public domain demand-side data on ICT access and usage on the continent. This is used in national, regional and continental meetings on ICTs, and in the database and reports of multilateral agencies such as the OECD and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), to better inform their understanding of developments in Africa. It is true that sometime decision-makers do not like to hear of the widespread policy and institutional failure on the continent, but many do – especially those that are rapidly improving and beginning to see the rewards of their reforms. This research is also used to develop training curricula that address the needs of policy and regulators in a developing country context. So, for example, as part of the global research and training collaborative LIRNE.net we conduct a professional development course on alternative regulatory strategies at the UCT Graduate School of Business Infrastructure Reform and Regulation Programme to build institutional capacity on the continent. So CPRafrica is just one arm of a multi-pronged strategy of research and education, institutional capacity building and technical assistance and dissemination and advocacy, through our website database, policy papers and workshop and public presentations.

CHAKULA: What is the way forward for the conference? Will there be more?

AG: Yes, in order to build and sustain this much-needed capacity we will have to find a way for CPRafrica to become an annual institution.

Related links:

M-Banking the Unbanked: RIA Policy Paper No. 4:

http://www.researchictafrica.net/new/images/uploads/RIA_Mobile-banking.pdf

CPRafrica conference details: http://www.researchictafrica.net/index.php/news/38-cprafrica-looking-back-at-a-decade-of-communications-reform-looking-forward-to-2020
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Innovation through competition: the budget telecom network model
e-interview with Rohan Samarajiva

Paper link: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1564529

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“The status quo must be unbearable.”
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Rohan Samarajiva is the Chair and CEO of Lirnasia. His paper, “How the developing world may participate in the global Internet Economy: Innovation driven by competition” was presented at a workshop organised by the OECD and InfoDev in Paris, 10-11 September 2009.

CHAKULA: In your paper, you talk about the Budget Telecom Network Model (BTNM), which is brought about by competition allowing operators to reduce the transaction costs of low-end clients. This, as you point out, is different to the standard Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) model. How does it make the ARPU model redundant?

Rohan Samarajiva [RS]: ARPU is a short-hand that outside observers use to see if the firm is doing well, whether its prospects are good, etc. It is, like any indicator, imperfect. You get it by taking total revenue (preferably without extras like roaming) and dividing by number of subscribers. Of course no one really knows what a subscriber is any more, with even poor people holding up to five SIMs, foreigners having SIMs, no agreement on what an active SIM is and so on. You can get better results by looking at revenue per minute. Take total revenue (less roaming and other stuff) and divide by Average Minutes of Usage per User per Month (MOU). This is a better indicator. But investment analysts are still not used to this and it would require disclosing MOUs to calculate.

CHAKULA: Can ARPU be used as a business model?

[RS]: Operators do not actually do much with the ARPU. It is not a business model as such, just an indicator. But getting more from each subscriber (if this is known) is not a bad idea. Just that it does not predict whether the company will make money or not. The best indicator for that is EBITDA [Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization] margin. Sri Lanka in 2007 had an operator with LKR311 (approximately USD3 at the time) ARPU making close to 50% EBITDA margin. In the end, the success of a business model lies in whether it generates profit.

CHAKULA: What is your understanding of ‘innovation’ in the telecommunications space? You talk of “business innovation”, rather than, say, technological innovation?

[RS]: Tech innovation is important, but it is not the only thing. Pure tech innovation is done by manufacturers of network equipment and handsets. That is good. Business process innovations (e.g. lowering the costs of base stations through software) are done by operators. These include technical aspects, but are not limited to them. Shifting from one business model to another (discovering the latter) is also innovation, but it may or may not not have a tech aspect at all.

CHAKULA: What are the preconditions for innovation, do you think?

[RS]: The status quo must be unbearable. The BTNM innovation occurred when competition got so intense that there was no way to gain market share or even survive without doing something new.

CHAKULA: Does BTNM have implications for increased access to broadband internet for the majority of people on a continent like Africa?

[RS]: Yes. The latter part of the paper is entirely on the extension of BTNM to broadband. Some headlines are that operators must have enough money from voice that can be invested in the 3G plus networks. Once the overlay network is built out the operators have to offer low prices. Prepaid sachet pricing is best, where one buys packages of connectivity in minutes or in capacity. Here, because of lower transaction costs and prices there should be an influx of new customers. This is already on offer in Asia. Africa has to lower prices. Access will be over mobile networks, using dongles or built in modems, for laptops and other devices, including phones. ADSL will be a niche product. Wireless access is the future.

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The report further says Police has already questioned six and looks for another four.

From 1 July every Finn will have the right to access to a 1Mbps (megabit per second) broadband connection.

Finland has vowed to connect everyone to a 100Mbps connection by 2015.

In the UK the government has promised a minimum connection of at least 2Mbps to all homes by 2012 but has stopped short of enshrining this as a right in law.

The Finnish deal means that from 1 July all telecommunicatons companies will be obliged to provide all residents with broadband lines that can run at a minimum 1Mbps speed.

Read the full story in BBC.

The Private Bus Operators Association of Sri Lanka has proposed to introduce a service for sale and purchase of bus tickets via mobile phones and/or customized electronic cards. These e-reload passes are readable by the existing GPRS-enabled ticket machines. The current plan is that passes will be in the form of physical re-load cards or mobile phone enabled mechanisms. If mobile phone -enabled, then a whole new window of opportunity emerges for transactions; this could become the most widely used, full mobile 2.0 (transaction-capable) application.

Given that public transport is a several-times-a-day need for the majority of the BOP in Sri Lanka and elsewhere in the region, a study is undertaken to bring to the discussion table the multi-faceted issues that need to be considered prior to implementing the proposed service. It is expected that such a discussion among the stakeholders would lead towards considered decisions that would help avoid the pitfalls and facilitate the success of the proposed Mobile2.0@BOP service.

Harsha De Silva, PhD, Lead Economist LIRNEasia, the lead researcher of this project will speak on these issues at the forum jointly organized by LIRNEasia and Pathfinder Foundation on June 23, 2010 at Sri Lanka Foundation Institute at 4.00- 5.30 pm. A panel discussion with the following panelists will follow.

Amal Kumarage, PhD, Professor, University of Moratuwa
D. S Jayaweera, PhD, Director General, Development Finance, Ministry of Finance
Chandrasiri Weerasekera, Director, Quality Assurance and External Relations, National Transport Commission
Gemunu Wijeratne, President, Lanka Private Bus Owners Association

The event will be chaired by Lalithasiri Gunaruwan, PhD, Secretary, Ministry of Transport

Medium: Sinhala/English

This event is open to public, but due to the limited availability of seats prior registration is mandatory. Please contact Ranjula on 0777-458808 or ranjula@lirneasia.net.

The following related material are available for download:

Full Paper: The need for an efficient bus and train ticket sale‐and‐purchase system in Sri Lanka: Possibilities for a Mobile2.0 solution

Policy Brief in English

Policy brief in Sinhala

Gone are days that postal services were an integral part of Sri Lankan culture. According to a recent Postal Department survey, only 11% uses snail mail now, reports Divaina. The drop from over 90% in pre-1978 days is attributed to the widespread use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), including mobile phones, faxes and e-mail.

ICTs supplementing age-old postal services too is common. ‘Fax Money Orders’ have replaced the traditional ones. Transaction takes less than 30 minutes with a fax from one post office to another. Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) offers a value added service of sending telegrams without stepping to a post office. You inform the message with the address to SLT and they do the honours for you. Charges are added to the phone bill.

Sri Lanka, a country of approximately 20 million population, is served by a postal network of 4,738 post offices. One post office serves an average population of 4,300 and area of 14 square kilometers.

In 2007 Postal Department started offering non-postal services (limited banking and insurance services and sale of pre-paid phone cards) through post offices. However, such services remain to be popular.

The annual operating loss of the department for 2009 was LKR 2,472 million. (Aprox. USD 21 million) The number of letters delivered per inhabitant remains 21 with a slight drop from the previous years. Bulk of this, as the minister of Posts and Telecommunication correctly observes, can be business mail, most sent as per statutory requirements.

Ranmalee took this photograph of Supun Sudaraka, testing mobile broadband connections on the move, using Mobile AT-Tester, the family of test tools developed by LIRNEasia. Broadband quality testing isn’t a desk job anymore. We simulate real conditions. Unlike in case of fixed connections, mobile broadband usage is always, er, mobile. This was one of the many odd locations we conducted testing. We selected it because that’s where mobile phones are being used.

You may ask: Are you crazy? Who uses mobile phones on the rail tracks?

See evidence. Lanka Business Online reported 15 deaths of mobile users on the rail track. (It was only five for the year 2009) All of them were using their mobile telephones while walking on railway tracks, oblivious to the incoming train.

Anyway, irrespective of the quality, we do believe using a mobile phone on a railway track or even a busy road is not a sound idea.

LIRNEasia’s advertisements last week, while highlighting the limited usage of Mobile 2.0 services by ‘low income’ users, suggested steps to be taken by regulators/policy makers and operators to make Mobile 2.0 galore. .

We think this is the right time for Emerging Asian mobile operators to adopt what we call an Mobile Application Store or ‘App-Store’ model. Put simply it means a platform for mobile content providers to add their applications under standard contracts with telcos. It eliminates the need for a series of time consuming meetings between the operators and developers. You develop an application; add to my platform; if it works let us share profits. Nothing could be more straightforward.

We didn’t expect results so quickly. The advertisements by Etisalat on the same day (above) were a pleasant surprise. The full page ads invited local mobile content providers to add their creations to Etisalat platform.

Dumindra Ratnayaka, Chief Executive of Etisalat Sri Lanka, later, at the South Asia Mobile Conference held in Colombo last week, expressed Etisalat’s willingness to share 70% of the revenue from sales with developers.

“It will be up to applications developer to market his application,” Lanka Business Online quoted him, “He can make a name for himself.”

Read the full news story in Lanka Business Online.

Evacuations in Galle, Southern Province

Was Sri Lanka’s reaction to tsunami alert today early morning effective enough? Did we observe the dos and don’ts?

We do not jump to conclusions. The information is inadequate and contradictory at times. We will try reconstructing from what we heard, from mass media and other sources. Please feel free to add your own story as a comment.

An underwater earthquake, measuring 7.7 on the Richter scale, off the coast of Andaman and Nicobar Islands triggered tsunami fears in Sri Lanka. Soon after, a ‘tsunami watch’ alert was issued by the US-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC).

The Regional Tsunami Watch Bulletin was issued for India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand and Malaysia at 01.04 hours Sri Lanka Time 18 minutes after the quake. (00.46 hours) A second message called off the alert to countries except India 44 minutes later. So by 01.48 hours everything should have been back to normal in Sri Lanka.

 According to Lankadeepa online, the disaster warning towers in Matara, Weligama, Devinuwara and Dikwella issued an alert (no time is given) that triggered evacuations in South. Lankadeepa says the chaotic situation prevailed till 05.00 hours.

Daily Mirror reported evacuations in the Eastern coast, which was just 1,000 km away from the epicenter. Both Police announcements and tsunami towers broadcasted the ‘warning’.

A Sinhala blogger  reported mass evacuations in Matara. 

Another blogger said the tsunami alert in Matara was called off at 03.00 hours.

The evacuations were not necessary, as it was only a tsunami watch and not a warning. It could be the initiation of the local authorities. Public could have taken the step on their own too, as strong tremors have been felt in different parts of the island, including Colombo, Moratuwa, Galle, Matara, Anuradhapura, Kandy and Batticaloa.   

Disaster Management Center spokesman, Priyantha Kodippily meanwhile said they had not issued an evacuation order and people along the coastal belt had moved out on their own, reported Daily Mirror.  

According to Dr. Vinya Ariyaratne, General Secretary of Sarvodaya movement, who spent the early morning hours listening to Sarvodaya volunteers from the field, it was a different story.

No television channel issued an alert till about 03.00 hours, he says. Rupavahini’s ‘breaking news’ came only when he was going back to sleep after the cancellation of the alert. The only text message he received was from Ada Derana. It said “Tsunami Warning issued for Sri Lanka after 7.7mag earthquake near Nicobar Island India; people on coast asked to be alert says Met Dept.”

 Disaster Management Center of Sri Lanka web site didn’t issue the alert, but later published the cancellation. It said “No Tsunami Threat to Sri Lanka due to the Earthquake of 7.5 magnatude(sic) occured (sic) in Nicobar Islands at 01.05 a.m. (sic – this should be 00.46 am) on 13th June 2010.”

LIRNEasia welcomes this move and plans to present the research findings of its own and those of Nokia on the telecom tariff and mobile phone ownership costs at the public hearing.

For example, we can tell Mr. Nanayakkara about Nokia’s find that Sri Lanka has the seventh lowest total cost of (mobile) ownership (TCO) from more than 70 countries surveyed.  Sri Lanka’s TCO was more than only those of (in ascending order) Honduras, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Indonesia  in 2009. Nokia has estimated the TCO in twelve countries less than USD 5/month while the average for 70+ countries studied was USD 10.88.

Mr. Nanayakkara will also learn when we asked the ‘Bottom of the Pyramid’ users in Sri Lanka in 2008, about the affordability, only 30% said a mobile-mobile call is either ‘expensive’ or ‘very expensive’ while 60% found it ‘cheap’ or ‘very cheap’. A ’low end’ typically spend USD 2-4 per month on his/her phone bill while the mean of pre-paid mobile expenditure stands at USD 5.85.

Apart from that, we are sure Mr. Nanayakkara is perhaps more concerned about the electricity tariffs, which, unlike telecom tariffs have never been controlled by the competition. A public hearing on electricity tariffs will be of more use given they are still decided by a government owned monopolistic provider. We wait for Mr. Nanayakkara’s letter to the Central Electricity Board requesting for a one.

Pakistan has achieved some economic success – mainly in agriculture and industry – despite recurring political instability since the country’s independence in 1947, says Wilson. Yet millions of Pakistanis still live below the poverty line. Inadequate basic infrastructure –notably electricity supply- and low levels of social development continue to constrain economic growth. Pakistan ranks among the worst performers on Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index and is beset with a range of governance challenges.

Joseph Wilson, expert in regulatory law and member of the Competition Commission of Pakistan will provide a brief overview of the history that has shaped Pakistan’s economic environment, says a communiqué from IDRC. He will examine factors that continue to inhibit Pakistan’s economic growth, including corruption, unsustainable budget deficits, population growth, decreased foreign direct investment, and the deteriorating security situation. The recent experience of the Competition Commission of Pakistan, says Wilson, provides some insight into how incremental progress can be made in tackling this difficult set of problems.

When: Tuesday, June 1, 2010, 2:00 pm to 3:30 pm
Where: IDRC, W. David Hopper Room A, 150 Kent Street, 8th floor, Ottawa, ON

The lecture is free but seating is limited, so prior registration is required.

More details are available here.