Permanent Secretary for Public Enterprises, Communications, Civil Aviation and Tourism Ms. Elizabeth Powell was the Chief Guest for officially opening of PIRRC.

The distinguished guests at the launch included Regulators and representatives of Pacific Island Countries, Representatives of World Bank, Pacific Islands Telecommunications Association, International Telecommunications Union, Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat and Japan International Co-operation Agency and the Vice Chancellor and representatives of USP.

The PIRRC is hosted by USP at Level 4 of its Japan-Pacific ICT Center in Suva, and is funded by World Bank and managed by LIRNEasia. The launch of the Centre was followed by two-day working session. Rohan Samajiva CEO of LIRNEasia shared his experience with the Pacific Regulators challenges of Broadband, Alternate Dispute Resolution/Alternate Regulatory Practices. He also presented ICT indicators of the region.

The role of Centre is to collect key industry statistics and issue periodic reports on the state of telecommunications competition in Pacific Island countries, develop information packages on priority regulatory topics including those where technical skills may be required in analyzing industry trends, provide advisory services in response to country requests and to identify additional sources of expertise and issue best practice statements on telecommunications policies, laws, implementing rules and regulatory instruments.

Aslam Hayat talking to the media

The conference will bring together industry representatives, ICT R&D and innovation analysts, and policy makers, coming from Europe, the USA and Asia.  Main purposes of the conference are to identify and debate trends in the changing global ICT and ICT R&D landscape, debate their impact on the EU ICT industry and consequences for research and innovation location and modes and also to discuss implications for ICT R&D and innovation policies in Europe.

This forum will cover the strategies on how to align technology investments with agency priorities – to create necessary infrastructure and establish the enabling environment for the implementation of e-government services, thus, creating an effective and efficient e-Governance.

Rohan will speak at the session “Digital inclusion”. The talk will discuss the projects that effectively and sustainably bridged the digital divide. He will also take part as a panelist in “Mobile as a main Channel of Government Service Delivery”.

Click here,  for the brochure on the event.

For more info visit: http://www.futuregov.asia/events/futuregov-forum-sri-lanka-2011/

According the LIRNEasia’s 2011 Telecom Regulatory Environment (TRE) survey, stakeholders in India, Pakistan and Indonesia have identified the telecom regulatory environments in their countries as improved since 2008, the last time the survey was carried out.   In contrast, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Philippines have seen the regulatory environments decline in effectiveness, while Thailandremains more-or-less the same.

The TRE Survey asks senior level stakeholders to evaluate the effectiveness of the telecom regulatory environment in the fixed, mobile and broadband subsectors along a Lickert scale of 1 to 5 (1 being highly ineffective and 5 being highly effective, with the mid-point of 3 being considered average performance).  Seven different dimensions of regulation (market entry, tariff regulation, interconnection, universal service, anti-competitive-practices, quality of service) are evaluated by the stakeholders.    This year, 349 responded participated in the 7 countries.

Within a country, scores for each of the dimensions reflect specific issues: for example, in India, the lowest score (of 2.3 out of 5) was received by the Access to Scarce Resources dimension in the mobile-sub-sector.  This is perhaps not surprising given the 2G scandals in India.  However, India did finally get around to allocating 3G spectrum in 2010, and did so by having its first ever spectrum auctions. Perhaps because of this, or because stakeholders believe that that the 2G scandal has finally paved way for transparency in allocation, the score of 2.3 this year is still an improvement, though marginal,  over the 2008 score of 2.2.   India’s USD 4 billion+ undisbursed Universal Service Fund and related policies are responsible for its biggest TRE score decline: the TRE for USO drops from 3.1 in 2008 to 2.4 this year.  In contrast, tariff regulation in the mobile sub-sector continues to be the top performer with a score of 3.9 out of 5.0, indicating stakeholder satisfaction at TRAI’s policy of forbearance which has enabled Indian consumers to enjoy extremely low prices thanks to competitive forces.

Pakistan saw an increased in almost all dimensions, with the exception of 3 (fixed market entry, mobile access to scarce resources and mobile interconnection) which showed minor declines.   In contrast, Bangladesh saw scores in all seven fixed-subsector dimensions decline, in some cases by as much as 1 point.  The scores are perhaps reflective of the issues related to the cancellation of several fixed licenses.  Overall only seven dimensions showed improvements in Bangladesh, and even these were marginal.   Thailand, whose overall performance is unchanged, has however seen significant declines in its Market Entry scores due the uncertainties caused by the concession contracts granted to the mobile operators and what their status would be when they expire starting next year.

Detailed analysis of the scores is available in the draft country reports for Pakistan, India, Thailand, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Bangladesh.

A comparative country analysis is also available online.

All reports and analysis is in draft form at present. We hope you will comment on the country reports and cross country comparisons so that we may improve our analysis.

The conference aimed to bring together scholars and members from the private sector and regulators to learn from the studies and experiences that they encounter as they work in the field of ICT policy. The event was held from May 19-20, 2011, and was organized by Instituto del Perú.

Alison Gilwalld (of RIA, our sister network in Africa) also made a presentation.   The workshop preceded the annual ACORN-REDECOM conference.   At the conference, Tahani Iqbal, LIRNEasia Research Fellow presented a paper on mobile number portability which will be posted separately.

For more information click here

Some of us even have our twitter account in our business card. So people may follow you and you may follow anyone whom you think is interesting and/or is informative.

An article published by Reuters says

The  social networking phenomenon has nowhere to go but up as computer use becomes more mobile, according to leading figures in the development of the popular sites Facebook and Twitter.

To read more on the Reuters article, click here

Russia’s three biggest mobile operators, OAO Mobile TeleSystems (MBT), VimpelCom Ltd. (VIP) and Megafon, confirmed Wednesday that they have lowered mobile roaming tariffs in Russia and the CIS by up to 70%, ahead of the results of an inquiry into the high tariffs.

The mobile operators will “significantly lower tariffs” for roaming in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States no later than Dec. 1, Igor Artemyev, head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service, said at a meeting with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Wednesday.

The FAS has been investigating the high roaming tariffs charged by the top three operators since March, and is due to report the results of the inquiry Friday.

Tariffs could be as much as halved for calls and quartered for mobile Internet, while for text messages the rate could be about a third of current tariffs, Putin said at the meeting.

Read here for more on the same.

Indi introduces Fahim Farook, Navin Weeraratne and Monalee Suranimala, as tech savvy fishermen in this different kind of sea.

All of these characters launch their metaphorical boats from the island of Sri Lanka, off the southern coast of India, recently emerged from years of war but blessed with many English speaking, IT literate people, functional Internet infrastructure and a low cost of living.

They have also emerged at a time when outsourcing is booming around the world, with major companies like Walmart purchasing products from China and companies like Goldman Sachs outsourcing financial and IT knowledge work to India. Where these Sri Lankan differ, however, is they do not work for companies that work for companies. They work, essentially, for themselves.

Read more about Farook, Weeraratne and Suranimala here.

Kerfye Pierre’s thanks for helping out victims of Haiti’s earthquake? A $35,000 bill from T-Mobile.

Pierre tells CNN that she racked up about $35,000 while texting family and friends from Haiti with the news that she had just survived the devastating earthquake. T-Mobile offered to waive voice plans for Americans who were volunteering there after the crippling disaster, but Pierre said she didn’t realize that the waiver didn’t include textmessages.

Read the full story here

The lecture was on eHealth, which is being adapted widely, from primary to tertiary healthcare in many countries.. Especially, using more appropriate and relevant technologies, such as mobile technologies in tele-health and health informatics.

Dr. Angelo Ramos, a physician by training and an expert in public health education and promotion began with a presentation on From Euphoria to Pragmatism: The experience and potentials of eHealth in Asia. He pointed out that a vast expanse of research on eHealth has been conducted in developed countries. He emphasized the benefits of eHealth and how  governments and other stakeholders can help to improve it. (Click here for the full presentation)

A panel discussion on eHealth followed after Dr. Ramos lecture. The panelists were Dr. Vinya S. Ariyaratne, General Secretary of the Lanka Jatika Sarvodaya Shramadana Sangamaya, Sri Lanka, and member of the LIRNEasia Board; Prof. Gordon Gow, Associate Professor in Communication and Technology at the University of Alberta, Canada; Prof. Jayantha Weerasinghe, Professor and Consultant-Surgeon in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery affiliated with the Faculty of Dental Sciences, University of Peradeniya,Sri Lanka, and Dr. Angelo Ramos. The discussion was moderated by Mr. Nuwan Waidyanatha, Project Director of LIRNEasia’s mHealth pilot project, ‘Evaluating a real-time bio-surveillance program (RTBP)’

Dr. Ariyaratne explained  that Community empowering is an  important aspect. Rural areas lack access to ICTs.

Prof. Weerasinghe pointed out that they are using remote learning for the best of Patients. Medical faculty and Engineering faculty of Saga in Japan helped develop a system which can be used to aid online interaction between medical specialists in Japan and local patients (joint consultation). (Click here for the abstract )

Taking RTBP as an example, Dr. Gow showed the audience how technology was expensive some years back how it will  be available and more affordable in a  few years. (click here for the presentation)

The discussion ended, emphasizing the necessity of public-private partnerships in aiding sustainability of future eHealth initiatives.

PRESENTATION

DISCUSSANTS
G. B. Samarasinghe is the Director General, Department of Meteorology, Sri Lanka. An expert in meteorology, Samarasinghe predicts tropical countries are becoming more and more vulnerable to weather-related natural disasters because of the climate change. Investing in disaster preparedness is more advisable than spending on emergency relief, he reasons.

Ainsley Alles, a Chartered Insurer and a Fellow of the Chartered Insurance Institutes of Australia, New Zealand, France and India counts 28 years in insurance. He currently heads the General Insurance arm of Aviva NDB Insurance (formally Eagle Insurance PLC) as its Director (General Insurance). He views Disaster Risk Reduction from the angle of private sector.

CHAIR
Rohan Samarajiva is the founding Chair and CEO of LIRNEasia, an ICT policy and regulation think tank active across twelve emerging Asian economies. He was Director General of Telecommunications in Sri Lanka, a founder director of the ICT Agency of Sri Lanka, Visiting Professor at the Universities of Moratuwa in Sri Lanka and Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and Associate Professor of Communication and Public Policy at the Ohio State University in the US.

July 7, 2010
5.30 – 7.00 pm
Sri Lanka Foundation Institute Auditorium,
Independence Avenue, Colombo 7.

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.