LIRNEasia is a regional ICT policy and regulation think tank active across the Asia Pacific (About)



Applications now open for LIRNEasia Young Scholar Tutorials, hosted by NUS, Singapore. Click here for info on how to apply.

On the benefits of services trade

Services trade, especially mode 1 services trade where the buyer remains in the buyer’s country and the seller remains in the seller’s country, is critical to the development of emerging economies. India has been one of the greatest beneficiaries of liberalized trade, but the NYT article below shows that the US is also a [...]

5 billion USD for Zain, African foothold (finally) for Bharti, and budget telecom network model for African consumers?

One way business models and innovations travel is through mergers and acquisitions. We have been waiting to see more African consumers benefit from the low prices and greater connectivity afforded by the Budget Telecom Network Model. Finally it looks like a big Indian telecom operator has got a foothold in Africa, with the [...]

How mobile handsets are doing

A story on the Barcelona GSM World conference had this interesting summary on the state of the handset market. With our focus on infrastructure we have not written much about handsets over the years, but it’s becoming difficult, especially in the context of the Mobile 2.0 narrative. As I said in a recent [...]

Quo warranto, TRC?

Following the appointment of Director of Information (or Propaganda) as part-time Director General of Telecom, I have been getting a lot of calls asking about Internet censorship, prohibition of Face Book, and licensing of news websites.
While I do believe that (a) the Director of Information is on the face unqualified to serve as [...]

WiFi makes the bus quiet and the students better behaved

Back in 2004, LIRNEasia got on the WiFi bandwagon. Ours was one of the first WiFi offices in Colombo (we had trouble getting suppliers who knew what they were doing) and we installed WiFi temporarily at the Mount Lavinia Hotel for our launch conference.
One of the unexpected results was that it caused [...]

Pakistan Competition Commission appears to have mobile telcos on the ropes

It started with something innocuous. Within a very short period of around a week all the mobile operators in Pakistan announced they would charge 10 Paise for balance inquiries. The Competition Commission of Pakistan naturally initiated an inquiry. The mobile operators said there was no price fixing and that this move was [...]

T@BOP3 findings published in Nokia’s Expanding Horizons

Findings from LIRNEasia’s Teleuse@BOP3 study have been cited in the latest issue of Nokia’s Expanding Horizons magazine. The article discusses the vast potential mobile phones have for providing those on the lower-incomes or the bottom of the pyramid, access to the internet for the first time. Read the full article here. Excerpt below:
According to ICT [...]

A business model nudge at 1 gigabit a second

Google has announced that it will be rolling out superfast broadband as demonstration projects.
“Google, indeed, appears to be playing a chess game,” said David B. Yoffie, a professor at the Harvard Business School. “If they can create an even mildly credible commitment to offer superfast broadband to the home, it could strike fear in the [...]

Latest on Indian ITES performance

An excerpt from a trade newsletter published by the Govt of India:
According to the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM), the apex body for software services in India, the revenue of the information technology sector has risen from 1.2 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in FY 1997-98 to an estimated [...]

Telecommunication Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka: Quo Vadis?

Perhaps it is time for Sri Lanka Telecom Regulator to be renamed ‘Telecom Revenue Commission’ as it generates more revenue for the government than two state banks and Port and the Petroleum Corporation, suggests Rohan Samarajiva in his column to Lanka Business Online. The 3.5 billion rupee question: Does it regulate?
The answer may interest the [...]

How broad is your broadband? Discover with ‘Mobile AT tester’

LIRNEasia will be releasing the beta version of the Mobile AT Tester software on 13 February 2010. All bloggers (Sinhala/Tamil/English) are welcome to participate the event. The soft launched is at Renuka City hotel and will commence from 9:30 am to 12.00 noon followed by lunch.
For further informaton please click here.
Admission Free but seats. PRIOR REGISTRATION IS MANDATORY.

BOP mobile phone expenditure findings presented at PTC conference

By Aileen Aguero, former Research Intern, LIRNEasia

As an intern at LIRNEasia, I had the opportunity of working with Harsha de Silva in writing a paper called Bottom of the Pyramid  (BOP) Expenditure Patterns on Mobile Phone Services in Selected Emerging Asian Countries. I presented this paper at the Pacific Telecommunications Conference, held on 17 – [...]

Photo exhibition at LIRNEasia@5

As part of LIRNEasia’s 5th year anniversary conference, “research -> policy -> knowledge based economies“, a photo exhibition was commissioned at the event to capture different aspects of the use of mobile phones by those at the Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP). The images which were sourced from Flickr from both budding as well as [...]

Spectrum hoarding in India and the available remedies

Voice and Data has done a story on spectrum hoarding. Among the main sources is Payal Malik, who did the spectrum/licensing study that was part LIRNEasia’s mobile 2.0 work.
According to Payal Malik, sr research fellow, LIRNEasia, “It is difficult to verify whether the spectrum is actually being hoarded, but given the way allocation has [...]

Special Committee appointed to develop broadband in Sri Lanka – Daily News

Looks like it is too much a job for an ordinary committee. The special committee will miss the special guidance of Mr. Priyantha Kariyapperuma, Director General of Telecommunication Regulatory Committee of Sri Lanka, who tendered his not so special resignation yesterday, but the regulator giving some special attention to broadband quality is good news.
We reproduce [...]

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