At the invitation of FAO, our CEO, Rohan Samarajiva, Research Manager, Nilusha Kapugama and I spent two days (April 3-4, 2012) in Bangkok participating in a regional FAO/ NECTEC workshop on the use of mobile technologies for food security, agriculture and rural development. The workshop brought together representatives from the agriculture ministries/ departments of 10 countries in Asia (Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam), FAO personnel as well as the private sector, including operators of Mobile Agricultural Information Services (MAIS).

LIRNEasia research on the use of mobiles by the poor as well as in rural development set the stage for most of the sessions. Rohan, presented the latest findings from the Teleuse@BOP surveys; Nilusha presented some findings from the agricultural micro-enterprise survey (growers & non-growers); and I talked about the lessons and challenges of the current crop of MAIS in the region.  The workshop interactions, especially the working group discussions facilitated by Rohan and myself, were eye-opening.

Rohan has blogged about some of his first impressions. Some of my key take-aways are below:

Creating an enabling environment in telecom: There is still some work to be done in creating the right conditions on the telecom side, to encourage mobile agricultural information services. In India for example, telecom operators still charge about 70% of the revenue from mobile applications. This is not conducive to encouraging development of MAIS.

Creating a model for PPP: The majority of the knowledge and expertise on agricultural issues reside with government, yet it is dispersed over a multitude of institutions that vary by region of focus (national, regional, state) and/or by subject matter (different crops, etc.). The problem for MAIS operators becomes the negotiation of partnerships with each of these institutions. One of the recommendations from the working groups was to create a template agreement for each country that could enable state institutions to be nimble and thus reduce the bureaucratic red tape in obtaining the source data for these services.

Quality of information and accountability: This remains a challenge. It is difficult to hold MAIS operators to be accountable for the quality information they provide when some of the information from government institutions are themselves unreliable. For example RML in India and GGS in Sri Lanka have to collect their own market price information, due to the unreliability of the officially reported market prices. Irrespective, there is not enough attention being paid to the issue of the quality of the information being provided by MAIS and who is accountable for the advise being provided. One related issue is that the private MAIS operators have to have an editorial desk and/or panel of experts in decided which information/ advise to transmit when there is a difference in the advice from different state institutions. I am not convinced that this is the right long term solution to this problem.

Applications for department of agriculture personnel as well as extension work: Not enough attention has been paid to capacity and skills development of extension workers and agriculture department personnel with respect to the use of ICT applications.  Since our lead scientist Sujata Gamage’s work on peer networking and communication as part of the K2I project, we have been very much interested on this issue with respect to agricultural extension and I am glad that addressing this deficiency was brought up at the workshop as one of the key recommendations.

Development of appropriate ICT systems within the departments themselves: There has been a recent trend towards agriculture ministries/ departments running their own MAIS. Often these are call-center operations. The problem being reported by them is often about the dearth of manpower to run these call centers. I fear that sufficient thought is not being given to the digitization of agricultural expertise through the use of learning databases.

    
(All photos courtesy of FAO/ NECTEC. Photos from Day 1 and Day 2 of the workshop can be found on on the LIRNEasia Flickr stream)

The reports are coming in. The latest was Sri Lanka mobile phone use rising among poor: study.

Others were Sri Lanka mobile phone ranking system coming for farmers and Sri Lanka rubber producer gains seen from traceability system

I have a similar problem with the 30 young scholars from 13 countries (Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Korea, Nepal, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Taiwan ROC, Thailand) taking part in the tutorials. This is a bright bunch. Unlike in other years, it’s a not a fully subsidized training: they or their organizations are picking up a small part of the costs. Perhaps it is that commitment that I am picking up. The slides are being posted on www.cprsouth.org.

Click here to view presentation slides. More information on the event is available here.

Mobile 2.0 describes the use of mobiles for “more‐than‐voice”. Mobiles are increasingly becoming payment devices which can also send/process/receive voice, text and images; it is envisaged that in the next few years, they will also be fully capable of information‐retrieval and publishing functions, normally associated with the Internet.

Mobile 2.0@BOP has been researched from two aspects: vertical and horizontal issues. Horizontal issues are the basic competitive and regulatory conditions that affect the emergence of Mobile 2.0@BOP. The vertical components explore how particular aspects such as micro‐payments and remittances, agriculture applications, voting applications, e‐government services, disaster warning, etc are taking shape and form.

The research findings will be disseminated by the respective researchers as follows.

New Delhi, India on March 4 and 5, 2010

Payal Malik – Issues in licensing and Spectrum allocation
Tahani Iqbal – Mobile Number Portability

Dhaka, Bangladesh on March 28-29, 2010

Erwin Alampay, PhD – Mobile payments
Tahani Iqbal – Mobile Number Portability

Nirmali Sivapragasam – Mobiles, payment and logistics, based on a case of study of CellBazaar, Bangladesh

Bangkok, Thailand on March 30, 2010

Erwin Alampay, PhD – Mobile payments
Puree Sirasoontorn, PhD – Mobile value-added services, based on Buzzcity case study

Media coverage will be added here as they happen.

Thailand’s telecommunications sector needs greater regulatory fairness as well as clarity in policy from the government on the future of former state enterprises CAT and ToT if Thailand is to secure the huge investment needed for 3G and data services moving into the future. LIRNEasia…conducted a study of the perceptions towards the regulators in eight emerging Asian economies in the second half of 2008 and representatives from the regulator NTC, ToT, the GSM Association and think-tank TDRI were invited to the report’s presentation. The event was co-hosted by LIRNE Asia, and was hosted by Chulalongkorn University’s Dr Pirongrong Ramasoota, an activist who set the tone of the event by noting that today Thailand is in competition with India to be the last of the eight Asian countries to attain 3G.

Read the full article here.

LIRNEasia, in coordination with the Thai Media Policy Center, Chulalongkorn University and Siam Intelligence Unit, Thailand, hosted a seminar to disseminate findings from its 2008 Asian study on the telecom regulatory environment (TRE), on the 19th of October, in Bangkok, Thailand. The event drew an audience of close to 40, which included senior representatives from the telecom industry, government, academia and the media.

Rohan Samarajiva (LIRNEasia) presented overall regional findings from the study, followed by Deunden Nikomborirak (Thailand Development Research Institute) and Payal Malik (University of Delhi), presenting findings from the Thailand and India study, respectively. This was followed by a panel discussion on spectrum allocation in Thailand, chaired by Pirongrong Ramasoota of Chulalongkorn University. Distinguished panelists included Supot Tiarawut (TRIDI, National Telecommunication Commission), Kittipong Tameyapradit (TOT Plc Ltd), Kristin Due Hauge (GSMA) and  Somkiat Tangkitvanich (TDRI).

The presentations made at the event can be downloaded here:

• Telecom Regulatory and Policy Environment 2008 – Rohan Samarajiva
• TRE Survey:  Thailand - Deunden Nikomborirak
• Spectrum Allocation in India: Monkey on a Greased Pole? – Payal Malik

Other documents for download:

• Press release, 19 October 2009
• TRE regional study (research paper)
• TRE study, Thailand (research paper)

This is what ITU’s Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Report for the Asia-Pacific region 2008 says. It was released at ITU TELECOM ASIA 2008, Bangkok, Thailand yesterday (Sept 2, 2008).

The Report finds evidence that ICTs and broadband uptake foster growth and development, but the question remains as to the optimal speed that should be targeted in view of limited resources.

The area in which the region really stands out is the uptake of advanced Internet technologies, especially broadband Internet access. The Asia-Pacific region is the world’s largest broadband market with a 39 per cent share of the world’s total at the end of 2007. In terms of broadband access, Asia-Pacific has made remarkable progress in the past few years, with subscriber numbers growing almost five-fold in five years: from 27 million at the beginning of 2003 to 133 million at the start of 2008.

In the region’s high-income economies, ubiquitous access is progressing through a competitive race to provide ever faster fixed broadband access. Operators in Hong Kong (China) and Japan have launched one-Gigabits per second (Gbps) broadband and triple-play services aimed at the residential market, featuring applications such as Internet telephony and television. The Republic of Korea leads the world in terms of the percentage of households with fixed broadband access, and no less than five economies in the top ten are from Asia-Pacific. The Republic of Korea, Hong Kong (China), and Japan also lead the world in terms of the proportion of households with fibre optic connections, essential for supporting the next generation of ultra-high speed Internet applications.

These high-income economies are also leaders in terms of third generation (3G) mobile cellular deployment. Fixed and mobile broadband technologies complement each other and users enjoy continuous high-speed Internet access. In Singapore, a ubiquitous Internet access plan combining unlimited 8 Megabits per second (Mbps) fixed broadband, 2 Mbps mobile broadband and access at some 800 Wi-Fi hotspots is available for just USD 35 per month.

At the other extreme, in most of the region’s low and lower-middle income economies, high-speed Internet access is limited to urban areas at best, typically expensive, and often not available at all. The regional broadband divide is striking, with poor economies having a close-to-zero broadband penetration, compared to that of rich economies where one in four persons is a broadband subscriber (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Fixed broadband Internet subscribers per 100 inhabitants, 2007

The gap in available broadband speeds between rich and poor countries is as wide as broadband penetration. In Japan, the Republic of Korea and Hong Kong (China), the minimum advertised broadband speed is faster than the maximum broadband speed in Cambodia, Tonga, Laos and Bangladesh.

While in low and lower-middle income economies mobile phones have become a substitute for the shortage of fixed lines, they are not yet fulfilling the potential of broadband access. By the end of 2007, only Indonesia, the Maldives, the Philippines and Sri Lanka had commercially deployed WCDMA networks. The region’s two largest mobile markets, China and India, have yet to launch mobile broadband. By the end of 2007, there were over 120 million mobile broadband subscribers in the region (Figure 2), but almost all (97 per cent) were in high income economies.

Figure 2: Mobile cellular broadband subscribers in Asia-Pacific

While the region’s high-income economies are pushing the frontier of broadband bandwidth to a point where applications have yet to catch up, many Asia-Pacific developing economies are bandwidth starved, inhibiting the development of their information societies.

The ITU Report argues that broadband uptake enables a range of socially desirable and valuable online services in areas such as government, education and health. The use of broadband technologies can help overcome many of the basic development challenges faced by poor countries. The Report provides a number of examples where broadband connectivity has acted as a catalyst for development. These include the provision of education through distance learning in the Solomon Islands, the creation of jobs through business incubators for women in China, and the supply of communication services for disaster management in Myanmar.

Read the press release here. Full report is not yet available in the public domain.

(Please click on the images for a better view)

ITU TELECOM ASIA 2008 is a key networking platform for Asia’s top ICT names to come together and focus on core issues relating to ICT expansion across the region.

Find the draft background paper here

Find the presentation slides here

TelecomTV – TelecomTV One – News

Now, it just so happens that I was tracking a story on the junta’s plans for its very own cyber city just before the protests began. There have been quite a few reports across Asia recently that the Burmese “government” is building its 10,000-acre (4,050 hectare) “Yadanabon cyber city” project about 70 kilometres east of Mandalay, Burma’s second largest city.According China’s Xinhua news agency, not only is it going ahead as planned, but the first stage will be opening officially in January 2008 with some big-name tenants from China, Russia, Thailand and Malaysia headlining the propaganda event.

Back in June, “The Irrawaddy”, probably the best news source about Burma, filed a story that panned the grandiose ICT plans of the junta. In particular it quoted Reporters without Borders, which labels Burma an “Internet black hole”, and suggested that no foreign company in its right mind would risk going anywhere near “Myanmar”.

However, according to Xinhua last month, the list of companies signed up to be anchor tenants in the cyber city include the likes of ZTE and Alcatel Shanghai Bell (ASB) from China, Thailand’s Shin Satellite, IP Tel from Malaysia and Russian software outfit CBOSS. It also claims that an airport had been built “in” the cyber city and that “various systems including ADSL, CATV, Triple Play and WiMax are being installed, experts said, adding that the present stage before the soft opening deals with fibre cable installation.”

That’s quite a detailed list of development. As it turned out, I was at a satellite conference in Bangkok the same week and thus had a chance to ask a number of people at Shin Satellite, including the company president, directly about this.

Not one single person at that company had even heard of the mythical Yadanabon cyber city, never mind being listed as an anchor tenant there. I then contacted Alcatel about the Alcatel Shanghai Bell (ASB) involvement and got the same response – there were no plans to invest in the cyber city project.

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With foreign journalists barred from what is one of the world’s most closed states, much of the worldwide media coverage is coming from exiled newshounds in countries such as Thailand and India — and their clandestine contacts on the inside.

Technology ranging from the latest Internet gizmo to satellite uplinks to camera phones are ensuring pictures of the massed marches of monks and civilians and the response by security forces is on TV screens around the world in hours.

The contrast to Myanmar’s last major uprising, in 1988, could not be more stark. Then, as many as 3,000 people were killed when soldiers opened fire on the crowds but it took days for the news — let alone pictures or video footage — to emerge.

“The difference is night and day,” said Dominic Faulder, a Bangkok-based British reporter during the 1988 uprising.

“Now, the whole population are journalists on the move equipped with all sorts of information-capturing devices from telephones and video machinery that you just couldn’t use in 1988.”

Then, Faulder said, all information went via the telex at Yangon’s posh Strand Hotel, a single line that on one day accounted for 90 percent of all international calls, according to the government spies who came round the next day to find out why. Read more.

I have read about the mudslide triggered tsunami as a theoretical possibility (cannot actually recall specific mention of a historical event). The danger with this particular form of tsunami is that there is no prior earthquake for the sensors to catch. The only thing that can detect the resultant tsunami is a tsunami buoy of the kind that is now installed in the sea between Sri Lanka and Thailand.

When Smith Dharmasarojana speaks, I listen. This needs to be taken very seriously. What we in Sri Lanka can do is to improve the national warning system and prepare the villages, particularly on the East Coast, to respond fast and effectively. At the regional level, I guess we need to move forward on installing more buoys in the Bay of Bengal.

briefs…

BANGKOK: Mountains of mud on the Indian Ocean floor could tumble down in an earthquake and trigger a tsunami that could lash the resort island of Phuket, Thailand’s disaster centre said on Thursday. The mountains — some more than seven kilometres high and 10 kilometres wide — are believed to have formed from sediment carried into the ocean by rivers running from Bangladesh, Myanmar and Thailand. They sit near India’s Andaman Islands, said Smith Dharmasaroja, chairman of the National Disaster Warning Centre.

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Deunden started off with a brief history of policy and regulatory development in Thailand and then moved on to describe the current market environment.

Since the year 1992, the beginnging of private concessions, around 3 million cellular lines were installed.

The cellular market boomed after 2002 when the third operator that was bankrupt was bought over by Hutch, and because it was a new entry, spurred competition. Over 15 million cellular subscribers entered the market at the time.

In conclusion,
Mobile: little state presence and very competitive
Fixed line: dominant state enterprise and little competition
Internet: little state presence and very competitive.

Key performance indicators
Drastic improvements on fixed line calls from 2002 – ie less fault calls.

Mobile penetration and fixed penetration are 36.3 percent and 10.1 percent respectively (based on subscribers). Internet is at 11.9 percent (based on users).

The waiting time for a fixed line was an average period of almost 2 years in 2004.

The internet is relatively expensive – takes up almost 10 percent of total monthly expenditure. Fixed lines are the cheapest (0.92 percent).

Digital divide is remarkable for fixed line. There is a big gap between number of fixed lines in Bangkok and the rest of Thailand.

Shared access reduces the divide and mobiles close the voice divide.

Internet services are out of reach for the poor – due to lack of fixed lines.

TRE Assessment
Sample included telecom operators, private businessmen, journalists, academics, regulatory officials, and consumers.

Scores are lowest for Thailand, even in the mobile sector.

Interconnection in fixed lines has the highest score, while the lowest score is on interconnection in mobiles.

Sequence: Disaster happens, analysed, and transmitted in a secure communication mechanism to the media. Once the warning message is transmitted, the disaster warning process is over. As far as Vanguard and LIRNE is concerned this is a ICT and telecom problem. Disaster education will be undertaken by vanguard at a later point in time.

Since we are not govt, for credibility we need to have wide-based participation as possible. Once Pete comes he, Ayesha, Malathy and I will sit and write the document. A powerpoint presentation will be presented at Transasia for 70 people. I have obtaqined participation of Asian Disaster Preparedeness Cnetre in Bangkok. There were 143 Sri Lankans who have gotten disaster prepapredness training at the above Center and a selection of them will be invited. Armed forces participants, public with specialised knowledge in the area will also be invited.

Feb 4-5th draft of paper will be finalised and press conference will be held. There will be videoconferencing with experts in Thailand, USA and elsewhere. The document will be finalized based on feedback and will be submitted to the Sri Lankan govt.

Divakar makes a strong argument that village local warning system needs to be involved. But I think it needs to be part of another initiative – possibly through the private sector.

Jinendra: But in the document [final report], the need for a local emergency system should be mentioned.

Chanuka: Source(disaster)—Media–report to–people. Do we have the sources? Tsunami warning system.

Rohan: If Asian tsunami warning system is in place that’s where the bulletin will come from. Cyclones will come from Met dept If you have multiple sources what are the potential of abuse? It needs to come from national disaster center. Supposing no tsunami warning system. But we have disaster management center in SL–manned by professionals. They get the first tsunami bulletin, they get 2nd bulletin about earthquake and possible tsunami. They could have then triggered a warning to SL

Chanuka: I will prepare excel sheet–who are responsible organization for particular disasters. And the document will be distributed to media and there can be accountability.

Sabina: If you have a cross-checking system to authenticate the information. You then have reliable info.

Rohan: Maybe operation of disaster warning need to be outsourced to private sector. Probably a telecom company.

Chanuka: Good idea, will such a thing happen?

Harsha: 911 is outsourced in New York City

Chanuka: Will profit make private sector efficient as disaster managers? [see Chanuka's comment below]

Rohan: Will a government organization work?

Sabina: Can you get tourism industry involved cause they have a motive to have efficient disaster warning

Rohan: Yes; without credible early warning no tourists will come to SL

Jinendra: It will take 2 years to get back on track for tourism. Maybe also get insurance companies involved. They have a stake too for a disaster management.

Rohan: Yes, good idea.

break for cake and ice cream

Rohan: Govt makes policy–civil society reacts. Here we are trying to give proposals. Will there be resistance to accept the plan?

Chanuka: they will probably accept it and run it as their own.

Rohan: We are interested in the policy process. LIRNE is about pushing for certain kind of policy to govt. – publicy pushing solutions for the governement.

looking at the ‘blame game’ as we have seen in SL over the last two weeks – the big problem in disaster management is that its cross-cutting in nature -it requires the involvement of many ministries, departments, etc.

Arun Mehtah has sent info on what we’re (LIRNEasia) doing to the chairman of TRAI (india) recommending that they work with us, rather than re-inventing wheel. Also Pete Anderson will be visiting India with Canadian PM. We may be able to link up with the Indians.

We need a system NOT just for tsunami’s. System must be ready to handle any (at best) form of disaster.

Harsha : (reads listing of natural disasters from ?website..?) …includes AIDS.

Rohan : like drought, AIDS is a creeping disaster. Time is not an issue.

Chanuka : However education is necessary

Sabina: what about epidemics like SARS

Jinendra: recent viral flu in Embilipitya

Rohan: the proposed organisation must be limited in its size, and therefore its scope (eg, it can’t be involved in the actual setting off sirens, etc) otherwise it just becomes another big bureaucracy.

Divakar: I’m concerend that the very ‘last mile’ will not get the message. Can’t issue one central warning in Colombo and then expect it to get to the last mile on its own, need devolvement as much as possible. more channels for communicaiton that are available makes the system more robust.

Sabina: how about a system that alerts all medical services/police services through island.

Jinendra: not all people have TV/electricity/telephone/radio

Divakar: can’t depend on someone by chance hearing a radio braodcast to pick up on warning and take action/spread word.

Rohan: can’t create more bureaucracy!!!!

Jinendra: we need to address the problem of how to communicate with those people who don’t have access to a phone/tv/radio, etc.

Rohan: East has been and is the worst hit part of the country in most disasters- cyclones, etc. They have to be given sirens, claxons, etc. But then, the rest of the coast (West, South) will want the same. This is costly – maintainance, etc. like payphone companies, structure is needed (not governemt) to mainitain it.

Harsha: concern of vandalism of sirens / towers, etc. Hopefully after the disaster that people have faced, people won’t.

Rohan: A robust, resilient solution, that is imperfect is better than trying to go for 100% perfect system .

Jinendra: need alternatives that don’t rely on solar/electricity, etc; how about manual operation (of local warning center)? as in railway crossings

Rohan: people become complacent- they think they are safe just because it is there. What if the siren/rail crossing signal is not working?

Sabina: Suggestion: Centralised organization (govt) sends out signal to next level organisations (Divisional Secetariats); they send it out to the next level (Pradeshya Sabhas), etc…

Rohan: More government?

Chanuka: 24 hour systems don’t work are difficult to maintain in this country – like Sathosa! [see Chanuka's comment below]

Divakar: what about connecting the warning system to VGKs (Vishwa Gnana Kendra’s – a telecenter network to be established throughout the island under the eSri Lanka Initiative)?

Rohan: There are no VGKs located on the coasts.

Sabina: How about manning them (warning centers ) on shift basis?

Rohan: Won’t work

Jinendra: the number of offices that one Divisional Secretariate will have to communicate to is far too many; communication time will be very long.

Rohan: Any thoughts/ideas on how can we extend this to other countries in the region?