LIRNEasia » Hans Wijayasuriya

Sri Lanka: Dialog assists Disaster Management

Chanuka Wattegama — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 15:20:04 +0000

Dialog Telekom PLC in collaboration with its partners Dialog University of Moratuwa Mobile Communications Research Laboratory and Microimage Technologies together with the Disaster Management Centre (DMC) of Sri Lanka launched Sri Lanka’s first ever mass alert warning system; the ‘Disaster and Emergency Warning Network’ (DEWN) yesterday under the patronage of Disaster Management and Human Rights Minister, Mahinda Samarasinghe.

Speaking on the launch of DEWN Group Chief Executive Officer, Dialog Telekom PLC, Dr. Hans Wijayasuriya said that “There are 10 million people in this country who have access to telecommunication and mobile services. Now the mobile has become a powerful tool which could be called as a ‘Digital Empowerment Device’ and our citizens are digitally empowered into the digital network”. Dr. Wijayasuriya went onto say that now one can even provide banking and other information services via a mobile phone unit adding that the Dialog News Alert service has now reached 350,000 subscribers.

DEWN is a system that was being tested by the Disaster Management Centre (DMC) to alert Dialog mobile users of potential disasters via a method called ‘Cell Broadcast’. Users only need to configure area information reception settings on their Dialog mobiles to receive the alerts issued. The DMC takes the responsibility to adequately verify any emergency situation and issue alerts. A Memorandum of Understanding was signed by Dialog Telekom PLC and Disaster Management Centre to start the DEWN. In a potential disaster scenario, the DMC will first use DEWN to alert emergency personnel on their individual phones, and public alerts will be issued only when a threat is adequately verified. In addition to alerts received on the mobile phones, specially designed DEWN remote alarms will also be used to alert nominated emergency personnel. Cell Broadcast is currently available only on the Dialog GSM network and not yet available on #G mode.

Addressing the gathering Minister of Disaster Management and Human Rights, Mahinda Samarasinghe said that “since December 26th 2004, when we lost 38,000 lives and when the tsunami caused serious damage to the assets of our economy and development of the country, the Government has moved into make Sri Lanka a safe place”. The Minister also highlighted the importance of private sector corporate social responsibility projects that enhance and enrich the lives of people. “Disaster prevention and mitigation in this country is essential for rapid economic strategy and sustainable economic development of Sri Lanka” Minister Samarasinghe said adding that the 24 hour operating Disaster Management Centre will be the focal point when sending the alerts via Dialog network.

Read the full story in Daily Mirror here.

We know who you are, we know where you are, we know what you buy, we know who you talk to

Rohan Samarajiva — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 04:31:11 +0000

This past Saturday at a conference organized by the Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing Harsha de Silva chaired a session with Hans Wijayasuriya of Dialog Telekom, Rohan Samarajiva of LIRNEasia and Keith Modder of Virtusa that addressed issues such as this. One point that ran through the discussion was the need for companies to develop self-regulation to safeguard the trust of their customers.

China’s mobile network: a big brother surveillance tool? – LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE

“We know who you are, but also where you are,” said the CEO of China Mobile Communications Corporation, Wang Jianzhou, whose company adds six million new customers to its network each month and is already the biggest mobile group in the world by users.

He was explaining how the company could use the personal data of its customers to sell advertising and services to them based on knowledge of where they were and what they were doing.

When pressed about the privacy and security implications of this, he added: “We can access the information and see where someone is, but we never give this information away … only if the security authorities ask for it.”

The movement of mobile phone users can be tracked because they connect to local base stations, giving a trail that can only be accessed in most democratic countries by security officials under strict conditions.

Mobile phones can also be easily tapped.

Sri Lanka’s SMS use growing, but revenues not

Rohan Samarajiva — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 13:31:23 +0000

There was a big story about SMS use declining in India.

The response to a question whether Sri Lanka SMS use is declining like in India was answered in the negative by Supun Weerasinghe, the new CEO of Dialog Mobile (Hans Wijayasuriya is now the Group CEO). The question was triggered by the decline of SMS and VAS revenues from LKR 1,468 m in 2006 3Q (8% of total revenues) to LKR 1,223 m in 2007 3Q (5% of total revenues).

Insurance through prepaid mobile

Rohan Samarajiva — Wed, 30 May 2007 08:37:04 +0000

We have periodically carried stories on non-traditional uses of mobiles. Here is one about buying accident insurance that are bought and paid for through the mobiles.

LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE – LBO

The accident insurance cover package premiums are priced between five and 20 rupees which can be paid at any Dialog reload centre in Sri Lanka that entitles the connection holder up to 50,000 rupees worth of claims.

The accident cover targets the population who does not have comprehensive knowledge of insurance and low-income families.

Customers can apply for the ‘eZ insurance’ cover at the time of a reload and the cover expires when the credit of the reload finishes.

“eZ insurance is a manifestation of the deployment of advanced electronic commerce infrastructure towards enhancing the affordability and availability of a product,” Hans Wijayasuriya, CEO Dialog Telekom told reporters.

Following successful course, LIRNEasia plans regular offerings; next course in March 2008 in Singapore

Rohan Samarajiva — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 19:10:20 +0000

Report on the 11th LIRNE.NET Executive Training Course on Regulation, 25 February – 3 March 2007, conducted by LIRNEasia and CONNECTasia Forum Pte.Ltd.

Rohan Samarajiva, Course Director

The 11th LIRNE.NET course on “Telecom Reform: Strategies to achieve connectivity and convergence,” was held February 25th – March 3rd, 2007 at the Changi Village Hotel, Singapore. It was attended by 33 persons from 13 countries, ranging from Mongolia to Congo and South Africa to Bhutan.

Among the participants were 13 persons from regulatory agencies, including three members of regulatory collegiums. Eleven persons from the management of telecom operators, and nine from research organizations, universities and civil society made up the balance. Twenty were men; and 13 women.

The course had two components: a conventional lecture and assignment based module of five days and one and a half days of research presentations. In all, the participants had the benefit of listening to 28 speakers from research organizations, universities, regulatory agencies, operators, and international organizations (both ITU and World Bank) over an eight-day period. One speaker, Professor Bill Melody, who was unable to attend due to medical reasons, spoke on two occasions via Skype.

The course included a team assignment involving data and communication skills. Of the five teams, three were recognized as TelePhontastic, TelePerseverance and TeleGenic.

The keynote address at the opening session was delivered by Dr Hans Wijayasuriya, CEO of Dialog Telekom of Sri Lanka on behalf of Telekom Malaysia International. The address at the awards banquet was made by Mr M. H. Au, Director General of Telecommunications, Hong Kong China. Ambassador K, Kesavapany, Director of the Institute of South East Asian Studies, Singapore, co-organizer of the research component, spoke at its inaugural session as did Mr Evan Due from the IDRC, the funder of the research meeting.

The course evaluations were extremely positive, with only three items receiving average scores below 4 on a five-point scale (airport transfer (3.43), hotel facilities (3.86) and hotel location (2.43)). In actual fact, the hotel was ideal for a course of this nature, though the participants were somewhat frustrated by the distance to the city center and the frequency of the hotel’s airport shuttle). Most importantly, none of the lectures and assignments got scores below 4/5, with all topics and speakers being very highly rated.

The presentations made are available for download below:

February 26, 2007

1. Introduction to the course

Rohan Samarajiva | Download Presentation

2. Benefits of reform and regulation

Rohan Samarajiva | Download Presentation

3. What do users at the bottom of the pyramid want? Survey research from five Asian countries

Harsha de Silva | Download Presentation

4. State of the art: Regulatory priorities in 2007

Bill Melody | Download Presentation

5. Market entry and scarce resources 1 (emphasis on licensing issues), including demo of infoDev Toolkit

Rohan Samarajiva | Download Presentation

6. Measuring regulatory and sector performance to meet the challenges of legitimacy

Rohan Samarajiva | Download Presentation

February 27, 2007

1. Market entry and scarce resources 2 (emphasis on spectrum issues)

Rohan Samarajiva | Download Presentation

2. What regulators can do to facilitate universal service: Universal Service Funds and least-cost subsidy auctions

Harsha de Silva | Download Presentation

3. Asymmetric regulation, including new approaches to price regulation

Rohan Samarajiva | Download Presentation

4. Interconnection & inter-operator access

Rohan Samarajiva | Download Presentation

February 28, 2007

1. Periodic recalibration of the regulatory mechanism, including meeting the challenges of convergence