An Expert Forum on ICT Sector Indicators and Benchmark Regulation for SAARC Regulatory Authorities will be held in Changi Village Hotel, Singapore on 14 - 15 June 2008 following the 12th LIRNE.net course on Telecom Reform.
The Forum will focus on using specific indicators to benchmark performance of the sector as well as the regulatory authority, and using indicator data to improve the performance of both. The latest results from LIRNEasia’s Asian Regulatory Web-site Survey, the Mobile and Broadband Price Benchmarks research and the Broadband Quality of Service Measurement research will be presented at the forum, and will set the background for broader discussion on benchmark regulation. The LIRNEasia developed and IDRC-funded Asian ICT Indicators Database will be introduced and hands-on training on using the database will be provided.…
The New Digital South website, under its New School of Thought series, features an interview with LIRNEasia’s Director, Strategic Development, Helani Galpaya. Helani talks about the challenges of e-Gov in developing countries. See full interview here.
Click on the links to see the full articles covering LIRNEasia’s book, ICT Infrastructure in Emerging Asia: Policy and Regulatory Roadblocks.
‘BSNL’s monopoly over infrastructure a hindrance to growth’ - Financial Express (India)
Rural connectivity is now the focus of every telecommunication player in the country. Almost all stakeholders, from handset manufacturers to service providers, believe that the next wave of growth is in the rural areas.”However, India’s roll out (of telecom services) in rural areas has been slow. BSNL has the backbone infrastructure but is not yet ready to share it with private players,” he added.
Tags: access networks, Ashok Jhujhunwala, Asia, ATM, Ayesha Zainudeen, backbone infrastructure, Bangladesh, cellular telephone, Chennai, Department of Telecommunications, Financial Express, GSM, Harsha de Silva, IDRC, India, Jhunjhunwala, LIRNE asia, Madras, mobile phones, Pakistan, Rohan Samarajiva, rural telephony, Social Science Research Council, Sri Lanka, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, telecom services, telephony, Yahoo Tech Group.
The World Dialogue on Regulation (WDR) Expert Forum on Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Sector and Regulatory Performance Indicators will be held from March 2-3, 2007 at the Changi Village Hotel, Singapore. The event is organized by the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), in partnership with LIRNEasia and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada.
The forum will bring together National Regulatory Agencies (NRAs), National Statistical Organizations (NSOs) and leading operators from the SAARC and ASEAN countries, and will focus on assessing telecommunications regulatory performance and establishing a sustainable system for measuring and benchmarking ICT sector indicators in developing Asia.
For more information about this event, email asia@lirne.net
LIRNEasia intended the Telecom Regulatory Environment scores to serve as a diagnostic instrument for regulators, policy makers and stakeholders, not exactly a “league table.” However, the news value seems to be in the inter-country comparisons. We are grateful for whatever coverage we get.
Businessworld: Pak Betters India
The sharp growth in the Indian telecom industry has been talked about for quite sometime. That growth happened after many contentious issues got straightened out over the years at the regulatory level. Despite that, a study by Colombo-based LIRNE Asia (Learning Initiatives on Reforms for Network Economies) claims that the telecom regulatory mechanism in India is way behind Pakistan in five of the six parameters it considered.The Telecom Regulatory Environment 2006 has compared six countries including India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka,…
The Indonesian Minister for Communication and Information Technology, Dr Sofyan Djalil, presented a number of new initiatives for removing the barriers to Internet growth in his country at Building Digital Communities forum session at the ITU World 2006 event in Hong Kong on December 7, 2006.
Divakar Goswami, LIRNEasia’s Director, Organizational and Projects, who was moderating the panel asked the following question:
One of the first achievements of your government was to delicense the 2.4 GHz frequency that allowed communities to use Wi-Fi extensively in the country. Despite that, Indonesia currently has Internet penetration of 0.69 percent. You have about 124 ISPs that operate in Indonesia. How do you explain the low penetration and what are the barriers preventing Internet from growing faster in Indonesia? When we look…
Tags: Broadband, broadband wireless, fiber optic, Hong Kong, Indonesia, information technology, Internet penetration, Internet service, Jakarta, LIRNE asia, optic based network, Sidney, Sofyan Djalil, telecommunications, Wi-Fi.
An executive course on telecom regulation, including World Dialogue on Regulation Expert Forum on Sector and Regulatory Performance Indicators
Offered by LIRNEasia and CONNECTasia Forum Pte. Ltd.
February 25th - March 3rd, 2007. Changi Village Hotel, Singapore
The 2007 course is designed to enhance the strategic thinking of a select group of senior decision makers in the telecom and related sectors in the Asia Pacific and elsewhere. The focus will be on the most current strategic issues.
Tags: 11th LIRNE.NET, Africa, Asia-Pacific, Caribbean, Changi Village Hotel, China, CONNECT
asia, Europe, Harsha de Silva, Hong Kong, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, International Telecommunication Union, Latin America, LIRNE asia, M.H Au, Previous LIRNE.NET, Rajendra Singh, Rohan Samarajiva, Singapore, Strategy and Policy Unit, Tim Kelly, TM International Sdn Bhd, William Melody, Yusuf Annuar Yaacob.
The Webhamuva Project was showcased at the World Bank’s launch of the Small Grants Program (SGP) 2006 in Sri Lanka on April 6, 2006, as an example of the previous year’s funding under the same program. www.webhamuva.org was launched last year to ensure that the voices of the tsunami affected were heard widely and their interests and input were taken into consideration during the reconstruction and rehabilitation phase. Divakar Goswami, Director of Organizational Development and Projects at LIRNEasia made a presentation on the project and highlighted some of the findings. The presentation is available for download as a PDF document.
This project was partly funded by the World Bank’s Small Grants from 2005 and was implemented by LIRNEasia in partnership with Sarvodaya. It will run until June 2006.
Peter Harold, the…
LIRNEasia organised a press conference to highlight two major initiatives in the area of hazard warning, one that it launched on providing disaster mitigation and last-mile connectivity to tsunami-affected villages and the other that it wrapped up on dam-related hazard warning system for Sri Lanka.
LIRNEasia released A Concept Paper for a Dam-related Hazard Warning System in Sri Lanka: A Participatory Study on Actions Required to Avoid and Mitigate Dam Disasters in collaboration with its project partners, the Vanguard Foundation, Sri Lanka National Committee on Large Dams (SLNCOLD), Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG) and Sarvodaya. This work was funded by the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives. Prof. Rohan Samarajiva, Executive Director of LIRNEasia, handed over the final concept paper to U. W. L. Chandradasa, Director, Disaster Management Centre,…
Tags: addressable satellite radio technology, Canada Fund for Local Initiatives, Gordon Gow, Government of Sri Lanka, Intermediate Technology Development Group, last-mile technologies, LIRNE asia, London School of Economics, Media coverage, Rohan Samarajiva, Samana Teta Disaster Management Institute, Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka National Committee on Large Dams, U. W. L. Chandradasa, Vanguard Foundation, Vinya Ariyaratne, Wil Baker, WorldSpace.
By Payal Malik (Senior Researcher, LIRNEasia)
The Indian Express: Op-Ed
October 31, 2005
TRAI has recently come out with its recommendations on Growth of Telecom services in Rural India (www.trai.gov.in). It is an insightful attempt to address the anomalies of the current universal service obligation (USO) regime for the provision of rural telephone subsidy. In this article I describe the main lacunae of the current USO policy and outline how TRAI’s proposals ameliorate these flaws; the interested reader is directed to an independent research study that reviewed the current rural telephony subsidy mechanism. (read more…)
From the beginning, LIRNEasia was seen as serving/working with three constituencies: government, the private sector and civil society. Accordingly, the initial board of directors included representatives from all three groups. Dr Vinya Ariyaratne, the Executive Director of Sarvodaya, Sri Lanka’s largest and most deeply embedded social action organization, has served on the Board from the beginning.
With the tsunami and the unprecedented challenges it posed to all organizations in Sri Lanka, the relationship deepened. LIRNEasia’s Executive Director was invited to serve on the Deshodaya Council (National Reawakening Council) of Sarvodaya, a new body akin to a board of directors in many respects and also to advise the organization on ICT issues. Sarvodaya has played an important role in all the disaster communication projects that LIRNEasia undertook in…
LIRNEasia and Vanguard Foundation, in collaboration with the Sri Lanka National Committee of Large Dams, have conducted an Expert Consultation as the basis for developing a concept paper on an Early Warning System for Dam Related Hazards. Most of the Sri Lankan experts on dam management and safety were invited to this event.
The event was kicked off by Chandra Jayaratne, Director of the Vanguard Foundation and Rohan Samarajiva, Executive Director of LIRNEasia with a welcome address and opening remarks.
The first presentation titled, Nineteen years later, what lessons have been learnt from the Kantale breach (and what changes have been implemented)? by D W R Weerakoon, Former Director General of Irrigation and Secretary, Presidential Commission on the Kantale Dam Breach.
It was followed by a presentation by Nimal Wickramaratne, Director,…
Tags: Anura Jayasumana, Badra Kamaladasa, Center for Experimental Study of Subsurface Environment, Chandra Jayaratne, Colorado, Colorado School of Mines, Colorado State University, Department of Irrigation, Early Warning, K.S.R. De Silva, LIRNE asia, Mahaweli Authority, Nimal Wickramaratne, Presidential Commission on the Kantale Dam Breach, Rohan Samarajiva, Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka National Committee of Large Dams, Sri Lanka National Committee on Large Dams, United States, Vanguard Foundation, video conferencing.
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