Tag Archives: OECD
Did a research-based assessment influence policy in Mexico?
Mexico is not really within our sphere of activity, but the irony of having Carlos Slim as the co-chair of the Broadband Commission has caused me to write a few blogs about telecom sector developments there. Most recently, there was this stunning news that a political consensus had been achieved to attack “the great problem [...]
A possible solution to the mobile price comparison problem
LIRNEasia was unhappy with the ITU’s practice of reporting the prices of telecom services on the basis of a three-minute call. From 2006, we worked on popularizing the OECD basket methodology. We started becoming increasingly unhappy about the accuracy of the method because of the widespread use of discounts. At the same time, the ITU [...]
International angle on US merger
Mergers. mergers, everywhere. We’re told there are merger reviews on in Pakistan and the Philippines. But it’s the AT&T acquisition of T Mobile that’s getting the media play. Sam Paltridge, Member of the Scientific Advisory Council of LIRNEasia, is quoted on the implications of the merger for visitors: Mr. Paltridge of the O.E.C.D said that [...]
How to measure success/failure of Brazil’s broadband policy
I was invited to conduct a discussion at the Cabinet Office in Brasilia with senior government officials driving the Brazilian Broadband Policy that will shortly be announced. Representatives of the relevant ministries, ANATEL the regulatory agency, the public telecom operator and a local think tank participated in what proved to be a lively discussion. Given [...]
OECD broadband used by one-fifth of the population
The OECD countries are racing toward a broadband solution based fixed access, ADSL, Cable or FTTH. THE number of people subscribing to broadband in OECD countries increased by 13% last year to 267m. More than a fifth of the combined population of the 30 mostly rich nations in the OECD now have high-speed access to [...]
A “connectivity scorecard” that places the US in first place
Several years back, Korea topped the OECD’s broadband rankings and the ITU’s Digital Opportunity Index. That caused a lot of countries to reexamine their broadband policies. It caused others to develop new indices. The NYT carries a report on one: After the United States, the ranking found that Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway rounded [...]
Bangladesh doesn’t need a universal service tax
An article written by Rohan Samarajiva on Bangladesh’s proposed universal service taxes has been published in The Daily Star, Bangladesh; an excerpt follows. Bangladesh currently has the lowest mobile prices in the world and perhaps the world’s highest mobile growth rate. Pretty good, by any measure. A universal service tax can ruin the business model [...]
What Good Is Broadband
The central question of whether ICTs do any good, is discussed in relation to always-on broadband connections in the OECD. The question is, of course, of even greater importance in developing countries. The OECD released its latest report on May 19th. It surveys the broadband landscape to December 2007, and tells a warm tale. The [...]
Latin American and Asian mobile prices and methodologies compared
Mobile Benchmark Studies in South Asia and Latin America | L I R N E . N E T DIRSI’s study on mobile price and affordability also adapts the OECD price baskets to compare the monthly costs of using mobiles in six Latin American countries. The Latin American baskets take into consideration call and SMS [...]
Liberalisation key for next billion Internet users: OECD
An OECD report, Global Opportunities for Internet Access Developments, says that the next billion Internet users will be very different from the first billion and governments in developing countries, where these users will come from, must adapt strategic regulatory and investment policies to lower access costs. “The characteristics of these new Internet users will [...]
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