For some of the protesters facing Bahrain’s heavily armed security forces in and around Pearl Square in Manama, the most powerful weapon against shotguns and tear gas has been the tiny camera inside their cellphones.

By uploading images of this week’s violence in Manama, the capital, to Web sites like YouTube and yFrog, and then sharing them on Facebook and Twitter, the protesters upstaged government accounts and drew worldwide attention to their demands.

A novelty less than a decade ago, the cellphone camera has become a vital tool to document the government response to the unrest that has spread through the Middle East and North Africa.

Full story.

Given my recent column in LBO, my mind was on payments. Where in the multiple play talk was payments? This was the question I raised at the session.

Now, as I wade through the piled up e-mail, I find this fascinating link sent by our good friend Randy Spence which is dead on the point. Does this not suggest that payment is the truly hot topic?

Sunday Independent: Cellphone companies push the power of mobile business services to hook consumers

Hylton Kallner, the general manager of marketing for Discovery, said the company was about to launch a pre-paid funeral plan, which costs R40 a month and could be purchased as a consumer buys cellphone airtime.”Cellphone penetration in South Africa is among the highest in the world, and is especially strong in the LSM 1-5 brackets at which this product is aimed. We decided to piggyback on the knowledge and habits of a very technologically sussed market to deliver a product that offers convenient access and value for money,” he said.

Kallner said Discovery expects demand for buying cover via cellphone on a pay-as-you-go basis to be high because it is more accessible, quicker and more convenient to organise than buying cover through traditional channels.

“Our research shows that people like the control the pre-pay model offers. It gives those in remote rural areas equal access, so geography isn’t a constraint on sound financial planning.”

Shameel Joosub, the managing director of Vodacom, said the company’s service opens up the world of funeral cover to all South Africans via Vodacom’s cellular retail channels and cellular recharge infrastructure.

“People are already very familiar with purchasing pre-paid airtime for their cellphones and we expect them to find it just as easy and convenient to use the same process to buy funeral cover now.”

No reason to limit ourselves to this most important of life events: India has another proposal.

From IDRC’s website
World Summit on the information Society, Kram Centre, Tunis, November 17, 2005
Conference Organisers: the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Information for Development Program of the World Bank (infoDev)

LIRNE.NET and the World Dialogue on Regulation (WDR)

LIRNEasia Research ICT Africa (RIA)

Diálogo regional sobre la sociedad de la información (DIRSI)

November 17, 2005 – Morning Program

November 17, 2005 – Afternoon Program

Payal Mallik, Group 1:

Case Studies, success stories of application. From India- Karnatika, first action was to formalize the land records which translates to land reforms through ICTs. Governments get to see the productivity gains from ICTs.

Citizen/Government Interface: this morning governance was pointed out as a critical area. What nature should the interface take?

Gap Between Content Development and Demand: Language issues, and what to ppl actually want from these applications.

Proposed Projects removed, I think the microimpact is still a little far from realization.

Happy with proposed projects: These subsidy studies should be underlined in a certain, clear theoretical framework. This will give greater comparability that pure case studies.

Group 2: Randy Spence

Sector and Regulatory performance views, same thing? Important tools for planning and benchmarking and important motivators. Regulators don’t like to be compared unfavorably to their neighbors. We also talked about the importance of peer review, especially as a basis for advocacy. Two main questions were raised-

Relationship between regulation and sector performance

Relationship between regulation and capital

Objective/Subjective data. Both important. Demand side data is missing. Perhaps we could start with household surveys, Grameen data, etc. Our focus was on the TRE framework. On the objective side there are sets of facts and indicators which are important and those need to be spelled out. Sometimes not so much data as case study information. Those can well be supplemented with interviews, experts, panels and ranking – which are important because they pick up perceptions and are easier. There was a suggestion that the TRE framework could be augmented on the universal service side and on the process side, questions of openness, transparency.

Talked about methodology and the need to spell out and elaborate the TRE methodology more. It’s not really clear how the SL pilot was done.

Are there problems with data? Yes. There was the view that we need to list and prioritize the data needs. In terms of regulation, we may not always be talking about ICT regulators. There are important influences coming from financial, banking regulation, etc. The idea of LIRNE developing some elements of its own database, for example the prices of mobile services. It would be useful to have definitions – what is broadband, etc. Also perhaps a Confidence Index in the TRE. It was suggested that if many countries are going to do surveys we should specify what kind of data will be in them. Maybe a workshop to spell out the desirable content. We think country workshops would make sense most at a country level. Results should be shared quickly with other country teams, and at a country level for stakeholder buy in, and to get the regulators involved.

Group 3: Chanuka Wattegama

These are the questions we had: We have been asked the best and worst cases. Is there too much emphasis on case studies? Should training be context specific or general? Happy with proposed projects? Suggestions?

Best/Worst Cases: We discussed the e-choupals project in India where the farmers are directly connected with ICT. Also discussed a case where a village in Athar Pradesh was connected to a hospital in Chennai. We also discussed the famous e-channelling in Sri Lanka – which saves medical consumers time and money. Worst cases – most of us agreed that where the traditional system played a role we didn’t get the outcome we’d expect. In India one of the reasons for the boom is the ICT Taskforce which was setup not directly within the system but which gave a positive outcome quickly.

We agreed that we should not place too much emphasis on cases studies on concentrate on alternatives.

Training: What is the market? Is there a market? Agreed that it’s a niche market, but still a requirement. We find that those who regulate are not properly trained. Discussed the role of LIRNEasia in this environment. For example, conducting a training course on spectrum management. It would also be nice to see how new tech can fit into various technologies. How does VOIP fit in SL or India? How can we get the best use in the local context?

Should LIRNEasia go beyond its theme (electricity, utilities)? For the moment no. LIRNEasia shouldn’t open the Pandora’s box of other stuff. It should provide the info lacked by govts and regulators – this is where LIRNEasia should play a role

Group 4:

Virtual Regional Organization Feasible: Yes

Precedents: LIRNE is a working model where we have a network which connects different unis very effectively. There is also PanAsia, based in Singapore and funded by IDRC. There is also Global Knowledge Partnership (advocacy). Oh, PIPU. Used the web and face to face meetings to work on draft reports and legislations.

LIRNEasia should be consistent with what we advise others to do. If we tell people to be open we should be open (tell them to go online, us too)

How to develop and participate broader participation: should follow a Polder? model. What’s a polder? Some place where sheep graze in the Netherlands. Knowledge should flow freely across the organization, sans gatekeepers. Regional partners should submit weekly/bi-weekly reports on what they’re up to. We also saw great merit in subscriptions to relevant publications that we can share.

Financial matters, etc. Transparent, auditing.

Suggestions on how to use the web – we already have a succesful example with WDR. We also suggested a intranet to share documents and research. There was an important caveat – the strategic use of the web. We may lose people if we’re too reliant on a certain technology. What if we’re using broadband and our partners have a thin pipe. We may lose people. Also the need for a moderator to avoid info overload. On a weekly basis we could have weekly moderators.

I dunno if Rohan uses MSN (no).

However, he emphasized that ICTs must drop in cost for the investments of the 1990s to bear fruit. “I’m involved in nanotech and biotech, and fairly rapid diffusion of this technology will be very important.”

Although mobile and wireless access are expanding, fixed line and Internet access lag – and the differences are largely due to regulation.

The future may be wireless broadband, but for the foreseable future the policy is fixed line.

Dr. Michael Spence

Dr. Spence began by telling his economic perspective on the importance of good governance. “There’s a lot of talk about how all you need is a market system and that’s just nonsense. Anyone who’s studied information flows in an economy knows that good governance is the foundation of the market system. As an example, a country that doesn’t have a central bank that can control interest rates, etc is a country that’s in trouble. Everyone knows the consequences of a weak central bank, what we need to do is let people know that there are consequences to having instability in the ICT sector.

On What’s Important

On data: A reasonably accurate portrait of the portrait of the state in these dimensions is useful. If you look at the Chinese data, you can debate if the growth is exaggerated, but the data is there and it’s clear.

Foriegn Investment: Creating appropriate conditions for. Competition is the best way since it assures that pricing is appropriate.

Internet: I would not like to see the Internet set aside in favor of ‘plumbing’. I would like to see LIRNEasia get Internet and the www talked about and worked on. I didn’t realize this until I was in Cambodia at an cafe, and then’s when I realized that the Internet wasn’t ‘real’ at that speed. The right answer seems to be high speed connections to hubs where the Internet is real.

We do this in part to reduce volatility and encourage investment. We need to do stuff that is unpopular. The regulator also serves as someone the politicians can point to and say ‘it’s not my fault’.

Finally, let me just say that the network based information technology we’re now seeing develop is in economic terms lowering transaction costs all over the place

It’s absolutely crucial that we not end up in a situation where those powerful forces are at play in one part of the world and not the other.

It’s impossible to not get discouraged about success, but there’s no other way to do it. (This is said with a smile. It was encouraging)