It is not that the place is completely disconnected from electronic networks. I paid for the hotel using a credit card, which was processed through a fixed line. The signals of one mobile network covered the area, but for me that was little consolation because it happened to be a network other than the one my organization had subscribed to. I had a dongle from the network that did cover the area, but that did little good, because it appeared that the high connectivity rates promised in the ubiquitous ads had little relevance in the backwoods. I was lucky to maintain a connection; luckier still to see download or upload speeds in the double digits (kbps). No HSDPA here for sure!

The lack of connectivity is not limited to the Forest Reserve. The hotel was a good 7-8 km from the entrance to the reserve. Nothing there. Until we crossed a ridge into the next valley more than 30 km away, there was no signal.

10 years ago, this was commonplace. But now? In a country where you can get 3G signals, but not electricity?

My G1 was trying to say something to me. Weirdly, I have recently begun to receive policy advice (or at least indications of policy solutions) from handsets. In this instance, my GI was showing that I was roaming on the network that actually had signal. It was just a weird indication since the two operators did not have domestic roaming agreements and my call would not go through, but it suggests a simple solution to the problem of giving connectivity to the visitors to this beautiful part of Sri Lanka: enter into domestic roaming agreements. Or spend a little more and hang a BTS on the amply proportioned mobile towers that do exist.

And a word to both companies: upgrade to 3G. Eco tourism is the future. Tourists spend 2 weeks looking for an elusive kingfisher here. Is it not reasonable to think they’d like to have Internet access?

I was planning to write a short piece on the workaround that connected Sri Lanka first to email and then to the Internet back in the early 1990s based on a talk I gave at the .lk conference early July. But since the paper doesn’t look like it will get written right now and because I want to crowdsource the fact checking, I am posting the slides here: Dot LK . Comment/corrections welcome.

e government was central to the design of e Sri Lanka and is perhaps the program area that has absorbed most of the USD 83 million funds. Therefore, the UN e gov rankings are very important. Sadly, the 2010 rankings indicate that Sri Lanka’s position has deteriorated in relative and absolute terms. It has dropped from 101st place in 2009 to 111th. The Index value has dropped from 0.4244 in 2009 to 0.3995. Iran, which was behind Sri Lanka in 2009 has now overtaken Sri Lanka. In addition to Iran, the only country that seems to have made progress is Bangladesh. Neither country has a USD 83 million project dedicated to improving e performance.

Appears I was impressed too soon.

LIRNEasia’s preliminary round of mobile broadband quality testing in selected locations in Western Province unveils both hopes and issues. The good news is that the quality of both key pre-paid mobile broadband services is satisfactory, in majority of locations. However, unusual quality drops in several places indicates that this performance is not always a certainty. In general, a mobile broadband user in Western Province can expect a reasonable quality unless a rare issue like the distance from a tower or a higher number of simultaneous users hinders it.

LIRNEasia tested the broadband quality of the popular pre-paid High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) broadband connections of the two key providers. Packages offered by the third provider were not tested only because the operator prevented pinging from outside the network. Mobile test applications newly developed and released by Zamsana PLC, were used on mobile handsets for testing. To further simulate the true conditions the tests were done on public transport.

We saw little reason testing mobile broadband quality from fixed locations. It should be done on the move as that is how it is used. We could have done it from a car, but purposely did it from a bus to examine how conditions beyond our control can affect the performance.

Testers used mobile test applications developed for Symbian and Windows CE, the two most popular mobile operating systems used in Sri Lanka. They took both stationary and on the move readings at key points along four main roads from Colombo to Kalutara, Negombo, Avissawella and Nittambuwa. Apart from the download and upload speeds, the two most common parameters the tools recorded Return Trip Time or RTT (the time taken by data packets to reach a destination server and return), Jitter (the variation in RTT), Packet Loss (what percentage of packets were lost on the way) and the availability. The actual values were compared with the promises of the operators or, if no operator specifications were available against international standards.

Mobile broadband quality testing is a part of LIRNEasia’s broadband Quality of Service Experience (QoSE) benchmarking work. With its partner organization‐ the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, LIRNEasia has been testing broadband quality since the beginning of 2008. The first tests were conducted manually. Later the test methodology was standardized and a software application was developed to get more accurate results. First round of testing was done only in Colombo and Chennai, but now the scope is expanded to cover New Delhi, Dhaka, Mumbai and Bangalore.

A direct approach to monitor Quality of Service Experience (QoSE) would be for the regulator to reach deep into the innards of the telecom network to install monitoring equipment and take remedial actions as per the licenses or the governing statute whenever the data indicate below‐standard performance, says LIRNEasia. Dearth of financial and human resources can be a key challenge for such an approach. The second approach is based largely on user activism. Educated users are expected to voluntarily contribute their time and computing resources towards building a performance database which in turn will be used in creating the bigger picture.

A comprehensive methodology to benchmark Broadband Quality of Service Experience (QoSE), based on the latter approach has been developed jointly by LIRNEasia and the TeNeT Group of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT‐M). While there is no barrier for regulators to use it, the methodology is largely user centric. Instead of depending on one time pinging, this methodology uses AT‐Tester, an open source software tool to monitor all crucial QoSE broadband metrics over a longer period, on both weekends and weekdays, covering peak as well as off‐peak traffic. The traffic is also monitored within segments, ISP, local and international.

(The figure above shows the average peak time download speed to an international server offered by the pre‐paid mobile broadband packages of the two key mobile broadband providers on a selected date. The ceiling is the promised speed of 1 Mbps. Speeds may vary depending upon the type of the handset, time of the day, number of simultaneous users connected to a tower and the weather conditions. Please click on image for an enlarged version.)

The latest issue features an e-interview with LIRNEasia’s CEO Rohan Samarajiva, but it is not the only reason why we thought of highlighting the issue. The content is interesting and very readable. We publish two e-interviews from July 2010 issue here fully, as they are not available on public domain.

Apart from Samarajiva, This issue carried e-interviews with Alison Gillwald, Indra de Lanerolle, Christoph Stork and Muriuki Mureithi.

If you are interested in future issues please register at http://lists.apc.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/chakula

The need for competitive research for policy influence
e-interview with Alison Gillwald

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“High quality, rigorous research…is required to compete and complement with each other for policy influence… In mature economies researchers from multiple universities would be debating and refining the positions governments should be taking on everything from regulating next generation networks to demand stimulation for broadband.”
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Alison Gillwald is Executive Director of RIA. She is also Adjunct Professor at the UCT Graduate School of Business, Management of Infrastructure Reform and Regulation, and a member of CPRafrica’s organisation and selection committee.

CHAKULA: You have just held the CPRafrica conference in Cape Town. What are you hoping to achieve through the conference?

ALISON GILLWALD [AG]: There is almost no scholarly research being undertaken in the field of ICT policy and regulation on the continent. A Google scholar search on the subjects throws up around five scholars on the continent who are published in peer reviewed or accredited journals. It is this kind of high quality, rigorous research that is required to compete and complement with each other for policy influence. In mature economies researchers from multiple universities would be debating and refining the positions governments should be taking on everything from regulating next generation networks to demand stimulation for broadband. Although there are pockets of applied research being undertaken there is no tradition of critical intellectual engagement in this area on the continent. The purpose of CPRafrica is to provide a forum for nurturing and showcasing research in the area of ICT policy and regulation on the continent and enhancing its quality through rigorous academic review and debate. The conference is complemented by a young scholars programme to expose young scholars who may be excluded from such peer-review, paper-acceptance-only style conferences without such a category. Some of these are part of the IDRC- [International Development Research Centre] funded PhD programme to encourage doctoral research in ICT policy and regulation. The idea here is to build a cadre of policy intellectuals on the continent able to critically engage government on the basis of relevant research and contribute meaningfully to research and policy excellence. This will further enhance Africa’s standing in international research and governance fora, in which its participation has historically been suboptimal.

CHAKULA: Reviewing some of the papers presented at the conference, it strikes me that there are a couple of threads that are emerging. Two in particular stand out: the notion of “innovation” in the telecommunications space, and the challenges around convergence and policy when two distinct sectors with different ways of doing things are brought into conflict with each other. I also went back to Research ICT Africa’s 2008 M-banking policy paper, which raises similar themes, and I would like to use that as a starting point. First, on the issue of ‘innovation’. In the M-banking paper, the following assertion is made: “Policy-makers and regulators need to ensure that evolving systems serve the broader objectives of economic growth and development as well as protect consumer interests, while creating an environment that encourages and rewards innovation”. In what ways can policy inhibit or encourage innovation in the telecommunication’s sector?

AG: Indeed, providing certainty to investors and operators while retaining the levels of flexibility to enable innovation in a fast-changing environment is one of the most difficult balancing acts that policy-makers and regulators have to perform. I think the linkages and catalysts between technology, market and regulatory innovation are becoming clearer all the time. New technologies and service offerings have prized open markets and the entry into less policy and regulatory constrained markets has made taking certain technologies to market more viable. This has triggered further possibilities across historically distinct platforms, not only between broadcasting and telecommunications, but between fixed and mobile services and even entirely separate sectors such as telecommunications and banking. The challenges to the expansion of such services are really regulatory now rather than technological – and that is not to say that one does not want or need public interest regulation either in the telecommunications or banking sector, but it has to be done in new, innovative ways that enable to extension of these services to those who currently don’t enjoy them. Once these various forces are unleashed they are able to intersect and create new opportunities and innovative ways of doing things that have not been done before.

CHAKULA: Innovation here seems necessarily to be tied to market gain – the objective is to increase or capture market share. In both your M-banking paper, and the case study of the mobile operator One Network in Kenya, preconditions exists that facilitate innovation. With M-banking there are low-income earners who are ‘unbanked’ and who could benefit from some kind of low-cost transactional instrument, and with One Network, there is a significant level of cross-border traffic that makes a seamless network attractive.
AG: It is true that innovation is often driven by market forces and pursuit of profits, and, traditionally, with new technologies have focused on high-end markets. But much of the ICT innovation we are witnessing in developing markets is focused on what has been referred to as the ‘gold at the bottom of the pyramid’ – very profitable turn-over of high volumes of sometimes minuscule margins on products that, by breaking them up or making them available at cost, the masses at the bottom of the economic and social pyramid can enjoy things like pre-paid phone vouchers, or transferable airtime vouchers. And many of these products have been commercialised innovative practices by the poor in order to access and affordably use communications services – such as missed calls, multiple sim card usage that allows for same net rates, or ‘plastic roaming’.

CHAKULA: If we consider Indra de Lanerolle’s fascinating case study on the South African convergence scenario, we see two sectors (broadcast and telecommunications) in conflict with each other because policy decisions are made according to different frameworks: simply put, economic versus public interest. In fact, Indra does seem to suggest that these are in competition with each other, and resolves this in an interesting way. It feels hard to believe that ‘consumer interest’ is the same as ‘public interest’?

AG: I think with the shift from public utilities to competitive markets many of the public interest objectives of delivery and service are met through serving the consumer interest. Nevertheless there is public interest regulation that is required to improve wider and collective consumer welfare – to provide access to ‘uneconomic areas’ for example – though with new more cost-effective, rapidly deployable wireless services, this concept in markets that enable competitive entry is regularly not proving to be the case. But as long as we have the large number of poor that we do, we will need some level of social regulation – even though a lot of the current pent-up demand could be met with greater market efficiency (more competitive markets offering better prices). And then there are the more traditional content regulation issues either to restrict certain ‘harmful’ content or activities or to enable it, such as local content regulation. That too may be found to be highly profitable, but may need either protection or encouragement.

CHAKULA: Indra’s paper, like your M-banking policy paper, shows that regulating convergence is tricky because of the ‘convergence’ of two or even more sectors; whether broadcast/telecommunications or telecommunications/banking etc. What are some of the key challenges that policy-makers can expect to face in Africa?

AG: The key challenge for African regulators is that they are still trying to deal with legacy regulation around first and second-generation infrastructure and access. At the same time, if they do not want the agenda to be set for them in international fora, they need to deal with next-generation issues, not only of converged IP [internet protocol] networks and services and the next-generation regulation issues of network and service-neutral regimes, but of cross-cutting issues of electronic commerce frameworks, intellectual copyright rights, security and privacy issues, and so on. And you have to do it all or be left behind…

CHAKULA: One frustration is that when one reads a good paper that seems to offer a solution to a problem, one is also met with the feeling that those with decision-making powers are probably not going to read that paper, or seriously consider its arguments. Do you feel the same? If so, how do you think CPRafrica picks up on this challenge? Is it just a case of repeating issues until policy-makers take them on board?

AG: No. CPRafrica is one of several strategic strands towards having evidence-based ICT policy on the continent. This is about organic and indigenous knowledge creation and contribution, at the national level, at the level of regional association and continentally, and also about global engagement and influence. For too long have the solutions come from the developed world. Of course, there are lessons to be learnt and we don’t need to reinvent the wheel, but we also have different challenges and Africa has demonstrated remarkably innovative responses to these when they are informed by sound policy, effective regulation or thorough and appropriate business plans. The indicator research done by RIA and its analysis in order to assess policy and regulatory outcomes is fed into several initiatives, globally and locally. RIA provides the only comprehensive public domain demand-side data on ICT access and usage on the continent. This is used in national, regional and continental meetings on ICTs, and in the database and reports of multilateral agencies such as the OECD and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), to better inform their understanding of developments in Africa. It is true that sometime decision-makers do not like to hear of the widespread policy and institutional failure on the continent, but many do – especially those that are rapidly improving and beginning to see the rewards of their reforms. This research is also used to develop training curricula that address the needs of policy and regulators in a developing country context. So, for example, as part of the global research and training collaborative LIRNE.net we conduct a professional development course on alternative regulatory strategies at the UCT Graduate School of Business Infrastructure Reform and Regulation Programme to build institutional capacity on the continent. So CPRafrica is just one arm of a multi-pronged strategy of research and education, institutional capacity building and technical assistance and dissemination and advocacy, through our website database, policy papers and workshop and public presentations.

CHAKULA: What is the way forward for the conference? Will there be more?

AG: Yes, in order to build and sustain this much-needed capacity we will have to find a way for CPRafrica to become an annual institution.

Related links:

M-Banking the Unbanked: RIA Policy Paper No. 4:

http://www.researchictafrica.net/new/images/uploads/RIA_Mobile-banking.pdf

CPRafrica conference details: http://www.researchictafrica.net/index.php/news/38-cprafrica-looking-back-at-a-decade-of-communications-reform-looking-forward-to-2020
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Innovation through competition: the budget telecom network model
e-interview with Rohan Samarajiva

Paper link: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1564529

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“The status quo must be unbearable.”
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Rohan Samarajiva is the Chair and CEO of Lirnasia. His paper, “How the developing world may participate in the global Internet Economy: Innovation driven by competition” was presented at a workshop organised by the OECD and InfoDev in Paris, 10-11 September 2009.

CHAKULA: In your paper, you talk about the Budget Telecom Network Model (BTNM), which is brought about by competition allowing operators to reduce the transaction costs of low-end clients. This, as you point out, is different to the standard Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) model. How does it make the ARPU model redundant?

Rohan Samarajiva [RS]: ARPU is a short-hand that outside observers use to see if the firm is doing well, whether its prospects are good, etc. It is, like any indicator, imperfect. You get it by taking total revenue (preferably without extras like roaming) and dividing by number of subscribers. Of course no one really knows what a subscriber is any more, with even poor people holding up to five SIMs, foreigners having SIMs, no agreement on what an active SIM is and so on. You can get better results by looking at revenue per minute. Take total revenue (less roaming and other stuff) and divide by Average Minutes of Usage per User per Month (MOU). This is a better indicator. But investment analysts are still not used to this and it would require disclosing MOUs to calculate.

CHAKULA: Can ARPU be used as a business model?

[RS]: Operators do not actually do much with the ARPU. It is not a business model as such, just an indicator. But getting more from each subscriber (if this is known) is not a bad idea. Just that it does not predict whether the company will make money or not. The best indicator for that is EBITDA [Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization] margin. Sri Lanka in 2007 had an operator with LKR311 (approximately USD3 at the time) ARPU making close to 50% EBITDA margin. In the end, the success of a business model lies in whether it generates profit.

CHAKULA: What is your understanding of ‘innovation’ in the telecommunications space? You talk of “business innovation”, rather than, say, technological innovation?

[RS]: Tech innovation is important, but it is not the only thing. Pure tech innovation is done by manufacturers of network equipment and handsets. That is good. Business process innovations (e.g. lowering the costs of base stations through software) are done by operators. These include technical aspects, but are not limited to them. Shifting from one business model to another (discovering the latter) is also innovation, but it may or may not not have a tech aspect at all.

CHAKULA: What are the preconditions for innovation, do you think?

[RS]: The status quo must be unbearable. The BTNM innovation occurred when competition got so intense that there was no way to gain market share or even survive without doing something new.

CHAKULA: Does BTNM have implications for increased access to broadband internet for the majority of people on a continent like Africa?

[RS]: Yes. The latter part of the paper is entirely on the extension of BTNM to broadband. Some headlines are that operators must have enough money from voice that can be invested in the 3G plus networks. Once the overlay network is built out the operators have to offer low prices. Prepaid sachet pricing is best, where one buys packages of connectivity in minutes or in capacity. Here, because of lower transaction costs and prices there should be an influx of new customers. This is already on offer in Asia. Africa has to lower prices. Access will be over mobile networks, using dongles or built in modems, for laptops and other devices, including phones. ADSL will be a niche product. Wireless access is the future.

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PRESENTATION

DISCUSSANTS
G. B. Samarasinghe is the Director General, Department of Meteorology, Sri Lanka. An expert in meteorology, Samarasinghe predicts tropical countries are becoming more and more vulnerable to weather-related natural disasters because of the climate change. Investing in disaster preparedness is more advisable than spending on emergency relief, he reasons.

Ainsley Alles, a Chartered Insurer and a Fellow of the Chartered Insurance Institutes of Australia, New Zealand, France and India counts 28 years in insurance. He currently heads the General Insurance arm of Aviva NDB Insurance (formally Eagle Insurance PLC) as its Director (General Insurance). He views Disaster Risk Reduction from the angle of private sector.

CHAIR
Rohan Samarajiva is the founding Chair and CEO of LIRNEasia, an ICT policy and regulation think tank active across twelve emerging Asian economies. He was Director General of Telecommunications in Sri Lanka, a founder director of the ICT Agency of Sri Lanka, Visiting Professor at the Universities of Moratuwa in Sri Lanka and Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and Associate Professor of Communication and Public Policy at the Ohio State University in the US.

July 7, 2010
5.30 – 7.00 pm
Sri Lanka Foundation Institute Auditorium,
Independence Avenue, Colombo 7.

Medium: Sinhala/English

This event is open to public, but due to the limited availability of seats prior registration is mandatory. Please contact Ranjula on 0777-458808 or ranjula@lirneasia.net.

One of our big wins was the inclusion of sustainable dam safety measures in a USD 71 million World Bank credit to the Government of Sri Lanka.

Now we read this in the 2010 first budget speech:

Hon. Speaker while expanding irrigation infrastructure, we must also devote adequate resources for the maintenance of both minor and major irrigation systems to ensure their safety and improve water management in downstream development. The government has already implemented a programme to improve dam safety in all major irrigation projects and increase water reservoir capacity. Investment in this project alone is over Rs. 6,000 million. In the meantime, a separate project targeting Rs. 3,000 million over the next five years will be implemented from 2011 to rehabilitate all irrigation schemes as a major step towards water resource management.

Has the way they think changed?

It would take 2.3 billion rupees coming from Bank of Ceylon, 1.8 billion from People’s Bank, 1.0 billion rupees from National Savings Bank and 40 million from State Mortgage and Investment Bank.

The telecommunications regulator would be charged a levy of 9.0 billion rupees, the National Insurance Trust Fund 5.0 billion rupees and the Geological Survey and Mines Bureau 300 million rupees.

Full story in LBO.

The advertisement’s objective was to show what the policy makers and regulators can do and thereby what the service providers could do to boost up Mobile 2.0 services in Sri Lanka. The advertisement also indicated, that with these changes it can lead to a App-Store model where it can act as a platform  (application store) for mobile content providers to add their applications, with standard contracts from telcos.

Mobile 2.0 at Bottom of the pyramid is project conducted by LIRNEasia. For more details click here

More info about Teleuse@BOP (Survey on SEC D and E) click here

The advertisement ran today in the Daily Mirror Business section

The TRC will not proceed with Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd, the British firm which was commissioned to set up the Sri Lanka Space Communications Company last year, due to the high costs involved.

“To set up the satellite, there’s a cost of US$ 20 million. After sending it in orbit it is US$ 160 to US$ 180 million per annum, which is not feasible,” he said.The TRC chief reiterated that TRC is not averse to launching a satellite, but the regulator is exploring other options such as hiring satellites.

Introduction to research

The project is taking place in Kurunagala and Tamil Nadu. In 24 health sub centres and 4 public Helath Centres in Tamil Nadu and in Sri Lanka in 12 Hostpitals

Disease infomation

• The system architecture
• Determinants of Morbidity in India
• Determinants of notifiable diseases in Sri Lanka

RTBP Communication Technology

• mHealthSurvey mobile application
• T-Cube Web Interface
• Sahana Messaging/Alerting Module

mhealthSurvey Shortcomings

• Certification exercises
• Signal to Noise Ratio
• Real-Time vs Off-time
• Semantics and syntax
• Cost benefits

Objective of the Research

The basic objective was to see if we can collect data and detect and report the outbreaks.

Specific Objectives:

• Evaluating the effectiveness of the m-Health RTBP for detecting and reporting outbreaks
• Evaluating the benefits and efficiencies of communicating disease information
• Contribution of community organization and gender participation
• Develop a Toolkit for assessing m-Health RTBPs

The Data collection is done by Health workers and goes through the mHealthSurvey mobile phone software to the Epidemiologist for spatial and temporal analysis done using T-Cube Web Interface before going to the Sahana Alerting Module Interface and then agian to the health workers.

A sequence analysis of the functions that is happening and their was no purpose but a formal process. By using technology we can use the information is transfers more efficiently. In India the delay is minimised to minutes from 7-30 days. In Sri Lanka from 15-30 days into minutes.

RS: Amount of data has to be reduced with this?

NW: The answer is NO

SL: In Sri Lanka process the technology is jumping several steps?

NW: Because of the number of people visiting the doctors and the doctors do not get the chance to diagnose . And with this process most of the unnecessar repetitive procedures are omited. Hence we can jump (Please see the slides attached)

Regarding the mHealthSurvey software design. It’s built on Java 2 Micro edition and works  with CDC 1.1 and above (JSR). It works with MIDP 2.0 or above and use GPRS to transfer data. The software is tested on Nokia3110c, Motorola SLVR L7, Gionee v6900. Amoi A636, Sony Ericsson s302c.

The application also helps the health worker to enter the records accurately, said Chamindu when demonstrating the software.

Data collection process is done when the patient comes and meets the nurse, nurse gives a diagnosis chit which will be filled by the nurse and the doctor will fill the chit with diagnosis and treatment, then the data entry officer will digitized the data and submit. In Sri Lanka it’s real time but in India after working hours.

RS: Can they read the hand writting?

CS: Yes most of the are pharmacist , so they can read the doctors hand writing.

T-Cube Web Interface [Auton Lab] give the following features

• AD Tree data structure
• Trained Bayesian Networks
• Fast response to queries
• Statistical estimations techniques
• Data visualization over temporal and spatial dimensions
• Automated alerts

The software also generate the Epidemiological  report instantly, when regular database take days to generate.

Messaging/Alerting CAP/EDXL Broker [Sahana] – The feature

• Single input multiple output engine; channeled through multiple technologies
• Manage publisher /subscribers and SOP
• Adopt PHIN Communication and Alerting Guidelines for EDXL/CAP
• Relating the template editor with the SMS/Email Messaging module
• Do direct and cascading alert from a regional jurisdictional prospective
• Designing short, long, and voice text messages
• Addressing in multi languages

People are actually using this to send alerts. The detect the disease and the doctors who are responsible will have to send the alert to respective individuals. Currently it have short and long Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) messages. In future it will adopt voice CAP messages to send messages.

SL: What is someone hacked and send wrong information?

CS: We also do comprehensive message. The health workers are trained on how to act on suspicious messages.

NW: Sender name, Source will make the receiver to verify the alert.

RS: This is something to mention as this shows that we are not behaving like a normal project based organization but we are connecting and building on the project. Also what is the level of the person who can issue alerts?

NW: Medical officer of Health, Regional Epidemiologist, and Public Health Inspector

Evaluation metric verticals and horizontals

• Three verticals – data collection, event detection and reporting
• Four layers – social, content, application, Transport
• Arrows showing the Interoperability between layers and verticals
• Objectively assess by calculating various indicators: costs, efficiencies, error rates, etc
• Subjectively assess through interviews and simulations

SL: Perhaps the social level should be changed?

RS: Should be user level

NW: Social looks at more institutional problem

RS: then make it institutional

A small certification exercise was done. It was benchmarked against a standard that was derived, with Sri Lanka and India regarding the use of the software. And accordingly they were certified on their ability to use the mhealthsurvey. Sri Lanka was better and most in India they failed. However now they should be quite efficient as it’s being a year.

Signal and noise ration: In India the noise is very low and data was clean.  and during holiday there were no data. In Sri Lanka there was a friction.  However we managed to get the approval and the data came in. And with lot of pushing the data came in but lot of noise in the data. agian in the holidays no data came in.

Off-time vs Real-time: Real time is when people will be sending the data at least within the day. In India most of them do send the on the same day but most of the occasion they send it the next day. In Sri Lanka the Health workers did not want to disturbed when at work. Hence they did it in the afternoon.

There were problems in terms of entering the data. As they make mistakes and enter other symbols. Also local language (they use different terms) , UK/USA spellings,  different adjectives are few problems regarding entering the data.

mHealth dala collection lessons as a  summery

For India

• Nurses sending data
• Near zero noise because impacts their work
• No time to enter data patient care  and routine work comes first
• Under reporting to avoid extra work
• Improvise mHealthSurvey for collection and reporting of other
• Older slow to learn
• No prior experience beyond voice
• Resolve technical problems on their own
• Replaced handsets on their own

For Sri Lanka

• Outsourced data entry clerks
• No incentive because 1) lack of knowledge 2) not direct impact
• Data entry is their only job
• No strings attached with reporting quantity
• Nothing like that
• Young were quick to learn
• Knew all capabilities of mobile
• Resolve technical problems on their own
• Replaced handsets on their own

Cost benefits are as follows

• Both India and Sri Lanka spend on data collection now
• For half the cost RTBP can introduce collection of a richer data set along with detection and alerting components too
• Operational expenses are the bulk of the costs
• RTBP can shrink the capitol expenses in India
• Its the filing cupboards and none ICT based delivery that eat up most of the cost

SL: I would highlight the fact that the OPEX and CAPEX is not the same for RTBP Sivaganga.

mHealth can fix the imbalance:

• Ideally health facilities should be powered for data collection, health departments for detection and alerting, with health workers fully on response
• Both in India and Sri Lanka its all data collection and  almost zero resources on detection and mitigation.
• Sri Lanka – health departments consume bulk of the resources

RS: Now we are getting to the e-gov and it’s better if you talk to Helani and Chanuka on this.

Conclusions

• mhealthSurvey is a worthy candidate for patient disease/syndrome digitization
• However, must be improved to minimize the noise and delays
• Need a better GUI if Medical Officers are to enter high volume real-time data opposed to a data entry clerk
• Need a compete and comprehensive standardized disease syndrome ontology
• Need to investigate other digitization techniques

Click for the full paper

The poor is the market for the telecoms industry, a former regulator said.
Professor Rohan Samarajiva, former Director General of the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (T.R.C.) speaking at a seminar in Colombo on Tuesday said that a good example of this was Hutch, which targeted that market and achieved an E.B.I.T.D.A. of 52%, before the Government’s distorted tax policy on the telecoms industry ruined that ratio.
How be it the telecoms industry is still making good money, Samarajiva who is currently the Executive Director of LIRNEAsia, a think tank, which has a bent on using I.C.T. for the uplift of the poor said.

The talk was covered in the Daily Mirror.

M. Somasekhar’s piece on Hindu Business Line on mobile payments says:

Experts from Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Kenya, Thailand, the Philippines, Bhutan and Bangladesh among other nations met in Islamabad recently to discuss their experiences in providing mobile phone services for the BoP segment in their respective countries. They agreed that a beginning has been made and the road ahead appeared daunting, but technological progress promised quick results.

Don Sambandaraksa’s  piece “Mobile phones offer hope to ‘bottom of the pyramid” to Bangkok Post focuses on mobile use in farming, transport and banking. Says he:

“ICTs cannot solve all problems, chief of which is land reform, but when it comes to making decisions, lowering transaction costs and going to market and selling, information can make a big difference.

The researched categorised the decision-making process and information value in each from decisions to seed, planting, growing to harvesting and selling.

Information search costs are highest at the beginning of the cycle. Information on deciding what to grow are three times all other costs, and this is where ICTs have a potential role to play.

Sriganesh Lokanathan said that ideally he wanted to change the decision-making chain into a cycle where the decision on what the farmer wants to grow is based on the price when he expects to harvest. For this to happen, prices and supply and demand needed to be predicted and farmers need to get into forward sales contracts which does not often happen in this part of the world.”

Meanwhile we see Pakistan Telecom Authority, the co-organiser takes the message forward. ‘PTA Focuses on Value-Added Services Including E-Commerce, E-Agriculture & E-Education’ was the title of a report from Pakistan Telecom News Bulletin. It says:

Chairman, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) Dr. Mohammed Yaseen has said that PTA’s focus is on value added services and with a high penetration level of mobile and low penetration of internet we have to explore the available possibilities which could be gained via mobile 2.0 theories. I very much foresee the further development of presently available technologies and those coming ahead through value added services and content. He was addressing to Connect 2010 ICT Forum – Telecom Session at Expo Centre Karachi and talking to media men on the occasion. He said that our emphasis is on e-commerce, e-agriculture and e-education, it is the time to open doors of opportunities to our young innovative minds and to bridge the unseen gaps between all potentials players of ICT proliferation.

For the full media coverage and presentations,  please see here.

‘Mobile phone calls death’. The ominous title, in Lankadeepa online, is not too uncommon in Sri Lankan media. The story is about the latest victim, who apparently met his death by lighting when talking to his mobile on the bund of a tank. According to Daily Mirror, deaths by lightning in Sri Lanka has increased with 18 people been killed since March 1, 2010, against ten such deaths for entire 2009. Daily Mirror also advices against, inter alia, the use of mobile phones even indoors.

BBC quotes a British Medical Journal letter to the editor that tells about a 15-year-old girl struck by lightning while talking on her phone in a large park in London during stormy weather.

Why mobile phones increase the lighting hit risk? This is the explanation by Swinda Esprit, senior house officer in otorhinolaryngology, an author of the BMJ letter: When a person is hit by lightning, the high resistance of human skin causes the lightning charge to flow over the body – often known as an ‘external flashover’. But some of the current can flow through the body. The more that flows through, the more internal damage it causes. Conductive materials in direct contact with the skin such as liquid or metal objects increase the risk that the current will flow through the body and therefore cause internal injury.

Still it is controversial whether mobile phone is the culprit. Please note both victims were standing on flat lands with no taller objects in the neighborhood. They bodies would have attracted the lightning even without the mobiles in their hands.

So, is it fair to blame mobiles?

Let us wait for the expert opinion.

Last year, I was discussing the possibilities of inviting him to give lectures and interact with business leaders in Colombo and southern India. Our business partner was of the opinion that Professor Prahalad was not known widely in Sri Lanka and that we would have to do extensive marketing. That whole issue became moot because we had difficulty reaching him and because our priorities changed. But the fact that there are columns in his honor in Sinhala newspapers suggests that he is not unfamiliar to opinion leaders in Sri Lanka.

We honor this great thinker because he focused us on thinking of the poor not as objects of charity, but as consumers who had to be wooed and persuaded just like everyone else. Our tribute to him is the Google search for the phrase “bottom pyramid telecom.” It’s mostly LIRNEasia product.

A scholar’s immortality comes from the fact that people cite her/him after she/he had died. By that measure, CK Prahalad will live for a long time.