The story was about an award. But what I noticed was the role of telephones in the story. The award winning innovation is not just one new thing; it is a collection of process improvements. Critical elements involve phones as easy ways of contacting mothers on the one hand and health workers on the other.

Without the phones, would the innovation have been possible? Without the innovation, would the increase in immunization rates have been possible? Without the increase in immunization rates would it have been possible to save lives?

Without the reforms, would there be phones? Would it be possible to assume that all health workers could be reached, and that the mothers would have phone numbers to give when being registered?

These benefits, it appears, far outweigh the millions of dollars generated by the telecom industry for government.

Even better, imagine if you could email a letter to the post office, pay for the stamp online, and never set foot outside of your door? You could send mail digitally, with minimal fuss. People still like receiving letters, if it wasn’t such a pain sending them we might do it more. All of these are simple innovations which barely even amount to innovation at all. They would just bring the post office up to the operating level of a modern teenager.

The Internet boom
On a broader level, the Internet boom in America saw renewed business for the post as people began ordering more from Amazon and eBay and online delivery sites. Sri Lanka looks poised to see a similar boom in eCommerce, but few trust the Postal Service to deliver. Most local eCommerce start-ups I’ve talked to consider courier services (either their own or outsourced) their first resort. To a degree this is natural (even the US Postal Service has lost out to UPS and DHL), but if the Sri Lanka Post was even slightly proactive, they could at least get into the game.

The column.

But I hope I am wrong and that there will be real implementation. A low-hanging fruit is bilateral lowering of roaming charges and termination charges for calls from Sri Lanka to India and vice versa. We have been waiting for SAARC to implement these things, much easier if India and Sri Lanka show how it can be done.

Sri Lanka and India have signed an agreement to set up a mechanism of technical and institutional cooperation in telecommunications. It aims to develop telecommunications in both the countries particularly in the areas of technology and access to telecommunication services, a statement from the Indian High Commission said.

The deal covers oversight of service provision, convergence, next generation networks, new technologies, spectrum issues, number portability, and economic regulation, it said.

The awaited end of rapacious money making from international calls is nigh, according to Telegeography.

International long distance traffic growth is slowing rapidly. According to new data from TeleGeography, international long distance traffic grew four percent in 2011, to 438 billion minutes. This growth rate was less than one-third of the industry’s long-run historical average of 13 percent annual growth. Because telcos must rely on strong volume growth to offset inevitable price declines, slowing traffic growth is making life ever more difficult for international service providers.

Governments, of course, haven’t a clue, and are erecting even more elaborate gateway monopolies (e.g. Bangladesh) and slapping extra taxes on outgoing international calls (Sri Lanka). The first is futile; the second is stupid.  But the question is when international telephony disappears, not whether.

Sri Lanka will collect information about areas like internet access in the first nation-wide household and population census to be conducted in over 30 years, an official said.

The census which is to conducted from February 27 to March 21 will have 80,000 ‘enumerators’ visiting every house in the country to count the population and also questions about amenities in the house.

The head of Sri Lanka’s statistics office Suranjana Vidyaratne asked people to give correct information.

“We are not giving this personal information to anyone,” she said. “This time we are also asking questions like internet access.”

While senior scholars were listed as co-authors, all the presentations were made by young scholars, including some based on undergrad thesis work. The encouragement given to young people to present their research in a peer-review setting was praiseworthy. It would however not be a bad idea to put a little more effort into preparing young scholars to make effective research presentations, something that we at LIRNEasia do through the tutorials and coaching we provide in the context of CPRsouth.

Interdisciplinary work is great, but requires more effort either in the form of the researcher really taking the trouble to speak multiple disciplinary “languages” or, the more logical route of working in teams, which seemed to be the favored mode among those who gave papers on the 29th. The trouble is that agriculture is not really a single discipline, containing within it as many disciplines as a small-sized university. So, for example, I felt that economics could have been better represented in the mix and that, in fact, some papers suffered from the lack of economics.

This was the point I chose to emphasize when I was invited to make comments at the closing panel. Those looking at the agricultural supply chain would be well served by using concepts from economics such as transaction costs, without engaging in the fashionable but counter-productive bashing of “middlemen.” Of course what is intriguing is the possibility of using “agents” (software entities that operate with preset rules) that seemed to reflect a lot of research going on at Moratuwa. Now that could reduce transaction costs in a way simple economics cannot.

Research on farmers’ information needs and the means they use to meet those needs is interesting to us, especially because we have been studying the subject for some time, the most recent effort being by Kapugama, Lokanathan and Perera. The research reported on at the conference had been done in one village in Sri Lanka. The paper says simple random sampling was used, while the abstract says it was a purposive sample. I tried to get it clarified at the conference but failed. Another paper read at CPRsouth7 on a related set of research questions had serious problems with sampling as well.

Nevertheless, the findings were congruent with our findings about farmers relying mostly on their peers, preferring voice to text and so on. It went further, to show that the government’s Nenasalas were of no relevance to farmers. But the recommendation was that more resources be put into Nenasalas.

This is a problem we experience at CPRsouth too. Research shows something has failed. Most often, the recommendation is to put more money into it. Rarely does anyone recommend that the plug be pulled. Why?

What is even more worrisome is the lack of knowledge among all the parties about the available modes of communicating early warnings. No mention of cell broadcasting that is capable of delivering location-specific tailored information to all mobile handsets within the range of a base transceiver station. The journalist has done a good job except for repeating misinformation about poor communication infrastructure and access in rural areas.

Pradeep Koddippilli, the DMC assistant director-in-charge of early warnings, told IPS that the centre had not received any warning from the meteorology department tasked with assessing dangerous weather events. “We kept contacting them repeatedly through the 25th, but there was no warning,” he said.

Despite the millions spent on setting up early warning towers and networks, a recent assessment by the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs released in November said that the meteorology department, in fact, lacked the technical capacity to predict rainfall and fast moving weather patterns.

“The U.N. assessment confirms the technical capacity of the department of meteorology needs to be further developed in order to enable it to deliver reliable quantitative rain forecasts,” said the report titled ‘Disaster Response and Preparedness Assessment Mission to Sri Lanka’.

Experts told IPS that multiple dissemination systems are at the disposal of the DMC – ideal for a country where communication infrastructure is poor in rural areas.

In addition to the 67 warning towers set up island-wide, the DMC can also tap into the wide network of public officials at the village level, volunteers with the Sri Lanka Red Cross Society, secure satellite communications and, at least, one national mobile network to send out alerts.

“You cannot say what is the best system because each one has its own strengths and weaknesses. What is important is to have several systems to make sure vulnerable communities receive warnings in time,” Suranga Kahandawa, disaster management specialist at the World Bank, told IPS

The government’s own nationally and provincially representative Household Income and Expenditure Survey shows that more than 75 percent of households in the Southern Province (affected by the most recent early warning fiasco) have a telephone in the house (almost all being GSM and CDMA handsets capable of receiving cell broadcasts), clearly contradicting the claim of poor infrastructure in rural areas.

LIRNEasia’s Teleuse@BOP4 research (representative of those at the Bottom of the Pyramid; but not at the level of Province) showed that urban households has slightly higher (7%) ownership of phones, but that when it came to access to a phone within the household there was no difference between urban and rural households.

In the course of the debate, Mr Gammanpila claimed that e waste could not be transported across borders and that therefore the levy was needed to fund the construction of a factory. I questioned the veracity of this claim and even challenged him to a public debate. See the summary and my continuing efforts to engage the issue here. And who will be held to account for the wasteful expenditures, if any, on the e-waste processing factory?

Today, it was reported that the CEA that Mr Gammanpila headed had been instrumental in the export of 27,000 tons of e-waste, including mobile phones, for proper processing. This suggests the CEA has proved me right with regard to the interpretation of Basel.

But the Minister’s reaction is fully understandable. People died needlessly, because the agency that is mandated to warn our people of hazards that may harm them willfully neglected to do so. I was one of the first to tweet on Nov 27th that there appeared to have been a massive failure in communicating the early warning. The Minister in charge of disaster management (representing a Southern coastal district who should have been enraged by what happened) first said he’d launch an investigation and then said the Met Department had been “unable” to issue a warning and that it would be given more resources to do its job. But now, his Cabinet colleague has unequivocally refuted the claim of inability:

Fisheries Minister Dr Rajitha Senaratne in Parliament today blamed the Meteorology Department for failing to warn residents and fishermen along the souhern costal belt of incoming gale force winds despite being warned ahead by the National Aquatic Resources Research and Development Agency (NARA).

The failure to issue an early warning led to the death of nearly 20 fishermen last month.

Dr Senaratne said that he had not previously revealed the fact of NARA warning the Met Department, Disaster Management Centre, Coast Guard Department and the Sri Lanka Navy of the impending danger a day ahead.

Chairman of the NARA Dr Hiran Jayawardena had sent SMS messages to the Navy and the Coast Guard of the gale force wind with the time it was expected to hit the Southern Coastal belt areas, the Minister said.

When the NARA officials had informed the Met Department of the information that there would be strong winds of larger magnitude, the Met Department officials had rubbished them saying that such event is not in their forecast so that could not be happened.

Basically what I understand the Minister as saying (I was watching the debate on TV) that internationally generated weather information will be sent directly to fishing vessels capable of receiving them by the National Aquatic Research Agency. This is a workaround. As long as NARA simply transmits the information without issuing warnings, we could safeguard the principle. But of course it is more important to safeguard lives than principles.

The problem I needed help was related our research agriculture value chains, specifically the pineapple value chain in Sri Lanka

A  farmer cannot tell at the point of purchase if a pineapple sapling or sucker is “good” (that it will yield a plant and then fruit that is of adequate quality, free of disease). Only after she has bought it, planted it and many months later the pineapple plant has grown and borne fruit will it be obvious that the sucker was bad.  While there could be many perfect solutions (third party chemical testing, certifications), these are difficult to implement.  One simple solution we proposed is to have some kind of reputational ranking for sucker sellers – so that before a farmer buys suckers she can check if the seller has a good reputation for selling high quality suckers.  After the farmer plants and starts harvesting, the farmer can join the pool of other farmers voting on the reputation of said seller.

The other problem is that pineapple farmers aren’t always aware of other buyers (different buyers from the one they normally sell to, or different types of buyers such as those buying for export vs. those buying for juice/canning).  Sellers, specially exporters, often cannot fulfill their orders due to lack of supply.

A team of dedicated developers congregated around this problem, and have take the first steps towards producing a mobile phone application.  It’s a job for more than a week end. But the continuous engagement is already happening.  I’m thankful to them.  We will keep this posted updated with next steps.

Fixed broadband connectivity alone cannot provide the Internet needs of Sri Lanka. Mobile broadband must step up and provide for the country’s needs, according to Dumindra Ratnayaka, the Chief Executive of the local mobile unit of UAE-based telco Etisalat, in an exclusive interview with the Business Times. He also added there were only 250,000 fixed broadband subscribers to date, despite almost a decade of availability. However, in terms of mobile, there were already 12 million individual subscribers which was already a significant base of users to convert to mobile broadband. Also, 3G was best “beyond voice” as this technology’s adoption in the data industry has been very different than in voice. As such, he asserted that Etisalat would be “strongly moving on mobile broadband.”

Mr. Ratnayaka also noted that the biggest challenge for the Sri Lankan market was not investment, but devices (smartphones, tablet PCs, etc) being available, at the right price. He also revealed that it was only when mobile phones were offered at the right price that the local market exploded. Further suggesting that “in five years, smartphones will be everywhere,” he noted that a goal for Etisalat was making this happen much sooner, which was why another focus area for the mobile operator was bringing down the cost of devices.

Report.

Now imagine the following: he is not allowed to directly import, but has to buy through local vendors (makes it impossible to get good deals from Huawei, based on the amount of business Huawei does with Etisalat overall, rather than just Sri Lanka); he has to convince some official that every handset he offers has a local language keypad (if he’s unlucky, the official might insist on real keypad, and refuse the touchscreen version): and so on. What will be the outcome? More or less smartphones in the country? Cheaper or costlier smartphones?

According to BDNews24, Bangladesh seems to be going on a path that is anti-consumer and anti-Bangla, it seems:

The government will not allow foreign companies to directly import mobile-phone handsets and all sets brought in must have Bangla keypad from February, the telecom regulator says.

A guideline will be formulated ‘soon’, Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) chairman Zia Ahmed told bdnews24.com on Friday.

So the lesson is, decide quickly.

The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission took steps Tuesday to block the proposed $39 billion merger of the mobile phone companies AT&T and T-Mobile USA.

The chairman, Julius Genachowski, made the move after the commission’s staff concluded that the deal would harm consumers, kill jobs and result in an overly concentrated wireless phone industry, F.C.C. officials said.

The decision puts another large roadblock in front of AT&T, the nation’s second-largest wireless phone company, in its effort to buy T-Mobile, the fourth-largest carrier. In August, the Justice Department filed a federal antitrust lawsuit to block the merger, saying it would stifle competition.

Report.

But the really good stuff is in Para 53.

The Telecommunications Regulatory Commission will implement policies and strategies to encourage telecommunication companies to give priority for the development of broad-band network facilities. In keeping with development priorities, telecommunication charges on incoming and outgoing calls will be revised suitably.

Since the LKR 2 billion expected to be generated by the increases in taxes on incoming calls (from USD 0.07 to 0.09 per minute) and on outgoing calls (from LKR 2 to LKR 3) is reflected in the new revenue measures (Table 1), I was scratching my head about this last sentence. It seemed, on the surface, like an ordinary revenue-raising measure; what did it have to do with encouraging broadband development?

But then I realized that it would. Because international calls will be made more expensive by the LKR 3/mt tax on outgoing calls, Sri Lankans will have greater incentive to call their friends, relatives and business contacts using Skype and Gtalk. This will create demand for broadband. All that one needs is a dongle and mobile signal. The government won’t get its 3 rupees, the telecom operators will see their international revenues dipping. But on the good side there will be more demand for broadband. But this is “in keeping with development priorities.”

I still have to figure out the hidden wisdom behind the decision to raise the tax on incoming calls from USD 0.07 (app. LKR 8) to USD 0.09 (app LKR 10). This will, for sure, increase incentives to engage in bypass or grey-market business. The TRC and Police will have lots to do, shutting down bypass businesses and running newspaper ads. The flow of black money into the economy will increase, which is useful for political campaigns and such. Perhaps people will use black money to obtain broadband services? This bit is a work in progress. Ideas, suggestions welcome.

In 2010, TRC contributed LKR 13,800 million, 44% of total revenues from government enterprises. In contrast, all the state banks combined contributed LKR 5,315 million, 17% of the total. The Port (26th largest container port in the world) yielded nothing, zero. The airport contributed LKR 300 million (1%).

For 2011, the Report gives estimated numbers: TRC LKR 8,000 million (31%); all state banks LKR 7,159 (28%). The surprise is that the TRC’s contribution has declined by over LKR 5 billion.

For those who wish to convert to USD, today’s exchange rate is USD 1 = LKR 113. So TRC gave the government USD 122 million in 2010 and 71 million in 2011. Not a bad return on the few million spent on reforming the telecom sector!