LIRNEasia » Telecom Regulatory Commission

Sri Lanka: Sense prevails on satellites

Rohan Samarajiva — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 08:29:02 +0000

We were happy to note that the Telecom Regulatory Commission has pulled the plug on a senseless project that we criticized when first announced and once again, for emphasis. It will be interesting to see how much Surrey Satellite Technology, a firm fronted by the son of an English Lord of some kind, cleared in fees in the past year. I met the man in Colombo. Obviously he would not have paid his way here.

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.

‘Deadly SMS’ not deadly! – Sri Lanka Telecom Regulator

Chanuka Wattegama — Sat, 08 May 2010 06:32:49 +0000

Telecommunication Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka loves SMS. In the pre-election period it requested operators to accommodate a ‘New Year Greeting’ from the President, who apparently was a candidate. Now it warns the users about a false spam SMS. If you have received it don’t worry. Calls from those numbers do not harm your brain or kill you, assures Director General of the Telecom Regulatory Commission (TRC) Anusha Pelpita. According to Daily Mirror online Mr. Pelpita has realised the prank after talking to the operators.

The SMS said “Dont attend to calls from 7888308001, 9316048121, 9876266211, 9888854137, 9876715587. These numbers come in red colors. U may get brain hemrage due to high frequency. 27 persons died just recieving the call”

Sri Lanka regulator, asleep at the switch for years, becomes belligerent upon waking up

Rohan Samarajiva — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 05:06:22 +0000

Finally the TRC has woken up and started paying attention to broadband QoSE. Unfortunately, like many people and animals who are prodded awake from deep sleep, it is grumpy. It is talking about guilt and “taking action” rather than sitting down with the operators and finding a solution.

“The Telecom Regulatory Commission is conducting its own investigations on mobile broadband speeds advertized by operators,” Priyantha Kariyapperuma, director general of the TRC said.

“If any mobile operator is found guilty of providing slower speeds than advertized, the TRC will take action against them. Our report will be out in about two to three weeks.”

A study on broadband speeds in South Asian countries conducted by the regional think-tank LIRNEasia showed Sri Lankan surfers were getting less speed than claimed by telecom companies.

I hope that the TRC will become more reasonable after a few weeks pass by and the grumpiness wears off. Otherwise we will have to ask someone to investigate why the TRC was inactive all these years while consumers were complaining, bloggers were ranting and peer regulatory agencies taking action.

In the meantime, we invite the TRC to use the rich information accumulated in our website since 2006 May (3.5 years ago) when we ran the first post on the subject. Prior to that Mr Sanath Siriwardene, who communicated with us through the blog had made extensive presentations to the TRC in writing and in person and had even published some articles in the media. I am sure Mr Siriwardene will also be happy to share his expertise. In particular, we invite the TRC to look at our benchmark data where we show that both Bangladesh and Bhutan now have lower leased-line prices than Sri Lanka. When competition forces retail prices down while input costs remain high, quality is bound to suffer.

Mobiles and location-based services: We know where you’ve been

Rohan Samarajiva — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 09:09:26 +0000

There was a time when I worked a lot on privacy, especially privacy issues surrounding transaction-based information (TGI). The last piece of that line of research received good reviews , the quote below being an example. The next step should have been a book; I chose to come to Sri Lanka to set up the Telecom Regulatory Commission instead. Privacy was a fast moving field at that time. I knew it would be too late to get into it, after the diversion in Sri Lanka. The diversion became the main thing.

Dr. Samarajiva looks at the impact of collecting Transaction Generated Information (TGI) on customer-business relationships, persuasively arguing that covert collection can lead to a spiral of mistrust. Once a consumer’s trust in a business is weakened sufficiently, the consumer will resist collection or tender misinformation, prompting businesses to take more aggressive steps to collect consumer information and fuel the cycle. Samarajiva offers Quebec’s UBI (Universal, Bidirectional, Interactivity) network as a workable counterexample. UBI’s policies, which vigorously protect consumer data, are set forth in the UBI Code of Conduct, a document that reflects Quebec’s own stringent protections for consumer information. Samarajiva argues that these protections should, with time and adherence by the participants, lead to a trustworthy (and trusted) online business system.

Anyway, the subject that I left is coming back to me, now through the mobile door.

With the dominance of the cellphone, a new metaphor is emerging for how we organize, find and use information. New in one sense, that is. It is also as ancient as humanity itself. That metaphor is the map.

“The map underlies man’s ability to perceive,” said Richard Saul Wurman, a graphic designer who was a pioneer in the use of maps as a generalized way to search for information of all kinds before the emergence of the online world.

As this metaphor takes over, it will change the way we behave, the way we think and the way we find our way around new neighborhoods. As researchers and businesses learn how to use all the information about a user’s location that phones can provide, new privacy issues will emerge. You may use your phone to find friends and restaurants, but somebody else may be using your phone to find you and find out about you.
We have some data about trust and privacy in the Teleuse @ BOP 3 survey. We will keep revisiting this subject periodically.

Price war ends receiving party pays in Sri Lanka

Rohan Samarajiva — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 12:18:54 +0000

In a fullpage advertisement that will be published in the Sunday papers on October 5th, Tigo, Sri Lanka’s “third” mobile operator (not that we place that much stock in market share calculations based on numbers of active SIMs), will effectively end the unloved receiving-party-pays regime in Sri Lanka. Its tariff scheme is about the simplest I have seen in a long time: all incoming calls free; offnet outgoing 10 LKR cents a second (roughly USD 0.001); onnet outgoing 5 LKR cents a second (roughly USD 0.0005). No time periods.

This is a case of the market responding to what the customer wants in the face of regulatory failure, or a work around of the type we discuss in our book. From 1999, the Telecom Regulatory Commission has been considering a shift to Calling Party Pays, but has balked for various reasons. In 2004, the decision was taken and a news conference was announced. Just hours before the news conference, the politically appointed Secretary to the Ministry/Chairman of the TRC, unilaterally and possibly illegally overrode the Commission decision, saying he cannot be responsible for allowing this decision to go through just before the election. He kicked it to a public hearing. The public hearing committee counted the NUMBER of submissions pro and con, and decided that the public was against CPP even though it was obvious that the con submissions were based on a common template and were orchestrated by a union. So Sri Lanka remained RPP, while both India and Pakistan, which started the process later, converted and gave the customers what they wanted. Regulatory failure caused by political interference and staff incompetence.

The Tigo action comes in the context of a full-blown price war initiated by “No. 2″ operator Mobitel and the response last week by the market leader Dialog. For the last few years, everyone has been inching toward ending RPP. No RPP was being charged from postpaid customers for all practical purposes. The Mobitel salvo ended it for government employees and pensioners a few weeks back. The Dialog response last week ended it for all, but asked for a one-time fee to get the benefit. Now Tigo has written the script for Mobitel’s response and also perhaps for Hutch and Bharti Airtel Lanka.

The people have been given what they want. But the regulator still has work to do. The fixed networks should not get the free ride on the mobile networks they have enjoyed for the past so many years. Completion of a call originated in a fixed network on a mobile network causes costs on the mobile network. From the time mobile was introduced in Sri Lanka in 1989, the fixed networks have collected the retail price of the call (usually the higher price of a national call) and KEPT IT ALL, without giving one cent to the terminating network. The excuse was that the mobile networks could charge for terminating the calls under RPP.

On the other hand when a call to a fixed network is originated on a mobile network, the mobile operator PAYS A TERMINATION CHARGE to the fixed network. In 2007, for example, Sri Lanka Telecom earned LKR 593 million in such payments. A Sri Lankan fixed network operator will pay termination fees to other fixed operators; it will pay termination fees to foreign fixed operators; it will even pay termination fees to foreign mobile operators. The only operators it will not pay termination fees to are Sri Lankan mobile operators.

Now that consumer demands and competition have ended RPP, the mobile operators are providing termination services to fixed operators for free, cross-subsidizing it from origination services. This is wrong.

It is high time that this anomaly is remedied. Sri Lankan mobile operators are offering some of the lowest mobile prices in the world. The least the regulator can do is to ensure that they are treated fairly.

“Environment conservation levy” targets households with fixed telephones and possibly all handsets

Rohan Samarajiva — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 07:14:27 +0000

The government promised a broad-ranging environmental levy in the last budget speech. Some sensible people inside government appear to have defanged what could have been a very nasty piece of legislation.

The Bill that is scheduled to be debated in Parliament on the 19th of March makes provision for the levy to collected by telecom operators and paid to the Telecom Regulatory Commission and then to the Environmental Conservation Levy account of the Consolidated Fund. The other levy collector is the customs. The removal of the complex collection procedure mentioned in the Budget Speech is definitely an improvement.

As is common with present-day legislative drafting, this is a very poorly crafted bill. For example, it includes a definition of a motor vehicle that excludes two-wheel vehicles, even though the defined term is not used anywhere in the text. Its true danger lies in the vagueness of the provisions.

Pretty much any good manufactured in or imported into Sri Lanka, or any service provided in Sri Lanka, or any household, can be subject to this levy by an Order made by the Minister in charge of the subject of Finance in consultation with the Minister in charge of the subject of Environment. No controversy, no fuss, just wait for a moment when we’re all excited about winning a cricket match and quietly slap a levy on whatever you please. If Parliament lets this bill go through, it is voluntarily, and possibly unconstitutionally, giving up its control of finance.

The pernicious implications of slapping additional levies on telephones and telecom services have been previously discussed. The temptation to milk the goose that lays the golden eggs is irresistible, it seems.

Blocking SMS when it is needed most

Chanuka Wattegama — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 08:06:53 +0000

Many of us have our own stories how SMS helped in an emergency. Here is mine.

I was at the National Book Exhibition at BMICH on September 12, 2007 evening when a tsunami alert was broadcast. It created instant chaos. I did not have access to a TV or a radio. By then the mobile voice channels were congested.

So it was SMS that I used to:

(a) Find accurate updates about the alert
(b) Make sure my family members are safe and
(c) Inform my family that I am safe

All above was critical for me to decide on my next steps. I did that within 10 minutes, learnt it was low risk, decided to shop for some more time (anyway they closed early on that day) and went home avoiding rush hour traffic.

I dare not to think what I would have done if SMS services were cut off at that very moment. I would be helpless having a communication device in my hand that does not connect me to anybody.

But that is exactly what the Sri Lanka Telecom Regulator plans to do, as I learn from this Sunday Times news item. It quotes DG of Telecom Regulatory Commission saying, “This is simply due to the understanding between the phone service providers. There were many text messages which were going around creating unnecessary public fear. The TRC works closely with these operators and they are ready to support and take preventive measures in situations like this”

Are rumours the only information passed by SMSs? Is SMS the only channel that spread rumours? Do we have to cut the neck of the goat to take its head out of the pot?

Lessons from Nepal least-cost-subsidy auction for Sri Lanka

Rohan Samarajiva — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 05:36:59 +0000

Harsha de Silva, who studied the first least-cost-subsidy auction in Asia in Nepal as part of the 3rd cycle of WDR research, draws out the lessons for Sri Lanka in an op-ed piece published in Sri Lanka’s leading English language daily. Now that Nepal is considering another least-cost-subsidy auction, the subject has become topical in Nepal too. The detailed study is available on the web. The article can be downloaded here.

:: Daily Mirror – FINANCIAL TIMES ::

An effective access regime that will allow optimal use of the existing backbone, better interconnection enforcement throughout the country, transparent licensing that would remove the pall of corruption or allegations of corruption hanging over the Telecom Regulatory Commission and the licensing authorities, more transparent and efficient spectrum management including the complete unlicensing of WiFi frequencies; deregulation of tariffs to the extent possible like in India are the low-cost option that will enable more people to use telecom and Internet services, not high-cost and low-thought subsidy schemes. There is no need for Sri Lanka to repeat the errors of Nepal.

Spectrum refarming on the agenda

Rohan Samarajiva — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 23:15:38 +0000

It appears that the Telecom Regulatory Commission is starting work on spectrum refarming. There are enormous gains to be achived if this is done right in an open, informed and consultative manner.

LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE

Fixed line spike in Sri Lanka

Rohan Samarajiva — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 08:20:10 +0000

CDMA is a big story in Sri Lanka these days. As a result of the frequency refarming process that was started in 2003 with the issuance of 1800 GSM frequencies to Dialog Telekom and Mobitel through an auction, 800 CDMA frequencies were released earlier this year by the Telecom Regulatory Commission. The article by Amal Jayasinghe in lbo.lk provides more detail on how the rollout is proceeding. Shortly after the article was published, Suntel began to offer LKR 1500 discounts, which may be the start of the price reductions I refer to in the Jayasinghe piece.

Suntel has also announced that it will offer pre-paid fixed service for the first time in Sri Lanka. These developments have many interesting connections with LIRNEasia projects, including the focus on effective regulatory reforms (incl. spectrum refarming) for rural rollout, the role of microfinance and the ICT use on a shoestring project.

Tsunami remembrance through research and dissemination

Rohan Samarajiva — Sat, 26 Mar 2005 06:16:47 +0000

It has been three months since Sri Lanka lost 40,000 valuable lives and the Indian Ocean region 300,000. Given below is the e-mail message that LIRNEasia sent to its friends and well wishers on this sad day of remembrance. It is being posted here in case we missed your e-mail address or got it wrong.

Three-month alms giving in remembrance of the victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami

Prompt action to establish an effective National Early Warning System is the best memorial we can build to the 40,000 valuable lives that were swept away for the lack of a few minutes of warning and a little awareness.NEWS:SL Concept Paper

It is customary in Sri Lanka to offer a dana (an alms giving wherein offerings are made to monks and the resulting merit is offered to the departed) three months after the death of a dear one. On the 26th of March 2005, we offer merit to the 40,000 fellow Sri Lankans who were swept away (and the 300,000 in the region) on that terrible day of December 26th, 2004 by making donations to the public good and by seeking the participation of our friends and colleagues in the dana.

We at LIRNEasia in Sri Lanka were fortunate to not lose those in our team or in our immediate families. But like for everyone in Sri Lanka, the tragedy is proximate: there are only a few degrees of separation between the living and the dead. Palitha Gunawardene, a colleague who worked closely with me as Director of Economic Affairs at the Telecom Regulatory Commission and his wife were swept away at the Yala National Park. Good friends were saved by happenstance. While the individual tragedies are what truly matter, the aggregate effect is also not insignificant: one in 500 dead; one in 20 displaced from their homes; thousands still under canvas as the hottest time of the year approaches. The hopes of transcending the politics of division that have for so long bedeviled this country are fading. Three months later, we grieve for our loved ones who were swept away and also for the living who have to deal with the aftermath. But move forward we must.

The work on disaster warning that we at LIRNEasia immersed ourselves in for the past three months was our principal contribution to the recovery effort. With generous help of our friends from here and abroad, we built on research that began immediately after the tsunami to conduct a participatory exercise to design a national early warning system for Sri Lanka, NEWS:SL. The most visible result is at http://lirneasia.net, a 44-page concept paper supported by 10 annexes. But the outcome is not simply the report: we have shifted the public discourse in Sri Lanka from a focus on gadgetry to detect water movements in the deep ocean to the necessity of effective communication of the warnings made possible by technological developments; and we have more or less established the superiority of an all-hazards approach over a tsunami-specific one.

Our concept paper included a recommendations section. As is customary in these kinds of texts, many of the recommendations were for action by others: the government, the regulatory commission, etc. But we (LIRNEasia and our partner in disaster-related work, the Vanguard Foundation) also committed ourselves to certain actions by certain dates, including a follow up project on dam safety (hazard detection, communication of warnings, and response) and a workshop to educate media and first responders. We committed to this work believing that our expertise, track record and commitment will enable us to raise the necessary funds. Our starting point is the LIRNEasia Tsunami Memorial Fund for Disaster Preparedness within the LIRNEasia accounts, dedicated for disaster management research and dissemination with a significant ICT component. This fund currently has USD 7,300, being the amount due to LIRNEasia and the LIRNEasia researchers from the work done on the early warning report. Our work on this project being entirely voluntary, we have donated our compensation to the Tsunami Memorial Fund so that the funds can be leveraged to find additional resources that will help us mobilize ICTs and reform institutions to reduce the likelihood of hazards becoming catastrophes.

We have already started work on the dam safety project. Here we will conduct a participatory design process similar to that conducted for the design of NEWS:SL in collaboration with technical experts from the Department of Irrigation. It will include the preparation of video oral histories of the survivors of the 1986 Kantalai Dam Breach. We have also offered to host and project manage a web hamuva (a blog of discussions taking place at family gatherings (pavul hamuva) among the inhabitants of the 250+ tsunami-affected villages under the care of Sarvodaya, Sri Lankas largest and most deeply embedded community organization. The aim is to give voice to the voiceless through ICTs (and good media relations). Should this small project be funded, the matching funds will be provided from the LIRNEasia Tsunami Memorial Fund. We are also in discussions with Sarvodaya about a larger project to make their tsunami-affected villages disaster resilient.

We have decided to include disaster communication within our research portfolio for the next three years, at least, even though IDRC, our primary supporter has not committed any funds beyond that given for the January-February disaster warning project. The high-quality results we have achieved in a short time give us confidence this will be a productive line of research. Despite being outside government, we have already been invited to present our findings to the Presidential Commission of Inquiry on the Tsunami and a presentation to the Chairman of TAFREN, the government task force on rebuilding, is scheduled for the week of March 27th. Presentations on the report have been made in Indonesia and Singapore and we expect to address the issue in a few more countries. If you can help in this regard, it will be greatly appreciated. A science news report dated March 25th, 2005 shows that we were prescient. MASTEL, the Indonesian industry association, has already convened an interest group to identify concrete actions to enhance the telecom sectors contribution to disaster preparedness.

On behalf of all Sri Lankans, and personally, we thank you for the spontaneous and generous help proffered our people in the immediate aftermath of the tsunami. The losses in the tsunami were terrible, but after that there have been no deaths due to hunger or disease. The credit must go to the people and the civic organizations that responded on an unprecedented scale. We will continue to make our contributions to the larger efforts of preparedness, based on raising funds through proposals and self-financing. The accounts of the LIRNEasia Tsunami Memorial Fund will be made available to all donors annually or on request. Should you wish to further support the recovery efforts in Sri Lanka by contributing to the disaster preparedness work that we are doing, please send your contributions to the LIRNEasia Tsunami Memorial Fund for Disaster Preparedness (please inform us of the donation by e-mail; all donations will be acknowledged when received).

Account Holder: LIRNEasia

Account Number: 003-100427-025

Bank: HSBC Head Office Branch

Address: 24 Sir Baron Jayatilake Mavata, Colombo 1, Sri Lanka

SWIFT Code: HSBC LKLX

Warm regards,

P.S.: Please feel free to pass this on this e-mail. I greatly appreciated the efforts made by some of you to shield me from excessive e-mails in the immediate aftermath of the tsunami by passing on messages and answering queries on our well being. The time you saved for me was well spent. Also attaching a short report on what we have achieved in the first six months of our existence.

Responding to the tsunami

Rohan Samarajiva — Tue, 28 Dec 2004 15:24:48 +0000

The wind was not held back

Below is a talk given 6 years ago entitled “To hold back the wind.” That was an attempt to get disaster preparedness going. It failed, obviously. The walls of water came in with no warning; thousands died instantaneously; millions are homeless. Parentheses refer to 9/11 in the US for scale: in a few hours on the 26th of December more that 17,900 (3,000) died out of a population of 19 million (280 million). More than a million are homeless (mostly office space was lost). More will die due to epidemics caused by thousands of unburied corpses, bad water, etc. (insignificant). This is just Sri Lanka. LIRNEasia’s immediate focus is the Bay of Bengal region. We have lost over 40,000 people by the present count. Everything I said above re Sri Lanka applies to the region. We will give food and shelter; we will comfort the living and bury the dead; but we will and must do more. We must create the conditions to minimize deaths on this scale.

The speech below is what I gave at the Workshop on Effective Use of Telecommunications in Emergency and Disaster Management, organized by the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka on the 30th of November 1998, just over six years ago. That workshop brought together everyone in government working on disaster management as well as relevant civil society organizations and all the telecom operators. It was addressed by the Minister of Posts, Telecommunications and the Media and by the Deputy Minister of Social Services who was responsible for disaster management in that government. The workshop was preceded by an interim report that had been prepared after extensive consultation with stakeholders. The workshop resulted in a final report with multiple annexes, recommendations, and even a Cabinet Paper authorizing and requiring the Telecom Regulatory Commission to be the focal point for effective use of telecom in disaster management in Sri Lanka. TRC staff were trained in disaster management and work was assigned. The subject of disaster management became so important that the staff of the TRC collected funds to place communication equipment in the ambulances of the National Hospital, remedying a stunning gap discovered in the course of the research. One would think that this was a policy process that had been run by the book; that it would yield the desired results. Or so I thought when I left the office of Director General of Telecommunications and Sri Lanka in June 1999.

The test of good policy is implementation. The test was the tsunami of the 26th of December 2004. The government of Sri Lanka and the Telecom Regulatory Commission failed. There were no early warning systems using telecom technology; there were no procedures to prevent the networks from crashing in the face of the surge of calls; there were no priority schemes for disaster management workers; there were no emergency telecom kits ready to be used; and two days later, newspapers are still carrying reports that the dead cannot be counted for the lack of working telecom facilities.

At this moment, the focus is on disaster recovery. In the face of the unprecedented scale of human suffering that has been unleashed on this poor land, that is understandable. But I will swim against the tide and state that we must use this moment to also look beyond the immediate and urgent needs and think of how we could have reduced the suffering and saved lives if only we had prepared in times of calm. The foundation of disaster management is disaster preparedness.

That is what we were trying to do back in 1998-99 when we worked with all the disaster management agencies. Obviously that did not work. It is possible that the reasons for failure were the lack of incentives meaningful to Sri Lankan bureaucrats and politicians; the tendency in government organizations to denigrate and nullify initiatives associated with the predecessor of the current leader, and so on. But if we leave aside these uncharitable explanations for the moment, what we are left with is the explanation that the previous effort was badly timed; it was undertaken at a time of calm, when the disaster had to be imagined. The valuable work that was done got neglected in the press of everyday matters.

So now is the time to engage the people responsible for disaster management. Despite the fact that our hands are full and our hearts are heavy, this is the moment we must attend to the task of preparing for the next disaster. LIRNEasia will use its capabilities for this task, redirecting some of the funds set apart for other projects to initiate a regional project on the effective use of ICTs for disaster management. Natural disasters do not respect national boundaries as we saw from this tsunami. Our response must also not respect national borders. But we must work and we must prepare. Otherwise, another 50,000 lives later, we’ll be having this same conversation.

Please await details in the coming days.
Telecom in disaster management

LIRNEasia Office Opening

Indi Samarajiva — Wed, 01 Sep 2004 13:44:36 +0000

Rohan Samarajiva : September 1, 2004

There is something wonderful about beginnings. The future is pristine; the potential is unlimited; no mistakes have been made. I am very happy to welcome you to the LIRNEasia office on the occasion of this new beginning.

Our immediate objective is to build a team of Asian ICT policy and regulatory professionals who can work on equal terms with the best in the world. Sri Lanka will anchor this effort, but it will be a genuinely regional initiative. This is an achievable goal: we worked on equal terms with the worlds best consultants at the Public Interest Program Unit of the Ministry for Economic Reform; we will do this again here at LIRNEasia.

Our larger objective is to facilitate the improvement of ICT sector performance in Asia. As many as 380,000 of our fellow citizens are currently on a waiting list for a telephone connection (43% of the number who actually have phones in their homes); for the most part, we are paying more than we should for telecom services; the quality of service that we get, not only from SLTL which again demonstrated its callous incompetence last week, but even from the other operators is inadequate. We do not have adequate choice. This sad story is repeated with minor variations throughout developing Asia. The existing policy and regulatory arrangements do not help people use ICTs to live their lives; they actively hinder them: I will illustrate this with the case the WiFi connection we have here at our office… WiFi, a very low-cost and convenient technology, was developed by multiple small manufacturers because the United States government chose to unregulate two bands of frequencies (2.4 GHz and 5.8GHz), also called the Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) bands. Subject to minimal safeguards, people were free to whatever they wanted to in these bands. Today, pretty much every laptop you buy has got WiFi built in. The equipment is cheap and ideal for countries where the purchasing power is low. But WiFi is not strictly legal in Sri Lanka. Section 22 of our law requires that one obtains a license for every frequency emitting apparatus from the Telecom Regulatory Commission. Our service providers have included us within their license, but the full potential of WiFi cannot be realized without the law being changed. The draft legislation was prepared and has been at the Legal Draftsman since August of last year; but can we be optimistic that it will actually be enacted? This is the kind of thing we at LIRNEasia will strive to get done. We may have more success outside Sri Lanka, than at home; but that is something no one would be surprised by.

But I do not want to leave you with the idea that we measure success only in terms of changes in laws and improvements in regulation. Everyone in the wonderful team we had at PIPU knows that we do not measure success that way. Everything we do must have an impact on the lives of people: must put more money in their pockets; must improve the quality of their lives; must give their lives more hope. Reform and regulation are means to an end; telecom and computers are means to an end; the end is a better life for our people.

So this is our mission: to improve the lives the people of Asia; by making it easier to use the information and communication technologies they need; by changing the laws, policies and regulations to enable those uses; by building Asia-based human capacity through research, training, consulting and advocacy.

We aim to build a virtual organization that will one day make working from Bhutan as easy as working from this office. We will work in teams; we will work flexibly and we will work effectively. The organization centered around this office will help each person work to their full capacity; it will be a learning organization; a place where creativity is valued and debate encouraged. It will not be a place to clock in and out from; to engage in office intrigue; or to worry about the next promotion. It will add to your productivity, not drain it.

I have not been to this place since the 19th of August, almost two weeks. Those who know me well know that I am detail oriented; that I worry too much about the little things like whether the projector works. But that was not the case here. I trust the team members who made this office possible and I knew my time was better spent on other things. Thank you for the wonderful work. I am grateful to our friends and partners from SLIDA who are living examples of development (as opposed to obstruction) administration. Mr Tennakoon, we know you have high expectations of our partnership; so do we. Lets work together for a true win-win relationship.

I am also happy to see familiar faces from PIPU. Luxman and I had no office, no kiribath and no speeches when we started PIPU. Now that he have all that and all the support and encouragement represented by your presence this morning, we surely cannot fail. Please join us in inaugurating the LIRNEasia office. Thank you.