While I do believe that (a) the Director of Information is on the face unqualified to serve as DGT, and that (b) the Department of Information has no role to play in a modern democratic society, I do not think that any of these feared things will happen.

Whatever the DGT does, he has to do under the Law, the Sri Lanka Telecom Act, 25 of 1991, as amended. According to the Act, the DGT does not have legal authority; all authority lies with the Commission, a five-person body chaired by the Secretary of the relevant Ministry, at the present time Mr Lalith Weeratunge, Secretary to the President. The DGT is a member ex officio and until now, the only full-time member. The other members are part-time, one qualified in law, another in finance and so on. The DGT is the CEO of the Regulatory Commission and must act under the direction of the five-member commission.

The Commission has to act as specified in the Act and other relevant legislation (and of course the Constitution). If it acts outside these powers or if it exercises these powers without adhering to natural justice, it can be checked under the writ jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals, as set out in Article 140 of the Constitution. Fundamental rights cases may also be brought against it before the Supreme Court.

Let us take the case of licensing news websites. Can the TRC do this?

The Act specifies several kinds of licenses and a permit. It is an offence to do the acts covered by these licenses and permit, without being issued these licenses and permits. Action may be taken when the terms and conditions of the said licenses and permits are violated.

The first question then is whether the operation of news websites requires a license under Act 25 of 1991, as amended. We can without much difficulty exclude the licenses for cabling, frequencies and frequency emitting apparatus etc. The core issue is whether a news website requires a license under s. 17.

Section 17 states that:
“(1) Subject to the provision of section 20, no person shall operate a telecommunication system in Sri Lanka except under the authority of a licence granted by the Minister in accordance with subsection (2).
(2) The Minister may grant the licence referred to in subsection (1) on the recommendation of the Authority, provided he shall have the power to reject such recommendations for reasons assigned and grant a licence in his own discretion.”

Section 20 is about certain kinds of activities in contiguous spaces and/or within organizations and is not of relevance to the present discussion. The key phrase is “telecommunication system in Sri Lanka.” Anything that falls within the definition of a “telecommunication system in Sri Lanka,” and does not fall within the exclusion specified in s. 20, requires a license.

A “telecommunication system” is defined in Section 73 as “a system for the conveyance by the agency of electric, magnetic, electro-magnetic, optic, electro-chemical or electromechanical energy, of
(a) speech, music and other sounds ;
(b) visual Images;
(c) information for human comprehension that is intended for presentation in a two dimensional form, consisting of symbols, phrases or sentences in natural or artificial languages, pictures, diagrams and tables ; or
(d) signals serving for the actuation or control of machinery or apparatus.”

One may access a website using a telecommunication system licensed under the Sri Lanka Telecom Act, but that does not mean that the website is a telecommunication system that requires a license. In short, the TRC does have the authority to license Internet Service Providers, through whose facilities we gain access to websites; but it does not have authority over the websites. It is possible for the TRC to include specific license conditions in the license issued to ISPs that may include restrictions about filtering and such, but as far as I know such conditions were not included in the ISP licenses that were issued since the 1990s and even if the TRC tries to include them it may find itself violating the Constitution.

Living in war conditions caused the citizens of this country to yield fundamental rights in the name of assisting the fight against terrorism. We must get back to asking “under what authority?” whenever someone in government seeks to prohibit something or get us to do something. There does not seem to be any legal authority for the TRC to do any of the actions they are allegedly planning to take.

Quo warranto, TRC?

In my teaching I define it as follows:

Administrative expropriation = being prevented from making a reasonable return on investment per expectation at point of investing, usually through a series of actions (not decisive when each taken alone), resulting in de facto expropriation of the investment
Not necessarily telecom specific; can be through tax laws, customs authorities, etc.
Any government can engage in admin expropriation, directly or through proxies

The Sunday Leader lead story of 10 January 2010 provides an excellent example of administrative expropriation by a regulator, violating the provisions of the enabling law at the behest of a political authority or in an attempt to curry favor with a political authority. While the actual amount may be miniscule in relation to what the telecom operators make in a year, the signal is deadly to the perceptions that constitute the investment climate. It tells future investors that the regulatory agency is no longer a shield against administrative expropriation, as the law intended, but is now an active instrument of expropriation. This increases regulatory risk; which in turn increases the cost of capital and/or skews investments to the short-term hit-and-run variety. The losers are the people and the economy in the long term.

The news story, co-authored by a legal scholar is worth a full read, though the tax figures may need some work.

In a blatant display of despotism, President Mahinda Rajapaksa instructed the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRC) to order mobile phone operators in the country to send a New Year Greeting on January 1st to a massive 13.5 million phone users free of charge on his behalf.
TRC, a public institution established and governed by law, run with public tax revenue had absolutely no power to issue instructions to mobile companies to promote an election candidate.
In fact, Sections 4 and 5 of the Sri Lanka Telecommunications Act No. 25 of 1991 as amended by Sections 7 and 8 of the Sri Lanka Telecommunications (Amendment) Act No. 27 of 1996 does not empower the TRC to issue instructions to companies to promote candidates.

Sri Lanka’s investment climate for telecom is already poor. And we are not the only people saying so. The only silver lining is that public-interest advocates and the media have not allowed this illegal act to be buried. Just getting rid of the person who acted ultra vires will not be enough; looks like a new act will be needed. But more than that we will need to build a culture of Constitutionalism.

Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL) today published a list of short codes to be used in case of emergencies and to access other e-gov services. They will work on any phone, mobile or fixed from any operator. Emergency calls are free. To access a service, normal call charges apply.

Public are advised to use these codes as per the specific nature of emergency. (note the word ‘Optimum’) For example, if you see the next door TV station is set fire by terrorists, call 118. It connects you to Ministry of Defence, Public Security, Law and Order. If the same attack is done by some other party, better call 119, and contact Police. If they take time to come you may also want to call 110 to notify Fire Unit of Colombo Municipal Council. If you see a UFO – try 116. For Operation Commander it is 114; Colombo Municipal Council 115.

Can’t remember all? Here are the options. Fixed phone: Paste advertisement anywhere near. Mobile: Enter all numbers to your address book or carry a laminated copy of the ad in your pocket.

Redundancy is good, particularly when effectiveness is questionable. If one number does not work, try another. On the other hand having a long list of numbers is confusing. Why not have a single number – like 911 in USA – for all emergencies? (something easy to remember, even for a kid) Why complicate the process?

The answer perhaps lies in a uniquely Sri Lankan phenomenon: Government agencies do not talk to each other – may be they are from different planets. So settle for the next best. Everyone is on one’s own. That works better – at least till the public do not mind carrying laminated copies of the list of numbers.

Just one more question: Why charge for using ‘Child Help Line’? Aren’t the ‘marginalised children in need of care and protection’ (TRCSL wording) a group that deserves a toll free call?

Orwellian drama continues – with some mobile operators taking it to a level far beyond the expectations of the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka with the two magic words ‘National Security’ wining everyone’s blind approval.

Now Mobitel wants a photograph of every subscriber – either to register or re-register. (Wasn’t it irresponsible for Mobitel in the first place to provide a connection to somebody not registered with them? – beats us!) They have shutterbugs ready for tasks at their outlets. All you have to do is to walk in. If you don’t like being photographed by them, take a passport size photo of you. 3.5 x 4.5 cm size. Easy.

Why they need your photograph? If the authorities want they can always trace the number of your National Identity Card, Driving License or Passport (which you have to provide for registration) to their databases for a photo. Why keep an additional photo with your operator? Is Mobitel planning to build a FaceBook?

What Mobitel does not reveal in its colour full page advertisements on Sunday newspapers are the steps it takes to protect your privacy. Usually, whatever the information provided by a customer is available to hundreds of their employees –perhaps thousands – including call centre agents. Does Mobitel guarantee the privacy of the photographs they take? Does it follow international standards in computer security? Or is it just like uploading a photo to the public domain in FaceBook? (NB. Usually call center operators can access all your call information and contacts)

A responsible subscriber is someone who provides all necessary information accurately to one’s operator. A responsible operator is someone who respects the privacy of a subscriber. What a subscriber does not like to see is her photo digitally affixed to the body of Jessica Alba, sun bathing.

Our sincere hope is that Mobitel would understand and guarantee the privacy to its subscribers. That is the least it could do for making its subscribers making an additional trip for registration/reregistration.

The motto of any typical bureaucrat is “First my convenience!”. How can one expect Sri Lankan types to be different?

In late 1980s, when motor cyclists were found responsible for few key assassinations, the Police reacted first by banning helmets (before that it was compulsory) and then by prohibiting pillion riders. Why this nuisance? National Security! The risk and the inconveniences faced by public were no concern of the authorities.

Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL) has done it again. According to the advertisements published in national weekend newspapers and elaborated in a Sunday Times news story, there are many things now the mobile operators, resellers, repairmen and users cannot do. For example, any mobile user in future has to carry a certificate from the operator that the SIM was issued to him/her. If not, face the risk of an arrest. All mobile phone and accessory resellers and repairmen have to register themselves. You can repair a house, a TV, a motor vehicle or even a fixed phone without a license, but not a mobile phone.

However, the biggest threat to tele-penetration comes from the regulation that prohibits shared use of mobile phones.

As found by LIRNEasia’s Teleuse at the Bottom of the Pyramid surveys, shared use is a common phenomenon all over South Asia. As of 2007 end, about 8 million SIM cards were issued and there were nearly 3 million fixed connections in Sri Lanka. The aggregate amounts to slightly more than half the population. On the other hand, 92% of the Sri Lankans at the grass root level had used telephones. The remaining 40% or so use others’ phones (and sometimes pay for the call).

Teleuse@BOP surveys reveal even more. 49% of Urban population and 63% of rural population let their phones shared by family members. Even among non family members, sharing happens but at slightly lower rate of 38%(urban) and 33% (rural).

A population living below US$ 2 a day cannot afford individual mobile ownership. The only practical option is the shared mode. By prohibiting the shared mode TRC leaves the poor with no option other than perhaps travelling several kilo meters to the nearest post office, which is open for limited hours and which may or may not have a public phone in working order. Is this what we really want?

The Nation Economist, Sunday 26 August 2007 | See Print version

I have to say that JHU does not know economics. What is the rationale behind taxing the only sector that is growing? The industry is giving government enormous amount of revenue. Twenty percent of every mobile rupee goes to the government. If you squeeze the goose for more eggs the goose will ultimately die. To my knowledge some of the taxes the government is thinking of will really kill the industry. We have got data which say people in the bottom of the pyramid are willing to spend Rs.500 per month on communication. So if the government put another tax these people will be discouraged to get themselves connected and as a result of that the government will lose revenue.

By Indika Sakalasooriya
The entry of the Indian business tycoon Sunil Miththal’s Bharti Airtel, India’s biggest mobile operator into the Sri Lankan market has left many players in the telecom sector to ponder on the harsh effects of severe competition in the future.

The existing mobile operators in the market seem to have appraised the impact even before the physical arrival of the Indian giant. The majority of the industry analysts are now of the view that the profit margins of the mobile operators will become thin due to the expected intense competition in the market.

However, amidst all these developments, from the government’s side we heard a story of further taxation of the growing mobile industry. The Nation Economist thought it opportune to get some insights from Professor Rohan Samarajeewa, a former head of the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka who is a keen observer of developments in the telecommunication sector in the Asian region to find out his assessment of the Sri Lankan mobile industry and where it is heading.

Here are the excerpts of the interview
Q : What is your general assessment of the Sri Lankan telecom sector as it stands today?
A : Doing well and could do much better. Why do I say doing well is compared with every other sector, the telecom sector is doing well. Its contribution to the GNP growth rates is considerable. Why do I say it can do better is Pakistan has overtaken us in mobile and our ADSL data situation is not really satisfactory in terms of people getting value for money. A lot of the BPO industry is not growing as fast as we expected. So in that sense we really could do much better than we are doing now.

Q : What kind of an impact will the arrival of Bharti Airtel have on SL telecom industry and to the mobile operators in the market?
A : Well, first we have to look at the Indian market and Bharti Airtel. India is one of the exciting markets in the world because every month 7 million new phones are added to the market. That means 7 million new subscribers. So now you get a sense of how big the Indian market is. And also India belongs to BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China). BRIC has the most happening markets in the world and we are sitting next to a BRIC. In the Indian telecom industry Sunil Miththal and Bharti are seen as innovators. He is getting awards and prizes in India. We have to find out for what he is getting prizes?

They are not getting those for being the biggest or for being profitable. We have to understand that there is no technological innovation but business innovation when Bharti is considered. The business innovation is how you make high profits on very low revenues per user. The company has pioneered very innovative techniques and that is they don’t run their networks. They outsource the whole thing down to the supplier. So what they are doing is basically brand managing. They own the brand and manage the interface with the government and they supervise the outsourcing process. Having the two facts in mind let us think of the size of Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka is about the size of greater Mumbai or greater Delhi. So, here we have is a company extremely good at managing costs and handling numbers. So here they come to Sri Lanka. I’ll be very concerned if I’m one of their competitors.

However there are two things that go against them. One is Sri Lanka has a few very efficient and sharp mobile companies and among them nobody is a sleeper. The second reason is Bharti is investing two little. It suggests to me that they are basically going to do a very conservative roll out. In 2004 the Central Bank of Sri Lanka in the Consumer Finance Service said 25% Sri Lankan households except in Mannar, Kilinochchi and Mulathiwe areas had some kind of phone. Now I’m willing to stick my neck and say it has gone up to 55% by now and that’s an extrapolation from some data we have. So we have to understand that this is a highly saturated market. At the same time we don’t have mobile number portability. The only country that has mobile number portability is Pakistan. So considering all these facts I’d say it is not easy for Bharti.

Q : Will the competition be healthy in terms of survival of the industry?
A : Yes sure. I’m always there for intense competition. Many think that the margins of the service providers will go down with the entrance of a new player. But I don’t think so. In 1994 when Dialog enter the market many people thought Sri Lanka was a tiny little market and there was no way that a fourth mobile operator can succeed. First it was said that Dialog would not succeed and secondly the margins will come down. But what happened? A fourth player came. Did the margins come down? Let us assume that what you are saying is correct. So the worst thing that can happen is the exiting of one player. The player who cannot give the enough commitment will exit the market. What is wrong in that?

Q: With the arrival of Bharti it was reported that some parties in the government had proposed to further tax the mobile industry as the sector is considered to be profitable. What is your reading on that?
A : I have to say that JHU does not know economics. What is the rationale behind taxing the only sector that is growing? The industry is giving government enormous amount of revenue. Twenty percent of every mobile rupee goes to the government. If you squeeze the goose for more eggs the goose will ultimately die. To my knowledge some of the taxes the government is thinking of will really kill the industry. We have got data which say people in the bottom of the pyramid are willing to spend Rs.500 per month on communication. So if the government put another tax these people will be discouraged to get themselves connected and as a result of that the government will lose revenue.

Q: Since you mentioned the issue of number portability, what are the pros and cons of number portability? Will the implementation of number portability lead to some perfect competition?
A : Competition has to be the basic rule we should be working on. An essential quality of competition is when a customer is not satisfied he or she should be free to go to another supplier. So now the question is if I’m not satisfied by my present mobile services provider I still have to bare it since I’m not ready to change my mobile number. But in a place where you have total competition you should be free to go to another service provider while keeping the same number. That is what mobile number portability is all about. People might ask me if the number portability is so important why didn’t you push for it when you were the DG of TRC? I had to deal with less than million phones and we had various problems such as interconnection. So during that time the idea of having number portability is very close to a dream. By now our telecom industry is growing and today mobile number portability has become a very important aspect of the industry.
There are two ways of doing number portability. One is call forwarding and the other way is to do it in a straight way through an intelligent network. It has costs and will take time. But it will definitely improve the market.

Q: As a former TRC DG and present advisor to the government of Bangladesh on telecom related matters, what are the reforms you are suggesting for the present telecom regulatory regime for the betterment of the industry?
A: I am a policy and regulation guy. For the industry to grow what we really need is a greater attention to be paid to what we call wholesale access. All the mobile operators should get the privilege to use the under sea cable going out from Mt. Lavinia on a non discriminatory cost oriented way. At the moment there are only three companies using the cable, SLT, GSNL and Dialog. But these other two companies get step motherly treatment from the SLT and that should be straightened. That’s a regulator’s job. Within the country majority of the fiber optic cables belong to SLT. But they should offer that facility to other companies at reasonable prices. Because it doesn’t make any sense in our country for every company to have their own fiber optic cables or to build microwave networks on top of already existing networks. So at a fundamental level I would put that as the highest priority because that can reduce the cost of a call. The other thing as I mentioned earlier is the mobile number portability.

Q : What are the key areas that the existing and the prospective telecom service providers should concentrate in carrying out operations?
A : The bottom of the pyramid is the place they should focus. I’m telling this because we have done research on the matter. The companies should understand that it is where the money is. As Professor Prahalag said, there is a fortune to be made at the bottom of the pyramid. The other fact is in Sri Lanka the main two growing sectors are telecom and banking. Why can’t we put the industries together since that is where the action is.

Q : Some say that the present regulatory system is in favour of the SLT of which the government still has the major stake. What is your opinion on this?
A : The Act we at the moment have is archaic and obsolete. The law is not very good and the staff is not very competent and it is possible that the regulatory authority is not doing well. What I can say is in my time Sri Lanka Telecom was fined for violating its licence condition. Therefore at least I can say during my period SLT was not favoured.

Q : As a person who is running a research body that overlooks the entire Asian region, can you explain why India still does not practise 3G operations?
A : Well the reason is the problem we also have. But India has it in a bigger way. Indian military is occupying a lot of frequencies. Therefore to start 3G operations the Indian Army and the other defence forces should be moved away to clear the frequency. We are not in bad shape as in India but we are close to it. We have not only military problems but also there are other parties who are using these frequencies for low value purposes.

By Poornima Weerasekara (Daily Mirror, 1 March 2006)

Suntel yesterday unveiling its roadmap for the next three years announced their plans to invest Rs. 8 billion to expand the CDMA network island wide.
“The coverage of our 155 base stations is better and wider than most of the mobile operators today,” Suntel Managing Director Jerry Huxtable said.
“We have plans to build about 40 base stations by the middle of the year, with plans to construct another 50-60 base stations in the 2nd quarter,” he added.
The Suntel CDMA network is currently the largest network in Sri Lanka covering 80% of the population in 22 districts.
They are also planning to build base stations in Jaffna, given the situation is stabilised in the region.
“Earlier we had a plan to build 4 base stations in Jaffna. But this was put on hold as the situation in the region at that time deteriorated,” Mr. Huxtable said.
However, he said that Suntel was optimistic about entering the region now that the peace situation seems to be stabilised.
Suntel has also completed a successful test run of the Evolutionary Data Optimiser (EVDO) technology, which is capable of providing broadband wireless connectivity with peak data rates of 1.2 mega bits per second. They have currently applied for a new frequency in order to roll out the service, However, after 4-5 months of waiting the TRCSL is yet to allocate the required frequency.
Suntel also urges the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL) and other ministries concerned to “create a licensing environment that is fair for all operators.”
“Increasing offers are made by SLT and Mobitel together. Increasingly Dialog is also moving into the fixed line arena,” Mr, Huxtable said, adding that “the Suntel CDMA network is able to provide the mobility required by users.”
“So if creating an equitable playing field means going for a mobile license, then yes we are prepared to go for it,” he added.
The company also recorded a year on year revenue increase of 35% and profits and a 23% EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization). Their customer base also soared by 81% to 188,000 customers in the last six months since rolling out their CDMA technology.
“We are estimating a revenue growth in the range of 35-40% in 2006,” Mr. Huxtable added.
However, the import duty imposed on fixed line handsets is threatening to erode the profits of wireless local loop operators.

Box story: Prices of CDMA connections to rise because of duty on hand set imports.

Suntel Ltd. Technical Director Mr. Mahinda Ramasundara yesterday said that import duties on CDMA handsets was threatening to push up the prices of CDMA phones.
According to Mr. Ramasundara CDMA import duties stood at around 18%, and that the telecom operators were requested to pay up the duty in retrospect.
“Our earlier prices were calculated without the duty component. So now we are unable to recover that cost from consumers. This would also push up CDMA telephone prices significantly,” he added, highlighting that this would make the technology inaccessible to the lower-income segments.
Suntel urged the TRCSL and the ministries concerned to create a more equitable playing field in the telecom market highlighting that there was a “clear anomaly between the costs of importing a mobile phone and fixed phones.”

BY ANJANA Samarasinghe (Daily News) www.dailynews.lk

THE Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL) has allocated Rs. 2.5 million for the “eNABLE” project this year.

“eNABLE” is a project which will serve communities in remort areas with special emphasis on women and people with disabilities. The project has empowered the universal access/service concept, which facilitates the communication needs of everybody.

Under this project telecommunication facilities have been granted for Ranaviru villages, Homes for children with disabilities and homes for elders.

Director, Legal Affairs of the TRC P. R. Amarasiri said this year TRC expects to establish five new ICT centres in Ratmalana, Ragama, Matale, Wattegama and in the South. These centers will specially focus on empowering people with disabilities through ICT.

These centres will consist of computers, printers, facsimile facilities, Internet access and payphone facilities.

The TRCSL also hopes to empower women who are involved in cottage industries in rural areas through the use of ICT. The main objective of this programme is to introduce suitable software for women entrepreneurs in rural areas to enhance their businesses.

‘Now we are in process of finding appropriate software that could be needful for their businesses’, Amarasiri said.

The TRCSL also established an ICT centre in Thalawa, Anuradhapura where many rural women and children were able to access Internet and enjoy other telecommunication facilities.

The “eNABLE” encouraged service providers to construct payphone booths that can be easily used by people with disabilities.

It been also introduced assistive technologies that has provided telecommunication services for hearing impaired citizens for the first time in Sri Lanka.

At the beginning TRCSL had to host the project but today almost every service provider has joined hands with TRCSL for the project.

Any society or any community could request to establish telecommunication facilities such as payphone booths for their villages through the TRC, she said.

In 2004 the total number of fixed phones recorded was 991,239 and it was 1,130,923 in September 2005. Out of the total number of fixed phones last year 911,553 were land phones and the balance were wireless local loops.

The total distribution of fixed phones provincial wise in September last year were Western Province 696,397, Southern 89,746, Central 102,895, Sabaragamuwa 52,263, Uva 31,996, North Central 30,947, North Western 69,148, Eastern 39,198 and Northern 18,333.

In June 2005 applicants for fixed phones reported in the waiting list were 325,956.

The total number of mobile subscribers recorded 3,084,845 in the third quarter of 2005 and Internet and email subscribers were recorded at 111,259 (provisional). ]]> http://lirneasia.net/2006/01/trc-allocates-rs-25m-for-enable-project-new-ict-centres-2/feed/ 2 http://lirneasia.net/2004/12/responding-to-the-tsunami/ http://lirneasia.net/2004/12/responding-to-the-tsunami/#comments Tue, 28 Dec 2004 15:24:48 +0000 Rohan Samarajiva http://www.lirneasia.net/?p=245 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 [...]]]>

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