Last year, Helani Galpaya (CEO, LIRNEasia) made recommendations on improving The Alliance for Affordable Internet (AA4I)‘s Affordability Index. This year, on behalf of Helani, I attended the Affordability Index workshop in Cape Town. While the primary objective was to review the 2014 draft report, the working group members present at the workshop also voiced many concerns that are being considered by the A4AI. It is good to note that some of Helani’s comments from last year have been addressed.
- The fact that the objective data from organisations like the ITU are not timely has been acknowledged and the working group has been provided with a comprehensive list of indicators (with sources) used in the Index.
- The biases of the country expert has been, to some extent, managed by introducing 2-3 independent country experts representing the private sector, pubic sector and civil society. The number of questions have also been reduced (and are more focused) with guidelines and two rounds of peer reviews conducted.
However, the affordability index still lacks an ‘affordability’ angle. Therefore, at the workshop it was suggested that the objective indicators of affordability are separated with all the other subjective data on policies and regulations as possible enabling factors that may contribute to affordability by bringing prices down, for instance.
From an affordability angle, price and Quality of Service (QoS) go hand-in-hand. Users may have access to cheap Internet but if the quality is so poor it makes the service unusable, then there really isn’t a point in recognizing the affordability of the service. Acknowledging the importance of QoS, LIRNEasia strongly recommended the A4AI incorporate a quality angle in to the Index.
It was also recommended, with examples, that the report does not impose “good policy practices” as what works in one country may not work in another.
A number of structural and methodological changes were suggested. We are hopeful that the A4AI will incorporate these changes before releasing the next report.
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