South Africa Connect, an initiative of Research ICT Africa! (LIRNEasia’s sister organization), The EDGE Institute and the Shuttleworth Foundation to stimulate debate on ICT policy and regulation in South Africa, is organizing its first public seminar entitled, ‘The Growth of Next Generation Networks – From Hype to Reality?’, on 26 November 2008, in Sandown, South Africa. Presented by Jon Horrocks, an independent consultant to ICASA, the presentation will cover the objectives and growth of next generation networks, from hype to reality, and the growing competition between the traditional telco model and the Internet, and in particular the issues for introducing new services. More information can be found at the South Africa Connect Blog online at: www.
LIRNEasia’s Nuwan Waidyanatha will be making a presentation on ‘Common Alerting Protocol (CAP)’ at the ‘ITU Asia-Pacific Centres of Excellence Training/Workshop on Effective Use of Telecommunications/ICTs in Response to Disasters: Saving Lives, to be held on 24-28 November, 2008, in Kedah, Malaysia. The Training Workshop will focus on concepts and hands-on training on various technologies and applications that are suitable for deployment and aimed at facilitating rescue and relief operations in emergencies, especially in the aftermath of a disaster. The stated aims of the workshop are to: create awareness and demonstrate telecommunication technology options, facilities and services applicable for use in response to disasters or emergencies especially in disaster relief operations; provide practical experience to participants in using the telecommunication/ICT facilities and services during these operations; strengthen partnerships in disaster relief among international agencies/organizations, NGOs, industry, and governments as well as encourage roles of public sector or NGOs identify issues and challenges in countries in order to find ways to overcome them. This workshop is organized jointly by the Telecommunication Development Bureau of the ITU, Universiti Utara Malaysia (ITU CoE ASP UUM), the Ministry of Energy, Water and Communications (MEWC), Malaysia and sponsored by the Department of Broadband, Communications and the […]
A conference entitled, ‘Infrastructure Regulation: What works, Why, and How do we know?’, is being organized by LIRNEasia, together with the Institute of Water Policy, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, Singapore and the University of Hong Kong, to be held from 26 – 27 February, 2009, at the University of Hong Kong. Sponsored by the IDRC, Canada, the conference will bring together distinguished scholars and practitioners who are experts in the area to address essential issues in regulations through conceptual and empirical studies. The conference will address the following questions: Does regulation work? What kind of regulation works?
A review of LIRNEasia’s maiden book entitled, ‘ICT Infrastructure in Emerging Asia: Policy and Regulatory Roadblocks’, edited by Rohan Samarajiva and Ayesha Zainudeen, appears in the Asian Economic Bulletin (August 2008), published by the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore. “…not withstanding the technical language, the question the book poses and the arguments it puts forward will be of interest not just to telecoms policymakers, regulators and policymakers, but also a wider readership that is interested in the policy-making process, the effects of technology, and the roles of institutions in shaping outcomes…this makes for an interesting reading, as it is not often that policymakers are given this type of “fresh” data.” The full article can be purchased here.
Rohan Samarajiva will make a presentation entitled, ‘Small Screen, Big Scream: How much has the mobile really delivered, how much more to come?’ at the International Institute of Communications Annual Conference to be held from 3-4 November 2008, in Hong Kong. The event is co-hosted by the Broadcasting Authority and the Office of the Telecommunications Authority, Hong Kong. Themed, ‘Trends in Global Communications: Capturing the High Ground in an Uncertain World’, the conference seeks to examine the impact of current trends and twists in the telecom market, against the backdrop of developing regulatory policy and the inevitably huge demands of infrastructure investments. Some of the questions the conference hopes to address are: What new scenarios will tomorrow’s broadband, internet, mobile and media markets present for business, government, regulators and consumers?
An article written by Rohan Samarajiva on Bangladesh’s proposed universal service taxes has been published in The Daily Star, Bangladesh; an excerpt follows. Bangladesh currently has the lowest mobile prices in the world and perhaps the world’s highest mobile growth rate. Pretty good, by any measure. A universal service tax can ruin the business model that has given millions of Bangladesh citizens the opportunity to get connected to an electronic network for the first time and to use telecom services at affordable prices. Instead of solving a problem, it will create one.
An article entitled, ‘Teleuse at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Beyond Universal Access’, co-authored by Harsha de Silva and Ayesha Zainudeen, has been published in Telektronikk, a leading telecommunications journal, published by Telenor, Norway. Appearing in the journal’s second issue for 2008, aptly titled, ‘Emerging Markets in Telecommunications’, the article explores the extent to which “universal access” to telecommunications has been achieved in Asia, based on findings from LIRNEasia’s five-country study of the use of telecommunication services at the ‘Bottom of the Pyramid’, namely in India, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Very high levels of access, but low levels of ownership are found. The paper then looks at the potential benefits that these non-owner users are missing out on, and then goes on to look at the key barriers to ownership that are faced by them. The paper estimates that there could be close to 150 million new subscribers at the BOP in these five countries by mid-2008.
Large corporations engage in acts of Corporate Social Responsibility. Non-profit organizations like ours sometimes engage in acts of Social Corporate Responsibility. SCR differs from CSR because the beneficiary here is a corporation. We recognize that large corporations can affect the course of events in countries and in some cases, the world. Therefore, when a large corporation with massive resources asked us to help educate their senior managers (especially those in charge of CSR) about key issues in telecom, we agreed.
LIRNEasia’s Chanuka Wattegama will make the main presentation at a live webcast of a workshop on Disaster Risk Management in the Information Age, to be held from 8 – 9 October, 2008, 9 – 12 p.m. (ET), accessible at the following link: http://www.worldbank.org/edevelopment/live Co-organizers of the event include the World Bank’s Global Information Communication and Technology Department, infoDev and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR).
Natasha Udu-gama has been invited to represent LIRNEasia at the Second International United Nations Platform for Space-based Information for Disaster Management and Emergency Response (UN-SPIDER) Bonn Workshop: “Disaster Management and Space Technology – Bridging the Gap” in Bonn, Germany, from the 13th to 15th October 2008. Natasha will make a presentation on, ‘Last Mile Hazard Information Dissemination’ at a session entitled, ‘Contribution of space-based technologies to existing and proposed Early Warning Systems’. This session will examine how public-private partnerships (PPP) centered on space-based technologies can enable the development, establishment and embedding of early warning systems. The event is organized by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), with the aim of providing a platform for brainstorming and in-depth discussion among decision-makers and experts from both the space technology and disaster management communities, academia and private companies. The UN-SPIDER was established as a programme of the UNOOSA, with the aim of providing universal access to all countries and relevant international and regional organizations to space-based information and services relevant to disaster management.
LIRNEasia’s sister organization, The Center for Communication, Media and Information Technologies (CMI), of the Copenhagen Institute of Technology (CIT), Aalborg University, Denmark, will host its First International Conference on Converging Mobile Media on 28 November 2008. Previous conferences have been held by the Center for Information and Communication Technologies (CICT), and the 2008 conference marks the start of a new research center at CIT of Aalborg University with an increased focus on the convergence of communication, media and information technologies and on new media opportunities. Mobile Media includes all kinds of new media on mobile devices, e.g. mobile internet and mobile television.
Rohan Samarajiva has been invited to speak at the 2008 Telecoms World South Asia Conference, to be held in Dhaka, Bangladesh from 7 – 9 October. This event, designed for South Asia’s top telecommunication players interested in building and managing a business-focused telecommunciations organization, is intended to provide an important platform for information exchange through dialogue between serious players in the region. The event will feature keynotes, thought-leadership presentations, interactive discussion panels and real-world case studies on ‘hot topics’ pertinent to the South Asian industry. Rohan will make a presentation entitled, ‘Introducing broadband: investment conditions, regulatory challenges and addressing QoS’ at a session entitled, ‘Exploiting technologies for future growth and development’. Rohan will also be among panelists at a discussion on ‘Leveraging on next generation technologies to extend the service offering’.
The Aspen Institute has published a report entitled, ‘m-Powering India: Mobile Communications for Inclusive Growth’ co-authored by Mahesh Uppal and Richard P. Adler, which documents the discussions from the Aspen Institute India/ C & S Joint Roundtable on Communication Policy held in Kovalam, India in February, 2008. LIRNEasia’s Executive Director, Rohan Samarajiva, participated at the event, which brought together senior representatives from the telecommunications industry, government and academia. The objective of the meeting was to develop policy proposals that would contribute to the development of low-cost and high-quality telecom infrastructure needed to facilitate seamless transactions of mobile commerce. A summary of the main recommendation (as documented in the report) is given below.
This colloquium was led by Dilani Hirimuthugodage and Indika Siriwardena from the Institute of Policy Studies, Sri Lanka. Milestones in the telecom regulatory landscape between 1980 and2006: Bifurcation of post and telecommunication in 1980 Corporatization of the incumbent in 1991 Issued licences for two WLL operators (Suntel and Lanka Bell) Partial privatization of the incumbent in 1997 Incumbent’s monopoly on international telephony ended in 2003 CDMA licences were issued in 2005 1st commercial 3G mobile licence issued in 2006 One of the more significant changes during 2006-07 was the introduction of the tax: a 10% tax on call charges was introduced instead of 2.5% and 50 rupee fixed monthly tax removed. At present, Sri Lanka has 4 fixed access telephone operators, 5 cellular mobile operators, 6 data communications (facility – based) and 19 data communications (non-facility based) and ISPs. Findings ‘Quality of service’ shows higher scores in fixed, mobile and broadband sectors.
Lakbima News, 10 August 2008: An article published in the Lakbima News documents an interview held with Prof. Rohan Samarajiva on the proposed mobile phone taxes in Sri Lanka: “Economic incentives are used to help the environment. The objective of such measures is not to make money – the sole objective should be to prevent people from doing things harmful to the environment. But if we take the two per cent envy levy on mobiles – for this to qualify as an incentive, it should modify certain behaviour…the behaviour that is modified is the use of mobile phones.”
(Opening Panel, from left: Hernan Galperin (DIRSI, speaking); Bill Melody, Rohan Samarajiva (LIRNEasia), Alison Gillwald (RIA!), Anders Henten (LIRNE European network) and Amy Mahan (Comunica/LIRNE coordination)) It is not that we had never met, but this was a sustained full-day engagement. The last time all the LIRNE.NET entities and their primary funder IDRC were in the same room, it was amidst the cacophony of WSIS in Tunis in November 2005. People talked but listening was not always possible.