Helani Galpaya, CEO of LIRNEasia spoke at the Workshop2014 on ‘Net Neutrality, Zero Rating and development: what’s the data?’ I think local has been a problem and is a fundamental problem in Asia, emerging Asia, irrespective of zero rated content. People on Facebook — for network effects, because it has cool stuff and your friend, and I think the solution to that is to have ‑‑ if you want local content, you need to produce more local content. You need more local content giving apps and irrespective of zero‑rated content, there are no killer apps. There aren’t that many killer apps that are relevant in these countries.
The impact of cloud computing and M2M communication at the emerging economies was discussed at the ninth Internet Governance forum, that was held in Turkey, this September. Rohan Samarajiva, the founding chair of LIRNEasia spoke at the Workshop03:Cloud Computing & M2M: Impacts for Emerging Economies. Here is the youtube clip for the workshop 03. Go to 21:51 for Rohan’s take on the topic You can also find the transcription here
WS208: Net Neutrality, Zero-Rating & Development: What’s the Data? – Wednesday, September 3 • 9:00am – 10:30am Link to Workshop page A roundtable to explore the arguments for and against “zero-rating,” which refers to the practice of offering free access to certain popular online services for customers of particular mobile networks. Several major service providers have entered into arrangements with mobile network operators in a variety of countries to deliver low-data-usage, “zero-rated” versions of their services. In some cases, this means using those sites does not count against a subscriber’s data caps, while in other arrangements, users can access the service even if they do not have a data plan LIRNEasia will be represented by Helani Galpaya. She will bring data points LIRNEasia‘s surveys which show that at times users who claim not to use the internet are still claiming to use Facebook.
2014 Common Alerting Protocol Implementation Workshop kicked off yesterday (17 June 2014) at the Jetwing Beach Hotel,Negombo, Sri Lanka. Mrs S.M. Mohamed,the Secretary to the Ministry of Disaster Management participated in the inauguration of the 2014 CAP Implementation Workshop. Ms Megan Foster, Charge d’affaires of High Commission of Canada, Mr Lalith Chandrapala, the Director General, Department of Meteorology, Mr.
Would the prepaid model used for mobile phones services, do well in electricity? Will it benefit the poor? How will it benefit? Would it benefit CEB and LECO? Rohan Samarajiva is giving insight and answers to all these questions in these articles here (in English) and here (Sinhala) Every month CEB and LECO produce and distribute close to five million paper bills.
LIRNEasia Research Manager Roshanthi Lucas Gunaratne presented the National Broadband Initiatives of India, Malaysia and Indonesia during the International Broadband Round table session at the CPR LATAM (http://www.cprlatam.org/) in Bogota on 30th May 2014. The purpose of this conference was to bring together scholars, members from the private sector and regulators to learn from the studies and experiences that all of them have encountered as they work in the field of ICT policy in the Latin American Region. Other National Broadband Initiatives presented during the International Broadband Roundtable were Australia and New Zealand (Fernando Beltran – University of New Zealand), South Africa (Alison Gillwald – Research ICT Africa), Mexico (Judith Mariscal – CIDE, Mexico) and Argentina and Brazil (Hernán Galperin – Universidad de San Andrés, Argentina).
The Alliance for Affordable Internet (AA4I) launched their Affordability Report to showcase their newly developed Affordability Index. LIRNEasia’s CEO Helani Galpaya was invited by AA4I to participate in a panel at the launch of the report at the ICTD conference that took place in Cape Town, South Africa in December 2013. Composite indices that compare and rank countries have value because they get the attention of policy makers and regulators – those at the bottom of the table are indignant (and are hopefully moved to improve matters on the ground so they do better next year) and those at the top use it for publicity. In both cases, it is a good way for research organizations or others to start a meaningful dialog with a government or a regulatory agency, to start identifying what actions are needed for the country to perform better (and rise up in the ranking) in the future. The value of these indices increases when they cover a large number of countries.
Last week LIRNEasia, its staff, members and members of its scientific advisory council banded together to collect USD 1250 towards the relief efforts in the Philippines. The money was channeled towards a charity that provides medical aid to the victims of the super typhoon Haiyan. Haiyan is estimated have taken the lives of over 5000 people in the Philippines, and impact the lives of millions more.
It appears users of Kangaroo cabs don’t need to worry about having enough cash in their wallets. At least, with a credit card they don’t need to worry about cash. Starting this month, users are able to pay taxi-fare using a credit card. The taxi driver will swipe the passenger’s credit card on a small gadget attached to his smart phone, the payment receipt will be sent as an SMS to the user’s phone (the person who is making the transaction will have to give the mobile number to the driver). The device is called MoMo.
Young scholars from Africa and Asia attended the tutorials that was held at the Infosys Campus, Mysore India. The group consisted of entry level regulatory officers, officers from private sector, students and researchers. They represented 16 countries from the south. The tutorials were taught by Rohan Samarajiva, PhD on the use of supply side data, evidence in the policy process and communicating research, Christopher Stork, PhD on demand side research and conducting a literature review, Marcio Aranha on legal analysis, Ang Peng Hwa, PhD on research on internet governance and Sujata Gamage, PhD on writing a policy brief. The tutorials presentations can be accessed here.
It was not long ago, that we thought the Myanmar would remain asleep whilst the rest of the world (save maybe North Korea) reaped the rewards of a vibrant telecommunications sector. Even a few short years ago, the only phone connectivity was through kiosks such the one depicted in the photo, a mobile SIM could cost upwards of a few thousand dollars. But things are changing. Myanmar is opening up. Two mobile operators have been licensed.
LIRNEasia and WSO2 are jointly looking for a software programmer with skills in statistical analysis. The position can be full or part-time till September 2014 with potential extensions. Requirements Responsibilities The selected candidate would work with Big Data technologies such as MapReduce as well as with statistical methods using real world Big Data whilst conducting cutting edge research. Specific responsibilities include: Provide technical support in collecting, cleaning, organizing, managing and analyzing data Assist with the large-scale analysis using Big Data tools such as T-Cube (http://tcube.autonlab.
LIRNEasia has always been vocal on Mobile Payment/Mobile money. Under the research theme Mobile 2.0 we looked at both horizontal (Telco and regulations) and vertical (m-payments) aspects of mobile money. In 2009 facilitated by LINREasia, LIRNEasia‘s then Senior Policy Fellow Muhammad Aslam Hayat, wrote on the possibilities of having mobile money in Sri Lanka. Dialog, after many years of negotiations with the regulators, implemented ez Cash in June 2012.
First they had a uniform tariff for roaming. And now they announced to get rid of roaming charges altogether. Roaming fees for voice calls, texts and internet access will be a thing of the past across Europe from 2014, after European politicians voted to fast-track reforms of the European telecoms market. The European Commission — a group of 27 politicians who represent the best interests of Europe as a whole, rather than individual countries, voted in Brussels to push the reforms through before the next European elections, which will happen in May 2014. The resulting legislation will come into force on 1 July 2014.
CPRsouth is LIRNEasia‘s capacity and field-building program to develop an Asia-Pacific knowledge network on ICT policy regulation. Through the annual conference CPRsouth provides a forum for policy-engaged scholars to meet face-to-face to exchange ideas, network and improve the quality of their scholarly work. See below for more details of the conference. CPRsouth8/ CPRafrica 2013 Innovation & Entrepreneurship in ICT: Changing Asia / Africa 5-7 September 2013, Mysore, India Organized by LIRNEasia, Research ICT Africa, and the Indian Institute of Technology Madras and Supported by the International Development Research Centre, Canada (IDRC) and the Department for International Development, UK (DFID) Communication Policy Research: south (CPRsouth) intends to build human capacity in the South by reinforcing and developing the knowledge, skills, and commitment of ICT policy and regulation scholars in the region or with substantial interest in the region. The overall objective is to create policy intellectuals capable of informed and effective intervention in ICT policy and regulatory processes in specific country contexts.