According the LIRNEasia’s 2011 Telecom Regulatory Environment (TRE) survey, stakeholders in India, Pakistan and Indonesia have identified the telecom regulatory environments in their countries as improved since 2008, the last time the survey was carried out. In contrast, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Philippines have seen the regulatory environments decline in effectiveness, while Thailandremains more-or-less the same. The TRE Survey asks senior level stakeholders to evaluate the effectiveness of the telecom regulatory environment in the fixed, mobile and broadband subsectors along a Lickert scale of 1 to 5 (1 being highly ineffective and 5 being highly effective, with the mid-point of 3 being considered average performance). Seven different dimensions of regulation (market entry, tariff regulation, interconnection, universal service, anti-competitive-practices, quality of service) are evaluated by the stakeholders. This year, 349 responded participated in the 7 countries.
Tahani Iqbal presented on Mobile Number Portability in South Asia at the recently concluded ACORN-REDECOM Conference 2011, in Lima, Peru. The presentation was made during the Mobile Policies and Pricing session on Day 1, and was followed by a presentation by Alison Gilwalld (of RIA,, LIRNEasia’s sister network in Africa). The conference aimed to bring together scholars and members from the private sector and regulators to learn from the studies and experiences that they encounter as they work in the field of ICT policy. The event was held from May 19-20, 2011, and was organized by Instituto del Perú.
Recently, DIRSI, our sister research network in Latin America, conducted a one day workshop on The Role of the State in Broadband Development. Helani Galpaya, COO of LIRNEasia made a presentation about the Asian experience, highlighting case studies from Hong Kong and Korea. The workshop was aimed at developing the capacity young scholars from research institutions and younger employees of regulatory agencies in the Latin American region. Alison Gilwalld (of RIA, our sister network in Africa) also made a presentation. The workshop preceded the annual ACORN-REDECOM conference.
The Budget 2011-2012: Towards Digital Bangladesh round table discussion was held on May 21, 2011. It was organized by the Bangladesh ICT Journalists Forum (BIJF) and it was attended by ICT experts, operators, academicians, activists, and journalists. Honorable State Minister of Science and ICT, Architect Yeafesh Osman was the chief guest. The speakers reflected on the successes and failures of the last two budgets from the ICT industry perspectives. Moreover, specific suggestions were made for the upcoming budget from Internet Service Providers’ Associations and Software Developers.
The regulators from both Malaysia and Singapore announced the price reduction in international roaming this week. The reduction is done for both pre-paid and post-paid roamers in two stages. Stage one will in effective from 01 May 2011, 20 percent reduction for voice calls and 30 percent for SMS. The tariff reduction will be 30 percent for voice calls and 50 percent for SMS (based on current prices) by 01 May 2012 (price reduction). For more information click here
You meet new people. You add them in facebook. You chat with them, tag them in pictures, comment on their status updates and share information. Some of us even have our twitter account in our business card. So people may follow you and you may follow anyone whom you think is interesting and/or is informative.
Last week FCC started to investigate the thumping roaming bills. Yesterday Igor Artemyev, head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service, Russia said that there will be “significantly lower tariffs” for roaming in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States. Russia’s three biggest mobile operators, OAO Mobile TeleSystems (MBT), VimpelCom Ltd. (VIP) and Megafon, confirmed Wednesday that they have lowered mobile roaming tariffs in Russia and the CIS by up to 70%, ahead of the results of an inquiry into the high tariffs. The mobile operators will “significantly lower tariffs” for roaming in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States no later than Dec.
Internet brings people closer, gives more opportunities and it is a sea, with different kinds of fish. Indi Samarajiva wrote in The Sunday Leader, about few Sri Lankans making a living, without actually going to a conventional office. But simply login in to internet to use Twitter, Skype, Virtual Private Networks (VPN) and so on and make a living, as well as LIVE it. Indi introduces Fahim Farook, Navin Weeraratne and Monalee Suranimala, as tech savvy fishermen in this different kind of sea. All of these characters launch their metaphorical boats from the island of Sri Lanka, off the southern coast of India, recently emerged from years of war but blessed with many English speaking, IT literate people, functional Internet infrastructure and a low cost of living.
Federal Communications Commission decided to step in and investigate on “Shocking bills” received by mobile customers in USA. FCC is looking into whether the mobile operators must do a better job by alerting the customers when they are roaming in foreign networks. Kerfye Pierre’s thanks for helping out victims of Haiti’s earthquake? A $35,000 bill from T-Mobile. Pierre tells CNN that she racked up about $35,000 while texting family and friends from Haiti with the news that she had just survived the devastating earthquake.
The public lecture entitled, ‘From euphoria to pragmatism: The experience and the potentials of eHealth in Asia’ was held at The Sri Lanka Medical Association on 14 September 2010. The lecture was on eHealth, which is being adapted widely, from primary to tertiary healthcare in many countries.. Especially, using more appropriate and relevant technologies, such as mobile technologies in tele-health and health informatics. Dr.
We live in an age of hazards. The climate change will make it worse. Be prepared or perish seems to be the nature’s message. At the inaugural public lecture of LIRNEasia’s annual Disaster Risk Reduction events, we will discuss how best to face the future threats and what the communities, government and private sector can do. PRESENTATION Vinya Ariyaratne is General Secretary of the Lanka Jatika Sarvodaya Shramadana Sangamaya.
Fifteen Young Scholars from the Asia-Pacific region will be selected to participate in the tutorials taught by recognized scholars and practitioners scheduled to be held before CPRsouth5 (4-5 December 2010). Who qualifies? Entry level officers of government/regulatory agencies Entry/mid- level officers of private companies in the communication industries Masters/PhD students in Economics, Public policy, Communications and Journalism disciplines Entry/mid- level officers working in NGOs/INGOs. Researchers from think tanks and policy institutes Journalists interested in regulation and public policy. With am emphasis in communication.
LIRNEasia regularly surveys SEC group D and E (the bottom of the pyramid) teleuse in emerging Asian countries. In the study it was found that less than one percent of the Sri Lankan BOP phone users who are aware of mobile 2.0 services regularly use it. Highlighting this fact we ran an advertisement in the Daily Mirror today. The advertisement’s objective was to show what the policy makers and regulators can do and thereby what the service providers could do to boost up Mobile 2.
The Colloquim was conducted by Nuwan Waidyanatha from China while Chamindu Sampath projected the slides at LIRNEasia. Introduction to research The project is taking place in Kurunagala and Tamil Nadu. In 24 health sub centres and 4 public Helath Centres in Tamil Nadu and in Sri Lanka in 12 Hostpitals Disease infomation The system architecture Determinants of Morbidity in India Determinants of notifiable diseases in Sri Lanka RTBP Communication Technology mHealthSurvey mobile application T-Cube Web Interface Sahana Messaging/Alerting Module mhealthSurvey Shortcomings Certification exercises Signal to Noise Ratio Real-Time vs Off-time Semantics and syntax Cost benefits Objective of the Research The basic objective was to see if we can collect data and detect and report the outbreaks. Specific Objectives: Evaluating the effectiveness of the m-Health RTBP for detecting and reporting outbreaks Evaluating the benefits and efficiencies of communicating disease information Contribution of community organization and gender participation Develop a Toolkit for assessing m-Health RTBPs The Data collection is done by Health workers and goes through the mHealthSurvey mobile phone software to the Epidemiologist for spatial and temporal analysis done using T-Cube Web Interface before going to the Sahana Alerting Module Interface and then agian to the health workers. A sequence analysis of the functions […]
LIRNEasia will be releasing the beta version of the Mobile AT Tester software on 13 February 2010. All bloggers (Sinhala/Tamil/English) are welcome to participate the event. The soft launched is at Renuka City hotel and will commence from 9:30 am to 12.00 noon followed by lunch. For further informaton please click here.
Little ones with Anthuriums in their hands greet us. Mederigama near Mawanella (about 1-2 km off Kandy road) is a tiny hamlet where LIRNEasia’s International Advisory Board members would directly interact with the Sri Lankan rural life. Sarvodaya has been present in this village for so long that nobody is sure when things started. We learn about multiple programs which had their own beginnings. Right now the core is a ‘bank’ that provides micro finance services, a pre-school and a small library.