We’re thinking about how we can leverage mobile network big data to help manage infectious diseases. Now the Economist has gotten on the case: Doing the same with Ebola would be hard: in west Africa most people do not own a phone. But CDRs are nevertheless better than simulations based on stale, unreliable statistics. If researchers could track population flows from an area where an outbreak had occurred, they could see where it would be likeliest to break out next—and therefore where they should deploy their limited resources. Yet despite months of talks, and the efforts of the mobile-network operators’ trade association and several smaller UN agencies, telecoms firms have not let researchers use the data (see article).
Our colleague Sunil Abraham had the following to say about Digital India: What do you think of the government’s Digital India plan? The government can use the billions from the Universal Service Obligation fund for broadband connectivity. The markets cannot handle back haul infrastructure and in most countries, some amount of state investment is necessary. Some of the open access details have to be worked out. The government seems to have a monopoly position in execution.
Except for our work on agriculture, most of our activities contribute to the development of the service sector. This is partly because it is the sector that is most dependent on ICT services and because that’s where the investment and growth is, in the countries that we work in. But every so often, industrial policy, or the notion that governments should promote specific industries, including by spending taxpayer money on them, raises its head. I wrote http://www.lankabusinessonline.
I’ve been fascinated with cellar dweller countries for a while. I thought North Korea was the country at the bottom, but then discovered St Helena. So now it appears that St Helena is getting an airport and maybe even a submarine cable? St Helena is a small island heading for big change. One of the most isolated islands in the world, St Helena has been used as a stopover for passing ships on the pre-Suez canal route from Europe to Asia and South Africa and as a place of exile.
In Pakistan, they are asking for fingerprints. In India, Aadhaar: ET has learnt that the security establishment is now veering towards the view that since Unique Identification Authority of India ( UIDAI) claims that it has back-end data of most of Aadhaar recipients in the form of address proof document submitted by them while applying for an UID number, Aadhaar as e-KYC can be extended to provision of SIM cards. “Banks are already accepting Aadhaar as e-KYC for opening new bank accounts. Extending this to SIM cards is a major feature of the PM’s Digital India plan. IB’s concerns are being addressed but the project cannot be derailed,” a senior government official said.
Apparently, the eight percent tax on the gross adjusted revenues of ISPs will not be implemented. Good. TRAI had suggested a uniform licence fee of 8 per cent of the AGR (adjusted gross revenue) for all ISP and ISP-Internet Telephony licences. Government levies licence fee on AGR of telecom firms after deducting some components that are not earned from telecom services. TRAI had earlier also recommended that government levy 8 per cent licence fee from April 1, 2013, but the proposal was deferred then, after questions raised on revenue items that should be considered for calculating the final charges.
In 2005 January I asked my friend, Pete Anderson, to take a risk and come to Sri Lanka to participate in the expert forum we had convened on the 26th of January to develop policy recommendations for effective early warning. At that moment I did not have a budget line to pay out of, but I said I’ll find the money to reimburse him, and I did. That first visit is described in AQ, the Simon Fraser University alumni magazine, along with some photos we took on the trip down the coast with Asantha Sirimanne, one of the journalists who first reported the tragedy: Within days of the 2004 catastrophic tsunami that struck South Asia, killing more than 250,000 people, Anderson travelled to Sri Lanka and paced the broken shorelines in the disaster’s immediate aftermath. There he formed ideas on how to help local communities devise and implement their own emergency communications strategies, eventually collaborating with local organizations to develop the Last Mile Hazard Information Dissemination Project, designed to improve the capabilities of the country when disaster strikes. The pilot project generated a capacity-building experience that is leading to community communications improvements.
Professor Ali Mazrui, originally of Makarere University in East Africa, has passed away. Eulogies are coming out fast and furious, among them this: There is one crucial similarity between prophets on the one hand and public intellectuals on the other. Both seek to define the terms of the debate in an argument. But the terms of a debate cannot be defined alone; this endeavor requires a worthy adversary. It is in this sense that Mazrui and Rodney defined the terms of the debate in the 1960s.
The spread of infectious diseases is affected by the movement of people. We were thinking how this could be tracked using mobile network big data. Others are already doing it. All strength to them. The people of West Africa, and the world, need all the help they can get.
In today’s Financial Express, Sudhir Shah and Payal Malik conclude their assessment of the work of Tirole and Laffont (who would have been a co-recipient had he lived) concludes thus: The institutional context for Tirole’s work is also important. While Tirole and numerous collaborators have built a sophisticated theory to guide regulators and thereby accorded regulators an important institutional space in market economies, subsequent work recognises the institutional and political-economy constraints on regulators. It was pointed out, especially by Laffont, that it is important to recognise that effective regulation is hampered by the weak institutional environment of developing countries, which results in the regulatory contract between governments and firms being incomplete. It is vital that the political system provides a clear objective and mandate to a regulator. The regulator should have the legal basis and the incentives to pursue her mandate.
Abu Saeed Khan, who has been leading our engagement with UN ESCAP on the Asia Pacific Information Superhighway will chair the below described session scheduled for Monday, December 08, 2014, 4:30 PM – 6:00 PM, Hospitality Lounge 5: Many countries around the world lack affordable backhaul and cross-border networks that enable local networks to connect to the wider internet. There is still insufficient competition in some regions to facilitate competitive pricing and to allow for international Internet traffic backhaul. The availability of submarine fibre technology has brought prices down in coastal countries where competitive operators are able to bring this capacity to the market. The challenges can be greater for landlocked countries without co-operative neighbours for access to landing stations and other necessary infrastructure. There are also challenges in linking availablecapacity to internet exchange points (IXPs), either because they do not exist or because authorities impose restrictive regulation in areas such as gateways to international facilities, the use of alternative networks and dark fibre, or competitive backhaul from satellite and submarine-cable landing stations.
Technology, especially measuring and monitoring technology, does not exist in a power vacuum. As we struggle with getting our hands on data and finding the best ways of extracting insights, we should also give some thought to power dynamics. Reading this may get the process started. Life in a smart city is a frictionless; free of traffic congestion, optimally lit, with everything from bins to buildings constantly reporting their status and managing their interactions with residents. The smart slum is still a peripheral idea, but we can speculate on the likely impact of extending this ‘smartness’ to slums and make two competing claims.
The Hindu Businessline, a newspaper with sophisticated business coverage especially on ICT issues, has introduced our big data work to its readers. Can telecom networks be used for better urban planning? Colombo-based ICT think tank, LIRNEasia, has completed a project which used data from telecom networks in Sri Lanka to generate patterns related to population movement that showed concentration of people in a city at any given time of the day. LIRNEasia used data generated from mobile usage to create heatmaps that showed for example, how Colombo city acts as a sink, sucking people out of the surrounding suburbs during work times and North Colombo, which is the poorest part of the city, is integrally connected to the southern part of the city, providing labour to the rest of the city. Full report.
Bhutan built an IT Park in a nice location between the principal city and the airport. The promise of those who put this project, funded by the World Bank, was that Bhutan would attract foreign BPO firms to Thimphu to create white-collar jobs for young people. In turn, it is possible that they had received assurances from several large IT & ITES firms in India that they would set up operations in Thimphu. Anyway, the agreements were signed and the IT Park built. But no one came [Correction: Not as many as expected came; there are two companies at the IT Park].
We’ve been thinking about how to promote mobile innovation for some time. Many governments are also grappling with this issue. What Ooredoo is doing in Myanmar is worth the attention of all in this space. They are picking innovators from large competitions and giving them expert help. What is truly unusual is that they will not take the equity stake they are entitled to take, unless the new company grows to USD 1 million.
That’s the first page of the new international call charges announced by Telenor Myanmar. Compared to the dollar a minute (900 Kyat) charged by MPT prior to the entry of competitors, this is very good. The last time we collated international voice prices was in early 2012. But even in relation to that ancient table, one can see that the currently announced prices can come down further. The single most important factor affecting international call prices is competition in the market for international calls.