With two MIT alumni on staff, LIRNEasia keeps an ear out for the good things happening at this premier engineering school. They have just announced the creation of a new Institute for Data, Systems and Society, intended to bring together researchers working in the mathematical, behavioral, and empirical sciences to capitalize on their shared interest in tackling complex societal problems. Our colleagues at Yuan Ze University in Taiwan have already established a big data center. We’ve tried to get this process started in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh too. Hopefully, the MIT move will energize these conversations which are proceeding with due deliberation.
The research was done in Sri Lanka, but it was first reported on in India, then in Bangladesh and now the Sri Lankan English-language Sunday newspaper with the largest circulation has chosen to reprint what Nalaka Gunawardene wrote for SciDev. Now we need to work on Pakistan and Nepal. City planners need to know where people live and congregate, when and how they move, their economic conditions, where they spend their money, and about their social networks. Currently the best big data source for these variables involves mobile phones – ubiquitous device used by the rich and poor alike. Mobile network big data (MNBD) is produced by all phones, smart and otherwise, and include call detail records (CDRs) generated when calls and texts are sent or received, web is accessed, and prepaid values are loaded.
In the early years of TRAI, the Authority had to defend itself against strictures from India’s Comptroller and Auditor General that it was not maximizing revenues to the government, connectivity be damned (relevant to present day debates on spectrum prices). I had to convince Sri Lanka’s Auditor General that we should pay replacement costs to those who vacated frequencies, not depreciated costs. They perform a valuable function, but they do not always inhabit the same universe as the reformer. This is additionally supported by the Kenyan AG wanting a nationwide fiber network to start covering operational costs in its first years. I do not know the details, but not it would be good if the Kenyan AG engages in conversation with infrastructure experts to see what a reasonable time frame would be.
Every day is not baby’s day at the office, but at LIRNEasia, it certainly can be. The formal commissioning of the “Multipurpose Room” occurred yesterday, amid elevated decibels of squeals and laughter from an enthused group of children, ranging in age from one to six. For those in our staff with young children, this child-friendly room is a much welcome addition to the LIRNEasia landscape, as it allows one to keep an eye on their off spring while continuing to work. Yesterday was a riot, where precious little was done in the form of work while the little ones were here. However, on other days that they have taken turns to visit the office, work progressed as usual.
Sri Lanka has pretty good indicators, compared to many countries we work in. So if the UN is thinking of conventional indicators there’s not much to do. But if the intention is to bring in big data . . .
The Open University of Sri Lanka invited me to deliver the sixth in a series of distinguished lectures on the 10th of April 2015. Looking through the titles of the previous lectures, I saw that the common theme is the university and higher learning. Therefore, I proposed “Making the university relevant” as the topic and described the content as follows: In an increasingly complex world where difficult decisions have to be made by those in government, there is demand for evidence to support political and policy choices. The university is the default source where one looks for evidence or for those who can generate evidence. But on most occasions, scholars and policy makers do not connect.

Spectrum debate joined in India

Posted on April 3, 2015  /  0 Comments

LIRNEasia’s Senior Research Fellow Payal Malik has fired a major volley in India’s spectrum debate aimed at former Minister Kapil Sibal. There is interesting discussion on her Facebook page. A competitive spectrum auction process facilitates the assigning of licences to the most efficient producers, aiding efficient aggregation of spectrum, and ensures efficient allocation of spectrum into services consumers value the most, thereby expanding the supply and reducing the prices of the wireless services most valued by consumers. Simply put, if tariffs didn’t go up in 2010 after the 3G auctions and in 2014 after the 2G auctions (which raised $14.5 billion and $10 billion, respectively) despite India having the cheapest data packages in any of the emerging economies, they should not go up now.
The Indian government has finally renamed its National Optic Fiber Network (NOFN) project as BharatNet. This belated re-branding is a good move, since the acronym was susceptible to distortion – “No fiber network.” Nevertheless, BharatNet aims to connect 250,000 villages and small towns (Gram Panchayats) via 600,000km of optical fiber network to provide broadband. Prime Minister Mr. Modi has formed a committee to “analyze the structure” of this INR720.
One does not expect a simple assignment in a course to yield a news story that is distributed by a news service, but that is what happened at the broadband course we taught 28-31 March in Nagarkot, Nepal. The assignment required the team members to, inter alia, Assess the likelihood of success of the following elements of the Broadband Policy Draft of the NTA, by assembling evidence on the past performance of the Rural Telecommunications Development Fund (RTDF) (including disbursement efficiency (i.e., what percentage of money was spent within a defined time period) The extraordinarily low disbursement rate caught everyone’s attention. Given the presence of journalists in the course, it was not surprising that it made the news too: The government has spent only 2.
Lokanathan, S & Gunaratne, R. L.
Last year, I was in Dili, Timor Leste, listening to an event on big data that was partially sponsored by SciDev, a respected science communication organization. My recollection is that the speakers were talking about work done by others based on reports. So we were happy to have our research featured in an article in SciDev. The author, Nalaka Gunawardene, attended our presentation at the Sri Lanka Institute of Engineers in January and made further efforts to understand what we were doing. MNBD allows tracking and mapping of daily changes in population densities relative to midnight (‘home location’).
Last week in Bangkok (23-26th March, 2015), at the invitation of the UN Development Group (UNDG) Asia-Pacific Secretariat, I had the opportunity to brief country heads and senior staff of UN agencies as well as from the Resident Coordinator’s office on how to leverage big data, for the data revolution needed to measure the progress in achieving the forthcoming Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The event was the Lessons Learnt Workshop for Countries Designing UN Strategic Development Frameworks (UNDAF) in 2015. 13 countries were represented: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, DPRK, Indonesia, Iran, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Mongolia, Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Thailand, and Vietnam. The key point that I left with them was that National Statistical Organizations (NSOs) in developing economies are not yet set up to be the key champion for leveraging big data for development, let alone to certify standards. The UN’s role in my opinion was: to inform and catalyze the in-country discussions with examples from other countries.
LIRNEasia research fellow and board member of the Internet Society PH chapter, Grace Mirandilla-Santos participated in a roundtable discussion on the “Right to Access the Internet: Upholding a Human Right” organized by Democracy.net.ph (Philippines) and the Digital Empowerment Foundation (India). Her talk mentioned LIRNEasia’s broadband QoSE study and how its results have been used to inform policymaking and regulation in PH. This was in the context of telcos providing internet access but at what cost and level of quality (value for money).
We’ve been excited for some time about the energy and enthusiasm in the start-up space in Myanmar for some time. But it is still great to see the country and its young people gain the attention of the Economist. Still, a few firms have begun to blossom since its ruling generals began opening up the economy in 2011. Back then, less than 1% of Burmese people could access the internet. But with wireless towers now popping up across the country, the government thinks 80% of citizens may have a mobile phone with a data connection by 2016.
The 4-day residential course on ‘How to Engage in Broadband Policy and Regulatory Processes’ is currently held in Nagarkot, Nepal (28th – 31st March 2015). The slide sets of the sessions and reading materials of the event could be accessed through this link.
Much of our work on infrastructure policy and regulation deals with safeguards for investment. Uncertainty around investments is reduced when international arbitration is permitted. With many governments from the developed-market economies, the US government has been a strong supporter of international arbitration. But when it looks like these safeguards apply to their own country, they are unhappy. “This is really troubling,” said Senator Charles E.