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.
Advocates of Internet’s freedom have overwhelmingly supported the U.S. government before WCIT 2012 in Dubai. Thereafter one obscure Mr. Snowden has narrowed, if not collapsed, the floodgate of support for America’s doctrine of Internet.
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 ITU’s top officials get elected in a quadrennial event and the current one commences on October 20 at Busan. More than 3,000 government officials and 600,000 attendees from 193 countries are expected to visit. South Korean government is, however, worried about more than 170 delegates, including 107 Nigerians, from West Africa – the epicenter of Ebola outbreak. Seoul has, therefore, “politely” asked Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia not to participate in the ITU’s PP-14, said Wall Street Journal. ITU’s outgoing secretary-general Hamadoun Toure, who also hails from West Africa’s Mali, supports South Korea’s embargo.
The recently released report on the State of Broadband 2014 declares specific targets; Advocacy Target 1: Making broadband policy universal – by 2015, all countries should have a national broadband plan or strategy or include broadband in UAS Definitions Advocacy Target 2: Making broadband affordable – by 2015, entry-level broadband services should be made affordable in developing countries through adequate regulation and market forces Advocacy Target 3: Connecting homes to broadband – by 2015, 40% of households in developing countries should have Internet access Advocacy Target 4: Getting people online – by 2015, Internet user penetration should reach 60% worldwide, 50% in developing countries and 15% in LDCs Advocacy Target 5: Achieving gender equality in access to broadband by 2020 How realistic are these targets? I was once told (by a member of the team responsible for setting such targets) that they are not meant to be realistic. The idea being that once declared people will strive to achieve and that will ensure achievement beyond their previous trajectory. The definition of broadband was something I was looking for; however, it seems the ITU and OECD definition by speed (a minimum of 256 Kbps) has not changed. Although, “the Broadband Commission for Digital Development has defined […]
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.
The Ministry of Information Technology (MoIT) of Pakistan circulated the initial draft Telecom Policy 2014 for comments in October this year. The policy addresses all aspects relating to the telecom sector and has progressive suggestions sans sufficient detail. As a result, specific comments could not be made. However, LIRNEasia has provided recommendations based on past research, specifically on broadband quality of service, the releasing of the 700 MHz spectrum band, license renewals and universal service funds (USF). We look forward to engaging with the local authorities, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) for example, to provide more precise recommendations.
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.
The award of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Economics to Jean Tirole is a cause for celebration for LIRNEasia. At the time of its inception in 2004, LIRNEasia committed itself to blend theory and practice to inform policymakers. One area identified by Rohan Samarajiva the founding Chair of LIRNEasia, was regulatory rules governing the telecommunications sector in the region. Regulatory agencies and regulation had already become an integral component of the telecom reform process in countries like India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. There was no way that a policy think tank conducting research in telecommunications to inform policy for improved sector performance and regulatory processes could have ignored Tirole’s three decades of research in the domain of Industrial Organization (IO) that provided a normative theoretical basis for evaluating the structure and performance of individual markets (including telecommunications) and for economically reasoned intervention in them.
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) recently launched a public consultation on – “Delivering Broadband Quickly: What do we need to do?” In this consultation, TRAI has identified many bottlenecks across the broadband supply chain in India. While the consultation was broad and TRAI had highlighted 22 issues for consultation, LIRNEasia‘s response covered the following three specific areas based on our research. The issues that we addressed were: Q7 on whether ‘Public Sector Undertakings (PSU) are ideal for implementing the National Optical Fiber Network (NOFN)’ where we highlighted the importance of private sector involvement; Q14 on FTTH deployment, where we recommended to de-emphasize the importance given to FTTH as the current trend in most developing countries is to access the Internet on mobile devices; and Q21 on Demand-side stimulation where we gave examples of how other countries have increased demand and on how the Indian App economy can be improved.
Submarine cables in Sri Lanka historically land nearby Colombo at Mount Lavinia. And they have been the branch from main cable’s trunk. Not any more. The SEA-ME-WE 5 submarine cable will directly hop at a new location – Matara. Therefore, this new submarine cable’s landing, at 160 km from Colombo, will make Sri Lanka’s international connectivity more resilient.