From the Daily Mirror (Sri Lanka) of 10 March 2006: “Minister Bogollagama also noted that the government was planning to construct a fibre optic network in Jaffna to introduce the Business Process Outsourcing industry to the area.” Jaffna is currently connected to the rest of Sri Lanka and the world by satellite. It is intriguing to speculate how the Minister’s fiber optic network will function and who will manage it. One assumes that for it to be of use for the BPO industry, the Minister’s fiber will have to connect to another fiber somewhere. Will this be overland, along the A9 and through LTTE controlled territory or undersea?
LIRNEasia and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), with the assitance of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada, co-sponsored the “Workshop on ICT Indicators for Benchmarking Performance in Network and Services Development” in New Delhi from 1-3 March 2006. The workshop highlighted the need for accurate, standardized and comparable indicators for the region and was intended to initate action to develop such indicators. The workshop brought together representatives of National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs), National Statistical Organizations (NSOs) and operators from Afghanistan, Bangaldesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka along with the foremost authorities on the subject from the ITU, OECD, and the US National Regulatory Research Institute (NRRI). With nearly 60 participants from 16 countries, the Workshop was also attended by telecom researchers from the Asian region. The three day workshop was intended to elicit the cooperation of representatives from NRAs, NSOs and industry associations from the regional countries in establishing a sustainable system for measuring and benchmarking ICT sector input and output indicators for South Asia that can be extended to developing Asia.
Read this article on the web at: www.cellular-news.com/story/16423.php MTN Uganda has unveiled a modified bicycle payphone concept, the publiCom Quad Bike. The publiCom Quad Bike is a payphone concept where a payphone is mounted on a four-wheel bicycle.
This preliminary study to compare mobile tariffs in the Asian region, has been undertaken in keeping with the proposed 2006 theme of the World Dialogue on Regulation for Network Economies (WDR), ‘Sector and Regulatory Performance Indicators.’ The definition of standardized benchmark indicators with their respective viable methodologies in the Asian context is required for an accurate comparative analysis of the regulatory and sector performance in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) The preliminary study has produced surprising findings with regards to the relative costs between prepaid and postpaid mobile tariff packages. It is hoped that the release of the preliminary results will engage disucssion with stakeholders, especially operators in the formulation of an accurate and standardized methodology to reflect the holistic costs associated with the use of mobile communications and which can yield meaningful comparisons across the region. The study can be found HERE The authors welcome comments and disucssion.
In the coming year, LIRNEasia intends to launch a number of activities intended to support the work of young scholars working on telecom reform issues of relevance to emerging Asia. As part of this effort we intend to provide self-archiving facilities for conference papers and journal articles, and provide a degree of exposure and commentary for a subset. This is the first effort in this regard. Regulation and FDI: Sri Lankan Telecommunications Industry By Ms Asoka Fernando, PhD Candidate, Dept. of Management, Monash University Abstract This paper examines the role of the telecommunications regulator in Sri Lanka and assesses the effectiveness of its interventions in attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) into the telecommunications sector from a management point of view.
Suntel to invest Rs. 8 b for countrywide CDMA push Plans to roll out low cost telephone service in Jaffna soon By Poornima Weerasekara (Daily Mirror, 1 March 2006) Suntel yesterday unveiling its roadmap for the next three years announced their plans to invest Rs. 8 billion to expand the CDMA network island wide. “The coverage of our 155 base stations is better and wider than most of the mobile operators today,” Suntel Managing Director Jerry Huxtable said. “We have plans to build about 40 base stations by the middle of the year, with plans to construct another 50-60 base stations in the 2nd quarter,” he added.
This paper investigates conditions that need to be met in order to make smart subsidies successful in bridging access gaps in rural telecommunication services. Nepal’s Eastern Development Region project is the case under study. The final report, Smart subsidies: Getting the conditions right – The experience of expanding rural telecoms in Nepal can be downloaded HERE. The study finds that while it is possible to use the smart subsidies option to provide rural communities with telecommunications services the real question is whether such services are optimal and whether these projects could be sustained in the medium to long term. The findings throughout the paper converge to the point that unless the right regulatory conditions are in place; particularly with respect to cost-based asymmetric interconnection agreements and effective regulation of incumbent’s anti-competitive practices, success of rural telecom service providers who are empowered by smart subsidies, would be questionable.
BBC NEWS | Technology | Mobiles aid drive for development
This is a pre-publication version of an article developed on the basis of a presentation made at the Annenberg Program on International Communication in Marina del Ray October 2005. Pre-publication article on Wireless and Development Statistics relating to Wireless and Development [Power point presentation] Summary of the original conference paper from Comminit.com related to Wireless and Development
NSF EXPLORATORY WORKSHOP ON SENSOR BASED INFRASTRUCTURE FOR EARLY TSUNAMI DETECTION, Maui, Feb 9-10, 2006 What I learned during my visits to the Civil Defense Center and the Tsunami Museum in Hilo and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Ewa Beach in Hawai’i last January greatly contributed to the disaster communication research program undertaken by LIRNEasia in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Therefore, I welcomed the opportunity to step back and reflect on the research program a year later, also in Hawai’i. The occasion was a workshop funded by the National Science Foundation of the US. It was organized by Louise Comfort, Daniel Mosse and Taieb Znati, all at the U of Pittsburgh. Louise is from Public Policy and has been working on disasters for a long time.
As a part of LIRNEasia’s Telecom Use on a Shoestring project, the use of ‘strategic’ behaviour to curb communication costs amongst the financially constrained in Sri Lanka and India was explored. The findings relating to such ‘strategic’ behavior are available for comment in the following paper: Telecom use on a shoestring: Strategic use of telecom services by the financially constrained in South Asia (V2.0 for comment) (February 2006) Telecom use on a shoestring: Strategic use of telecom services by the financially constrained in South Asia (V2.1 for comment, March 2006) The Authors invite comments and discussion. Abstract: When one talks of a ‘shoestring’ budget, it is understood that reference is being made to constrained finances, where individuals make attempts to cut costs through various methods without harming utility.
It appears that the Telecom Regulatory Commission is starting work on spectrum refarming. There are enormous gains to be achived if this is done right in an open, informed and consultative manner. LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE
Knowledge capacity is typically measured in terms of the ‘productivity’ of researchers. In a paper accepted for publication in Information Technology for International Development (ITID_1.pdf) Gamage and Samarajiva argue that researchers need to pay attention to their ‘internet presence’ and ‘connectivity’ as well. The argument is supported by data on researchers on telecom reform from Asia as found in the social science citation index and scholar.google.
Colombo, Sri Lanka, 19 December 2005: A recent study has revealed that many financially constrained Jaffnaites spend more than 12 per cent of their monthly regular income on telecommunications. People in Jaffna depend heavily on mobile telecommunication and have the highest demand for international calls in the Sri Lankan sample. A study of ‘financially constrained’ telecom users in Sri Lanka has shown that compared to similar users in other areas of Sri Lanka, users in Jaffna exhibit markedly different patterns in their telecom use. The study, released today by LIRNEasia, an Asian research organization based in Colombo looks at telecom use amongst people whose monthly incomes are below LKR 10,000 in the Badulla, Colombo, Jaffna and Hambantota areas…… English press release: Jaffnaites spend up to 12% of their monthly regular income on telecommunications More information about the project: Jaffnaites spend up to 12% of their monthly regular income on telecommunications
This is a question that is central to the mission of LIRNEasia. The link below connects to a very accessible discussion on the subject: In Conversation: Carol Weiss and Evert Lindquist on Policymaking and Research: International Development Research Centre
Microsoft Would Put Poor Online by Cellphone By JOHN MARKOFF Published: January 30, 2006 DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan. 29 — It sounds like a project that just about any technology-minded executive could get behind: distributing durable, cheap laptop computers in the developing world to help education. But in the year since Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Laboratory, unveiled his prototype for a $100 laptop, he has found himself wrestling with Microsoft and the politics of software. Mr. Negroponte has made significant progress, but he has also catalyzed the debate over the role of computing in poor nations — and ruffled a few feathers.