We were happy to note that the Telecom Regulatory Commission has pulled the plug on a senseless project that we criticized when first announced and once again, for emphasis. It will be interesting to see how much Surrey Satellite Technology, a firm fronted by the son of an English Lord of some kind, cleared in fees in the past year. I met the man in Colombo. Obviously he would not have paid his way here. The TRC will not proceed with Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd, the British firm which was commissioned to set up the Sri Lanka Space Communications Company last year, due to the high costs involved.
Last week, representatives of all the entities engaged in advancing research on communication policy and regulation met in Sevilla, Spain, at the invitation of Euro CPR, as part of the annual Euro CPR conference. This was a follow up to the initiative taken by CPRsouth in December 2008 in Beijing, when it invited representatives of its peer organizations, TPRC in the US and Euro CPR, for a public discussion. For the Sevilla meeting, in addition to CPRsouth (represented by Rohan Samarajiva), ACORN-Redecom (represented by Raul Katz) and the inchoate CPR africa (represented by Alison Gillwald) were invited separately, signifying rapid growth in the South in the past few months. Of course, both Alison and a representative of DIRSI, which is a key constituent of ACORN-Redecom, were present in Beijing as well. Each of the representatives shared their views on how they set about their missions.