Sujata: summary too lenghty Luxman: Since audience is EU needs to have language on ICT uplifting “masses” and “rural” access. Malathy: Process element of regulation is not there? Rohan: Study was originally for investor study and language taken from WTO language leaving out the independence of regulator. Process question will be in another study comparing different sectors. Malathy: why cant process be built into current study?
I was looking at maps on the TeleGeography site and I ended up on their mailing list. This is something they sent me about International voice-over-IP traffic. I was surprised that it now accounts for 11% of international calls – and more in India/Pakistan/Bangladesh. I know of services like www.skype.
Yesterday, I spoke to a large and restive crowd (made so by lack of air conditioning and a delayed start) in Matara (main city in the South of Sri Lanka) at the launch of the Pathfinder Foundation’s first book, a Sinhala translation of Janos Kornai’s Toward a free economy. I was asked to talk about globalization and the relevance of Kornai’s ideas for facing the challenges posed by globalization. In this talk that I pieced together thanks to time zone differences that caused me to wake up at 3 in the morning while in the US, I illustrated the issues referring to Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), a broad area of service exports for which efficient, flexible and low-cost telecom is a pre-condition. I think the talk provides the "big picture" of the necessity of telecom reforms of the type that we at LIRNEasia are involved in. If we are to go beyond simply giving people phones, to giving them "money in the pocket and hope in the heart" this big picture is essential.