World Dialogue on Regulation

National telecom regulatory authorities contribute to transparency and accountability within the telecom sector by collecting and disseminating statistical information, as well as information about regulatory rules and processes. Increasingly, telecom NRAs are making such information available via their websites. Each year, WDR updates a set of tables with links to telecom regulators' websites around the world. Where available, there are direct links to the regulators’ annual reports, sector reports and statistical information.

A recent DIRSI study, Affordability of Mobile Phone Service in Latin America, undertaken by Roxana Barrantes, Hernán Galperin, Aileen Agüero and Andrea Molinari benchmarks mobile pricing from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Jamaica, Mexico, Peru and Trinidad & Tobago. The study considers strategies employed by the poor to access and use mobile telephony services and identifies the major market and regulatory barriers to increased penetration and usage as well as business opportunities to serve underprivileged users in the region. 

Published every other year, the OECD Communications Outlook provides an extensive range of indicators on the development of different communications networks and compares performance indicators such as revenue, investment, employment and prices for services throughout the OECD area. These indicators are essential for industry participants and for regulators who use benchmarking to evaluate policy performance.

The World Resources Institute has published the report The Next 4 Billion: Market Size and Business Strategy at the Base of the Pyramid. The report measures and predicts business opportunities at the base of the economic pyramid markets and proposes guidelines for market-based and sustainable poverty reduction approaches.

The Economist Intelligence Unit has published its annual e-readiness ranking of the world's largest economies. The ranking model evaluates technological, economic political and social assets of 69 countries and their cumulative impact on their respective information economies. Asian countries are moving up to the top of the rankings.

The Global Information Society Watch (GISW) 2007 report will include a chapter "ICT Indicators for Advocacy" by LIRNE.NET researcher and project coordinator Amy Mahan. GISW is a joint initiative of the Association for Progressive Communication (APC) and Instituto del Tercer Mundo (ITeM, Third World Institute) that monitors progress by governments and international organisations on the outcomes of the World Summit on the Information Society. 

Research ICT Africa! (RIA!) has published a new chapter in their e-Index research. At the end of 2006 the report Towards an African e-Index: SME e-Access and Usage Across 14 African countries was published. The SME e- Access and Usage survey was carried out across 14 African countries between the last quarter of 2005 and the first quarter of 2006.