World Dialogue on Regulation

Telecom NRA's Information and Communication Practices

Some Telecom National Regulatory Authorities (NRA) provide extensive information via their websites and hold public consultations on a range of topics. Others offer only a few scraps of static information and are generally inaccessible. Why the discrepancy?

In this interactive session prepared for the Global Knowledge 3 (GK3) conference, civil society, researchers and regulators will discuss regulatory transparency and effectiveness, using telecom regulators' websites as a discussion tool. For example, what kind of information should be made available via regulators’ websites? And what are some effective practices in this regard?

Community-driven networks, providing a range of telephony, ICT and media services, and based on a hard-headed business plan, is a new concept that for the first time can be backed up with emprisal experience on the ground. Organised by LIRNE.NET and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), this 3rd Global Knowledge (GK3) conference session will present, for the first time, consolidated results from pilots in different regions. It will also present a considered set of regulatory and policy proposals, that have been verified in ongoing interaction between regulators and the research teams. 

•  How much do you know about the bottom of the pyramid in emerging Asia?
•  Is it ‘have vs. have not’? or ‘have now vs. have later’?
•  How much are the poor willing to spend to get connected?
•  Who will be connected by mid-2008?

If you think you know, or would like to know the answers to these questions, and more, then join us in an interactive quiz, ‘Teleuse at the Bottom of the Pyramid’ at the 3rd Global Knowledge Conference, GK3 at the KLCC, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (11-13th December 2007). 

DIRSI has released a regional overview and six national reports for its project, Mobile Opportunities: Poverty and Telephony Access in Latin America and the Caribbean. The study gathered information about the strategies to access and use mobile telephony in contexts of poverty and social exclusion in Latin America and the Caribbean. Seven national surveys were undertaken for Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Jamaica, Mexico, Peru and Trinidad and Tobago. The analysis of the data will help form policy recommendations for each country. Contrasting the information from the different country case studies provides a regional panorama of the growing penetration and use of mobile telephony at the bottom of the pyramid.

This paper is from the DIRSI Mobile Opportunities research project which is being undertaken to investigate strategies employed by the poor in Latin America and the Caribbean to access and use mobile telephony services, and to identify the major market and regulatory barriers to increased penetration and usage as well as business opportunities for the "bottom of the pyramid" users.

A working paper by WDR general manager William Melody discusses a telecom takeover operation in Denmark lead by a group of five foreign private equity specialists and their plans both at a national and regional level. The paper looks at the financial rationale, the legal aspects and the implications of this operation on the network development and public policy. "Private Equity Takeover of Telecom Infrastructure in Denmark" focuses on one national case but are lessons for other countries, both developed and developing, where similar takeover strategies are being proposed.

This area of assessment for the current research cycle is concerned with indicators and traditional methods for collecting and applying them as the object of analysis. Given the current fashion to collect and maintain stocks of indicators, and to invest in this thematic area, a theoretical critique of indicators will be undertaken. This includes a critical assessment – both political and methodological – of current mainstream approaches to devising indicators as well as a scholarly review of the methodologies and practices for their collection.

Getting one or two questions added to a national census is a politically charged and expensive route for gathering the needed information – but is nonetheless the route most often taken.