 In this e-Brief...
Q&A
- The Empire Strikes Back! Implications of the US Telecom Mega-Mergers
New research
- Wi-Fi "Innovation" in Indonesia
- Telecom use on a Shoestring
- Smart Subsidies: Getting the conditions right
- Telecom Regulation and Investment in Peru
- Privatization, Regulation and Investment in Guyana
- Regulation and Telecom Investment in Chile
News from the networks
- DIRSI Hires Network Coordinator
- DIRSI Workshop on ICT Regulation and Equity in LAC
- Asian Workshop on ICT Indicators held in New Delhi
- LIRNEasia Economist at MIT's Poverty Action Lab
- LIRNEasia & Partners Launch HazInfo Project
- Cooperation on Indicators Theme in Asia
- RIA! Workshop on e-Access and Usage in Public Administration
- PhD Summer School
- Economics of Infrastructures 9th Annual International Conference
- The Southern African Journal of Information and Communication
Resources
- A New Model for Rural Connectivity
- OPLAN - open public local access network
- UNCTAD- Measuring the Info Society
- IDRC's ICT indicators and comparison map
- Stimulating Investment in Network Development - WDR 2nd cycle report still
available
- Engaging the New World
Q&A
The Empire Strikes Back! Implications of the US Telecom
Mega-MergersLate in 2005, SBC Communications purchased its former parent
company, AT&T for US$16 billion, reversing the main line of separation in
the AT&T divestiture 22 years ago. In March 2006, the merged company,
AT&T Inc., announced its intention to buy BellSouth for $US67 billion,
further consolidating the former monopoly’s position. In this issue’s
commentary, William Melody discusses these mergers and the global implications
of the re-emergence of monopoly power in telecoms.
Read the full
commentary
New research Six WDR research papers have been posted since the last
issue of the e-Brief. Three from Latin America and the Caribbean applied a
methodology to assess the telecommunication regulatory environment and its
impact on investment in the sector in Chile, Peru and Guyana. The three new
papers from Asia include one that examines the reasons behind that Indonesia’s
rapid take-up of wireless broadband and concludes that rather than a result of
enlightened policy, Indonesia’s wireless success is due to wireless providing “a
workaround solution to hostile market and regulatory conditions”. Another one
evaluates conditions that need to be met in order to make smart subsidies
successful in bridging access gaps in rural telecommunication services and the
final one examines perceptions of affordability amongst low income
telecommunication users in India and Sri Lanka.
Wi-Fi "Innovation" in Indonesia: Working around hostile market and
regulatory conditionsDivakar Goswami & Onno Purbo
With their
low-cost and quick deployment time, wireless internet technologies like Wi-Fi
offer last-mile access network solutions to developing countries with limited
network infrastructure. Among developing countries, Indonesia is unique for the
extent that Wi-Fi that has been deployed by Internet Service Providers (ISPs)
and private entrepreneurs in more than forty towns and cities across the
archipelago. However, the findings from this LIRNEasia study indicate
that Wi-Fi "innovations" in Indonesia are not a result of enlightened policy
designed to extend communication infrastructure to unserved areas but rather a
workaround solution to hostile market and regulatory conditions.
Read the Executive
Summary and download the paper
Telecom Use on a Shoestring: Expenditure and perceptions of costs amongst
the financially constrainedAvanti Moonesinghe, Harsha de Silva, Neluka
Silva & Ayoma Abeysuriya
Despite the positive benefits telephony can
have for economic development, many people in developing nations are held back
by a diverse set of factors – such as connectivity in rural locations, duties
and taxes imposed by governments, the costs of handsets and the cost of
services. Once the hurdle of access to communication is overcome, people in
developing nations still have to contend with the costs of services. This paper
by WDR partner LIRNEasia examines perceptions of affordability amongst
low income telecommunication users in India and Sri Lanka and the effects of
changes in service costs on their usage patterns.
Read the Executive
Summary and download the paper
Smart Subsidies: Getting the conditions rightHarsha de Silva &
Ratna Kaji Tuladhar
This paper by LIRNEasia researchers Harsha de
Silva and Ratna Kaji Tuladhar 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 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.
Read the Executive
Summary and download the paper
Telecom Regulation and Investment: A case study of PeruRoxana Barrantes
& Patricia Pérez
This study is a pilot application of a methodology
designed to assess the effect of the regulatory environment on investment in the
telecom sector of a country. The authors looked at fixed and mobile telephony
services in Peru, between 1993 and 2004, a period during which Peru embarked
upon an expansive regulatory reform program for its public services and
infrastructure, aimed at liberalizing the market and encouraging private
investment to fund the necessary expansion and to cover deficits in service
coverage.
Read the Executive
Summary and download the paper in English or Spanish
Privatization, Regulation and Investment: A case study of the TRE and
investment in GuyanaSamuel Braithwaite
A sound and enabling telecom
regulatory environment (TRE) is an important factor in the level of telecom
investment for any country. For developing countries, such as Guyana, with
generally weak regulatory institutions and underdeveloped telecom markets, the
impact of the TRE on investment is often negative. This pilot study applies a
methodology to assess Guyana’s TRE and the level of telecom investment in the
country.
Read the Executive
Summary and download the paper in English or Spanish
Regulation and Telecom Investment: The case of Chile Leonardo
Mena
This case study assesses the telecom regulatory environment (TRE) in
Chile to examine the different factors impacting on perceptions and mitigation
of investment risk. The evaluation considers five dimensions: (1) entrance to
the market, (2) access to scarce resources, (3) interconnection, (4) tariff
regulation, and (5) regulation of anti-competitive practices.
Read the Executive
Summary and download the paper in English or Spanish
News from the networks
DIRSI Hires Network CoordinatorOlga Cavalli has been named as Executive
Coordinator of the Regional Dialogue on the Information Society (DIRSI), a WDR
partner in Latin America and the Caribbean. Cavalli will be responsible for
overall network coordination, including managing DIRSI's daily operations,
encouraging the exchange of information and knowledge among its members and
overseeing its research and capacity-building activities.
Read more...
DIRSI Workshop on ICT Regulation and Equity in LACFrom April 18-20 the
Regional Dialogue on the Information Society (DIRSI) organised a workshop on
ICTs Regulation and Equity in Latin America and the Caribbean. The activity took
place in the headquarters of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and
the Caribbean (ECLAC) in Santiago, Chile and was sponsored by IDRC as part of
its global initiative on pro-poor, pro-market ICT policy.
Two workshop
reports are available one on LIRNE.NET and the
other on regulateonline.org.
Asian Workshop on ICT IndicatorsA workshop on indicators was held in
New Delhi on March 1-3 2006. The workshop was organised by WDR partner,
LIRNEasia in collaboration with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India
(TRAI). The workshop report provides a review of international initiatives and
best practices, examines some of the difficulties regarding standardising
indicators across the region, the challenges of measurement and collection of
indicator data and the process of developing an indicators manual for the South
Asian region.
Read more and download
the report.
LIRNEasia Economist at MIT's Poverty Action LabWDR's Asian
partner, LIRNEasia is sending its Lead Economist Harsha de Silva to
participate on a MIT scholarship to the first ever executive course offered by
the Poverty Action Lab this summer. The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, a
unit within MIT's Department of Economics, serves as a focal point for
development and poverty research based on "randomized trials". According to
Harsha, this program can significantly contribute to WDR &
LIRNEasia's ongoing and future research projects on ICTs.
Read more...
LIRNEasia & Partners Launch HazInfo ProjectWDR partner for
the Asian region, LIRNEasia launched the first phase of the Last-Mile
Hazard Information Dissemination (HazInfo) project funded by IDRC, along with
its project partners Sarvodaya, the largest community organization in Sri Lanka
and TVE Asia Pacific (TVEAP), a non-profit media organization working in the
Asian region. The project is part of the WDR ICTs and Disaster Warning research
and dialogue theme.
Read more…
Cooperation on Indicators Theme in AsiaLinks were formed between
LIRNEasia, a WDR partner working in the Asian region and the Foundation
for Media Alternatives (FMA), Philippines, an organization involved in a project
to develop a set of standard indicators for the ICT sector for the Philippine
Statistical Development Plan.
Read more…
RIA! Workshop on e-Access and Usage in Public AdministrationWDR partner
Research ICT Africa! (RIA) is currently holding a workshop on e-access and usage
in the public administration from the 29th of May 2006 until the 2nd of June
2006 in Dakar, Senegal. A report on the workshop prepared by WDR’s African
correspondent, Robertine Tankeu will soon be available on regulateonline.org.
Ph.D. Summer School - Political economy of information and communication
technologiesThe Center for Information and Communication Technologies of
the Technical University of Denmark, in cooperation with the NordICT initiative,
is offering a Ph.D. summer school programme “The aim of the course is to refine
the level of knowledge of the participating Ph.D. students on the economic and
political structures and mechanisms affecting technology development in the
information and communication technology (ICT) area.”
Read more…
Economics of Infrastructures 9th Annual International Conference The
Economics of Infrastructures Section at Delft University of Technology, a
founding partner of WDR, will be holding its 9th international conference on 15
and 16 June 2006. The theme of the conference is Risk and Infrastructures: An
Issue of Governance? The conference will explicitly connect the issues of
investment, risk and regulation.
Visit
the conference website for more information and to register.
The Southern African Journal of Information and CommunicationIssue No 6
of The Southern African Journal of Information and Communication is now
available. The journal is published by the Link Centre, a WDR partner in South
Africa.
Consult the table of contents
and order the annual journal.
Previous issues are available
for download.
Resources
A New Model for Rural Connectivity A New Model for Rural
Connectivity is a paper prepared by Al Hammond and John Paul for the World
Resources Institute. It provides a good summary of the potential to create
community level networks offered by new low-cost technologies - it demonstrates
clearly that we are on the brink of a new and much cheaper technology. But it
avoids a key issue and the real potential. Will most of the benefit of these new
low cost networks go to existing commercial operators, as they rapidly build
these and grab new customers in poorer communities? Or will the huge empowering
potential for communities to build and run their own networks be gained and all
the development potential that goes with it?
Read more…
OPLAN - open public local access networkAn open public local access
networks - OPLAN - is precisely what it says it is. That simple proposition
scarcely does justice to what this digital infrastructure can achieve, or the
scope of the potential economic, social and creative benefit that OPLANs can
unleash. Quite simply, they can make all old-style notions of "telecoms"
redundant. The OPLAN Foundation website offers interesting background
documentation and commentary on OPLAN's
Read more…
UNCTAD- Measuring the info societyThe site is UNCTAD's online source of
information on indicators, methodologies and statistics related to the
information society and a forum that allows practitioners from developed as well
as developing countries to engage in discussions on e-measurement related topics
and to further develop conceptual and methodological work. Most of the reports
are downloadable for a fee.
Read more…
IDRC's ICT indicators and comparison mapThe site presents interactive
interface for accessing ICT indicator data on a number of countries in the Asian
region.
Read more…
Stimulating Investment in Network Development - WDR 2nd cycle report still
availableThe final report from the second WDR research cycle is still
available in both print and online. Edited by Amy Mahan and William Melody, the
383 page book contains the body of research and country case studies undertaken
to investigate issues and perspectives on the theme Stimulating Investment in
Network Development: Roles for Regulators. The PDF version has been downloaded
almost 1400 times.
Download the
book.
Buy
a hard copy from amazon.com.
Contact
WDR publications for a copy.
Engaging the New World: Responses to the knowledge economyBhajan S.
Grewal and Margarita Kumnick (eds)
In Engaging the New World leading
economic analysts discuss the wide-ranging impact of the information economy-on
education, agriculture, health care, pharmaceuticals, public finance and
regional economies.
With contributions from prominent Australian and
international economists including Bob Gregory, Ann Harding, Frank Lichtenberg,
Simon Marginson, William Melody, John Quiggin and Peter Saunders, this book is
published as a tribute to the work of Peter Sheehan. It reflects his outstanding
contribution to public discourse in Australia as a researcher, writer, leader
and adviser to governments.
The book can
be ordered online and individual chapters are available for purchase as PDF
files.
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