World Dialogue on Regulation

Historically, considerable hope has been placed on the promise of wireless technologies to help bring communication networks to underserved areas. Because they do not require the deployment of expensive wired networks—with the attendant need for rights of way—wireless networks have been seen as the best way to bring communication access to remote areas quickly and cheaply. With the advent of relatively inexpensive and broadly available wireless technologies, connectivity seemed within economic reach of poor regions. And because the new wireless devices are increasingly based on advanced digital technologies, this suggested possibilities for the developing world to leapfrog some of the evolutionary steps taken in the developed world. Wireless thus promised to enable rapid, low-cost deployment of an advanced communication infrastructure.

The articles presented in the issue of ITID offer a timely examination of how these hopes are working out in practice. They span a variety of geographies, examining cities, regions, and countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia and focus on several applications of wireless technologies, ranging from cellular telephony to satellite and Wi-Fi. 

A typical example of the microlevel impact of wireless communication technology is described in the paper by Jonathan Donner: The Use of Mobile Phones by Microentrepreneurs in Kigali, Rwanda: Changes to Social and Business Networks. This paper examines the driving forces behind the cellular telephony boom in Rwanda (Central Africa). Donner’s article discusses the impact of mobile ownership on the social networks of micro-entrepreneurs in low-teledensity areas (Kigali - Rwanda), focusing on the evolving mix of business and personal calls made by users. The study differentiates between the contacts amplified through mobile ownership (friends and family ties) and those enabled by mobile ownership (new business ties). Based on a detailed survey of calling patterns, it shows how access to a mobile phone is critical for small business owners to expand existing business relations. The article further suggests that access to this technology is key to the sustainability and success of microenterprises.

Donner's article is interesting since it focuses on micro-enterprises, businesses with less than five people employed. These small enterprises are driving force behind many of the African economies and form the beginning and end of most of the business chains. At the same time, these micro-enterprises have received little attention in the telecommunication research. Most research is focused at the small and medium sized enterprises (SME). At the same time, Donner relates mobile phone use in social networks as well as business networks. In the African reality these two contexts are are very much dependent on each other and determine each others success.

Judith Mariscal and Eugenio Rivera from the Telecommunications Research Program of the Centro de Investigacíon y Docencia Económicas (CIDE) describe the fast penetration of the use of mobile phones and its role in the development of the rural areas in Mexico. The article "Mobile Communications in Mexico in the Latin American Context concludes that the experience in the Mexican context shows that regulatory policies are important to guarantee continuous rural-oriented development of the communication services in a context of fierce competition. This point is also confirmed in the article The Road to Broadband Development in Developing Countries is through Competition Driven by Wireless and Internet Telephony by Francisco Proenza that is part of the same issue.

In a context of limited access to communication services in rural areas an important role could be played by Microtelco's, a concept introduced by Hernan Galperin and François Bar in their article "The Microtelco Opportunity: Evidence from Latin America. The authors state that in Latin America public subsidies for traditional operators to cover the difference between tariffs and cost-recovery levels have proved limited in addressing this continuing gap. A supplementing role could be played by a largely unnoticed small-scale telecom operators that combine local entrepreneurship, innovative business models, and low-cost technologies to offer ICT services in areas of little interest to traditional operators. Through a series of case studies from Latin America, the article documents how microtelcos combine organizational and informational advantages that allow them to service the poor effectively and with limited access to public subsidies.

Reading through the research papers one message stays out; there is a need for substantial strengthening of the regulatory bodies in the developing countries. Their role is weak in a fast changing technological arena and fail to provide proper solutions to bridge the growing communication gap between the urban and rural areas.

The paper of Rohan Samarajiva, Preconditions for Effective Deployment of Wireless Technologies for the Development of the Asia-Pacific, takes a macro perpective and tries to elicit guidelines to improve the role of the regulators. The author proposes four points of attention in regulatory reform:

• Existence and enforcement of transparent market entry policies
• Efficient management of scarce resources, primarily frequencies, numbers and rights of way
• Effective, cost-oriented and nondiscriminatory interconnection and access to backbone capacity
• Effective enforcement of regulatory and competition rules.

As the director of LIRNEasia, Rohan Samarajiva, states in his paper: "Wireless matters in the Asia-Pacific; it matters throughout the world.". High hopes are still there, success stories can be told, but care need to be taken that rural areas are not left out. The research presented in the issue of ITID provides examples not only for academics, but also for policy makers. Regulators should take note of the lessons offered by authors in the different regions.

The journal for Information Technology and International Development has opened up its content under the Creative Commons license. The journal is issued by MIT Press and in its fourth year of existence. According to the editorial note in the Summer issue of 2005, an Open Access model will allow the journal to reach scholars and practitioners in low-income nations.