L I R N E . N E T

infoDev’s ICT Regulation Toolkit, the most complete online repository of its kind, has completed all seven modules originally designated to cover the range of relevant themes. The final piece, Universal Access, is now available in beta version, with the finalised content being made available during the month of April. Self-described as “a live resource for policy-makers, regulators, the telecom industry, and consumers. It provides a global overview of how telecom policy is best implemented with practical materials highlighting experience and results.” The toolkit is kept up-to-date with new links to resources being added on a regular basis.

Module 1: Regulating the Telecommunications Sector: Overview
Module 2: Competition and Price Regulation
Module 3: Authorization of Telecommunications Services
Module 4: Universal Access (beta)
Module 5: Radio Spectrum Management
Module 6: Legal and Institutional Framework
Module 7: New Technologies and Impact on Regulation

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The Radio 2.0 for Development blog is intended as a space for practitioners and researchers to share experiences and ideas about combining radio and other information and communication technologies. Community triple play is an example of the types of community-driven solutions that are emerging in many parts of the world, and which are designed to extend networks to communities bypassed by traditional telecom networks and provide ICT services that meet the specific needs of poor and rural communities.

For this particular model, these networks in conjunction with a local community radio can offer “community triple play”, locally-owned and managed operations providing radio, internet access, and voice over IP telephony. “Evidence shows that when regulatory and other hurdles are removed, business models emerge that provide sustainable modern communication capabilities to poor and remote communities.”

Go to the Radio 2.0 for Development blog.
Read the full post, Community radio, new technologies and policy: enough watching, it’s time for doing.

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At the International Telecommunication Union’s (ITU) 8th Global Symposium for Regulators, Six Degrees of Sharing: Innovative Infrastructure Sharing and Open Access Strategies to Promote Affordable Access for All, participants will discuss and debate a range of sharing strategies that have been grouped into the following categories: 1)basic/passive infrastructure sharing; 2) open access to international capacity; 3) business-sharing regulation; 4) active infrastructure sharing; 5) end-user sharing; and 6) policy and regulatory harmonization.

For the session on Sharing Fibre Networks, Tracy Cohen (Councillor of ICASA) and Russell Southwood (founder of Balancing Act) have prepared a paper “Extending Open Access to National Fibre Backbones in Developing Countries,” which examines regulatory, policy and practical approaches for open access architecture.

Go to the 8th Global Symposium for Regulators webpage.
Download the Extending Open Access paper from the ITU website.

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Just published in Information Technologies and International Development (ITID), this article by Steve Esselaar, Christoph Stork, Ali Ndiwalana, Mariama Deen-Swarray, reports on a Research ICT Africa survey. It argues that the negative return on investment reported in the literature can be attributed to the failure to distinguish between the formal and informal sectors. This article demonstrates that informal SMEs have a higher profitability than formal ones. It further shows that ICTs are productive input factors and that their use increases labor productivity for informal as well as formal SMEs. There is still demand for fixed-line phones among SMEs but, as the authors observe, mobile phones have become the default communications tool because fixed lines are either too expensive or not available. The primary policy recommendation arising out of this is that applications for SMEs need to be developed using mobile phones.

Download the journal article in .pdf from the ITID website.

Download the full study, Towards An African e-Index: SME e-Access and Usage in 14 African Countries, from the RIA! website (.pdf, 2.25 MB).

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The first billion internet users were connected because of particular privileges of access to infrastructure, the ability to afford use, education and geography, amongst others. The next billions to be connected to information society networks won’t have the same economic and social privileges and will have different reasons for not already being connected. These reasons need to be identified, targeted and built into information society strategies, business plans and partnerships. In this spirit, the GAID Inaugural Meeting (4-5 February 2008) was an opportunity to discuss and prepare proposals for the II Ministerial Conference on the Information Society, taking place directly after the seminar, and hosted by the El Salvadorian government.

The seminar and network initiative is the joint effort of the UN’s Global Alliance for ICT and Development (GAID), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the International Development Research Centre-Institute for Connectivity in the Americas (IDRC-ICA), and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribean (ECLAC).

Go to the IDRC resource page for links to presentations, podcasts, bios and background documents for this event.

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