L I R N E . N E T

In his Many Possibilities blog, Steve Song has been writing about emerging manifestations of village telcos, which he envisions as “easy-to-use connectivity solution that provides extensible local telephony with the possibility of upstream voice and/or data connectivity via POTS, mobile, or other IP services.” A particular initiative described is Dabba Telecom, which uses Open Source software and commodity wireless devices - and hence provides free local calls for those within wireless range and inexpensive voice and data services further afield.

Read Steve Song’s post Theory of Change: The Village Telco.
See also posts on Dabba Telecom and the Dabba Open Source components.

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[25-27 June] LIRNEasia Executive Director, Rohan Samarajiva, is organising two panels at the 2008 International Telecommunications Society (ITS) 17th Biennial Conference, to be held at the Hilton Montréal Bonaventure, Montréal, Québec, Canada. The two-part panel is entitled, “New regulatory approaches in the face of rapidly changing demand: Research from four continents presented by LIRNE.NET.”

Confirmed participants include: Hernan Galperin, Universidad de San Andrés, Argentina, and member of DIRSI; Anders Henten, Center for Communication, Media and Information Technologies (CMI) at Aalborg University, Alison Gillwald, LINK Centre, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa and Director of Research ICT Africa (RIA!); Randy Spence, Economic and Social Development Affiliates (ESDA), Canada; and Helani Galpaya and Payal Malik of LIRNEasia.

This double session will take place in the Hampstead Room on Thursday, June 26th, 2008.
Session 5.5 from 1:30 - 3:30 pm
Session 6.6 from 3:30 - 5:00 pm

Click here to download the session description.

For the Universal Access: Definitions, Delivery and Alternatives 2 session, LIRNEasia researchers will present a paper entitled, ‘Re-examining Universal Service Policies in Telecommunications: Lessons from three South Asian countries‘, co-authored by Payal Malik and Rohan Samarajiva.
Session 8.1 - LaSalle room
Friday, June 27th, 2008, 2:00 - 3:30 pm

Professor W.H. Melody will present recent research and analysis during the panel on private equity and telecommunications.
Session 2.7 - St. Pierre room
Wednesday, June 25th, 2008, 2:00 - 3:30pm

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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 Research ICT Africa network (RIA!) is now releasing the results of their 2007 Sector Performance Reviews. Sector performance reviews examine the performance of national telecom sectors in terms of delivery agains national policy objectives. The case studies monitor and assess ICT policy (though specifically telecommunications policy) against policy outcomes in the sector, and against the broader impact these policies have on the national economy and society.

For more information, go to Research ICT Africa!
Click on “read the rest of this entry” for links to the country studies in .pdf downloads from the RIA! website.

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