L I R N E . N E T

The Center for Communication, Media and Information Technologies (CMI) is hosting its yearly Political Economy of Information and Communication Technologies Ph.D. Summer School, in Skagen Denmark. The course includes lectures by researchers from Aalbourg University and the other universities in the NordICT network and by invited lecturers from other research institutions. The topic of this year’s course is: Political Economy of Information and Communication Technologies. The summer school will take place from Sunday 24 August to Friday 29 August 2008.

Deadline for registration: 1 June 2008.
Click here to go to the CMI Skagen summer school webpage.

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LIRNE.NET researchers from the Center for ICT at the Danish Technical University have recently moved to the Center for Communication, Media and Information Technologies (CMI) at Aalborg University. CMI will join the other LIRNE centres in Europe with researchers continuing their participation in LIRNE research, events and South-North dialogue, from their new home.

Click here to go to the CMI website.

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The Economics of Infrastructures section in the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management at Delft University of Technology, will hold its 11th Economics of Infrastructures Conference on the theme of Transitions in Utility Infrastructures, from 22-23 May 2008. Regulators and representatives from industry will present their views on and discuss the latest developments in the governance of infrastructures. The conference will be a mixture of plenary keynote session and workshops addressing specific transition issues. Keynote speakers will address the transition in either a specific sector (energy, telecom, water) or from a specific perspective (sociological, technological, economic, political, historical).

Click here to go to the conference webpage.

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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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The fiberevolution blog highlights and comments on Professor W.H. Melody’s recent keynote speech at the Broadband Cities conference (November 14-15, Amsterdam and Almere, Netherlands).

The crux of Prof. Melody’s presentation was then to show how Private Equity had driven two major European incumbents to the ground, namely Eircom in Ireland and TDC in Denmark. I won’t go through the chronology of investment reduction and asset destruction to generate short term cash, but I think the audience was, as I was myself, flabbergasted. Not that this was not known, but the accumulation of fact was very damning indeed.

Ultimately, Prof. Melody’s message was two-fold:

• NGAN investment requires patient capital
• Private Equity is not the way to go.

Click here to read the full article.

Click here to view Melody’s conference presentation.
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