L I R N E . N E T

On 23 June in Ottawa, Canada, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Learning Initiatives on Reforms for Network Economies (LIRNE.NET) network held a meeting with researchers from the Latin American and Caribbean Regional Dialogue on the Information Society (DIRSI), LIRNEasia, the LINK Centre and Research ICT Africa (RIA!), Comunica, and from the LIRNE network in Europe - Center for Communication, Media and Information Technologies (CMI) at Aalborg University, and the Center for Information and Communication Technologies (CICT), at the Technical University of Denmark. The intention of this event, in addition to presenting research, was to have a conversation with the invited participants and amongst ourselves. The four sessions of this day-long event were constructed in such a way as to provide opportunity for dialogue and creative reflection on the work of the network, why we do what we do, how we engage ICT regulatory research effectively and ensure impact.

Continue to the rest of this entry for presentation downloads and meeting information.

Click here to see photos of this event.
Click here to read the LIRNEasia report on this event.

(more…)

LIRNE.NET researchers from around the world will be participating in the the International Telecommunications Society 17th Biennial Conference, Montreal, Canada (24-27 June). If you are planning to attend ITS, we invite you to come to meet researchers from LIRNEasia, Research ICT Africa (RIA!), the Latin American and Caribbean Regional Dialogue on the Information Society (DIRSI), from the European LIRNE centres, LIRNE.NET and Comunica. See next page for ITS sessions.

(more…)

The LIRNE Events and Links page has two new resources: competition authority resources and a calendar of upcoming events.

In recognition of the increasing the role of competition regulation in ICT sector, we are beginning to collect resources from national competition regulators. This information is presented in the same manner as our tables of national telecom regulators and links to their statistical resources and sector reports. The intrepid LIRNE assistant researcher, Alejandra Davidziuk, is tracking down all of these links and keeping them up-to-date.

Another new feature is the Google calendar of upcoming ICT regulation and policy related conference, workshops, seminars and courses. The calendar entries are colour coded and organised by region, and (by clicking on full details/mas detalles) include a full record of the event including links to the conference website and deadlines for important dates. The Google calendar also has other functionalities such as being able to export entries to your own calendar.

The downloadable .pdf version of the upcoming events is also maintained for people who prefer that format.

Please use our Contact page to suggest events that should be included on the calendar.

(more…)

Vic Hayes and Wolter Lemstra of the Economics of Infrastructures section in the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management at Delft University of Technology, have co-authored a paper entitled, Unlicensed: The case of Wi-Fi, which argues that the current day success of Wi-Fi is a combined result of (1) a change in the US communications policy in the 1980s; (2) the industry leadership provided by NCR to create a global standard; and (3) the influence of the users that moved the application of Wireless-LANs from the enterprise to the home, from indoor to outdoor use, from a communications product to a service, and from operators to end-users as the provider of that service. This paper was presented at the Genesis of Unlicensed Wireless Policy Conference at George Mason University School of Law in April 2008, and will appear in a forthcoming issue of info.

Click here to download a preprint version of the paper.
Click here to download the conference (.ppt) presentation.

(more…)

LIRNEasia has released a report on the challenges and benefits of being a virtual organisation (VO). In order to be able to undertake research in a number of different countries and also to have policy influence across the Asia Pacific region (and beyond), it was imperative that LIRNEasia adopt virtual organisation strategies. To make their experiences useful for others, LIRNEasia has documented their efforts, outcome and lessons learned. The report is intended for any research/civil society (or even private sector or government) organisation, with limited staff, and which intends to work from geographically distant locations. It is also useful for project-based organisations with limited overhead budgets.

Click here to download the full report.

(more…)