The Hindu Business Line : The way to go

This Colombo-headquartered organisation has a very focused mission — to improve the lives of the people of Asia by facilitating their use of information and communication technologies (ICTs).

It seeks to catalyse the reform of laws, policies and regulations to enable those uses and build Asia-based human capacity through research, training, consulting and advocacy.

Founded in September 2004, LIRNEasia (Learning Initiatives on Reforms for Network Economies) was initially focused on India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and Indonesia.

This year, LIRNEasia's research footprint has been extended to the Philippines, Thailand and Pakistan.

Says Prof Rohan Samarajiva, Executive Director of LIRNEasia: "The Asia-Pacific is a leading region in ICT, both in manufacture and use. However, there are stark contrasts between the developed and emerging parts. LIRNEasia seeks to identify the institutional constraints on the effective use of ICTs to improve the lives of the people of Asia.

The organisation wants to work collaboratively with multiple stakeholders to catalyse changes conducive to greater participation by users and suppliers." LIRNEasia's team comprises 10 researchers from eight countries even as most of its programmes are funded by the International Development Research Centre of Canada.

Focus on telecom

LIRNEasia's research is spread over diverse issues in the regional telecom spectrum. These include an evaluation of the ICT sector and regulatory performance, transactional costs and traceability in agricultural markets, capacity and field-building in the Asia-Pacific region, ICTs and disaster warnings, diversifying participation in network development, telecom regulatory training courses, rapid responses and dissemination.

Thus far, two cycles of research have been conducted. The first cycle looked into different approaches to telecommunications networks with the idea of getting more people connected. "Here, we looked at solutions such as the Universal Services Obligation (USO) Fund of India, the Access Deficit Charge, the Grameen Telecom model of Bangladesh, the least-cost subsidy model of Nepal and the use of wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) for connecting people in Indonesia. The idea is to learn from different models with a view to getting more people connected. We are saying that lessons can also be drawn from bad practices," says Prof Samarajiva.

The second cycle of research, which is currently in progress, is focused on how it can reliably, accurately and comparably measure how much progress has been made.

"We are trying to create standardised definitions and models pertaining to all aspects of sector performance. For example, how do we compare prices; should it be minimum charges or should we take basket methodologies, etc. We are looking at prices, connectivity, quality of service, etc. The idea is to develop a standardised indicators manual that will be acceptable to both the industry and the regulator," he says, adding that a Telecom Regulatory Environment Indicator has already been developed.

Shoestring research

LIRNEasia's Shoestring Research I and II covered socio-economic groups `C', `D' and `E' in India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Thailand and the Philippines. For Shoestring Research I, seven locations in India and four in Sri Lanka were chosen.

"We are trying to understand strategies that people use to access telecommunication services. For example, do they share telephones, do they use call back features, do they sell messages to people, etc. Fifty-eight per cent of the people from among our survey who used a telephone in the last three months did not have their own telephone. These are the people who will comprise the next billion of telecom subscribers."

Shoestring Research II had a sample size of 9,000 drawn from five countries and, as such, was representative of the "bottom of pyramid users".

Interesting findings

The research has thrown up interesting findings. For example, in the Philippines, people use mobile phones more for SMS than for talking. Indonesia decided to change the rules of the game with regard to leased lines after the Indian example was provided. Indonesia has also drawn lessons from the drawbacks of the USO Fund of India.

"The idea is to learn from different models and the mistakes made by others. We are living among the largest concentration of poor people in the world. LIRNEasia will continue to work until its mission is achieved," Prof Samarajiva signs off.

ambar_singhroy@rediffmail.com

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