How to Engage in Broadband Policy and Regulatory Processes

Click to see Sunil Abraham's presentation on Surveillance and Privacy. Also read it on LIRNE asia website here.

Goal

To enable members of Indian civil-society groups (including academics and those from the media) to marshal available research and evidence for effective participation in broadband policy and regulatory processes including interactions with media, thereby facilitating and enriching policy discourse on means of increasing broadband access by the poor.

Outcomes

The objective of the course is to produce discerning and knowledgeable consumers of research who are able to engage in broadband policy and regulatory processes.  The course will benefit those working in government and at operators as well.

At the end of the course attendees will:

Be able to find and assess relevant research & evidence

• Be able to summarize the research in a coherent and comprehensive manner
• Have an understanding of broadband policy and regulatory processes in India
• Have the necessary tools to improve their communication skills
• Have some understanding of how media function and how to effectively interact with media

Participants will be formed into teams on day1. Both group assignments are connected.

The first assignment requires each group to research on a National Broadband Network (NBN) assigned to them (one of US, Singapore, Hong Kong, Brazil, South Africa, Korea or Colombia) and writing it up based on a template that will be provided. Each team will have to present their findings about the NBN at the end of day 2.

The second assignment is to be performed by teams.  It is an oral presentation, accompanied by a policy brief of two pages max. at a mock public hearing at which the Indian Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is seeking input on the question of subsidizing fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) as the second phase of the current INR 20,000 Crore (USD 4 Billion) National Optical Fiber Network initiative.  Each team will be assigned a role and they should present the recommendations from the point of view of the assigned ‘role’.  All presentations must be evidence based.  It is expected that participants will use what they learnt about other NBNs on day 2 to support their argument.  Additional research must be conducted on Days 3 and 4.

Faculty

Rohan Samarajiva, PhD
Rohan Samarajiva, was the founding CEO (2004 - 2012) and Chair (2004 – onwards) of LIRNEasia.

Previously he was the Team Leader at the Sri Lanka Ministry for Economic Reform, Science and Technology (2002-04) responsible for infrastructure reforms, including participation in the design of the USD 83 million e Sri Lanka Initiative.  He was Director General of Telecommunications in Sri Lanka (1998-99), a founder director of the ICT Agency of Sri Lanka (2003-05), Honorary Professor at the University of Moratuwa in Sri Lanka (2003-04), Visiting Professor of Economics of Infrastructures at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands (2000-03) and Associate Professor of Communication and Public Policy at the Ohio State University in the US (1987-2000).  He was Policy Advisor to the Ministry of Post and Telecom in Bangladesh (2007-09).

He serves as Senior Advisor to Sarvodaya (Sri Lanka’s largest community based organization) on ICT matters. Samarajiva is a Board Member of Communication Policy Research south, an initiative to identify and foster policy intellectuals in emerging Asia. He serves on the editorial boards of seven academic journals.

His full CV can be found at http://lirneasia.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/CVApril1long.pdf

Martin Cave, PhD
Martin Cave is a regulatory economist specialising in competition law and in the network industries, including  airports, broadcasting, energy, posts, railways, telecommunications and water. He has published extensively in these fields, and has held professorial positions at Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, UK, and the Department of Economics, Brunel University, UK. In 2010/11, Martin held the BP Centennial Chair at the London School of Economics, based in the Department of Law. He is now Visiting Professor at Imperial College Business School.

He is a Deputy Chair of the Competition Commission from January 2012. He has provided expert advice to governments, competition authorities, regulators and firms around the world, focussing particularly upon the communications industries. This work has included reviews of spectrum policies for the Governments of Australia, Canada and the UK; advice on market analysis and access remedies to a large number of regulators in Asia, Australia, Europe and Latin America, including the European Commission. He has provided advice and expert testimony in competition and sector-specific regulatory proceedings to a number of major international firms in Asia, Australasia and Europe. He has also advised UK ministers on matters relating to the water sector, housing, legal services and airports, and advised regulators in the railway and energy sectors. He was a founder member of the Academic Advisory Committee of the Brussels-based think tank, the Centre for Regulation in Europe (www.cerre.eu). In 2009 he was awarded the OBE for public service.

His full CV available on http://www.martincave.org.uk/index.php

Payal Malik
Payal Malik is a Senior Research Fellow of LIRNEasia and an Associate Professor of Economics at the Delhi University. She is currently on deputation to the Competition Commission of India. She is also associated with National Council of Applied Economic Research and Indicus Analytics. She received her Master of Philosophy (M.Phil.), and MA in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics and BA in Economics from Lady Shriram College, University of Delhi. She also has a MBA in Finance from the University of Cincinnati.

She has several years of research experience on the issues of competition and regulation in network industries like power, telecommunication and water. In addition, she has done considerable research on the ICT sector. Recently she has been actively engaged in competition policy research. At LIRNEasia, she has led research on measuring India’s telecom sector and regulatory performance, including a study on Universal Service Instruments. She has written both for professional journals as well as for the economic press. Currently she is a regular columnist for the Financial Express, India and a referee for the Information Technologies and International Development journal published by University of Southern California, Annenberg.  Click here to download a detailed version of CV.

Satyen Gupta
Satyen Gupta is the founder and Secretary General, NGN Forum, India. Previously he was the chief of Corporate Affairs, Sterlite Technologies Ltd and headed the Regulatory and Govt. Affairs for BT global Services for SAARC Region and handled Licencing, Regulation, compliance, competition and Industry Advocacy issues. He is also a member, Advisory Board of Creation and Implementation of National Optical Fibre Network for the government of India (2011 onwards). From 2000-2006 he served as the Principle Advisor, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India at the level of additional secretary to the government of India and headed the fixed network division. He is the author of “Everything Over IP-All you want to know about NGN” (2011).

He has conducted and taught many courses on telecommunication technologies, policy and regulation. He is also a Govt. Affairs and Regulatory advocate. He  graduated with Hons, in Engineering in 1979 from NIT, Kurukshetra University, INDIA and went on to complete his post graduate studies in Electronics Design Technology at CEDT, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

Rajat Kathuria, PhD
Rajat Kathuria is Director and Chief Executive at Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER), New Delhi. He has over 20 years experience in teaching and 10 years experience in economic policy, besides research interests on a range of issues relating to regulation and competition policy. He worked with Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) during its first eight years (1998-2006) and gained hands on experience with telecom regulation in an environment changing rapidly towards competition. The role entailed analysis of economic issues relating to telecom tariff policy, tariff rebalancing, interconnection charges and licensing policy. Market research and questionnaire development and analysis formed an integral part of this exercise. It also involved evaluation of macro level initiatives for transforming the telecom industry. He wrote a number of consultation papers which eventually formed the basis of tariff and interconnection orders applicable to the industry. He has an undergraduate degree in Economics from St. Stephens College, a Masters from Delhi School of Economics and a PhD degree from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Ernesto Flores, PhD
Ernesto M. Flores-Roux majored in Mathematics from the National University of Mexico (UNAM), obtained partial credits in a Masters in Economics (ITAM), and received his PhD in Statistics from The University of Chicago (1993). From 1993 to 2004, he worked for McKinsey & Co., Inc. (Mexico, Brazil), one of the most prestigious international consulting firms, first as a Consultant, then as Partner, and finally as the Partner in charge of McKinsey's Rio de Janeiro office. He specialized in several aspects of the telecommunications industry, including regulation, planning, strategy, and marketing. He assisted the governments of Mexico and Brazil in their deregulation and privatization processes. In 2004, he joined Telefonica, first as Director of Marketing and Strategy in Mexico and then transferring to Telefónica's operations in Peru, China (Beijing), and Brazil. In 2008 he joined the Ministry of Communications and Transport (SCT) in Mexico as Chief of Staff of the Deputy Minister of Communications. In 2009 he joined CIDE (Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, Mexico City) as an associate professor of CIDE's telecommunications program (Telecom CIDE). He has published several papers in telecommunications policy and has written reports for the IDB, GSMA, UN/CEPAL , Ahciet, CAF, OECD, as well as other publications in industry and academic journals. In 2011 he became a member of the Advisory Council of the Mexican telecommunications regulator (Cofetel – Comisión Federal de Telecomunicaciones).

Sunil Abraham
Sunil Abraham is the Executive Director of Bangalore based research organization, the Centre for Internet and Society. He founded Mahiti in 1998, a company committed to creating high impact technology and communications solutions. Today, Mahiti employs more than 50 engineers. Sunil continues to serve on the board. Sunil was elected an Ashoka fellow in 1999 to 'explore the democratic potential of the Internet' and was also granted a Sarai FLOSS fellowship in 2003. Between June 2004 and June 2007, Sunil also managed the International Open Source Network, a project of United Nations Development Programme's Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme serving 42 countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

Nilusha Kapugama
Nilusha Kapugama is a Research Manager at LIRNEasia and manages the electricity component of the 2012-2014 IDRC Project on ‘Achieving e-inclusion by improving government service delivery & exploring the potential of “big data” for answering development questions’.

She is also working on a systematic review looking at the economic impacts of mobile phones. Previously she managed the Knowledge Based Economy project at LIRNEasia, which looked at the information and knowledge gaps in agriculture supply chains. She also worked on CPRsouth, LIRNEasia’s capacity-building initiative to develop Asia-Pacific expertise and knowledge networks in ICT policy regulation. She has also done research on broadband quality indicators and national regulatory authority (NRA) website indicators. She has also worked on LIRNEasia’s Virtual Organization Project.  She has experience organizing international conferences and training courses.

She holds a master’s degree in development economics and policy from the University of Manchester, UK.

Roshanthi Lucas Gunaratne
Roshanthi is a Research Manager at LIRNEasia and is currently managing the Ford Foundation Funded project on Giving Broadband Access to the Poor in India.

She is also contributing to the IDRC Customer Lifecycle Management Practices Project by conducting research on customer lifecycle management practices in telecommunication sector in Bangladesh.

Before joining LIRNEasia, Roshanthi worked at the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Geneva, Switzerland as a Strategic Information Officer. She contributed to the process of defining the Global Fund Key Performance Indicators, and also worked on improving the performance measurements of their grants. Prior to that, she worked as a telecom project manager at Dialog Telecom, and Suntel Ltd in Sri Lanka. As Suntel she managed the design and implementation of corporate customer projects.

She holds a MBA from the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, UK and a BSc. Eng (Hons) specializing in Electronics and Telecommunication from the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka.

Resource Materials

Bauer, Johannes M.; Kim, Junghyun; & Wildman, Steven S. (2005).  An integrated framework for assessing broadband policy options.  MICH. ST. L. REV. 21, pp. 21-50.  http://www.msulawreview.org/PDFS/2005/1/Bauer-Kim.pdf

Broadband Commission (2012). The state of broadband 2012:  Achieving digital inclusion for all. http://www.broadbandcommission.org/Documents/bb-annualreport2012.pdf

Government of India, Department of Telecommunications (2012).  National Telecom Policy 2012.  http://www.dot.gov.in/ntp/NTP-06.06.2012-final.pdf

Government of India, Department of Telecommunications (2004).  Broadband policy.  http://www.dot.gov.in/ntp/broadbandpolicy2004.htm

Junio, Don Rodney (2012). Does a National Broadband Plan Matter? A Comparative Analysis of Broadband Plans in Hong Kong and Singapore http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2146566

InfoDev.  Broadband strategies toolkit.  http://broadbandtoolkit.org/en/toolkit/contents

Samarajiva, Rohan (2010).  Leveraging the budget telecom network business model to bring broadband to the people, Information Technology and International Development, 6, special edition:  93-97.  http://itidjournal.org/itid/article/view/630/270