[kictanet] Day 7-10:-Available eCommunication Strategies for Regulators
Chanuka Wattegama
wattegama at lirne.net
Mon Oct 22 08:08:06 EAT 2007
Hi John,
Thanks for the compliment and let me try to respond as far as I can.
1. What Kind/Category of Information were the Asian
Regulators sharing?
Ideally these were the categories of information an NRA is expected to share
with all of its stakeholders. (not just consumers - I think you might be
more interested in the category No. 2)
1. Factual Information: This includes telecommunications Acts, statistical
indicators, etc.
2. Consumer and Citizen Information: Information of interest to end-users or
prospective end-users, about universal service, consumer rights (including
reporting abuses) and tariffs. In addition to actual legislation and formal
guidelines, FAQs, or frequently asked questions which are very important to
consumers must be present and easily digestible to an ordinary citizen,
3. Business Information: This relates to information required by current and
prospective operators and investors such as licensing procedures, technical
requirements, interconnection agreements, online forms for certification,
authorization etc. Here it is necessary to look for information which
explains and describes the procedures and requirements, rather than mere
provision of access to formal documentation and legislation.
4. Telecom regulatory news and other features to further disseminate
information: This final category ensures accessibility of information,
regulatory news and developments to researchers and journalists who can
further disseminate regulatory information nationally and internationally.
Often these features contextualize the site information and make it more
intelligible.
There were six NRA sites (Pakistan, Jordan, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Australia
and Singapore) that shared information of ALL categories above fairly well.
Then there were four countries (Sri Lanka, India, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain)
in the second tire. Others have shared information at various degrees. You
will also see there is no strict pattern here. Pakistan a developing nation
scored well about more developed nations. That proves the level of
development has little to do with the intention to share information with
public.
2. Was there provision for two-way electronic information
exchange i.e. b/w the Stakeholders (the Customers) and the
Regulators?
Yes, This was available in several sites. (I cannot remember exactly which
ones) Many sites gave the email addresses of the relevant officials to be
contacted depending upon the type of the issue. However how efficient this
system was not practically tested in the study. It is possible that the site
give email addresses but then be silent about the queries.
3. In areas where Internet penetration was low, was there
an attempt to provide same information through other means?
Sorry, this was beyond the scope of the study, and I have no knowledge on
the other means.
Anyway, I could not see a direct co-relation between the countries that have
low Internet penetration levels and have poorly done web sites. Some
countries with low penetration levels have done fairly good web sites. (eg
Bangladesh) It looks like the fair presentation of the site has more to do
with the poor regulatory environment rather than the low Internet
penetration. (Just my opinion, not proven.) My guess is if an NRA has
information it always puts that on the web, before using other means. Do you
think an NRA might not present relevant information on the site just because
the Internet penetration is poor?
This is a good point for future discussion.
Hope I have answers your questions.
Best Rgds,
Cw
-----Original Message-----
From: John Walubengo [mailto:jwalu at yahoo.com]
Sent: Friday, 19 October, 2007 7:38 PM
To: Chanuka Wattegama
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Day 7-10:-Available eCommunication Strategies for
Regulators
Hi Chanuka,
In our local Ksiwahili dialect 'Chanuka' means the
'bright-one'! So am sure you will have some answers based
on your Asian Study which is quite welcome and timely.
1. What Kind/Category of Information were the Asian
Regulators sharing?
2. Was there provision for two-way electronic information
exchange i.e. b/w the Stakeholders (the Customers) and the
Regulators?
3. In areas where Internet penetration was low, was there
an attempt to provide same information through other means?
walu.
--- Chanuka Wattegama <wattegama at lirne.net> wrote:
> Dear All,
>
>
>
> Extremely sorry to barge in this later stage, but I had
> no other option
> because the past few days were exceptionally busy.
>
>
>
> Let me share some of the useful findings from the study
> Benchmarking
> National Telecom Regulatory Authority websites of
> Asia-Pacific Region For
> those who are not familiar, This study systematically
> benchmarked National
> Telecom Regulator websites in the Asia-Pacific region,
> evaluating their
> usefulness to telecom operators, investors, consumers,
> researchers and even
> the general public. Each website is awarded marks for the
> availability of
> information and features that are useful to the
> regulator's stakeholders. A
> total of 27 websites are evaluated from a region that
> includes 62 economies.
> (More details:
>
http://www.lirneasia.net/projects/completed-projects/regulatory-web-survey)
>
>
>
> 1. For the study I have considered 62 independent
> Asia Pacific
> economies (Hong Kong could have been the only exception,
> but that needs to
> be taken into account because of its independent
> regulatory environment,
> which cannot be put in the same category as China.) The
> definition used for
> 'Asia' was the broadest that can be thought of because it
> included Middle
> East and Central Asia as well. Out of that 62, only 33
> NRAs had web sites.
> (This was in 2004, the situation is a bit better now)
> Anyway the bottom line
> is only 60-70% of the NRAs have some sort of websites.
> This raises the
> question how far the NRAs have thought about
> communications.
>
>
>
> 2. If my memory serves me right I could not
> benchmark NRA sites
> (Japan, China, Korea, Thailand, Indonesia and Yemen)
> because then they did
> not have English versions. So the number has to be
> limited to 27. (I do not
> say ever NRA should have an English version, but this was
> a practical
> difficulty that we could not avoid) Even out of that 27,
> there were many
> NRAs that had not given any information relevant to end
> consumers. The
> limited information gives perhaps the mandate and the top
> officers at NRA.
> One NRA website even had a page for foreign tourists.
>
>
>
> 3. Then there were sites that provided consumer
> information to levels
> varying from basic minimum to very good. There was one
> site that reproduced
> every customer complaint and monitored the progress. I am
> not sure whether
> we expect NRAs to do to that level. There were also some
> sites (eg.
> Singapore, Malaysia) that provided a gamut of information
> including
> technical details many consumers might not even follow.
> Anyway, I do not
> think this is a bad practice. We do not need everybody's
> grandmother to
> understand this information, but the fact that they are
> in public domain
> implies that all consumers (including grandmothers!)
> receive a better
> service.
>
>
>
> 4. Not many NRAs were worried about presenting the
> information in a
> language understandable to the end consumers. (The six
> countries I have
> mentioned in No. 2 were exceptions) So even if the
> information is available
> it is not sure whether the consumers can take any use of
> it. We also have to
> take into account that some of these countries have
> extremely low Internet
> penetration levels. So we come to the same problems
> again. The content is
> there, but can the consumers realistically access that?
>
>
>
> These observations raise the important question how far
> NRAs can use
> websites as a tool to interact with the end consumers. I
> do not try to
> provide an answer right now. May be I can give a better
> answer at GK3.
>
>
>
> Then the question how NRAs can improve their
> communications using e-tools. I
> have some good new here. After publishing the survey
> results some NRAs have
> taken serious efforts to improve their websites. India
> and Bangladesh are
> two examples. I know both these countries have benefitted
> from the survey
> results at best. I do not see any reason why others could
> not.
>
>
>
> Think this is adequate for the moment. I hope I have
> brought in the Asian
> dimension to the discussion.
>
>
>
> Best Rgds,
>
> Chanuka Wattegama
>
> LIRNEasia
>
> www.lirneasia.net
>
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