Not all Asian Telecom Regulators value the power of web

They spearhead perhaps the fastest growing industry at national level, not to mention the sector’s increasing contribution to GDP, but surprisingly not even the Telecom Regulators of some Asia Pacific economies have recognised the power of web, as revealed by a website benchmarking survey conducted by LIRNEasia, a regional telecom policy and regulatory think tank.

Fifteen Asia and Pacific Telecom Regulator websites, out of 31 evaluated, have failed to score even half the marks for their performance, while 22 regulators not even having an electronic presence. Six Regulators seem to have thought having a local language version is adequate completely ignoring the possibility of foreign investors looking for information in their sites.

A Telecom Regulator, like any other government organization, uses its website not only to deliver citizen services but also to improve its transparency and effectiveness in regulatory functions. LIRNEasia’s study awarded marks for each Regulatory Authority website for its effectiveness in regulatory communication. The Survey evaluated how well they achieve this objective looking from the angle of telecom operators, investors, consumers, researchers and the general public.

Not surprisingly Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia were the countries to have best Telecom Regulator sites. They were informative, user friendly and updated with information relevant not just for public but rest of the stakeholders. The best example is the website of the Office of Telecommunications Authority (OFTA) of Hong Kong, which under its ‘Industry Focus’ provides gamut of information for prospective investors such as mobile, fixed and broadband market information, licensing procedures, interconnection and Universal Service Obligation information. Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore, is another innovative site that presents which even performance rates of widely used broadband packages, something which will be extremely useful to a prospective user. Australian Communication and Media Authority website, though not limited to telecommunication, provides important information to investors and consumers.

However, some developing countries too are not that behind. Both India and Pakistan have scored more than 75% marks. Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) was the top in South Asia just behind more advanced counterparts, largely because it did not have a local version of a site which the researchers thought a must for Asian countries with only selected sections of their populations read English. Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) in addition to losing marks for lack of local language version did not get the marks awarded for not using it as a tool for transparency – especially in procurement. The websites were given high marks if they were used to provide documentary information on deals at every stage.

In general the distribution of marks was an indication of the economic development and the Internet penetration, but there were clear exceptions. Website of the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka scored a bit higher marks than that of Commerce Commission in New Zealand that plays the role of Telecom Regulator among other things.  Nepal Telecommunication Authority from a country with number of access paths (mobile SIMs and fixed telephones) of 6.4 per a hundred in population scored more marks as National Telecommunication Commission of tech savvy Philippines, with access paths more than eight times higher.

However, some of the poorest performers were also the countries with least telecom penetration.  Websites of Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications in Cambodia, Ministry of Communications, Posts and Telegraphs in Myanmar, Communications and Information Agency of Uzbekistan and Independent Consumer and Competition Commission of Papua New Guinea all representing countries with less than 10 access paths per every 100 on average basis, score less than 20 for their websites too. Perhaps the regulators might not have taken them too seriously because anyway the facilities for users to access them are low.

Not reviewing non-English websites is another limitation in this study. Many economies in Asia Pacific do not use English for their day-to- day activities. Depending on the needs, a regulator may choose not to have an English version of the website. Six economies namely Yemen, South Korea, Mongolia, Indonesia, Kuwait and China have been eliminated from the study for this reason.

This study has also shown an improvement from the previous one by LIRNEasia, which has been conducted in 2005, where only 33 Telecom Regulatory Authorities had websites . This time the number has increased to 37. However, only 31 of these have been evaluated for the lack of English version sites.

(Full report attached)