Digital Inclusion in Laos

1. Digital Inclusion in Laos
Phonpasit PHISSAMAY
Director General
e-Government Center
Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications
Lao PDR
Asia-Pacific Regional Forum on Universal Access and Service
and Broadband Development 2015, Bangkok, Thailand.

2. About Laos
• Area: 236.800 Km2
• Population: 6.7 Millions
– Urban: 35%
– Rural: 65%
• GDP : 1,600 USD
• Poverty: 23%
• Disability people:
– 86,442 people (register)
– 8% of households
– 1.3% of total population
– (But WHO estimate up to 8%)

3. Laos ICT facts
• Telecom penetration: 80%
– Fix line penetration: 13%
– Mobile penetration: 67%
• Internet penetration: 25%
– Population of households with Internet: 6%
– Mobile internet user (SIM-Net registration) : 19%
• PC penetration: 30%
– Population of households with computer: 12%

4. IDI values compared with the global, regional and
developing/developed-country averages, Asia and the
pacific, 2012
penetration and international Internet connectivity.
Nonetheless, Bangladesh still remains at the bottom of the
regional ranking and in 135th position globally. Mongolia,
on the other hand, moved up five places in the global IDI
between 2011 and 2012, overtaking both Viet Nam and
the Islamic Republic of Iran.
IDI
World
Developing
Asia & Pacific
Developed
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Korea(Rep.)
HongKong,China
AustraliaJapan
M
acao,China
Singapore
BruneiDarussalamM
alaysia
M
aldivesChina
Fiji
New
Zealand
M
ongolia
VietNamIran
(I.R.)
Thailand
Indonesia
PhilippinesTonga
SriLankaBhutan
Cam
bodiaIndia
Lao
P.D.R.
Solom
on
IslandsPakistan
M
yanm
ar
Bangladesh
IDI
World
Developing
Asia & Pacific
Developed
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Korea(Rep.)
HongKong,ChinaAustraliaJapan
Macao,China
Singapore
BruneiDarussalamMalaysia
MaldivesChina
Fiji
New
Zealand
Mongolia
VietNamIran(I.R.)
Thailand
Indonesia
PhilippinesTongaSriLankaBhutan
CambodiaIndia
LaoP.D.R.
SolomonIslandsPakistan
Myanmar
Bangladesh
IDI
World
Developing
Asia & Pacific
Developed
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Korea(Rep.)
HongKong,ChinaAustraliaJapan
Macao,China
Singapore
BruneiDarussalamMalaysia
MaldivesChina
Fiji
New
Zealand
Mongolia
VietNamIran(I.R.)
Thailand
Indonesia
PhilippinesTongaSriLankaBhutan
CambodiaIndia
LaoP.D.R.
SolomonIslandsPakistan
Myanmar
Bangladesh

5. Index Value
2011 2012 2013
Global ranking
2011 2012 2013
IDI 1.84 1.99 2.10 120th 122nd 123rd
Access sub-index 2.18 2.36 2.53 124th 122nd 121st
Use sub-index 0.26 0.36 0.46 129th 129th 129th
Skills sub-index 4.35 4.50 4.50 121st 121st 121st

6. Infrastructure
• Network infrastructure
– OFC: 61,373 Km
– 2G: 7,000 BTS /10,000 BTS
– 3G: 2,400 BTS /15,000 BTS
– International Bandwidth: 2.5 Gbps
• Barrier
– 2/3 of country areas is mountain
– Low population density in rural areas

7. Affordability
• High price:
– International bandwidth: 100 USD/Mbps
– Fix line Internet= 30 USD/Mb/Month
– Mobile Internet: 0.04USD per 1 MB.
– 0.10 USD/minute for prepaid
– 0.04 USD/minute of post paid.
– 30% tax on ICT equipment
• People expense
– 27% of average households income
– Low people purchase power (11% of
total householders)

8. Consumer barrier
• Literacy: 73%
• ICT literacy: 20%
• English literacy: 30%

9. Local content
• Website:
– Website in Lao language: 1,000
– Only 20% of government office have website
– 30 e-Content provider (newspaper and magazine)
• Barrier:
– Lack of Lao language support in most of ICT system
– Lack of content creator

10. To ensure that broadband services are
accessible nationwide
• Telecommunication development fund
(Chapter VII of Telecommunication law 2011) :
– government budget
– Foreign aid
– Individual contribution
– Some portion of penalty related to Telecommunication activities
– Some portion of telecommunication activities and resource.
• In 2013: MPT assigned some number and location of the rural villages to
each operator as obligation to provide the connectivity and also for those
want to replace 4G into 2 G spectrum 1800 Band.
• Satellite Project (Started in 2012 and expected to send the satellite into the
128.5 E in November 2015)
• Consolidate the passive infrastructure (such as sharing tower), which
MPT has assigned Malaysian company to conduct the FS and expected to
see the report on April 2015.

11. To ensure the backbone is accessible and
cost-effective
• National Internet
gateway project
(2008)
• National
Telecommunicati
on transmission
Network project
(2011)

12. To ensure that broadband services are
affordable to everyone
• MPT is under restructure the spectrum fees: Such as capacity
band and coverage band.
• Tax incentive for operator and user in rural areas, which are
now under consideration of the custom and tax department.
• As recommended by ITU expert: MPT will introduce an
obligation on relevant licensees to offer a defined entry-level
broadband product at a specified retail price that is widely
affordable while still being profitable
(Need to elaborate and make clear understanding to the
authority. Also need to identify the strategy for the
implementation)

13. To ensure that everyone has some ICT
knowledge
• E-Education project has
established Computer Lab
in 50 schools and
provided free Internet
access to more than 500
schools:
• Lao localization project
• Rural community
Telecenter project:
• IDRC: 1 Center
• ADB: 5 Center
• India: 10: Center
• Japan: 2 Center
• MPT : 2 Center

14. To ensure that broadband services are useful
and widely used
• E-Government project
• Government cross- sectoral information sharing Project
• E-Health Project
• Development some application for disability people
• Computer for handicap school
• Text To Speech project

15. E-Government Infrastructure

16. Ø E-Portal
Ø E-Applications (e-document, e-Archive,
e-Registration, e-Staff
Ø Domain Name (gov.la)
Ø Computer network
Ø Video Conference
Ø E-Mail
Ø Web Hosting
Ø E-Service
Ø Consultant, assistant
Ø Trend of E-Government Development
Ø Cloud computing
Ø Multimedia
Service of e-Government center

18. Health Service Improvement project

19. TTS project
• PAN Location project supported by
IDRC of Canada. NECTEC Thailand
has help the Lao research to design
the solution and technology for Lao
TTS system.
• US Embassy in Laos has granted
20,000 USD to the Laos Blind
Association to collect the text and
record the voice of 5,000 sentences.
• MPT has proposed project on ICT
application for disability people to
ITU, especially to complete the
development of Lao TTS system.
ITU has informed that US-AID wish
to support for enhance the project

20. Thank you