Financial Times

New laws to tackle cyber crimes
By Quintus Perera
Local and international call charges have fallen drastically following the liberalization of the telecommunication interconnectivity to around Rs 25 per minute from Rs 130 to 125 per minute, said Sumathi Dharmawardena, Legal Advisor to the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC) of Sri Lanka
Speaking at the monthly meeting of The Sunday Times Business Club on telecommunication regulation, he said after the liberalization of the international telecom market in February 2003, the TRC issued 33 licences which included two wireless land line operators, three mobile operators, Facility based Data Operators and new entrants.

He said that when two telecom networks interconnect, each operator levies charges to the other for calls terminated in their network and in this market the cost that the new entrant has to pay the incumbent operator is much higher than vice versa.

This disparity in interconnection charges and the imposition of highly unfair commercial terms to new entrants made the market competition difficult. Therefore, the World Trade Organization has set out principles pertaining to it.
Under these principles interconnection must be provided at any technically feasible point in the network, on non-discriminatory terms, rates and of a quality no less favourable than for the incumbents own supply, in a timely fashion and on terms that are transparent and reasonable and on an unbundled basis so that a buyer does not pay for unnecessary services.

Dharmawardena, also senior state counsel at the Attorney General’s Department, said that major operators tend to create market barriers to new entrants and in order to minimize creating these barriers TRC has incorporated a mechanism to intervene when parties fail to come to an agreement. He said it is mandatory for TRC to resolve disputes between operators. The in-built dispute resolution by TRC has encouraged operators to use this instead of going to Courts in the first instance.

Speaking of cyber crimes, Dharmawardena said like the other crimes it consists of people, transactions, commerce, money -- all of which constitute crime and it affects almost everybody who uses the Internet and in many cases also those who do not.

He said one of the key elements that keeps most members of any society honest is fear of being caught but the Internet has changed it as it offers the criminal an opportunity of attacking his victims from the remoteness of a different country or continent and the results of the crime are not immediately apparent.

He said according to a Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), computer-related crimes, including viruses and spyware, cost US businesses a staggering $ 67.2 billion a year.

He said that the herculean task of combating cyber crimes would be to educate the citizens of the world about the complexities of cyber crimes and how to fight against these crimes. This task also includes making Internet users aware of their rights and duties as visitors of cyber space.

He said that to combat cyber crimes in Sri Lanka a bill has now been introduced in parliament. Trans Asia Hotel and Lion Breweries Ltd were sponsors of the meeting.

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