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Data revenue of mobile networks decline with social media bans

19 May 2019

- YouTube the biggest contributor to loss

By Madhusha Thavapalakumar Multiple social media bans since the Easter Sunday attacks have resulted in mobile telecommunication service providers losing up to 50% of its data revenue on a daily basis, industry sources told The Sunday Morning Business. The loss has been mainly due to the ban on YouTube as it is the highest data traffic generating app amongst the banned apps including Facebook, Whatsapp, Viber, Instagram, and Twitter, according to a high-level executive of a leading service provider. While VPNs have risen in popularity over the past few weeks, they are still used only by a small percentage of Sri Lanka's mobile subscriber base, The Sunday Morning Business learns. Therefore the impact of a social media ban is not sufficiently mitigated by the use of VPNs. The Sri Lankan Government first banned the usage of social media on 21 April, soon after the scenes of the coordinated terrorist attacks started to appear on the social platforms along with hate speech, racist comments, and misinformation. The initial ban was in place for almost a week before it was finally lifted on 30 April. Following a tense situation in the Negombo area on 5 May, access to social media platforms was blocked for the second time upon the instructions of President Maithripala Sirisena, although this time the block lasted only a day. However, three weeks after Easter, communal violence started to spread across the country on 12 May, prompting another social media ban. On Friday (17) evening, the block was lifted. The less popular social media applications including Twitter were not blocked during the previous bans but in the third ban several service providers blocked access to Twitter as well. Speaking to The Sunday Morning Business, Hutchison Telecommunications Lanka (Pvt.) Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Thirukumar Nadarasa stated that the social media platform is a significant part of the data revenue of Hutch. However, he refused to provide any statistical data in this regard. “Obviously there is a huge impact from these social media bans but we understand the situation in the country, we are operating according to the instructions from the authorities. We periodically cut off services in certain areas.” Another industry insider told us on condition of anonymity that geofencing, or regional blocks, had added to the woes of mobile telecom service providers. “We are forced to do this. However, if the block is in the night, the loss of revenue is less.” Geofencing targets a customer or potential customer within a predetermined distance to or around a fixed location using Wi-Fi or Bluetooth for the purpose of sending push notifications to that customer when they enter the geofence. However, this can also be used to restrict access to social media within that area. In addition to the data revenue loss, the sales of the recharge cards have also come down in the areas where curfew was imposed periodically due to the closure of shops long before the onset of curfew. Furthermore, earnings from roaming calls have also witnessed a drop with the decline in the number of tourists coming into the country. When a tourist originates an international call from a mobile while in Sri Lanka, the local mobile service provider's network the tourist latches onto receives a percentage of the rate charged from the customer by the foreign mobile network. According to the GSMA intelligence report 2017, over 70% of the 22 million population have access to a mobile connection in Sri Lanka and 90% of them have 3G mobile network coverage. Latest statistics from the Telecommunication Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL) stated that the cellular mobile telephone subscriptions in the country was 32.5 million while fixed telephone subscriptions were 2.4 million. According to the CNN, internet shutdowns and social media bans have become increasingly common across the world in recent years, especially Asia, particularly in the wake of protests or other anti-government activity. Sri Lankan authorities blocked access to social media platforms for the first time in March 2018 during a 10-day nationwide state of emergency due to communal violence in the Central Province. The violence was believed to be encouraged by social media posts. The ban remained for a week and was lifted later on following discussions with social media officials to prevent hate speech that could damage ethnic harmony.

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