July 2006 — Page 2 of 2 — LIRNEasia


The World Information Society Report 2006 showcasing the results from the Digital Opportunity Index applied to 180 countries was released this week by the ITU. The DOI evaluates the opportunity, infrastructure and utilization of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) worldwide. The report can be downloaded here. Amongst the countries that LIRNEasia works in, the biggest gainers in the DOI ranking are India and Indonesia. In India, digital opportunity nearly doubled between 2001 and 2005.
This is the text of a talk that I am giving on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka in Belihuloya on the 7th of July 2006. A excerpt is given below: The world economy is becoming more knowledge intensive and communication dependent. Leaving aside the question of cause and effect, clearly the Internet and the old things that can be done better through it and the new things that can be done for the first time through it are integrally connected to the effective functioning in the world economy. It is not that we need the Internet to mine the gems this province is famous for; but that it is likely that those gems will fetch a better price if we use the Internet to market them worldwide. So this is the essence of the age of the Internet: the lowering of time and space barriers to those who have access to its full potential; the further marginalization of those without that access.
June 21 (Bloomberg) — Vonage Holdings Corp. and other providers of Internet-based telephone service must help subsidize services in rural and low-income areas, U.S. regulators said. A rule adopted today by the Federal Communications Commission requires providers of Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, service to contribute 10.
LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE – LBO Sri Lanka’s biggest mobile-phone operator Dialog Telekom Thursday slashed outgoing call charges by as much as 50 percent as the firm stepped up its expansion drive in the country. Call charges within the network from 11.00 pm to 6.00 am will go down by 50 percent to 2.00 rupees, while rates for outgoing peak calls have been cut by an average 30 percent, officials said.
BBC News | Taipei to embrace net telephones    The city of Taipei, in Taiwan, could have 200,000 people making phone calls using wi-fi by the end of 2006. Ten companies are pushing a “Taipei Easy Call” initiative which involves mobiles which can switch between calls using wi-fi and the phone network. “If this is successful, then the model could be copied in cities elsewhere in the world,” said Daniel Wongg, of the Taipei Computer Association. The wi-fi mobiles provide a cheaper alternative to mobile phone calls.
BBC NEWS | Business | EU plans crackdown on mobile fees “A plan to regulate mobile phone charges for calls made abroad will shortly be published by the European Commission, despite intense opposition. The industry is concerned that the proposals go too far, and even within the commission itself there are doubts. At present, most users pay far more to make mobile calls when they are abroad than they do in their home country. This is because service providers have to pay large fees for access to one another’s networks.” Not the highest priority for regulators in emerging Asia.
By Jonathan Fildes Science and technology reporter, BBC News In the aftermath of the 7 July bombings, people were understandably keen to talk on their mobile phones. Londoners wanted to assure friends, relatives and colleagues that they were OK; keep up to date with the latest news or find out whether anyone they knew had been caught up in any of the four explosions. Yet, while speaking on a mobile phone is a routine part of modern life, for a crucial eight hours on 7 July it became difficult, and for many, impossible. In some areas of London, the sheer number of people wanting to make phone calls was enough to bring the mobile networks to their knees.

FDI bad for developing countries?

Posted on July 4, 2006  /  0 Comments

Our colleagues from Latin America have drawn our attention to the following article, perhaps because they think that our TRE (telecom regulatory environment) work is premised on FDI being an unmitigated good. We welcome the opportunity for a debate. Kevin P. Gallagher and Lyuba Zarsky, “Rethinking Foreign Investment for Development”, Post-Autistic Economics Review, issue 37 Abstract “In the 1990s, foreign direct investment (FDI) came to be seen as a “miracle drug”—a jumpstart to economic growth and sustainable industrial development, especially in developing countries. Policies to attract FDI became the centerpiece of both national development strategies and supra-national investment agreements.
Internet Calling Pressures Bells to Lower Rates – New York Times “The Bells still control the bulk of the country’s 180 million landlines and are far from giving up on what has been a giant cash cow. When pushed, they are even offering their own Internet-based calling, but these services are rarely advertised. It is cheaper to cut prices to keep customers, they figure, than to try to win back customers later from a rival. During the first quarter of this year, the number of traditional telephone lines dropped by 150,000 a week, according to TeleGeography. At the same time, the number of subscribers to Internet telephone services has increased by 100,000 a week.
Title: Telecom Policy Research in Asia: A Framework for Assessing Knowledge Capacity Author: Dr. Sujata Gamage, Director of Knowledge Networks, LIRNEasia Date: July 3, 2006 Description: In this study we assess presence, quality and relevance of telecom policy researchers in Asia, and present the results in the form of a set of knowledge capacity score cards. These score cards will serve as the framework for assessing and building knowledge capacity in telecom reform in Asia in the IDRC funded project on the same. Link: Telecom Policy Research in Asia: A Framework for Assessing Knowledge Capacity [PDF download]
Qualcomm has come under some pressure recently when Reliance, with one of the fastest growing CDMA-based networks in the world based on Qualcomm’s patented technology, announced that it would provide mobile service using GSM technology and criticised Qualcomm’s high royalty and licensing fees. The inference was that Qualcomm’s fees were resulting in higher costs for handsets which is preventing Reliance from offering affordable service to low-income subscribers. Qualcomm claims that CDMA handset prices in India were already some of the lowest in the world and that royalty was only about $2 per handset. It further argues that Reliance’s move into GSM has to do with flawed spectrum policy of the Indian Telecom Ministry (DoT) that provides more than twice the spectrum to GSM operators compared to CDMA operators like Reliance. This is because according to Qualcomm, GSM technology allows only a finite number of subscribers in a cell whereas the CDMA technology on the other hand poses no such restrictions.
Full article available here New Delhi, July 2 (PTI): Even as the existing National Telecom Policy of 1999 lays down the roadmap of a review in every five years, the Department of Telecom has dropped the ill-fated draft of the proposed policy completely with no immediate plans to revive it. […] Permitting number portability, implementing carrier access code (CAC), setting up of ombudsman, and unbundling of last-mile access for broadband services were some of the draft recommendations of the core committee of DoT on NTP. DoT was never in favour of number portability, a facility which allows subscribers to retain their old number even if they change the service provider, carrier access code where the consumer could choose his/her long distance carrier and of course the unbundling of last mile of BSNL and MTNL for broadband. The draft had sought dilution in regulator’s role, saying a ‘Light Touch’ approach should be made at a later stage. The committee has also recommended M&A norms to be part of NTP.