Many think that VoIP is the solution to all telecom problems. It is a solution, but not to all problems. It does not give you something for nothing, in the long run, though in the short term, something may be had for almost nothing. The articles describes the problems faced by VoIP operators in the US, where the basic infrastructure is already in place. In countries of the South, we have to keep in mind that the fiber has not been laid; the households have not all been connected; etc.
LIRNEasia research found that almost all Filipinos at the Bottom of the Pyramid send at least one SMS a day. Here is data from the supply side: The Manila Times Internet Edition | METRO > Filipinos send 500M text messages daily FILIPINOS sent an average of 500 million text messages a day last year, doubling the number of text messages sent in 2005, the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) said. Edgardo Cabarios, director NTC’s Common Carrier and Authorization Division (CCAD), attributed the increase to the promotional gimmicks offered by mobile-phone service providers like unlimited text messaging, voice call discounts and the rising subscriber number. Data from the NTC show that the country’s subscriber growth rose by 23 percent to 42.87 million subscribers last year from the 34.
LIRNEasia decided to use a blog as its website rather than a conventional website. Website has done well so far; about 3,000 comments so far. Some issues of importance: Front page changes every two days, due to number of posts. Scrolling nature means that sometimes the most important topics do not remain at the top for long. Weaknesses concerning retrieval of documents (unless you know exactly where it is).
LIRNEasia research on Telecom Regulatory Environment (where India gets the lowest scores on the USO dimension) shows that Indian USO policy and implementation are flawed. LIRNEasia research on teleuse at the Bottom of the Pyramid shows clearly that lowering connection charges and keeping the use charges low are critically important in connecting the next billion. The policy recommendation that flows from this, made at meeting of regulators in New Delhi on the 15th of July, is that the USO levy should be phased out and the existing funds be disbursed as quickly as possible. But it appears that the Department of Telecommunications and the new Minister think otherwise: The Hindu Business Line : Raja rejects telecom industry plea to cut USO levy Operators had said that since the USO fund has over Rs 10,000 crore lying unused, the Government should consider lowering the contribution made by the telecom firms. “We realise that USO is an important tool to enable telecom services in rural areas.
The OECD has published comparative data on broadband speeds and prices. This will help drive prices down and quality up. The rest of the countries need to develop their own benchmarks. BBC NEWS | Technology | Global broadband prices revealed According to the report, broadband prices for DSL connections across the 30 countries have fallen by 19% and increased in speed by 29% in the year to October 2006. Cable prices and speeds followed a similar trend.
The Business Standard (Nokia focuses on rural markets) Sapna Agarwal / Pune July 16, 2007The rural markets account for around 5 per cent of the national GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication) handset sales. The figure is expected to rise to 25-30 per cent, adding around 100 million new cellular subscribers by 2009, according to a recent study by LIRNEasia and AC Nielson.
Intel and $100 laptop join forces Nicholas Negroponte, founder of One Laptop per Child, said: “Intel joins the OLPC board as a world leader in technology, helping reach the world’s children. Collaboration with Intel means that the maximum number of laptops will reach children.” Intel inside The new agreement means that Intel will sit alongside the 11 companies, including Google and Red Hat, which are partners in the OLPC scheme. It will also join rival chip-maker AMD, which supplies the processor at the heart of the $100 laptop. Powered by ScribeFire.
America’s 3rd largest cellphone provider, Sprint, is sending out letters to 1,100 of its subscribers informing them that their service will be summarily terminated by the end of this month. Because they make too many calls to Sprint’s customer service centres and helplines! The letters read, “Our records indicate that over the past year, we have received frequent calls from you regarding your billing or other general account information. While we have worked to resolve your issues and questions to the best of our ability, the number of inquiries you have made to us during this time has led us to determine that we are unable to meet your current wireless needs. Therefore after careful consideration, the decision has been made to terminate your wireless service agreement effective July 30, 2007.
Singapore’s Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) has opened consultations on a proposed interconnect and numbering regime for voice services provided over the city-state’s wireless broadband networks. Three operators—Singtel, iCell and Qalanet—offer wireless services in the 2.5GHz band as part of Singapore’s Wireless@SG initiative and the IDA says it is now time to formalise an industry regime to support voice services carried over those networks. The IDA adds that the move is needed as part of the global shift from discrete PSTN and wireless networks to a converged next generation network. However, the Agency stops short of harmonising the standard numbering range with IP addresses.
As LIRNEasia plans its future research plans, which will be centered on mobile as a “more-than-voice” mode of access to means of communication, information retrieval and publishing, as well as completion of transactions (including payments), we have come up against the need to critically examine current efforts on, and plans for, telecenters. Obviously, this is a discussion that will be Asia-Pacific-wide, like everything LIRNEasia does. However, we’d like to get this started with a provincial news report in a Sri Lankan newspaper, simply because it was posted on the website by a reader/writer. The comments and thoughts of all on the future of telecenters are welcome. :: Daily Mirror – Opinion :: The Nenasala Information Technology Training Centre in Ganewatta DS Division in Hiriyala electorate which was declared open by the Provincial Council Member (NWP) Laxman Perera ceased to function within days of opening.
IDRC New Delhi organized a visit by 10 colleagues from the MS Swaminathan Institute and related organizations to Sarvodaya for a knowledge exchange exercise. LIRNEasia and Sahana (Lanka Software Foundation) were among those invited to make presentations to the group. In addition, LIRNEasia also helped in organizing a demonstration of the alerting technologies from the Last-Mile Project during the field visit to Brahmanawatta in Balapitiya. LIRNEasia made presentations on the role of ICTs in disaster risk reduction and Early warning systems in disaster risk reduction. The discussion was lively and addressed issues of the nature of linkage with government early warning systems and the difficult problems of developing effective methods of communicating the message within the villages.
New research has found that even though the Asia Pacific region accounts for one third of the world’s online population, PC-based Internet usage there is lower than in the rest of the world The study covers 10 Asia Pacific countries and says that in May there were nearly 284 million people aged 15 or older accessing the Internet from a home or work computer, representing 10 per cent of the region’s population above the age of 15. Read more.
A new report from the North American research house, Instat, reveals that the US is way behind its European cousins in consumer Voice over IP (VoIP) adoption – and this despite the fact that 2006 was a particularly good year for the technology globally with the wordwide total of VoIP subscribers increasing by 34 million. The leading European VoIP adopters over the course of 2006 were France, Germany, and the Netherlands. According to Instat analyst, Keith Nissen, “The EU market increased by over 14 million subscribers last year largely due to local loop unbundling, the introduction of cable telephony and triple-play service bundles as well as operator consolidation.” By contrast the US added a mere four million new VoIP subscribers over the same period. Keith Nissen says US carriers “don’t seem interested in selling anything other than plain-old-telephone-service.
The Delhi High Court has upheld the powers of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to regulate the country’s broadcasting sector. The court also said that it was in the regulator’s powers to fix the terms and conditions of the interconnection agreement between broadcasters and service providers. Read more.
LIRNEasia is in the process of updating and fine-tuning its Mission Statement; this is being done in light of the rapid expansion–both in terms of research interests and geographical coverage. The process was kick-started at a planning meeting in Kandalama, Sri Lanka on 30 June, where LIRNEasians reviewed the current Statement, and came up with some suggestions as to how it can be improved to more accurately capture its mission.
Payal Malik, Senior Researcher, LIRNEasia was invited to the eleventh meeting of the Working Party on Indicators for the Information Society (WPIIS) of the OECD countries, held on Monday 21 May 2007, at the Department of Trade and Industry Conference Centre, London. She presented her report on “Documenting the Capabilities of Measuring ICT Statistics in India”. Her report raised great interest among the participants. In an extension to the LIRNEasia work on indicators this report profiled the institutions that collect ICT data in India , with some observations about the methodology and the limitations. The reference point for the exercise is the ‘metadata survey’, a global exercise to collect information from all countries regarding the statistical measurement of ICT (reported in “The global status of ICT indicators”) conducted by global Partnership on Measuring ICT for Development.