Monthly Archives: July, 2007
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A whole new way of thinking about mobile handsets
True to form, Google is proposing a radical rethink of the entire basis of the wireless industry. And it is putting real money behind its ideas. All that is in the way seems to be the FCC.
Google Pushes for Rules to Aid Wireless Plans – New York Times
“When you go to Best Buy [...]
Travails of Internet telephony
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 [...]
Colloquium on streamlining the LIRNE network websites
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 [...]
Hoarding USO funds in India
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 [...]
Benchmarking broadband in the OECD
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 [...]
Nokia focuses on rural markets
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 [...]
More on the Negroponte laptop
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 [...]
Sprint mutes subscribers for calling customer service
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 [...]
Future of telecenters
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 [...]
Sharing the lessons of the Last-Mile HazInfo Project with Indian colleagues
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 [...]
Asia Pacific Internet use lags behind rest of the world
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 [...]
VoIP is a four-letter word in USA
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 [...]
TRAI can regulate broadcasting: Delhi High Court
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.
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