Monthly Archives: July, 2007
Revisiting LIRNEasia’s Mission Statement and the addition of a Vision Statement
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 [...]
Documenting the Capabilities of Measuring ICT Statistics in India
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 [...]
UMTS in 900 MHz band? Vive la France!
Deploying W-CDMA 850 to cannibalise the CDMA mobile as well as to launch 3G without having the so called “3G license” is on the move. Telstra (Australia) and Vivo (Brazil) have done it quite well. Now the French telecoms regulator has approved plans to allow the incumbent GSM network operators to reuse their 900Mhz bands for 3G services. [...]
Making money and doing good in Afghanistan
The Aga Khan Foundation is the owner of Afghanistan’s first mobile operator, Roshan. It is surprising that this social investment has not received a quarter of the publicity received by Grameen Phone in Bangladesh. Do Business and Islam Mix? Ask Him – New York Times Roshan has 1.3 million subscribers and is adding 60,000 a [...]
Emerging markets: who needs PCs?
Is mobile SMS or mobile email more appropriate for consumers in emerging markets? SMS would seem to be the obvious answer. It’s easy to use, established and still growing in such regions. Thus Comverse vice president Dror Bin is unlikely to be alone in seeing huge demand for messaging platforms in emerging markets. He says: “In some [...]
Vint Cerf on mobile phones as a means of accessing the Internet
Vint Cerf, one of the fathers of the Internet now at Google, appears to see a key role for the mobile especially in developing countries. ACM: Ubiquity – Cerf’s Up Again! — A New Ubiquity Interview with Vint Cerf CERF: Well, certainly that has happened in the sense that the mobile telephony has allowed the [...]
A mobile that also does WiFi
More mobile innovations. This looks like a body blow to fixed telephony in high-income households. IPhone-Free Cellphone News – New York Times It’s called T-Mobile HotSpot @Home, and it’s absolutely ingenious. It could save you hundreds or thousands of dollars a year, and yet enrich T-Mobile at the same time. In the cellphone world, win-win [...]
Regulatory reforms urged for Mobile Banking
Global telecoms heavyweights say microcredit may provide loan without collaterals but it does not meet the rural people’s total financial needs in the developing countries. Vodafone along with Nokia and Nokia Siemens Networks have urged for telecoms and banking regulatory reforms to encourage fund transfer by mobile phones instead. They believe it will transform access to [...]
Quite a contrast with LIRNEasia’s research on women’s use of mobiles!
The survey below, commissioned by Samsung in the US, contrasts with LIRNEasia’s research on teleuse by women at the Bottom of the Pyramid, still in the process of being written up. Our Pakistan findings, being discussed on a PK focused blog, provide the starkest contrast. Survey Reveals Important Role Mobile Phones Play in Women’s Lives [...]
Bangladesh breaks into top 10 mobile markets
Bangladesh has been elevated to ninth position among the top 10 mobile phone markets in the Asia-Pacific region during first quarter of 2007. A recent study of UK’s The Mobile World revealed it. Three months ago, in the fourth quarter of 2006, Bangladesh was in the 10th position. But it overtook Taiwan after adding nearly three [...]
Colloquium: Last-Mile Hazard Warning System in Sri Lanka: Lessons Learned from the Pilot Phase
hazinfo-sri-lanka-lirneasia-colloquium-03-july-2007-slides.pdf. The Colloquium was on the HazInfo project lead by Nuwan Waidyanath and discussed the methology and research findings with respect to the specific objectives and hypothesis of the proposal with evidence to support the recommendations for an implementation phase of the LM-HWS. The research indicated the different preferences made by users in regard to hazard notification technologies. [...]
Prototype of future mobile phones
One of the key factors that will determine the success of the mobile-centric future scenario for ICTs over the scenario that has a computer/telecenter at the center is the utility of the mobile handset. Whether the iPhone is the prototype of that handset, we cannot predict. But at least it has juiced up the discussion. [...]
USD 60 billion in BPO exports projected for India: will other South Asian countries see some of it?
There is no reason why Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and even the microstates of Bhutan and Maldives cannot get BPO business, not in competition with the Indian juggernaut, but in a complementary way. Sri Lanka had no BPO business to speak of prior to 2002, despite similarities with South India where it was booming. It [...]
How telecoms survived the Israeli-Lebanese war
Lebanon’s mobile phone provider MTC has launched a benchmark report titled, “Mobility: A Nation Under Siege”. It analyses the vital role played by mobile telecommunications in assisting disaster recovery within Lebanon during the Israeli-Lebanese conflict in July 2006. The report contains unique insights in to the reliability of telecoms infrastructure throughout the conflict and examines [...]
Qualcomm provides rural medical services in Thailand
Despite having no license and enjoying 50% subsidized airtime, Grameen Telecom’s Village Phone project is no longer viable in Bangladesh due to fierce competition. Senegal’s telecenters are disappearing for the same reason. In the backdrop this trend, Qualcomm has worked with local authorities to launch a wireless connectivity for rural medical and educational services in [...]
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