The article below talks about micro payments in the context of almost everyone having computers, Internet access, credit cards, etc. What we are talking about is m-payments (m for mobile, not micro) in a world where those assumptions don’t hold. But there may be ideas we can pick up from this discussion.
In Online World, Pocket Change Is Not Easily Spent - New York Times
The idea of micropayments — charging Web users tiny amounts of money for single pieces of online content — was essentially put to sleep toward the end of the dot-com boom. In December 2000, Clay Shirky, an adjunct professor in New York University’s interactive telecommunications program, wrote a manifesto that people still cite whenever someone suggests resurrecting the idea. Micropayments will never…
We could still do better; But more taxes could kill the industry
The Nation Economist, Sunday 26 August 2007 | See Print version
I have to say that JHU does not know economics. What is the rationale behind taxing the only sector that is growing? The industry is giving government enormous amount of revenue. Twenty percent of every mobile rupee goes to the government. If you squeeze the goose for more eggs the goose will ultimately die. To my knowledge some of the taxes the government is thinking of will really kill the industry. We have got data which say people in the bottom of the pyramid are willing to spend Rs.500 per month on communication. So if the government put another tax these people will be discouraged…
Tags: 3G, ADSL, Bangladesh, banking, Brazil, Central Bank of Sri Lanka, China, Consumer Finance Service, Delhi, fiber optic, India, Indian Army, Indian military, intelligent network, microwave, microwave networks, Mt Lavinia, MUMBAI, Pakistan, Rohan Samarajeewa, Rs, Russia, Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka Telecom, Sunil Miththal, Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka.
Rohan Samarajiva will chair a session entitled, “Partnership Building: Beyond the traditional boundaries” and also present on “Mobile Phone Penetration at the Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP)” at Sri Lanka’s Telecentre National Alliance’s Partnership Building with NGOs & other networks, being held from 31 August - 2 September 2007. The event is being organised by Sarvodaya, at the Vishva Samadhi Conference Hall, Moratuwa, Sri Lanka
Presentation slides
The Communication Initiative - Funding - IDRC Internship Awards
The International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Internship programme is for candidates who have shown interest in the creation and utilisation of knowledge from an international perspective and provides hands-on learning experiences in research programme management. Candidates can be Canadians, permanent residents, or citizens of developing countries, who are either currently registered in a Master’s Programme or have completed a Master’s Degree. The 14 awards provide exposure to research for international development through a programme of training in research management and grant administration under the guidance of IDRC programme staff.
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When we started the indicators work in 2006, we thought we’d be able to crack the problem of defining the mobile customer. We did not. The end result is the we not longer report “mobile/100 people,” preferring instead the more accurate term, “Mobile SIMs/100.” The Arab Advisors Group has reached a similar conclusion.
Their recommendations are fine in theory, but we are not sure very practical.
Arab Advisors Group questions mobile coverage rates - Developing Telecoms
During its survey of Jordan’s cellular users, Arab Advisors Group identified multiple line use by the same individuals and the presence of expatriates outside official population figures as two reasons why Jordan’s Effective Mobile Penetration Rate is running at around 48%, 26 percentage points lower than its claimed 74.2% mobile penetration…
I was asked to write something for world environment day in Montage, a local news magazine, and I wrote about how mobile could reduce the need for travel (in the long run) and thus postpone the inundation of the Maldives. It appears I did not cover all aspects of the problem . . .
Is your mobile network green? - Developing Telecoms
Mobile network energy consumption currently stands at 61 billion kWH worldwide, with each of the many millions of base stations producing almost 10 tonnes of carbon emissions every year. How can there not be room for improvement?
Conservative estimates project that this consumption will double by 2011, totalling 449 billion kWH over this five-year period, at a cost in excess of $US42 billion. Actix, to…
It was only in 2005 that Bangladesh got connected to the world through an undersea cable. It is being claimed that this link has been sabotaged, at the same time as the government ordered the shut down of mobile networks, serving multiple millions of customers.
:: bdnews24.com ::
Dhaka, Aug 23 (bdnews24.com) – International telephony, internet and private international data circuits went down when the submarine cable link was “sabotaged” at 00:05am Thursday, a senior BTTB official confirmed.
It cut off Bangladesh from the rest of the world and intensified panic and confusion at home and abroad amid widespread violence across much of the country for days.
Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB) has been trying to restore the country’s only terrestrial overseas communication lifeline.
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Second Tsunami-Detection Station To Bolster Indian Ocean System
As part of the U.S. effort, in December 2006, NOAA experts and Thai government officials put a deep-ocean assessment and reporting of tsunamis (DART) station in the Indian Ocean, halfway between Thailand and Sri Lanka. (See related article.)DART systems provide real-time tsunami detection as waves travel across open waters, and each station is linked to a satellite for real-time data transmission on global networks.
Tags: communications systems, Department of State, dissemination systems, Indian Ocean, Indonesia, Indonesian government, Maldives, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA\'s Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, real-time data transmission, real-time tsunami detection, Sri Lanka, Thai government, Thailand, United States, USD.
Iraq has sold three mobile phone licences for $3.75 billion to Kuwait’s Mobile Telecommunications Co (MTC), AsiaCell and Iraq’s Korek Telecom. The three firms, which already run networks in the war-torn country, made the highest bids in an auction in the Jordanian capital that began on Thursday.
TurkCell and Egypt’s Orascom had also bid for licences but dropped out of the race for one of the few sectors to thrive amid Iraq’s instability and crumbling infrastructure. The fixed-line network was hit by sanctions after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and by bombing during the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Less than 4 percent of Iraqis have landlines.
Read more.
The government will auction three international gateway (IGW) and two interconnection exchange (ICX) licences among private operators in October, a top official said Monday. But no foreign company or foreign joint venture will qualify to apply for IGW or ICX licence. Even the non-resident Bangladeshis’ business outfits are not eligible either. Only the companies fully owned by resident Bangladeshi citizens are qualified for these international telecoms licences. Private fixed or mobile phone operators also cannot contest in this race. But the state-owned Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB) gets the IGW and ICX licences by default being the incumbent international monopoly. Read more.
The comment about “the world is going to flip” refers to the launch of the Apple i Phone
Hewlett Introduces a Web Feature to Make Document Printing Mobile - New York Times
“The world is going to flip,” Mr. Scaglia said. “We want to ride the wave of the Web.”
The underlying idea is to unhook physical documents from a user’s computer and printer and make it simple for travelers to take their documents with them and use them with no more than a cellphone and access to a local printer.
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The Regional Development Dialogue, published by the UN Centre for Regional Development, in its most recent issue (volume 27(2), Autumn 2006, published in August 2007?!) carries two articles by Shoban Rainford, then at ICTA, and Harsha Liyanage, Sarvodaya on e Sri Lanka and the telecenter component within e Sri Lanka. In an invited comment, LIRNEasia’s Rohan Samarajiva and Helani Galpaya, identify the e Sri Lanka initiative’s 1919 Government Information Center as a good example of pro-poor e-governance, because the information is available through the telephone, a technology that is more easily accessible to the poor than the Internet and telecenters.
The special issue is edited by Subash Bhatnagar, an acknowledged expert on e government who provides a good summary, marred unfortunately by the use of wrong…
Tags: e-governance, Emmanuel C. Lallana, Erwin Alampay, Government Information Center, Harsha Liyanage, India, Manila, Pakistan, Rohan Samarajiva, Sri Lanka, UN Centre for Regional Development.
Technicians and engineers from Telecoms Sans Frontieres have arrived in Peru to help the earthquake recovery effort. The five-strong team will deploy satellite telephone and internet access in three centres - at Pisco, where the quake hit hardest, Ica and Chincha.
Full Story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6951981.stm
As LIRNEasia plans its research program for 2008-09, the issue of money transfers through mobiles (first raised in the academic literature, to the best of my knowledge, by Professor Jens Arnbak in his contribution to a book that I co-edited in 2002) is rising in importance in the news as well as in our own thinking.
Migrant Cash Is World Economic Giant - Forbes.com
_ India is the world leader in remittances, taking in $23.7 billion in 2005 and an estimated $26.9 billion last year, the World Bank says. Western Union, traditionally one of the most frequently tapped money transfer companies, says its share of Indian transactions has grown at least 90 percent over each of the past six quarters.
_ Immigrants from Albania, one of Europe’s poorest…
Tags: Albania, Austria, Belgrade, cellular telephone, Europe, India, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Jens Arnbak, Jovana Acimovic, National Bank, Serbia, Tajikistan, USD.
Grameen’s famous Village Phone Program lifted thousands out of poverty– and helped Muhammad Yunus win the Nobel Peace Prize. The problem: It’s not working anymore.
According to Grameen Telecom, the GrameenPhone affiliate that manages the program, profits per operator have been declining for years and in 2006 averaged less than $70. “The program is not dead,” says its manager, Mazharul Hannan, chief of technical services at Grameen Telecom, “but it is no longer a way out of poverty.”
The reason is simple: Technology and GrameenPhone itself have made the village phone obsolete. Access to cell phones has expanded rapidly across Bangladesh, as in other developing nations. GrameenPhone, largest of the nation’s six cellular providers, has more than 13 million subscribers, with yearly revenues of nearly $700 million.…
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