Monthly Archives: April, 2008
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Is mobile phone a polluter?
Do mobile phones pollute the environment? Sri Lanka’s Environment Minister Champika Ranawaka thinks so. That was why he wants to impose a so called ‘environment tax’ on mobiles, (in fact all phones, but the above newspaper article focuses on mobiles) at two points, when you purchase it and use it. This is on top of the [...]
South Asian Natural Disasters Blamed on Leaders
Government failures across South Asia are the key factor that can turn natural disasters into humanitarian crises, a UK-based aid agency says. Political inaction, poor decisions and bad management are more to blame than nature for the humanitarian effects of disasters, Oxfam claims in a report.
BBC News | S Asian Crises Blamed on Leaders
Network readiness report 2008 shows backslide in South Asia
The 2008 Global Information Technology Report prepared for the World Economic Forum shows the five big countries of the SAARC backsliding in the rankings with small exceptions in the case of Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, which advanced from 86th place to 76th (using only 2006 countries; otherwise to 79th place) and from 118th place to [...]
EU Allows Mobile Phones on Airplanes
EU Allows Mobile Phones on Airplanes, ABC News
The European Union on Monday opened the way for air travelers to use mobile phones to talk, text or send e-mails on planes throughout Europe’s airspace.
Under the plan approved Monday, cell phone users could make and receive calls through an onboard base station. They will be allowed to [...]
Kenya launches one of world’s first cellphone-to-cellphone cash-transfer systems
Unserved by Banks, Poor Kenyans Now Just Use a Cellphone, The Christian Science Moniter
One of the world’s first cellphone-to-cellphone cash-transfer systems has been launched in Kenya. The system, called M-PESA, allows customers to transfer cash via their mobile phone, through an agent or store which supplies the cash. Launched by Safaricom, Kenya’s largest mobile service provider, [...]
Huge growth seen for mobile broadband
Mobile broadband connections around the world have increased tenfold in the past year, with 32 million subscribers connected now, up from 3 million at the end of March 2007, according to the GSM Association.
The Association, which represents operators of GSM and 3G networks, says providers across Europe, Asia and North America are all reporting huge [...]
Why not ‘Times of India’ suggest a better broadband QoSE testing methodology to its readers?
Broadband QoSE testing is generating interest. A news report on ‘Times of India’ yesterday (April 7) suggested the site www.speedtest.net to determine connection speed. This site, like many such others available on web, lets a user to ping to a selected server to check the throughput. (See above – A Sri Lankan user pings to a [...]
Bharti Airtel chief denies forming cartel with other telecom players
Telecom major Bharti Group Chairman and Managing Director Sunil Bharti Mittal on Monday denied any attempt on forming a cartel with other telecom players to distort competition.
Mittal was reacting to a ‘notice of enquiry’ by anti- monopoly watchdog MRTPC last week against three big telecom operators – Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar and Idea Cellular — [...]
Triple play soon in Calcutta
The state unit of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has plans to offer this facility under Broadband Multiplay soon.
Available only in Calcutta and Pune at present, the facility would no longer remain confined to the urban areas and would soon explore rural markets in the state.
The task of setting up infrastructure across the state has [...]
AT&T Warms Up to Google’s Android For Mobile Phones
AT&T is finally warming up to Google’s phone OS, Android. T-Mobile and Sprint and members of the Open Handset Alliance, which champions Google’s new Linux-based platform, and Verizon has promised to make its network open to any device, a move that likely had Android devices specifically in mind.
At the CTIA wireless show in Vegas AT&T [...]
BSNL to expand broadband to 25,000 Indian villages
Indian telecom service provider Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is expanding its rural broadband access in partnership with Nokia Siemens Networks. Expanded service will begin commercial operation in July.
Nokia Siemens will deploy BSNL broadband access in 20 circles (administrative country subdivisions) in India. This will give an additional 25,000 Indian villages access to digital-age services [...]
Broadbasing Broadband: Times of India -Editorial
Technology is full of paradoxes. While Moore’s Law ensures that our computers get cheaper and faster every few months, there is no corresponding law that ensures that the same happens with our internet connections. TRAI data shows that some 60 million people in India have access to the internet. This may seem like a substantive [...]
IT firms to leave India?
Blueshift is one of the currently India based companies looking to move to neighbouring countries like Malaysia or Singapore where they believe it would be cheaper to operate.
“The corporate tax regime in this country is a tough 33% whereas when I look at neighbouring country Singapore it is only 18% at the highest level,” says [...]
China Telecom, after seeing negative growth, buys Beijing Telecom
China Telecom, China’s largest fixed-line phone provider, has announced plans to buy regional phone operator Beijing Telecom for $793m.
The government-controlled former monopoly, which still owns about 70 per cent of China’s fixed telephone lines, has struggled to cope with a rapidly evolving market and competition from mobile phone operators.
“Due to intensifying mobile substitution, China Telecom [...]
India eases sharing rules for wireless operators
India on Tuesday allowed telecoms operators to share transmission systems, radio access networks and antennae and simplified the approval process for building mobile towers.But radio spectrum, or air waves used for wireless networks, cannot be shared.
Telecoms operators in India were earlier permitted to share only passive infrastructure such as mobile towers, buildings and power backup [...]
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