Monthly Archive for April, 2008Page 2 of 3

Is mobile phone a polluter?

by
Chanuka Wattegama
on April 10, 2008
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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 rest of the tax components the mobile users already have to pay.

No information to that mobile usage is a serious threat to Sri Lanka’s environment. Whatever the little information we possess suggest the opposite. E-waste recycling companies claim the number of mobile phones added to e-waste is negligible. When Dialog Telekom initiated a well publicised effort to collect used mobile phones, they could collect not even 100 – much less…

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South Asian Natural Disasters Blamed on Leaders

by
Natasha Udu-Gama
on April 10, 2008
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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

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Network readiness report 2008 shows backslide in South Asia

by
Rohan Samarajiva
on April 9, 2008
.

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 116th (again using only 2006 countries; if not, it would be in 124th place), respective.ly.

India went from 44th place to 48th (2006 countries only; if not 50th).  Pakistan from 84 to 85 (actual rank 89) and Nepal from 108th place to 111th (actual rank 119).

The full report is here

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EU Allows Mobile Phones on Airplanes

by
Nirmali Sivapragasam
on April 9, 2008
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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 turn their phones on after the plane reaches 10,000 feet, when other electronic devices such as portable music players and laptops are permitted.

But a host of issues remain, from the cost of mid-flight phone service, to backlash from those who dread the thought of being trapped for hours listening to one-sided conversations.

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Kenya launches one of world’s first cellphone-to-cellphone cash-transfer systems

by
Nirmali Sivapragasam
on April 9, 2008
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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, the numbers of customers using this system has exceeded previous expectations, with over 450, 000 customers making use of this service, as of October 2007. However, despite its promising outlook, there are concerns regarding the regulation in place - or rather lack thereof - which could serve as a hindrance to future growth of this system.

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Huge growth seen for mobile broadband

by
Chanuka Wattegama
on April 9, 2008
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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 increases in the uptake of High Speed Packet Access (HSPA), with the uptake said to have increased by 44 per cent in the past 10 months.

It says the number of networks offering commercial mobile broadband services has risen sharply in the past year. Broadband on mobile phones is available in 73 countries from 166 operators, up from 96 networks commercially deployed in 3 countries.

Meanwhile the Global mobile Suppliers Association, which…

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Why not ‘Times of India’ suggest a better broadband QoSE testing methodology to its readers?

by
Chanuka Wattegama
on April 8, 2008
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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 server in Hong Kong, one of the few available options)

This is fine as long as only the bigger picture will do, but as found in early stages of our research, it gives no clue about the point of bottleneck. Neither has it measured other metrics than the throughput which can be important depending upon the application.

The difference in AshokaTissa methodology proposed by LIRNEasia and IIT Madras is that it covers not only more…

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Bharti Airtel chief denies forming cartel with other telecom players

by
Chanuka Wattegama
on April 8, 2008
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mittal2.jpgTelecom 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 — for allegedly forming a cartel to distort competition.

Earlier this month, the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission (MRTPC) Bench had directed the three companies to file their reply within four weeks.

Read the full report in ‘The Economic Times’ here.

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Triple play soon in Calcutta

by
Chanuka Wattegama
on April 7, 2008
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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 begun. Officials of the PSU are also holding talks with television channels whose programmes could be made available through the Internet via the Internet Protocol Television (IPTV).

“The facility should be launched by September,” said Sanjay Kumar, deputy general manager, planning, BSNL (Jharkhand Circle).

Initially, IPTV would be launched in Ranchi, Jamshedpur and Dhanbad. Later, the service would be extended to all the other cities, including rural areas across the state. The…

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AT&T Warms Up to Google’s Android For Mobile Phones

by
Chanuka Wattegama
on April 5, 2008
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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 Mobility chief, Ralph de la Vega said,
“I like it a lot more than I did before… It’s something we would want in our portfolio.”

His conversion on Android came after Google executives showed him that AT&T would be able to load its own applications on any Android handset it sold. Previously, the company had been fearful the handset would be geared too much towards the Google brand. Too be fair, however,…

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BSNL to expand broadband to 25,000 Indian villages

by
Chanuka Wattegama
on April 5, 2008
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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 like high-speed Internet and virtual private networks (VPNs).
 
The new network will also enable BSNL to provide connectivity to CSCs (Community Service Centres) and other e-governance locations.

India today has approximately 3.4 million broadband connections, of which 1.7 million connections are provided by BSNL.

Read the full story here.

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Broadbasing Broadband: Times of India -Editorial

by
Chanuka Wattegama
on April 5, 2008
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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 figure, but is only 6 per cent of the population. More shocking is that while India has over 46 million wireless internet subscribers, broadband subscribers number a mere 2.47 million. It is ironic that in a country famed for its IT services, internet connectivity in general and broadband connectivity in particular is so poor.

India has, in fact, one of the lowest broadband subscriber penetration rates in Asia. So what accounts…

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IT firms to leave India?

by
Chanuka Wattegama
on April 3, 2008
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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 Blueshift’s chairman Sankaran P Raghunathan.

“In fact, most of us have to pay only 7.5%. That’s a huge difference.”

Mr Raghunathan is also concerned at the way costs are rising in Chennai.

“Some 10% of our revenues are spent on rentals here,” he says.

“We pay more than $1 for a square foot of office space here. In Kuala Lumpur the same costs us less than $1 and I get class A infrastructure.”

Read the…

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China Telecom, after seeing negative growth, buys Beijing Telecom

by
Chanuka Wattegama
on April 3, 2008
.

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 experienced negative growth in access lines in service for the first time [in 2007], and voice business revenue decreased by 7.9 per cent from 2006,” the company said in a statement.

Charice Wang, an analyst at research firm Ovum, explained that China Telecom has been facing strong competition from China Mobile as customers switch to mobile services under increasing fixed-mobile substitution.

“China Telecom’s traditional voice business has been [declining in] recent years,”…

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India eases sharing rules for wireless operators

by
Chanuka Wattegama
on April 2, 2008
.

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 facilities.

Sharing infrastructure reduces the operating costs and capital expenditure of wireless telecoms operators, allowing them to maintain margins in a competitive market that has call rates as low as 1 U.S. cent a minute.

“The guidelines are aimed to reducing the input costs on telecom access providers… (and to aid) reduced tariff and increased tele-density in rural areas,” the telecoms ministry said in a statement.

Read the full stroy in Reuters here.

…

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