LIRNEasia , in association with the School of Economics and Management, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunication (BUPT) , is organizing the third CPRsouth conference, in Beijing, China from December 5-7, 2008.
The conference aims to provide a forum for senior, junior and mid-career scholars to meet face-to-face and exchange ideas, establish networking opportunities and improve the quality of their scholarly work, in order to facilitate the long-term objective of fostering the next generation of active scholars and in-situ experts capable of contributing to ICT policy and regulatory reform in the region.
To see how you may participate in this event and join an emerging community of scholars committed to improving the lives of people in Asia through information and communication technology, visit the CPRsouth 3 conference page .
Please note that the…
The central question of whether ICTs do any good, is discussed in relation to always-on broadband connections in the OECD. The question is, of course, of even greater importance in developing countries.
The OECD released its latest report on May 19th. It surveys the broadband landscape to December 2007, and tells a warm tale. The number of broadband subscribers in the world’s 30 biggest countries grew by 18% to reach 235m, or one-fifth of those countries’ total population. Between 2005 and 2006, prices fell by an average of 19% for DSL connections and 16% for cable lines. At the end of 2004 the average speed was 2 megabits per second (Mb/s); in 2007 it increased to almost 9Mb/s. But the excellent report, written by Taylor Reynolds…
Researc h to practice is the central preoccupation of LIRNEasia. We differ from conventional researchers in our fixation on how to convey our research to policymakers, regulators, senior managers of operators and to the symbolic universe they live in. We choose our research questions and methods with this end in mind and we conduct our research on schedules determined by the need for effective communication to these key stakeholders. We measure success by whether the research that we communicate catalyzes changes in laws, policies, practices and worldviews .
In this light, the SSRC organized pre-conference seemed an ideal academic event to attend after many years. I had attended many discussions on researc h in practice while in academia. There was a difference this time.
In 1993, for example, there was a memorable impromptu debate between Eli…
Tags: Asia, Columbia, Eli Noam, Joe Karaganis, Media coverage, New York Public Service Commission, Ohio, research, Sri Lanka, Tom Streeter, United States.
An inevitable outcome of mobile phone penetration among BOP is longer average life time of a unit. At that level replacing cost is significant. The only alternative is to repair and use the same for a longer period. This explains the mushrooming of mobile repair centers in many developing countries.
Internet has loads of technical information about repairing, but in English. That is why guides like the above, published by Wijeya Newspapers, Sri Lanka and priced at Rs. 75 (US cents 70) are useful. Written in the local language with ample colour illustrations it provides step by step guidelines to repair mobile phones. We hope the technicians at ground level get the best use of it.
Worried over the growing grey market for mobile phones due to illegal imports from countries like China and India, Sri Lankan Customs has decided to confiscate such cell phones being brought in as accompanied or unaccompanied baggage or as gift.
The Sri Lanka Customs has announced that all goods for commercial purposes/commercial quantities have to be imported in accordance with the provision of the Import Control Act and regulations framed there under.
It is estimated that over 20,000 mobile phones are entering the country through illegal channels every month.
“We are optimistic that this initiative will help in combating the grey market in Sri Lanka with strong implementation Directo/ Chief Executive Officer of Softlogic Communications Samantha Rajapaksa told the “Daily News”.
Softlogic an authorised dealer for Nokia phones in…
Helani Galpaya is attending the 2008 Global Event on Measuring the Information Society in Geneva, Switzerland on 27 – 29 May. She is acting as a Facilitator in a session on Advancing the ICT Agenda .
The Partnership on Measuring ICT for Development is an international, multi-stakeholder initiative to improve the availability and quality of ICT data and indicators, particularly in developing countries. It provides an open framework for coordinating ongoing and future activities, and for developing a coherent and structured approach to advancing the development of ICT indicators globally.
George Sciadas of StatsCanada also made a presentation at this event. He highlighted LIRNEasia’s intervention to remove the proposed regressive tax on mobile phones, using its 2006 T@BOP2 survey data as an example of statistics and data being used successfully.
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LIRNEasia’s Lead Economist presented the findings on the percieved benefits of telecom access at the bottom of the pyramid at ‘The Global and Globalizing Dimensions of Mobile Communication: Developing or Developed‘ a pre-conference program at the ICA 2008 conference in Montreal on 20-21 May 2008.
The paper presented, ‘Perceived economic benefits of telecom access at the Bottom of the Pyramid in emerging Asia‘ takes a look at what BOP phone owners gain from telecom access from their own perspective. One of the most interesting findings here, is that although they see efficiency gains stemming from phone access/use, they don’t relate these to economic gains. This is puzzling, because we know from macro-level studies that a positive relationship exists between phone penetration and national income; additionally, theory suggests…
LIRNEasia’s Executive Director will present a paper on the gendered aspects of telecom use at the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) in emerging Asia, at the 58th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association (ICA), ‘Communicating for Social Impact’ in Montreal, Canada, on 26 May 2008.
The paper ‘Who’s got the phone? The gendered use of telephones at the bottom of the pyramid’ explores the so called gender ‘divide’ in telecom access at the BOP in Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Philippines, and Thailand, finding that that a significant gender divide in access to telephones exists in Pakistan and India , to a lesser extent in Sri Lanka , but is absent in the Philippines and Thailand. The authors argue that perhaps as penetration levels increase, overall the…
LIRNEasia is ready to start Phase 2 of its Broadband QoSE testing methodology development.
In Phase 1 we developed AshokaTissa methodology and tested broadband performance of key players in India, Sri Lanka and (partially) Singapore. We used tools like Bandwidth Monitor, Ping and Tracert. The tests were done manually. Each link was tested for two weekdays and two weekend days. Since it was essential to take the averages of three readings it took 2-3 hours to take one set of readings – so only one link could be tested in a day.
Our tests measured six metrics. Throughput (download and upload), RTT, jitter, packet loss and availability. We tested these while downloading/uploading from (a) ISP server (b) local server other than ISP’s and (c) international server. The…
LIRNEasia today handed over items worth of USD 1,500 to the fund established by the Lekhadikari of the Amarapura Nikaya, Ven. Kotugoda Dhammawasa thero to be distributed among victims of the cyclone Nargis in Burma.
Cyclone Nargis was a strong tropical cyclone that caused the deadliest natural disaster in the recorded history of Burma. The cyclone made landfall in the country on May 2, 2008, causing catastrophic destruction and at least 80,000 fatalities with a further 56,000 people still missing. However, Labutta Township alone was reported to have 80,000 dead and some have estimated the death toll may be well over 100,000.Damage is estimated at over $10 billion (USD), which made it the most damaging cyclone ever recorded in this basin.
Nalaka Gunawardene calls mobile phone a murder weapon. According to him, what the mobile has already stabbed, and is in the process of effectively finishing off, is the development sector’s over-hyped and under-delivered phenomenon called the ‘telecentre’.
So how is the mobile phone slowly killing the telecentres, asks he, into which governments, the United Nations agencies and other development organisations have pumped tens of millions of dollars of development aid money in the past decade? Well, it’s rapidly making telecentres redundant by putting most or all of their services into literally pocket-sized units. If everyone could carry around a miniaturised, personalised gadget that has the added privacy value, why visit a community access point?
The editor of state owned ‘Daily News’ may not necessarily agree. Excerpts from…
Railtel Corporation of India, the communication arm of the Indian Railways, is planning to set-up cyber cafes at over 200 major railway stations across the country by the year-end, Railway Minister Nitish Kumar said on Thursday.
“The first cyber cafe will be inaugurated on Friday at New Delhi Railway Station. Based on the feedback of the users, we are intending to extend to over 200 important stations in the country in the first phase by the end of this year,” Kumar told reporters at the commissioning of the “optic fibre communication link on Bangalore-Secunderabad, Secunderabad- Vijayawada-Chennai and Chennai-Ooty-Bangalore” here.
The railways would also experiment by providing broadband Internet access on moving train, the first such instance in the world, he said. The service would be launched on…
Remember in Star Trek Dr. Leonard McCoy, nicknamed Bones, would use a handheld device (shaped like a mobile phone) to scan the vital signs report of a patient; the little screen on the device would make some electronic noises and display some random illuminated pixels, which he would interpret to diagnose the condition of the patient; thereafter, he would use the same device or the wrist device to call “Sick Bay” tell them what to do with patient diagnosed outside of the facility. He would even transfer the diagnostic report to Sick-Bay for the on duty staff to pickup to get ready before the patient arrived.
A team of researchers at the University of California, Berkley are using mobile phones that display faint blue dots on…
LIRNEasia’s Executive Director will speak at the International Conference on Information, Communication and New Media & the First Annual Convention of the Information and Communication Association of Taiwan, being held in Taipei on 17 May 2008. His presentaiton, Asia at the leading edge of communication and new media developments? can be downloaded by clicking on the link.
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