The Strengthening ICT4D Research Capacity in Asia (SIRCA) Programme of NTU Singapore has announced a call for grant proposals. The SIRCA Programme seeks to identify future research leaders and to facilitate their development through the support of research grants. The awards are intended to ensure capacities to conduct research in the area of Information and Communications Technology for Development (ICT4D or ICTD) are built in Asia. This applies particularly to emerging researchers based in Asia who are relatively new to ICTD research and interested in undertaking theoretically-based and methodologically rigorous research. Additionally, these applicants would benefit from concerted capacity building exercises including a mentorship arrangement.
Indian mobile telecoms firms added 9.2 million users in July, taking subscribers in the world’s fastest growing wireless market to nearly 300 million, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India said on Monday. Leading mobile firm Bharti Airtel signed up 2.7 million customers, enough for it to overtake state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd as India’s largest telecom firm by total subscribers, including fixed-line subscribers. Second-ranked mobile firm Reliance Communications added 1.
The war against porn continues – at full throttle. We are just twelve kilo meters away from porn-free net. Stay tuned. You may hear the good news anytime. Meanwhile ‘National Child Protection Authority of Sri Lanka’, which claims keeping an eye on your child even when you are sleeping, wants to keep an eye on your mobile too.
A campaign to crackdown on people making nuisance calls as well as hoax calls to emergency services was launched yesterday.It will require all mobile phone owners in Bahrain registering with their operators before the end of the year. Telecommunication Regulatory Authority general director Alan Horne said that there were around 600,000 Batelco and Zain mobile telephone owners whose names were not registered. People who use pre-paid cards will be asked to register their telephones at Batelco and Zain offices as from September 1 and those who fail to do so will only be able to receive and make emergency calls as of January 1. They will have to turn up at one of the operators’ offices with identification.
The complete opening of Internet telephony, as recommended by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) a few days ago, will not only lead to steep fall in all type of call charges, be it local, national or international, but also help in increasing broadband penetration, an area where India lags behind. Industry analysts say person using Internet telephony to make calls would see his call charges falling by as much as 50-60 per cent compared to a normal telephone call today. This will benefit an ordinary home user as well as corporates and other industries alike. Internet telephony would help telecom penetration in rural India. Till now Internet telephony was allowed only between personal computers or to mobile or landlines abroad.
August has been a busy month for the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) and its chairman, the redoubtable Nripendra Misra, a dyed-in-wool bureaucrat who has in his regulatory avatar done arguably more than any of his predecessors on the job. He has plenty of support and equally bitter critics who wish he would give up on forbearance, cut rentals, mandate cheaper roaming and ensure per second billing instead of per minute. On August 20, the authority allowed India’s estimated 295 million telecom subscribers the freedom to use different long distance service providers without changing their service provider. Two days earlier, it had unshackled internet telephony (voice transmitted over internet protocol networks). Two weeks before that, it had opened the doors for virtual mobile networks, virgin territory in India till then.
Now you are “allowed” to exchange SMS with your friends in Burma. But you are to be registered with the Burmese authorities first. “GSM phones in foreign countries can now send test messages to Burma,” an E-Trade Myanmar Company employee told The Irrawaddy. The number of mobile phones in Burma reached around 266,000 at the end of 2007. A 3G network was recently launched in Burma based on the WCDMA standard.
Desktop to Laptop. Fixed phone to mobile. Wired connectivity for the laptop to wireless connectivity through WiFi. All important steps in the untethering of people from places in the communication process. But one wire remains.
It appears that erstwhile rivals Google and Verizon are talking about putting Google on the mobile palmtop. Good news for those who see a mobile-centric future, like us.
Hutch, a pure BOP play that was making very good profits, has reported declining profits and revenue growth. One quarter does not a trend make. But seen together with Dialog’s bad results for the last quarter, it suggests things are not looking good for the telecom sector which is taking multiple hits with tripled spectrum charges, revenue-raising taxes in the name of the environment and all sorts of additional costs imposed in the name of national security. If the government keeps taking JHU advice, they are likely to make the economy slow to a crawl.
A Review by Frederick Noronha. MobileActive.org August 18, 2008 | KatrinVerclas Civil society can play a large role in getting people digitally connected, say the co-editors of the new book ‘ICT Infrastructure in Emerging Asia: Policy and Regulatory Roadblocks’. “However, in order to reap the full benefits from connectivity in a long-lasting manner, underlying issues of policy, affordability and technology need to be addressed,” LIRNAsia’s Executive Director Rohan Samarajiva and co-editor of the book with Ayesha Zainudeen, told Mobileactive.org in an email interview.
Afghanistan is rising like a phoenix. The country is still vulnerable to a lethal conflict. Yet its people have captured the power of technology in their hearts and they have been defying all the odds to build a better life. Mobile phone has now truly become the socio-economic lifeline of Kabul. Hopefully the entire nation will enjoy this bounty of modernity very soon.
LiMo Foundation says that while the world’s population is increasing by a net three persons every second, giving us a population expansion of 180 every minute, 10,800 each hour and 259,200 every day. You think that’s astonishing. Well, mobile phones can better that. Every second there are 38 mobile phones sold and that’s 2,280 every minute, 136,800 each hour and 3,283,200 every day. Who says they don’t rule our lives?
As part of its work to fight the spread of HIV, the BBC World Service Trust has launched a novel ringtone in India designed to break down the social taboo of using condoms. The new advertising campaign, which features a ‘condom a cappella’ ringtone is also funded by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The strategy is to show social support for condoms, as this has a positive effect on use, and positions condoms as a product that men use to show they are responsible and care about themselves and their families. Read more and watch the advert.
Government’s monopoly over the international telephony is finally breathing its last in Bangladesh. Bangla Trac, Mir Telecom and Novotel are commencing their international gateway services today. The government had asked the telecoms regulator way back in 2003 to liberalize the international gateway. But the illegal call bypassing outfits had succeeded to block that initiative. The bypassing ventures kept on sprouting nationwide until the military-backed government’s crackdown began in 2007.
Responding to Rohan Samarajiva’s views on newly implemented Environmental levy in Lankadeepa last week, Central Environmental Authority Chairman Udaya Gammanpila calls it essential and the ‘first progressive tax’ in Sri Lanka. Assuring it does not burden public, he says any tax can be initially unpopular but the impact should be seen in long term. (Lankadeepa, August 19, 2008) These are his points in brief: 1. If not for the Environmental levy, the government has to find money to address environmental issues by increasing either VAT or customs charges. That will raise prices in general.