The story is based on US data, but it is still grist for the mill as we think about how the mobile and Internet will change the mediasphere in emerging Asia. We are so smitten with screens that we often can’t bear to choose one over another: 31 percent of Internet use occurs while we’re in front of a TV set. We are also taking an interest in watching video on our phones: 100 million handsets are video-capable.
Findings from the Teleuse at the bottom of the pyramid (T@BOP3) will be released at a meeting organized with the leadership of the Cellular Operators’ Association of India (COAI) on 10 February 2009. This will be followed by media interactions in Mumbai and Chennai. Ayesha Zainudeen, Harsha de Silva and Rohan Samarajiva will present at the events. Teleuse@BOP, pioneered by LIRNEasia in 2005, is a unique series of cutting edge demand-side studies on ICT use among the BOP. The 2008 study was conducted across six countries, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and most recently, Bangladesh, among a sample of 9500+ BOP (SEC D and E) users.
As a trial the State of Tamil Nadu, in India, is piloting the use of mobile phones with Village Health Nurses (VHN) to talk with the Deputy Director of Health Service (DDHS) and Public Health Center (PHC) staff as and when they need. Indian Institute of Technology in Madras (IITM) will add on a m-Health Survey application to add value to the mobile phones for the VHN to share patient disease and syndrome information. Besides digitizing health records, the VHN are eager to learn other communcation features such as SMS, WWW (GPRS), and Email. Team of Researchers from IITM’s Rural Technology and Buisness Incubator (RTBI) visited with the Thirupathur Block VHNs to outline the Real-Time Biosurveillance Program, a pilot project carried out in India and Sri Lanka. The meeting is documented in the “IITM VHN meeting report“.
In our work on dam safety, we found there was widespread fear about the big dams of the Mahaveli scheme causing geological instability in the central hills. The following report on the possibility that the weight of water from a Sichuan Province dam caused last year’s earthquake, will fuel those fears. Nearly nine months after a devastating earthquake in Sichuan Province, China, left 80,000 people dead or missing, a growing number of American and Chinese scientists are suggesting that the calamity was triggered by a four-year-old reservoir built close to the earthquake’s geological fault line. A Columbia University scientist who studied the quake has said that it may have been triggered by the weight of 320 million tons of water in the Zipingpu Reservoir less than a mile from a well-known major fault. His conclusions, presented to the American Geophysical Union in December, coincide with a new finding by Chinese geophysicists that the dam caused significant seismic changes before the earthquake.
Today, Lanka Bell (the cable partner of Reliance through Flag), announced that calls to India would henceforth cost LKR 0.07 a minute, among the lowest IDD rates offered. They have not got around to updating their website, but newspaper ads should count for something. What is causing downward pressure on international call rates to India? Just a short time back, Dialog cut prices to India.
In conventional thinking, complex industries with oligopoly characteristsics such as telecom require regulation by specialized agencies. Interconnection must be ensured; spectrum must be managed, etc. In addition, information asymmetries between operators and customers necessitate a degree of regulation of matters such as quality of service, billing accuracy and truth in advertising. For example, the Telecom Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka has had a consumer relation unit since 1999. However, many regulators do not perform their functions satisfactorily.
Israel’s blockade has perforated the Egypt-Gaza border with countless tunnels. Tel Aviv’s first world military might has failed to stop such diggings. People’s power overpowers firepower. Similarly, the illegal trading of international phone calls is, predictably, flourishing again in Bangladesh, according to a press report. Thanks to the ILDTS policy which has sprouted three IGW and three ICX licenses in 2007 by the military-backed government.
According to analysts who see the world as made up of the US market, yes: Analysts and investors are beginning to ask whether the industry can continue growing. The challenge is both simple and daunting: how to expand when more than half of the six billion people on the planet already have phones. And even in developing countries where there are underserved markets, subscribers spend less on phones and services. Craig Moffett, an industry analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, is one of the skeptics.
At Sri Lanka’s largest agricultural market a large projection screen overlooks 12 acres of stalls brimming with produce. Traders at the Dambulla market consult the screen to receive up-to-the-minute pricing information on produce being sold in the market. This information helps them negotiate fair prices at any of the market’s 144 booths, says Harsha de Silva, head economist at Sri Lanka-based LIRNEasia, a non-profit organization and IDRC partner that aims to use information and communication technologies (ICTs) to improve the lives of Asia’s people. In the case of the Dambulla market traders, de Silva says farmers can negotiate from a stronger position because information is accessible. Such information is vital to ensuring agricultural markets work efficiently because it helps farmers reduce their transaction costs, according to de Silva.
Helani Galpaya, COO of LIRNEasia, and Dr. Erwin Alampay, Associate Professor at the National College of Public Administration and Governance (NCPAG), University of Philippines presented findings from the 2008 TRE study at an event organized by LIRNEasia, in association with the NCPAG on the 3rd of February, 2009. Helani presented results from the regional study while Erwin presented results from the TRE study of the Philippines. Reacting to the results, and participating in the panel discussion were National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) Deputy Commissioner Jorge V. Sarmiento and Former Chairman of the Commission on ICTs (CICT), Virgilio Pena.
Several of the pilot projects presented at the 2nd Pan Asian evidence-based e-Health adoptation and application (in short form – Panacea), were m-Health projects. One of the Panacea projects THIRRA and LIRNEasia lead RTBP share some aspects one being working on disease information communication in Sri Lanka; however, differs in the goals where THIRRA aims to digitize the H-544 health form at the Public Health Inspector’s point of service – at the patient’s home. On the other hand, RTBP will digitize minimal set of parameters: location (postal code), disease (ICD Code), symptom, sign, age, and gender collected from health provider facilities. Some of the other m-Health projects; especially in Philippines, involved Filipino rural community health care workers strictly using SMS with prearranged formatted strings for communicating field data to a central database. Prof.
Iran has launched its first domestically made satellite into orbit, state media reports. TV commentary said Monday’s night-time launch from a Safir-2 rocket was “another achievement for Iranian scientists under sanctions”. The satellite was designed for research and telecommunications purposes, the television report said. Iran is subject to UN sanctions as some Western powers think it is trying to build a nuclear bomb, which it denies. Tehran says its nuclear ambitions are limited to the production of energy, and has emphasised its satellite project is entirely peaceful.
An article published by the Business Standard, India, states that telecom operators should focus on their most profitable customers, those at the top of the pyramid or TOP, instead of following bottom of the pyramid (BOP)-focused strategies. The article cites a study by BDA, a consulting firm in India, which finds that the TOP contributes a greater percentage to revenue than their lower-income counterparts. An interesting debate has ensued, here and here, on the economics of serving the BOP. Although such figures appear to economically justify abandoning BOP-focused telecom strategies, some argue that there seems to be more to the picture than first meets the eye. Rob Katz of Nextbillion.
The world is awash in telecenter pilots. I thought all the lessons that could be learned, have been learned. Apparently not. Google is bankrolling another pilot in Kenya, including a USD 700/month broadband bill. So, for sustainability we’d need around 700 users spending a tad more than USD 2 per visit?
India is planning to produce a laptop computer for the knockdown price of about $20, having pioneered last year the Tata Nano, the world’s cheapest car, for $2,050 a vehicle, reported the Fiancial Times today. As the access to FT website is limited to its subscribers, I have posted the entire news bellow: The project, backed by New Delhi, would considerably undercut the so-called “$100 laptop”, otherwise known as the Children’s Machine or XO, which was designed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology of the US. That laptop is the centrepiece of the One Laptop Per Child charity initiative launched by Nicholas Negroponte, the computer scientist and former director of MIT’s Media Lab. Intel launched a similar product, called Classmate, in response. But the Children’s Machine received a cool reception in India.
The stimulus packages being worked up by governments the world over all seem to have a broadband component. Even the Sri Lanka government which barely has enough money to pay its bills, is thinking of launching a USD 100 million satellite for high speed Internet (I guess this means broadband?). Leaving aside the insanity of the Government of Sri Lanka operating satellites, even the other proposals to provide government subsidies to rollout fiber networks can have bad effects that need to be thought about, before taxpayer money is doled out. As the Economist points out: Another drawback with big state subsidies for broadband is that they could distort the market and create regulatory problems.