Monthly Archives: April, 2009
The science of earthquake (and therefore tsunami) prediction
Lots of people talk about predicting earthquakes. Here’s the science. Why should we be in interested in earthquake prediction? Because we live in a bad neighborhood: there has been a tsunamigenic earthquake every year, except 2008, since 2004 in the Sunda Trench. Until the prediction issue is resolved all we can do is focus on [...]
Rohan Samarajiva to present at next SA Connect Public Seminar Series
Rohan Samarajiva will present the next SA Connect Public Seminar Series, entitled, ‘The path to the information society: Does it lie through the mobile? Evidence from Asia and thoughts for Africa’, on the 14th of April, at the Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town, South Africa. “A people centered, inclusive, and development-oriented information society [...]
Inclusive growth with mobiles: Findings from the BOP
Just five years ago, the Indian telecom industry’s massive momentum barely included the poor. The country had slightly over seven access paths (fixed and mobile connections) per 100 people, but in rural India 100 people were served by only 1.5 access paths. Even in urban India, the poor were unconnected. But now, the picture is [...]
Australian government enters broadband business
Interesting route chosen by Australia: taxpayers will fund most of the costs of building the broadband network and the operators, including the formerly government-owned Telstra, will have to buy capacity on it to provide services. Unlikely to be effective in most countries, but Australia along with the Scandinavian countries was among the most advanced in [...]
Rough consensus and running code
One of the things LIRNEasia tries to do is to evolve low-transaction-costs of making participatory and high-quality decisions. The Internet’s Requests for Comments (RFCs) are gold standard. This is a fascinating account of how they came about. The early R.F.C.’s ranged from grand visions to mundane details, although the latter quickly became the most common. [...]
Reducing roaming rates; making South Asian regional integration real
Prof. Rohan Samarajiva discuss about Reducing roaming rates in South Asian regional in his article Regional Roaming for the Choices column in Lanka Business Online. In 2006, Zain Africa took a step that led to the abolition of roaming charges and made a significant contribution to economic integration of the East African region. They did more [...]
Bangladesh; Leased line prices down, but are the customers benefited?
Bangladesh leased line prices have dropped 74%, according to LIRNEasia’s February 2009 benchmarking study. But this reduction has not been passed onto consumers, who are still paying roughly the same price as they did in October 2008. The consumer also receiving less for what he’s paying – our February 2009 broadband quality of service tests showed that speeds experienced by [...]
LIRNEasia’s Indian TRE event in the media
Proceedings from LIRNEasia’s Telecom Regulatory Environment (TRE) dissemination event, held on March 6th, 2009, have been published in Voice&Data, India’s leading magazine on the business of communications, and also LIRNEasia’s collaborating partner for the event. Over seventy key experts of the telecom industry participated at the event, with aim of understanding and sharing the key challenges [...]
Sri Lanka: Minister Thondaman, are you being led down the garden path?
Sustainability is not an issue for this telecenter. It provides all its service, be it Internet surfing, computer training, library facilities or even typesetting and printing services free of charge, treating them as community services. Thondaman Foundation, a non-profit organization, with a ministerial backing, that intends “to make available to the plantation community the wide [...]
CPR intercontinental?
Last week, representatives of all the entities engaged in advancing research on communication policy and regulation met in Sevilla, Spain, at the invitation of Euro CPR, as part of the annual Euro CPR conference. This was a follow up to the initiative taken by CPRsouth in December 2008 in Beijing, when it invited representatives of [...]
Advances in modeling of long waves to help predict tsunami hazards
Impressive science is being produced as a result of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The focus now must be on creating systems within national governments that will allow the best use of science. Modeling data on projected tsunami arrival times (if any) were available to all on September 12, 2007. There is no evidence that [...]
Nokia finally dumps WiMax
Nokia, the world’s largest mobile terminal maker as well as the WiMax Forum Board member, has put the last nail to the coffin of WiMax. “I don’t see that WiMax is taking hold anywhere in a big way,” said Anssi Vanjoki, Nokia’s head of sales and manufacturing, at a Nokia launch event yesterday in San [...]
Mobile makes people rude and impatient: Indian Parliament
The remarkable uptake of mobile telephony in India is one of the great success stories of recent years and, despite the global economic downturn, the Indian cellphone sector continues to power ahead like there’s no tomorrow. However, according to the upper house of the Indian Parliament, all the mobile chattering is making Indians so impatient [...]
Recent Comments