In line with our current research focus on mobile-beyond-voice, we have been highlighting some novel information services that could be provided over the mobile. Here is another. In operation in India now. A number of civic groups, meanwhile, have devised cellphone-based ways of informing voters about candidates for Parliament. If you text your postal code to the Association for Democratic Reforms, it will reply with candidate profiles like this: CANDIDATE A Crim.
Until recently, I believed, with Richard Heeks quoted below, that radio is found in more homes (at the BOP or all) than phones and TVs. Survey data from the BOP at three countries that account for the world’s greatest concentration of poor people (Pakistan, India and Bangladesh) tell a story that contradicts the common wisdom. In India, 58% of BOP households have TVs, while only 32% have radios. And some kind of phone in the household? 45%!
One point the experts at LIRNEasia’s Mobile Broadband QoSE workshop agreed: Mobile broadband test results will be device specific. Unlike PCs, mobile handsets, with their software and hardware limitations, have an impact on results. That is why iNetwork Test, one of the few test sites we could find on the net insists the users to take a choice between iPhone or Android. The approach is parallel to what LIRNEasia plans.
Barack Obama was perhaps the first USA Presidential candidate to have such a comprehensive broadband policy. What do we see hundred days after the ‘on-line American’ assuming office? Here are some views. The Obama Internet and tech agenda came roaring out of the transition and Inauguration under a full head of steam. Now, more or less creeping along, bogged down and becalmed largely by circumstances beyond its control.
Unsatisfied broadband users added flavor to both our Public Seminar and Mobile Broadband QoSE workshop. That included university students prevented access during the residential peak to Wi-Max subscribers experiencing 20% of the promised speed – even with perfect LoS (Line of Sight). Such complaints are common and not limited to Sri Lanka. From Indonesia to India and from Bangladesh to Philippines we find broadband users rant not receiving the promised. We empathise with them, but this hardly an Asian or a developing world issue.
With the commoditization of voice, mobile operators need to think about supplying info services over the mobile that people will pay for. Is better, more accurate weather info marketable? In our disaster early warning work we found that while scientists were qualitatively improving detection and monitoring systems (based on buoys too), the weakness was in the last mile of getting the information to the citizen/end user in useful actionable form. Is there a parallel here? Scientists said Monday they had reached the halfway point in a project to set up buoys across the Indian Ocean, helping farmers predict the monsoon in some of the world’s poorest areas.
The demand-side data generated by the Teleuse @ BOP 3 study clearly shows the urban-rural gap among teleusing households (those who own some kind of mobile phone or have a fixed phone in the house) significantly narrowing. But respected colleagues are citing supply-side data to assert not only that the gap is not narrowing, but that it is significantly widening. This is contradictory not only with our demand-side results, but also with the claims made by the Indian Minister. We hope they will engage with us on clearing this fog. More perilous, however, is the inequality between rural and urban India.
As a results-oriented organization, that is a question LIRNEasia has always been interested in. The discipline that seeks to answer that question is evaluation. They recently held a conference in Sri Lanka. We are ratcheting up our emphasis on evaluation now that we have a substantial body of work to talk about. A key element in this will be Chanuka Wattegama’s participation in the most important evaluation training program currently being offered, the International Program for Development Evaluation Training offered every Summer at Carleton University in Ottawa, with the cooperation of the World Bank and IDRC.
If you believe something, no evidence is necessary, they say, while if you don’t know evidence is adequate. So we are not surprised if users do not agree, but that is what evidence shows. Test results from Feb 2008 and Feb 2009 round shows a clear improvement, when accessing international servers. The broken lines are for 2008, the unbroken for 2009. SLT ADSL and Dialog WiMax were tested both times.
Voice is becoming a commodity. Mobile operators have to think of new services that people will pay for. Here is one. It’s not porn. It’s intervention from a government agency to prevent teen pregnancies.
Now that the battle over ICTs is almost won, we should start thinking about how it can help improve infrastructures, such as transport and energy. The NYT has a fascinating overview, but congestion pricing made possible by ICTs is what caught my eye the most. Perhaps because I had written about it as a solution to chronic congestion in Colombo and continue to be deeply interested in transport issues. In 2006, Stockholm experimented with congestion pricing, charging cars up to $4 to enter the downtown area, depending on the time of day. The cars were monitored with RFID cards and webcams that photographed license plate numbers.