Divakar Goswami Archive at LIRNEasia

Author Archive for Divakar GoswamiPage 2 of 7

Mobile money transfers services awaiting Govt approval in India

on March 11, 2007

A number of Indian mobile operators have been pilot-testing transferring money using mobile handsets. There are 160 million mobile subscribers in India far outnumbering the bank branches in the country (70,000). The service could potentially allow mobile users to transfer money electronically via the handset directly and instantaneously to another mobile subscriber in the country without having to use bank accounts. However, this service cannot be rolled out until the operators are given regulatory approval both from the banking regulators and telecom regulators. But a more restricted service which would still keep banks in the loop may have a higher chance of getting a quicker approval. Bharti (Airtel) is partnering with the State Bank of India (govt bank with widest coverage) for such a service.

Mobile…

1 Comment
Tags: Africa, Applications & Solutions Group, bank, bank account, bank accounts, bank branches, govt bank, India, Mahesh Prasad, Mobile banking, money remittance applications, State Bank of India, the Philippines.

Evaluating ICT policy in Indonesia: Interview with LIRNEasia researcher

Divakar Goswami

on January 26, 2007

As part of a special review of ICT policy in Indonesia, e-Indonesia, the Indonesian ICT monthly magazine, interviewed a number of key stakeholders including the Minister Sofyan Djalil, Commissioners from BRTI, the regulatory body, civil society group, industry reps and ICT experts.

LIRNEasia researcher, Divakar Goswami, was also interviewed. The interview is featured in the online edition here. The interview is in bahasa. The English text of the interview is below:
1. How’s the growth of ICT in Indonesia for along 2006 (as we see from regulations, infrastructure development (hardware and software), human being, ICT industry etc)?

Information and Communication Technology sector (ICT) in Indonesia is one of the most dynamic sectors of the economy contributing most to GDP growth rate (around 16%) than any other sector. The ICT…

Comment
Tags: 3G, ADSL, Bakrie Telecom, Bangladesh, basic telephone service, Broadband, CDMA, CDMA technology, Communication Technology Council, Divakar Goswami, enough telecom infrastructure, fixed and mobile services, fixed line infrastructure, fixed wireless access, India, Indonesia, Indonesian government, Indonesia\'s government, Information and Technology Council, Information Communication Department, Internet connectivity, internet connectivity costs, Internet prices, Internet service, Internet service provision, Internet subscribers, Internet users, ISP, Lampung, low Internet use, lower Internet retail prices, mobile phones, mobile retail prices, mobile services, mobility services, National Information and Communication Technology Counc, online edition, particular technology, Qualcomm, Sofyan Djalil, stagnant Internet, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, technology neutral, telephone connectivity, Telkom, Telkom Flexi, USD, wireless access, wireless broadband, wireless broadband providers, wonder Internet access, www.lirneasia.net/projects.

“Living in the Information Society” - NCPAG Conference in Philippines (April 2007)

Divakar Goswami

on January 14, 2007

The Philippine ICT Researchers Network through the National College of Public Administration and Governance (NCPAG) of the University of the Philippines will be hosting the first international conference on “Living the Information Society: The Impact of Information and Communication Technologies on People, Work and Communities in Asia” which will be held on April 23-24, 2007 at the Renaissance Hotel, Makati City, Philippines (program attached). Early registration (download form) for the Conference is now open and entitles the participant to a 20% discount.

This conference funded by the International Development Research Centre – Canada, is being organized in support of the growing community of researchers and practitioners conducting research on the social, cultural, psychological, economic, political, and other transformations brought about by information and communications technologies (ICT) in the Asia-Pacific…

9 Comments
Tags: Asia, Asia-Pacific, Canada, cellular telephone, Cheryll Soriano, communications technologies, Conference Secretariat, E-Learning, Information Society, International Development Research Centre, National College, Online Relationships, Philippines, Public Administration, Renaissance Hotel, United States, University of the Philippines, USD.

Lower Mobile Prices: Through Profit Regulation or Competition?

Divakar Goswami

on January 10, 2007

By Divakar Goswami (LIRNEasia)
Bisnis Indonesia (Leading financial paper of Indonesia): OpEd (In Bahasa)
January 10, 2007

Mobile talk is not cheap in Indonesia. Despite limited competition, mobile calling prices are among the highest in Asia. Only fixed wireline service, where PT Telkom has a de facto monopoly, sees calling prices to be among the lowest in the region as they are rigidly regulated by the government. But as everyone knows, it is difficult to get a fixed line and the quality is poor.

It is therefore not surprising that policymakers and regulators in Indonesia have become impatient with the results of competition and started to voice their resentment of the high profits being declared by the private telecom companies.

Jos Luhukay, a member of the ICT National Committee tasked to…

Comment
Tags: Asia, AT&T, Bakrie Telecom, Heru Sutadi, high Internet tariffs, ICT National Committee, Indonesia, Jos Luhukay, mobile phones, United States, USD.

Regulations hampering wireless infrastructure deployment in developing countries

Divakar Goswami

on January 1, 2007

The low-cost and quick deployment time of wireless technologies give them the potential to connect communities and regions that are currently disconnected. However, governments in many developing countries have not unlicensed the use of spectrum that is necessary to deploy wireless networks like Wi-Fi. In many countries, transmission of data using unlicensed spectrum over public areas is prohibited, which makes connecting villages, for example, impossible. In some countries like the United States, telephone companies are actively lobbying against unlicensed use of the spectrum. These were some of the key issues that came up at the Air Jaldi wireless infrastructure summit held in Dharmasala.

Vic Hayes, Senior Research Fellow at the Delft University of Technology, one of the nodes in the LIRNE network, attended the Summit and also…

Comment
Tags: Delft University of Technology, Regulations hampering wireless infrastructure deploymen, telephone, United States, Vic Hayes, Wi-Fi, wireless infrastructure summit, wireless networks, wireless technologies, WLAN.

FLAG to invest $1.5 billion on new submarine cable network

Divakar Goswami

on December 30, 2006

FLAG Telecom plans to deploy the largest IP-based submarine cable network that will connect 60 countries, including many that currently have poor connectivity by 2009. India, Indonesia, and Philippines are among the countries that FLAG’s NGN network will have a presence in.
Reliance to carry FLAG far and wide:

“We live in a world where there is too much of bandwidth for some, little for others and none for many - there is unequal access to bandwidth in and across countries, continents and communities,” said Anil Dhirubhai Ambani, chairman, Reliance Communications. “FLAG NGN will democratise digital access,” he added.

FLAG NGN will comprise of our systems. FLAG NGN System 1 would cover Asia that includes India, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei and Honk Kong. FLAG NGN…

1 Comment
Tags: Africa, Anil Dhirubhai Ambani, Asia, Brunei, China, Cyprus, FLAG Telecom, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Kenya, Lebanon, Libya, Madagascar, Malaysia, Malta, Mauritius, Mediterranean, Mozambique, Philippines, Reliance Communications, Republic of South Africa, Singapore, submarine cable network, Tanzania, the Philippines, Turkey, United States, US West Coast, USD, Vietnam.

Taiwan’s vulnerability to outage was known

Divakar Goswami

on December 27, 2006

A study by RAND noted the vulnerability of submarine cables to undersea attacks by hostile forces in order hamper communication links to the United States. Using Taiwan as an illustrative case, the study said the following:
As seen in Table I.2, a recent survey of the number of international submarine cables reaching Taiwan is particularly disconcerting. Four out of five undersea fiber optic cables reaching Taiwan do so at either Fangshan or Toucheng (the fifth, a “self-healing loop” reaches Taiwan at both, meaning that both cables would have to be damaged for Taiwan to be cut off). Two more planned cables have landing areas at Fangshan. Only one planned cable is due not to land at either Fangshan or Toucheng. In short, Taiwan’s ability to send and…

Comment
Tags: fiber optic, Taiwan, United States.

Taiwan quake shakes telecom links in Asia

Divakar Goswami

on December 27, 2006

The strong quake off Taiwan’s coast on December 26 damaged six separate submarine cables and severely disrupted telecom links in the East, Southeast and South Asia. Internet connectivity in a number of countries are either down or are slowed down thanks to taffic that is being rerouted over networks that have escaped damage. Most of Jakarta (Indonesia) and Pondicherry (Southern India) have been without Internet until this afternoon (Dec 27) at least. In our office in Sri Lanka, SLT’s ADSL connection (though congested) is working. However, Lankacom’s leased line is down since it probably connects to the Internet backbone via Singapore.

These disruptions have major consequences for any business that relies on telecom for delivering their services, including, banking, trading, call centers, remotely managed services etc.…

10 Comments
Tags: ADSL, Asia, banking, Bloomberg, cable network, China, China Unicom Ltd., Chunghwa Telecom Co., David Leong, earthquake, Europe, France Telecom SA, Hong Kong, HSBC Holdings Plc, India, Indonesia, Internet backbone, Internet connectivity, Jakarta, Japan, Korea, Leng Tai-feng, Malaysia, online banking services, Pakistan Telecommunication Co., Philippines, Pondicherry, Shanghai, Singapore, Singapore Telecom, SouthEast Asia, Sri Lanka, StarHub Ltd. Telekom, taipei, Taiwan, Taiwan\'s coast, Telekom Malaysia Bhd., Telstra Corp., USD.

Telecom Regulatory Environment survey results from 6 countries released in India

Divakar Goswami

on December 21, 2006

The TRE 2006 results [PDF Download] of the first Telecom Regulatory Environment (TRE) survey applied across six Asian countries were released in New Delhi yesterday. The TRE Assessment, developed by LIRNEasia and already implemented in a number of countries, is a perceptual index which gauges regulatory performance across six dimensions. The TRE survey carried out in India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand as part of a multi-component study, closely reflected regulatory reform actions undertaken in the respective countries along with sector performance.
The Hindustan Times, a leading newspaper in India, covered the findings from the TRE surveys [PDF Download] focusing on the comparison between India and Pakistan’s scores.

Pakistan Bests India in Telecoms Regulation by M. Rajendran, Hindustan Times, Dec 20, 2006.

[..]A survey by research agency LIRNEAsia says Pakistan…

Comment
Tags: fixed and mobile services, Hindustan Times, India, Indonesia, LIRNEasia, Mahesh Uppal, New Delhi, Nripendra Misra, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, Thailand.

Universal, Ubiquitous, Equitable and Affordable forum session at ITU World 2006

Divakar Goswami

on December 20, 2006

Rohan Samarajiva chaired the Universal, Ubiquitous, Equitable and Affordable session at the ITU World 2006 that raised some fundamental questions about Universal Service Obligation (USO) programs around the world. Rohan introduced the topic [PDF] drawing from LIRNEasia’s recent Shoestrings II study on telephone use at the “bottom of the pyramid.”

The first Keynote speaker, Zhengmao Li, VP China Unicom, described the efforts of the Chinese govt and his company in building a harmonious digital society. Thanks to the govt’s policy to provide access to ICTs on an equitable and affordable basis, more than 97 percent of administrative villages in China have a phone.
The second Keynote speaker, Tom Philips, Chief Regulatory Officer at the GSM Association forcefully argued that USO programs in most parts of the world have not…

Comment
Tags: Broadband, broadband wireless, cellular telephone, China, communication services, GSM, GSM Association, incumbent carrier, Martin Hilbert, mobile technology, mobile telephony, Motorola, Penn State University, Rob Frieden, Roger Marks, Rohan Samarajiva, technology neutral, telephone use, Tom Philip, Tom Philips, ubiquitous telephone service, United States, USD, voice services, years wireless service, Zhengmao Li.

LIRNEasia provides input at policy forum in Indonesia

Divakar Goswami

on December 15, 2006

Indonesia’s telecom industry association and regulatory authority requested the participation of LIRNEasia at a seminar in Jakarta to address two key issues: 1) what telecom investors are looking for from the regulatory and policy environment in the country; 2) a review of current policy and regulatory challenges facing the Indonesian telecom sector.

Prof Rohan Samarajiva, Executive Director addressed the first issue in his presentation Enabling Investment: Lessons from the Region [PDF] and Divakar Goswami, Director of Organizational Development & Projects made a presentation, Telecom Reforms in Indonesia: Current Achievements and Challenges [PDF] to address the second issue. The final report from the presentations are available here [PDF].

The Seminar was organized by MASTEL, representing a wide spectrum of ICT industry representatives and by BRTI, the Indonesian regulatory authority. The audience consisted…

Comment
Tags: Divakar Goswami, Indonesia, Jakarta, Ministry of Communication and Information, Rohan Samarajiva.

Indonesian Minister proposes new initiatives to stimulate Internet growth at ITU World 2006

Divakar Goswami

on December 8, 2006

The Indonesian Minister for Communication and Information Technology, Dr Sofyan Djalil, presented a number of new initiatives for removing the barriers to Internet growth in his country at Building Digital Communities forum session at the ITU World 2006 event in Hong Kong on December 7, 2006.

Divakar Goswami, LIRNEasia’s Director, Organizational and Projects, who was moderating the panel asked the following question:

One of the first achievements of your government was to delicense the 2.4 GHz frequency that allowed communities to use Wi-Fi extensively in the country. Despite that, Indonesia currently has Internet penetration of 0.69 percent. You have about 124 ISPs that operate in Indonesia. How do you explain the low penetration and what are the barriers preventing Internet from growing faster in Indonesia? When we look…

2 Comments
Tags: Broadband, broadband wireless, fiber optic, Hong Kong, Indonesia, information technology, Internet penetration, Internet service, Jakarta, LIRNE asia, optic based network, Sidney, Sofyan Djalil, telecommunications, Wi-Fi.

India mandates access regime for cable landing stations

Divakar Goswami

on December 3, 2006

India’s Department of Telecom (DoT) has mandated non-discriminatory access to international cable landing stations which are an essential facility for a host of international data and voice services. VSNL has agreed to open three landing stations to all operators on a non-discriminatory manner. LIRNEasia has been pushing for having access regimes in place for telecom infrastructure bottlenecks like cable landing stations and backbone in a number of countries we work in. Hopefully, this will be emulated in other countries in the region.
DoT will also introduce resellers for international bandwidth in order to further bring down international bandwidth prices since the liberalization of the international gateway (IGW) in 2002. Currently, there are four operators that own IGW and there are eight submarine cables landing into the country.…

3 Comments
Tags: cable systems, data and voice services, European Union, India, India\'s Department of Telecom, Thomas Thomas, United States.

Latin American Operators Target Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP)

Divakar Goswami

on November 30, 2006

The battle for mobile customers in Latin America is hotting up as 319 million Latin Americans or 56% of the population already own a mobile phone. Telefonica of Spain and America Movil controlled by Mexican businessman Carlos Slim are going head-to-head to expand their market-share in South America and are increasingly targeting the “bottom of the pyramid.”

The Race for Numero Uno in Latin Wireless (Businessweek November 27, 2006):

More than 80% of Brazil’s mobile-telephone customers use prepaid service—buying cards to recharge their phones—rather than signing monthly contracts. América Móvil’s average client uses just 71 minutes of airtime each month, spending around $12.50. Although such revenue can add up, signing up all those customers has an impact on profits as well. “The two big operators have had to…

1 Comment
Tags: America Movil, Brazil, Carlos Slim, cellular telephone, fixed-wireless phones, Latin America, Latin Wireless, mobile-telephone customers, South America, Spain, Telefonica, USD, wireless technology.

Mobile operators eligible for Indian USO Fund

Divakar Goswami

on November 25, 2006

The Study of India’s Universal Service Instruments by LIRNEasia researchers Payal Malik & Harsha De Silva, critiqued the Indian government’s policy that made only fixed line operators eligible for USO funds:
As of today, the government is giving USO fund support to only the fixed line operators offering services in the rural areas. The over defining terms in the law is a bad idea in a rapidly evolving technology environment, though this correction has been suggested it is quite possible that the previous auctions have left huge amounts of rents that have been appropriated by the incumbent. In an industry that manifests the potential for rapid technological change and innovation, such as telecom, an economic analysis of a problem should not focus too narrowly or exclusively on the…

1 Comment
Tags: Arunachal Pradesh, Bihar, cellular telephone, Chingraliang, Department of Telecom, Harsha de Silva, Henry Island, India, Indian government, Indian USO Fund, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, mobile services, New Delhi, Orissa, passive infrastructure, phone services, technology environment, Thomas K Thomas, Universal Services Obligation fund, Uttar Pradesh.

LIRNEasia

Author Archive for Divakar GoswamiPage 2 of 7

Mobile money transfers services awaiting Govt approval in India

Evaluating ICT policy in Indonesia: Interview with LIRNEasia researcher

“Living in the Information Society” - NCPAG Conference in Philippines (April 2007)

Lower Mobile Prices: Through Profit Regulation or Competition?

Regulations hampering wireless infrastructure deployment in developing countries

FLAG to invest $1.5 billion on new submarine cable network

Taiwan’s vulnerability to outage was known

Taiwan quake shakes telecom links in Asia

Telecom Regulatory Environment survey results from 6 countries released in India

Universal, Ubiquitous, Equitable and Affordable forum session at ITU World 2006

LIRNEasia provides input at policy forum in Indonesia

Indonesian Minister proposes new initiatives to stimulate Internet growth at ITU World 2006

India mandates access regime for cable landing stations

Latin American Operators Target Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP)

Mobile operators eligible for Indian USO Fund

Recent Comments

Blogroll