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Preconditions for cloud services
The demand for massive data centers close to consumers will increase rapidly as cloud services proliferate and data traffic increases. Yet, they will not emerge everywhere. Just having cheap renewables-based electricity is not enough, as is shown by Singapore and Dubai becoming attractive sites. A whole eco-system is needed. “There is major demand coming from [...]
Why telecom privatization is good
Sri Lanka and Pakistan partially privatized their incumbent fixed telecom operators more or less at the same time competition was introduced. India, Bangladesh and Nepal did not. Bad move. The lumbering monsters could not compete. The sad state of the Indian incumbents who have been fed more subsidies than it is possible to imagine is [...]
Smartphones at USD 120 and experience zones
When LIRNEasia people were on the field interviewing BOP teleusers in Indonesia in 2011, we saw the proliferation of cheap smartphones. It appears from this report that this trend is moving to Sri Lanka as well. But the company says they will offer smart phones for as little as 15,000 rupees to close in the [...]
Syria back in the Internet: Now the question is why al-Assad threw the killswitch
Yesterday Syria fell off the Internet. Clean cut. Then it came back. Why was it cut? Why did it come back? Gyanendra kept Nepal off the Internet for months. Why did Bashar not continue what he started? Why did Assad act on Tuesday? Perhaps just from fear and a sense that the Internet is, overall, [...]
Signs of desperation in Syria?
Gyanendra’s Law states that those who pull the killswitch do not remain in power too long. Supporting this thesis, Syria’s Bashar Al-Assad has kept his hands off the killswitch for the most part, except at the start of the civil war, and today. Four physical cables connect Syria to the Internet — three under the [...]
Mother of all memes
We at LIRNEasia grapple with the challenge of charting the influence of our research on policy in environments where the norm is not to attribute where ideas were taken from. One solution that we have tried is that of using identifiable memes in our communication, hoping that they will reappear in policy documents. The personal [...]
Regulation as a remedy for political failure
At LIRNEasia we study and teach about regulation. In March-April we spent some effort seeking to contribute to what we saw as an effort to remedy some long-standing political failures through transparent, consultative processes set in motion by Sri Lanka’s Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL). Our recommendations were not accepted, but we still [...]
OFCOM rolls out a significant white spaces trial
The pilot project being implemented by the UK regulator should yield useful learnings for all who want to make better use of spectrum. Ofcom is inviting the industry to take part in the pilot, which is scheduled for the third quarter of 2013. Locations will be chosen once the trial participants are on-board. It also [...]
Some cities beginning to use big data (and others that are clueless)
The Economist talks about how New York and Chicago are using different approaches to the analyze big data generated from within their operations. Sadly, no such activity can be reported from our part of the world. Many cities around the country find themselves in a similar position: they are accumulating data faster than they know [...]
Innovation in blended learning at universities
We have not written much about MOOCs so far on this blog, but have been following developments avidly. As LIRNEasia’s work in capacity building begins to take up more of our time, we need to think about how we can effectively mobilize ICTs in our work. The report that we highlight here seems to point [...]
Appreciation: Radley Dissanayake, Telecom reformer
I recall a Sinhala poem from my time at Peradeniya University. It asked who had actually built Sigiriya and the great irrigation works: The kings who routinely get the credit or the unnamed many who did the actual building? The telecom reforms in Sri Lanka are now seen as an unqualified success. The reforms did [...]
Not yet with license, Telenor announces its plans for Myanmar
With long experience in neighboring Bangladesh, where they may have well discovered the Budget Telecom Network model, Telenor appears to be pulling out all the stops in its Myanmar campaign. Telenor plans to sell SIM cards for free—or with a minimal charge of about 20 kyat (US$0.02)—and offer its phone service by a pay-per-minute plan. [...]
India DOT’s protectionism questioned by Prime Minister’s Office
It takes guts to question protectionism, but I guess it’s not that difficult when you are in the Prime Minister’s Office: The Prime Minister’s Office is worried about the IT and Communication Ministry’s policy of encouraging domestic manufacturing. The PMO has sent the Ministry a note asking for comments on how the policy aims to [...]
Submarine cable landing stations as a source of market power and what regulators can do
On the second day of the training course organized by PiRRC in Apia, Samoa, I made a presentation on the available regulatory solutions to the problem of market power associated with submarine cable landing stations. The countries covered include Hong Kong SAR, India, Fiji and Mauritius. The slide set: Gateway pricing Apr 2013.
What does the effect of killswitch look like?
We’ve had some discussion about the effects of killswitch on this blog. Here is a discussion about full and partial killswitch effects with some nice graphics. When you deliver nearly a third of global Web traffic, you get to see a lot of crazy stuff happen. Akamai Technologies (NASDAQ: AKAM), the global Internet traffic provider, [...]
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