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Open publication
We have been grateful for funding from the UK Department for International Development channeled through IDRC. In the speech that I quote from below, the UK Minister for Universities and Science, comes out strongly for public availability of publicly funded research. Therefore, it is pleasing to be able to report that LIRNEasia has insisted on [...]
Myanmar is last in telecoms: What can be done
A short piece I wrote on my own time (IDRC is subject to Canadian government restrictions against any expenditures of Canadian funds in/for Myanmar) was just published in English in the Myanmar Times. I am hopeful the Bamar translation will also be published. The text is below: In 2010, I worked on a section of [...]
Bangladesh: More-than-voice use of mobiles up; phone sharing down
Ericsson has released results of a representative sample survey (3,000 sample) of teleuse in Bangladesh. This is a rare quantitative study for the region. We hope to make a few more posts on it, hopefully after getting a hold of the full report. The Daily Star provides a summary worth reading. The trend towards internet [...]
Bangladesh spectrum: Rearrangement if not yet refarming; cooperation not court cases
Finally, some good news from Dhaka. Four mobile operators have cooperatively started to swap frequencies to yield a more rational arrangement. Congratulations to the regulator, the industry body and the operators. After the rearrangement process, the quality of services of the mobile operators will be better than before with reduced call drops and more efficient [...]
Reinventing politics using Internet as medium and message
First, a new medium becomes an extension of the old ways. Politician’s speeches on websites. Then gradually, new ways emerge. Internet is used for politics in ways hitherto impossible. NYT reports an interesting new way of doing politics. The Pirates’ insight is that the Internet is both message and medium. Young Germans, who spend large [...]
Imagining the Internet: No wallets by 2020
According to this overview, m-money is the future. The survey, released earlier this month by the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project along with Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center, asked just over 1,000 technologists and social scientists to opine on the future of the wallet in 2020. Nearly two-thirds agreed that “cash [...]
Mobile apps and government: Oil and water?
I was at dinner with some people who advise governments earlier today. One said they had identified the top four apps for government. I asked who would develop them? And who decided? Without being rude, I said that innovation is like throwing 100 things at a wall and seeing what four things stick. That it [...]
Deja vu in Bangladesh: Inadequate capacity in national cable link makes SEA-ME-WE 4 ugrade meaningless
It was in December 2005 that I wrote the following in an op-ed in the Daily Star: The SAT-3 cable did not increase Internet traffic from Africa, including Nigeria. Indeed, the year-on-year growth slowed in the year after the cable (71 percent in 2002 and 53 percent in 2003). In the case of Nigeria, one [...]
Smallholder quality penalty presented at WITFOR in New Delhi by Harsha de Silva
Theme: Can ICT benefit the small farmers? “Putting Farmers First” Chair: Mr. Vikas Nath, Associate Director, Future of the United Nations Project, Switzerland Speakers: Dr. Harsha de Silva, Member of Parliament, Consultant Lead Economist, LIRNEasia, Sri Lanka Can ICT benefit small farmers? Tackling Smallholder Quality Penalty |Presentation | Ms. Aurelia Bondari, Executive Director, National AGROinform [...]
Idealism and realism in spectrum policy
An international treaty document, the Reference Paper that is part of the Fourth Protocol to the General Agreement on Trade in Services, states that spectrum is a scarce resource. It is scarce only because (a) exclusive use of most frequencies is the norm (WiFi is an exception), and (b) the bands for which cheap equipment [...]
Mythbuster: RIA clarifies importance of reducing mobile termination charges
Our sister organization Research ICT Africa has issued an interesting document called mythbuster on the contentious issues of high mobile termination charges and their contribution to giving South Africa mobile prices that are three times those of neighboring Namibia. More strength to your arm RIA. Mythbuster is a great idea. We should see if we [...]
Low cost roaming in Bangladesh & Sri Lanka for Indian Airtel customers, but not vice versa
It’s been several years since we publicized the Zain innovation that brought down roaming prices in East Africa. No one picked up the inelegant workaround. Until now, when Airtel has sort of started the process. Indians traveling to Sri Lanka or Bangladesh will have one thing less to worry about. Airtel, which has operations in [...]
War or no war, terrestrial cable across Iraq provides redundancy for Asia-Europe traffic
Led by Senior Policy Fellow Abu Saeed Khan we’ve been saying that Asia needs a terrestrial cable system to back up the submarine cables. By the time international government organizations get organized, the private workarounds will be fully operational. Like traders plying the ancient Silk Road, telecommunications operators routing bits and bytes from Asia to [...]
Tsunami risk reduction in the age of twitter
A few days back, on April 11th 2012, a powerful earthquake occurred not too far from Aceh. Naturally, fears of a tsunami were uppermost in people’s minds. It’s been some time since we at LIRNEasia did funded disaster-related research, but within minutes, I was receiving requests for analysis on the lines of the post-mortems we’ve [...]
Belated post on presentations made at ITS India conference, New Delhi, Feb 2012
LIRNEasia organized a panel on Broadband Bottlenecks in Asia at the ITS India Conference. Here are the slides that were presented at the session, with apologies for the late posting. Helani Galpaya presentation on “Network bottlenecks in South Asian broadband?” Rohan Samarajiva and Abu Saeed Khan presentation on “Removing a broadband bottleneck: International connectivity” Payal [...]
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