Proposals to slash the cost of using mobile phones abroad, for text, data and voice calls, could become law next July following a vote in Brussels.
The European Parliament is to vote on whether roaming costs for text messages should be capped.
The cost of sending a message is expected to eventually fall by 60% from an average of 23 pence to 9 pence.
Voice calls would fall from 36 to 27 pence a minute and customers would be able to set limits on data downloads.
A reluctant mobile phone industry first had limits on its roaming charges imposed by the EU in September 2007.
However, those applied only to voice calls, not those for texting or browsing the internet.
Mobile phone companies were limited to charging a maximum of around…
One key difference between natural hazards happening in Asian countries and similar hits in the West is the possibilities of them turning to disasters. While in west the timely issue of early warnings and evaluations lead to the reduction in casualties, many Asian countries still suffer from the lack of such arrangements.
We hope the early warning in New Orleans will reduce the damage by Hurricane Gustav – a luxury unthinkable by the vast majority of the people of Burma and rural China.
This is from BBC:
The mayor of New Orleans has issued a mandatory evacuation order for the entire city, as Hurricane Gustav bears down on the US Gulf Coast.
Ray Nagin said residents of the city’s West Bank should begin moving out at 0800 (1300 GMT)…
Tags: BBC, Burma, China, Cuba, Hurricane Gustav, Isle of Youth, New Orleans, Pinar del Rio, Ray Nagin, US Gulf Coast, West Bank.
It is literally a child’s play getting a false UK passport, Frederick Forsyth said in 1972. In his bestselling thriller, The Day of the Jackal the protagonist used the birth certificate of a dead child to obtain a fake passport. Thirty two years later, BBC was not sure the loophole was plugged or not. Not sure how many mercenaries still benefit.
The UK passport cannot be the only document an interested party can manipulate. This issue is particularly interesting to Sri Lankan mobile owners, as the regulator now wants users to prove mobile ownership at omnipresent checkpoints to ensure ‘National Security’
While Tigo will be issuing a loyalty card bundled with an ownership certificate, Dialog GSM today announced a more tech-savvy approach. As claimed by a full…
A complaint lodged by BT about the speeds of Virgin Media’s broadband service has been upheld by the Advertising Standards Authority.
The challenge centred around its advertisement “Hate to Wait?”, which ran in the national media and featured download times for songs and TV shows.
BT argued that Virgin’s usage caps meant that downloads during peak times would be slower than advertised.
The ASA has agreed and ordered Virgin to make it clear that speeds will vary.
Read the fullt story in BBC here.
Government failures across South Asia are the key factor that can turn natural disasters into humanitarian crises, a UK-based aid agency says. Political inaction, poor decisions and bad management are more to blame than nature for the humanitarian effects of disasters, Oxfam claims in a report.
BBC News | S Asian Crises Blamed on Leaders
Blueshift is one of the currently India based companies looking to move to neighbouring countries like Malaysia or Singapore where they believe it would be cheaper to operate.
“The corporate tax regime in this country is a tough 33% whereas when I look at neighbouring country Singapore it is only 18% at the highest level,” says Blueshift’s chairman Sankaran P Raghunathan.
“In fact, most of us have to pay only 7.5%. That’s a huge difference.”
Mr Raghunathan is also concerned at the way costs are rising in Chennai.
“Some 10% of our revenues are spent on rentals here,” he says.
“We pay more than $1 for a square foot of office space here. In Kuala Lumpur the same costs us less than $1 and I get class A infrastructure.”
Read the…
Cubans are to be allowed unrestricted access to mobile phones for the first time, in the latest reform announced under new President Raul Castro. In a statement in official newspaper Granma, state telecom monopoly ETECSA said it would offer mobile services to the public in the next few days.
Some Cubans already own mobile phones, but they have had to acquire them via a third party, often foreigners.
Cuba’s rate of cell phone usage remains among the lowest in Latin America.
Now Cubans will be able to subscribe to pre-paid mobile services under their own names, instead of going through foreigners or in some cases their work places. However, the new service must be paid for in foreign currency, which will restrict access to wealthier Cubans.
Read the full…
The UK’s first “fibre town” could go online in the autumn, delivering speeds of about 100Mbps (megabits per second) to consumers’ homes.
Fibre firm H2O provides super-fast broadband via the sewers and either Bournemouth, Northampton or Dundee will be offered the service first.
For consumers, super-fast net connections could create a range of new applications including on-demand high definition (HD) TV, DVD quality film downloads in minutes, online video messaging, CCTV home surveillance and HD gaming services.
Read the full story in BBC here.
In an interview with the BBC, Nigeria’s education minister questioned the need for laptops in poorly equipped schools.
Dr Igwe Aja-Nwachuku said: “What is the sense of introducing One Laptop per Child when they don’t have seats to sit down and learn; when they don’t have uniforms to go to school in, where they don’t have facilities?”
“We are more interested in laying a very solid foundation for quality education which will be efficient, effective, accessible and affordable.”
Read full story in BBC
Broadband industry leaders are to meet ministers to discuss how to stop the UK dropping into the internet “slow lane”.
More than half of all UK homes now have a broadband connection, at an average speed of four megabits a second (Mbps).
But the broadband summit will hear other countries are moving more quickly to build ultra-fast networks that can deliver speeds of as much as 100 Mbps.
Ministers say ultra-fast broadband will be a key to helping UK businesses “innovate, grow and create wealth”.
Read the full story in BBC
The victims of cyclone in Bangladesh are poorest among the poor. Their views about effective warning system “lacks credibility” to the concerned bodies.But it is a real bad news when the merchant mariners have slammed Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD) for suddenly raising the cyclone’s severity within an hour. It clearly demonstrates the BMD’s professional incompetence. Reuters provides the chilling details.
I was in Macau attending Mobile Asia 2007 when cyclone SIDR was brewing in the Bay of Bengal. BBC and CNN were updating its movement since November 12. To put a perspective to it, their weather commentators said SIDR’s intensity was similar to Katrina.
Both the international TV channels consistently mentioned Bangladesh being the very possible victim. Unlike in New Orleans, the international TV news crew did…
A single European Union-wide telecoms market could be in place from 2010 after the European Commission set out plans to increase competition. Under the new plans, a regional watchdog would be created and former monopolies could be forced to split up their network and services operations.
The planned changes are designed to offer consumers cheaper broadband services and phone calls from fixed line and mobile handsets, the Commission also argues. It claims that consumers are currently losing out because in many member countries, including Poland, Italy and Germany, the former state telecoms monopolies still dominate, particularly in the broadband market.
The proposals will now be debated in the European Parliament.
However, analysts said there is likely to be opposition to the changes with Germany and Spain seen as…
Asian evidence says the best explanation for the take up of texting is the ratio of price of a voice call to cost of a text. Is this also the explanation for the UK?
BBC NEWS | Technology | Britons sending 1bn texts weekly
Britons are now sending more than one billion text messages per week according to the latest figures from the Mobile Data Association (MDA).
The figure is 25% higher than a year ago and is set to shatter forecasts for how many text messages have been sent to and from handsets this year.
That weekly total is the same as the number sent during the whole of 1999.
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