Tag Archives: Broadband
Fraudband in Germany too?
Germans have a reputation for technical prowess. You’d expect the operators there to be technically superior in delivering what they promised when they sold broadband service. But it appears that they have not been so, according to a New York Times report. A government study released Thursday supports what many German consumers have long suspected: [...]
GSMA World Asia Pacific Summit addresses mobile innovation
On 27th of February, I will be moderating a panel discussion following key notes by Chairman BTRC Sunil Kanti Bose and Minister of ICT Indonesia Titaful Sembiring. Should prove intersting. Asia Pacific Regional Summit 2013 Leveraging the New Mobile Horizon – Connecting Asia through Mobile 09:00 – 12:30, Wednesday 27 February 2013, Auditorium 1, Hall [...]
Preparing for high-powered discussion on mobile broadband at GSMA World Congress
GSMA Mobile World Congress has become the preeminent international event in telecom. A Government Mobile Forum is held as part of it. I have been asked to moderate two sessions, the first being described below. It will be held on the morning of 26th February in Barcelona. I look forward to it. SESSION 1: The [...]
Mexico’s telecom-Internet-TV monopoly under attack?
One of the great ironies of the present discourse on Internet/broadband is the appointment of Carlos Slim Helu, the world’s richest man and possibly the single most significant barrier to greater Internet access in Latin America, to serve as the Co-Chair of the ITU-UNESCO Broadband Commission. It is widely recognized that Telmex exerts significant market [...]
Mixed messages from Bangladesh regulator
For too long the government of Bangladesh has hesitated to accept the fact that the only realistic way a majority of its people can be connected to the Internet is over wireless media and has tended to treat the mobile industry as a cash cow to be taxed in order to fund Digital Bangladesh and [...]
Broadband-famine despite abundant bandwidth
It’s like a country with excellent seaports but bandits rule the roads and highways. Welcome to Nigeria, which has awarded four 3G licenses in 2007. It also boasts of four submarine cables with an installed capacity of over 19.2 terabytes international bandwidth. The country was never short of hype. Theoretically, the Nigerians should be happily [...]
BD redefines broadband while LK sets cruise control
Bangladesh has raised its broadband bar from 128 Kbps to 1 Mbps, said a press report. Time will answer if it’s a political statement or an official roadmap. But the government’s prejudice on technology is alarming. The whole country should be connected through optical fibre cable. We want to provide broadband to all corners of [...]
How many Internet users and broadband connections in Sri Lanka?
In light of growing talk of a new divide that is emerging, this time a broadband divide, two indicators are beginning to assume greater importance: Internet users/100 and broadband subscriptions/100. Not all Internet users have Facebook accounts, but all Facebook users are, by definition, Internet users. Some people may have multiple Facebook accounts, but not [...]
Slow WiFi can ruin your broadband experience
I like to point out in all the talks that I give on broadband that it’s the slowest link that defines the experience, as in the strength of the weakest link is the strength of the chain. Here is an excellent illustration that uses an example that is close to home (or in the home [...]
UK overstates benefits of 4G, says report
The British government has allocated nearly £1bn to accelerate the development of superfast network. It is expected to boost national broadband speeds to more than 24 megabits per second – nearly three times today’s average – by 2015. This initiative is an essential part of the UK government’s policy, which believes that rapid internet access [...]
Teeth for TRAI’s broadband quality rules?
LIRNEasia contributed to a set of broadband quality rules that TRAI formulated in 2009. They dealt with contention ratios being maintained at certain levels and being periodically published. There is no mention of those rules in the report in the Hindu Businessline, which focuses on response times to complaints. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India [...]
LIRNEasia at broadband strategies panel on first day of TPRC
To mark the 40th anniversary of TPRC, its current Chair Johannes Bauer and long-time member and international enthusiast Prabir Neogi have organized a special international panel “A Comparison of Broadband Strategies in Developed and Developing Countries: Perspectives, Challenges and Lessons.” The participants are Robert Atkinson, ITIF, USA; Catherine Middleton, Ryerson University, Canada; Jean Paul Simon, [...]
Quality of service and sending-party-network-pays: An absurd connection
Mr Luigi Gambardella of ETNO responded to one of my tweets and asked me to relook at their proposal. I did (CWG-WCIT12/C-109 of 6 June 2012). On the face, it appears that they are concerned about broadband quality of service, a real problem that we have been working on since 2007. But then they go [...]
Access to cheap international backhaul reduces domestic wholesale prices in Botswana
Botswana is a landlocked country. It invested in the West Africa Cable System (WACS) which it connected to through Namibia. It is now reaping the benefits. Internet prices are expected to go down as the Botswana Telecommunications Corporations (BTC) Group has slashed its wholesale internet bandwidth prices by 59 percent due to the commissioning of [...]
Diagnosing broadband quality in the Pacific
The Pacific is a tough environment for ICTs. Small populations scattered across thousands of islands over one third of the earth’s surface. More or less the opposite of South Asia. But distance does not make the need for broadband less. One requires more access when one is far away. Since 2006, when I first came [...]
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