Tag Archives: Broadband
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Discussion on regulation at eAsia 2011 in Dhaka
A little bit of history, about people waiting for 27 years to get a phone before liberalization and what leased lines cost in the bad old days before SEA-ME-WE 4, was recounted. But most of the attention was on the future, on how Bangladesh could give its people the benefits of broadband through good regulation. [...]
Mobile more than voice plans: Handset costs seen as key by Etisalat
Sri Lanka’s Etisalat has been making waves in the broadband space. First it was the App Zone. Then an Android Forum that attracted 2000 applicants. Then the cheapest smartphones in the market, that resulted in 500 sales in two days. Here is the thinking behind all this: Fixed broadband connectivity alone cannot provide the Internet [...]
Nokia Siemens to focus on mobile broadband
We are not the only ones saying mobile broadband is the future. Nokia Siemens Networks, the equipment joint venture of Nokia and Siemens, said Wednesday that it planned to cut almost a quarter of its work force as it sought to bolster profit in a stagnating market for network gear. The company said it planned [...]
Unintended benefit from Sri Lanka budget: More reasons to get broadband
The language on ICTs in the 2012 Sri Lanka budget (paras 50-53) is pretty vague. Basically, LKR 500 million will be added to efforts to provide IT education and all government departments and agencies will have to work with the ICT Agency when they introduce IT into their systems. And, there are plans to set [...]
Throttling more common in mobile networks than on fixed networks?
As attention shifts to broadband quality of service experience, more tool for understanding what’s going on are becoming available. One tool Glasnost is described in the NYT: In general, the Glasnost results suggest that telecom and cable TV operators, when they do use throttling, do so mostly to suppress bandwidth hogs and ensure a reasonable [...]
Estimating the number of Internet users in Sri Lanka; Facebook accounts as data source
Helani Galpaya’s work and LIRNEasia’s research has been drawn upon for a newspaper column. The novel element we had never thought of is using Facebook as a data source: One other metric is available to anyone, just go to facebook.com/ads and create an ad. It will tell you how many people your ad can reach. [...]
Extending the reach of LIRNEasia research: Broadband QoSE results in a popular blog
A good value-added blogpost drawing from LIRNEasia research Helani Galpaya’s work: These are only a few graphs and download speeds are only one measure. What’s nice is that we can now quite confidently say Sri Lanka’s Internet and not be talking about a niche product. There are at least 280,000 fixed subscribers (including dial-up, ADSL [...]
More taxes on US consumers to fund USD 4.5 billion Universal Service Fund
The program we talked about few weeks back has been announced. It will spend USD 4.5 billion a year to connect 20 million Americans to broadband. In an effort to expand broadband Internet service, the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday approved an overhaul of its fund that subsidizes rural telephone service, turning it into one [...]
The coming data tsunami: Lessons from the hotel industry
Hotels are sort of like countries with regard to broadband use. The guests have to obtain broadband connectivity from the hotel (let’s disregard the 3G option for now); residents in a country have to obtain broadband from providers licensed by the government. When quality drops, users hold the hotel accountable; in case of a country, [...]
The mystery of Sri Lanka’s domestic leased line prices
This really should not be a mystery. In most countries in the region, the information is available for all to see on either the regulator’s website or on operators’ websites. Domestic leased lines are a key input, important both in terms of interconnection and in terms of providing Internet. There is no reason to keep [...]
US is addressing the demand side of the broadband problem
I found it interesting how much space Helani Galpaya had given to the demand side in her study of Broadband in Sri Lanka. Looks like the problem is common to us and to the US, according to this NYT report. Only 68 percent of Americans with access to high-speed broadband Internet are using it, while [...]
Quantifying the data tsunami
We’ve been talking about the data tsunami for more than a year. Here, the Economist has a number: As mobile, web-connected devices become ubiquitous, the volume of data they produce will soar. Cisco, a technology company, reckons that by 2015 some 6.3 exabytes of mobile data will be flowing each month, or the equivalent of [...]
Wishful thinking on broadband at ECLAC and elsewhere
Several of our Latin American colleagues have written about an increasing and dynamic digital divide. With all respect, much of what they write is wishful thinking. They have some kind of ideal picture of broadband and keep talking about it without mapping out the path from where we are to there. The reason I saw [...]
Sri Lanka broadband: Glass half full or half empty?
infoDev has released the Sri Lanka broadband study authored by Helani Galpaya. The introduction: Sri Lanka, an island nation located in the Indian Ocean just south of India, has lately experienced an explosion in the use of broadband services. This report, part of the Broadband Strategies Toolkit, explores the various factors that have contributed to [...]
Data Centers expand, including in China (surprisingly)
Our work on broadband QoSE showed that quality deteriorates when one has to communicate with the Internet cloud. We’ve been pushing for action to reduce the prices of international backhaul from Asia, which 3-6 times the prices in Europe and N America. Another solution is to bring the data centers closer. Appears that is happening, [...]
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