Tag Archives: Broadband
CPRafrica 2012/CPRsouth7: call for abstracts and young scholar applications. Click here for details.
How many users per smartphone?
Our good friend Nalaka Gunawardene has blogged about the difficulties of figuring out how many people are actually using the Internet in Sri Lanka. He shares our frustration with the archaic data reporting by the TRCSL. This produced a total of 2,184,018 — which takes the percentage of population to almost 11%. And if we [...]
Wire or wireless?
One of the principal rationales for the creation of LIRNE.NET in 2000, and then LIRNEasia in 2004, was to counter the tendency to transplant policy and regulatory thinking unchanged from the developed market economies into the developing world. But that never meant that we should ignore theoretical developments and policy/regulatory innovations just because they emerged [...]
Reality of cloud computing (or how it looks at the start)
David Pogue, my favorite writer on gadgets has reviewed the first laptop made specifically for cloud computing: no hard disk, no software. Just the cloud. And the verdict is . . . The first assumption is that you’re online everywhere you go. That’s rather critical, because when it’s not online, a Chromebook can’t do much [...]
LIRNEasia COO in Peru: workshop on The Role of the State in Broadband Development

Recently, DIRSI, our sister research network in Latin America, conducted a one day workshop on The Role of the State in Broadband Development. Helani Galpaya, COO of LIRNEasia made a presentation about the Asian experience, highlighting case studies from Hong Kong and Korea. The workshop was aimed at developing the capacity young scholars from research institutions and [...]
Why is this info not available on SLTRC website?
One has to look to the business media for key broadband indicators in Sri Lanka. When one looks at the authoritative source, one does not see basic information such as how many fixed broadband connections have been given out, but nonsense such as “Internet and Email Subscribers.” What will it take for the TRC to [...]
Bhutan acts swiftly on AT Tester findings
On May 9th and 10th, LIRNEasia presented a selection of its research on Bhutan and of potential relevance to Bhutan at events organized in Thimphu. The following news report indicates that BICMA the Bhutan regulatory body is acting on one of the findings of the diagnostic tests run on broadband connectivity in Bhutan that showed [...]
It’s not fiber or wireless, it’s fiber and wireless
One cannot talk about broadband these days without Australia’s massive taxpayer-funded national broadband scheme coming up. In an otherwise interesting and informed discussion of the pros and cons, Ian McAuley confuses the debate by conflating access networks, which will for the most part be wireless, and backhaul networks which will for the most part be [...]
New tool for measuring broadband quality
When we started on measuring broadband quality back in 2007 along with our colleagues from IIT Madras, there was little else beside speedtest. Then the FCC got on the bandwagon. Now another tool. Everyone talks about being more customer-centric these days. And the incentive for focusing on customers is growing in part because customers are [...]
Crowdsourced broadband QoS, with value added
We thought up the idea of crowdsourcing broadband QoSE, but could not make it work because the AT Tester was too complicated. In the US, they came with the idea two years later but made it work. Now someone has added value to that product. Given many governments in the region (e.g., Bangladesh, India and [...]
LIRNEasia CEO speaks at media workshop in Bangladesh
LIRNEasia CEO, Rohan Samarajiva, recently spoke at a workshop organized for the telecom reporters in Bangladesh to strengthen their understanding and know-how on telecom, especially regarding legal, regulatory and business issues. The event has received extensive media exposure. While noting that Bangladesh boasts of the some of the lowest tariffs in the world, largely a result of [...]
Sri Lanka: Leased line prices to be lowered to encourage BPO business and Internet use
A news report indicates that lowering leased line prices (described as commercial broadband in the report has risen on the policy agenda in Sri Lanka. This is excellent news, though, of course, I would have preferred a story in the past tense: i.e., “domestic and international leased line prices have been reduced.” Present broadband charges [...]
Broadband and democratic participation
When government goes online, what happens to citizens who are not? This was central to our thinking when we designed e Sri Lanka. That is why such importance was placed on voice access, on the government information center. But it looks like it has not been fully thought through in the US, according to this [...]
LIRNEasia CEO speaks on Asian broadband adoption at TU Delft
LIRNEasia CEO, Rohan Samarajiva, delivered a lecture entitled, “Asia: Broadband & forms of government intervention” on the 15th of February at the Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. His presentation examined Korea’s benchmark model of broadband access and adoption, its success factors, and the extent to which it could be replicated in Asia. He contrasted [...]
USA: Making more frequencies available for broadband
I found it interesting that President Obama’s plans for broadband rest on wireless access. This meshes with our narrative re the path for our people to the Internet. Now come the details. Billions will be spent; but billions will be earned too. “It’s about connecting every corner of America to the digital age,” the president [...]
Obama’s broadband target has a wireless flavor
President Obama’s state of the union speech yesterday contained a few references to ICTs, but I found the illustration more interesting than the target itself. Within the next five years, we’ll make it possible for businesses to deploy the next generation of high-speed wireless coverage to 98 percent of all Americans. This isn’t just about [...]



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