Even Udurawana, the local version of the legendary not-so-bright Sardarji, will not let it go without having a hearty laugh at the expense of new CDMA laws of Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC).

Imposed few weeks back, they specify CDMA phones can be used only at the address it is issued to. (CDMA technology is used in Sri Lanka for fixed wireless and not mobile)

How on earth a CDMA phone can be restricted to one address, asks Udurawana, when you sometimes even have to climb to your neighbour’s wall to receive signals.

We hope the Sri Lanka rural users who have faced similar problems would readily empathise. (We hear once the mother-in-law of a former Director General of TRC too had to take her phone to a particular…

This is from Lankadeepa online. It quotes Prime Minster Ratnasiri Wickramanayake saying one reason of restricting CMDA phones to be used only in one address (registered one) is to prevent the loss of government revenue from international traffic. He was responding to a query by Chief Opposition Whip Joseph Michael Perera MP at the parliament.

Sri Lanka uses CDMA technology for fixed connections but with signals available anywhere within local loop, or if not been blocked by the operator even outside, it can be converted to a ‘mobile’. Given the distinct sharing behaviour we have seen at BOP, many may use their CDMAs in multiple locations. (eg. Guides at Udawalave park use them as car phones). New laws can bring the usage down, unless present non-owner users purchase…

The simmering tension over spectrum allocation among Indian telecom companies has erupted into a public spat with warring mobile phone operators leaving no stone unturned in their battle to acquire more air waves.

The fight is so intense that Vodafone chief executive Arun Sarin too jumped in, dashing off letters to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and communications minister A Raja, complaining against the stiffer spectrum allocation norms proposed by the Telecommunication Engineering Centre, an arm of the department of telecommunications.

Reliance Communications chief Anil Ambani, whose company uses CDMA technology, too wrote to the Prime Minister. He accused some “large GSM players”, a reference to Vodafone and Sunil Mittal’s Bharti Telecom, of spreading “misleading and false propaganda” to block fresh competition in telecom, hoard spectrum and indulge…

Sri Lanka: Cutting it

Mobile phone use is taking off in Sri Lanka – though not, perhaps, in ways that service operators might have hoped.

FROM THE ECONOMIST INTELLIGENCE UNIT

In the world’s poorer countries, the purchase of a mobile phone has become increasingly affordable. Using it, however, can still be a struggle. Low-income mobile phone owners in Sri Lanka are getting around this problem with a novel method for keeping costs down.

Known as ring cutting, mobile phone subscribers rely on ring tones to communicate with others, rather than actually staying on the line to talk. By a pre-arranged signal that will convey the desired message – “two rings means I’m home” – callers negate the need for a conversation. They simply hang up as soon as the…

As part of a special review of ICT policy in Indonesia, e-Indonesia, the Indonesian ICT monthly magazine, interviewed a number of key stakeholders including the Minister Sofyan Djalil, Commissioners from BRTI, the regulatory body, civil society group, industry reps and ICT experts.

LIRNEasia researcher, Divakar Goswami, was also interviewed. The interview is featured in the online edition here. The interview is in bahasa. The English text of the interview is below:
1. How’s the growth of ICT in Indonesia for along 2006 (as we see from regulations, infrastructure development (hardware and software), human being, ICT industry etc)?

Information and Communication Technology sector (ICT) in Indonesia is one of the most dynamic sectors of the economy contributing most to GDP growth rate (around 16%) than any other sector. The ICT…

(Associated Press via NewsEdge) Cellular phone subscribers rose in India by a record 6.6 million in October, keeping the country’s place as the world’s fastest-growing mobile phone market, according to data released over the weekend.
Subscribers for the GSM network grew by 4.7 million in September, while the number of mobile phone subscribers using CDMA technology increased by 1.9 million.
The Cellular Operators Association of India, which includes mobile phone companies offering services on the GSM network, said the country now has about 96 million GSM-based phone connections.
CDMA phone service providers say they now have about 40 million subscribers.
The total number of mobile phones in the country stands at about 136 million at the end of October.
However, India still lags far behind China, which has more than…

Qualcomm has come under some pressure recently when Reliance, with one of the fastest growing CDMA-based networks in the world based on Qualcomm’s patented technology, announced that it would provide mobile service using GSM technology and criticised Qualcomm’s high royalty and licensing fees. The inference was that Qualcomm’s fees were resulting in higher costs for handsets which is preventing Reliance from offering affordable service to low-income subscribers.

Qualcomm claims that CDMA handset prices in India were already some of the lowest in the world and that royalty was only about $2 per handset. It further argues that Reliance’s move into GSM has to do with flawed spectrum policy of the Indian Telecom Ministry (DoT) that provides more than twice the spectrum to GSM operators compared to…

:: Daily Mirror – FINANCIAL TIMES ::
Services Sector
The Services sector maintained its importance in the economy, recorded a 5.9 per cent growth and contributed 53 per cent to overall economic growth in the fourth quarter of 2005. This growth was largely driven by the performance in the post and telecommunications, domestic trade and financial services sub sectors.

Of these sectors, the Transport, storage and telecommunication sector expanded by 11.8 per cent during this period. The post and telecommunications sector which has continued to grow at a high pace, expanded further by 24.9 per cent in this quarter. With the latest CDMA technology, subscriber levels of Fixed Access – Wireless Local Loop phones increased by 159,162 new connections, a notable expansion for this category. The subscriber level…

Suntel to invest Rs. 8 b for countrywide CDMA push
Plans to roll out low cost telephone service in Jaffna soon

By Poornima Weerasekara (Daily Mirror, 1 March 2006)

Suntel yesterday unveiling its roadmap for the next three years announced their plans to invest Rs. 8 billion to expand the CDMA network island wide.
“The coverage of our 155 base stations is better and wider than most of the mobile operators today,” Suntel Managing Director Jerry Huxtable said.
“We have plans to build about 40 base stations by the middle of the year, with plans to construct another 50-60 base stations in the 2nd quarter,” he added.
The Suntel CDMA network is currently the largest network in Sri Lanka covering 80% of the population in 22 districts.
They are also planning to…