Tag Archives: Colombo
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BANNED! BANNED! BANNED! No mobile phones in Sri Lankan schools
Priyantha Kariyapperuma, Director General of Telecommunication Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka, is in ‘banning’ mode these days. Having ‘banned’ twelve sex sites on the initiation of IGP, now he plans to ban the mobile phones at private schools. For government schools, Susil Premajayantha, Education Minister has taken a similar move. Minister Premajayantha said that he has taken [...]
Sri Lanka: Our toes are free and we have a mobile web portal
We would have shown no interest if a Colombo school did this, but when Navodhya School, Pitakumbura, Bibile (300 km off from Colombo, in the border of a post conflict area) launches a mobile web portal we take note. (Kottu.org readers might remember some blogs from this far off place.)
www.m.technovillage.org looks more a prototype, but [...]
World Bank wanted cyber-cafes for rich; we implemented ‘Nenasalas’ for poor – Sri Lanka Minister
Old habits die hard. When you have been a member of a tiny Trotskyite left political party for the longer period of your life and seen the World Bank as your arch enemy, you may forget that you are on the same side now. This seems to be what happens to Sri Lanka’s Minister of [...]
LIRNEasia’s Broadband Quality of Service Experience (QoSE) Testing – Feb 2009 results out!
In the third round, LIRNEasia has extended the testing to one more location. With that we have tested two packages in New Delhi (MTNL and AirTel), two in Chennai (BSNL and AirTel), five in Colombo (SLT ADSL, Dialog WiMax, Dialog 3G, Dialog 3G Unlimited and Mobitel Zoom 890) and two in Dhaka (SKYbd and Sirius). [...]
Sri Lanka: Narayana Murthy declines to be IT advisor to President
Infosys Technologies chairman and chief mentor N.R. Narayana Murthy has declined to be the IT advisor to the Sri Lankan government, the IT bellwether said Wednesday.
In a letter to Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Murthy said he had decided to withdraw from being the advisor due to personal reasons.
“I thank you for the courtesy shown [...]
Sri Lankan Software Industry: Repeating an experiment once failed?
Narayana Murthy, the ‘IT Guru’ is in Colombo. ‘Entrepreneurship and IT for National Integration: A Challenge for Sri Lanka’ was his topic addressing Sri Lankan software industry representatives, on Saturday. The well attended event was organized by the three month old Sri Lanka Association of Software and Service Companies (SLASSCOM) that has ambitious plans to [...]
Straight-talking IT leader to advise Sri Lanka President
Mr Narayana Murthy of Infosys has always been a straight-talker and a clear thinker. The Sri Lanka President deserves congratulations on picking him as his advisor. He will give good advice. We hope the President will take the advice.
Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Friday appointed N R Narayana Murthy, chairman of India’s Infosys Technologies, [...]
Sri Lanka: Whither onshore BPOs @BOP?
Recessions are not bad for everybody. Proverbial silver line in the cloud, they bring hope to some. Success of the India BPO industry can partially be attributed to the post 9/11 recession. Tighter the economy, cheaper the solutions business looks for.
How far onshore rural BPOs cater to the needs of their clients? It might not [...]
Sri Lanka Telecenter connectivity story 4: Pocketed Broadband
Electricity is said to be the only infrastructure the twentieth century communist rulers have truly cared for. The practice may have had its origins in Lenin’s efforts for full electrification of the Soviet state, started in 1920 (aka GOELRO Plan). Nevertheless it makes perfect sense. Let the masses have electricity so that they can switch [...]
Sri Lanka telecenter connectivity story 1: Not an infrastructure issue always…
Ambuluwawa, about 1,100 m above sea level, is probably the highest point in the vicinity of Gampola. Not surprisingly, all telecom operators exploit the geography. Transmission stations/towers encircle the summit. (See above) That is what one calls infrastructure.
Just 10 km away, Sirimalwatte Ananda thero, a young and energetic Buddhist monk, runs a Nenasala, a telecenter [...]
Telecenters can now test their broadband quality more comprehensively
Is broadband quality a subject of interest only to urban top-of-the ladder users?
Not necessarily. With the latest developments in telecom services broadband access is increasingly becoming a reality to rural populations as well, even in developing countries. The penetration levels might not be the same but should that mean quality should be compromised for rural [...]
What do we know about Sri Lanka’s Telecentres?
Here are the summarised results from the telecenter operator survey done by LIRNEasia at the weCan workshop in October 2008. Sample was not representative, but large enough to get a general idea about the telecenter operations in Sri Lanka.
Out of a total of 147 operators surveyed, the bulk, 101 were from Nenasalas, the 500 odd [...]
Broadband: Customers in Colombo and Chennai get more or less the same speeds, but the promises vary widely
The download speeds that customers get in Chennai, Colombo and Dhaka are not very different, if you carefully examine the results of the October 2009 results of broadband QOSe using the Ashokatissa methodology jointly developed by IIT Madras and LIRNEasia. What differs is the level of truth in advertising. In Sri Lanka, [...]
A world free from 9/11s and tsunamis?
Exactly seven years from yesterday (still today to some), early in the morning on September 11, 2001, nineteen hijackers took control of four commercial airliners en route to San Francisco and Los Angeles from Boston, Newark, and Washington, D.C. The hijackers flew two of the airliners, American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, [...]
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