Tag Archive for ‘DHAKA’ at LIRNEasia

Tag Archive for 'DHAKA'

LIRNEasia’s rapid response kindles quality in Bangladesh broadband

on August 8, 2008

LIRNEasia’s ‘Rapid Response Program’ is exactly what the name suggests. We react to immediate information needs of telecom regulators, at short notice. The response might not be lengthy and as comprehensive as we would like it to be, but nevertheless helpful, as Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) have realised.

LIRNEasia saw BTRC’s move to issue three new Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) licenses a positive development, as Bangladesh is certainly not a country that can boast of quality and affordable broadband.

This is what we learnt from our research:

Exceptionally high cost of broadband remains a key barrier that prevents the development of the BPO industry in Bangladesh. This is apparent when the prices are compared with similar packages offered by the operators in neighbouring countries. The annual cost…

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Tags: access devices, Bangladesh, Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, Broadband, broadband services, broadband wireless access, DHAKA, European Union, Grameen Cybernet Ltd, India, Quality of Service, radio systems, Sri Lanka, Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Sri Lanka, USD, wireless access.

Early warning worked in Bangladesh but now the challenge of recovery

Rohan Samarajiva

on November 24, 2007

10000 is too many. But it does look like lots of lives were saved by the early warning system that is one of the major achievements of Bangladesh. Yes, if it worked better, fewer people would have died. But which other country which is in the path of cyclones like Sidr has cyclone shelters for 1.5 million people? Which other has a working warning system with trained personnel at the village level?

Bangladesh’s cyclone | The cruel sea | Economist.com

It could have been worse. A robust cyclone-warning system saved thousands of lives. Some 1.5m people had taken refuge in cyclone shelters when winds of 250km per hour (155mph) and a 5-metre (16-foot) tidal surge hit the coastline after nightfall on November 15th. The economic fallout…

1 Comment
Tags: Bangladesh, Chittagong, DHAKA.

Cyclone casualties in Bangladesh

Rohan Samarajiva

on November 16, 2007

It appears that early warning and evacuation were effective in coastal Bangladesh. With so much attention focused on tsunamis, it is important not to neglect this very real hazard.

PS: Now with reports coming in that deaths will exceed 1000, judgment on the efficacy of warning and evacuation will have to be reserved. While one death is one too many, we must remember that 300000-500000 died in the 1970 Bhola cyclone which hit, the coast on November 12th. The fact that casualties will be be counted in the 1000s and not 100,000s is progress. More needs to be done, underlining the importance of the continuing work to improve early warning and preparedness.

Powerful Cyclone Kills 242 in Bangladesh - New York Times

A cyclone that…

6 Comments
Tags: Bangladesh, Bangladesh\'s coast, cyclone, Cyclone Sidr, DHAKA, Nahid Sultana, New York Times.

“The Long Last Mile” Now Available Online

Natasha Udu-Gama

on November 5, 2007

The “Evaluating Last-Mile Hazard Information Dissemination” (HazInfo) project full-length video documentary, “The Long Last Mile”, is now available on YouTube. TVE Asia Pacific, a HazInfo partner, has also published an article on the premiere of the video in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

More coverage of the Dhaka HazInfo Dissemination Workshop event on 25 October can be found at the Bangladesh Network Office for Urban Safety of BUET.

1 Comment
Tags: Bangladesh, Bangladesh Network Office for Urban Safety of BUET, DHAKA, Mile Hazard, Online The, YouTube.

Dhaka HazInfo Dissemination Workshop | October 25, 2007 at BUET

Natasha Udu-Gama

on October 29, 2007

On October 25, 2007, LIRNEasia’s Rohan Samarajiva, Nuwan Waidyanatha and Natasha Udu-gama traveled to Dhaka, Bangladesh to present findings from the “Evaluating Last-Mile Hazard Information Dissemination” (HazInfo) pilot project in the first international dissemination workshop for HazInfo entitled “Sharing Knowledge on Disaster Warning: Community-Based Last-Mile Warning Systems” at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) through its Bangladesh Network Office for Urban Safety (BNUS) directed by Dr. Mehedi Ahmed Ansary. The report summarizes the workshop and its sessions. Overall, the workshop was a success in familiarizing the Bangladeshi audience with the HazInfo pilot project and meeting the objectives.

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Tags: Aftab Alam Khan, Bangladesh, Bangladesh Network Office for Urban Safety, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Community, Community Organization, community-based last-mile warning systems, DHAKA, Maryland, Mehedi Ahmed Ansary, Methodology, Mile Hazard, Nasir Ullah, Natasha Udu-gama, Nuwan Waidyanatha, Preparedness, Rohan Samarajiva, simulation, Training and Community Organization.

Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB) announces tariff cut

Chanuka Wattegama

on October 26, 2007

The Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB) Thursday announced cut in call tariffs, line rent, and transfer fees for the board’s land phones effective from November 1, said a telephone board release on Thursday. The nationwide dialling charge has been halved to Tk 1.5 a minute on 30-second pulses; peak and off-peak hour billing has been withdrawn.

The new system has also withdrawn the distance factor for call charges. Calls between upazilas of a district will now be treated as local calls. An NWD call within 100 kilometres is charged at Tk 3 a minute during peak and Tk 1.50 during off-peak hours. The rates are Tk 4.50 and Tk 3 for calls for a distance above 100 kilometres. The monthly line rent has been reduced to Tk 80…

3 Comments
Tags: Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board, Chittagong, DHAKA, Telephone Board, telephone board release.

HazInfo Dissemination Workshop in Bangladesh on October 25th

Natasha Udu-Gama

on October 8, 2007

On October 25, 2007, LIRNEasia will hold its first regional dissemination workshop for the “Evaluating Last Mile Hazard Information Dissemination” (HazInfo) pilot project at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) through its Bangladesh Network Office for Urban Safety (BNUS) in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The purpose of the workshop is to gather experts, practitioners and community organizations to discuss the findings of the HazInfo project and determine ways in which the project may be developed to suit community-based hazard information dissemination regionally. The “Sharing Knowledge on Disaster Warning: Community-based Last-Mile Warning Systems” workshop in Dhaka will feature five presenters from government, academia and NGOs. Dr. A.M.M. Safiullah, Vice-Chancellor of BUET, will be Chief Guest during the workshop inauguration. Presenters from LIRNEasia include Dr. Rohan Samarajiva, Mr. Nuwan Waidyanatha…

1 Comment
Tags: A.M.M. Safiullah, All India Disaster Mitigation Institute, Bangladesh, Bangladesh Network Office for Urban Safety, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Community, DHAKA, India, India Habitat Centre, Indonesia, last-mile warning systems, Mile Hazard, Natasha Udu-gama, New Delhi, Nuwan Waidyanatha, Rohan Samarajiva.

Advance publicity for HazInfo dissemination meeting, Dhaka, 25 October 2007

Rohan Samarajiva

on October 2, 2007

:The Daily Star: Internet Edition

Sarvodaya, Sri Lanka’s largest community-based organisation, and LIRNEasia, a regional ICT policy think-tank, collaborated on a 32-village pilot project that sought to identify the best technologies for reaching villages; to identify the significance of organisational strength and training for risk reduction; and to assess the participation of women in these activities.The community-based approach implemented in the project is different from a public-warning approach, but has lessons for government communications with first responders and for community organisation and training as well.

For example, the project field tested addressable and remotely activated satellite radios that have coverage over the entire Bay of Bengal region. Other equipment deployed included Java and Symbion enabled mobile handsets capable of generating loud alarms and multi-language alert messages.

The Bangladesh…

2 Comments
Tags: activated satellite radios, Bangladesh, Bangladesh Network Office for Urban Safety, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Bay of Bengal, Community, Daily Star, Department of Civil Engineering, DHAKA, government communications, Internet Edition, ITN Centre, Java, last-mile warning systems, MILE WARNING SYSTEMS, Sri Lanka.

Bangladesh isolated by submarine cable break

Rohan Samarajiva

on August 23, 2007

It was only in 2005 that Bangladesh got connected to the world through an undersea cable. It is being claimed that this link has been sabotaged, at the same time as the government ordered the shut down of mobile networks, serving multiple millions of customers.

:: bdnews24.com ::

Dhaka, Aug 23 (bdnews24.com) – International telephony, internet and private international data circuits went down when the submarine cable link was “sabotaged” at 00:05am Thursday, a senior BTTB official confirmed.

It cut off Bangladesh from the rest of the world and intensified panic and confusion at home and abroad amid widespread violence across much of the country for days.

Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB) has been trying to restore the country’s only terrestrial overseas communication lifeline.

…

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Tags: Bangladesh, Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board, DHAKA, telephony.

Vietnam’s submarine cable ‘lost’ and ‘found’

Abu Saeed Khan

on June 2, 2007

Dhaka, June 1 (bdnews24.com)—Maritime thieves have stolen at least 11-kilometres Vietnamese portion of Thailand bound SEA-ME-WE3 submarine cable and sold the 100 tons of illicit cargo as scrap, reported VietNamNet Bridge online newspaper Tuesday.

Such bizarre underwater international telecoms infrastructure robbery occurred on March 25 and since then Vietnam’s Internet users have been struggling with far slower speed.

The broken cable system, named TVH, was built in 1993-1995, connecting Thailand, Vietnam and Hong Kong with a capacity of 560 megabits per second.

The Vietnam Telecom International (VTI) got puzzled when the cable went down. It occurred soon after the Asia Pacific region recovered from prolonged bandwidth crisis as earthquake snapped bunch of submarine cables in the Taiwanese coast

VTI called a submarine cable fixing ship from Singapore. But its…

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Tags: Asia-Pacific, Ca Mau Sea, DHAKA, fibre optic, Hong Kong, Internet users, Kien Giang, LAN, Lan Quoc Cuong, Ministry of Public Security, Naval Command, online newspaper, optical fibre, Singapore, Soc Trang, South Vietnamese government, Taiwanese coast, Thailand, USD, Vietnam, Vietnam Telecom International, VietNamNet Bridge, Vietnam\'s Ministry of Defence, Vung Tau.

Unreliable connectivity

Rohan Samarajiva

on November 14, 2006

Why BPOs insist on route and supplier redundancy.

:: bdnews24.com ::

Dhaka, Nov 13 (bdnews24.com) – A suspected act of sabotage derailed telecommunications transmission optical fibre cable links between Dhaka and Chittagong Monday night.Submarine cable subscribers in Dhaka got disconnected at 7:30pm.

Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board rushed a maintenance team to the spot on the outskirts of Comilla town but failed to put the connection back on.

A senior official told bdnews24.com that the BTTB suspected the cable cut was an “act of sabotage”.

”There is no maintenance work of the Roads and Highways Division in the area which is generally the primary cause of such cable cuts,” he said in support of his argument.

”We cannot repair the cable in the night as we don’t have enough workers.”

BTTB has…

1 Comment
Tags: Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board, BTTB, Chittagong, Comilla, DHAKA, optical fibre, Roads and Highways Division, telecommunications transmission optical fibre cable lin.

Afghans glow with Roshan’s one million mobile users

Abu Saeed Khan

on November 13, 2006

Dhaka, Nov 13 (bdnews24.com) — Telecom Development Company Afghanistan reached the mark of one million mobile subscribers on October 30.

With the brand name “Roshan” or light, the second mobile operator rolled out services in June 2003.

“We are very excited and proud of reaching the million subscribers milestone,” said Karim Khoja, chief executive of Roshan.

In more than three years, Roshan reached the mark, beating first mobile company in Afghanistan, the Afghan Wireless Communication Company (AWCC)— 20 percent owned by the government.

The million customers milestone comes at a time when Roshan has enjoyed the best three months of its operations in spite of increased competition.

“Roshan’s story is similar to the Afghan people’s own story; a story of faith, courage and determination to succeed against all odds,” said…

1 Comment
Tags: AFA, Afghan government, Afghan Wireless Communication Company, Afghanistan, Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development, Altaf Ladak, Areeba, countrywide network, DHAKA, Karim Khoja, MCT Corp, mobile operator, Monaco Telecom International, optic fiber network, Roshan, Taliban, Telecom Development Company, United Arab Emirates, United States, USD, Wireless Communication, Xinhua.

Cooperation on Indicators at APC Meeting, Bangladesh

Divakar Goswami

on May 12, 2006

Links were formed between LIRNEasia and the Foundation for Media Alternatives (FMA), Philippines, an organization involved in a project to develop a set of standard indicators for the ICT sector for the Philippine Statistical Development Plan. The emphasis of FMA’s work is on developing indicators which are relevant to the Asian context, specifically the ASEAN countries. This has direct parallels with LIRNEasia’s multi-component, six-country study on measuring telecom (ICT infrastructure) sector and regulatory performance in South Asian and Southeast Asian countries and developing a sustainable supply- and demand-side data collection mechanism for South Asia.

The researchers involved in this project at FMA have communicated with LIRNEasia’s Filipino counterpart, and both have shared background papers. FMA is also conducting research into access, use and ownership of ICTs using household…

1 Comment
Tags: Asia, Ayesha Zainudeen, Civil Society, DHAKA, Foundation for Media Alternatives, LIRNEasia, online discussion fora, open space technology, Philippines, Rohan Samarajiva, Saeed Khan, the Philippines.

Shoestrings study in the news

Ayesha Zainudeen

on May 2, 2006

Hello… how do the poor use their phones? By Frederick Noronha, Indo-Asian News Service

Dhaka, April 30 (IANS) It’s a billion dollar question: how do the poor of the planet use their mobile phones? A South Asian study conducted in India and Sri Lanka that looks at telecom users with monthly incomes of less than $100 says that over half the respondents do not even own the phone they use.

Read more at DailyIndia.com Click here to access the main Shoestrings study

4 Comments
Tags: DHAKA, Frederick Noronha, India, Indo-Asian News Service, mobile phones, Sri Lanka, USD.

Questioning ICT Myths

Indi Samarajiva

on April 24, 2006

At an ICT policy consultation meeting in Dhaka, organized by the APC (http://www.apc.org/), two participants prompted a much needed reality check for a room full ICT4D professionals. Mridul Chowdhury, a research affiliate at the IT Group in the Berkman Centre, Harvard University also a director of D.Net, kick-started the discussion with a presentation that questioned some of the key assumptions that that form the premise to much work in the ICT4D space. For instance, a lack of community information can be resolved by building a telecenter; poor governance can be solved by introducing ICT systems into governments; a lack of market information can be solved by building e-commerce portals. Chowdhury stressed that certain underlying factors had to be taken care of first; the information gaps that we’re…

219 Comments
Tags: Berkman Centre, DHAKA, e-commerce portals, Harvard University, Mridul Chowdhury, Nalaka Gunewardena.

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