Tag Archive for 'electricity'


LIRNEasia’s Mobile Benchmarks (South Asia and Southeast Asia) and Broadband Benchmarks Report for October 2008 has been released. Click HERE for more information.




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 telecenter network created under the World Bank funded e-Sri Lanka programme. 10 were from Sarvodaya multi-purpose telecenters and 6 from others (eg. public libraries) 30 have not specified the type of the telecenter.

Do telecenters in Sri Lanka make money? Yes. They report an average monthly income of Rs. 22,119. (=USD 201) This is associated with a relatively large standard deviation of Rs. 21,714 (= USD 197) indicating a variation within…

Net Neutrality debate: No free lunches, so why ‘FREE BROADBAND’?

We pay for other utilities (electricity, water, phone services) by the amount utilised, but usually a flat rate for broadband depending upon the bandwidth. I have earlier compared this to paying for water based on the diameter of the pipe, instead of liters consumed.

The following letter by a reader to USA Today highlights similar concerns - may be in another context.

WHY SHOULD BROADBAND BE FREE?

James Lakely - Chicago

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin’s reference to the phone industry exposes the weakness of his argument to provide free broadband access in the USA.

Yes, copper phone lines were, for decades, “the main means of communication for millions of Americans.” But the government didn’t invent that technology, nor give it away for free. The market provided, and…

Sri Lanka: Udaya Gammanpila says Environmental Levy does not burden public

Responding to Rohan Samarajiva’s views on newly implemented Environmental levy in Lankadeepa last week, Central Environmental Authority Chairman Udaya Gammanpila calls it essential and the ‘first progressive tax’ in Sri Lanka. Assuring it does not burden public, he says any tax can be initially unpopular but the impact should be seen in long term. (Lankadeepa, August 19, 2008)

These are his points in brief:

1. If not for the Environmental levy, the government has to find money to address environmental issues by increasing either VAT or customs charges. That will raise prices in general. It is unfair. Why should villagers who have never seen a mobile phone contribute for its removal whenever they buy flour to make rotis? Instead we have introduced a tax only on pollutants.…

Monopoly: The good the bad and the not-so-ugly

The colloquium notes

Lara Alawattegama (LA): Monopoly means ‘a market with a single supplier’

Why a monopoly happens:
1. No close substitutes
2. Legal barriers to entry
3. Resource barriers
4. Unfair competition -predatory pricing

Rohan Samarajiva (RS) : Lack of competition leads to monopolies. Microsoft Windows is an example where none of the above characteristics applied

Chanuka Wattegam (CW): Is LIRNEasia a monopoly?

RS: What is LIRNEasia’s market?

No technical barriers for anyone to entry to the LIRNEasia market. So the answer is no.

LA: Natural Monopoly is what you get when the market is too small for a competitor to offer a lower priced product. (dis-economies of scale ) So a new firm may have to sell at a higher cost and will not be successful unless that adds value (i.e. improved technology).…

Friedman on rural outsourcing

If I.T. Merged With E.T. - New York Times

To appreciate that potential, look at how much is being done with just car batteries, backup diesel generators and India’s creaky rural electricity grid. I traveled to a cluster of villages with a team from the Byrraju Foundation — a truly impressive nonprofit set up by B. Ramalinga Raju and his family. Raju and his brother Rama are co-founders of one of India’s leading outsourcing companies, Satyam Computer Services. The Hyderabad-based brothers wanted to give back to their country, but they wanted it to be a hand up, not a hand out.

So besides funding health clinics and computer-filled primary schools in villages in their home state of Andhra Pradesh, they tried something new: outsourcing their outsourcing to…

Myanmar to implement cyber village project

Myanmar will implement a cyber village project aiming to enable every village in the country to have access to internet link like urban cities, according to computer entrepreneur circle Thursday.

A pioneer pilot project for the move will start late of this year by the open season with installation of IP Star phone lines by the state-run Myanmar Posts and Telecommunications (MPT), the Computer Entrepreneurs’ Association (CEA) said.

Investment is being invited from the private sector for the establishment of public access centers in villages and power source is being sought either from battery or solar energy to operate the internet in some remote villages in short of electricity as an alternative, the Association added.

According to the MPT, the number of internet users in Myanmar has reached…

Internet through mobile networks in Bangladesh

A story worth checking out.

Have the Bangladesh mobile operators solved the problems of providing reliable and cost-effective Internet connections over GSM networks?

Internet Extends Reach Of Bangladeshi Villagers - washingtonpost.com

Villages in one of the world’s poorest countries, long isolated by distance and deprivation, are getting their first Internet access, all connected over cellphones. And in the process, millions of people who have no land-line telephones, and often lack electricity and running water, in recent months have gained access to services considered basic in richer countries: weather reports, e-mail, even a doctor’s second opinion.Cellphones have become a new bridge across the digital divide between the world’s rich and poor, as innovators use the explosive growth of cellphone networks to connect people to the Internet.

Bangladesh now has about…

Village with a mesh network, but not a single telephone

Sri Lanka’s first outdoor wireless computer network is now up and running.

 

Surprisingly, it is not in Colombo. It is not even in any of the other key places. It was installed in Mahavilachchiya, a little known village, 40 km from the nearest town Anuradhapura, and surrounded three sides by the Vilpattu jungle.

 

Most of the villagers are either farmers or labourers with a monthly income of about Rs. 5,000 -  10,000 (US$ 50 - 100). Though there is electricity, it is not yet covered by any of the terrestrial or mobile phone networks. This means there is not a single telephone in this village.

 

On the other hand, Mahavilachchiya has more than 50 PCs and a sophisticated multimedia lab. Majority of the computers are at the houses…

Benefits of telecom reform

Sri Lanka’s infrastructure industries are in very bad shape, with reforms postponed, billion-rupee losses in electricity and petroleum and predictions of power cuts in 2007. In the blog of one of the business publications we read regularly, the following comment had been made by a reader. What is interesting is that she/he points to the good conditions in the telecom industry, no strikes, lower prices, etc.

LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE - LBO

If you had more competitive markets, without the government trying to control everything, you would have immediate price reductions. The producer that passes on the benefits to the consumer will have higher sales, if he beats his competitiors to the price-cut.One reason we dont have enough domestic competition is perhaps bureaucratic barriers to entry.

Look at the…

LIVE FEED: Colloquium: Initial findings from the Base Line Sector Analysis of the BPO Industry In Sri Lanka

Dilshani Samaraweera & Harsha de Silva

The Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) and LIRNEasia have partnered to conduct an in-depth baseline sector analysis of the BPO sector in Sri Lanka, to assess its direct, as well as indirect impacts on the country, and to identify opportunities and constraints for its growth.

The preliminary findings of the analysis will be presented at the colloquium. The finalized country report will be available publicly and it is envisaged that it would constitute an essential input in the formulation of effective policies that would catalyze sector growth.

LIRNEasia’s Executive Director moderates panel discussion on offshoring


Sri Lanka aims to be paradise for high-end outsourcing

By Poornima Weerasekara
The need to position Sri Lanka as a provider of top-end, high value adding outsourcing destination was highlighted yesterday at a CEO’s conference, titled “Offshore to Sri Lanka.”
The conference organised by the ICT sub-committee of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce and the World Bank in partnership with the Board of Investment (BOI) and the Information and Telecommunications Agency (ICTA) comprised of industry experts, venture capitalists and over 150 public and private sector CEOs. It aimed to create awareness about Sri Lanka’s potential as an off-shoring destination and to galvanize CEO’s into collectively realizing this potential.
“Sri Lanka has the largest number of UK qualified accountants outside of UK. This itself is a unique differentiator…

LIVE FEED Colloquium Jan 7, 2005, Disaster Management

Rohan: Vanguard Foundation was recently created which has a center for disaster management. The work I have done at TRC on disaster management will be leveraged in the current context, and we will prepare a document. Pete Anderson is disaster communication expert who will be brought in to design a concept paper to set up parameters of a disaster management system. We are moving very fast on this.

Sequence: Disaster happens, analysed, and transmitted in a secure communication mechanism to the media. Once the warning message is transmitted, the disaster warning process is over. As far as Vanguard and LIRNE is concerned this is a ICT and telecom problem. Disaster education will be undertaken by vanguard at a later point in time.

Since we are not govt,…

Colloquium LIVE Feed

Sujata: summary too lenghty
Luxman: Since audience is EU needs to have language on ICT uplifting “masses” and “rural” access.
Malathy: Process element of regulation is not there?
Rohan: Study was originally for investor study and language taken from WTO language leaving out the independence of regulator. Process question will be in another study comparing different sectors.
Malathy: why cant process be built into current study?
Rohan: More questions you put in the response rate is poor.
Luxman: If performance indicator isnt ok, then need to know what is going wrong with regulator..
Rohan: If sector is doing well, why should I care if regulator isnt answering letters on time?
Sujata: Perception could be added for evaluating process regulator?
Amal: When respondents received questionnaire they thought it was too long. And deadlines keep slipping
Rohan:…

Big picture of telecom reforms

Yesterday, I spoke to a large and restive crowd (made so by lack of air conditioning and a delayed start) in Matara (main city in the South of Sri Lanka) at the launch of the Pathfinder Foundation’s first book, a Sinhala translation of Janos Kornai’s Toward a free economy. I was asked to talk about globalization and the relevance of Kornai’s ideas for facing the challenges posed by globalization. In this talk that I pieced together thanks to time zone differences that caused me to wake up at 3 in the morning while in the US, I illustrated the issues referring to Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), a broad area of service exports for which efficient, flexible and low-cost telecom is a pre-condition.

I think the talk provides…

Net Thru a Wall Outlet

Should this be added to the debate? 65% of homes have electricity; more than the 25% with some form of telecom access.

By TOM McNICHOL

HIGH-speed Internet access usually comes to homes through one of two wires: a telephone line for D.S.L. subscribers, or a coaxial cable for cable modem users. But an emergingtechnology known as broadband over power lines, or B.P.L.,may soon offer a third wire into homes, channelinghigh-speed data through a somewhat improbable conduit: anordinary electrical outlet. B.P.L. is the ultimate in plug-and-play. Users plug a smallpower line modem into any wall outlet and then connect the modem to a computer with a U.S.B. or Ethernet cable, orthrough a wireless Wi-Fi connection. The appeal of B.P.L.is that most of the wiring for the network is…