Tag Archives: electricity
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UNCTAD discusses trade and regulation
At the “multi-year expert meeting” on services, development and trade: the regulatory and institutional dimension, organized by UNCTAD in Geneva, there was rich discussion on the increasing importance of regulation in an environment in which services trade is assuming greater importance.
As attention shifts to services trade (for example, the most important element of the proposed Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement between India and Sri Lanka, is the services chapter), there is of necessity a need to start looking at regulatory restrictions on services trade. Tariffs do not apply to services, so the only barriers are opaque, arbitrary and discriminatory regulatory provisions. This has been well recognized in telecom, with the reference paper on regulation being one of the key contributions to liberalization made by the GATS. The issue being raised at the UNCTAD meeting was whether there was value in exploring the regulatory aspects of trade in other infrastructure services. With electricity being traded across borders in pools and otherwise (Bhutan and Nepal have been trading electricity with India for a long time; if the proposed undersea cable goes through there will be trade between India and Sri Lanka as well), it is ..read more
ICTs not by themselves, but to improve other things
Except for the last of the three items described below, the proposed stimulus package now before the US Congress seeks to apply the intelligence of ICTs to improve other things. This is the way to go.
The $825 billion stimulus plan presented this month by House Democrats called for $37 billion in spending in three high-tech areas: $20 billion to computerize medical records, $11 billion to create smarter electrical grids and $6 billion to expand high-speed Internet access in rural and underserved communities.
A study published this month, which was prepared for the Obama transition team, concluded that putting $30 billion into those three fields could produce more than 900,000 jobs in the first year. The mix of proposed spending is different in the House plan, but the results would be similar, said Robert D. Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, which did the study.
The full report is here.
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 on television sets. They will not worry about anything else.
The further you travel from Colombo, the more you wonder whether Sri Lanka too had been an ex-communist state. The roads get narrower and mucky – sometimes even 20 kmph is high speed – and mobiles work intermittently – only when you reach within a cell town. Still you have electricity – almost anywhere. Even at Pitakumbura Navodya School, where we are told some students bring an extra set of clothes to school, during the rainy season – they have to swim across a stream daily.
What about broadband? Yes, it is available, but only in pockets.
WiMax is available in both Bibile (13 km from Pitakumbura) and Ampara (65 km). ADSL is available only in Ampara. Pitakumbura in the middle, is covered by neither.
The solution? Build a 25 meter tower to host a micro-wave antenna at a ..read more
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 a wide range. Not a surprise since some telecenters are running at a loss (presumably temporarily) and few reporting a monthly income of over Rs. 100,000 (= USD 900).
However, providing Internet services ranked only third among telecenter income components (16%). The key sources of income are education and training (43%) and providing fax, photocopy and printing series (21%). They also make money from VoIP (4.5%), bill payments (2.5%) telephone calls (2.5%) selling ..read more
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 Americans paid for it via private transactions. Even if one views broadband as a public utility, why should it be free while Americans pay for basics such as water, garbage and, yes, phone service?
The FCC’s proper role is to regulate as lightly as possible so the market can develop innovative technologies while competition keeps prices affordable. Just as there is no free lunch, there is no “free” broadband.
(Open to comment)
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. So only the culprits pay for remedial measures.
2. Mobile phone usage has drastically increased during the last few years. Now there are about 8 million mobile phones in Sri Lanka. (sic) The cost of a mobile phone was reduced from Rs. 75,000 in 1994 to Rs. 3,500. These have made the lifetime of a mobile phone shorter and more mobile phones are being released to the environment. (sic) Our intention is to ..read more
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). A natural monopoly may not continue forever.
Example of a natural monopoly? The distribution ..read more
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 villages.
Here in Ethakota, amid the banana and palm groves, 120 college-educated villagers, trained in computers and English by Satyam and connected to the world by wireless networks, are processing data for a British publisher and selling services for an Indian phone company. They run two eight-hour shifts, but could run three — if only the electricity didn’t go off for six hours a day!
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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 nearly 300,000, up from merely 12 in four years ago.
The authorities have projected to introduce 400 public internet service centers in 324 townships in the country within three years to facilitate communication links.
To attract foreign investment in the aspects, Myanmar has offered to grant both foreign and local entrepreneurs to be engaged in ICT business in the cyber city project and separate plots will be allotted for foreign and local companies with equal rights to ..read more
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 16 million cellphone subscribers — and 2 million new users each month — compared with just 1 million land-line phones to serve a population of nearly 150 million people.
Since February, Internet centers have opened in well over 100 Bangladeshi villages, and a total of 500 are scheduled to be open by the end of the year. All of them are in places where there are no land lines and the connections will be made ..read more
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 of the children, who in addition to use them for their studies, design web sites of some of the foreign companies. These PCs are now connected by using the “Mesh Wireless technology” which gives ..read more
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.
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 telecom industry – Sri Lankas IDD rates are some of the cheapest in the world. That wasnt the case before the industry was privatized.
Also, petrol or diesel isnt part of the index – kerosine oil and electricity are. Kerosine is a subsidised fuel with a lower rate of fluctuation than petrol and diesel.
Electricity is subsidised as well – CEB sells a unit at less than the cost to produce it, the difference ..read more
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.
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