Tag Archives: fixed
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Telecom access rankings in South Asia
According to the ITU ICTeye, which is now carrying 2008 data, Pakistan’s surge to overtake Sri Lanka has petered out, leaving the Maldives (143 active SIMs/100 people) as the undisputed leader in mobile connectivity (apparently all adult Maldivians carry two active SIMs; there are only two operators in the Maldives), and Sri Lanka second with 52 SIMs per 100 people.
On the fixed side, assisted by CDMA phones that are counted as fixed, Sri Lanka is the leader (17 connection per 100 people), followed by Maldives (15 per 100).
Like in cricket, the middle of the rankings are the most interesting. Both Pakistan (50/100) and Bhutan (37/100) are ahead of India (29/100) in mobile. This shows that India cannot afford to let up the pace of 10 million connections a month for some time. If it does, it might be overtaken by Afghanistan (29/100) and even Bangladesh (28/100).
Of course, the fact that Afghanistan is ahead of Bangladesh in mobile penetration should cause all sorts of palpitations in government offices in Dhaka. Bangladesh was one of the earliest in South Asia to adopt mobile and is the most densely populated country in the ..read more
Britain to tax fixed lines 6 pounds a year for broadband: expect more mobile-only households
To many people’s surprise, the UK has decided to tax every fixed line 6 pounds a year to build “next generation broadband” throughout the country.
But Virgin’s network is limited and fibre-optic cables are expensive. The two firms can profitably reach only around two-thirds of the population, reckons Matt Yardley of Analysys Mason, a consultancy that helped to prepare the report. Connecting the rest at high speed will cost around £3 billion. So Lord Carter surprised the broadband industry by proposing a £6 annual tax on telephone lines, raising around £150m. That will be used to bring “next generation broadband” (a term left undefined, but probably an expansion of the BT scheme) by 2017 to the third of the country the private sector will struggle to reach.
We sincerely hope this money will be spent as soon as its collected and will not add to the billions of universal service funds rotting in government accounts the world over. We also predict that there will be more mobile-only households as a result. Trust the British to go against the current. Everyone else beats up on mobile and shields fixed; they do the opposite.
Mobile broadband is it
Just liked everything else in telecom, the signs were visible in Asia first, Indonesia and Sri Lanka in particular. The debate in the blogsphere is all about HSPA and HSDPA, no one cares about tired old ADSL. We do, of course, and will continue to work on fixed, nomadic and mobile broadband price and QOSe. But nice to know the Economist is not too behind the curve.
AS HANDSETS turn into computers, laptops are becoming more like mobile phones. Even industry veterans have been surprised by the rapid take-up of mobile broadband—using built-in receivers or plug-in “dongles” to provide internet access to laptops via high-speed mobile networks. The advantage of this is that it works anywhere—unlike short-range Wi-Fi technology, it is not limited to a few hotspots. In Western Europe alone, the number of mobile-broadband users will grow by 50% to 27m this year, according to IDC, an analyst firm. Worldwide, there are thought to be around 100m.
Why Indonesian telecom experts feel their regulatory environment so miserable?
Results for Indonesia in LIRNEasia’s Telecom Regulatory Environment survey show an interesting trend. Unlike their counterparts in other countries (Bangladesh, India, Maldives Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand) Indonesia telecom experts have given marks so low for different aspects of their regulatory environment that none of the categories, in any three sectors, meet the average of 3. (The options were from 1 to 5, 1=extremely unsatisfied, 5=excellent service) The one comes nearest is the score for Market Entry in the mobile sector (there are nine players in the market – eight national, one regional) but that too miss the average by 0.05 points.
The results do not show a change from the previous (2006) scores. The score for the fixed sector remains same as it was in 2006, while the score for the mobile sector has dropped from one decimal point. So whatever the reason, it is a continuing trend.
We guess our readers are curious. Not that we have all the answers, but some of your doubts will be solved in the Colloquium scheduled for tomorrow (Sept 25) at 10.00 hours Sri Lanka/India time. (0430 hrs GMT) Alternatively, you can tell us why. We are interested to listen.
There will be an online ..read more
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