Now we have a powerful ally: the New York Times.

With the majority of Internet traffic expected to shift to congestion-prone mobile networks, there is growing debate on both sides of the Atlantic about whether operators of the networks should be allowed to treat Web users differently, based on the users’ consumption.

While we were researching the subject, we did not take a position on net neutrality, but we now agree that its blind application in our settings will harm our constituents, the teleusers at the bottom of the pyramid. We do agree with the statement below, also excerpted from the NYT:

But there is a big flaw in the concept, according to the operators: Networks have never been neutral. They have always been actively managed to some extent since their inception in the 1980s to ensure that all customers get a basic “best effort” level of service.

If an operator could not restrain bandwidth hogs, who typically make up 15 percent of customers but who generate 80 percent of the traffic, most Internet users would experience poor service.

While net neutrality is an emotion loaded minefield that is not the most hospitable for evidence based discussion, we are at least happy that the mobile piece of the argument is running parallel with ours.

One of the most controversial of the recommendations that came out of this work is that which said one should go gentle on regulating quality. The main reason we said that was because we believed that the poor needed access in the form of different price-quality bundles; that if high quality standards were imposed by fiat, the only victims would be the price-sensitive consumers who would get priced out. While we did not take an explicit position on net neutrality those days, we now have to, based on what we have learned. We do not believe net neutrality is appropriate for emerging economies, especially for the BOP.

Major decision has come down from the US courts on the Obama appointees’ attempt to mandate net neutrality by law:

A federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that regulators had limited power over Web traffic under current law. The decision will allow Internet service companies to block or slow specific sites and charge video sites like YouTube to deliver their content faster to users.

The court decision was a setback to efforts by the Federal Communications Commission to require companies to give Web users equal access to all content, even if some of that content is clogging the network.

Chief among its goals, the F.C.C. wants future broadband investment to be focused on the areas where gaps in service remain. It will direct this investment in part through the Universal Service Fund, a program for telephone and Internet access, costing $8 billion annually, paid through a phone bill surcharge. Over time, the subsidies for Internet will increase and those for phone will dissipate, with the knowledge that people can make online calls.

“Some of the details are lacking, particularly on Universal Service Fund reform,” said Dan Mitchell, a vice president for the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association, a group that represents rural providers and worries that the proposals to change phone carrier costs will curtail the providers’ abilities to expand infrastructure.

Unsatisfied broadband users added flavor to both our Public Seminar and Mobile Broadband QoSE workshop. That included university students prevented access during the residential peak to Wi-Max subscribers experiencing 20% of the promised speed – even with perfect LoS (Line of Sight).

Such complaints are common and not limited to Sri Lanka. From Indonesia to India and from Bangladesh to Philippines we find broadband users rant not receiving the promised. We empathise with them, but this hardly an Asian or a developing world issue. The conditions elsewhere can be worse.

The weird arrangement above is an attempt by a Guest House in Johannesburg, South Africa to provide me Internet access. They still failed. It was in a way good, because I was told the quality was poor and even a simple task like accessing e-mails a nightmare sometimes.

According to CIA’s World Fact Book, South Africa is a middle-income, emerging market with an abundant supply of natural resources; well-developed financial, legal, communications, energy, and transport sectors; a stock exchange that is 17th largest in the world; and modern infrastructure supporting an efficient distribution of goods to major urban centers throughout the region. Either broadband quality does not stand to its other achievements or this is an isolated issue.

LIRNEasia, with the assistance of its research partners there, intends to extend its broadband benchmarking to Africa. More stories are in pipeline, when we have test results in few months.

His latest holler, as reported by ‘The Catalyst’ – the newsletter of the Information and Communication Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA), the apex body of ICTs that spearhead the e-Sri Lanka program, funded by the World Bank, goes as follows:

“At a time when the ‘world funding bodies’ proposed the setting of Internet cafes in cities of Sri Lanka in a manner that would only cater only to the rich elite, President Mahinda Rajapaksa decided that Nenasalas or wisdom outlets should be setup instead island-wide to cater to the poor rural folk.”

We are certain the World Bank’s ability to speak for itself, but feel the need to set the record straight especially for the benefit of those who are unaware of the history of e-Sri Lanka program.

Firstly, Mr. Minister, Cyber cafes are not for rich elite, who now have their own laptops with HSPA connections. Cyber cafes are for the poor, who cannot afford their own PCs, and right now serve millions in countries like Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand. In most of the Asian societies cyber cafes – surely not the donor supported telecenters – are the key means of Internet access by the poor.

Secondly Mr. Minister, World Bank or any other Development Agency for that matter, has never promoted the idea of net access for the rich. No matter what the flaws in the approach, their priority has always been rural areas typically not served by the market. If you care to check the original e-Sri Lanka document, you will find there have never been any suggestions to setup telecenters for rich Colombo elite. On the contrary, the Nenasalas within center Colombo, was introduced only after 2004.

Thirdly, Mr. Minister, the idea of having Vishva Gnana Kendras (VGKs) – as the forerunner was known – was to have more financially viable tele-centers, which could stand on their own feet, instead creating a donor funded unsustainable model. The fallacy of Nenasala model is yet to be discovered at the point of the end of donor funding. For example, according to Niranjan Meegammana, a consultant to ICTA, sixteen Nenasalas in Uva province (Girandurukotte, Balagolla, Talakumbura, Kabillegama, Parahettiya, Hali Ela, Maspanna, Divurumpola, Wekumbura, Badalkumbura, Therulla, Siyambalanduwa, Ethimale, Suriya-ara and Kiri Vehera) earns less than USD 50 per month – too little to cover even their operating costs. How these Nenasalas will continue without donor funding is a question awaiting an answer.

Fourthly, Mr. Minister, not all Nenasalas cater to the poor. Having visited them personally we can name few Nenasala’s which never opens their door to the poor but used only by the rich incumbent priests of the temples – against the wishes of the donors.

The truth can be very different from what the voters wants to hear.

Engkos Koswara, an expert adviser to the state minister for research and technology, told Antara news agency the government was still testing the 2.3 GHz frequency for the Wimax technology.

“We hope that by next year, Wimax technology will be implemented,” he said in Medan, North Sumatra, adding the government would encourage the use of domestic products to support the technology.

Indonesia ranks very low in the region in the use of broadband for Internet access.

Read the full story in Jakarta Post here.

Under the terms of the deal reached in January, Orascom Telecom will invest $400 million in network infrastructure and license fees over the first three years to develop the network. Orascom said it was the first foreign telecommunications company to be awarded a North Korean commercial telecommunications license.

It was not clear what restrictions, if any, would be imposed on the network, which provides data capabilities as well as phone services. Ordinary North Koreans are forbidden from having cellular phones, and the government maintains strict controls over Internet access.

Orascom has said it intends to cover the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, and most of the major cities during the first year of service. North Korea, one of the world’s poorest countries, is pushing hard to give its capital city a facelift — a makeover coinciding with the 60th anniversary of the communist nation founded in September 1948.

Orascom Telecom spokeswoman Rasha Mohamed confirmed in an e-mail on Sunday that the service will be launched on Monday. Additional details were not immediately available.

Read the full story in Associated Press here.

The proposal has been added to a pending auction of the airwaves. The FCC is scheduled to vote on rules for the sale on Dec. 18. Mr. Martin wants the company that buys the airwaves to devote at least 25% of the spectrum to free Internet access for 95% of the country. The no-cost Internet service also would be smut-free for users under 18. Adult users could opt out of the filter blocking pornographic content.

Mr. Martin said Wednesday that he has circulated two versions of the auction item — one with the unlicensed provision and one without — for the other commissioners on the five-member body to review before the meeting. The FCC will vote on only one version, depending on which version the other commissioners prefer, Mr. Martin said.

Mr. Martin wants to sell a nationwide license to the airwaves rather than give the channels to entrepreneurs because he wants to promote free Internet access. By adding a clause that would give away airwaves where there isn’t an Internet network after five years, Mr. Martin hopes that the owner of the channels would have an added incentive to build a network.

Mr. Martin said Wednesday that both versions of the auction item include a “use it or lose it” provision in which the owner of the channels would lose spectrum where there is no Internet access. The owner of the channels would “continue to serve whatever area they’ve built out,” he said.

Read the full story in the Wall Street Journal here.

Recent International Telecommunication Union (ITU) data reveals that the success of India’s telecom revolution is restricted to mobile voice with very little to showcase in fixed line and internet access, or high-speed broadband. For a country that is the global IT and ITeS capital or the world’s back office, its own internet penetration remains one of the lowest in the world. Forecasts are equally uninspiring, projecting high-speed internet access to remain abysmal till 2012.

Internet broadband penetration will limp along to eventually reach a measly 3.9 connections for every 100 citizens by 2012. Even though internet users may be multiple times higher, actual broadband penetration will not exceed 18.1 million at the beginning of the next decade. In contrast, mobile telephony will add as many as 350 million subscribers during this five-year period to end at roughly 615 million by mid 2012.

These forecasts fall short of the government’s conservative target of 20 million high-speed internet subscribers by 2010-end. India’s broadband penetration is roughly 4.5 million subscribers. Even with a 300% growth rate over the next five years, the sector will fall short of the 50 million mark by 2012.

Read the full story in The Times of India here.

In one of the two websites it runs, Telecommunication Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL) gives its mission statement – which is cut and pasted below:

“To create the optimum conditions for the telecommunications industry in Sri Lanka by serving the public interest in terms of quality, choice and value for money; the service providers with equitable access to spectrum and other common resources; and the nation in its drive for socio-economic advancement through a skilled and ethical workforce.”

We are surprised to see pornography not mentioned – considering the latest task TRCSL has been assigned  –  blocking porno. Lankadeepa reports only about blocking pornographic movies and video clips, not images. Assumed strict enforcement, this can lead to the ban of not just YouTube but Gmail and Yahoomail also, because pornography videos can easily be distributed via e-mail.

For the record, except for few countries including Cuba and North Korea, which had restricted Internet access in full (not just porno sites) no country in general blocks porno sites. Most countries that impose Internet censorship aim blocking political content – not porn. At least three Asian countries Thailand, Pakistan and Indonesia blocked YouTube recently for limited periods but have later revised their decisions.   

India has, in fact, one of the lowest broadband subscriber penetration rates in Asia. So what accounts for the slow growth? One reason could be the price of a broadband connection. Broadband is defined by TRAI as an always-on data connection that can support internet access and a minimum download speed of 256 kbps. Prices for such connections have remained static the past few years. A simple comparison between the cost of broadband in India and, say, the United States, reveals that on a one-year contract, while the cost per month of a connection in both countries is roughly the same, the data transfer speed in the US is at least double than that in India.

Read the full article here.

“The characteristics of these new Internet users will be vastly different from the first billion users,” the report concludes, adding that the majority of the new Internet users will be accessing the Internet on wireless networks and will have incomes of less than US$2 per day.   

While the report sees encouraging signs from developing markets that have adopted market liberalisation and who are now starting to enjoy the employment, micro- entrepreneurial and social development benefits of increased competition, there remain many countries that need to catch up.  

According to the report, “more than 70 countries still have monopolies over international gateway services,” which “raise the prices for accessing international capacity, far beyond costs, and reduce the affordability of Internet access for end-users.”  Read more.

The story about the undersea cable is quite intriguing. To the best of my knowledge, SEA-ME-WE 3 is the cable the government official is referring to (they were not part of the SEA-ME-WE 4 consortium). I have not checked this fact, but my recollection is that Burma had been disconnected from SEA-ME-WE 3 for non-payment some time ago. The cable was not ripped out and physically disconnected, but it was not operational.

It is of course possible that the debts were paid and the country reconnected in the past few months. However, given the Myanmar government’s bald-faced lies about the occupants of the cyber city, I would not rule out another violation of the fourth precept of Buddhism.

:: Daily Mirror – FINANCIAL TIMES ::

UN telecommunications agency chief Hamadoun Toure said Friday in Geneva that no government had the right to cut their citizens off from the Internet, following recent incidents in Myanmar.Toure, who heads the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), underlined that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had recently described safe access to the Internet as a basic human right.

The Internet blockage has severely reduced the flow of video, photos and first-hand reports of the violence there that had helped galvanise an outcry against the ruling generals.

The cut was widely blamed on security forces there. A telecom official in Myanmar had confirmed that the nation’s main link to the Internet was down, but blamed the problem on a damaged undersea cable.

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In Online World, Pocket Change Is Not Easily Spent – New York Times

The idea of micropayments — charging Web users tiny amounts of money for single pieces of online content — was essentially put to sleep toward the end of the dot-com boom. In December 2000, Clay Shirky, an adjunct professor in New York University’s interactive telecommunications program, wrote a manifesto that people still cite whenever someone suggests resurrecting the idea. Micropayments will never work, he wrote, mainly because “users hate them.”

But wait. Amid the disdain, and without many people noticing, micropayments have arrived — just not in the way they were originally envisioned. The 99 cents you pay for a song on iTunes is a micropayment. So are the tiny amounts that some operators of small Web sites earn whenever someone clicks on the ads on their pages. Some stock-photography companies sell pictures for as little as $1 each.

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Full Story:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6951981.stm