April, 2008

October, 2009

I took the first photo. That was in April 2008 in an informal telecenter visit. The second one appeared in a Sinhala blog recently.

Mangedara Nenasala telecenter at Thulhiriya (less than 2 km from MAS Holdings) is one of the hundreds of defunct Nenasala telecenters. During better times it provided services such as utility bill payments and computer training. Now it remains closed since the operator, who was never paid for his services, left for better opportunities.

The findings of the telecenter operator survey done by LIRNEasia at a workshop organised by Sarvodaya in October 2008 will be useful to understand why Nenasalas fail. (Sample was not representative, but large enough to get a general idea about the telecenter operations in Sri Lanka.)

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. This means a large number of telecenters are running at a loss.

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%), utility bill payments (2.5%) telephone calls (2.5%) selling other goods (2%) and VCD/DVD rentals (1%).

Do telecenters make a profit? Yes, but perhaps may not in real terms. They record a monthly average profit of Rs. 6,735 (=USD 61) with a large standard deviation of Rs. 9,504 (=USD 86). This indicates the loss incurred by some of them. This is again without considering the cost of the communication link. (The monthly average cost of a 2 Mbps business broadband connection is USD 46 in Colombo. This might be slightly high in rural areas.)

Telecenters operators are rewarded in different ways. Only 33% are salaried. 22% receive a share of profits. 13% receive an allowanced based on performance. 32% receive no personal income.

We said (a) broadband is above 256 kbps, not 128 kbps; (b) minimum bandwidth requirements should be valid beyond the ISP domain; (c) operators should maintain predetermined contention ratios; (d) bandwidth ultilisation should be above 75% on average; (e) latency < 85 ms for local and <300 ms for international and (f) user surveys are important but should be supplemented by user testing which gives a more objective measure. LIRNEasia also offered assistance if BTRC plans user testing.

Downloads: Consultation Paper and LIRNEasia’s Response.

Telecommunication Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka, which, now also regulates pornographic content, today created telecom regulatory history by appointing perhaps the world’s first Pornographic Monitoring Committee.

While congratulating the newly appointed Chairman and his proud family (“Amma, you are never going to believe this! Hubby is now getting paid for watching nude girls”) we, in our own humble manner like to suggest a mission statement. (above)

Reports Daily Mirror Online:

The Sri Lanka Telecommunications Regulatory Commission has appointed a monitoring committee to be on the alert for pornographic websites in the island.

The TRC had said that telephone and internet services companies have agreed to be constantly on the alert for pornographic websites and to control access to them in the island, with twelve such websites already having been banned.

Director General of the T.R.C. Priyantha Kariyapperuma had said to a state radio channel today, that a monitoring committee has been appointed in this regard and that the members of the committee are expected to be vigilant on such websites and submit recommendation to the commission accordingly.

The commission however had also requested parents to be more aware and inquisitive about their children and their access to the internet.

Sources:
Story: http://www.dailymirror.lk/DM_BLOG/Sections/frmNewsDetailView.aspx?ARTID=56562
Cartoon: www.lakbima.lk

The IT industry’s revenue alone increased by 20 percent to US$3 billion, and its export turnover from electronic and telecom products reached US$2.4 billion, according to Information and Communications Minister Le Doan Hop.

Speaking at a round-up conference for the information and communication sector, Mr. Hop said this year the sector would focus on plans to bring internet services to schools and rural areas, open a news channel for foreigners and an online Q&A service on the ministry website.

By the end of 2008, the sector had registered 82.25 million telephone subscribers, or 97.5 telephones per 100 people. Of the total, 85.5 percent were mobile subscribers.

Read the full story here.

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 other goods (2%) and VCD/DVD rentals (1%).

Asked for the preferred income profile, the results were not too different. They still want 33% income from training, 21% from fax photocopy and print services and 17% from Internet services. Is this an indication of being more realistic or less ambitious? You decide.

Average monthly expenditure of a telecenter is Rs. 15,837. (USD 144) This may not reflect the real costs as the Internet charges for Nenasalas are borne by ICT Agency from the money comes from e-Sri Lanka programme. Salaries is the highest cost component (39%). Then comes electricity (25%). About 10% each for telephone and rent.

On average basis a telecenter has 5 PCs and employs four staff members – two permanent, two temporary. Correlation between the income and the permanent staff strength was 0.56; the income and the number of PCs, 0.62.

Do telecenters make a profit? Yes, but perhaps may not in real terms. They record a monthly average profit of Rs. 6,735 (=USD 61) with a large standard deviation of Rs. 9,504 (=USD 86). This indicates the loss incurred by some of them. This is again without considering the cost of the communication link. (The monthly average cost of a 2 Mbps business broadband connection is USD 46 in Colombo. This might be slightly high in rural areas.)

Telecenters operators are rewarded in different ways. Only 33% are salaried. 22% receive a share of profits. 13% receive an allowanced based on performance. 32% receive no personal income. How they prefer to be rewarded? 51% wants a monthly salary; 26% a share of profits and 18% a performance based allowance. Doesn’t sound too entrepreneurial but in Sri Lanka culture job security plays an important role.

:: Daily Mirror – FINANCIAL TIMES ::

An effective access regime that will allow optimal use of the existing backbone, better interconnection enforcement throughout the country, transparent licensing that would remove the pall of corruption or allegations of corruption hanging over the Telecom Regulatory Commission and the licensing authorities, more transparent and efficient spectrum management including the complete unlicensing of WiFi frequencies; deregulation of tariffs to the extent possible like in India are the low-cost option that will enable more people to use telecom and Internet services, not high-cost and low-thought subsidy schemes. There is no need for Sri Lanka to repeat the errors of Nepal.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Deunden started off with a brief history of policy and regulatory development in Thailand and then moved on to describe the current market environment.

Since the year 1992, the beginnging of private concessions, around 3 million cellular lines were installed.

The cellular market boomed after 2002 when the third operator that was bankrupt was bought over by Hutch, and because it was a new entry, spurred competition. Over 15 million cellular subscribers entered the market at the time.

In conclusion,
Mobile: little state presence and very competitive
Fixed line: dominant state enterprise and little competition
Internet: little state presence and very competitive.

Key performance indicators
Drastic improvements on fixed line calls from 2002 – ie less fault calls.

Mobile penetration and fixed penetration are 36.3 percent and 10.1 percent respectively (based on subscribers). Internet is at 11.9 percent (based on users).

The waiting time for a fixed line was an average period of almost 2 years in 2004.

The internet is relatively expensive – takes up almost 10 percent of total monthly expenditure. Fixed lines are the cheapest (0.92 percent).

Digital divide is remarkable for fixed line. There is a big gap between number of fixed lines in Bangkok and the rest of Thailand.

Shared access reduces the divide and mobiles close the voice divide.

Internet services are out of reach for the poor – due to lack of fixed lines.

TRE Assessment
Sample included telecom operators, private businessmen, journalists, academics, regulatory officials, and consumers.

Scores are lowest for Thailand, even in the mobile sector.

Interconnection in fixed lines has the highest score, while the lowest score is on interconnection in mobiles.

JAKARTA: The Association of Indonesian Internet Service Providers urge network operators to lower leased line tariffs to allow a healthy competition in providing Internet services for retail customers. Chairman of the Association Sylvia W. Sumarlin said that network operators, which also provide direct internet services to customers, have disturbed ISP
businesses.

“Every day, a lot of ISP customers switch to network operators because they provide cheaper tariffs to access Internet,” she said to Bisnis yesterday. Internet tariffs from network operators are cheaper than ISP’s because those operators apply very high leased lines, forcing ISPs to charge higher retail prices, she said. Leased line is the network that connects ISP with the customers. This network is hired by ISPs from network or telecommunication operators with a specific rate.

A study of Learning Initiatives on Reforms for Network Economies (LIRNE) Asia showed that high leased line price is the main factor that pushes ISPs to use wireless fidelity (WiFi) network to connect Internet users. LIRNE Asia noted that leased line prices in Indonesia are three to four times more expensive than in India or Europe. In the local network with the capacity of 2 Mbps, Indonesia’s price is even 48 times more expensive than India.
Sylvia emphasized that the association doesn’t object network operators providing direct internet access for users, as long as they also apply low rates for ISPs, so both can compete on a level playing field. “The number of customers of each (ISP or network operator) will then depend on services with relatively equal tariffs,” she said.Not to Compete Separately, Teddy A. Purwadi, president director of Access.Net, said that the government should draft
conducive policies to ensure that network operators don’t compete with telecommunication service providers for similar products, such as multimedia and Internet.

Network operators are companies that provide local telecommunication network, closed network, cellular network, and satellite network which also provide multimedia services like ISP. Teddy asserted that telecommunication network operators should not provide Internet services, because it would guarantee unfair competition.

The Indonesian Infocom Society (Mastel) estimated that leased line tariffs that each Indonesian ISP has to cover annually reach US$18,000. According to the ISP association, the costs reach 13.5 million rupiah per 2 Mbps per month, or equal to 10 Mbps provided by one of cable TV operators.

The ISP association projects that the ISP businesses are worth 200 billion rupiah this year, not including the businesses of the network operators which provide Internet services. According to the association, there are about 200 ISPs in Indonesia. Only about 100 companies are still active in serving their customers. Twenty of these are categorized as big ISPs, while the rest are medium- and small-scale ISPs, with some not even operating yet.

According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, bandwidth owned by various gateway service providers such as VSNL, Reliance Communication and Bharti has gone up to 12.7 Giga bytes in March 2006 compared to 6.5 Giga bytes at the end of the previous financial year.

Explaining the growth, Mr Kiran Karnik, President, Nasscom, said: “Bandwidth requirement is largely being driven by the IT industry, particularly the BPO sector, and also rapid Internet adoption at homes. In addition, it is being fuelled by requirements of a growing economy. Everything is moving towards data and companies that are not IT organisations but are purely into exports, also need to rely on electronic invoices rather than physical invoices, when trading with overseas firms. Moreover, exporters now have the option to send pictures of the sample product (item to be exported) to their overseas clients. Today’s bandwidth needs also revolve around International Trade. The cost of laying fibre has come down due to technology. There is a strong demand story from India.”

Broadband

The Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI) pointed out that the dial-up Internet users have grown by 24 per cent to touch 6.9 million users, however, the growth in broadband services is the real driver for the increase in international bandwidth.

“Broadband needs more capacity than a dial-up service. Broadband services have grown by over 600 per cent with 1.5 million subscribers compared to a few thousand in 2005. That apart usage of Internet services such as leased lines and Net telephony has also increased considerably,” the ISPAI said.

Internet Telephony has crossed a billion minutes during the fourth quarter of 2005-06 compared to 58 million minutes in the previous quarter.

All of the voice calls on the Internet are international calls. Adding to the bandwidth consumption is the leased line Internet services such as Virtual Private Services.

The number of leased line connections has increased to nearly 15,500 compared to 12,200 last year.

http://www.blonnet.com/2006/07/14/stories/2006071402630400.htm

The government violated the law by allowing the state-run telecoms monopoly to own and operate the country’s only submarine cable network. Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB) built the SEA-ME-WE4 submarine cable and its associated infrastructure from the earnings of its other telecoms ventures and the law explicitly prohibits such practices of subsidisation.

Subsection C of Section 49 of the telecoms law says, “If an operator provides more than one service, but there exists competition in the market in providing one of such services and no competition in case of another service provided by him, then subsidy from the earnings of the service which is subject to competition shall not be allowed for the other service which is not subject to competition.”

BTTB built the cable’s landing station in Cox’s Bazar and from there it deployed an optical fibre link up to Chittagong from the earnings of its fixed telephony, Internet and data connectivity services. This is what the law explicitly prohibits because the private sector is also offering all these three categories of services through competition.

Therefore, the government cannot build the submarine cable from the earnings of the services ‘which are subject to competition’ and it must take away the submarine cable’s control from BTTB’s grip as soon as possible to comply with the legal provision and create a level playing field to foster the growth of telecoms and ICT sectors, sources said.

Otherwise, the government remains vulnerable to legal actions for such a gross non-compliance with the law, which might even temporarily stall the cable’s commercial operations causing a great deal of trouble for the undersea cable users of Bangladesh.

BTTB’s undisputed control over the SEA-ME-WE4 provides free bandwidth to its state-owned Internet service. It allows BTTB to maintain an artificially lower tariff for its Internet services while private Internet service providers (ISPs) have to buy the same bandwidth, which compels them to impose higher tariff on their services, putting them in disadvantage in competition with BTTB.

Thakkar

RESHMA PATIL & PRAGYA SINGH
Posted online: Sunday, February 06, 2005 at 0154 hours IST
Indian Express

MUMBAI, NEW DELHI, FEB 5: When tech entrepreneur Jayesh Thakkar geared to connect computers—without wires—20 km away in two Vadodara offices, his corporate client first applied for a licence. They have been waiting for a year. At Mumbai, a construction giant is waiting since nine months for permission to wirelessly connect offices in two suburbs. [...]
‘‘Most big corporates stay away from outdoor WiFi use because licences are cumbersome and bureaucratic,’’ says Thakkar, director, JayRaj Exim, a company WiFi-enabling offices in Mumbai. ‘‘By the time a licence arrives, what if the technology is outdated?’’ [...]
Many WiFi believers who appealed long and hard to free WiFi from regulations so telecom and Internet services reach rural India—at a fraction of usual costs—are disappointed though the government has been steadily freeing WiFi licensing restrictions since 2002. ‘‘The government agreed, in principle, to delicence low-power outdoor use of WiFi in December, but where is the notification to make this official?’’ says Arun Mehta, cyber rights activist and telecom consultant. When contacted, a ministry official said that spectrum availability is the real problem. ‘‘As and when more spectrum is available, we’ll be able to give out more frequencies. Till then, WiFi will have to be restricted to ‘confined areas’,’’ he said. Officially permitted outdoor use would take WiFi to rural India, where it is needed most. Potential applications include telemedicine, long-distance education and networked community portals. [...]

What we need is WiFi in the community, Mehta maintains. ‘‘Why is it taking so long to free people to place their WiFi antennae? This would create a network of towers providing Internet access at zero cost.’’[...]

Thakkar

RESHMA PATIL & PRAGYA SINGH
Posted online: Sunday, February 06, 2005 at 0154 hours IST
Indian Express

MUMBAI, NEW DELHI, FEB 5: When tech entrepreneur Jayesh Thakkar geared to connect computers—without wires—20 km away in two Vadodara offices, his corporate client first applied for a licence. They have been waiting for a year. At Mumbai, a construction giant is waiting since nine months for permission to wirelessly connect offices in two suburbs. [...]
‘‘Most big corporates stay away from outdoor WiFi use because licences are cumbersome and bureaucratic,’’ says Thakkar, director, JayRaj Exim, a company WiFi-enabling offices in Mumbai. ‘‘By the time a licence arrives, what if the technology is outdated?’’ [...]
Many WiFi believers who appealed long and hard to free WiFi from regulations so telecom and Internet services reach rural India—at a fraction of usual costs—are disappointed though the government has been steadily freeing WiFi licensing restrictions since 2002. ‘‘The government agreed, in principle, to delicence low-power outdoor use of WiFi in December, but where is the notification to make this official?’’ says Arun Mehta, cyber rights activist and telecom consultant. When contacted, a ministry official said that spectrum availability is the real problem. ‘‘As and when more spectrum is available, we’ll be able to give out more frequencies. Till then, WiFi will have to be restricted to ‘confined areas’,’’ he said. Officially permitted outdoor use would take WiFi to rural India, where it is needed most. Potential applications include telemedicine, long-distance education and networked community portals. [...]

What we need is WiFi in the community, Mehta maintains. ‘‘Why is it taking so long to free people to place their WiFi antennae? This would create a network of towers providing Internet access at zero cost.’’[...]