LIRNEasia might not be as high tech as some of the big IT players but in our own way we have made a successful effort to make ourselves a virtual team. Not a choice – that was the only way we could operate in multiple countries (For example, in this cycle, TRE surveys will be in nine countries - Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Maldives, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand; not to mention CPRSouth 3 in Beijing)without budgets comparable to what INGOs use to run regional networks.
We also thought our own experiences will be useful for others. Hence the Virtual Organisation (VO) project. It had two aspects; developing the VO and using it to conduct LIRNEasia’s other research projects.
The case study is now out. It describes our efforts,…
Tags: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Maldives, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Virtual Office, Virtual Organisation, Virtual Team.
According to LIRNEasia’s latest comparative study of price and affordability indicators in eight South Asian countries, Bangladesh emerges as having the lowest average monthly cost of using a mobile at all levels of use (low, medium and high) for different tariff plans (prepaid and postpaid). Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka follow closely, while Bhutan, Maldives and Afghanistan are seen to have significantly higher average monthly mobile costs.
The study compares mobile tariffs in South Asia using price baskets, derived from those used by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The baskets are calculated for low, medium and high users for pre- as well as postpaid tariff plans, factoring in usage charges (voice and SMS), line rental, connection charges (depreciated over a three year period), and…
A United Nations survey of global e-government readiness has found that many Asian countries are sliding down the rankings. Just one Asian country—South Korea—made the top ten coming in at sixth, with Japan next on 11th.
The next highest was Singapore at a surprisingly low 23rd, and Malaysia at 34th. The top 35 countries are otherwise dominated by Europe, Australasia and North America.
The biggest revelation was that most Asian countries are sliding down the rankings.
Singapore was the most prominent to fall from grace, falling to 22nd from seventh position in 2005. China fell to 65 from 57, India from 87 to 113, Thailand from 46 to 62, the Philippines from 41 to 66 and Indonesia from 96 to 106.
Other countries to slide included Maldives,…
Tags: Australasia, Brunei, Cambodia, China, Denmark, e-government, Europe, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, North America, Norway, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Thailand, the Philippines, United Nations, United States, Vietnam.
The 2006-08 focus of LIRNEasia’s research was indicators of sector and regulatory performance. Indicators should not be collected for the sake of collecting them. They should be collected based on a common standards and reported at standard intervals in a timely manner, so that regulation and policy can be improved. For example, we believe that good price information can allow a simplification of the tariff regulation process in a way that will make all stakeholders, including incumbents, happy.
We were thus gratified when the Chief Executive of the Telecom Authority of Maldives invited us to conduct a workhop on indicators and benchmarking. The workshop will be conducted on the 6th of December by LIRNEasia’s Rohan Samarajiva and Helani Galpaya. An almost final version of program is at:…
I was asked to write something for world environment day in Montage, a local news magazine, and I wrote about how mobile could reduce the need for travel (in the long run) and thus postpone the inundation of the Maldives. It appears I did not cover all aspects of the problem . . .
Is your mobile network green? - Developing Telecoms
Mobile network energy consumption currently stands at 61 billion kWH worldwide, with each of the many millions of base stations producing almost 10 tonnes of carbon emissions every year. How can there not be room for improvement?
Conservative estimates project that this consumption will double by 2011, totalling 449 billion kWH over this five-year period, at a cost in excess of $US42 billion. Actix, to…
Second Tsunami-Detection Station To Bolster Indian Ocean System
As part of the U.S. effort, in December 2006, NOAA experts and Thai government officials put a deep-ocean assessment and reporting of tsunamis (DART) station in the Indian Ocean, halfway between Thailand and Sri Lanka. (See related article.)DART systems provide real-time tsunami detection as waves travel across open waters, and each station is linked to a satellite for real-time data transmission on global networks.
Tags: communications systems, Department of State, dissemination systems, Indian Ocean, Indonesia, Indonesian government, Maldives, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA\'s Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, real-time data transmission, real-time tsunami detection, Sri Lanka, Thai government, Thailand, United States, USD.
According to a Maldives online news publication, always on Internet is now available in 27 more islands.
News In Brief 5 August 2007
Dhiraagu has extended its internet service to twenty seven additional islands, meaning 70% of Maldivians can now access broadband internet. Dhiraagu, which was given permission to extend internet coverage to the atolls in August 2006, now provides a service to forty two islands.
The company plans to extend its network to cover all islands with more than nine hundred residents.
Is it possible for a knowledgeable person to tell us what “broadband internet” means in the Maldives? Is there a 2MB offering? Or is it 256 kbps? Difference in up and down speeds? At what price?
Powered by ScribeFire.
Thailand continues with its program of tsunami evacuation drills.
This website has reported on the evacuation drills organized by Sarvodaya and LIRNEasia as part of the pilot project. We will be pleased to disseminate information about the government’s drills as well.
ThaisNews
On Thursday 26 July, we had our Special report at the Tsunami evacuation drill in Patong. Later we had an interview with the Director General of the Sri Lanka Disaster Management Center and a representative from Maldives, who were observing the drill. Then we had some local news including the Phang Nga and Krabi’s drills.
Powered by ScribeFire.
There is no reason why Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and even the microstates of Bhutan and Maldives cannot get BPO business, not in competition with the Indian juggernaut, but in a complementary way.
Sri Lanka had no BPO business to speak of prior to 2002, despite similarities with South India where it was booming. It was only after the international liberalization of 2002-03 that BPOs started in a significant way in Sri Lanka, though that promising start has been affected by the unsettled security situation.
For the policy makers and implementors in these countries to contemplate: 1 percent of USD 60 billion is USD 600 million. That is not chump change.
LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE - LBO
India’s exports of software and related services are expected to almost double in…
Tags: Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Kiran Karnik, Maldives, Nasscom, National Association of Software and Service Companies, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, USD.
The following column on LBO.LK discusses an issue that has involved one of the discussion threads in the website.
LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE - LBO
Recently, the blog has become controversial. Since April 2006, one thread has been used by various persons to discuss Sri Lankan ICT policy issues, with emphasis on the appropriate standards for using Sinhala in computing.
Not all the comments on this thread have been rational and civilized and some commenters have engaged in personal vilification.
The controversy hit a peak around the time of Professor V.K. Samaranayake’s felicitation event at the University of Colombo in early June and his subsequent demise.
It is fair to say that Professor Samaranayake bore the brunt of the personal attacks on the website, though the President of the Maldives, Mr…
This colloquium will be on a new paper that is being developed on tools for intelligent benchmark regulation, based on Harsha de Silva and Tahani Iqbal’s presentation on Price & Affordability Indicators at the WDR Expert Forum in Singapore. The tools under consideration are price baskets and price elasticity of demand.
Tags: Bhutan, Harsha de Silva, India, Maldives, OECD, Singapore, Small island, SMS, Sri Lanka, Tahani Iqbal, United Nations.
Indian Ocean tsunami warning system on slow track:
Tsunami Warning Remains Elusive - Council on Foreign Relations
The wave which swept so many away two years ago (BBC) has faded from memory in many parts of the world, even though as many as two million people remain in temporary shelters in parts of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives. But surely the less onerous task of setting up a skeletal tsunami warning network must be well along, right?Not quite. While enormous sums of aid flowed in for relief and reconstruction efforts, the less glamorous work of positioning seismic warning buoys around the rim of the Indian Ocean lags financially and organizationally. As this new Backgrounder explains, several piecemeal systems are up and running, but the goal of…
Tags: BBC, Council on Foreign Relations, Honolulu, Indian Ocean, Indonesia, International Tsunami Information Center, Japan, Laura Kong, Maldives, piecemeal systems, skeletal tsunami warning network, Sri Lanka, United States.
Several weeks ago we speculated on why the Maldives, with its tiny population, needed two undersea cables. The answer is that the first cable is a collaboration between the new entrant Wataniya and India’s disruptive competitor, Reliance (through its FLAG unit). This created enormous pressure on the complacent incumbent Dhiraagu, the result being the cable to Colombo.
LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE - LBO
A new fibre optic undersea cable that connects Maldives to Sri Lanka will bring down international call charges from the Indian Ocean coral atoll, officials said Tuesday.Until the cable was commissioned this month, bilateral traffic of 600,000 minutes per month was routed via more expensive satellite links.
The undersea cable is a 20 million US dollar joint venture between Sri Lanka Telecom, owned by Japan’s NTT…
Tags: Colombo, Dhiraagu, fibre optic, India, Indian Ocean, Japan, Maldives, Reliance (through its FLAG unit), satellite links, Shoji Takahashi, Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka Telecom, USD.
Until 2005, Sri Lanka had one undersea cable (if one did not count the aged SEA-ME-WE 2) and one operator controlling access to it.
Then came SEA-ME-WE 4 and the BSNL cables. More cables, but still one operator, SLTL. Now finally, we have operator redundancy. This should be sweet music to the BPO industry.
LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE - LBO
Lanka Bell, one of Sri Lanka’s privately held wireless telecom operators, has tied up with India’s FLAG Telecom to lay an undersea cable linking both countries.The 27 million dollar deal will see a third landing on the cable that currently runs from India to the Maldives, Lanka Bell’s Director, Damien Fernando said.
Recent Comments