Tag Archives: Maldives
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5th anniversary of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami
The tsunami occurred within three months of LIRNEasia’s founding. We were lucky. No one in LIRNEasia was directly affected, though there were several “what ifs”. It changed our research program for sure. We did three projects directly connected to the tsunami: NEWS:SL which was a study on how Sri Lanka [...]
LIRNEasia’s research presented at India Disaster Management Congress 2009
The Second India Disaster Management Congress (IDMC 2009) took place from 4-6 November at the Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi. It was organized by the National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM) to assemble, synthesize and further disseminate knowledge on disaster management in diverse sectors.
Natasha Udu-gama, former HazInfo Dissemination Manager and Researcher, presented “Implementing Inclusive ICTs: Mobile [...]
Making access to the Internet possible: Competition versus Internet exchanges
In addition to giving the keynote at the OECD/infoDev workshop on the Budget Telecom Network Mode at the IGF in Sharm el Sheikh, I attended several sessions, one being that on reducing interconnection costs. The key recommendations seemed to cluster around two actions, creating Internet Exchanges in each country and reducing leased line costs [...]
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 [...]
Maldives cell broadcast report featured in SciDev
SciDev, a prestigious science communication channel, has featured our cell broadcast report, the first of the Mobile 2.0 reports to be released.
Texting short messages through mobile phones could help in early warning of natural disasters in the Maldives, says a new report.
The technology, called cell broadcasting, helps to deliver messages simultaneously to multiple users in [...]
Cell Broadcasting for Early Disaster Warning in Maldives: Report released today
Maldives, a country of 1,192 islands and 290,000 citizens, is highly dependent on its natural resources. Along with tourism, which provides more than 30 percent of the country’s income, fisheries and agriculture are essential to livelihoods on the country’s 199 inhabited islands.
The December 2004 tsunami affected many of its islands and wrought considerable devastation to [...]
LIRNEasia research brought to bear on mobile number portability question
Pakistan did it, with supposed good results. The Maldives studied it and decided it was not worth it. Sri Lanka is supposed to be thinking about it. It is mobile number portability (MNP).
None of them had the benefit of the teleuse@BOP results. Back in October 2008, 25 percent of mobile owners [...]
Maldives cell broadcasting research showcased in World Disasters Report 2009
CB [cell broadcasting] is an intrinsic feature of GSM, UMTS and IS 95 CDMA networks, and is thus available in the two Maldivian networks. But it must be activated. Most handsets are capable of receiving CB messages but the feature must be turned on. However, in the early stages, getting customers [...]
New communications act in Maldives
The Telecom Authority of the Maldives was functioning under a presidential decree all this time. The Law which had been drafted, is now moving under the new administration:
The Civil Aviation Minister Jameel who announced that the bill was being sent for legal review at a press conference said that the country is [...]
Maldives: Dhiraagu license renewed, but no more exclusivities
Dhiraagu, the incumbent telecom operator of the Maldives had its license renewed for a term of 15 years. Since its establishment in 1988, Dhiraagu enjoyed an exclusivity on the provision of fixed line services. It was also the only company allowed to carry international traffic into the island nation and terminate on any network. We [...]
Four years after Tsunami 2004 : Your smiles are ours
Four years to history, ‘Your tears are mine’ (see below) was my reaction to Asian tsunami. Reproduced in multiple sites, it was recited once in a remembrance event. Though written more in a Sri Lankan context, let me pick it again today, to remember all 225,000 lives lost, in the worst tsunami in recent history [...]
Three Mediterranean cables out: Maldives connectivity down 100%?
Undersea cable operators have a nasty habit of laying cables close to each other. When they get cut, they tend to go in sets. The first question I have is why Maldives would lose 100% of traffic when it is connected by two undersea cables, one to Colombo and the other to [...]
Harmonization of cell broadcasting channels
Mark Wood, who among other things coordinates the group that is working harmonizing the address space for cell broadcasts on mobiles at ITU-T, had an intensive discussion with representatives of Sri Lanka mobile operators at a meeting organized at very short notice by LIRNEasia on 2nd of October 2008. He was on his way [...]
Maldives: Ideally positioned to lead in cell broadcasting
Maldives is a country with an estimated population of 309,575 (August 2008), 312,527 active mobile SIMs, two mobile operators, and complete cellular coverage of all inhabited atolls, including most of the internal ferry and shipping routes (only a little bit in the one and a half degree channel in not covered, and plans are afoot [...]
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. [...]
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