Tag Archive for 'mobile phone services'


Call for Papers: Infrastructure Regulation: What works, Why, and How do we know?
Deadline: 05 December 2008.




Sri Lanka: Mobile phone interruptions in East today??

by
Chanuka Wattegama
on May 10, 2008
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Chief ministerial candidate Rauff Hakeem told ‘Lanka Dissent’ that the Ministry of Defence has ordered service providers to interrupt mobile phone services in the Eastern Province, which goes to polls tomorrow (May 10th).

He also said that the government was preparing to stage a massive vote rigging on election day and the move seems to prevent the outside world from getting information on those violations in the East.

As a former Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, Mr. Hakeem said the Defence Ministry could give such orders only on matters pertaining to national security.
 
The chief ministerial candidate added that he would initiate legal action against any service provider and other responsible officials if such undue interruptions are effected tomorrow.

http://www.lankadissent.com/allnews/2008_05_09_12_news.htm

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Fixed phones droop in China, while mobiles galore

by
Chanuka Wattegama
on November 20, 2007
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China Mobile Ltd., the world’s biggest wireless-phone carrier by number of users, added record subscribers in October as China Telecom Corp., the nation’s largest fixed- line carrier, lost customers for the third straight month.

About 6.6 million people signed up for China Mobile’s services last month, compared with its previous high of 6.1 million in September, the Beijing-based company said. China Telecom’s total phone subscribers fell by 880,000, it said in a statement today.

China will accelerate the process of granting licenses for providing third-generation mobile-phone services to fixed-line operators to help them compete in the nation’s telecommunications market, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Nov. 19, citing Xi Guohua, a vice minister at the Beijing-based Ministry of Information Industry.

Read the full story in ‘Bloomberg’

…

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Dial for freedom with Amnesty Wireless

by
Abu Saeed Khan
on March 24, 2007
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Dhaka, March 23 (bdnews24.com) — Grameen Bank’s Muhammad Yunus stunned the world by unveiling a poverty alleviation initiative using mobile phone on March 26, 1997.

He buys bulk minutes from Grameenphone’s GSM mobile network and resells among the microcredit borrowers in Bangladesh.

The industry now recognises such business model as Mobile Virtual Network Operator or MVNO. Yunus and Grameen shared the Nobel Peace Price in 2006.

Ten years later on March 21, 2007, another Nobel Peace laureate, the Amnesty International’s USA chapter, unveiled similar high-tech philanthropic initiative called “Amnesty Wireless”.

This MVNO is a joint venture between Amnesty International and Working Asset. It buys bulk airtime from the Sprint CDMA network and resells mobile phone services among Amnesty Wireless customers at competitive rates.

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Banning Cellphones in Conflict Zones Counterproductive

by
Divakar Goswami
on May 22, 2006
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This article shows that government’s instinct to ban cellphones from conflict zones because of the belief that it will be used by militants/terrorists to further their cause, actually neutralizes one of the security agencies most potent weapons to track subversives. I doubt that the Sri Lankan government will allow cellular service to be available any time soon in the North. But at least it gives the security agencies some food for thought. The Indian government was similarly reluctant to have cellular service in Kashmir, but the Indian security agencies are their biggest proponents now.
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Troops in Kashmir master new weapon: cell phones
Reuters
By Sheikh MushtaqSun May 21, 1:53 AM ET

Minutes after a bomb exploded recently in Kashmir and wounded Indian soldiers, a senior member of an Islamist…

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