Tag Archive for ‘mobile phones’ at LIRNEasia

Tag Archive for 'mobile phones'

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

Sri Lanka: Supreme Court suspends three environmental levies

on December 1, 2008

Supreme Court today (Nov 01, 2008) ordered the suspension of three environmental levies imposed recently, reported Lanka Dissent.

Accordingly, the levies imposed on telecommunication towers, CFC bulbs of more than 40 Watts as well as the levy imposed on vehicles in the Western Province were directed to be suspended.

Should we open a bottle of Champaign? May be not. It was not LIRNEasia that took Environment Ministry to courts. Still we take pride in fighting against these irrational environmental levies which would have served nobody.

Some of our earlier blog posts:

Small Victory for LIRNEasia: Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court issues Interim Order against Tax on Mobile Phones and Telecom Towers (Sept 23, 2008)

Digital cigarettes (Sept 21, 2008)

Sri Lanka: Udaya Gammanpila says Environmental Levy does not burden public (Aug 19, 2008)

Sri Lanka: Road to ‘Dharma…

2 Comments
Tags: cellular telephone, Champika Ranawaka, e-waste, Environment Ministry, Google, Google Inc., Ministry of Environment, mobile phones, Sri Lanka, Supreme Court, Telecom Towers, Udaya Gammanpila.

Mobile internet usage on the rise

Chanuka Wattegama

on December 1, 2008

Mobile internet use is growing while the number of people going online via a PC is slowing, analyst firm Nielsen Online has found.

Some 7.3m people accessed the net via their mobile phones, during the second and third quarters of 2008.

This is an increase of 25% compared to a growth of just 3% for the PC-based net audience - now more than 35m.

It also found that the mobile net audience was younger and searched for different things.

While Google remains the most popular site for those logging on via the desktop, on mobile internet BBC News is the most visited site, with nearly a quarter of mobile internet consumers using it.

Other popular sites include BBC Weather and Sky Sports.

“This highlights the advantage of mobile when it comes…

1 Comment
Tags: BBC, British Broadcasting Corporation, Google, Google Inc., Kent Ferguson, mobile Internet, mobile internet consumers, Mobile internet use, mobile phones, Nielsen Online, Sports news, visited site.

Policy enlightenment

Rohan Samarajiva

on November 11, 2008

Carol Weiss says one of the most useful things researchers can do is to give policy makers the tools to think about problems. She calls this policy enlightenment, as opposed to direct policy influence.

In Sri Lanka we now make policy in the Supreme Court. This is not optimal, but it’s the way it is. Therefore, I was pleased to see that Justice Tilakawardene had used one of the analogies I had pushed hard in relation to the recent punitive measures taken against mobile phones. Today’s Lankadeepa, reporting a decision on the Defense Ministry’s effort to cancel the mobile phone service (SIMs and value) dealership of an associate of a politician who crossed over from the government, quotes the Justice as saying that just because a crime…

Comment
Tags: Carol Weiss, cellular telephone, Defense Ministry, mobile phones, policy enlightenment, policy influence, Sri Lanka, Supreme Court.

Mobile broadband to soar in Asia: GSMA

Chanuka Wattegama

on November 11, 2008

The number of subscribers to High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) services - a technology that enables broadband access on mobile phones and other computing devices - will more than double next year in Asia, according to a forecast by telco industry group GSM Association (GSMA).

In an interview with BizIT, Jaikishan Rajaraman, GSMA director of product and service development, said the number of users in Asia subscribing to HSPA will swell from 26.5 million to 53.5 million over the next 12 months. Fuelling this trend are soaring demand from both businesses and consumers, coupled with falling prices of mobile broadband services, he said. This trend is expected to be mirrored in other parts of the world, including Europe and the US.

In August, GSMA - a global…

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Tags: Asia, Australia, Broadband, broadband access, cellular telephone, Europe, GSM Association, Indonesia, Jaikishan Rajaraman, Japan, Malaysia, mobile broadband services, mobile phones, South Korea, Sri Lanka, telco industry group, United States.

Sri Lanka: No UPAHARA for farmers, fishermen, street vendors and tea pluckers

Chanuka Wattegama

on November 7, 2008

One seemingly less important budget proposal made yesterday by President Mahinda Rajapakse – many might have missed it – is the eligibility extension of the popular ‘low cost’ UPAHARA package by Mobitel to clergy and employees of co-op societies. Only public sector employees plus retirees had the privilege before.

No doubt, a private company, even a one with govt hand in it, can offer special rates for a niche market, which it finds lucrative. However, when that is recognized more as govt policy, and spelled in a budget speech, inevitably eyebrows go up and questions arise.

The most deserving beneficiaries of low cost teleuse are the poor – or the so called ‘Bottom of the Pyramid’ (BoP). That we all agree.

As LIRNEasia found from its previous Teleuse…

17 Comments
Tags: Bottom Of The Pyramid, Budget 2008, Budget speech, Mahinda Rajapakse, Ministry of Finance, mobile phones, Mobitel, Sri Lanka, telecommunication, UPAHARA.

Volunteers agree RTBP m-Health will benefit community

Nuwan Waidyanatha

on October 16, 2008

The Sarvodaya Suwadana Center Volunteers (Community Healthcare Workers) assembled at the Medical Officer of Health office in Kuliyapitya (Kurunegala District, Sri Lanka). This was a workshop organized by Sarvodaya and LIRNEasia as part of the Real-Time Biosurveillance Program (RTBP), launched in July this year - evidence based healthcare research aiming to evaluate the use of mobile phones for collecting health data and applying statistical data mining software programs for detecting emerging diseases outbreaks. This initiative is to complement the existing national disease surveillance and notification system.

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Tags: Alerting, Carnegie Mellon University Auton Lab, community healthcare, disease outbreak, e-Health, intervention, Kurunegala District, Lanka Software Foundation, m-Health, mobile phones, prevention, real-time biosurveillance program, Rural Technology and Business Incubator, Sarvodaya, Sri Lanka, statistical data mining software programs.

European Union to slash mobile charges

Chanuka Wattegama

on September 23, 2008

Proposals to slash the cost of using mobile phones abroad, for text, data and voice calls, could become law next July following a vote in Brussels.

The European Parliament is to vote on whether roaming costs for text messages should be capped.

The cost of sending a message is expected to eventually fall by 60% from an average of 23 pence to 9 pence.

Voice calls would fall from 36 to 27 pence a minute and customers would be able to set limits on data downloads.

A reluctant mobile phone industry first had limits on its roaming charges imposed by the EU in September 2007.

However, those applied only to voice calls, not those for texting or browsing the internet.

Mobile phone companies were limited to charging a maximum of around…

Comment
Tags: BBC, Brussels, cellular telephone, data and voice calls, European Parliament, European Union, mobile phones, pence, telecommunications, Viviane Reding.

Digital cigarettes

Chanuka Wattegama

on September 21, 2008

One local telco CEO recently whined about being viewed as a cigarette manufacturer. “Everybody wants to tax us, as if mobiles are a product more hazardous than cigarettes. Tobacco kills, mobiles don’t; communication facilitates better living conditions and saves environment because it reduces transport. It is gross unfair both are seen in the same light.”

As Wikipedia tells us, cigarettes are a significant source of tax revenue in many localities. This fact has historically been an impediment for health groups seeking to discourage cigarette smoking, since governments seek to maximize tax revenues. It is established that higher prices for cigarettes discourage smoking. Every 10 percent increase in the price of cigarettes reduced youth smoking by about seven percent and overall cigarette consumption by about four percent.

We…

4 Comments
Tags: Central Environmental Authority, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Women, mobile phones, Rohan Samarajiva, Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, Udaya Prabhath Gammanpila.

A world free from 9/11s and tsunamis?

Chanuka Wattegama

on September 12, 2008

Exactly seven years from yesterday (still today to some), early in the morning on September 11, 2001, nineteen hijackers took control of four commercial airliners en route to San Francisco and Los Angeles from Boston, Newark, and Washington, D.C. The hijackers flew two of the airliners, American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, into the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center. Another group of hijackers flew American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon. A fourth flight, United Airlines Flight 93, whose ultimate target was either the United States Capitol or White House, crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The rest, as we say, is history.

What 9/11 was to the West, ‘the’ tsunami was to the South. Caught unaware, more than 225,000 lives…

Comment
Tags: Alberta, Asia, Boston, Boxing Day, Colombo, communication technologies, conventional fixed wireless telephones, Gordon Gow, hazard alert systems, India, Indonesia, International Development Research Centre, Java, LIRNEasia, Los Angeles, mobile phones, Newark, Pennsylvania, Pentagon, Peter Anderson, public network, remote alarm device, SAN FRANCISCO, satellite radio, satellite technology, Shanksville, Simon Fraser University, South Towers, Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan government, Thailand, United States Capitol, University of Alberta, Very Small Aperture Terminal, VSAT, west coast, White House, World Trade Center.

‘The meek shall inherit the web’ - The Economist

Ayesha Zainudeen

on September 9, 2008

Sep 4th 2008 | From The Economist print edition

Computing: In future, most new internet users will be in developing countries and will use mobile phones. Expect a wave of innovation

THE World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the body that leads the development of technical standards for the web, usually concerns itself with nerdy matters such as extensible mark-up languages and cascading style sheets. So the new interest group it launched in May is rather unusual. It will focus on the use of the mobile web for social development—the sort of vague concept that techie types tend to avoid, because it is more than simply a technical matter of codes and protocols. Why is the W3C interested in it?

The simple answer is that the number of mobile…

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Tags: Broadband, emerging markets, Internet users, Mobile banking, mobile Internet, mobile phones, mobile Web, Mobile-web access, mobile-web users, Mobile2.0, web access.

Asia-Pacific region leads high-speed Broadband connectivity, but wide divide prevails, says ITU

Chanuka Wattegama

on September 3, 2008

While some Asia-Pacific economies are world leaders in information and communication technologies (ICT) where broadband access is ultra-high speed, affordable and close to ubiquitous, in most of the region’s poorer countries Internet access remains limited and predominantly low-speed.

This is what ITU’s Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Report for the Asia-Pacific region 2008 says. It was released at ITU TELECOM ASIA 2008, Bangkok, Thailand yesterday (Sept 2, 2008).

The Report finds evidence that ICTs and broadband uptake foster growth and development, but the question remains as to the optimal speed that should be targeted in view of limited resources.

The area in which the region really stands out is the uptake of advanced Internet technologies, especially broadband Internet access. The Asia-Pacific region is the world’s largest broadband market with a 39…

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Tags: 3G, Asia-Pacific, Bangkok, Bangladesh, Broadband, broadband access, broadband and triple-play services, broadband Internet access, broadband Internet subscribers, broadband technologies, Cambodia, China, communication services, communication technologies, continuous high-speed Internet access, desirable and valuable online services, Distance Learning, fibre optic, Fixed and mobile broadband technologies, HIGH-speed Internet access, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Internet technologies, Internet Telephony, IP telephony, ITU TELECOM, Japan, Laos, Maldives, mobile phones, Myanmar, poorer countries Internet access remains, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Thailand, the Philippines, Tonga, ubiquitous Internet access plan combining, ultra-high speed Internet applications, USD, Wi-Fi.

Sri Lanka: Now Internet porn banned, it is time to immobilise mobile porn

Chanuka Wattegama

on August 26, 2008

The war against porn continues – at full throttle. We are just twelve kilo meters away from porn-free net. Stay tuned. You may hear the good news anytime.

Meanwhile ‘National Child Protection Authority of Sri Lanka’, which claims keeping an eye on your child even when you are sleeping, wants to keep an eye on your mobile too. According to what Lakbima published today, you are not supposed to receive any porn material through SMS (sic – guess this should be MMS) or host any porn sites in your mobile. (We did not even know this was possible. All these days we thought websites are hosted on high capacity web servers, not on mobile phones. Guess this will not be good news for the server manufacturers.)

So…

9 Comments
Tags: Child Protection Authority, Dialog Telekom, mobile phones, National Child Protection Authority of Sri Lanka, porn site, SMS, Sri Lanka, web servers.

Sri Lanka: Udaya Gammanpila says Environmental Levy does not burden public

Chanuka Wattegama

on August 19, 2008

Responding to Rohan Samarajiva’s views on newly implemented Environmental levy in Lankadeepa last week, Central Environmental Authority Chairman Udaya Gammanpila calls it essential and the ‘first progressive tax’ in Sri Lanka. Assuring it does not burden public, he says any tax can be initially unpopular but the impact should be seen in long term. (Lankadeepa, August 19, 2008)

These are his points in brief:

1. If not for the Environmental levy, the government has to find money to address environmental issues by increasing either VAT or customs charges. That will raise prices in general. It is unfair. Why should villagers who have never seen a mobile phone contribute for its removal whenever they buy flour to make rotis? Instead we have introduced a tax only on pollutants.…

14 Comments
Tags: cellular telephone, Central Environmental Authority, Denmark, e-waste, electricity, India, mobile phones, Rohan Samarajiva, Rs, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Udaya Gammanpila.

Sri Lanka: Road to ‘Dharma Rajya’ does not look ‘toll-free’

Chanuka Wattegama

on August 14, 2008

Central Environmental Authority Chairman Udaya Gammanpila calls the new ‘Environmental tax’ essential, pro-poor and progressive. Releasing used mobile phones and CFL bulbs to environment is dangerous, he warns, with a long list of hazardous chemicals that would perhaps put a chemistry professor to shame. He wants to collect them for recycling. The tax money will be used to build recycling plants.

Not everybody agrees.

Talking to Sunday Observer, Chartered Accountant cum Tax Consultant N.R. Gajendran, Partner, Gajma and Co. claims the Green levies have been introduced to cover the Government’s expenditure on the SAARC Summit and the Provincial Council elections. Revenue proposals, says he, should be made through the budget and not as interim proposals.

“A mobile phone is not a luxury item. A tax on the phone will…

5 Comments
Tags: cellular telephone, Central Environmental Authority, Gajma and Co., hazardous chemicals, local language media, mobile phones, N.R. Gajendran, Provincial Council, Rohan Samarajiva, Rs, Udaya Gammanpila.

Sri Lanka: Taxing poor to clear the e-waste of rich

Chanuka Wattegama

on August 3, 2008

Two thousand and five hundred years ago, Gautama Buddha correlated tax collectors to bees. A righteous ruler, said he, taking the Liccavis as an example, collects tax without making it a burden on people, in the same was a bee collects honey from a flower (without damaging it).

Such wise words were not always heeded.

Four new levies, reported Financial Times today, will come into force this month under the Environmental Conservation Levy Act No. 8 of 2008.

All communication towers will be charged Rs 50,000, according to the Central Environmental Authority (CEA) Chairman Udaya Gammanpila, who explained it was done to ‘induce telecommunication companies to share the towers’.

Sharing telecom towers is good, but if Mr. Chairman thinks that happens just by forcing them to pay for erecting…

5 Comments
Tags: Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, CDMA, cellular telephone, Central Environmental Authority, cents, Dialog Telekom, e-waste, Financial Times, mobile phones, Rs, sound systems, Sri Lanka, Telecommunication Regulatory Authority of Sri Lanka, Udaya Gammanpila.

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