LIRNEasia’s preliminary round of mobile broadband quality testing in selected locations in Western Province unveils both hopes and issues. The good news is that the quality of both key pre-paid mobile broadband services is satisfactory, in majority of locations. However, unusual quality drops in several places indicates that this performance is not always a certainty. In general, a mobile broadband user in Western Province can expect a reasonable quality unless a rare issue like the distance from a tower or a higher number of simultaneous users hinders it.

LIRNEasia tested the broadband quality of the popular pre-paid High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) broadband connections of the two key providers. Packages offered by the third provider were not tested only because the operator prevented pinging from outside the network. Mobile test applications newly developed and released by Zamsana PLC, were used on mobile handsets for testing. To further simulate the true conditions the tests were done on public transport.

We saw little reason testing mobile broadband quality from fixed locations. It should be done on the move as that is how it is used. We could have done it from a car, but purposely did it from a bus to examine how conditions beyond our control can affect the performance.

Testers used mobile test applications developed for Symbian and Windows CE, the two most popular mobile operating systems used in Sri Lanka. They took both stationary and on the move readings at key points along four main roads from Colombo to Kalutara, Negombo, Avissawella and Nittambuwa. Apart from the download and upload speeds, the two most common parameters the tools recorded Return Trip Time or RTT (the time taken by data packets to reach a destination server and return), Jitter (the variation in RTT), Packet Loss (what percentage of packets were lost on the way) and the availability. The actual values were compared with the promises of the operators or, if no operator specifications were available against international standards.

Mobile broadband quality testing is a part of LIRNEasia’s broadband Quality of Service Experience (QoSE) benchmarking work. With its partner organization‐ the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, LIRNEasia has been testing broadband quality since the beginning of 2008. The first tests were conducted manually. Later the test methodology was standardized and a software application was developed to get more accurate results. First round of testing was done only in Colombo and Chennai, but now the scope is expanded to cover New Delhi, Dhaka, Mumbai and Bangalore.

A direct approach to monitor Quality of Service Experience (QoSE) would be for the regulator to reach deep into the innards of the telecom network to install monitoring equipment and take remedial actions as per the licenses or the governing statute whenever the data indicate below‐standard performance, says LIRNEasia. Dearth of financial and human resources can be a key challenge for such an approach. The second approach is based largely on user activism. Educated users are expected to voluntarily contribute their time and computing resources towards building a performance database which in turn will be used in creating the bigger picture.

A comprehensive methodology to benchmark Broadband Quality of Service Experience (QoSE), based on the latter approach has been developed jointly by LIRNEasia and the TeNeT Group of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT‐M). While there is no barrier for regulators to use it, the methodology is largely user centric. Instead of depending on one time pinging, this methodology uses AT‐Tester, an open source software tool to monitor all crucial QoSE broadband metrics over a longer period, on both weekends and weekdays, covering peak as well as off‐peak traffic. The traffic is also monitored within segments, ISP, local and international.

(The figure above shows the average peak time download speed to an international server offered by the pre‐paid mobile broadband packages of the two key mobile broadband providers on a selected date. The ceiling is the promised speed of 1 Mbps. Speeds may vary depending upon the type of the handset, time of the day, number of simultaneous users connected to a tower and the weather conditions. Please click on image for an enlarged version.)

The Health Workers collecting data in Sri Lanka are trained youth, in primary healthcare, belonging to the Sarvodaya Shanthi Sena Movement. Before the project they had not known each other. Now they have formed a social network to SMS each other of any health related issues or other. The same was not found with the Village Health Nurses and Publich Health Clinic staff in India. However, the Deputy Director of Health Services office, in Sivagangai, use www.way2sms.com, a SMS service offered (limited to 40 free SMS per day) in India, to schedule their monthly, weekly, or emergency meetings.

The project will be introducing a Common Alerting Protocol based SMS/Email/Web alert publishing module that is part of the Sahana Free and Open Source Software. In general both public health departments in India and Sri Lanka are in favor of an alerting/messaging system to communicate downstream with health workers at all layers.

From 15 – 23 June, Gordon Gow and I visit several, real-time biosurveillance program, pilot project sites in Kurunegala District, Sri Lanka and Sivaganaga District, State of Tamil Nadu, India. To learn more on the observations made, click to see the full report.

In addition reports provided by Sarvodaya and RTBI

1) Sarvodaya meetings report, Sri Lanka

2) RTBI meetings report, India

Is broadband quality a subject of interest only to urban top-of-the ladder users?

Not necessarily. With the latest developments in telecom services broadband access is increasingly becoming a reality to rural populations as well, even in developing countries. The penetration levels might not be the same but should that mean quality should be compromised for rural users?

Broadband quality is critical for telecenters where a link is usually shared.

LIRNEasia introduces its AT-Tester software application for any users to find out how far the operators keep their promises for quality broadband. This is developed using open source software by a group of researchers from IIT Madras and available freely for download from www.broadbandasia.info.

The tests can be conducted by any user, with least effort and within few minutes. No more than basic computer literacy is required. All you need is a PC running Windows XP connected to Internet. (Other operating systems will be supported in near future).

AT-Tester is different from popular broadband performance testing tools (speedtest.net, for example) because:

• It is more accurate: AT-Tester measures the throughput rates while actually downloading/uploading files. It does not calculate them using empirical formulae and ping data.

• It is more comprehensive: Unlike most other tools, AT-Tester does not confine testing to an end server. It tests the throughput to three servers, namely (a) the local ISP; (b) another server within the same country and (c) a server in US. This helps pinpointing the bandwidth bottlenecks.

• It tests more parameters namely,

i. Download speed (kbps/Mbps)
ii. Upload Speed (kbps/Mbps)
iii. RTT (milli seconds)
iv. Jitter (milli seconds)
v. Packet-Loss (%)
vi. Availability (%)

The software is developed in such a manner that minimal configuration is required by the user.

The software is already customized to be used by the telecenter operators in Sri Lanka. They can report the performance results district-wise. (For example, a telecenter operator in Panamura can report under Ratnapura, not Colombo) Our objective is to develop a more descriptive picture of broadband performance instead of depending solely on testing in major cities.

Telecenter operator in any country can use this but needs a prior customization. (We will ask you some fundamental information like your ISP, promised speeds of the package and location) Unlike incase of speedtest.net we need this information as we go deeper in our testing. It can be done with least hassle for any country on request.

For more information Please write to: chanuka [at] gmail [dot] com

First Talk – The m-Health RTBP will be evaluating CAP or EDXL (Emergency Data Exchange Language) as means for disseminating health risk information to local health officials and community health care workers. Currently, the National Epidemiology Unit, in Sri Lanka, publishes a “Weekly Epidemiological Report” on the world wide web, a pdf file that can only be viewed on a personal computer. Paper copies of the same are delivered via postal mail to the relevant health officials. The latency in gathering the epidemiological data, analyzing, publishing, and disseminating is delayed as much as up to 3 weeks. The m-Health RTBP will adopt mobile phones with a manifold penetration over costly DSL or UMTS with bulky PCs for gathering field level health data and receiving health reports. The project has already designed a way to use CAP elements to carry information both for sharing weekly epidemiological data relevant to recipient’s area and issuing instant alert in the event of an urgent priority health crisis. The presentation titled: “Use of CAP for disease notification” explains the process of adopting CAP for serving both purposes.Some of the possible problems the project may face is – making the health officials or stakeholders understand the beauty of CAP, HCI aspects of designing effective CAP messages to fit Mobile2.0@BOP affordable handsets, and uncertainties of users accepting CAP messages.

Second Talk – The HazInfo project field tested five wireless technologies for the purpose of serving the last-mile communities in receiving risk information; especially those natural hazards, such as tsunamis, that give very little time to respond to. The HazInfo project ran for just over two years ending in March 2008; experimented with CAP as a standard for issuing alerts to the last-mile communities. CAP having emerged in 2005 with the more stable version 1.1 being released in 2006 had several drawbacks when tested in a non English speaking environment over non internet and personal computer based technologies like mobile phones, fixed phones, and satellite radios in Sri Lanka.

Given, ninety nine percent of the people in Sri Lanka are literate in Sinhala and Tamil languages and less than forty percent of the population are competent in English, alerts received in the English language in last-mile rural communities were of no use. The community members insisted that messages be delivered to them in the local language or not delivered at all. The dilemma at the Hazard Information Hub (HIH), situated at the Sarvodaya headquarters in Moratuwa, were presented with the difficult task of translating the English script global alerts, from organizations such as USGS or IOTWS bulletins, in to the two main local languages. Moreover, the challenge was in fitting the email bulletins in to CAP compliant format. Extracting the elements to describe the <urgency>, <severity>, and <certainty> to encode the priority of the alert was cumbersome. The HazInfo project had established a benchmark of completing the HIH tasks of translating, formatting, and disseminating the CAP messages in less than ten percent of the time of the crisis window to get the message across to the last-mile communities giving them ample time to execute their emergency response plans.

Inability of terminal devices to receive complete CAP messages in local languages resulted in the last-mile community first responders misinterpreting the message and executing the wrong emergency response actions. In several occasions during simulated drills in the communities, when they were presented with a “category 4 cyclone” alert they responded to a “tsunami warning” with rapid evacuations to higher grounds instead of securing the homes for cyclone weather and seeking shelter.

The lessons learned from the HazInfo project has given reasons for the need and design aspects for a “CAP Broker”, which was addressed to WMO through the presentation titled: “P2P Multilanguage CAP Broker“. The idea is to build the CAP Broker as a Free and Open Source Software in to the Sahana Messaging Module, which already contains a CAP Template/Message generator developed by Lanka Software Foundation at the request of the HazInfo project, GPRS/SMS Messaging engine developed by Respere at the request of LIRNEasia to be made available free for the Gov of Sri Lanka to adopt. The Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) is the process of developing a Chat and CAP over High Frequency (HF) Radio module in to Sahana suite of messaging engines with the use of Pactor modem and a HF gateway. These are few of the many elements that are in place. There are other elements that make the CAP Broker whole, such as a Natural Language Translation engines for speedy translations and audio-to-text and text-to-audio transformers. It is my quest to locate funding to materialize the research to develop the remaining CAP Broker elements to provide a comprehensive solution for the world use.

CAP, an OASIS initiative now adopted by ITU, was the theme at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) organized CAP Implementers Workshop 08 – 10, December 2009. Participants from several international organizations and countries presented their cases to the audience. Due to reasons, I was unable to attend the workshop but was given the opportunity to make my two presentations remotely over the phone. Given the caliber of the delegates and material presented on the relevant subject I wish I had the capacity to attend in person.

“I came more to learn from you; than to teach” was the message I passed before my two presentations with Sujata. Thanks Fusion/Telecentre.org for the opportunity. The three days spent with 200+ telecenter operators from eight provinces in Sri Lanka was a worthy investment. One does not interact with so many ground level ICT4D practitioners every day. It was a learning experience, for them; and for us.

From what I saw (and heard from others) the workshop, ‘weCAN: Social Enterprise with a Triple Bottom Line’ the second in the series of capacity building workshops of the Telecenter family of Sri Lanka was a grand success. Organized by Fusion/Telecentre.org (and funded by IDRC), we met at MIMT (MAS Institute of Management and Technology), Thulhiriya for four days (two batches). Plan was to amass 400 of telecenter operators from eight out of nine provinces of Sri Lanka but the recent floods in many parts of the island have stood in their way.

200+ participants was not bad. It was a mixed group gender and ethnically balanced. We had mainly ‘Nenasala’ and Sarvodaya multipurpose telecenter operators, but there were few odds too- like those who represented the telecenters at public libraries.

So what did I learn?

More will surely come when LIRNEasia survey results are analysed, but just Four Lessons, for the moment.

Lesson No. 1 (Good News!): GREAT THINGS HAPPEN AT GROUND LEVEL.

More than 50% of the crowd were newbies – either those who have started recently or who run more a ‘hand to mouth’ existence – but on the other hand, successful telecenter operators were not that rare a commodity, as many would think. I picked eight guys who are doing excellent. (Sadly no gender balance here, but things will surely change with many innovative ladies entering to telecenter space.)

Inter alia, we have heard the stories of Kathivan from Badulla whose telecenter earned LKR 300,000 (> USD 3,000) in one month; of U.M.G.Prasad from Sevanagala who uses Internet to link job seekers in his community with prospective employers (This clips tells more: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqwU6k8Y35E); of Noel Tharmarathnam from Trocomalee who opens the doors of online IT exams to a post-conflict society (“I have to keep a low profile” he tells me over lunch, “…if I try to do too many things; I might not see tomorrow”); of Sanjeewa Kumarathunga from Nivithigala who told us about his efforts to help agriculture activities of the community and of Jayantha Wickramaratne from Panamura who runs a BPO operation. Congrats guys, and I hope the others have learnt from your experience.

Lesson No. 2 (Good News!): TELECENTER FAMILY OF SRI LANKA IS WELL CONNECTED THROUGH SOCIAL NETWORKING.

Try www.tcf.lk. Not everybody is there yet. Neither every member is a telecenter operator per se. (There are people like myself – who spend more time at our desks than at telecenters) Still, a good start. With this, Telecenter family becomes perhaps the first group in Sri Lanka to *officially* exploit the full features of Social Networking. Glad to see it happening in a place where many consider Social Networking is just for fun. I guess the credits go to Isura for creating this great platform.

Lesson No. 3 (Bad News!): NOT EVERYBODY IS CONNECTED.

This was a real eye opener. I thought Internet connectivity is central to telecenter operation. Without connectivity, a place with few computers does not become a ‘tele-center’. I was wrong. Some ‘telecenters’ in Sri Lanka have neither Internet nor e-mail. There are two groups – the recent additions who eagerly wait till ICTA responds to their numerous requests, and those who once had Internet facilities but now isolated because of an operator/technology transition. One can just forget it attributing to bureaucracy, poor planning and attitude problems. Can they too, who interact with communities on daily basis? What can a telecenter offer with no Internet? Are PCs only to learn inserting clipart on PowerPoint slides? I am not sure whether ICTA is aware that Internet is cut off from some telecenters for months. (Classic case was NINE months). Please do something, fast! Bits and Bytes are the food of net life and if deprived one can starve faster than we think.

Lesson No. 4 (Bad News): MOST TELECENTERS IN SRI LANKA RUN PIRATED PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE.

This is sad, but true. Out of 200+ operators none claimed using original versions or FOSS. With pirated versions no longer publicly sold on CDs (as a result of recent raids) a telecenter operator has to be innovative in finding solutions. I met few ‘gurus of pirated software’ who know A-Z from best download sites to cracking codes. Many think these as ‘originals’.

When asked when or whether ICTA intends to provide licensed versions of these to them, all what its representative has to say was (a) this was an issue from the beginning; (b) ICTA has no solution yet and (c) he needs to talks to his boss, who he thinks may have an answer. (I doubt!)

My question is why donors spend millions of Dollars on Free and Open Source Software if they are not used at ground level. As we say in Sinhala, use a sword has if not for war?

Enough for now. More later, with figures. Please watch his space.

Not that we are offended. Cloud computing is not our religion – it is just an experiment – part of our research. We may be proved wrong – but at least not so far. We are glad we use the model.

Here is how we, at LIRNEasia, use ‘CLOUD’ Computing:

This blog itself is in the CLOUD (WordPress, to be specific)

All our documents are in the CLOUD (Scribd)

All our photos are in the CLOUD (Flickr)

All our video clips are in the CLOUD (You Tube)

All our databases are in the CLOUD (Here is one: http://www.asianict.lirneasia.org)

Then, we plan to go further in this research cycle by contributing more to:

(a) Wikipedia, a CLOUD (One example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_of_service_experience) and
(b) Others’ blogs – another CLOUD

In short, LIRNEasia is an organization that runs – on CLOUD – without a single central physical server. All what we have are our laptops which we use to directly access the CLOUD. (ie. without going through a Local Area Network) So whatever we do; eat, sleep and dance we do it in the CLOUD.

Why LIRNEasia takes CLOUD COMPUTING so seriously?

We saw the potential at very begining. It is the only way a regional research organization without a large IT budget could survive, let alone operate. We were proved correct. (Out IT budget is only for our laptops and three broadband connections. Why three? – Redundancy. When CLOUD is everything for us, better not take chances)

Perhaps RMS might want to have a look at our Virtual Organisation Report which we did to share our experience with similar organisations. Dated April 2008, it is bit outdated now – we have come a long way since then. (Yes, many things can happen in five months, like increasing the hit rate of our site by 50%) Still it is a document worth reading.

We proudly recommend it for anyone who does not want to spend dollars on proprietary hardware to get rid of proprietary software! Thanks RMS, for the opportunity!

LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE – LBO

A Google-led international alliance announced Monday it is releasing open-source software that will free developers to bring the full power of desktop computing to mobile devices.

The Open Handset Alliance bills “Android” as the first comprehensive mobile operating platform that software developers are free to adapt in any ways they wish for video, audio, social networking and other features.

“We are developing a very open system and will distribute all the codes to allow people to innovate on mobile devices,” Google co-founder Serge Brin said in a conference call with the press and other alliance members.

“I’m really excited about this and I can’t wait to see what the next generation of innovators is able to do with these tools.”

Powered by ScribeFire.

The Ubuntu Mobile and Embedded project aims to create the open source platform for initial release in October 2007. The operating system will be developed by members of the Ubuntu community, along with staff from chip giant Intel. Its development was prompted by the growth of power hungry portable devices that place new demands on software.

“It is clear that new types of device – small, handheld, graphical tablets which are Internet-enabled – are going to change the way we communicate and collaborate,” said Ubuntu CTO Matt Zimmerman.

“These devices place new demands on open-source software and require innovative graphical interfaces, improved power management and better responsiveness.”

Mobile firms such as Nokia are already using open source technologies in some of its products. Ubuntu is already a popular choice of operating system on desktop and laptop computers. In contrast to offerings from companies such as Microsoft that earn money by licensing and charging for use of their products, Linux code is freely available.

That means anyone can modify it or develop applications for it. As a result, there are many different types, or distributions, of Linux operating systems.

The driving force behind the Ubuntu project is Mark Shuttleworth, one of the world’s first space tourists.

The self-made millionaire from South Africa founded the firm Canonical in 2004 to promote and support open source software projects.

The firm’s partnership with Intel to develop the mobile operating system is just the latest deal with some of the powerhouses of the technology world.

In April this year, Ubuntu announced a deal with Dell, the world’s second largest manufacturer of PCs, to offer certain computers with the operating system preinstalled.

“We are delighted to be working with Intel on this version of Ubuntu,” said Mr Zimmerman. “Intel is making significant contributions of technology, people and expertise to the project.”

The chip-maker has already shown off a device running a prototype of the Ubuntu mobile platform.

At a recent meeting Intel CEO Paul Otellini held up a prototype device, like a large cell phone, running the system, although he said it was also capable of running versions of Microsoft’s Windows.

Intel is keen to grab a slice of the fast growing market for net-enabled phones and devices.

It has already endorsed another open source project to develop applications for mobile devices known as the Gnome Mobile & Embedded Initiative (GMAE).

The firm also recently unveiled plans for a tiny low-energy chip designed specifically for mobiles and portable computers.

Codenamed Silverthorn, the chips will be one-seventh the size of conventional processors and consume just 10% of the power, Intel said.

Hardware developments such as this are important to maximise battery life for portable devices that are required to run increasingly sophisticated software and deliver relatively power-hungry applications like the web.

The new Ubuntu platform will also aim to maximise energy efficiency whilst offering a graphical interface designed specifically for the small screen.

More details of the new operating system will be announced at the Ubuntu Developer Summit being held in Seville, Spain from 06 to 11 May.

An initial version will be released in October this year.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6634195.stm