Here are the summarised results from the telecenter operator survey done by LIRNEasia at the weCan workshop in October 2008. Sample was not representative, but large enough to get a general idea about the telecenter operations in Sri Lanka.
Out of a total of 147 operators surveyed, the bulk, 101 were from Nenasalas, the 500 odd telecenter network created under the World Bank funded e-Sri Lanka programme. 10 were from Sarvodaya multi-purpose telecenters and 6 from others (eg. public libraries) 30 have not specified the type of the telecenter.
Do telecenters in Sri Lanka make money? Yes. They report an average monthly income of Rs. 22,119. (=USD 201) This is associated with a relatively large standard deviation of Rs. 21,714 (= USD 197) indicating a variation within…
Tags: Broadband, Colombo, electricity, ICT Agency, ICTA, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Internet charges, Internet services, Nenasala, odd telecenter network, print services, printing series, Rs, Sarvodaya, Sri Lanka, survey, telecenter, telecenter network, telecentre, USD, VOIP, weCAN, World Bank, World Bank The.
Telecom major Bharti Airtel on Thursday launched a Rs 200-crore (about US$ 40 million) innovation fund for promoting entrepreneurship in the telecom sector.
The objective of the fund is to provide opportunities to the entrepreneurs to undertake innovation in the field of telecom with regard to content, software and technologies, Bharti Airtel Joint MD and CEO Manoj Kohli told reporters.
This is the first ever telecom innovation fund in the country, he said.
Source: The Economics Times
New Delhi: The Indian government is set to begin here Monday the process to e-auction radio frequencies for telecom operators to start third-generation (3G) mobile services across the country and fetch the exchequer over Rs 40000 crore ($10 billion).
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) will hold a pre-bid conference here with all the potential consultants - one of whom would oversee the process to e-auction spectrum for next generation mobile applications, officials said.
Read the full story in ’sify.com’ here.
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.…
Tags: cellular telephone, Central Environmental Authority, Denmark, e-waste, electricity, India, mobile phones, Rohan Samarajiva, Rs, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Udaya Gammanpila.
We all missed the obvious flaw, but not Malinda. The full credit for detecting that you are taxed differently for the same service should go to the eighteen year old from Kurunegala - the ever vigilant consumer. He pointed out in the latest post in his local language blog for a 512/128 kpbs Wi-Max connection you may have to pay about Rs. 675 as tax (30%) but for a 512/128 kpbs ADSL connection you pay only Rs. 337.50 - half of that. (The figures might not be exact but the argument still valid)
Why a Wi-Max broadband consumer should pay 100% more tax than any of her ADSL counterpart for the same service is an interesting question. Wi-Max technology does not pollute environment more or Sri Lankan…
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…
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.
When he built Parakrama Samudraya a millennium ago, King Parakramabahu the great did not have to depend on the Internet. How lucky! Had it been so, he would have achieved few great feats. The pitiable Broadband services at Polonnaruva looked as if we have not made any advances since the days of the Great King.
Both SLT and Dialog boast about their island wide networks. These backbones, they say, are capable of delivering ‘kiri’ to rural communities too. ICTA does not let a day go without mentioning taking ICTs to villages. The reality, as we have experienced for the last three days, is different.
Apparently 3G services are unavailable in Polonnaruva. All Mobitel could deliver was GPRS at a speed less than 5 kbps. (top) Good that…
Tags: 3G, 3G services, Broadband, Colombo, Dialog, Dialog Broadband Networks, in-house wi-fi network, Mobitel, Parakramabahu, Rs, Wi-Fi.
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…
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.
Telecom sector to see funds bonanza, tariff cuts - Business News - News - MSN India - News
India’s booming mobile services market will see investments of over Rs 100,000 crore (around $24 billion) by 2010, the fastest investment ramp-up seen in any telecom market globally even as analysts predict a bruising battle that will see tariffs fall sharply.
The investments include between Rs 48,000 crore and 60,000 crore ($12 billion to $15 billion) from six new telecom players (including Reliance and Tatas’ proposed GSM mobile services) over 12 to 24 months to create capacity for 250 million more mobile subscribers.
This fresh investment will be over and above the estimated Rs 48,000 crore ($12 billion) being put in by incumbents like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone-Essar, Idea Cellular, Bharat…
State-owned telco BSNL on Monday said it plans to launch India’s biggest IPO to raise over US$10 billion. “The company is valued at well over US$100 billion. We are looking at offloading up to 10% stake, subject to government approval,” BSNL finance director S K Saxena told reporters. When asked about the development, telecom minister A Raja said: “The government is considering it (an IPO). The department of telecom (DoT) will discuss the issue and take a final decision soon”.
BSNL has an equity base of Rs 5,000 crore, which translates to a shareholding structure of 500 crore shares at a face value of Rs 10 each. BSNL executives said this would not be a disinvestment, but a dilution of stake by the government through the…
Swami is an employee of My Mobile store in Noida can tell how the mobile business at his store has been dwindling in one of the most popular markets in New Delhi region for mobile phones and its accessories. Before January, My Mobile would sell goods worth about Rs 2.5 lakh on any given Sunday but sales started dipping about four to five months ago and the Sunday before Christmas, which should have been a busy period, with sales being down in the range of Rs1 lakh. “Our future is in danger,” Swami says pointing to a Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications’ service centre that doubles as mobile phone retail store located bang opposite My Mobile outlet. The Sony store opened a year ago.
Several of the…
Tags: cellular telephone, Christmas, mobile phone retail store, mobile phones, mobile retail, mobile telephony, My Mobile, New Delhi, Rs, Sony, USD.
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) Chennai Telephones has launched ‘TV on mobile’ (through GSM mobile handsets).
At present, NDTV, Aajtak, CNBC, Cartoon Network, Times Now, Zoom, Bindass and CNN-Mobile were among the channels available. More channels would be available soon, a press release said.
To avail themselves of this service, customers using GPRS-enabled handsets need to send the text message ‘MYTV’ to 55447 and follow the response.
Watching one channel for 24 hours would cost Rs. 10 a day. For a month Rs.50 a channel would be charged and Rs. 150 a month for watching all the channels.
As an introductory offer, the service would be provided free of cost for a month from Thursday, the release said.
Report in ‘The Hindu’
Reliance Communications took the competition in domestic telecom head-on as it reported operating margins similar to bigger rival Bharti Airtel in the July-September quarter. RCom’s robust performance was aided by higher growth in its wireless and broadband services along with increased operating efficiency.
Net profit has surged 86% to Rs 1,305 crore (USD 330 mil) year-on-year backed by 30% rise in sales to Rs 4,579 crore (USD 1,166 mil). Operating profit has grown 46% while revenue from wireless business grew 45% and the broadband segment 61%.
Read the full story in ‘The Economic Times’
Meanwhile India’s largest wireless operator Bharti Airtel on Wednesday announced a 73% increase in second quarter net profit at Rs 1,617 crore (USD 412 mil) , compared to Rs 934 crore (USD 238 mil) for the quarter ended…
 |
Six water pressure sensors placed on the seabed in the southern Bay of Bengal and northern Arabian Sea will act as sentinels in India’s tsunami early warning system, which was formally inaugurated today.
The sensors — four in the Bay and two in the Arabian Sea — will look for changes in ocean water level and send readings via satellite to the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) in Hyderabad, the hub for the system.
The Rs 125-crore early warning system will also use a network of seismic stations, tide gauges and computer simulations based on seabed studies to issue alerts about tsunamis — waves sometimes triggered by undersea earthquakes.
|
Continue reading “Tsunami sentinels on duty under sea - Six sensors in place, six more to…
A member of the Presidential Commission on the Tsunami has written an informative article on floods, dam breaches and the lack of warning about them. Twenty one years after Kantale, 2.5 years after the tsunami, 1.5 years after we handed over our extensive report on dam safety to the Disaster Management Center, more sensible writing on the subject. The analysis is done, the remedies known, now is the time for implementation.
To understand the following story better, it is useful to compare the budget for dam safety in Sri Lanka which is LKR 15 million a year or slightly over LKR 1.2 million a month with say the purchase price of a unregistered car (cannot buy one with the budget for dam safety for one month) or…
Recent Comments