Strange will be the telecom world in emerging markets.
Free incoming calls are the norm in many counties. Ever thought it can get even better? Operator paying the mobile users for incoming? Where on earth such crazy things happen?
Answer: In India.
Virgin Mobile pays 10 paise (about 0.25 US cents) for every incoming call minute a user gets. (In other words, boss calling to lecture you for ten minutes, will make you richer by one Rupee)
Where is the catch? Has Virgin Mobile CEO gone insane? Or does he mint coins?
Department of Telecommunication (DoT) India thinks Virgin Mobile can do that because its actual call termination costs are less than what it receives as termination charges– 30 paise per minute. Simple maths. If the costs are less than…
New disaster warning technology on anvil-India-The Times of India
AREA is expected to deliver the ‘disaster alert’ within seconds of its transmission from the authorised authority and also has the provision to get connected to a siren.Further, the device can be powered by small solar panels and the antennas are compact in size. In normal times, the system can be used for infotainment purposes.
“The receiver automatically turns on even when it is not in use at the time of the alert,” Rangarajan added.
In terms of cost, each system would be costing a few thousand rupees depending on AREA configuration — whether it is attached to a computer or a fixed location, with public address for the community, among others.
AREA is the result of a joint effort…
LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE - LBO
Sri Lanka’s top celco Dialog Telekom wants to collect a million old phones and recycle them in the next two years in an initiative that will keep dangerous heavy metals from contaminating the environment, officials said.
Phone batteries for example have heavy metals such a lead, nickel and cadmium. Dialog is collecting old phones and accessories from today.
“In Sri Lanka there are about 10 million mobile phones, and mobile phones become obsolete in two to three years,” says Michael de Soyza from Dialog who heads the project.
“Though some are handed down to friends and siblings, eventually they are discarded and are disposed of through the garbage collection system.”
Starting today, at 14 Dialog offices, old phones would be collected. For every phone handed…
Does not compute | Economist.com
“PROLIXITY is not alien to us in India,” admits Amartya Sen in his essay “The Argumentative Indian”. “We do like to speak.” He supports his contention with quotations from India’s classical texts, but it is also borne out by India’s phone habits.
The average owner of a mobile handset spends 471 minutes (almost eight hours) on the phone each month, and sends 39 text messages. Those numbers do not capture other, more ingenious, uses for the device. For example, autorickshaw drivers will tell passengers to “hit me with a missed” (ie, call my mobile and hang up before I answer) when they want to be picked up for the journey home. Such tactics dent the phone companies’ revenues. They now earn under…
Strange is the day I come out in support of taxes; and today is very strange.
But please read this in context: we wish the 10% tax had not been imposed on mobiles; but there was absolutely no reason to tax mobile while exempting fixed; that is why I support the extension of the tax to fixed CDMA. But for some reason the government seems to have difficulty in doing anything right the first time.
Why, for God’s sake protect fixed wireline? These are most privileged people in the country. If you taxing wireless, tax wireline too. Then, as quickly as possible, take off the taxes.
LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE - LBO
The Sri Lankan government Wednesday said it would extend a 10 percent tax on mobile phones…
LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE - LBO
Sri Lanka has dropped a controversial fixed levy from mobile phones which would have hit the poorest phone users the hardest, but slapped a 7.5 percent tax on calls, telecom minister Rauf Hakeem told parliament Thursday.The government initially proposed a fixed 50 rupee charge which would have hit the poorest or ‘bottom of the pyramid’ users hardest, as well as tripling a usage based charge from 2.5 percent to 7.5 percent.
Unfair Charge
Telecom analysts pointed out that at one network where the average spend per pre-paid user was just 311 rupees, taxes would take away 110 rupees.
Hakeem told parliament that a 7.5 percent proposed charge had now been increased to 10 percent following discussion with President Mahinda Rajapaksa last night and the…
LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE - LBO
So this column is in no way an objection to taxes. But it is an objection to certain kinds of counterproductive and unfair taxes: the kinds of taxes that are to be debated in Parliament on the 6th of September, specifically:
• The tripling from 2.5 percent to 7.5 percent of the “Cellular Mobile Telephone Subscriber Levy” on the phone charges paid on every one of 5.9 million plus mobile SIM cards in operation; and
• The imposition of a regressive, usage-insensitive 50 rupee tax on the above mobiles subscriptions.
These taxes are akin to harassing the goose that is laying the golden eggs; while leaving alone the duck that is laying ordinary eggs. The former act is, as everyone who has read the…
For those who believed that privacy issues will take a long time come up in South Asia . . . The relevant definition is “the ability to control the boundary conditions of social interactions.”
BBC NEWS | South Asia | India cell phone curbs welcomed
Indian cellular phone companies and phone users have welcomed a government move to curb unsolicited calls and text messages from tele-marketers.The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India said on Tuesday that in three months time subscribers would be able to register on a “do not call” list.
Firms breaking the rules face a fine of 500 rupees ($13) for each call or text.
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We have periodically carried stories on non-traditional uses of mobiles. Here is one about buying accident insurance that are bought and paid for through the mobiles.
LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE - LBO
The accident insurance cover package premiums are priced between five and 20 rupees which can be paid at any Dialog reload centre in Sri Lanka that entitles the connection holder up to 50,000 rupees worth of claims.
The accident cover targets the population who does not have comprehensive knowledge of insurance and low-income families.
Customers can apply for the ‘eZ insurance’ cover at the time of a reload and the cover expires when the credit of the reload finishes.
“eZ insurance is a manifestation of the deployment of advanced electronic commerce infrastructure towards enhancing the affordability and availability of…
Sri Lanka: Cutting it
Mobile phone use is taking off in Sri Lanka – though not, perhaps, in ways that service operators might have hoped.
FROM THE ECONOMIST INTELLIGENCE UNIT
In the world’s poorer countries, the purchase of a mobile phone has become increasingly affordable. Using it, however, can still be a struggle. Low-income mobile phone owners in Sri Lanka are getting around this problem with a novel method for keeping costs down.
Known as ring cutting, mobile phone subscribers rely on ring tones to communicate with others, rather than actually staying on the line to talk. By a pre-arranged signal that will convey the desired message – “two rings means I’m home” – callers negate the need for a conversation. They simply hang up as soon as the…
Tags: Anuradhapura, Bharti Airtel, CDMA, CDMA technology, cellular services, cellular telephone, cheaper technology, Colombo, e-village, electricity supply, GSM, Harsha de Silva, Horizon Lanka Foundation, India, Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri, INTELLIGENCE UNIT
Sri Lanka, Internet Telephony, IP telephony, mobile phone networks, outdoor wireless computer network, Pakistan, rupee, Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka Telecommunications Regulatory Commission, telecommunications infrastructure, Thailand, the Philippines, United States, USD, Vilpattu jungle, wired network, workable solution.
Looks like we have a virtuous cycle of investment going on. Not only the mobiles, but the fixed operators too are engaging in significant investment. Possibly the unusual predilection of the Sri Lankan consumer for fixed phones, over mobile, keeps Suntel going.
For those not from Sri Lanka, 1 USD = 106 LKR, just lopping off two zeros will you a good sense of what is being discussed.
LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE - LBO
Telecom operator Suntel, a unit of Sweden’s Overseas Telecom AB, plans to spend 3.5 billion rupees next year to expand its network, officials said Friday.
Suntel which uses a combination of traditional wireless and a mobile wireless technology known as CDMA, had spent around 3.0 billion rupees this year to extend services to remote…
From Lanka Business Online
Streaming Fast
28 September 2006 19:00:19
Sri Lanka Telecom links up with India’s BSNL to offer wider choice
September 28 2006 (LBO) – India’s Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited Thursday officially kicked off a 1.8 billion rupee undersea cable unit with Sri Lanka Telecom, which will bring down call rates between South Asian countries.
The optical fibre cable, which run between Mt Lavinia (Sri Lanka) and Tuticorin in India, will enable SLT customers to enjoy high speed broadband services such as audio and video streaming.
Read full article on LBO
LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE - LBO
Sri Lanka’s biggest mobile-phone operator Dialog Telekom Thursday slashed outgoing call charges by as much as 50 percent as the firm stepped up its expansion drive in the country.
Call charges within the network from 11.00 pm to 6.00 am will go down by 50 percent to 2.00 rupees, while rates for outgoing peak calls have been cut by an average 30 percent, officials said.
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