“… Early on one of the members posted “Is there any use of these posts? Does our minister have time to read Facebook?” The Minister replied by posting “every message is read by me and my staff”. This modest gesture satisfied the emergency-room staff that their concerns were being taken seriously by the Department of Health, and further motivated them to engage in discussing the issue…“; The Lancet, Volume 377, Issue 9783,

Click to read full story

MediaTek’s strategists and engineers figured out a way to design a much less expensive phone system. First, they designed inexpensive chipsets. Then they developed phone board designs using these chipsets and other phone components, and put together a software package for these phones. They also decoupled the phones from the carriers. (This decoupling has given rise to a grey market for mobile phones in emerging markets.) Finally, they licensed the hardware and software together as a “ready-made” kit to smaller phone manufacturers (OEMs), some of whom had no experience building phones.

The result? The mobile phone market, once dominated by close partnerships between wireless carriers and big OEMs, is seeing tremendous competition from newer manufacturers, some of which are literally running their businesses from their garages. In China alone, there are several thousand manufacturers who develop phones using MediaTek’s chipsets.

The present day challenges that countries like Taiwan and Japan face, also propagating in to other Asian countries, are increase in chronic illnesses, aging population, and need for convenience. Within this frame, researchers are realizing the growing need for remote sensing and maintenance of health; such remote maintenance ICT based services would reduce patient admissions (or inward patients), which countries like India, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, etc, fully subsidize and can be drastically reduced.

The mHealthSurvey has proven the capability to transport digitized data compressed to ~ 2KB over GPRS-10 and higher networks in rural India and Sri Lanka. The mHealthSurvey data capacity which is far less than the BAN requirement of 10Mbps for low power devices. Unfortunately this Ultra-wide-band cannot transport data long distances (i.e. BAN range is 2 meters – the length from tip to tip when arms are extended laterally way from body). Therefore, BAN uses mobiles phones as an inter-mediator to take care of the, information transport, long hauls; i.e. from the subject (human) to the healthcare service providers located several kilometers away.

The report – Mobile2.0@BOP mHealth Project’s ISMICT conference participation report provides more insight on the discussions that took place between 02- 05 Apr 2010.

Click to view my slides.

So it is possible that Dhiraagu was unaffected. Can readers from the Maldives shed some light on what actually happened. Second mystery is why Taiwan is affected from a Mediterranean cable cut, when it is practically the gateway for the Pacific cables.

Most business-to-business traffic between Europe and Asia was being rerouted through the United States, the firm said, but regular communications between Europe and several Asian countries has been disrupted since early Friday.

Sixty-five per cent of traffic to India was down, while services to Singapore, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Taiwan and Pakistan were also severely affected, a spokesman said Friday evening.

An afternoon toll released by France Telecom said that 100 percent of traffic was lost in the Maldives Indian Ocean islands, with the Gulf state of Qatar and Djibouti, on the Gulf of Aden, also losing over 70 percent of their traffic.

The full story from LBO.

In his presentation titled Backbone of convergence: Getting the foundation right, Divakar argued that without sufficient “big pipes” (domestic and international backbone) the potential of convergence and NGN services will not be realized. Indonesia’s inadequate international backbone infrastructure and high prices have acted as a bottleneck to the development of the Internet in the country. For example, Indonesia’s international private leased line circuit (IPLC) to Singapore costs 21 times the price of equivalent service from India based on route kilometers. Divakar contented that the Government’s plan of licensing one additional international operator will neither stimulate international gateway infrastructure nor bring down international bandwidth prices sufficiently.

His policy recommendation was that Indonesia’s international gateway needed to be fully liberalized. It is a win-win for the Government that gains increased revenue from grey market traffic that comes into the legal channel, more international infrastructure gets built and more cables land into the country improving redundancy and resiliency of the network to outages (a la Taiwan earthquake of Dec 26, 2006), it lowers Internet connectivity and IDD prices for consumers and most operators gain from improved international access and lower wholesale prices.
About a week after the Summit, DGPOSTEL, one of two ICT regulatory bodies in Indonesia, proposed an amendment to Article 35 of Regulation 20 that would allow domestic leased line providers to connect directly to an international cable or set-up its own landing stations to land cables to provide international private leased circuits. Voice is excluded from this service for which one needs to have an IDD license. This amendment is targeted for international data connectivity to bring down international bandwidth charges. There are about four to five domestic leased line providers who can take advantage of this amendment.

Currently there is a duopoly (PT Telkom and PT Indosat) in the IPLC market. This amendment falls short of full liberalization of Indonesia’s IGW but may be a baby step towards reducing the outrageously high bandwidth prices in Indonesia.

Zimbabwe, the country that leads all of South Asia according to the ITU, is not in the top- 70 that is provided. Nigeria, on the other hand, is just behind Sri Lanka, at 62. Unless some action is taken, next year, both Nigeria and Pakistan will be ahead of Sri Lanka.

PRESS RELEASE Asian Countries Advance in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2007 E-Readiness Rankings, as the Goalposts of Digital Leadership Shift

E-readiness continues to improve around the world in 2007, but achieving it is becoming more complex. To reflect this, the Economist Intelligence Unit has “raised the bar” of e-readiness by modifying its ranking methodology. This change in methodology, along with underlying improvements in individual countries, has led to changes in the league table. Several countries, particularly in Asia, have seen their positions improve, while others have experienced (mostly slight) declines. At the same time, the fundamental tenets of e-readiness remain unchanged, and the leaders in 2006 are still leaders today — nine of last year’s top ten countries remain in that bracket.Denmark and the US retain their number one and two spots in the rankings (with Sweden also tied for 2nd), but Hong Kong (4th), Singapore (6th), South Korea (16th), Taiwan (17th) and Japan (18th) have experienced a boost in 2007 in both scores and ranks. This is due in no small part to their governments’ vision and commitment in pushing digital development, and to continued progress in adoption of broadband and other advanced infrastructure.

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These disruptions have major consequences for any business that relies on telecom for delivering their services, including, banking, trading, call centers, remotely managed services etc. This event also underlines the necessity for redundancy and why policymakers and regulators must liberalize international gateways to allow a number of different submarine cables connecting different destinations to land in a country.
From Bloomberg:

Damaged cables include the APCN2 cable and Sea-Me-We3 cables, Chunghwa’s Leng said. Eight STM-1 cables from Okinawa off Japan and 4 STM-1 cables to Shanghai are acting as backup, Chunghwa said in a statement. The company may also use the ST-1 satellite.
Singapore Telecom, France Telecom SA and Pakistan Telecommunication Co. are among companies that own the Sea-Me-We3 cables linking Europe to Asia. Operators in the APCN2 cable network that connects Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore include China Unicom Ltd., StarHub Ltd., Telekom Malaysia Bhd. and Telstra Corp.
[..]“The repairs could take two to three weeks,” said Leng Tai-feng, president of Chunghwa Telecom Co.’s international business. The Taipei-based company, Taiwan’s largest phone operator, said two of its undersea cables were cut.
HSBC Holdings Plc said its online banking services were down, while Chunghwa said almost no calls could be made to Southeast Asia, causing disruption to companies including First State Investments in Singapore.
“I can’t trade if I don’t know the prices,” said David Leong, who heads the Singapore trading desk at First State, which manages $15 billion in equities in Asia and emerging markets. “I’ve put in limit orders to try to minimize the damage, but even then you need to have the basic information.”

Looks like this will change the nature of the debate.   The report states that Intel and Microsoft are not happy with Negoponte’s baby. 

For $150, Third-World Laptop Stirs a Big Debate – New York Times

Mary Lou Jepsen, the chief technologist for the project, likes to refer to the insight that transformed the machine from utopian dream to working prototype as “a really wacky idea.”

Ms. Jepsen, a former Intel chip designer, found a way to modify conventional laptop displays, cutting the screen’s manufacturing cost to $40 while reducing its power consumption by more than 80 percent. As a bonus, the display is clearly visible in sunlight.

That advance and others have allowed the nonprofit project, One Laptop Per Child, to win over many skeptics over the last two and a half years. Five countries — Argentina, Brazil, Libya, Nigeria and Thailand — have made tentative commitments to put the computers into the hands of millions of students, with production in Taiwan expected to begin by mid-2007.

The laptop does not come with a Microsoft Windows operating system or even a hard drive, and the screen is small. And the cost is now closer to $150 than $100. But the price tag, even compared with low-end $500 laptops now widely available, transforms the economic equation for developing countries.

Discussion of the paper to be presented by Rohan Samarajiva at the Digital Opportunity Forum, South Korea on August 30, 2006.

Stunning difference between fixed and mobile phone densities in the two parts of Asia (developed – HK, China, Taiwan, Singapore Australia and Korea, developing – Nepal, Bhutan, Papua New Guinea, Afghanistan and Myanmar). Developed countries have large telephone densities, whereas the developing countries have minute densities in comparison.

Looking at Sri Lanka, the Norther province has come up fast, in terms of telecom access (19% have access to telephones in the NP).

So there is a divide, but do we really need to promote ICTs? If it comes to spending taxpayer money, promotion of ICTs is not necessary, because there are more important needs like water, etc. But if it is to remove barriers to participation, then yes there is a need to promote ICTs.

How to reduce constraints? Liberalization through explicit regulatory regime, relaxation of entry controls and internal reform of incumbent or major operator.

Expansion of telecom in USA after breaking up of Bell monopoly (1892-1900) is parallell to that in SL when telecom was liberalised (1991-1999).

DG – Need to look at fixed & mobile separately to see whether it is fixed or mobile that has contributed to to the growth (slide # 8 )

In the Western Province, each new connection that is purchased provides a supplementary connection (i.e. to those that already have access to a phone). Whereas in the North-east for example, each new connection may connect an entire household, which was previously unconnected.

Bottom line: liberalisation narrows the gaps.

Difference between big-bang reforms and continuing reforms
Big bang reforms include privatization, licensing a second operator, etc; Continuing reforms include enforcing interconnection, etc.

Big bang reforms and continuing reforms both require in-situ expertise, latter more than former. Need the capacity to maintain the momentum of reforms. Some countries (eg Bahrain, UK) advertise internationally for the top job. Advantage is credibility and independence, because the individual is not part of the local ‘networks’.

Narrow conception – Expertise in government and national regulatory agency
Broad conception – Expertise in government and NRA + with all stakeholders, including consumer and civil society groups

Why in-situ expertise?
These people have tacit knowledge, enjoy a legitimacy that external consultants do not, are able to participate in the policy process betterthan external consultants, etc.

So how do we produce new experts?
Scholars without visibility and reinforcement (other scholars interested in the same issues in their country, or simple someone to bounce ideas off) alone cannot catalyze change.

CPRsouth, LIRNEasia’s capacity initiative, aims to identify scholars with likelihood of becoming in-situ experts, assists them to raise their Internet profiles, etc.

Ismail: Some of the problems the FCC has had with academics, is the time frames that they work with.

CPRsouth will carry out a knowledge mapping using ISI journals, citations, Scholar.Google, interviews, etc in order to identify young scholars interested in policy and regulation.

A conference will be held early next year, in addition to the development of a digital repository for archiving communication policy research, to promote CPR research.

Qualities of in-situ expertise
Just-in-time learning and Open-source research

JIT learning involves broad expertise with boundaries defined. With a knowledge of underlying theoretical issues, a network of research relationships, and the internet, JIT learning is a effective concept.

Open-source research follows the open-source software premise, which means that anyone has access to the source and can make changes, etc. Where policy research is concerned, speed is crucial. LIRNEasia puts research on the web in draft form and asks people to look at it, comment on it,and make suggestions, all in order to improve these drafts and work towards a final document. This ensures better output at the end of the day.

So the whole CPRsouth exercise is about narrowing the digital divide through the development of capacity. The gap can be bridged by removing policy-regulatory constraints and what better way to do this than building local, in-situ expertise.

DG – There’s a big gap between the divide that exists within the sector and the gap in capacity. The link between the two is not persuasive enough.
RS – Yes there is a gap, but the point is, that throwing money at it won’t work. You have to knock down the barriers and create a conducive environment to allow the sector to grow.

DG - In the Indonesian leased line case, they didn’t even know what other people in other countries were paying for this service.
RS – How is that different to each other? Private sector is relatively underdeveloped, in the Indonesian case, so it is a case of lack of expertise (capacity gap).

“If this is successful, then the model could be copied in cities elsewhere in the world,” said Daniel Wongg, of the Taipei Computer Association.

The wi-fi mobiles provide a cheaper alternative to mobile phone calls.

“This is the world’s first internet phone system using the whole city, rather than a spot, as a wireless operation environment,” Mr Wongg told AFP news agency.

The initiative also involves switching schools and government offices from the traditional phone network to one using internet phones, known as Voice over Internet Protocol (Voip).

Before the end of August, hundreds of schools will be installed with an internet telephony system and 400,000 school children, parents and teachers will be encouraged to use the new system.

The mayor of the city, Ma Ying-jeou, said that the money the city saves from using the new system in schools will help provide better lunches for students.
 

In one of my intemperate moments I’ve said that Asia is a category that is of use only to international bureaucrats. There is little that the entire region holds in common. This is the area that has the largest concentration of poor people in the world.

Asia is seen, however, as driving the world economy. The Asian Tigers, and the Juggernauts of China and India. If you look at the ICT issues, you get into this orgy of self-congratulation, but if you really look at the number – developing Asia is a straggler. And what about people? This LIRNEasia organization is about people. We have people, the only problem is that our people flourish in Australia, in Canada. When we are here, there seems to be some problem with the system.

Taiwan, China has highest mobile penetration 110 mobiles per 100 individuals. But the Afghanistan and Bangladesh bring up the rear with 1/100 and 1.01/100.

Korea has the highest Internet, while Sri Lanka and India are way behind. They have 23.33/100 broadband connections, while India has 0.01/100. Broadband is cheapest in China (10$/month) while I was surprised to see that Sri Lanka is 11th, at 22$/Month.

What is the bottom line? The bottom line is that Asia is held back by laws, policies, and regulation. We are not poor because we don’t have natural resources.

We think LIRNEasia will be a catalyst for change. A catalyst is a small entity that reacts with larger entities to produce great change.

The immediate objective is to build a world-class team here. What we want is applied research and dissemination. The end objective is, of course, money in the pocket and hope in the heart.

We will also work on context-specific training for executives and rapid-response interventions. In Bhutan we had a wonderful demand-driven course. It got people at the time when they were interested. We need to go for those moments.

What we think is that we’ll have a little administrative core surrounded by rings of an extended network. We will emphasize Asian expertise, but we won’t be exclusive about this. We do case studies, but our policy is to abstract from the complexity to produce information that other countries can use.

Possible Projects:

* Eastern Nepal and Sri Lanka least-cost subsidy auctions
* Innovating at the markets (Indonesian WiFi)
* India’s universal service fund
* Replicating Grameen Bangladesh
* Demand-Side subsidies
* Microeconomic assesments, etc
* Focus on lack of backbone
* Annual Sector and Regulatory Performance Indicators
* Ongoing training programs
* Web

We specialize in usable, actionable knowledge.

1. Creating (research)
2. Disseminating (multi-mode)
3. Creating conditions for learning

We will be independent and respected for expertise by multiple sides and parties. We will do work that leads to implementation. We will be passionate and committed.