Tag Archive for ‘telecommunications’ at LIRNEasia

Tag Archive for 'telecommunications'

TRC is to get an advanced disaster-communication vehicle designed by LIRNEasia associate Peter Anderson

on March 13, 2008

Peter Anderson who spent part of his sabbatical in Sri Lanka assisting with the conduct of simulations for the Last-Mile HazInfo Project is to develop a mobile communications command vehicle for immediate post-disaster coordination for the government of Sri Lanka. He first came to Sri Lanka in January 2005 to participate in the first expert forum on disaster early warning at the invitation of LIRNEasia.

SFU News Online - Emergency communications vehicle will help Sri Lanka - January 10, 2008

Anderson is laying the groundwork for an advanced mobile emergency-communications (AMECom) vehicle for Sri Lanka’s disaster management program. The versatile, mobile communications vehicle will be similar to one he and his team designed and produced for emergencies in B.C. Completed in 2005, the B.C. vehicle is equipped with…

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Tags: British Columbia, communication systems, communications vehicle, mobile communications, mobile communications vehicle, mobile emergency-communications, Peter Anderson Peter Anderson, radio systems, satellite dish, satellite telecommunications systems, Sri Lanka, telecommunications, U.N. International Telecommunications Union, voice and data, wireless internet.

LIRNEasia at International Communication Association Conference

Nirmali Sivapragasam

on March 11, 2008

LIRNEasia researchers will participate at the International Communication Association conference in Montreal, Canada, May 21-26, 2008.

Rohan Samarajiva will present a paper based on LIRNEasia’s study on the gendered aspects of telecommunications use in emerging Asia, entitled, ‘Who’s Got the Phone? The Gendered Use of Telephones at the Bottom of the Pyramid‘.

Abstract: ‘Much has been said about women’s access to and use of the telephone. Many studies conclude that a significant gender divide in access exists particularly in developing countries. Women are also said to use telephones in a different manner from men –making and receiving more calls, spending more time on calls, and using telephones primarily for ‘relationship maintenance’ purposes, while men make fewer calls, shorter calls and use telephones primarily for instrumental purposes. However, much…

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Tags: Asia, Canada, India, International Communication Association, Montreal, Pakistan, Rohan Samarajiva, Sri Lanka, telecom services, telecommunications, telephone users, Thailand, the Philippines.

Need for redundancy highlighted again

Rohan Samarajiva

on January 31, 2008

Indian outsourcing sector hit by Internet disruption - LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE

India’s vital outsourcing industry, which relies heavily on the Internet, was grappling with a major communications disruption Thursday after damage to undersea cables thousands of kilometres away in the Mediterranean.

Internet connections may take up to 15 days to return to normal, businesses said, adding that telecommunications in neighbouring Bangladesh and Sri Lanka were also affected.

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Tags: Bangladesh, communications disruption, India, Internet connections, Internet disruption, Mediterranean, Sri Lanka, telecommunications.

Telecom Cook Islands Completes Commercial Deployment Of GSM Softswitch

Chanuka Wattegama

on January 15, 2008

Telecom Cook Islands Ltd, the sole provider of telecommunications in the Cook Islands, has completed commercial deployment of ADC’s UltraWave GSM softswitch. Telecom Cook Islands, which has been in operation since July 1991, is a private company owned by Telecom New Zealand Ltd. (60%) and the Cook Islands Government (40%).

The new softswitch - which upgrades Telecom Cook’s core wireless network to more efficient, IP-based technology in order to reduce costs and enable value-added services such as integrated SMS, voicemail, GPRS and pre-paid calling, has been in deployment since September 2007, and the final network cutover was accomplished last week. The UltraWave solution includes an overall expansion of the network’s capacity to 15,000 from 8,000 GSM subscribers.

Read the full story here.

(Background info: This group of islands…

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Tags: ADC, Britain, Central Intelligence Agency, Cook Islands, Cook Islands Government, GPRS, GSM, Hawaii, integrated SMS, IP-based technology, New Zealand, Of GSM Softswitch Telecom Cook Islands Ltd, pre-paid calling, SMS, South Pacific Ocean, Telecom Cook, Telecom Cook Islands, Telecom New Zealand Ltd., telecommunications, voicemail, Wireless Network.

A triumph of reforms?

Chanuka Wattegama

on December 27, 2007

The story of telecommunications reforms in India offers a fascinating example of how determined leadership can overcome even the fiercest opposition to reforms, says Arvind Panagariya

The total number of phones in India as of October 31, 2007 is placed at 256 million. India has been adding phones at the rate of 6.65 million per month. Tele-density — the number of phones per 100 individuals — now stands at 22.52. As recently as March 31, 1999, this figure was a tiny 2.8.

What has changed? Many public policy writers routinely attribute this revolution to the advent of cellular technology. While technological change has been an essential element, the real credit for the revolution must go to Prime Minister A B Vajpayee And finance minister Yashwant Sinha who…

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Tags: Arvind Panagariya, cellular technology, finance, India, Manmohan Singh, Narasimha Rao, telecommunications, telecommunications reforms, Yashwant Sinha.

Thai regulator comes under fire over convergence

Abu Saeed Khan

on November 24, 2007

At a roundtable over the weekend as part of the Bangkok International ICT Expo, independent ICT expert Dr Anuparp Teeralarp said that Thailand has already wasted 10 years talking about convergence without doing anything, and warned that plans for a merged broadcasting and telecoms regulator, the proposed National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC), would not change fundamental problems.

This was because the NBTC would be divided internally into a telecommunications arm and a broadcasting arm, similar to the past, rather than having an infrastructure division and a content division, he said. As a result, he concluded that there are many grey areas where nobody is willing to take responsibility.

“Who regulates pictures broadcast over the Internet like the Camfrog web site or clips sent between mobile phones?…

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Tags: Anuparp Teeralarp, mobile phones, National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission, telecommunications, Thailand.

Indonesia’s Telkom asks Telkomsel to appeal anti-monopoly ruling

Chanuka Wattegama

on November 22, 2007

Indonesia’s largest telecommunications company, Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Telkom), said Wednesday it has asked unit Telkomsel to appeal a ruling that Telkomsel has broken the anti-monopoly law.Indonesia’s competition watchdog (KPPU) ruled on Monday that Telkomsel, the largest cellphone carrier here, has broken the competition law. The KPPU fined it 25 billion rupiah (2.7 million dollars) and ordered Telkomsel to lower its tariff by a minimum of 15 percent.

“As the majority and controlling shareholder of Telkomsel, Telkom has requested Telkomsel to immediately carry out a legal review in accordance with its own internal processes and governance practices,” Telkom said.

The KPPU also ruled that Singapore’s state-linked investment company Temasek Holdings has broken the law because it controls the two largest cellphone carriers through its indirect holdings in both Telkomsel…

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Tags: cellphone carrier, competition law, IDR, Indonesia, Singapore, telecommunications, Telekomunikasi Indonesia, Telkomsel, Temasek Holdings, USD.

Fixed phones droop in China, while mobiles galore

Chanuka Wattegama

on November 20, 2007

China Mobile Ltd., the world’s biggest wireless-phone carrier by number of users, added record subscribers in October as China Telecom Corp., the nation’s largest fixed- line carrier, lost customers for the third straight month.

About 6.6 million people signed up for China Mobile’s services last month, compared with its previous high of 6.1 million in September, the Beijing-based company said. China Telecom’s total phone subscribers fell by 880,000, it said in a statement today.

China will accelerate the process of granting licenses for providing third-generation mobile-phone services to fixed-line operators to help them compete in the nation’s telecommunications market, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Nov. 19, citing Xi Guohua, a vice minister at the Beijing-based Ministry of Information Industry.

Read the full story in ‘Bloomberg’

…

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Tags: Beijing, Bloomberg, China, China Mobile Ltd., China Telecom Corp., line carrier, Ministry of Information Industry, mobile phone services, telecommunications, wireless-phone carrier, Xi Guohua, Xinhua news agency.

Trials of 100 Mpbs Mobile Broadband is on track?

Chanuka Wattegama

on November 12, 2007

The first phase in a trial of an evolved version of today’s mobile phone radio access technology designed to deliver much higher wireless data rates has proven a success.

The LTE / SAE (Long Term Evolution/System Architecture Evolution) Trial Initiative (LSTI) launched in May this year has reported the successful delivery of the first in a series of test results aimed at proving the potential and benefits of LTE, which is being standardized by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) as a next generation mobile broadband technology.

The Initiative was founded by leading telecommunications companies Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, France Telecom/Orange, Nokia, Nokia Siemens Networks, Nortel, T-Mobile and Vodafone, and was recently expanded with China Mobile, Huawei, LG Electronics, NTT DoCoMo, Samsung, Signalion, Telecom Italia and ZTE joining as…

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Tags: Alcatel-Lucent, Broadband, China Mobile, end users wireless access, Ericsson, France Telecom/Orange, higher wireless data rates, Huawei, LG Electronics, LTE/SAE technology, mobile broadband technology, mobile phone radio access technology, multimedia applications, Nokia Siemens Networks, Nortel, NTT DoCoMo, Samsung, Signalion, T-Mobile, Telecom Italia, telecommunications, Vodafone, wireless access, ZTE.

Telecom spectrum war in India hots up

Chanuka Wattegama

on November 12, 2007

The simmering tension over spectrum allocation among Indian telecom companies has erupted into a public spat with warring mobile phone operators leaving no stone unturned in their battle to acquire more air waves.

The fight is so intense that Vodafone chief executive Arun Sarin too jumped in, dashing off letters to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and communications minister A Raja, complaining against the stiffer spectrum allocation norms proposed by the Telecommunication Engineering Centre, an arm of the department of telecommunications.

Reliance Communications chief Anil Ambani, whose company uses CDMA technology, too wrote to the Prime Minister. He accused some “large GSM players”, a reference to Vodafone and Sunil Mittal’s Bharti Telecom, of spreading “misleading and false propaganda” to block fresh competition in telecom, hoard spectrum and indulge…

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Tags: Ambani, Anil Ambani, Arun Sarin, Business Standard, CDMA technology, cellular telephone, GSM, India, Manmohan Singh, Sunil Mittal\'s Bharti Telecom, Telecommunication Engineering Centre, telecommunications, The Times, Times of India, Vodafone.

Phones at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Telecom Accessibility

Nirmali Sivapragasam

on November 2, 2007

i4d, a reputed Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D) magazine, recently featured an article co-written by LIRNEasia researcher Ayesha Zainudeen based on LIRNEasia’s Teleuse at the Bottom of the Pyramid study conducted in 2006. The article highlights the study’s main findings with a special emphasis on the gendered aspects of telecommunications use at the BOP.

Phones at the bottom of the pyramid: Telecom Accessibility - i4d Magazine

In a 2006 five-country study, which was conducted by LIRNEasia, researchers asked 6,269 respondents in Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and Thailand about their access to, and use of telephones. Those surveyed were all users at the lowest socio-economic strata in the countries, at ‘the bottom of the pyramid’ (BOP). Their responses revealed many differences between users in the five countries,…

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Tags: Ayesha Zainudeen, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, telecommunications, Thailand, the Philippines.

‘Getting a Dial Tone: Telecommunications Liberalisation in Malaysia and the Philippines’ by Lorraine Carlos Salazar

Tahani Iqbal

on October 19, 2007

‘Getting a Dial Tone: Telecommunications Liberalisation in Malaysia and the Philippines’ by Lorraine Carlos Salazar, Senior Researcher at LIRNEasia and Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), was published by ISEAS this week.The book analyses the telecommunications reform process in Malaysia and the Philippines where far-reaching reforms have taken place.By looking at the institutions and actors that drove these changes, this book examines state capacity, market reform, and rent-seeking in the two countries. In doing so, the study challenges conventional depictions of the Malaysian and Philippine states. It contends that despite the weakness of the Philippine state, reform occurred through a coalition that out-manoeuvred vested interests. In Malaysia, although considered a strong state, patronage and rent-seeking played key roles in policy adoption…

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Tags: Australian National University, Edmund Terence Gomez, Fidel Ramos, Hal Hill, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Lorraine Carlos Salazar, Malaysia, Paul D. Hutchcroft Associate, SouthEast Asia, telecommunications, telecommunications policy, the Philippines, United Nations Research Institute for Social Developmen, University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin.

GPhone aims to conquer mobile net

Lorraine Salazar

on October 11, 2007

Miguel Helft
October 11, 2007, New York Times

For more than two years, a large group of engineers at Google have been working in secret on a mobile-phone project.

As word of their efforts has trickled out, expectations in the tech world for what has been called the Google phone, or GPhone, have risen, the way they do for Apple loyalists before a speech by Steve Jobs.

But the GPhone is not likely to be the second coming of the iPhone and Google’s goals are very different from Apple’s.

Google wants to extend its dominance of online advertising to the mobile internet, a small market today but one that is expected to grow rapidly. It hopes to persuade wireless carriers and mobile-phone makers to offer phones based on its software,…

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Tags: ad systems, advertising services, Android, Andy Rubin, Arun Sarin, AT&T, Boston, Britain, Celunite, Dan Olschwang, DoubleClick, Doug Smith, Envisioneering Group, Eric Schmidt, Federal Communications Commission, Google, IDC, JumpTap, Karsten Weide, large group, last carrier, Linux, Mahesh Veerina, Medio Systems, Microsoft, Miguel Helft, mobile advertising, mobile communications, mobile Internet, mobile internet portals, mobile phones, mobile search, mobile software, mobile versions, mobile-phone operators, mobile-phone platform applications, mobile-phone software, New York Times, online advertising, online success, operating system, operating systems, phone software platform, Rich Miner, Richard Doherty, Scott Cleland, search engine, search engines, software applications, start-up, Steve Jobs, technology*, telecommunications, United States, United States Senate, Verizon Wireless, Vodafone Group, web browser, wireless carriers, wireless industry, wireless market, wireless spectrum.

LIRNEasia researchers to present at TPRC

Shamistra Soysa

on August 17, 2007

Two of our researchers have been selected to present papers at the 35th Research Conference on Communication, Information and Internet Policy which will be held in Virginia, USA on September 28-30, 2007.

Helani Galpaya will present “The Telecom Regulatory Environment (TRE) Assessment: methodology and implementation results from six emerging economies” at the session on Trade and Harmonizations of Telecommunication Policies on September 30 2007. Payal Malik will present “India’s Universal Service Obligation for Rural Telecommunications: Issues of Design and Implementation” at the session on Promoting Universal Connectivity on September 29 2007.

The papers are available on the TPRC website:

‘Telecom Regulatory Environment (TRE) assessment: Methodology and implementation results from five emerging economies,’ by Rohan Samarajiva, Helani Galpaya, Divakar Goswami and Dimuthu Ratnadiwakara
‘India’s Universal Service Obligation for Rural Telecommunications: Issues of Design and Implementation,’ by…

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Tags: Dimuthu Ratnadiwakara, Divakar Goswami, Helani Galpaya, India, Internet Policy, policy-relevant telecommunications, Rohan Samarajiva, Rural Telecommunications, telecommunications, The TPRC, TPRC, United States, Virginia.

The trials and tribulations of connecting Rwanda to the WWW

Tahani Iqbal

on July 23, 2007

How the technical, political and business realities in Africa hinder technological development and connectivity there.

Africa, Offline: Waiting for the Web

Attempts to bring affordable high-speed Internet service to the masses have made little headway on the continent. Less than 4 percent of Africa’s population is connected to the Web; most subscribers are in North African countries and the republic of South Africa.

A lack of infrastructure is the biggest problem. In many countries, communications networks were destroyed during years of civil conflict, and continuing political instability deters governments or companies from investing in new systems. E-mail messages and phone calls sent from some African countries have to be routed through Britain, or even the United States, increasing expenses and delivery times. About 75 percent of African Internet…

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Tags: Africa, Britain, communications networks, fiber optic, high-speed Internet, high-speed Internet service, Internet access, Internet Age, Internet service, Internet traffic, Lawrence H. Landweber, Republic of South Africa, Rwanda, slower satellite technology, telecommunications, United States, University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin.

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