Tag Archive for ‘telecommunications’ at LIRNEasia

Tag Archive for 'telecommunications'Page 2 of 3

LIRNEasia’s Mobile Benchmarks (South Asia and Southeast Asia) and Broadband Benchmarks Report for October 2008 has been released. Click HERE for more information.

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…

Comment
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…

Comment
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.

Falling price and raising awareness drives PC market in Sri Lanka: IDC

Abu Saeed Khan

on June 27, 2007

Sri Lankan PC shipments (desktops and notebooks) reached 52,230 units in the first quarter of 2007, which was approximately a 17.5% annual growth rate. Desktop remains the primary form factor as it accounts for almost 87.5% of shipments.

Notebooks, however, have been performing relatively well. IDC forecasts that desktops will post a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.7% from 2006-2011. Notebooks, on the other hand, are expected to register a CAGR of 22.7%, announced IDC on Wednesday.

“Both the consumer and commercial segments have been key drivers for the market’s activity. Heightened vendor marketing efforts has provided consumers with more knowledge while continuing PC price drops has granted buyers more purchasing power,” said Linus Lai, Research & Consulting Director for IDC Emerging Asia.

Currently, the size of the Sri…

1 Comment
Tags: Communication Technology Agency, granted buyers, IDC, IDC Emerging Asia, Information, Information and Communication Technology Agency, Linus Lai, Ministry of Education, mobile computing, national government, Research & Consulting, Sri Lanka, telecommunications.

Straits Times: LOW-INCOME TELEPHONE USERS IN ASIA

Ayesha Zainudeen

on June 14, 2007

LOW-INCOME TELEPHONE USERS IN ASIAHello, can you connect us?
By Francis Hutchinson & Lorraine Carlos Salazar, For The Straits Times
Source: The Straits Times, June 12 2007 – Review Section
See print version

NEW research on the use of telecommunications among low-income groups in India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand challenges the conventional wisdom that, in developing countries, customers for high- technology goods are to be found only among high-income groups.
According to a multi-country survey, the poor are already accessing telecommunications and form a large untapped market with significant unmet demand. This wide and deep client base offers vast opportunities for enterprising telecommunications companies if they can develop appropriate business models to cater to them.

2 Comments
Tags: average telephone spending, cellphone services, Educo, fixed-line telephone, Francis Hutchinson, India, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Lorraine Carlos Salazar, Pakistan, public telephone, SGD, socio-economic group, Sri Lanka, Straits Times, surveyed group, technology goods, telecommunications, telecommunications equipment, telecommunications operators, telephone stating, telephone use, Thailand, the Philippines, USD.

Grameen Foundation makes it easier to set up Village Phones

Abu Saeed Khan

on June 6, 2007

The Grameen Foundation has announced a new online assistance center to help microfinance institutions (MFIs) bring the benefits of telecommunications to poor communities around the world. The Village Phone Direct Assistance Center, was launched in Nairobi, Kenya during the International Telecommunications Union’s “Public & Private Sectors Partnership Forum” (PPPF-Africa 2007) conference. It features a how-to manual, a message board, customizable templates and other information that will help MFIs work independently with local telecommunications providers to develop Village Phone Direct programs for their clients. Read more.

Comment
Tags: Africa, Grameen Foundation, International Telecommunications Union, Kenya, local telecommunications providers, Nairobi, online assistance center, telecommunications, Village Phone Direct Assistance Center.

Wireless Unbound - Mckinsey Report on wireless benefits

Chanuka Wattegama

on May 23, 2007

The report examines the untapped potential that the mobile / wireless devices have in provisioning of next generation of business and public services.

This report , prepared and published by Mckinsey and Company, can be a very valuable tool for the professionals in the public sector as well as the industry. It makes a point that the next generation of services for the evolving knowledge society would be provisioned through mobile / wireless devices.

http://mckinsey.com/clientservice/telecommunications/WirelsUnbnd.pdf

Comment
Tags: public services, telecommunications, wireless devices.

Economics of international telephony and Bangladesh

Abu Saeed Khan

on May 19, 2007

Bangladesh government seems to be convinced to open its last monopolistic area of telecommunications; international telephony. This is a good initiative, which needs to be supported as it would bring quality and cheap international telecoms services. However looking at the on-going debate on various aspects of this subject in the name of “VoIP Licensing” no one seems to focus on the most important area: Whether Bangladesh will come out as winner or loser after liberalization in terms of valuable foreign exchange? Pakistan’s Regulatory Consultant M. Aslam Hayat writes.

Comment
Tags: Bangladesh, Bangladesh Bangladesh government, M. Aslam Hayat, Pakistan, telecommunications, telecoms services, telephony, VOIP.

Telecom sector contributes to LK economic growth, while prices decline

Rohan Samarajiva

on April 12, 2007

The Central Bank of Sri Lanka’s 2006 Annual Report states that: “The GDP deflator, which measures the price changes of all goods, produced in the economy, increased by 10.3 per cent in 2006 compared with the rate of 9.9 per cent in 2005. High price increases were recorded in most sub-sectors except in mining and telecommunications, where prices were lower compared with the previous year. Higher fuel and material costs together with the depreciation of the Sri Lankan rupee during the year led to the increase in prices of most finished goods and services.”

This is quite different from the spurious growth shown by government-owned enterprises driven by the higher rupee value of the output of the Petroleum Corporation which contributed to 90 per cent of the…

20 Comments
Tags: mining, telecommunications, The Central Bank of Sri Lanka.

Significant progress made on making communities resilient to disasters

Nuwan Waidyanatha

on April 1, 2007

By Rohan Samarajiva

The findings of a pilot project on learning how information-communication technologies and community-based training can help in responding to disasters such as tsunamis were discussed by community leaders and international experts at a workshop on “SHARING KNOWLEDGE ON DISASTER WARNING, WITH A FOCUS ON COMMUNITY-BASED LAST–MILE WARNING SYSTEMS” held on March 28^th and 29^th, 2007 at the Sarvodaya headquarters in Moratuwa.

These finding ranged from the difficulties experienced in communicating disaster warnings to villages when mobile GSM and fixed CDMA telecom networks were not functional due to conflict conditions to the importance of not leaving newspapers on top of sensitive electronic equipment which can overheat and shut down as a result. In terms of the five communication technologies that were evaluated across multiple criteria, the addressable…

5 Comments
Tags: addressable satellite radio sets, Canada, CDMA, communication technologies, Communication Technology Hardware, communications equipment, community warning device, determination trumping technology, Dialog Telekom, early warning systems, electronic equipment, five communication technologies, GSM, Indian Ocean, Information Communication Technologies, International Development Research Centre of Canada, Java, media professionals, MicroImage, MILE WARNING SYSTEMS, mobile phones, North America, Rohan Samarajiva, Sarvodaya headquarters, Sarvodaya, Sarvodaya Community Disaster Management Center, Sarvodaya Movement, software components, software industries, Sri Lanka, telecom networks, telecommunications, University of Moratuwa, VSAT.

Regulatory burden to be reduced on new international operator in Indonesia

Divakar Goswami

on March 16, 2007

The Indonesian government imposed unreasonable burdens on the new entrant for international service in a recently issued White Paper 140. LIRNEasia highlighted the unfairness of burdening new entrants with obligations that the two existing incumbents (Telkom & Indosat) were not subjected too in comments it submitted to DGPOSTEL (one of the two regulatory bodies):
4.4 The Indonesian policymakers may have misunderstood the concept of asymmetric regulation. Asymmetric rules place additional burdens on dominant group of providers that other operators are not subjected to. In the current White Paper, many additional burdens are imposed on the new entrant that are not imposed on the two incumbents, PT Telkom & PT Indosat. Requirements for building FO from Indonesia to TIER-1 IP backbone, building domestic FO to Internet Exchange, building…

Comment
Tags: Australia, Basuki Yusuf Iskandar, Europe, fixed-line telephone, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Indonesian government, Indosat, Internet exchange, Internet hubs, Jakarta, Japan, Johnny Swandi Sjam, Malaysia, PT Excelcomindo Pratama Tbk, telecommunications, Telematika Indonesia, telephony services, Telkom, Yusuf Iskandar.

Good practice in telecom reform

Rohan Samarajiva

on March 12, 2007

Friend of LIRNEasia, Sherille Ismail (Senior Counsel, Office of Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis of the FCC) has written an excellent review of theWorld Bank’s “Information and Communications for Development 2006: Global Trends and Policies,” concluding with:
“The telecommunications sector has performed in a spectacular fashion
over the past two decades, bringing modern technologies at affordable
prices to consumers throughout the world. The future holds the promise of
even greater gains, as ICT ripples through economies, increasing
productivity and generating efficiencies. To achieve the desired results,
governments, scholars, investors, and the international community must
successfully negotiate many challenges. Not the least of these is the
particular challenge of dealing with issues in developing countries, where
“there are often fundamental differences between what is proposed by
technological visionaries, many of whom have never seen a village,…

Comment
Tags: Federal Communications Commission, Office of Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis, telecommunications, theWorld Bank.

The next billion is from Asia and Africa

Rohan Samarajiva

on February 15, 2007

Another story that reinforces our emphasis on the emerging Asia-Pacific and the Bottom of the Pyramid:

LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE - LBO

Making affordable phones and targeting consumers with smaller budgets have now become priorities for the largest companies in the sector who were all present at this week’s 3GSM trade show in Barcelona.

“There are between 2.5 and 2.8 billion people who have a mobile phone: the next billion will come from the high-growth market,” said David Taylor, strategy director for Motorola.

The areas representing the most opportunity are Asia, Africa and the Middle East, he said.

According to European telecommunications institute Idate, the average spending per user is about 26.50-37.50 euros (34.8-49.2 dollars) per month in industrialised countries, but this figure falls to about 8.20 euros in the…

1 Comment
Tags: Africa, Asia, Asia-Pacific, Barcelona, cellular telephone, David Taylor, EUR, Middle East, Motorola, telecommunications, USD.

2006 South African ICT Sector Performance Review

Ayesha Zainudeen

on February 12, 2007

LINK Public Policy Research Paper No. 8
January 2007 (pre-publication)
Steve Esselaar & Alison Gillwald

Despite the continued overall growth of the telecommunications sector in South Africa, the full potential of ICT to contribute to the growth and development of the country is not being realised. The fourth South African ICT Sector Performance Review (SPR) seeks to measure and assess some of the recent market developments in South Africa against national policy objectives such as access to services, cost of usage and competitiveness.

The full report can be downloaded in pdf format here: 2006 South African ICT SPR

Comment
Tags: Alison Gillwald, South Africa, Steve Esselaar, telecommunications.

Uganda: Banking on Infrastructure

Abu Saeed Khan

on February 9, 2007

The Ugandan government gave full power to the country’s telecoms regulator, the Ugandan Communications Commission (UCC), to liberalize the infrastructure sector in October 2006.

Earlier in the year, the Ministry published guidelines defining the opening up of services to full competition. This was a result of the end of the five-year exclusivity period of the National Telecom Operators (NTO)—MTN Uganda and Uganda Telecom, and Cellular Telecom Operator (CTO)—Celtel Uganda.

With this new market structure, the Ugandan telecoms is set to become even more attractive as infrastructure rollout increases, new services and applications are deployed, and customers’ needs are meet in the greater context of convergence. In our view, despite current and upcoming challenges, Uganda is well positioned to become a very competitive and vibrant telecoms market and…

Comment
Tags: access network, GSM, MTN Uganda, South Africa, telecommunications, Telkom SA, Uganda, Uganda Telecom, Ugandan Communications Commission, Ugandan government.

Indonesian Minister proposes new initiatives to stimulate Internet growth at ITU World 2006

Divakar Goswami

on December 8, 2006

The Indonesian Minister for Communication and Information Technology, Dr Sofyan Djalil, presented a number of new initiatives for removing the barriers to Internet growth in his country at Building Digital Communities forum session at the ITU World 2006 event in Hong Kong on December 7, 2006.

Divakar Goswami, LIRNEasia’s Director, Organizational and Projects, who was moderating the panel asked the following question:

One of the first achievements of your government was to delicense the 2.4 GHz frequency that allowed communities to use Wi-Fi extensively in the country. Despite that, Indonesia currently has Internet penetration of 0.69 percent. You have about 124 ISPs that operate in Indonesia. How do you explain the low penetration and what are the barriers preventing Internet from growing faster in Indonesia? When we look…

2 Comments
Tags: Broadband, broadband wireless, fiber optic, Hong Kong, Indonesia, information technology, Internet penetration, Internet service, Jakarta, LIRNE asia, optic based network, Sidney, Sofyan Djalil, telecommunications, Wi-Fi.

LIRNEasia

Tag Archive for 'telecommunications'Page 2 of 3

LIRNEasia researchers to present at TPRC

The trials and tribulations of connecting Rwanda to the WWW

Falling price and raising awareness drives PC market in Sri Lanka: IDC

Straits Times: LOW-INCOME TELEPHONE USERS IN ASIA

Grameen Foundation makes it easier to set up Village Phones

Wireless Unbound - Mckinsey Report on wireless benefits

Economics of international telephony and Bangladesh

Telecom sector contributes to LK economic growth, while prices decline

Significant progress made on making communities resilient to disasters

Regulatory burden to be reduced on new international operator in Indonesia

Good practice in telecom reform

The next billion is from Asia and Africa

2006 South African ICT Sector Performance Review

Uganda: Banking on Infrastructure

Indonesian Minister proposes new initiatives to stimulate Internet growth at ITU World 2006

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