LIRNEasia » telephone services

Copper comes back?

Rohan Samarajiva — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 04:30:50 +0000

Nicholas Negroponte said, in the context of the United States, that all that was carried on wireguides would shift to wireless (e.g., telephony) and all that was carried by wireless (e.g., television) would shift to wireguides. Wireless was better at connecting people who were inherently mobile; while wireguides made better sense for hauling large amounts of data needed to give people high-quality entertainment experiences. George Gilder called this the Negroponte Switch.

The US market, of course, was heavily wired to start with: twisted-pair copper from the phone company and co-ax from the cable company coming to most homes and offices. In this context, the Negroponte Switch made eminent sense. The refarming, for mobile uses, of 700 MHz frequencies that were inefficiently used for television, earlier in 2008 was a manifestation of the Negroponte Switch.

The difference in developing countries was that the incumbents had failed to roll out copper to most homes to start with. They were content with serving the government and business elites and themselves with the perks that come with monopoly. So when the entry barriers were removed, people obtained telephone services through wireless in the first instance, there weren’t much wireguides around to carry entertainment. And shortsighted incumbents neglected wireline maintenance when they saw the cost and other benefits of wireless connections.

Now it looks like at least one incumbent has seen the legacy copper network as an asset that needs to be developed and exploited a. This will not benefit those at the bottom of the pyramid, of course. And there is no guarantee that what worked in densely populated Hong Kong will necessarily work as well in the less dense urban areas of Sri Lanka.

Opacity leads to confusion in SLTL share sale

Rohan Samarajiva — Tue, 29 May 2007 05:31:13 +0000

The usually well-informed LBO.LK appears to have gotten confused in the “fog of war” created by interested parties seeking to extract rents from the sale of 25% of SLTL shares by NTT to GTH, both private companies, and by the unfortunate opacity of the transaction (something that is quite surprising because SLTL is a publicly traded company and the interests of thousands of shareholders are affected by the transaction).

The source quoted by LBO below appears to have been quite familiar with the ORIGINAL shareholders agreement signed between the Government of Sri Lanka and NTT in 1997, but appears to have been comatose since then. Provisions regarding no universal service obligations (USO) and international exclusivities were in that agreement and did bind the Government of Sri Lanka. The no-USO provision continues to date, though the international exclusivity ended with the issuance of external gateway licenses in March 2003.

Why LBO’s anonymous source is claiming that provisions that were in force since 1997 are newly being imposed in 2007 is a mystery. And how the humpty dumpty of SLTL’s ambiguous international exclusivity can be put back again, the Rip van Winkle interviewed by LBO does not tell us.

If the Colombo Stock Exchange applies its rules without exception this kind of confusion can be avoided. Why does it not? Should the SEC get involved?

LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE – LBO

Sources familiar with the deal’s provisions claimed it could also undermine telecom regulation in the future because it prevents a universal service obligation being imposed on SLT and has provisions to protect its dominance in international telephone services.

US about to be overtaken by Slovenia in broadband

Rohan Samarajiva — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 04:20:33 +0000

Former Chair of the FCC, Bill Kennard, calls for a broad national debate on how get more broadband connections, especially in rural America. One of his two recommendations is for the adoption of “reverse auctions” or least-cost subsidy auctions for the disbursement of US universal service funds. Another case of policy innovations in the developing world seeping back into the developed. See LIRNEasia’s extensive work on this subject, based on the Indian universal service fund and the least-cost subsidy auction in Nepal.

Spreading the Broadband Revolution – New York Times

“Any serious discussion of the future of the Internet should start with a basic fact: broadband is transforming every facet of communications, from entertainment and telephone services to delivery of vital services like health care. But this also means that the digital divide, once defined as the chasm separating those who had access to narrowband dial-up Internet and those who didn’t, has become a broadband digital divide.The nation should have a full-scale policy debate about the direction of the broadband Internet, especially about how to make sure that all Americans get access to broadband connections.”

Internet lowers phone charges

Rohan Samarajiva — Tue, 04 Jul 2006 06:06:28 +0000

Internet Calling Pressures Bells to Lower Rates – New York Times

“The Bells still control the bulk of the country’s 180 million landlines and are far from giving up on what has been a giant cash cow. When pushed, they are even offering their own Internet-based calling, but these services are rarely advertised. It is cheaper to cut prices to keep customers, they figure, than to try to win back customers later from a rival.

During the first quarter of this year, the number of traditional telephone lines dropped by 150,000 a week, according to TeleGeography. At the same time, the number of subscribers to Internet telephone services has increased by 100,000 a week.

AT&T, among others, says the drop in lines is not as painful for the Bells as it looks. Many customers cancel phone lines they used for dial-up Internet service, but then sign up for broadband services provided by their phone company. Other customers eliminate a phone line but buy a cellphone plan from Cingular, which AT&T owns with BellSouth.”