Telecoms operators in India were earlier permitted to share only passive infrastructure such as mobile towers, buildings and power backup facilities.

Sharing infrastructure reduces the operating costs and capital expenditure of wireless telecoms operators, allowing them to maintain margins in a competitive market that has call rates as low as 1 U.S. cent a minute.

“The guidelines are aimed to reducing the input costs on telecom access providers… (and to aid) reduced tariff and increased tele-density in rural areas,” the telecoms ministry said in a statement.

Read the full stroy in Reuters here.

“The characteristics of these new Internet users will be vastly different from the first billion users,” the report concludes, adding that the majority of the new Internet users will be accessing the Internet on wireless networks and will have incomes of less than US$2 per day.   

While the report sees encouraging signs from developing markets that have adopted market liberalisation and who are now starting to enjoy the employment, micro- entrepreneurial and social development benefits of increased competition, there remain many countries that need to catch up.  

According to the report, “more than 70 countries still have monopolies over international gateway services,” which “raise the prices for accessing international capacity, far beyond costs, and reduce the affordability of Internet access for end-users.”  Read more.

To appreciate that potential, look at how much is being done with just car batteries, backup diesel generators and India’s creaky rural electricity grid. I traveled to a cluster of villages with a team from the Byrraju Foundation — a truly impressive nonprofit set up by B. Ramalinga Raju and his family. Raju and his brother Rama are co-founders of one of India’s leading outsourcing companies, Satyam Computer Services. The Hyderabad-based brothers wanted to give back to their country, but they wanted it to be a hand up, not a hand out.

So besides funding health clinics and computer-filled primary schools in villages in their home state of Andhra Pradesh, they tried something new: outsourcing their outsourcing to villages.

Here in Ethakota, amid the banana and palm groves, 120 college-educated villagers, trained in computers and English by Satyam and connected to the world by wireless networks, are processing data for a British publisher and selling services for an Indian phone company. They run two eight-hour shifts, but could run three — if only the electricity didn’t go off for six hours a day!

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Telecoms-equipment makers | Toughing it out | Economist.com

First, the market for wireless networks is beginning to mature. After years of bumper profits, telecoms operators are facing more competition and are having to cut costs. In America carriers have delayed purchases, which explains much of what went wrong for Alcatel-Lucent. In Europe operators are increasingly renting their networks out to virtual service providers and are sharing capacity. That has allowed them to delay network upgrades which would otherwise have boosted Ericsson’s and other telecoms-equipment firms’ earnings.

Second, Western firms face competition from two Chinese companies, Huawei and ZTE. In 2006 Huawei had revenues of $8.5 billion, up 42% from the year before. ZTE has grown even more quickly, and had revenues of $2 billion for the first half of 2007. The firms’ low cost bases allow them to offer prices up to two-fifths lower than their Western competitors’.

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Is your mobile network green? – Developing Telecoms

Mobile network energy consumption currently stands at 61 billion kWH worldwide, with each of the many millions of base stations producing almost 10 tonnes of carbon emissions every year. How can there not be room for improvement?

Conservative estimates project that this consumption will double by 2011, totalling 449 billion kWH over this five-year period, at a cost in excess of $US42 billion. Actix, to its credit, is hard-hitting: the largest mobile network operators produce more carbon per year than some of the largest car rental companies, with the top 20 carriers worldwide accounting for almost 40% of total emissions by wireless networks.

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Three operators—Singtel, iCell and Qalanet—offer wireless services in the 2.5GHz band as part of Singapore’s Wireless@SG initiative and the IDA says it is now time to formalise an industry regime to support voice services carried over those networks. 

The IDA adds that the move is needed as part of the global shift from discrete PSTN and wireless networks to a converged next generation network. However, the Agency stops short of harmonising the standard numbering range with IP addresses. Read more.

Vic Hayes, Senior Research Fellow at the Delft University of Technology, one of the nodes in the LIRNE network, attended the Summit and also made a keynote presentation. Vic Hayes is considered to be the father of Wi-Fi having chaired the IEEE WLAN working group that developed the Wi-Fi standard. His trip report can be downloaded here [PDF].

Ecology and economy is equally critical for mobile phone coverage in the less lucrative emerging markets. Diesel generators energise the base stations at remote locations. Supplying fuel across the unfriendly terrain is also a logistical nightmare. Such expensive exercise, however, inhibits the operators to invest in the low-yield regions.

These grueling problems have prompted the three organisations to set up a first of its kind pilot project in the world. They hope that bio-fuels may replace diesel as a source of power for mobile base stations located beyond the reach of the electricity grid.
 

They are setting up a supply chain designed to benefit the local population by sourcing a variety of locally-produced crops and processing them into bio-fuel in Nigeria. Groundnuts, pumpkin seeds, jatropha, and palm oil will be used in the initial pilot tests.
 

This non-fossil alternative gasoline also has a much lower impact on the environment than conventional diesel. Bio-diesel, being the cleaner burning fuel, results in fewer site-visits and also extends the life of the base station generator, reducing operators’ costs.
 

“In order to reach the next billion mobile users, we need to reach lower-spending segments of the population profitably,” said Ericsson’s sales and marketing vice president Bert Nordberg. “By using locally-produced bio-fuels, we could significantly lower the cost of operating mobile base stations in rural areas.”
 

The GSMA and Ericsson will draw on the findings of the pilot to help operators across the developing world to figure out they can use Bio-diesel to power their networks in the rural Nigeria.
 

Only 25 percent of this oil-rich country is connected to the electricity grid. MTN has invested in Y’ellowWatts, its own power system made up of an extensive grid of generators designed to keep the entire MTN network at an optimum level of performance.
 
“The early adoption of bio-fuel-powered mobile networks would place Africa at the forefront of a new wave of innovation that is making mobile communications affordable and accessible across the developing world,” said Karel Pienaar, CTIO of the MTN Group.
 Bio-diesel has several important advantages over conventional diesel as a power source for base stations. It can be produced locally, creating employment in rural areas, while reducing the need for transportation, related logistics and security.
 
“The extension of mobile networks into rural areas is vital to boost the social and economic welfare of the developing world,” said Rob Conway, GSMA’s CEO. “Bio-fuels have the potential to make that happen by giving mobile operators local access to a commercially and environmentally sustainable power supply.”
 

Bio-diesel has several important advantages over conventional diesel as a power source for base stations. It can be produced locally, creating employment in rural areas, while reducing the need for transportation, related logistics and security. “The extension of mobile networks into rural areas is vital to boost the social and economic welfare of the developing world,” said Rob Conway, GSMA’s CEO. “Bio-fuels have the potential to make that happen by giving mobile operators local access to a commercially and environmentally sustainable power supply.” The GSMA’s Development Fund finances this pilot project while Ericsson and MTN are setting up a pilot Bio-diesel-powered base station solution in Lagos and will later deploy Bio-diesel-fueled base stations in rural regions of south eastern and south western Nigeria.

MILAN A battle is brewing that may well decide how Europeans connect to the Internet using cellphones, laptops and other portable devices in the coming decade.

Mobile phone companies, chip makers and manufacturers of wireless networks are pushing their sometimes conflicting cases for how the limited amount of radio frequencies should be used to beam data from the Internet to mobile devices and back the other way, a decision that generally is left to national governments.

Read the rest of the International Herald Tribune article HERE

The project is the largest of a new breed of wireless networks being built across the country. They are taking advantage of the falling cost of providing high-speed Internet access over radio waves as opposed to cable or telephone lines.

The project will cover 1,500 square miles in 38 cities in San Mateo, Santa Clara, Alameda and Santa Cruz Counties, an area of 2.4 million residents. Its builders, going by the name Silicon Valley Metro Connect, said the service would provide free basic wireless access at speeds up to 1 megabit a second — which is roughly comparable to broadband speeds by telephone — in outdoor areas. Special equipment, costing $80 to $120, will be needed to bolster the signal enough to bring it inside homes or offices.

Full story.

We will start the event by lighting the traditional oil lamp. Next is a 2 minute meditation.

Nuwan Waidyanatha –

Welcome all partners including, Dr. Gordon Gow (University of Alberta), Dr. Dileeka Dias (Director Dialog Communication Research Lab), Prof Rohan Samarajiva (Director LIRNEasia), Mr. Nanadana Jayasinghe (Director Sarvodaya Disaster Management center), most importantly the Sarvodaya Participants (ICT Guardians).

Rohan Samarajiva –

We started the lat Mile HazInfo Program on January 23, 2006. The objective of my talk is to introduce you to the framework used in this project. The attendees are people who have faced the great tragedy that happened in December 26, 2004. Since then, 20 months later, we still have no solution in our nation.

3 Tsunamis have occurred in the Indian Ocean within the last 20 months. The last tsunami killed over 500 in Indonesia.

We can excuse ourselves for not having a warning system for the 2004 tsunami. But what about the next one? We cannot give excuses any further.

Before we go in to the details I will present the evidence and how is our preparedness– (Associated Press)

- local time 14:19 a Earthquake happens in the Indian Ocean,- PTWC issues a warning 17 minutes later- 39 minutes later first wave hits the coast

- message reads … affective coutries Indonesia and Australia

According to the Associated Press, Indonesia promises to roll out warning system in 2009. Welfare Minister Aburizal Bakrie told Associated press “ we are preparing one, but is not finished”. “After earthquake occurred people ran up hill”, V. President of Indonesia

Warning system links

Link 1 – Issue message to from the detection centers

Link 2 – Warn the Government Officials of threats

Link 3 – Warn first-Responders such as police and local government agents

Link 4 – Warn the last mile

Can we talk in past tense instead of future tense. Two other Nations ARE QUIPED with early warning system. Thailand has built a warning towers on beaches across its southern coast. Malaysia HAS positioned two buoys off its coast and have tested the system.

Now countries that speak in future tense; Sri Lanka has a plan to install a national warning system and information will be passed to villages by phones or national media

Rohan asks questions from the audience …

Do you get warnings through the gov now – audience NO

Do you have sirens in Churches, Mosques, and Temples as the Government has promised – audience NO

“Physical world of hazards, symbolic worlds, link technologies & institutions that work imperfectly.”

The Last-Mile HazInfo project is not a public warning system, it is a closed network alerting system. The Last-Mile project envisions on overcoming the lessons learned from the 2004 tsunami — keep ahead of congestions, address point-to-multiple media

We will provides the knowledge for the last mile to make their own response plans and when they are provided with them risk information. The last-Mile First-Responders will react based on the training and the severity of the hazard information.

We do not tell people to evacuate or take action but we only provide the know how and the information for the last mile to make their own decisions

10 deaths and 5 premature births as a result of inappropriate warning by the government in after the great Nyas earthquake in March. The incident happened at night where a people were sleeping.
Disaster Management is a village level duty. Therefore, we will only provide risk information; but will not ask people to evacuate. Sarvodaya is not authorized to issue public warnings but can develop a good information communication network to provide the necessary Disaster related information for local awareness and response planning.

The last-Mile system overcomes all these problems where a wakeup feature has been introduced. This is to help the Government by preparing the last mile.

First phase will evaluate how the organizational level of the villages and whether training is necessary for such a system.

Ultimate objective is to use the research findings to develop a model to implement an alerting solution in 226 of the Tsunami affected villages as a phase 2 of this project; phase 3 will implement a early warning solution for the 15000 Sarvodaya villages.

Gordon Gow –

Objective is to make everyone comfortable with the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP). Presentation will highlight the most relevant aspects that deal with the LM-HWS project. It is a core function of the project

Several Needs:

• deliver messages to multiple technologies
• Need to ensure accuracy and consistency in the content
• - Need future expansion and interoperability

CAP is a mean to deliver information to a diverse set of technology which will be tested on Addressable Satellite Radio (ASR), Fixed Phones, Mobile Phones, Remote Alarm Device (RAD) and VSATs.

CAP Background

• standardize content of alerts across all hazards and enable multi-media dissemination
• Works started by the Partnership for Public Warning in 2002
• PPW submitted a report to OASIS in 2004 – Version 1.0 in the project we are using Version 1.1 approved in 2005
• XML-based data interchange format being implemented by government and private sector organizations

Why use CAP

• Open source protocol, which means it is free for us to use
• systematic Message Composition
• Multimedia distribution of single message
• Customization and filtering possibility
• Growing international recognition and implementation (e.g. WCATWC)
• Contribution to the evolution of CAP standard itself

All communication systems can be broken into 3 layers –

1. Content Layer: warning messages
2. Applicant Layer: mobile phones (WAP, Java, SMS, CB), telephone, radio (text display, text-to-voice), Internet (pop up display, email, rss)
3. Physical transportation layer (wireless networks and wired networks)

CAP fits in the Application Layer of the communication hierarchy.

A raw CAP message contains the XML tags and is annoying to read (raw software code). A CAP message viewed through a browser still looks very hard to read (raw information only). After applying a style-sheet to the message it can be converted in to a human readable message (clear message).

It very common to use web links in the message to direct readers to additional information such as a map of the effected areas.

A CAP “profile document defines its implementation for the LM-HWS, which is found in the Hazard-Information-Hub (HIH) guidelines; i.e CAP Profile. First-responders must understand certain features of the CAP profile: Alert, Information, resources, Area segments.

The 3 language problem has been solved by using multiple Information blocks; i.e. An Info block for Tamil, Sinhala, and English per message. The priority of the message is based on 3 pieces of the message: Urgency, Severity, Certainty. Urgent messages means that the community must act immediately; high priority implies that the community must be put on stand by; other a low priority message implies that the community must stay vigilant and keep a look out for hazards.

A government warning will be relayed by the HIH over the Sarvodaya network whenever it is issued. HIH will simply copy the government message and past it in the “description” element of the CAP message and set the “Event” as a “government warning”, which is one of the predefined hazard events in CAP.

“Despite WiFly’s ubiquity — with 4,100 hot spot access points reaching 90 percent of the population — just 40,000 of Taipei’s 2.6 million residents have agreed to pay for the service since January. Q-Ware, the local Internet provider that built and runs the network, once expected to have 250,000 subscribers by the end of the year, but it has lowered that target to 200,000.

That such a vast and reasonably priced wireless network has attracted so few users in an otherwise tech-hungry metropolis should give pause to civic leaders in Chicago, Philadelphia and dozens of other American cities that are building wireless networks of their own.

Like Taipei, these cities hope to use their new networks to help less affluent people get online and to make their cities more business-friendly. Yet as Taipei has found out, just building a citywide network does not guarantee that people will use it. Most people already have plenty of access to the Internet in their offices and at home, while wireless data services let them get online anywhere using phones, laptops and P.D.A.’s.”

After almost ten months of research and activities, UNDP-APDIP’s Open Regional Dialogue on Internet Governance (ORDIG*) has produced a two-part report entitled, “Voices from Asia-Pacific: Internet Governance Priorities and Recommendations” – consisting of 1) the ORDIG Policy Brief and Executive Summary, and 2) the ORDIG Input Paper for the UN Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) and the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).

These documents stem from months of consultations involving stakeholder groups from the public and private sectors, as well as civil society.

ORDIG consulted over 3,000 stakeholders through sub-regional meetings, jointly organized with UNESCAP and others; a region-wide online forum that allowed for open and candid discussions on the issues; and a region-wide, multi-lingual, issues-based online survey that looked at the Internet governance priorities of the region.

The resulting two reports are the synthesis, consolidation, and reading of the voices from the Asia-Pacific region. They outline the principles and dimensions that make up the framework for building recommendations, which are provided in the documents at two levels – general and specific recommendations.

Issues and recommendations covered in the Infrastructure dimension are access costs, VOIP, and wireless networks. Issues and recommendations covered in the Logical dimension are DNS management, IP address management, and technical standards. Issues covered in the Content dimension are content pollution (spam, viruses, spyware, etc.) and cybercrime. Issues covered in the Social/Developmental dimension are culture diversity and participation.

The “Voices from Asia-Pacific: Internet Governance Priorities and Recommendations” documents were shared with and endorsed by delegates at the High Level Asia-Pacific Conference for the World Summit on the Information Society, in Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran (31 May-2 June 2005).

Furthermore, these reports will be provided to the WGIG at their upcoming Fourth Meeting (14-17 June 2005), as the Asia-Pacific input for the Working Group’s deliberation.

For all documents, please go to:

ORDIG Policy Brief

http://igov.apdip.net/ORDIG_Policy_Brief.pdf

ORDIG Input Paper

http://igov.apdip.net/ORDIG_Paper.pdf

ORDIG Survey Report http://igov.apdip.net/ORDIG.Survey.Report.pdf

ORDIG Forum Summary http://igov.apdip.net/undp-apdip%20forum%20summary.pdf

Contact:

Phet Sayo, UNDP-APDIP Programme Specialist, phet@apdip.net

=======================

* ORDIG is an initiative of UNDP’s Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme (UNDP-APDIP), in collaboration with the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), and the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC). It was carried out with the aid of a grant from the International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada.

By JOHN MARKOFF,
SAN FRANCISCO,

In an effort to create a global wireless alternative to cable and telephone Internet service, Intel said on Monday that it would collaborate with Clearwire, a wireless broadband company, in developing and deploying the new technology. The companies said that Intel would make a "significant” investment in Clearwire, which has begun building long-range wireless data networks around the world. Clearwire, founded by Craig O. McCaw, a pioneer of the cellular industry, said in August that it had raised $160 million from 23 investors in a private stock transaction. The companies are betting that a new wireless technology called WiMax – which is intended to extend the reach of Wi-Fi wireless networks by permitting a single transceiver to connect hundreds or thousands of customers to the Internet over distances of many miles – will succeed where other long-range wireless data technologies have failed in the past.

Intel is spending $150 million to jumpstart WiMax technology by creating a series of new chips designed to support the WiMax standard. Clearwire recently began offering wireless Internet service in Jacksonville, Fla., for about $25 a month.

During a news conference on Monday, Mr. McCaw said that Clearwire was moving more quickly to deploy the service in major cities in Canada and Mexico and that it was also active in developing countries like Bangladesh. The company said that it could be in as many as 20 American markets next year, but Mr. McCaw said getting access to radio spectrum was more difficult in this country than in Canada and Mexico. He also said that Clearwire could succeed at offering high-speed wireless Internet access where others have failed, in part because it hoped to take advantage of Intel’s efforts to create a global technology standard. "We are tempered by the fact that everyone who has tried this has failed," Mr. McCaw said, "but we’re crossing the river on the backs of pioneers." During the 1990′s there were a number of efforts to provide Internet access wirelessly both in urban and rural areas in the United States, but they have all failed financially. Intel executives said on Monday that they believed that by creating a single global standard for WiMax technology, wireless access could become an alternative to digital subscriber lines and cable.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/26/technology/26intel.html?ex=1099786570&ei=1&en=b1f3317f6ee75a58