January 2007 — Page 2 of 2 — LIRNEasia


Jaffna reconnected to the world?

Posted on January 4, 2007  /  2 Comments

A citizen journalist brings good news. But there is a question mark is regarding the comment on bills. Most of the phones in Jaffna are mobile and most of the mobiles are prepaid. So the line re bills must refer to Sri Lanka Telecom. Clarifications most welcome.
CDMA has been a major force in helping drive down per-line costs of telephony.  Has this been possible even with excessive royalties extracted by Qualcomm?  Qualcomm Under Scrutiny by Korean Antitrust Agency – New York Times The South Korean antitrust agency has formed a task force to investigate the licensing and business practices of the wireless technology company Qualcomm, the latest in a string of legal battles for the company, officials said on Tuesday. In Japan, Europe and the United States, Qualcomm, which is based in San Diego, faces accusations by rivals that it has abused its market dominance in wireless technology to demand excessive royalties and block fair competition. Qualcomm is known for developing code-division multiple access, or CDMA, wireless technology, which is a rival standard to the global system for mobile communications, or GSM, technology.
More on the Negroponte laptop. It has built-in wireless and a completely different interface. BBC NEWS | Technology | $100 laptop project launches 2007 The so-called XO machine is being pioneered by Nicholas Negroponte, who launched the project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab in 2004. Test machines are expected to reach children in February as the project builds towards a more formal launch. Wireless networking Mr Negroponte told the Associated Press news agency that three more African countries might sign on in the next two weeks.
The low-cost and quick deployment time of wireless technologies give them the potential to connect communities and regions that are currently disconnected. However, governments in many developing countries have not unlicensed the use of spectrum that is necessary to deploy wireless networks like Wi-Fi. In many countries, transmission of data using unlicensed spectrum over public areas is prohibited, which makes connecting villages, for example, impossible. In some countries like the United States, telephone companies are actively lobbying against unlicensed use of the spectrum. These were some of the key issues that came up at the Air Jaldi wireless infrastructure summit held in Dharmasala.
Thailand conducted tsunami preparedness drills in 2005. Now Indonesia has too. Organizations such as Sarvodaya/LIRNEasia in Sri Lanka have conducted drills, but isn’t it time the government got involved directly? Northwest Herald – Asian nations remember those killed in 2004 natural disaster Indonesia said its tsunami drill on Bali was aimed at raising the public’s awareness of safety measures and testing technology deployed over the last two years.Warnings were sent from the capital, Jakarta, to radios along the beach.