Myanmar will implement a cyber village project aiming to enable every village in the country to have access to internet link like urban cities, according to computer entrepreneur circle Thursday. A pioneer pilot project for the move will start late of this year by the open season with installation of IP Star phone lines by the state-run Myanmar Posts and Telecommunications (MPT), the Computer Entrepreneurs’ Association (CEA) said. Investment is being invited from the private sector for the establishment of public access centers in villages and power source is being sought either from battery or solar energy to operate the internet in some remote villages in short of electricity as an alternative, the Association added. According to the MPT, the number of internet users in Myanmar has reached nearly 300,000, up from merely 12 in four years ago. The authorities have projected to introduce 400 public internet service centers in 324 townships in the country within three years to facilitate communication links.
Google has refused to deny mounting speculation that it is working to produce its own brand mobile phone. Reports suggest that the web giant is developing a series of”GPhones”, centred on its mobile services, such as search, e-mail and maps. In a statement, Google said it was working with carriers, phone makers and content providers to “bring its services to users everywhere”. The firm would not say if its efforts included plans for a handset. The Google statement said: “What our users and partners are telling us is that they want Google search and Google applications on mobile, and we are working hard every day to deliver that.
The article also contains interesting data on minutes of use by age group. What’s Good for a Business Can Be Hard on Friends – New York Times Unlike traditional landline telephones, which once made callers distinguish between local and long distance, cellphone carriers divide the world into in-network and outside. And because basic plans from the three major cellphone carriers, Verizon, Sprint and AT&T, are all about the same price — under $60 a month — the deciding factor for young people, in particular, is what network friends are on. Carriers are giving customers more options to stay connected with people outside their network. This year, T-Mobile introduced a plan that allows customers to choose five telephone numbers outside its network that they can call free at any time.
“Hundreds of cell phone users in Minneapolis on Wednesday evening complained that they were unable to make or receive phone calls during the aftermath of the I-35 bridge collapse. But many people said they could still contact loved ones via text messaging.” Full Story
Sales in Emerging Markets Help Nokia Add to Its Cellphone Lead – New York Times Nokia sold 100 million mobile devices in the period, an increase of 29 percent over 2006, while the overall industry growth was about 14 percent, with 262 million mobile devices sold globally, Nokia said. But the group again warned about the performance of its troubled network operations, describing market conditions as challenging because of heavy competition. “We shall have to increase the amount and speed of cost cutting,” the chief executive, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, said, giving no details. The greatest growth in Nokia’s handset sales, 37 percent, was in the Middle East and Africa, it said. But at 36 percent growth, sales were also strong in the Asia-Pacific region and in China.
Daily News – Friday, 3 August 2007 In a press conference held yesterday to announce South Asia’s first Broadband Communications Congress and Expo (SABCCE) General Manager/ Head of Consumer Market Development Division of Sri Lanka Telecom SLT M.Z Saleem said CDMA Broadband technology will be introduced to the local market by SLT soon. Most of the service providers in the local telecommunication industry are in the process of introducing this technology to the market. However the equipment needs higher investments for introducing this technology, he said. ‘Broadband communications are very cost effective.
NowPublic, the participatory citizen-journalist website that began life in a garage in Vancouver, Canada, has announced it has secured US$10.6 million in venture capital funding. The website allows anyone – from amateurs to professionals – to post news stories and upload images, videos, and audio files. The company, that claims to be the world’s fastest-growing news organisation, says 120,000 people from over 140 countries have contributed to the site since its launch in 2005. The website relies for its content on “crowdsourcing” – that it describes as being similar to outsourcing, but with unpaid or low-paid amateurs.
There is a huge gap between advertised broadband speeds and the actual speeds users can achieve, research has shown. A survey by consumer group which found that broadband packages promising speeds of up to 8Mbps (megabits per second) actually achieved far less. Tests of 300 customers’ net connections revealed that the average download speed they were getting was 2.7Mbps. Which has called on regulator Ofcom and Trading Standards to launch a fresh investigation into UK broadband.
A partial victory for those making the case for open wireless networks (Carterfone 2). F.C.C. Hands Google a Partial Victory – New York Times The Federal Communications Commission moved cautiously Tuesday toward creating a more open national wireless broadband network, handing a partial victory to Google, which was pushing for more competition in cellphone services.
Paper titled “Community-based Hazard Warnings in Rural Sri Lanka: Performance of a Last-Mile Message Relay”, authors – Gordon Gow (Associate Professor, Faculty of Extensions, University of Alberta, Canada), Peter Anderson (Associate Professor, Department of Telematics, Simon Fraser University, Canada), and Nuwan Waidyanatha (Project Manager, Last-Mile Hazard Warning Systems, LIRNEasia, Sri Lanka), will be presented at the 1st Wireless Rural Emergency Communication Conference. The WRECOM 2007 Conference is jointly organized by the University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, the IEEE Communications Society and the Vehicular Technology/Communications Society joint Chapter Italy Section. The conference will take place in Rome, October 1-2, 2007. The HazInfo project realized that early warnings via Information Communication Technology (ICT) must be a point-to-multi-point application and is best accommodate by Wireless ICTs. The HazInfo pilot included outfitting and field-testing an initial 32 villages with various combinations of wireless communication equipment, which could provide features such as: early warning wake-up, addressability and provision of information in three languages (English, Sinhalese and Tamil).
Privatization is a controversial subject. Proponents claim it will increase efficiency; reduce the stuffing of firms with excess employees, etc. The reduction of political victimization is not a benefit that usually gets addressed. This study also helps explain the opposition of unions in state-owned firms to privatization. They are not unions in the classic sense, but intermediaries of political victimization and corruption.
“MY NAME is Mohammed Sokor, writing to you from Dagahaley refugee camp in Dadaab. Dear Sir, there is an alarming issue here. People are given too few kilograms of food. You must help.” A crumpled note, delivered to a passing rock star-turned-philanthropist?
LIRNEasia currently has openings for four researchers. Applications for the post of Senior Researchers are being accepted until August 24th 2007. See Job descriptions.
The telecom sector in Sri Lanka is expected to attract the bulk of the record USD 600 million in foreign direct investment expected in 2007: LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE – LBO Nor has violence deterred the 530 million dollars in foreign direct investment so far this year which is projected to exceed the 600 million dollars in 2006, according to bank figures. Most of the money from overseas has gone into telecom and IT-related services, distantly followed by garments and building of high-rise properties. Powered by ScribeFire.
Thailand continues with its program of tsunami evacuation drills. This website has reported on the evacuation drills organized by Sarvodaya and LIRNEasia as part of the pilot project. We will be pleased to disseminate information about the government’s drills as well. ThaisNews On Thursday 26 July, we had our Special report at the Tsunami evacuation drill in Patong. Later we had an interview with the Director General of the Sri Lanka Disaster Management Center and a representative from Maldives, who were observing the drill.
Pyramid Research has released a list of the Top Ten Trends that will influence the telecoms sector in the region (and elsewhere) throughout the coming year. It claims that subscriber growth will be the number one ‘critical development’ in the Asia Pacific region through 2008. The new research shows that subscriber growth is expected to be highest in Indonesia, which will see a 45 per cent increase in its broadband market ever year for the next five years. By 2012, 80 per cent of Asia’s mobile subscribers will be from China, India, Indonesia, and Pakistan, with regional subscriptions totaling 2.2 billion.