Nuwan Waidyanatha, project manager of the HazInfo program, has been invited to present a paper at the Second China Workshop on Information System of Crisis Response and Management (ISCRAM-CHINA 2007) to be held on August 26-27, 2007 in Harbin, China. The paper entitled “‘Common Alerting Protocol Message Broker’ for Last-Mile Hazard Warning System in Sri Lanka: An Essential Component” will focus on proving the need for a CAP Broker for a Last-Mile Hazard Warning System. The general objective of the research was to evaluate the suitability of 5 ICTs deployed in varied conditions for their suitability in the Last-Mile of a national disaster warning system for Sri Lanka and possibly by extension to other developing countries. The Live Exercises conducted between November 2006 and May 2007 showed that the Hazard Information Hub (HIH) had a reliability of only 78% on average – a poor result, as the reliability of the HIH performing her set of functions was not meant to be any less than 95%. High reliability from the HIH was a necessity in order to provide as much time for the Community First-Responders to activate and complete the Last-Mile Community Emergency Response Plans.
LIRNEasia places emphasis on developing capacity for ICT policy and regulation in the region, as well as developing the capacity of the members of its own team. Part of the problem, we find, is that organizations do not put their money where their mouth is: while platitudes about the importance of training come easy to leaders of organizations, actually committing money for training and releasing staff for training does not come that easy. We try to walk the talk at LIRNEasia, but obviously we can be more systematic about it. Here is brilliant idea from IBM, which may be too complicated for an outfit that is still 12-14 people depending how the counting is done. But still worth thinking about.
Rohan Samarajiva will present a paper on ‘Sri Lanka’s telecommunications commitments under GATS: Assessment and issues for the future’ in the “Trade in Services’ session at the International Trade Law Conference 2007, on 1 August, organised by the Sri Lanka Law College in collaboration with The Department of Commerce of Sri Lanka and The World Trade Organization. The topic of this year’s conference is “The Doha Development Agenda and the Future of the Multilateral Trading System.” The conference will seek to facilitate an extensive discussion on the critical issues that have arisen in the course of the Doha Development Agenda negotiations. The panel of speakers consisting of policy makers, academics and professionals of outstanding calibre have been drawn from the developed and developing world such as the US, EU, India and Sri Lanka, in order to stimulate debate and facilitate a holistic experience for the participants.The conference website is: http://www.
The One Laptop Per Child project is one step closer to releasing the completed machine to millions of schoolchildren in the developing world. But what makes the computer so unique? Find out:http://news.bbc.co.
THE number of mobile-phone subscribers in the 30 countries of the OECD reached nearly 933m in 2005, equivalent to around 80 for every 100 people. Tiny Luxembourg has the highest penetration rate, with 157.3 subscribers for every 100 people. Indeed, it is one of 14 countries in which there are more subscribers than people. This is partly because users increasingly have several SIM cards for use with the same phone.
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.
Behind the Google led attempt to free up the mobile networks for all attachments (Carterfone 2), there appears to have been a scholarly article, a Law Review article of all things! This was after many had written requiems for law review articles saying they were getting too esoteric to be of any use. When Mobile Phones Aren’t Truly Mobile – New York Times Then, in February, Timothy Wu, a law professor at Columbia University, published an influential paper, “Wireless Net Neutrality,” which made a well-supported case that the government should compel wireless carriers to open their networks to equipment and software applications that the carriers did not control. Mr. Wu called his proposition a call for “Cellular Carterfone,” referring to the 1968 Carterfone ruling by the F.
Swedish Woman Gets Superfast Internet – New York Times In less than 2 seconds, Lothberg can download a full-length movie on her home computer — many thousand times faster than most residential connections, said Hafsteinn Jonsson, head of the Karlstad city network unit. Jonsson and Lothberg’s son, Peter, worked together to install the connection. The speed is reached using a new modulation technique that allows the sending of data between two routers placed up to 1,240 miles apart, without any transponders in between, Jonsson said. ”We wanted to show that that there are no limitations to Internet speed,” he said. Powered by ScribeFire.
True to form, Google is proposing a radical rethink of the entire basis of the wireless industry. And it is putting real money behind its ideas. All that is in the way seems to be the FCC. Google Pushes for Rules to Aid Wireless Plans – New York Times “When you go to Best Buy to buy a TV, they don’t ask whether you have cable or satellite,” said Blair Levin, a former F.C.
Many think that VoIP is the solution to all telecom problems. It is a solution, but not to all problems. It does not give you something for nothing, in the long run, though in the short term, something may be had for almost nothing. The articles describes the problems faced by VoIP operators in the US, where the basic infrastructure is already in place. In countries of the South, we have to keep in mind that the fiber has not been laid; the households have not all been connected; etc.
LIRNEasia research found that almost all Filipinos at the Bottom of the Pyramid send at least one SMS a day. Here is data from the supply side: The Manila Times Internet Edition | METRO > Filipinos send 500M text messages daily FILIPINOS sent an average of 500 million text messages a day last year, doubling the number of text messages sent in 2005, the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) said. Edgardo Cabarios, director NTC’s Common Carrier and Authorization Division (CCAD), attributed the increase to the promotional gimmicks offered by mobile-phone service providers like unlimited text messaging, voice call discounts and the rising subscriber number. Data from the NTC show that the country’s subscriber growth rose by 23 percent to 42.87 million subscribers last year from the 34.
LIRNEasia decided to use a blog as its website rather than a conventional website. Website has done well so far; about 3,000 comments so far. Some issues of importance: Front page changes every two days, due to number of posts. Scrolling nature means that sometimes the most important topics do not remain at the top for long. Weaknesses concerning retrieval of documents (unless you know exactly where it is).
LIRNEasia research on Telecom Regulatory Environment (where India gets the lowest scores on the USO dimension) shows that Indian USO policy and implementation are flawed. LIRNEasia research on teleuse at the Bottom of the Pyramid shows clearly that lowering connection charges and keeping the use charges low are critically important in connecting the next billion. The policy recommendation that flows from this, made at meeting of regulators in New Delhi on the 15th of July, is that the USO levy should be phased out and the existing funds be disbursed as quickly as possible. But it appears that the Department of Telecommunications and the new Minister think otherwise: The Hindu Business Line : Raja rejects telecom industry plea to cut USO levy Operators had said that since the USO fund has over Rs 10,000 crore lying unused, the Government should consider lowering the contribution made by the telecom firms. “We realise that USO is an important tool to enable telecom services in rural areas.
The OECD has published comparative data on broadband speeds and prices. This will help drive prices down and quality up. The rest of the countries need to develop their own benchmarks. BBC NEWS | Technology | Global broadband prices revealed According to the report, broadband prices for DSL connections across the 30 countries have fallen by 19% and increased in speed by 29% in the year to October 2006. Cable prices and speeds followed a similar trend.
The Business Standard (Nokia focuses on rural markets) Sapna Agarwal / Pune July 16, 2007The rural markets account for around 5 per cent of the national GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication) handset sales. The figure is expected to rise to 25-30 per cent, adding around 100 million new cellular subscribers by 2009, according to a recent study by LIRNEasia and AC Nielson.
Intel and $100 laptop join forces Nicholas Negroponte, founder of One Laptop per Child, said: “Intel joins the OLPC board as a world leader in technology, helping reach the world’s children. Collaboration with Intel means that the maximum number of laptops will reach children.” Intel inside The new agreement means that Intel will sit alongside the 11 companies, including Google and Red Hat, which are partners in the OLPC scheme. It will also join rival chip-maker AMD, which supplies the processor at the heart of the $100 laptop. Powered by ScribeFire.