China will issue third-generation mobile phone licenses as early as this month and expects companies to spend 200 billion yuan ($30 billion) on installing equipment, the industry minister said Friday. China has the world’s biggest population of mobile phone users and adoption of 3G — which has been long delayed — was eagerly anticipated by equipment suppliers, which are seeing demand elsewhere decline due to the global financial crisis. “The 3G licenses will be issued either later this year or early next year,” Li Yizhong, whose ministry regulates telecoms, said at a news conference. Third-generation mobile phone technology supports Web surfing, video downloads and other added services. Its adoption in China is expected to boost demand for mobile service and spur growth of new services.
The Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, on Thursday said that the Government was working on a number of policy initiatives for taking the telecom sector to the next level of growth. This includes introduction of mobile number portability which will allow subscribers to change their operator without having to give up their telephone number. Addressing the inaugural session of India Telecom Summit 2008, Dr Singh said, “I believe that the key to the growth of the telecom sector has been competition. There has been continuity in competition and investment friendly policies. The Government is working on many more initiatives to further improve the telecom sector.
Is broadband quality a subject of interest only to urban top-of-the ladder users? Not necessarily. With the latest developments in telecom services broadband access is increasingly becoming a reality to rural populations as well, even in developing countries. The penetration levels might not be the same but should that mean quality should be compromised for rural users? Broadband quality is critical for telecenters where a link is usually shared.
The design of the Real-Time Biosurveillance Program pilot (termed as the m-Health project) and findings from the Last-Mile Hazard Information Dissemination pilot (termed as the HazInfo projects) involvoing the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) were presented, yesterday, at the CAP Implementers Workshop organized by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). First Talk – The m-Health RTBP will be evaluating CAP or EDXL (Emergency Data Exchange Language) as means for disseminating health risk information to local health officials and community health care workers. Currently, the National Epidemiology Unit, in Sri Lanka, publishes a “Weekly Epidemiological Report” on the world wide web, a pdf file that can only be viewed on a personal computer. Paper copies of the same are delivered via postal mail to the relevant health officials. The latency in gathering the epidemiological data, analyzing, publishing, and disseminating is delayed as much as up to 3 weeks.
The Economist annual prizes recognise successful innovators in eight categories. Here are this year’s winners: Bioscience: Martin Evans, director of the school of biosciences and professor of mammalian genetics at Cardiff University, for his work in stem-cell research and the development of “knockout” mice. Sir Martin performed pioneering research into stem cells, and used them to create mice with a specific genetic disorder. This led to the creation of “knockout” mice, which are used to model human diseases by deactivating a specific gene. Business Process: Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia for the promotion of online public collaboration as a means of content development.
US Broadband users are clamoring for more speed, according to a just-released report by Horowitz Associates. The report, “Broadband Content and Services 2008,” finds that almost one-third of data subscribers feel their Internet service does not meet their speed needs; 19% are thinking about upgrading to a higher speed (or would if it were available); 10% are thinking about switching to another provider; and 5% are not happy with their current speed, but are not planning to upgrade at this time. Of all broadband customers, DSL subscribers are the least satisfied, and those with the telco services Verizon FiOS and AT&T U-verse report the highest satisfaction levels with the speeds of their respective services. According to the study, almost eight in 10, or 78%, of FiOS or U-verse customers are satisfied with the speed of their current service and are not planning to switch, compared to 70% of cable modem and 63% of DSL customers. The study, which now includes a multicultural component, finds that almost one-third of Hispanic and Asian (both groups at 32%) broadband users say they are thinking about upgrading or switching to get faster speeds, compared to 23% of both white and black broadband users.
Ericsson and 3 Scandinavia have signed a contract to upgrade the operator’s HSPA network to 21 Mbps downlink speeds. This will raise mobile broadband speeds in Scandinavia to a new level by dramatically improving quality and capacity. The upgrade will give 3’s customers improved access to mobile broadband services, including Internet and downloading of music and video. Peder Ramel, CEO of 3 Scandinavia says: “We were the first to launch Turbo 3G in the Nordic region and now we are proud to be one of the first operators in the world to offer a speed of 21Mbps. Ericsson’s leading technology will help us boost competitiveness and reach our goal of bringing high-quality communications to our customers.
Here is an update on the search on how the Mumbai attackers coordinated their murderous activities: The police official, Javed Shamim, said both men were in Calcutta in October when Mr. Rehman used a dead relative’s photo identification to buy the SIM cards. Mr. Rehman then activated them and either gave or sold them to Mr. Ahmed, Mr.
“I think in many areas today if we don’t bypass some of the generational changes would be very difficult to implement because of the mindset. So C-Dot was setup as a group of young people dedicated to designing through indigenous development of the telecom switching systems and related products with focused on rural communication, digitisation of the telecom network and with a focus on building human capacity for telecom, software, computers all of that. We had some total of about 500 young engineers with average age of 23. I would say almost all of those people are now very important, in key positions in global ICT revolution everywhere all over the world. There were some very interesting activities we launched then and those were the seeds we planted.
Even as SIM cards have become the focus of investigations to establish the identity of the Mumbai attackers, the Department of Telecom (DoT) has found that at least two lakh mobile phone users, almost 20% of the total vetted connections so far, had provided fake identity papers and their addresses were unverified. In an ongoing audit, ordered by the government to establish the genuineness of customers, DoT found that out of 10 lakh connections verified so far, more than 2 lakh had been issued to customers whose identity could not be established. The extent of fake identities has rattled the government which has started penalising service providers at Rs 1,000 for every fake user found. Sleuths suspect that the Mumbai attackers, like in the past, had obtained SIM cards on fake identity and had used it for communication with their handlers across the border. Though details are yet to be made public, officials have procured details of SIM cards from where they were procured and whose identities were used for the same.
‘The 21st Century Tech President’ said Saturday morning that the U.S. will launch new investments in its infrastructure – including a boost of broadband accessibility – as part of a larger strategy to revitalize the economy and create jobs. Specifically, President-elect Barack Obama said broadband connections need to be made widely available to school children and hospitals. Hospitals should be able to connect to each other via the Internet.
A California satellite technology provider has signed a deal to put a planned broadband Internet satellite into orbit above the U.S. in the first half of 2011. The ViaSat-1 satellite will be launched on board an Arianespace rocket from the European space port in Kourou, French Guiana, according to the terms of the deal that was announced on Thursday. The satellite will an overall throughput of 100Gbps and that should enable it to support 2Mbps service to about 2 million subscribers when operational.
AT&T and Nokia each announced severe belt-tightening measures this week, but each laid out different approaches to address market share issues. Suffering from the loss of landline subscribers, AT&T announced Thursday that it will cut its employment base by 4%, or 12,000 employees. The company, however, said it plans to increase staff in broadband, wireless, and video. AT&T has been riding its exclusive deal with Apple’s iPhone, and the telecom company expects to gain market share in the mobile phone category next year. At its annual Capital Markets Day, this year in Brooklyn, N.
The Ofcom-backed code of practice has won pledges from net firms to give more information about line speeds. Net firms covering 95% of the UK’s broadband users have signed up to the voluntary scheme which comes into force on 5 December. Over the next six months Ofcom will monitor net firms to ensure they live up to their promises. The code of conduct was drawn up in response to research that suggested consumers were confused by adverts that promised broadband speeds that few consumers could achieve. Almost a quarter of people do not get the speed they expect, according to early results from Ofcom research, which is due to be published in full in 2009.
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin is proposing giving innovators free unlicensed access to valuable airwaves if the company that buys a license to the channels doesn’t meet tough requirements to build a nationwide Internet network. The proposal has been added to a pending auction of the airwaves. The FCC is scheduled to vote on rules for the sale on Dec. 18. Mr.
Surprises me, the skepticism of some Bangla friends here about their own broadband potential. The rest of the world seems to think otherwise. In the maps above the country sizes indicate their Internet penetration. Bigger the country more widespread is the net. (Found them sometime back in Cyber Geography, but cannot locate the source anymore.