Consultations are underway for devising a new Constitution for Sri Lanka. One of the contributions to the discussion, published under the heading of “A new Constitution: What’s in it for young people?” had this section: According to the latest statistics there are over 2.8 million internet users in Sri Lanka. The Internet should not belong to only 2.
Helani Galpaya, CEO of LIRNEasia presented ongoing work on “Open Data & Agriculture” at the “Workshop on data system processing”, held at Hector Kobbekaduwa Agrarian Research and Training Institute (HARTI) on 29th January 2016. The meeting, chaired by the Minister of Agriculture, Hon Duminda Dissanayake, was organized under the National Food Security Program. The main objective of the discussion was to bring stakeholders with interest on providing ICT based solutions to Agriculture into a common platform and to avoid possible duplications of work. LIRNEasia was invited to present their work along with Department of Agriculture, the Coordinating Secretariat for Science Technology and Innovation (COSTI), University of Colombo School of Computing (UCSC), Dr. Athula Ginige-University of Western Australia, GIS solutions (PVT) Ltd, Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA), Salasine Organization and Agricultural & Agrarian Insurance Board.
After cannibalizing the hardware businesses – may it be phones, laptops or network equipment – the Chinese Internet outfits are breathing on their western counterparts’ neck. Alibaba has greater reach than Amazon: Chinese are happier to buy online than Americans. Ecommerce accounts for about one-tenth of all retail sales in China compared with about 7 per cent in the US. Tencent’s WeChat messaging and calling app has more than 650m active monthly users and is catching up rapidly with Facebook’s WhatsApp, which has just passed the billion-user mark. Facebook is blocked in China, which has allowed microblogging website Sina Weibo to amass more than half a million users who not only post but use Weibo as a social media site similar to Twitter.
They are aiming to go to 95% from the present 60%. This poses an interesting question about what to base coverage claims/targets on: geography or population? The commitments made by Telenor and Ooredoo were in terms of geography. But as shown by MPT, population is what makes intuitive commercial sense. Myanmar’s MPT aims to cover 95% of the population with its 3G network by the end of March.
As befitting an article on BIG data, the writer of this piece, done for Center for Internet and Society, is liberal with superlatives. A colossal increase in the rate of digitization has resulted in an unprecedented increment in the amount of Big Data available, especially through the rapid diffusion cellular technology. The importance of mobile phones as a significant source of data, especially in low income demographics cannot be overstated. This can be used to understand the needs and behaviors of large populations, providing an in depth insight into the relevant context within which valuable assessments as to the competencies, suitability and feasibilities of various policy mechanisms and legal instruments can be made. However, this explosion of data does have a lasting impact on how individuals and organizations interact with each other, which might not always be reflected in the interpretation of raw data without a contextual understanding of the demographic.
According to the Economist, the end is in sight for the out-call and in-call centers. Time to move up the value chain. Software robots are only going to become faster, cleverer and cheaper. Sarah Burnett of Everest, a research firm, predicts that the most basic jobs will vanish as a result. Call-centre workers will still be needed, not for repetitive tasks, but to coax customers into buying other products and services.
Back in 1979, I made a decision to not pursue research on networks because the available advisor was grumpy and unavailable. But I’ve always thought of it as a fascinating field. Luckily, we have people at LIRNEasia who are conversant, and who do the research as well. This post from Facebook should be of interest. If you are a Facebook user, it will do the calculation for you.
Dr. Vigneswara Ilavarasan shared the findings of the Systematic Review on ICTs and Microenterprises with thirty five junior faculty members, as an invited lecturer at the one day “Quality Improvement Workshop on Industry and Society: Contours of Work in the New Economy”, at IIT Roorkee, 18 Jan 2016. At least ten of faculty members are in the initial stages of PhD. The findings of the review are most likely to be explored further by them. Three faculty members said that the topics from the talk shall be allotted to master thesis in their respective colleges.
Singapore’s Singtel, Hong Kong’s 1Com, China’s Xinwei and China Telecom, Vietnam’s Viettel, South Africa’s MTN and Free from France have reportedly submitted non-binding expressions of interest to become Myanmar’s fourth mobile operator. That’s a long queue of heavyweights from Asia, Africa and Europe. Especially the maverick French billionaire Xavier Niel’s debut in Asia possibly through Myanmar will be cautiously watched by Telenor and Ooredoo. Will he mercilessly flatten Myanmar’s telecoms landscape with the fury of competition, as he did in France? “We are looking for a company that can fulfill the remaining objectives of the current government in terms of telecoms reform,” said U Zaw Oo, an advisor to the president.
I first talked about the competitive issues of big data at the 2013 IGF in Bali. In actual fact the competitive implications of a subset, utility customer information, were discussed back in 1992. But it was rare to think that there was anything to talk about other than privacy. Finally, the message seems to be getting through. The concern is that while data can give a business competitive advantage, unique treasure troves of data can provide one player with unique insight and, potentially that can be translated into market power.
This report is the result of research conducted by GSMA’s Connected Women programme and LIRNEasia in Myanmar in 2015. LIRNEasia’s nationally representative baseline survey of ICT needs and usage in Myanmar showed a gender gap in mobile ownership of 29% by March 2015. Together with GSM Association’s Connected Women program, LIRNEasia explored the reasons behind this gender gap through a series of in-depth interviews and focus group discussions held in Yangon (urban) and Pantanaw (rural) among 91 men and women in July 2015. Further questions on mobile internet awareness and use, as well as barriers to use were explored, yielding a rich set of findings and a large set of policy recommendations. Read full report: Mobile phones, internet, and gender in Myanmar
We highlighted the value of interconnecting with the South Indian grid almost three years ago in a presentation made to a public hearing of the PUCSL and kept the issue alive through subsequent writing. Would have been happier if construction had commenced, but good to know at least the talk continues. There is a big opportunity here,” Damitha Kumarasinghe, director general of Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka said. “Now India is connected to Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka is the country which is outside this grid at the moment and there are power deficits at various time intervals in both countries.” He was speaking at the recently concluded 22nd Steering Committee Meeting of South Asia Forum for Infrastructure Regulation (SAFIR) held in New Delhi, India.
With Yogi Berra I’ve always believed that to be the case. So when Adil Najam called to ask me to contribute to a book on futures, my first reaction was to refuse. But I was persuaded. Data centers powered by cheap electricity and cool climes on the Southern slopes of the Himalayas featured large in the story. I had a good time working on it but I also feared something coming at me sideways.
A few weeks back, I raised a few questions about the incompleteness of a report on Myanmar’s international connectivity. I was happy to see today that the gaps have been closed. MPT, which has sharply increased spending on advertising since losing its monopoly in the mobile market, has been working on new international connectivity that involves bringing to Myanmar, SEA-ME-WE 5, an undersea cable owned by a consortium. MPT would not say when work would begin on the Myanmar branch of SEA-ME-WE 5. However, Yosuke Fukuma, a public relations adviser to MPT, and U Zaw Htay, an engineer in its overseas department, indicated that it would be operational by the end of 2017.
Our colleague Nalaka Gunawardene has written a summary/review of the World Development Report which this year focuses on ICTs, and included several references to Research ICT Africa and LIRNEasia research. Can a budget telecom like model help bring low cost internet within reach of South Asia’s majority of unconnected people? The Colombo-based ICT policy research organisation LIRNEasia has been studying this prospect for several years. As Rohan Samarajiva, LIRNEasia’s chair, wrote in 2010: “Broadband can be brought to the people by extending and leveraging innovative business models, as has been shown with voice telephony among the poor in South Asia. The lower prices and widespread coverage that are central to the model are also desirable public policy objectives.
Several years ago I stated at an Asia Pacific Telecommunity event that I was done talking about international mobile roaming. I had given so many presentations to various configurations of government officials with zero results, at least in terms of government actions. The jawboning effects were considerable nevertheless, and roaming pricing has improved to be benefit of customers and the operators. The talking had an effect. I am close to that point of frustration with Paypal’s inward payments facility for Sri Lanka.