During ESCAP’s Expert Consultation in Manila last week, I was often asked in private if terrestrial networks can deliver what the submarine cables do. I always answered affirmative citing EPEG or Europe-Persia Express Gateway. A scholarly publication by James Cowie of Renesys has coincided with ESCAP’s event and objective: EPEG is now the Internet’s fastest path between the Gulf and Europe, shaving at least ten percent off the best submarine cable round trip time from Dubai to Frankfurt. It follows the terrestrial great circle path through Iran, Azerbaijan, Russia, Ukraine, and Germany. EPEG’s greatest selling point this year isn’t the 10% latency reduction; it’s simply that it doesn’t go through Egypt.
Bangladesh took a giant leap in terms of redefining broadband from 128 Kbps to 1 Mbps at the end of last year. Such politically motivated administrative intervention has, however, failed to improve its abysmal broadband profile in the region. The Broadband Commission, in conjunction with ITU and UNESCO, has published the “State of Broadband 2013: Universalizing Broadband” report on September 21, 2013. Various indicators of broadband covering 194 countries until the end of 2012 have been captured in this publication. It shows that Bangladesh ranks 161 with 6.
Cuba has activated its first submarine cable early this year and we covered the island’s digital divide. That is Castro’s Cuba under US economic sanction since Kennedy’s era. Part of Cuba named Guantanamo has been under America’s control where a naval base is housed since 1903. The prison of ‘war on terror’ is also located there. It will be now connected with the mainland of USA through a submarine cable.
I first publicly presented the proposal of terrestrial connectivity between Asia and Europe at CommunicAsia 2011 in Singapore. Laying fiber along the Asian Highway, being fostered by ESCAP, across the seamless Eurasian terrain has been central to my advocacy for affordable broadband in Asia. It drew ESCAP’s attention, as Rohan has acknowledged. As a result, I was invited to explain my study in two ESCAP workshops during 2012. I have been consistently emphasizing on Asia’s increasing Internet connectivity with Europe.
Adrenaline didn’t flow in Bangladesh 3G auction today. It could be anything but auction when four bidders show up for four licenses. Bangladesh government has priced US$20 million per Megahertz for 40 MHz of spectrum in 2100 MHz band. It is in addition to 10 MHz spectrum being assigned to state-owned Teletalk. Theoretically, Grameenphone (Telenor), Banglalink (Vimpelcom), Robi (Axiata) and Airtel (Bharti Airtel) could have had at least 10 MHz each.
Espionage outfits of Singapore, Australia, USA and UK have unlawfully intercepted the voice and data traffic of SEA-ME-WE 3 and SEA-ME-WE 4 submarine cable networks. Philip Dorling, the National Affairs and Defence Correspondent for The Canberra Times, broke this news quoting Edward Snowden’s leaked information. Australia’s all the major newspapers (Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and Brisbane Times) have simultaneously published his sensational exclusive report. Australian intelligence expert and Australian National University professor Des Ball said that intelligence collection from fibre optic cables had become “extremely important” since the late 1990s because such communications channels now carry more than 95 per cent of long distance international telecommunications traffic. “Fibre optic cables are much more difficult to intercept than satellite communications,” Professor Ball said.
Bangladesh will provide 100 Gbps of Internet bandwidth to India. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) has planned to deploy cross-border optical fiber cable, which will ensure cheaper wholesale Internet bandwidth to the seven northeastern Indian states. The states of Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Naga Land, Manipur and Mizoram are popularly known as the “seven sisters”. India has been struggling with broadband deployment in this region being remotely located from the subsea cable lading stations (Click on the map). Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram are adjacent to Bangladesh while the rest are at closer proximity.
Governments, in general, are disgustingly infamous for despicable greed. They are notoriously addicted to the lust for windfall from auctioning spectrum. ČESKÝ TELEKOMUNIKA ČNÍÚŘAD or CTU, is the regulator of the Czech Republic. It stays away from the endemic of greed. Early this year, it stunned the world by aborting an auction of 800MHz, 1800MHz and 2.
Internet in Myanmar has suffered outage on July 20, 2013. Since then the country remains choked in terms of connectivity. Officially the breakdown of only submarine cable (SEA-ME-WE3) at 13 kilometers away from the coast was blamed. The Irrawaddy wrote on July 24: “Works are being carried out to repair the fault as quick as possible in coordination with [a] Singapore-based underwater repair and maintenance team. It is expected to take about one month,” the state-owned company said in a brief announcement in government newspaper The New Light of Myanmar.
Intercom was a small telephone network, which allowed calling strictly within the office. That was the Jurassic era of telecommunication when the dinosaurs state-owned incumbents mercilessly harassed the consumers. At that time the ‘sophisticated’ office automation equipment called intercom was a ‘must have’ gadget across the public and private enterprises. Speakerphone or hands-free calling feature was intercom’s jewel in the crown. Unlike the rotary-dial PSTN phones, the “trendy” intercom sets were fitted with a push-button keypad.
A new study by the European Commission (EC) recommends more spectrum be kept reserved for Wi-Fi to relieve the 3G and 4G networks from the burden of data. It promotes the usage of Wi-Fi and other small cell infrastructures like femto cells to relieve congestion on 3G and LTE and so save operators “tens of billions of euros” as they upgrade networks to meet surging customer demand. The EC report said that 71% of all EU wireless data traffic in 2012 was delivered to smartphones and tablets using Wi-Fi, “possibly rising to 78% by 2016”. Consumers can also save money by using Wi-Fi instead of paying for mobile data when they are near a Wi-Fi hotspot. The study makes three main recommendations: to make spectrum from 5150 MHz to 5925 MHz available globally for Wi Fi; to continue making the 2.
Myanmar has never been so shaky about getting disconnected before. It has happened after SEA-ME-WE3, Myanmar’s only submarine cable, was snapped at 13 kilometers south of the Irrawaddy Delta’s shore last week. “Works are being carried out to repair the fault as quick as possible in coordination with [a] Singapore-based underwater repair and maintenance team. It is expected to take about one month,” warned Myanmar Posts and Telecommunications (MPT), reports Irrawaddy. Douglas Maduray of Renesys Corp.
Three months ago the Communication and Information Technology Commission (CITC) of Saudi Arab has vowed to ban all VoIP applications that bypass networks. Now the regulator has lowered its axe on applications like Skype, Viber and WhatsApp. As a result, the oil rich Kingdom’s vast population of foreign workers will have to count huge cost of calling home. The regulator issued a vaguely worded directive in March warning that such tools as Viber, Whatsapp and Skype broke local laws, without specifying how. CITC did not respond to requests for comment on Wednesday or when the earlier announcement was made in March.
Technology is a catalyst, not an element, of increasing productivity. The desire of improvement is central to all successes, where technology accelerates the rate of achievement. Bangladesh government can truly claim the credit of dramatically improving the child and maternal mortality rates through an efficiently run nationwide scheme of immunization. Political goodwill has been the driver of this success. One physician, Dr.
China Mobile has unfolded its suits of applications to combat the OTT players like Skype, Line, Whatspp and WeChat. Its mobile app called “Jego” is now available for iOS and Android devices. It offers free VoIP, SMS, push-to-talk voice messages, photo sharing, video calling, and other services. Dereck Li, business development manager of China Mobile’s international unit, said the new service targets international users and aims to compete with Microsoft-owned Skype in the IDD and video calling markets. For instance, Skype pay-as-you-go calls to China cost around $0.
It has a bit of background. Warid Telecom of Abu Dhabi had acquired the 6th mobile operating license in Bangladesh, through open auction at US$ 50 million in 2005. The license was bundled with 15 MHz. spectrum in 1800 MHz. band.