Ghana News Agency has given an in-depth coverage of Rohan’s article, “A Giant Step Backward or the Way Forward? An Analysis of Some Proposals before the WCIT.” GNA said: Analyzing the proposals, which were from member states in Africa and the European Telecommunications Network Operators Association (ETNO), Dr. Rohan Samarajiva, former Sri Lankan Telecommunication regulator, said they could artificially raise the cost of network interconnection, content delivery, and quality of service, and that these costs would ultimately be passed along to those least able to afford them or would result in exclusion from the Internet economy. Here is the full report.
The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) has invited me to speak at “Regional Expert Consultation on Connecting Asia-Pacific’s Digital Society for Resilient Development” in Colombo during 5-6 September. There I presented that Asia’s wholesale prices of Internet bandwidth remains six-times expensive compared to the Europe and USA. Participating experts have overwhelmingly endorsed my proposal of laying fiber along Asian Highway to build an open-access transcontinental terrestrial network. It has been captured in the outcome document of the conference stating: Experts recommended that various bilateral, regional and transcontinental initiatives continue to be pursued, while also exploring new ways to reduce infrastructure costs by synchronizing the roll-out of terrestrial fibre optic cables with other infrastructure development, notably highway construction, for example, using regional connectivity offered by ESCAP’s intergovernmental agreement on the Asian Highway. Experts also noted that open access principles are a key requirement in bringing down costs for universal access to broadband connectivity, as proposed in LIRNEasia’s Longest International Open access Network (LION).
Bangladesh has been ranked 55th among the 61 countries globally and very last in the Asia-Pacific region in the 2012 Web Index. India was ranked 33, Pakistan 44 and Nepal 52 among the South Asian countries. The index has, however, excluded Sri Lanka for unknown reason. It has been compiled by the World Wide Web Foundation, which was launched in November 2009 by the father of Internet – Tim Berners-Lee. The ranking is worked out by considering each country’s web usage in terms of the percentage of web users within the country and the content they have available.
Asia is the world’s biggest seamless landmass. Yet the Asian countries have been interlinked by submarine cables. As if Asia is an archipelago. That’s why the undersea earthquakes have emerged as the serial killer of international connectivity. It disrupted Asia’s telecom services in 2006 and thereafter.
ASEAN citizens don’t need to obtain visa while traveling within the region. They receive visa on arrival. It is an important benchmark of successful regional cooperation. Indonesia’s Communication and Information Minister, Tifatul Sembiring, wants to take it another step ahead. He has proposed to abolish mobile roaming charges withing ASEAN by 2014.
ITU has joined more than 70 sources of Public Data to give away its treasure trove of statistics through the Google Public Data Explorer (PDE). ITU said, “With Google PDE users can now explore and visualize ITU’s key ICT statistical indicators from 1960 to 2011 (where data exists) for about 200 economies worldwide. Key indicators include fixed telephone, mobile cellular, fixed (wired) Internet, fixed (wired) broadband subscriptions and penetration, as well as the percentage of individuals using the Internet.” The database can be accessed from here.
Vinton Cerf, Google’s chief Internet evangelist, has challenged the U.N. report and questioned the merit of accessing Internet a human right. He said, “It is a mistake to place any particular technology in this exalted category, since over time we will end up valuing the wrong things. For example, at one time if you didn’t have a horse it was hard to make a living.
Chinese chipmaker Spreadtrum Communications has introduced two low-cost Android smartphone platforms based on a low power, cost efficient architecture that lower total phone cost between $40 and $50. It means: Smartphones will be initially sold at bellow $100 retail prices. And the prices will nosedive, as it has happened with feature phones. It will be undoubtedly the consumers’ boon. But exploding consumption of data will choke the mobile networks.
BSNL has received one of the BWA (WiMax) licenses before the private sector did. Being a state-owned enterprise was its only qualifying criteria for this license. Later it paid the same price the Indian government has forked from auctioning more licenses. BSNL has predictably failed to make money out of the BWA license that landed on its lap. It demanded the refund of US$ 1.
Asian cities are ahead of their European counterparts in using ICT for the benefit of citizens, reveals research by Ericsson and Arthur D. Little. Seoul, Singapore and Tokyo have extensively invested in ICT to offer public services including e-health programs, traffic management, and reducing environmental impact. Only three European cities – Stockholm, London and Paris – feature in a top-ten listing of global cities actively employing ICT for citizen’s benefit, compared to five cities in Asia Pacific – Seoul, Singapore, Tokyo, Shanghai and Beijing. New York and Los Angeles keep the US’ end up, ranking fifth and seventh respectively.
Faking “Caller ID” is cheating by any standard. It’s like a stranger is wearing a mask to impersonate someone innocent and knocking at the door. And you have opened the door. Similarly when it displays “F.B.
It is possibly a credible reason for the cheerleaders of “Dear Leader” to celebrate. Egyptian tycoon Naguib Sawiris has said that he regrets getting involved in the Canadian telecoms market. “It was a bad idea,” he said referring to the Canadian law that mandates majority ownership and control of the telecoms networks to the native residents. He has blasted at Canada’s draconian protection policy in an interview with the CBC’s Amanda Lang. Mr.
The increase of smuggled mobile phones in prisons across America has prompted the Government Accountability Office investigating any links between the high cost of landline phone calls and mobile phone use. It has been found that the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) charges high on landline calls as it uses the funds to pay for inmate wages and other amenities, rather than those costs coming from the State as would happen in most countries. The BOP charges inmates $0.06 per minute for local calls and $0.23 per minute for long distance calls, with no connection charge.
Citizens got panicked when an earthquake rocked New York last week. They immediately started calling family and friends from mobile phones. This is how everyone reacts during emergency worldwide. Thanks to the proliferation of mobile phone. Mobile networks of New York, however, failed soon after getting overloaded with so many simultaneous calls.
Findings of Wireless Intelligence suggests that India’s mobile subscriber base is 30% lesser than what it appears to be. It said India has long been perceived to be trailing China in terms of gigantic mobile market. The fact is: nearly a third of the estimated 850 million Indian mobile customers are inactive. Almost 250 million mobile connections were inactive in the fourth quarter – the equivalent size of major mobile markets such as Brazil and Russia – Wireless Intelligence said, citing figures from TRAI. If these figures are accurate, it means India’s mobile penetration would be more accurately 48%, compared to the official estimate of 68%.
The Libyans are about to share the best gift of Eid – freedom. If blood is the currency of liberty, the Libyans have overpaid compared to the Tunisians and Egyptians combined. Renesys’ CTO Jim Cowie, writing in the Huffington Post, has been trying to track what’s been happening to the country’s Internet connection in the midst of the chaos. Stop Press: the net is back. Read full report.