Governments are subsidizing millions and billions of dollars for the deployment of fiber up to the home, aka, FTTH. Such subsidies are based on the premise that fiber to the home brings substantial externalities. But Charles Kenny and his brother Robert Kenny claim that basic broadband has contributed significantly to economic growth is decidedly mixed, and points to low returns for (expensive) superfast upgrades. They think fiber to the businesses and government outfits make more sense than FTTH. The Kenny brothers accuse that the benefits of fiber have been considerably overstated while the other infrastructure remains ignored.
More the societies get connected, more the whistle-blowers like Wikileaks will become unimportant. Because the digital mavericks will be powered by the smart devices and ubiquitous networks to share all forms of information. Millions of Assanges will pop up here and there. Call them Citizen Journalists or whatever. The walls will keep collapsing around the gardens.
It is needless to explore the benefits of competition. But how far a sector can withstand competition? Or how much competition is good for competitiveness? John Kay said, In telecommunications your choice for 100 years was to take what the local telephone provider offered or to leave it. But consumers now have a bewildering variety of choice.
Kentaro Toyama argues that so-called ICT4D (Information and Communication Technologies for Development) doesn’t ensure the alleviation of poverty. He presents a long list of failed projects – like telecenters and OLPC – to substantiate the argument. He says: Technology—no matter how well designed—is only a magnifier of human intent and capacity. It is not a substitute. The myth of scale is the religion of telecenter proponents, who believe that bringing the Internet into villages is enough to transform them.
The bandwidth prices in Asia remain more than 300% expensive than the western hemisphere, said TeleGeography that has been constantly reporting this constant gap. But the Asian leaders seem unmoved about this fundamentally flawed and potentially dangerous trend across the continent. TeleGeography reports only the wholesale prices up to the gateway. Once the backhaul and licensing costs are taken into account, the Asian Internet bandwidth prices become far more expensive. Spectrum had been the only raw material of ICT until the 2G mobile became pervasive.
PTTs wore the hat of “natural monopoly” until last century. They firmly believed, “I am monarch of all I survey; My right there is none to dispute.” That was ended during the post-mobile era. Internet has further disrupted the orthodox dominance. Since then the new breeds of giants kept on emerging: Google, Yahoo, Skype, Facebook, Apple and others.
Consider it, “Writing on the wall.” The BOP not only rules the operators’ wallet. Obscure outfits has stormed into the handset world and wounded the giants. Quoting latest findings the Reuters said: Nokia and other established handset makers are quickly losing global market share to a push by Chinese no-brand vendors into emerging markets. It’s all about the form factor and rapidly declining cost of production.
Call it the funeral of MNP or whatever. But it’s truly ingenious by any standard. Spreadtrum Communications, a Shanghai-based and NASDAQ-listed company, has unveiled the world’s first “Single Chip Quad-SIM Standby Solution.” That means – you can run up to four different GSM connections in one mobile phone. Caroline Gabriel of Rethink Wireless explains furthermore.
Verizon will pay the U.S. Treasury $25 million on top of more than $52 million in refunds to consumers for overcharging them. This penalty and refund are due to the operator “erroneously” overcharging the customers for mobile Internet use. The FCC chairman Julius Genachowski said in a statement the $25 million settlement was the largest in the FCC’s history.
It’s an interesting example of how sharply the neighbors at both the banks of English Channel differ from each other. Last month the French regulator, ARCEP, claimed that 3G coverage in 900 MHz is worse than 2100 MHz. We are clueless about the methodology of ARCEP’s survey. The law of physics, under no circumstance, could be customized in France. Meanwhile, the UK regulator, Ofcom, has changed its position on refarming the 900 MHz and 1800 MHz spectrum for 3G services.
The telcos and the airlines have been making money “out of the air” worldwide. Both the industries are being troubled by predictable and unpredictable competition from everywhere. Innovation by the industry and policy-rationalization by the governments must be simultaneous to survive this wild wild west. This article addresses the airlines industry but it is also relevant for telecoms.
Regulators are allocating spectrum bands to deliver 4G high-speed mobile Internet service across a wide range of frequencies. But the quest for bandwidth is harming prospects for 4G device economies of scale, operator competitiveness and 4G global data roaming. Operators and regulators must address spectrum harmonization, not just carve out bandwidth. 4G’s demanding speed requirements—100 Mbps peak rates for high mobility and 1 Gbps for low mobility—necessarily translate into a need for more radio spectrum. National regulators are working to secure this needed spectrum, but their efforts are resulting in fragmentation instead of an ideal narrow set of spectrum ranges consistently available around the world.
Somalia lacks an effective government for nearly twenty years. There is, however, no short supply of regulator. The rebel group “al-Shabab” has banned mobile money transfer service called ‘Zaad’, according to Reuters. This “decree” is effective from coming New Year’s eve, said TeleGeography. The al-Shabab management considers mobile money transfer a threat to the economy.
Information has been riding on technology. And now the technology is disrupting the business of information. Reuters’ Editor-in-Chief, David Schlesinger, has outlined the following battle-plan: Knowing the story is not enough. Telling the story is only the beginning. The conversation about the story is as important as the story itself.
The developed economies of Asia have taken the top spots in global broadband table, according to the Oxford University’s Said Business School. This study combines quality of service and penetration. South Korea, Hong Kong and Japan occupy the first three positions and Singapore is fifth. The survey has tested download and upload speeds along with latency in 72 countries. Korea, which topped the rankings last year, this year reported average download throughput of 33.
It is needless to reiterate the evil of free money. Universal Service Fund (USF) has been the crucible of boutique corruption for its complexity. The US Government revived this medieval rent-seeking in the early 20th century to favor AT&T. Today AT&T and other heavyweights siphon in excess of US$4 billion annually from the exchequer. And it has been as legitimate as the Collateralize Debt Obligations (CDOs) in the Wall Street.