Apps are referred to applications. And applications are no different than appliances. Buy your fridge, TV, air cooler, music system, toaster, iron, microwave oven or whatever. Bring them home, plug and play. You don’t give a damn to the power utility company.
Regulators often forget the difference between “Dictation” and “Regulation” in Asia. As a result, competition becomes the fist victim of such hegemony and the consumers get punished. For example, the monthly rental and installation cost for 2Mbps circuit would cost an operator in Malaysia US$4,564 while it is only US$374 in Hong Kong. Indonesia is also equally bad. Comparing the regulatory environment of these two countries unveils the cause of such disparity.
CDMA has wider coverage and higher capacity. It is also more data-centric than GSM. Theoretically, the US-born technology is more profitable in every respect than its European rival. Yet the latter has become de facto global standard of mobile telephony. Because unlike CDMA the GSM users can change their service provider without changing the handsets.
Hasanul Haq Inu chairs the parliamentary standing committee on telecoms ministry. This treasury bench lawmaker has been critical about the proposed amendments of the telecoms law. Inu’s committee has been scrutinizing the amendments before the parliament approves it. Yesterday he said in a public event, “Such an unfriendly bill must be changed,” according to press reports. Inu has also urged the prime minister “to be careful about the conspiracy against her digital Bangladesh dream.
The telecoms minister gave audience to all the mobile CEOs and assured them of an “industry-friendly law” yesterday, according to the Daily Star. This meeting was held after the industry had expressed the possibility of legally challenging the proposed amendments of the telecoms law as their last resort, according to Daily Star’s previous report. “We are hopeful that as a guardian of the industry, the telecom minister will look into these issues,” said Zakiul Islam, president of Association of Mobile Telecom Operators of Bangladesh. It’s a positive development and that’s how the government and the industry address major issues in a democratic society. The amendments were initiated by an undemocratic regime.
The mobile operators will take the government to the court if proposed amendments of the telecoms law are not rationalized. All the six operators’ CEOs have unanimously announced their “last resort” in a historic press conference on Tuesday (June 22, 2010). Even the state-owned TeleTalk’s CEO, who is a civil servant, has joined the camp of his private sector rivals. This is the first time the usually docile mobile phone industry has threatened legal action against Bangladesh government. Because, the proposed amendments will reshape the regulatory landscape with the quicksand of penalties and landmines of arrest without warrant.
They love to talk but reluctant to pay. This is how the telecoms minister has characterized almost every organ, including the offices of the President and the Prime Minister, of Bangladesh government. Even the country’s anticorruption department has gracefully joined these disgraced defaulters. The minister has disclosed a long itemized list of unpaid bills amounting almost US$10 million in the parliament. Interestingly, the telecoms ministry is also one of the shameless phone bill defaulters.
Myanmar’s telecommunication authorities are planning to expand GSM coverage to the border areas next to its Southeast neighbours, aimed at providing better GSM phone line services to link the region, Cellular News reported quoting the local Myanmar Newsweek. The pilot project to link Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore as well as China is underway. Meanwhile, the authorities has also planned to add 33 more GSM radio stations in the biggest city of Yangon to expand GSM coverage which will be launched by local private companies on competitive tender system, an earlier report said.
Two years back Frost & Sullivan predicted the abysmal future of WiMax. And it has been absolutely right all the way. China has never granted visa to WiMax while the Chinese vendors have been happily exporting the hardware. Deng Xiaoping’s disciples have also pioneered TD-LTE, a civilized alternative of WiMax. It has been consistently writing the epitaph of WiMax in the USA, Japan and Russia.
TeleGeography has revealed the transpacific bandwidth costs five times more than the transatlantic price. The prices of a 10Gbps wavelength between London-New York (transatlantic) costs only US$9,000 to $20,000 per month. The same product, however, varies from $65,000 to $80,000 per month in Tokyo and Los Angeles (transpacific) route although this price has fallen at a compounded annual rate of 21% during last two years. Worst part of the story is – the same 10Gbps wavelength between Tokyo and Hong Kong is marginally less than the Tokyo-LA price (See the chart). The transpacific bandwidth costs are expected to slide furthermore once the new cables get commissioned.
Nokia’a latest move will make MNP further irrelevant while it’s a great news for consumers at the BOP. The Finnish mobile behemoth will release four new cheap phones ranging between €30 and €45 and the cheapest one supports dual connection. The operators would better start pampering the BOP. Nokia introduced also its first bicycle charger, targeting especially consumers with limited access to electricity, and it will go on sale for roughly 15 euros price, depending on market, later this year, said the company’s press release.
The old man is back. And he is talking about a tablet, which is powered by Marvell chip and run by Android OS, for the poor kids. Nicholas Negroponte’s OLPC has not delivered the way it had created the hype. The organization has also suffered from internal bleeding but it seems to be alive and kicking. Now OLPC has announced its plan for a sleek and cheap touch-screen tablet for the poor school children.
ITU said nearly 90 per cent of the world’s population is covered by mobile networks and more than half the rural households have a mobile telephone today. While focusing on Bangladesh, the World Telecommunication/ICT Development Report 2010 further says: Grameenphone’s EDGE network, launched in 2005, covers 98 per cent of the population, so almost every Bangladeshi has potential access to the Internet. Grameenphone has over 4.5 million EDGE subscribers, making the company the largest Internet service provider in the country. The above statement in page 23 of the ITU’s report refers to Grameenphone’s February 11, 2009 press release.
Bangladesh is amending its telecoms law that scraps the operators’ right to appeal. The regulator or the police can register a case, even on suspicion, and arrest any official of any telecom operator without a warrant. The regulator will be the investigator and can decide on any form of punishment. And the operators will not be allowed to have a say if the regulator changes or even scraps the licenses. The proposed amendment is likely to get parliamentary approval next month.
Mobile banking services are on average 19% cheaper than services from traditional banks, according to a new research conducted by the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP). It has found that the lower the transaction value, the cheaper mobile banking is in comparison with formal banks. At a transactional value of $23, branchless banking is on average 38% cheaper than commercial banks, the report found. Mobile banking is also 54% cheaper than informal options for money transfer, said the report. Many challenges face financial institutions looking to develop mobile money management capabilities.
Bangladesh government will issue 3,000 – that’s right, three thousand – international gateway (IGW) licenses, said bdnews24.com and the Daily Star. The telecoms secretary would not disclose the “official” fees per IGW license at this stage. But he believes up to US$3,600 of CAPEX will be required for each gateway. Evidently the authorities perceive IGW some sort of a cottage industry.