The engineers are skeptic about mobile broadband because they think it’s hard to manage an all-IP network. The voice-centric good old TDM networks are lot easier to handle. The investors lack interest in mobile broadband because 3G licenses are quite expensive. They prefer to continue the legacy of GSM as the ROI is pretty good. Most of the governments are obsessed with auctioning the 3G licenses because of the guaranteed windfall.
Levels of trust between utility regulators and operators around the world are improving, claims a survey, though the report also warns that trust remains a fragile commodity which can easily be broken. The report, produced by KPMG and EIU, examines the level of trust between regulators and operators across five utility sectors – telecoms, power, water, transport and post. Few key findings of this survey include: 75 percent of regulators see themselves as strong performers regarding the consistency of their decisions and rulings. Only 30 percent of operators share that view. A net 32 percent of regulators feel that trust between the two parties has improved in the past year whereas a net 18 percent of operators share that view.
Farouk Abdul Aziz Al-Kasim, a migrant Iraqi geologist, and his Norwegian counterpart drafted Norway’s petroleum regulation during a fishing trip in 1970. Norway’s parliament wasted no time and unanimously approved it to govern the hydrocarbon sector. This created the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, the oil industry regulator, and Statoil, the national oil company (now known as StatoilHydro). The Norwegian regulatory model retained the private sector’s competitive drive and its expertise. It also ensured enough regulatory independence to rein in the state oil company as well as its private-sector peers.
Mobile phones will be the key driver of Internet connectivity in Africa in coming years as there are more people with handsets than computers. “Mobile phones essentially have the ability to deliver the Internet into everybody’s hand. It is therefore going to be a huge driving factor for the demand for IP connectivity,” said Steven Van Der Linde, Tata Communications’ data sales director for Africa. Reuters reports.
Orascom’s North Korean subsidiary koryolink’s subscriber base stood at 47,850 by the end of Q2. The operator has introduced further reduction in connection fees as well as free SMS for the first time to boost its growth. Additionally, the mix of free minutes was revised to satisfy customer requirements. Over the second-quarter, while minutes of use rose to 199 per month, the ARPU fell to US$22.8, from US$24.
Xavier Damman is CEO and founder of Internet company Tweetag. He believes the best thing governments can do to support entrepreneurship is step aside and become “invisible”. Xavier explains: A government is like the operating system of your computer. It is a necessary piece of software and overhead to make all the different components work together. And the best government, as the best operating system, is the one you can forget about.
Nokia said it would launch a mobile financial service next year targeting consumers, mainly in emerging markets, with a phone but no banking account. Its Nokia Money service was based on the mobile payment platform of Obopay, a privately-owned firm that Nokia invested in earlier this year, and it is now building up a network of agents. The Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), a U.S.-based microfinance policy and research center, has said the market for mobile financial services to poor people in emerging markets will surge from nothing to $5 billion in 2012.
The usage-based pricing model, which is used widely for billing retail customers, is hampering the growth of local content and services in India. “In contrast, a flat-rate pricing model would spur demand for broadband services and enable content providers to target the local and emerging market,” argues Ashwin Gumaste, James R. Isaac Chair at Computer Science department in the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay. His statement has hit the front page of The Hindu. It happened after his thought-provoking article – On the State and Guiding Principles of Broadband in India – got published in the current issue of IEEE Communications Magazine.
Singapore has devised what looks like a level playing field for its national broadband rollout – complete with competing players in different tiers. But as the first homes are connected questions are being asked about just how competitive the market will be. Alfred Siew reports in telecomTV. Robert Clark of Telecom Asia has recently also questioned IDA’s transparency in disbursing the fund for NBN.
Two days back SearchTelecom said Intel and Google have written off more than US$1.3 billion combined in Clearwire. The deep pockets are in deep trouble unless Clearwire goes for massive deployment. But that’s a huge challenge in this economic climate. The future of WiMAX is pretty bleak in developed countries and as a result, equipment makers aren’t likely to sustain their investments in the space, said research firm Analysys Mason today.
Today (August 19, 2009) the telecoms watchdog of Bangladesh has invited responses on two public consultations. They are: QoS parameters and benchmarks for PSTN and broadband. And the deadline is August 24, 2009. That means you have only three working days to read, analyze and comment on the two documents. Interestingly both the documents are dated on August 3, 2009.
With 73.5% SIM card penetration in a market of 90 million people, The Philippines has been pioneering innovations and surprising the world. It was among the first countries to publicize SMS remittance and SMS credit transfer services. The Filipinos send 1.39 billion SMS everyday.
Iraq has replaced Jordan as the Arab World’s most competitive cellular market, according to a new study. The Arab Advisors Group devised its Cellular Competition Intensity Index in order to rate and properly assess the intensity level of competition in the Arab World’s cellular markets. The Index revealed that Iraq tops the score -as the most competitive Arab market- with a 91.0% mark followed by Jordan (82.7%), Saudi Arabia (79.
The eroding viability of Village Phone in Bangladesh was reported two years back. Grameen Telecom of Muhammad Yunus never looked beyond voice. And the micro-credit scheme using mobile phone succumbed to financial injuries from the wildfire of competition. Thanks to the exploding growth and coverage of mobile without regulatory intervention or USF injection in Bangladesh. Now D.
Russia’s most powerful business lobby has moved to clamp down on Skype and its peers this week, telling lawmakers that the Internet phone services are a threat to Russian businesses and to national security. The lobby (Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs or RUIE) says that 40% of calls could be made through VoIP services by 2012. In partnership with Vladimir Putin’s political party, RUIE has created a working group to draft a new law to ban Skype and other VoIP telephone services from September. Interestingly, both New York Times and Pravda have referred to the isolated initiatives of blocking Skype by few West European carriers. Neither publication has, however, said how strongly the European Commission has been fighting back such anti-consumer steps.
South Asian and Middle Eastern telecoms sector has shown resilience not only in the revenue generated by operators but also in their spending capacity. According to a recent study of Frost & Sullivan, the sector will see investments in developing markets like India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh as well as in mature markets like the U.A.E and Saudi Arabia. India, with its sheer size, will continue to dominate the spending in South Asia.