British broadband customers subscribe high-speed connections but they get low-speed service instead. The media and telecoms watchdog, Ofcom, examined the most popular broadband product advertised as offering speeds of “up to” 8 megabits per second and used by 57% of homes. Its report says, on average, users are getting speeds of just 3.9Mb. That means a DVD-quality film would take more than two hours to download – longer than it takes to watch it – compared to just over an hour at the faster speed.
Two years back India’s then finance minister Mr. Palaniappan Chidambaram said, “Regulation must stay one step ahead of innovation”. He also asked the developed countries to stop lecturing the emerging economies about what is right and what is wrong. New Delhi now seems to be a fanatic fan of the developed world’s worst wrongdoing in telecoms regulation. It expects to raise US$7.
Two years back China Mobile bought Paktel for US$460 million. That was a legitimate transaction. Last week two Chinese nationals were arrested while the authorities busted a bypass den at Islamabad. They have been allegedly the partner of an “influential Pakistani” in this illegal venture. It claims to have caused an estimated six billion rupees (US$74 million) loss to the exchequer.
Pakistan has three submarine cables. SEA-ME-WE3 and SEA-ME-WE4 are being operated by the state-owned PTCL, while the private sector has been operating the TWA cable since 2006. Yet the government has been halting competition by forbidding the private cable for the internet service providers. Finally the regulator has lifted such puritan embargo. Thanks to the authorities’ belated commonsense.
Nokia, the world’s largest mobile terminal maker as well as the WiMax Forum Board member, has put the last nail to the coffin of WiMax. “I don’t see that WiMax is taking hold anywhere in a big way,” said Anssi Vanjoki, Nokia’s head of sales and manufacturing, at a Nokia launch event yesterday in San Francisco, the Financial Times reports. “I don’t think the future is very promising [for WiMax]. This is a classic example of industry standards clashing, and somebody comes out as the winner and somebody has to lose. Betamax was there for a long time, but VHS dominated the market.
The remarkable uptake of mobile telephony in India is one of the great success stories of recent years and, despite the global economic downturn, the Indian cellphone sector continues to power ahead like there’s no tomorrow. However, according to the upper house of the Indian Parliament, all the mobile chattering is making Indians so impatient and rude that it is considering bringing in legislation that could lead to jail sentences for the most persistent offenders, writes Martyn Warwick.
Denmark boasts the world’s most networked economy, putting it and its Nordic neighbors in a good position to rebound from the current global downturn, the World Economic Forum said on Thursday. Sweden ranked second in the annual WEF Networked Readiness Index. The United States placed third, Singapore fourth and Switzerland fifth among the 134 economies listed in the index. Poor states including Bangladesh, Burundi, Zimbabwe, Timor-Leste and Chad rated worst. Following are some highlights from the index: TOP 10 – Denmark, Sweden, United States, Singapore, Switzerland, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Netherlands, Canada BOTTOM 10 – Nicaragua, Cambodia, Nepal, Bolivia, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Burundi, Zimbabwe, Timor-Leste, Chad EMERGING ASIA – China ranks 46th; India 54th LATIN AMERICA/CARIBBEAN – Barbados 36th; Chile 39th; Puerto Rico 42nd; Jamaica 53rd; Costa Rica 56th; Brazil 59th SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA – Mauritius 51st; South Africa 52nd NORTHERN AFRICA – Tunisia 38th; Egypt 76th; Morocco 86th; Algeria 109th MIDDLE EAST – Israel 25th; United Arab Emirates 27th; Qatar 29th; Bahrain 37th; Saudi Arabia 40th; Jordan 44th; Oman 50th; Kuwait 57th.
In less than five years since its launch Skype has grown to become the world’s largest carrier of international voice telephone traffic with Skype-to Skype minutes alone accounting for eight percent of the total. According to figures from TeleGeography, which tracks international telecommunications traffic statistics, Skype-to-Skype calling totalled an estimated 33 billion minutes in 2008, up from 22 billion in 2007. This figure does not include Skype-Out or Skype-In minutes between Skype and other networks. This traffic is included in VoIP which TeleGeography estimates amounted to 96 billion minutes, some 23 percent of the total. Traditional circuit switched phone calls accounted for the remaining 69 percent.
Grey market may rein India’s overseas calls again as the regulator has increased international termination charge and slashed local termination fees, warned the Association of Competitive Telecom Operators (ACTO). This trade body was formed last month by AT&T, BT, Cable & Wireless, Orange Business Services and Verizon Business. “Increasing the termination rates of international calls defies the time tested and proven principle of cost based interconnection charge[s],” ACTO president Satyen Gupta said. This trade body has been demanding change in the conditions of India’s International Long Distance (ILD) license, which it says “is predominately tailored for switched voice services and does not take cognizance of emerging technologies.” Read more.
In a futile move, the Bangladesh government has blocked YouTube and esnips.com for hosting the recorded consultation between the prime minister and the country’s army officers. Country’s regulatory head has confirmed it to the press. This consultation was held after a brutal mutiny had wiped out the entire hierarchy of the country’s border guard force on February 25. More than 50 army officers, who were seconded to the paramilitary force, were butchered and buried in mass-graves by the mutinous troops.
Cisco Visual Networking Index: Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast Update Globally, mobile data traffic will double every year through 2013, increasing 66 times between 2008 and 2013. Mobile data traffic will grow at a CAGR of 131 percent between 2008 and 2013, reaching over 2 exabytes per month by 2013. Mobile data traffic will grow from 1 petabyte per month to 1 exabyte per month in half the time it took fixed data traffic to do so. In the 7 years from 2005 to 2012, mobile data traffic will have increased a thousand-fold. The Internet grew from 1 petabyte per month to 1 exabyte per month in 14 years.
Telstra CEO Sol Trujillo said the fires had caused “substantial damage” to exchanges, mobile base stations and cabling. He said Telstra had lost communications to five exchanges and estimated that 18 base stations were down, disabling “thousands of phone lines and broadband internet connections.” Up to 200 Telstra employees are working to repair the damage and restore services in Victoria, as well as flood-ravaged Queensland in northern Australia. Staff were working closely with emergency service crews to ensure they retain connectivity, Telstra said. Rival Optus has restored a number of mobile sites, but 16 Victorian sites were still down, and other sites are affected by power loss.
Israel’s blockade has perforated the Egypt-Gaza border with countless tunnels. Tel Aviv’s first world military might has failed to stop such diggings. People’s power overpowers firepower. Similarly, the illegal trading of international phone calls is, predictably, flourishing again in Bangladesh, according to a press report. Thanks to the ILDTS policy which has sprouted three IGW and three ICX licenses in 2007 by the military-backed government.
India is planning to produce a laptop computer for the knockdown price of about $20, having pioneered last year the Tata Nano, the world’s cheapest car, for $2,050 a vehicle, reported the Fiancial Times today. As the access to FT website is limited to its subscribers, I have posted the entire news bellow: The project, backed by New Delhi, would considerably undercut the so-called “$100 laptop”, otherwise known as the Children’s Machine or XO, which was designed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology of the US. That laptop is the centrepiece of the One Laptop Per Child charity initiative launched by Nicholas Negroponte, the computer scientist and former director of MIT’s Media Lab. Intel launched a similar product, called Classmate, in response. But the Children’s Machine received a cool reception in India.
An administrative misadventure has wiped out the possibility of regulatory independence within near future in Bangladesh. BTRC is celebrating its seventh birthday tomorrow (January 30). The regulator has, however, failed to deliver effective regulation. It has been, legally, structured like that from day one. The country was run by a military-backed interim government during entire 2007-08.
It is good to see that quality of service (QoS) is coming under the Asian regulatory microscopes. The Philippines regulator has called for improved service quality of broadband while India’s TRAI has initiated a public consultation. The region may be exploding with growth but it is also infested with adulterated services. Precisely, the Asian service providers widely deceive the consumers in terms of quality. It is the result of inconsistent policy coupled with the lack of regulatory oversight.