Global economic downturn spares none and its latest victim is the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Foundation. The OLPC is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachussetts and the organisation’s laudable aim is to provide free “basic” laptop computers to deprived children in poor countries. However, as MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte, the OLPC’s founder admits, “We’re no longer the newest story in town and the economic downturn has hit us, just like it’s hit everybody else”. Read more.
India’s government has finalised the plans for its 3G and WiMAX auctions – with the 3G auctions starting on January 16th next year. Auctions for WiMAX licenses will commence two days after the 3G licenses are sold. Acording to a memorandum from the Department of Telecoms, there will be a pre-bid conference next week, with the final submissions to enter the auction being due on the 5th January. The licenses are all valid for 15 years. But there have been concerns about lack of 3G spectrum in some parts of the country.
Mobiles are bad for your soul, the Vatican warned on Monday (November 24, 2008). Phones and computers are making the world so noisy and hectic that people cannot cultivate their spiritual dimension. And without a spiritual life ‘you will lose your soul’, said Father Federico Lombardi, the Pope’s spokesman. ‘In the age of the mobile phone and the internet it is probably more difficult than before to protect silence and to nourish the interior dimension of life,’ said Fr Lombardi. ‘It is difficult but necessary.
A staggering 4 billion minutes on the Skype network are now considered mobile minutes following the company’s move to put Skype clients onto handsets. According to Skype executive, Chris Lewis, responsible for strategy and new business for Asia, out of the 16 billion Skype to Skype minutes on the company’s network every quarter, 25 per cent now involve mobile devices. The company currently offers a Java-based downloadable client for mobile phones, a client for Windows Mobile devices, as well as a dedicated device called the Skypephone with 3. Read more.
A British Lord is to be prosecuted for alleged dangerous driving after it was claimed that he had sent a text message from his mobile phone, just moments before a fatal road accident. Lord Ahmed, a Labour peer in the House of Lords was involved in an accident on Christmas Day last year when it hit another motorist who was killed instantly. Checks later carried out found that the same phone which was used to call the emergency services had also been used to send a text message just before the accident occurred. The RAC Foundation has been calling for urgent investment in a high-profile education campaign, designed to raise awareness among those young people who have grown up with mobile phones, that texting and driving puts themselves, their friends, and other road users at unacceptable risk. Read more.
The Indian government has decided that the auction of third generation (3G) frequency would be held on schedule, January 2009, despite the global financial meltdown. The Economic Times reports furthermore. The government may also abandon the concept of charging different spectrum license fees for 2G and 3G services, due to the impracticality of the proposal. Telecom Asia reports.
The Malaysian government is drafting new regulation which would closely monitor the Quality of Service (QoS) of the country’s operators. It is expected to force operators to deliver on any promises they make in marketing material. Malaysia’s telecoms minister said the government will not accept any excuses from operators – assurances operators made their best efforts will not be good enough. He also said the regulator would be asking three of the four companies which had been granted Wimax licenses why they had not begun offering the service.
IBM has released new survey results which claims that over 50 percent of consumers would substitute their Internet usage on a PC for a mobile device. With the world’s population of mobile-phone users expected to increase from the current 50 percent to 80 percent in 2013, which translates to a staggering 5.8 billion people, the availability of IP wireless broadband and more affordable devices will change the way companies around the world operate and relate to their customers, employees and partners. Download full report.
A new mobile package has been launched in the United Arab Emirates which has been designed for the country’s large expat manual labourers. The new package, called ‘alo’, which means ‘hello’ in Arabic, was launched on Monday by the Permanent Committee of Labour Affairs in Dubai and mobile network, du. The alo brand is designed keeping in mind the needs of the expat labour workforce primarily from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Egypt, China who work for the construction companies and live in labour camps, a statement from du said. In order to communicate with them in their own language, ‘alo’ comes with a multilingual user guide in the SIM pack. Read more.
Dialog Mobile has proven that broadband has a massive potential in under-penetrated markets. HSPA has all of the necessary qualities – the ability to utilise existing infrastructure, low cost devices, high throughput – making broadband commercially viable even among the poorest people. But it’s not simply a matter of technology deployment, as Dialog has discovered. Charging models and the service wrap are important however operators have to create the demand by supporting entrepreneurs and content developers to ensure that people that have not used computers before want to return time and again. Get it right, and profits can be made even among the smallest markets.
International roaming charges may be reduced by up to half throughout the Asian region if a proposal from Malaysia’s Communications Minister, Datuk Shaziman Abu Mansor is accepted by his ASEAN counterparts. “We plan to reduce the roaming charges with Singapore first. In fact, I told the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) two weeks ago to proceed with this,” he told a local newspaper. He added that the move would particularly benefit the many thousands of Malaysians who commute across the border to work in Singapore each day. The regulators in both countries are currently working on a plan to lower the roaming rates across the border.
Bangladesh government has rewarded the telecoms regulator with Tk.10 crore (Tk.100 million or $1.46 million) bonus, according to a press report. This windfall is the result of penalizing four mobile phone operators $121.
Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission is asking the mobile operators to pay Tk. 112 crore (US$16.23 million) for each MHz of 2G spectrum. But the mobile operators don’t want to pay that amount. “Mobile operators once enjoyed frequency benefits free in Bangladesh, but it should not be,” said Major General Manzurul Alam (rtd), chairman of BTRC told the media.
Grameenphone has sealed a deal with the postal department to boost its revenue by going deeper in rural areas through the postmen working in about 8,300 post offices in Bangladesh. Initially, the rural postmen will sell 24,000 prepaid mobile connections to the very remote places. The mailmen in such places are often the only gateway to the world beyond the horizon. They will also top up the customers’ accounts with small denominations. In return the low-paid rural mailmen as well as the ailing postal department of Bangladesh will make money out of every transaction.
Deploying 3G services using UMTS900 may create 70 per cent CAPEX and OPEX savings for mobile operators, says a recent case study on the exprience of Elisa Corporation of Finland, released by the Global Mobile Suppliers Association. Widely used by GSM systems throughout Asia Pacific, the Middle East, Africa and Europe, the use of the 900 MHz band lowers the number of cell sites needed to cover rural and suburban areas. Another report of GSA says on May 6, 2008 AIS launched UMTS 900 in Chiangmai, Thailand in 900 MHz spectrum. Expansion to Bangkok and other major cities is planned for Q1 2009. Regulator NTC is reported to have authorized DTAC to deploy UMTS in 850 MHz spectrum, also planned in Q1 2009.
US trade group, 3G Americas has published a research report focusing on restrictions on the use of SMS as an emergency alert service. It says there are serious limitations in third party Emergency Alert Systems (EAS). In particular, because of the general architecture of CDMA, TDMA and GSM cellular networks, such systems will not be able to deliver a high volume of emergency messages in a short period of time. ”SMS is touted as being able to deliver critical information during disaster events, and such services have been purchased by universities and municipalities hoping to protect the general public,” stated Patrick Traynor, Ph.D.