By Eric Sylvers International Herald Tribune Published: October 9, 2006 MILAN A battle is brewing that may well decide how Europeans connect to the Internet using cellphones, laptops and other portable devices in the coming decade. Mobile phone companies, chip makers and manufacturers of wireless networks are pushing their sometimes conflicting cases for how the limited amount of radio frequencies should be used to beam data from the Internet to mobile devices and back the other way, a decision that generally is left to national governments. Read the rest of the International Herald Tribune article HERE
The final report of the study that was conducted on Sri Lanka’s BPO sector is available for download below as a PDF file (931kb) A Baseline Sector Analysis of the Business Process Outsourcing Industry of Sri Lanka
BBC Story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5344654.stm Does anyone here suffer from Nebrols (Network Broken Limbs Syndrome) :-)
According to this article that appeared today in India’s Business Standard, TRAI seems to be considering using a base price + beauty pagent mechanism to award 5 licenses (of 5MHz each) for companies to introduce 3G services. The prduence of using beauty pagents needs to be questioned. The failures of 3G auctions in Europe in 2000 has been mentioned as one of the reasons for opting for a beauty pagent. However the failures of those auctions stemmed from operators’ over-estimating the potential of a new and untested service. It is unlikely that operators would make the same mistake again – my argument being once-bitten, twice shy.
Sept 12: Pradip Baijal, the former chairman of the TRAI, puts forth his comments on TRAI’s experiences with competition regulation in this article on Rediff. Read the entire article HERE
The current potential global Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) market of USD 11.5 billion is expected to grow ten-fold to around USD 120-150 billion in the near future. However, Sri Lanka only recently started emerging as a potential destination for outsourced work. Given that the BPO industry is in its infant stages in Sri Lanka, there is a dearth of quantitative and qualitative information regarding the sector. LIRNEasia was commissioned by the Information and Communication Technology Association (ICTA) of Sri Lanka to conduct a baseline sector analysis of the BPO industry in Sri Lanka.
Thursday, August 17, 2006 Posted: 1431 GMT (2231 HKT) (AP) — The ambitious project to provide low-cost laptop computers to poor children around the world is about to take a small step forward. More than 500 children in Thailand are expected to receive the machines in October and November for quality testing and debugging. Read the rest of the article on CNN
The article raises some interesting points with regards to the potential impacts of regulatory intereventions (in this case on the issue of LLU). Subsequent to being forced to reduce its LLU fee, Telstra stock has stumbled. Can anyone with more regulatory experience on this blog share their thoughts on this article? Is this a case of over regulation? The article can be found at HERE A related International Herald Tribune article can be found HERE
With so many options becoming available to consumers to circumvent their mobiles and fixed phones, I wonder how much longer we can expect a single tier internet. The linked BBC article examines some new VOIP companies which are providing last mile access (for PC/PHone to phone communication) for free.
Sri Lanka’s Department of Census and Statistics will be conducting a household computer literacy survey in October 2006. The questionnaire for the survey has been posted on their website for comments. Comments have been requested by August 14, 2006. The document can be found HERE The documents includes instructions on how to send comments.
June 21 (Bloomberg) — Vonage Holdings Corp. and other providers of Internet-based telephone service must help subsidize services in rural and low-income areas, U.S. regulators said. A rule adopted today by the Federal Communications Commission requires providers of Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, service to contribute 10.
LIRNEasia and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), with the assitance of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada, co-sponsored the “Workshop on ICT Indicators for Benchmarking Performance in Network and Services Development” in New Delhi from 1-3 March 2006. The workshop highlighted the need for accurate, standardized and comparable indicators for the region and was intended to initate action to develop such indicators. The workshop brought together representatives of National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs), National Statistical Organizations (NSOs) and operators from Afghanistan, Bangaldesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka along with the foremost authorities on the subject from the ITU, OECD, and the US National Regulatory Research Institute (NRRI). With nearly 60 participants from 16 countries, the Workshop was also attended by telecom researchers from the Asian region. The three day workshop was intended to elicit the cooperation of representatives from NRAs, NSOs and industry associations from the regional countries in establishing a sustainable system for measuring and benchmarking ICT sector input and output indicators for South Asia that can be extended to developing Asia.
This preliminary study to compare mobile tariffs in the Asian region, has been undertaken in keeping with the proposed 2006 theme of the World Dialogue on Regulation for Network Economies (WDR), ‘Sector and Regulatory Performance Indicators.’ The definition of standardized benchmark indicators with their respective viable methodologies in the Asian context is required for an accurate comparative analysis of the regulatory and sector performance in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) The preliminary study has produced surprising findings with regards to the relative costs between prepaid and postpaid mobile tariff packages. It is hoped that the release of the preliminary results will engage disucssion with stakeholders, especially operators in the formulation of an accurate and standardized methodology to reflect the holistic costs associated with the use of mobile communications and which can yield meaningful comparisons across the region. The study can be found HERE The authors welcome comments and disucssion.
Colombo, Sri Lanka, 19 December 2005: A recent study has revealed that many financially constrained Jaffnaites spend more than 12 per cent of their monthly regular income on telecommunications. People in Jaffna depend heavily on mobile telecommunication and have the highest demand for international calls in the Sri Lankan sample. A study of ‘financially constrained’ telecom users in Sri Lanka has shown that compared to similar users in other areas of Sri Lanka, users in Jaffna exhibit markedly different patterns in their telecom use. The study, released today by LIRNEasia, an Asian research organization based in Colombo looks at telecom use amongst people whose monthly incomes are below LKR 10,000 in the Badulla, Colombo, Jaffna and Hambantota areas…… English press release: Jaffnaites spend up to 12% of their monthly regular income on telecommunications More information about the project: Jaffnaites spend up to 12% of their monthly regular income on telecommunications
Dr. Muttukrishna Sarvananthan, Principal Researcher at Point Pedro Institute of Development presented some of his work on research methods for contraband trade and on general methodologies for estimating the size of trade in grey/ informal markets. Colloquium: Methodologies for estimating grey/informal markets – Power point presentation slides Some points from the discussion are below: Muttukrishna Sarvanathan (MS): official data is available for goods from Central Bank. For services, data is not as widely available. Contraband trade includes false invoicing of exports and imports (partial evasion of tariffs) and complete non-recording of trade (total evasion of tariffs) false invoicing can be detected / estimated by: Partner-country data comparison model and unit price comparison model.
Colombo, Sri Lanka, 19 December 2005: Men and women in Sri Lanka and India engage in similar levels of telephone use in low-income settings, according to a recent study carried out by LIRNEasia. A study conducted by LIRNEasia, an Asian research organization based in Colombo, explores the use of telecom services amongst people whose incomes are less than approximately USD 100 per month in Sri Lanka and India. The study provides evidence that there are few significant differences between men and women in the use of fixed, mobile or public phones at these income levels. These results challenge the findings of several prior and well-established studies……..