It’s been sometime since we wrote about cheap feature phones for the BoP. Around seven years, if my search does not mislead. But here goes Microsoft. We wish them success. The company billed the €19 device as “the most affordable mobile phone with video and music player”.
On the face any money coming into Myanmar to help develop its creaking infrastructure is good. When the money is given on concessionary terms, it appears even better. But it is important to look beyond appearance. Will it harm competition, which is the government’s chosen (and proven) instrument to develop the ICT infrastructure? Japan said Saturday it will extend a total of ¥10.
A chain is as strong as the weakest, I keep saying. The speed of the communication link as the speed of its slowest link. As long as signals that travel at the speed of light within fiber optic cables have to be converted to electronic signals to traverse semiconductors, that is the speed of the communication. This is about to change . .
On 8th August 2014, LIRNEasia held an event titled “Big data for development: Responsible use of mobile meta-data to support public purposes” in Negombo, Sri Lanka that was attended by all the MNOs in Sri Lanka as well as MNOs/ industry representatives from Pakistan, Bangladesh and India. The purpose of the event was two-fold: Show how mobile network big data could provide timely and policy relevant evidence for development using illustrations from Sri Lanka and elsewhere; and Discuss the draft guidelines developed by LIRNEasia for how MNOs could share their data with third parties using it for public good, whilst also minimizing the harms from such big data analytics. This event was the first in a series of steps that will hopefully lead towards the adoption of voluntary guidelines by MNOs to facilitate such activity. The presentations from the event as well as the draft guidelines are below. The agenda is available HERE.
I had some fun today. The Chamber of Commerce organizes a Sri Lanka Economic Summit every year. I was invited to moderate the closing session that included the Chairs/CEOs of some of Sri Lanka’s highest profile companies: Brandix, Softlogic, Keells, Hemas and Dialog Axiata. The topic was innovation and growth. There was a lot of talk about infrastructure and education, with the latter winning by a length.
One out of six minutes on Facebook for average Americans. With women spending four times the time. Consumer brands, from the beer giant Budweiser to start-ups like the clothier Trunk Club, want to reach people where they are spending their time. More and more, that place is Facebook. In June, the social network accounted for about one of every six minutes that Americans spent online, and one of every five minutes on mobile phones, according to comScore, a research company.
Usually, profits go to those who take the risks and do the work. What is MPT’s contribution to the JV? Being “the industry regulator,” which I hope is a misstatement of facts? Contributing the land and existing assets? Middle management?
Myanmar Times carried a long interview with Ooredoo Myanmar CEO Ross Carmack that appears to suggest that Facebook access will be free. Or is it only during the promotional period? The pre-kick off promotional offer is for the price of a SIM, which will be K1500 to you, the customer, for that price between the August 2 and midnight on August 14 you will be able to consume for free 900 minutes of calls from Ooredoo Myanmar to Ooredoo Myanmar customers, 900 SMSs again for free, 90 minutes of calls to other networks, including MPT, for free, 90 SMSs again for free and 20 megs of data for free every day, which when you use it up is the end of it. Except for one thing: it comes with free Facebook. So all you can eat Facebook when you stay on the net in Facebook.
I thought they’d launch on a weekday, but they went two days early and launched August 2nd, Saturday. Better earlier than late. When I was talking about this with the Parliamentarians, I said I hoped the companies would take steps to avoid the “mobile riots,” we had witnessed elsewhere in the region. Perhaps the early launch on a weekend was intended to do just that. Perhaps this is another example of learning from the errors made by others in the past .
Below is what we said were among critical policy issues in cloud computing: The storage of data in multiple, usually foreign, jurisdictions raises a different set of regulatory issues including data protection and police investigatory powers. The jurisdictional issues are anchored on the location of the firm and the location of the data. In the former instance, wherever the data may be located, the firm may be ordered to ensure that data are subject to the laws applicable to the jurisdiction within which the firm is located. As a corollary, the firm may be required to ensure that the data are located ins jurisdictions where the laws are consistent with those of its home jurisdiction. This was not too difficult a problem in the past because the firms that stored or processed data in foreign locations were large entities with capability to enforce the applicable rules through contracts and otherwise.
If not for a degree of regulatory duplication, it’s possible that the AT&T breakup that transformed the entire telecom environment would not have happened. On the other hand, it’s the general competition regulator who did the job that the sector regulator failed to do. Nevertheless, countries that have limited human resources to deliver effective regulation and have a need for certainty, cannot afford duplication and forum shopping. Here is an interesting reflection from Payal Malik and a colleague on the current situation in India: The Supreme Court in Subrata Roy Sahara vs Union of India lamented the posturing antics of litigants aimed at forum shopping. It has stated that such antics result in cases “which ought to have been settled in no time at all, before the first court of incidence, [being] prolonged endlessly, for years and years, and from court to court, upto the highest court”.
Eighteen members of Parliament from six different political parties, including the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party and the opposition National League for Democracy, assembled before start time this past weekend for an ICT awareness program organized by the Myanmar ICT for Development Organization (MIDO) where LIRNEasia supplied the content. They then stayed engaged throughout, asked many questions and asked for more. This was a unique experience that, in our view, bodes well for the country. The harmonious interactions among politicians from different parties were impressive. But even more was the genuine interest in learning about the changes that were coming to their country.
Cambodia has drafted a law mandating all telcos “selling” their infrastructure including towers and underground cables to the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications of Cambodia (MPTC). Subsequently, all operators surrender their licenses too. The government will decide how the access service providers will make reentry to their dispossessed infrastructure. And these draconian terms will be planted in the licenses the government will reinvent. But licences and infrastructure are not all that is at risk with the government’s proposed reforms: One clause states explicitly that the MPTC will use the telecom sector as a tool to maintain social order.
Despite proposing minimum broadband speeds during a public consultation for wireless communication technologies, the Telecommunication Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has now revoked its proposition. The consultation issued in April this year received 56 responses, including one from LIRNEasia. In May 2014 TRAI requested for counter comments. However, after having gone through the whole process it seems that the telecom operators have been given the freedom to define the speeds themselves by not mandating a minimum. Instead, the following is in effect: (4)Every Service Provider shall ensure that the details of Minimum download speed available to the consumer, in its wireless data plans, are –(a) printed on the vouchers of the wireless data plans(b) published on its websites and all advertisements of wireless data plans; and(c) available at its complaint centers and sale outlets Gazette notification and press release.
The first translation of the book Information lives of the poor, co-authored by Laurent Elder, Rohan Samarajiva, Alison Gillwald and Hernan Galperin and published by IDRC, was ceremonially released in Yangon at an event on the 25th of July. The picture shows one of the co-authors handing over the book to H.E. Mark McDowell, Canada’s Ambassador to Myanmar. MIDO, Myanmar ICT for Development Organization, produced the Myanmar version.
A study of mobile use by poor micro entrepreneurs in five cities has revealed surprisingly high levels of smartphone use, indicating fast take-up of mobile applications and services beyond voice when competitive network roll-out gathers momentum in the coming weeks. The results of ethnographic research, interviews and focus groups conducted earlier this year by LIRNEasia, a regional think tank based in Sri Lanka, were released by CEO Helani Galpaya in Nay Pyi Taw and Yangon in conjunction with the launch of the Myanmar version of a book summarizing research on mobile conducted in three continents. Of the 124 people interviewed for the study, 57 already owned their own phone while the others used other people’s phones or payphones. Of the 57 owners, 42 (73 percent) owned phones that could be categorized as smartphones, with touch screens and browsers. As recently as in 2011, only 15 percent of 10,000 poor people surveyed by LIRNEasia in six South and South East Asian countries had these features.