So a big European telco is to be fully owned by a developing-economy company? Given the weak management of European telcos, this should not come as a surprise. Europe is not of great interest to us, but we did touch on this. One wishes it was a different company, more efficient, less immersed in a monopoly culture, but still . .
It is reported that the law went through yesterday. No copy is yet available. Given need to translate, may take a few days.
The New York Times carried a story on “big data for development” that featured Global Pulse, the UN initiative seeking to harness the potential of data to address development questions, much like what we are doing in our current research. The efforts by Global Pulse and a growing collection of scientists at universities, companies and nonprofit groups have been given the label “Big Data for development.” It is a field of great opportunity and challenge. The goal, the scientists involved agree, is to bring real-time monitoring and prediction to development and aid programs. Projects and policies, they say, can move faster, adapt to changing circumstances and be more effective, helping to lift more communities out of poverty and even save lives.
Many Americans would have been surprised that Jakarta was the largest contributor of tweets, a city. I was not. It is a large city (10 million), phones with QWERTY interfaces are all the rage, and Bahasa Indonesia uses the Roman characters. What surprised me was Riyadh. It is not an extraordinarily large city (4.
At the recent SATRC (South Asia Telecommunication Regulator’s Council) workshop on Policy, Regulation and Services held in Kathmandu, Nepal, 30 July – 01 August 2013, Wangay Dorji, Head of Telecommunication at BICMA (Bhutan InfoComm and Media Authority) spoke on the state of regional mobile roaming within the SAARC countries. Using LIRNEasia research, he points out the overall high prices South Asian’s pay while roaming within the region in comparison with the favorable tariffs offered in other regions such as the European Union (EU). The presentation confirms that plans are underway in the ASEAN region towards a unified approach. SATRC has also initiated a study for the same. However, given the proliferation of smart phones, and thereby apps such as Viber and Whatsapp, users are now able to communicate across the seas on a no-cost or low-cost basis (access to a reasonably good Internet connection being a mandatory condition).
The effective dissemination of the University of Washington study on telecenters is creating a minor revival in telecenter enthusiasm. We have not had opportunity to examine the Washington study in detail, but a first look surprised us since no LIRNEasia or Research ICT Africa was cited, despite South Africa being a focus country. Observing heavy use of telecenters does not seem to be best evidence, since the alternatives must also be studied for the claim to be supported. Coward and his team scoured the earth, working with local research teams and surveying more than 5,000 computer users in Bangladesh, Botswana, Brazil, Chile, Ghana, Lithuania, Philippines and South Africa. What they found seems counter-intuitive.
For those who doubted our narrative that the future of Internet access in our parts is wireless, here is the proof. It’s not that fixed broadband is not growing (year-on-year is 9 percent), but that wireless is growing faster. There are 15 million fixed broadband subscribers v 143 million connecting over wireless platforms. TRAI’s quarterly performance report.
Internet in Myanmar has suffered outage on July 20, 2013. Since then the country remains choked in terms of connectivity. Officially the breakdown of only submarine cable (SEA-ME-WE3) at 13 kilometers away from the coast was blamed. The Irrawaddy wrote on July 24: “Works are being carried out to repair the fault as quick as possible in coordination with [a] Singapore-based underwater repair and maintenance team. It is expected to take about one month,” the state-owned company said in a brief announcement in government newspaper The New Light of Myanmar.
Intercom was a small telephone network, which allowed calling strictly within the office. That was the Jurassic era of telecommunication when the dinosaurs state-owned incumbents mercilessly harassed the consumers. At that time the ‘sophisticated’ office automation equipment called intercom was a ‘must have’ gadget across the public and private enterprises. Speakerphone or hands-free calling feature was intercom’s jewel in the crown. Unlike the rotary-dial PSTN phones, the “trendy” intercom sets were fitted with a push-button keypad.
I know. Kenya is not in Asia. And M Pesa is in Kenya. But I read this nice blog post and figured that readers of LIRNEasia might appreciate learning a bit more about M Pesa. Few initiatives in microfinance, or for that matter in development, have been as successful as M-PESA: 3 and a half years after launch, over 70% of households in Kenya and more importantly over 50% of the poor, unbanked and rural populations use the service.

Military mobile in Myanmar

Posted on August 4, 2013  /  0 Comments

A dark cloud has appeared on the horizon of the Myanmar telecom sector in the form of a license granted to a military affiliated company. There is precedent in countries such as Iran. As long as the regulator can regulate, ownership need not be an issue. Usually the problem is the difficulty a regulator has in effectively exerting authority over the incumbent. The Myanmar incumbent is in such bad shape and the network in so undeveloped that this may not be such a huge concern.
I discussed two elements of the Internet eco-system, attractive apps and content and trust, with an audience of interested and informed members of the Nepal Internet Society in Kathmandu on August 1, 2013. Discussion focused on how innovation could be fostered in Nepal, on cyber-security, and what could be done in the short and medium term for the young people of Nepal to grab the opportunities afforded by the new mobile-first Internet eco-system. The presentation.
A new study by the European Commission (EC) recommends more spectrum be kept reserved for Wi-Fi to relieve the 3G and 4G networks from the burden of data. It promotes the usage of Wi-Fi and other small cell infrastructures like femto cells to relieve congestion on 3G and LTE and so save operators “tens of billions of euros” as they upgrade networks to meet surging customer demand. The EC report said that 71% of all EU wireless data traffic in 2012 was delivered to smartphones and tablets using Wi-Fi, “possibly rising to 78% by 2016”. Consumers can also save money by using Wi-Fi instead of paying for mobile data when they are near a Wi-Fi hotspot. The study makes three main recommendations: to make spectrum from 5150 MHz to 5925 MHz available globally for Wi Fi; to continue making the 2.
My second presentation at the SATRC policy workshop moved into contentious territory. I was preceded by Principal Advisor to TRAI, Mr Sudheer Gupta, who presented the TRAI recommendation that the new category they describe as “application services” be subject to a form of authorization at the cost of INR 15,000 and transaction costs. Sri Lanka’s official representative challenged the need for licensing, which made me happy. But this is an area where no one has all the answers and it is good that SATRC has got the discussion going. I did not cover the last section of the slides because of lack of time.

Predictive apps

Posted on July 31, 2013  /  0 Comments

It was one thing for Gmail to ask “did you intend to attach a document to this email?” based on your use of the word “attached” in the email. But it moves things to a whole new level when an app analyzes your digital bread crumbs and tells you stuff that you haven’t even thought about. The services guess what you want to know based on the digital breadcrumbs you leave, like calendar entries, e-mails, social network activity and the places you take your phone. Many use outside services for things like coupons, news and traffic.
Myanmar has never been so shaky about getting disconnected before. It has happened after SEA-ME-WE3, Myanmar’s only submarine cable, was snapped at 13 kilometers south of the Irrawaddy Delta’s shore last week. “Works are being carried out to repair the fault as quick as possible in coordination with [a] Singapore-based underwater repair and maintenance team. It is expected to take about one month,” warned Myanmar Posts and Telecommunications (MPT), reports Irrawaddy. Douglas Maduray of Renesys Corp.