Telegeography is a credible supplier of proprietary and expensive data on international bandwidth trends. What their latest report says is quite interesting: International bandwidth demand growth has been robust on all five of the world’s major submarine cable routes, but has been particularly rapid on key routes to emerging markets in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. While bandwidth demand on the trans-Atlantic route—which has long been the world’s highest-capacity route—increased at a healthy rate of 36 percent annually between 2007 and 2012, demand for bandwidth from the U.S. to Latin America grew 70 percent per year over the same period, and demand for capacity on the Europe-Asia route via Egypt grew a staggering 87 percent per year.
Last week The Hindu, in its editorial, has urged for a secondary market in spectrum trading. Having minimum download speeds of 2 Mbps, as opposed to the current standards of 256 Kbps, is contingent upon operators having access to adequate spectrum. Mobile companies in the US or Japan typically have 30-40 MHz of spectrum, compared with the 5 MHz or so available with Indian operators. With an active secondary market, operators can plan their capital investments through an optimal mix of airwaves between what they may want to ‘own’ and what could be ‘bought’ out. Such assessment can, moreover, be made on a continuous basis, unlike now where capacity creation is a function of official decisions on spectrum auctions.
I spent more time than I had on working to fend off bad proposals to impose the sending party network pays principle on data as part of the revision of the International Telecom Regulations of the ITU. We succeeded, but I did not really think there were any winners in Dubai, really. Now that some time has passed, it is time for considered reflection. I spoke on this subject in Brussels in March, but the lecture that I gave in Bangalore to the Ford Foundation funded training course was perhaps the first time I tried to develop a full analysis. The work is not complete yet, but hopefully, I will get it into good form as a paper within a few months.
Twelve is still a big number, especially when one includes the consortia members. Of the usual suspects, only NTT, Hutch, Etisalat, and Orascom are missing. Of all the cash-rich Gulf and Middle East players, only Qatar is still in the fray. Philippines’ PLDT is out, but that is really not news. Millicom is a bit of a surprise, as is Digicel, a specialist in small markets (which Myanmar is not).
All submarine cables connecting the Far East with Europe and Africa transit at India. It has made 12 submarine cables (six owned by consortiums and six privately-owned) hopping into 10 cable landing stations (CLS) at the Indian seashore. Voice and data traffic of 27 international long distance operators (ILDO) are processed through the 10 CLS. Four (Tata, Airtel, Reliance and BSNL) out of the 27 ILD providers own respective CLS in India. The ILDOs who don’t own CLS told TRAI that Tata Communication and Bharti Airtel together enjoy a 93% market share.
Germans have a reputation for technical prowess. You’d expect the operators there to be technically superior in delivering what they promised when they sold broadband service. But it appears that they have not been so, according to a New York Times report. A government study released Thursday supports what many German consumers have long suspected: Internet broadband service is much slower than advertised. The study by the German telecommunications regulator, the Bundesnetzagentur, measured the Internet connection speeds of 250,000 consumers from June through December last year, making it one of the largest reviews of broadband service anywhere.
The 2013 Network Readiness Index of the World Economic Forum is out. Singapore is in second place worldwide, the only Asian country to make the top 10. Taiwan China, Korea, Hong Kong China and Malaysia occupy 10th, 11th, 14th and 30th positions respectively. China has fallen back seven places to 58th rank. India is now only 10 places behind China, at 68th, advancing one position.
In my opening remarks at the Ministerial Program of GSMA’s Mobile World Congress in February, I referred to predictions that tablet sales would overtake laptop sales in 2014. This Economist report supports the general argument, but does not break out the numbers by desktops and laptops. Apple, which makes desktop and laptop computers as well as tablets, suffered a smaller hit than other PC-makers. It also still commands a premium over other manufacturers for its sleek designs. And unlike other PC-makers, it makes up for lost PC sales with new tablet sales.
GSMA has urged the governments to immediately suspend the collection of Universal Service Fund (USF). Because, the trade body has found that USF has failed to deliver what it promises in theory. After surveying 64 countries GSMA has detected that more than one-third of these governments have not even disbursed any fund they have taxed the consumers in the name of public interest. Such accumulated idle USF amounts to in excess of a whooping US$11 billion only. The study cites India, Cote D’Ivoire and Paraguay as bad examples: In India, the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) continues to impose approximately a five per cent levy on operator revenues, despite the fact that is contains over 4 billion USD of accumulated funds.
Many talk about corruption in telecom procurement by government owned telecos. Here are details: According to a police source familiar with the probe, a suitcase containing US$2 million in cash was allegedly found in Thein Tun’s residence. Investigators are trying to establish whether the alleged funds may have originated from foreign firms, including major Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE known to be angling for potentially lucrative telecom contracts in Myanmar, according to the same source. Authorities are also trying to gain access to bank accounts in Bangkok, Hong Kong and Singapore where kickbacks to senior ministry officials may have been deposited, according to the same source. Both Chinese companies have voluntarily given investigating authorities documents related to their previous deals with the MPT ministry, including during Thein Zaw’s tenure as minister, according to the police source.
Many of the millions of expatriate workers living in the Gulf are separated from their families. They need to keep in touch. They need to talk. But the cheapest way of the talking has been blocked so far in Dubai. But things change.
Who would have thought? A UK-based global operator that emerged in the competitive era joining with China Mobile, the big dog in China, to bid for a Myanmar license. Operator heavyweights China Mobile and Vodafone Group have formed a consortium to bid for a mobile licence in Myanmar. Keen to promote competition, Myanmar wants to increase the number of mobile operators from two (Myanmar Post & Telecommunications and Yantanarpon Teleport) to four. In a statement, Vodafone laid out some of the attractions of entering this market.