The telcos and the airlines have been making money “out of the air” worldwide. Both the industries are being troubled by predictable and unpredictable competition from everywhere. Innovation by the industry and policy-rationalization by the governments must be simultaneous to survive this wild wild west. This article addresses the airlines industry but it is also relevant for telecoms.
Future Gov is holding a conference in Colombo 28-29 October 2010. Can’t link to the program as such because that’s how e gov is done, but can get you close. LIRNEasia will be presenting its research anchored to the idea of delivering government services anywhere, anytime, in any official language, something that was developed by me around the time the war ended. The slideset is here.
LIRNEasia has been supporting app stores because we believe this is the solution that reduces transaction costs and mobilizes decentralized innovation. But as the NYT story today shows, it’s not an easy path for developers: Because Google makes its software available free to a range of phone manufacturers, there are dozens of different Android-compatible devices on the market, each with different screen sizes, memory capacities, processor speeds and graphics capabilities. An app that works beautifully on, say, a Motorola Droid might suffer from glitches on a phone made by HTC. IPhone developers, meanwhile, need to worry about only a few devices: iPhones, iPods and iPads.
Payal Malik, Senior Research Fellow, will represent LIRNEasia at an upcoming seminar on “Interconnection in Mexico” on 27 October 2010 in Mexico City, Mexico. The seminar is being organized by the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, A.C. (CIDE/Mexico) and the Telecommunications Research program Telecom CIDE. The event brings together a select group of government, academy and civil society representatives.
Now that Android has taken a bigger market share than Apple in the smartphone market, the lawsuits are coming hot and heavy, according to the Economist. Eventually, even lawsuits must come to an end. How much harm they will cause remains to be seen. If Apple wins against HTC, that would be bad news for upstart handset firms. Until a few years ago, HTC only made devices for others, but now it has become a brand of its own.
Most people do not associate telecenters with the United States. That’s because they are called public libraries there. The Economist reports that more people are coming to the American telecenters because critical government and other services are increasingly available only through the web and because some people have dropped home connections in the hard times of the Great Recession. The best way for America to ease the new strain on its libraries is by closing the digital divide; companies and state agencies are unlikely ever to give up the efficiencies they won by moving online. Around $7 billion of 2009’s stimulus went to expand broadband access.
Regulators are allocating spectrum bands to deliver 4G high-speed mobile Internet service across a wide range of frequencies. But the quest for bandwidth is harming prospects for 4G device economies of scale, operator competitiveness and 4G global data roaming. Operators and regulators must address spectrum harmonization, not just carve out bandwidth. 4G’s demanding speed requirements—100 Mbps peak rates for high mobility and 1 Gbps for low mobility—necessarily translate into a need for more radio spectrum. National regulators are working to secure this needed spectrum, but their efforts are resulting in fragmentation instead of an ideal narrow set of spectrum ranges consistently available around the world.
Last week FCC started to investigate the thumping roaming bills. Yesterday Igor Artemyev, head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service, Russia said that there will be “significantly lower tariffs” for roaming in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States. Russia’s three biggest mobile operators, OAO Mobile TeleSystems (MBT), VimpelCom Ltd. (VIP) and Megafon, confirmed Wednesday that they have lowered mobile roaming tariffs in Russia and the CIS by up to 70%, ahead of the results of an inquiry into the high tariffs. The mobile operators will “significantly lower tariffs” for roaming in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States no later than Dec.
Somalia lacks an effective government for nearly twenty years. There is, however, no short supply of regulator. The rebel group “al-Shabab” has banned mobile money transfer service called ‘Zaad’, according to Reuters. This “decree” is effective from coming New Year’s eve, said TeleGeography. The al-Shabab management considers mobile money transfer a threat to the economy.
Information has been riding on technology. And now the technology is disrupting the business of information. Reuters’ Editor-in-Chief, David Schlesinger, has outlined the following battle-plan: Knowing the story is not enough. Telling the story is only the beginning. The conversation about the story is as important as the story itself.
The developed economies of Asia have taken the top spots in global broadband table, according to the Oxford University’s Said Business School. This study combines quality of service and penetration. South Korea, Hong Kong and Japan occupy the first three positions and Singapore is fifth. The survey has tested download and upload speeds along with latency in 72 countries. Korea, which topped the rankings last year, this year reported average download throughput of 33.
Internet brings people closer, gives more opportunities and it is a sea, with different kinds of fish. Indi Samarajiva wrote in The Sunday Leader, about few Sri Lankans making a living, without actually going to a conventional office. But simply login in to internet to use Twitter, Skype, Virtual Private Networks (VPN) and so on and make a living, as well as LIVE it. Indi introduces Fahim Farook, Navin Weeraratne and Monalee Suranimala, as tech savvy fishermen in this different kind of sea. All of these characters launch their metaphorical boats from the island of Sri Lanka, off the southern coast of India, recently emerged from years of war but blessed with many English speaking, IT literate people, functional Internet infrastructure and a low cost of living.
LIRNEasia CEO, Rohan Samarajiva, will make a presentation entitled, “Asia: Broadband and forms of government intervention” at the International Institute of Communication’s Annual Conference on “Trends in global Communications: Riding the the next digital wave” to be held from 18-19 October 2010, in Barcelona, Spain. Presentation slides can be downloaded here.
LIRNEasia CEO, Rohan Samarajiva, delivered a guest lecture on the theme “Not one path to the Internet economy” at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, on 14 October 2010. Presenting findings from the LIRNEasia’s study of ICT use at the bottom of the pyramid, Teleuse@BOP3, he used a video of Chamara Pahalawattage, an 18-year-old Sri Lankan, who has utilized his phonefor obtaining more work, and hence, a higher income. Presentation slides from the talk will be posted shortly.
Federal Communications Commission decided to step in and investigate on “Shocking bills” received by mobile customers in USA. FCC is looking into whether the mobile operators must do a better job by alerting the customers when they are roaming in foreign networks. Kerfye Pierre’s thanks for helping out victims of Haiti’s earthquake? A $35,000 bill from T-Mobile. Pierre tells CNN that she racked up about $35,000 while texting family and friends from Haiti with the news that she had just survived the devastating earthquake.
It is needless to reiterate the evil of free money. Universal Service Fund (USF) has been the crucible of boutique corruption for its complexity. The US Government revived this medieval rent-seeking in the early 20th century to favor AT&T. Today AT&T and other heavyweights siphon in excess of US$4 billion annually from the exchequer. And it has been as legitimate as the Collateralize Debt Obligations (CDOs) in the Wall Street.