I was recently invited by the United Nations System Influenza Coordination (UNSIC), regional office in Bangkok, to present our findings from the Real-Time Biosurveillance (RTBP) Pilot. UNSIC has appointed Dr. David Nabarro, the founder of Flu-Tracker to develop and implement a comprehensive unified strategy for UN system on pandemic influenza prevention, preparedness and response and increase the effort to control avian influenza. Given the nature of LIRNEasia researchers to speak the evidence as it is and not be superficial as in marketing products, the public and private stakeholders in Bangkok were intrigued to learn of the real intricacies of implementing a systems such the RTBP in India and Sri Lanka. We will continue to collaborate with UNSIC in feeding our extremely rich experiences and implications with possible contributions to their regional good practices documentation due in June 2011.
The Private Bus Operators Association of Sri Lanka has proposed to introduce a service for sale and purchase of bus tickets via mobile phones and/or customized electronic cards. These e-reload passes are readable by the existing GPRS-enabled ticket machines. The current plan is that passes will be in the form of physical re-load cards or mobile phone enabled mechanisms. If mobile phone -enabled, then a whole new window of opportunity emerges for transactions; this could become the most widely used, full mobile 2.0 (transaction-capable) application.
Gone are days that postal services were an integral part of Sri Lankan culture. According to a recent Postal Department survey, only 11% uses snail mail now, reports Divaina. The drop from over 90% in pre-1978 days is attributed to the widespread use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), including mobile phones, faxes and e-mail. ICTs supplementing age-old postal services too is common. ‘Fax Money Orders’ have replaced the traditional ones.
The Colloquim was conducted by Arusha Cooray from Australia. Joint study by Arusha Cooray, Nirmali Sivapragasam and Harsha de Silva Remittance inflows into the developing economies have increased tenfold from US $31,058 million to US$ 327,591 over the 1990 to 2008 period Initiatives taken by policymakers of developing economies to promote the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in particular mobile phones specifically targeting individuals outside the reach of traditional banking services. Benefits of ICT are well documented by the literature. Jensen (2007) – the use of mobile phones by fisherman contributed to a fall in price dispersion and reduction in waste, leading to increases in consumer and producer welfare in Kerela de Silva (2005) – mobile phone based ICTs can reduce information asymmetries in the agricultural market, enabling farmers to reduce transaction costs and search costs associated with locating sales outlets. Sivapragasam, Aguero and de Silva (2010) – the use and awareness of the mobile phone as a mode of remitting money.
Ranmalee took this photograph of Supun Sudaraka, testing mobile broadband connections on the move, using Mobile AT-Tester, the family of test tools developed by LIRNEasia. Broadband quality testing isn’t a desk job anymore. We simulate real conditions. Unlike in case of fixed connections, mobile broadband usage is always, er, mobile. This was one of the many odd locations we conducted testing.
They love to talk but reluctant to pay. This is how the telecoms minister has characterized almost every organ, including the offices of the President and the Prime Minister, of Bangladesh government. Even the country’s anticorruption department has gracefully joined these disgraced defaulters. The minister has disclosed a long itemized list of unpaid bills amounting almost US$10 million in the parliament. Interestingly, the telecoms ministry is also one of the shameless phone bill defaulters.
LIRNEasia’s advertisements last week, while highlighting the limited usage of Mobile 2.0 services by ‘low income’ users, suggested steps to be taken by regulators/policy makers and operators to make Mobile 2.0 galore. . We think this is the right time for Emerging Asian mobile operators to adopt what we call an Mobile Application Store or ‘App-Store’ model.
Who’s got the phone? Gender and the use of the telephone at the bottom of the pyramid Ayesha Zainudeen, Tahani Iqbal and Rohan Samarajiva Many studies conclude that a significant gender divide in access to the telephone exists, particularly in developing countries. Furthermore, women are also said to use telephones in a different manner from men — making and receiving more calls, spending more time on calls and using telephones primarily for ‘relationship maintenance’ purposes. Much of this research is based on small-sample studies in affluent developed countries. This article shows that a significant gender divide in access to telephones exists in Pakistan and India, to a lesser extent in Sri Lanka, but is absent in the Philippines and Thailand.
Spectrum allocation and pricing in Pakistan and India have differed considerably, one following market-based price discovery mechanisms through auctions, and the other, arbitrary pricing. Two articles, one by Mr. Muhammad Aslam Hayat, a regulatory consultant at Grameenphone, Bangladesh, and the other, by Payal Malik, LIRNEasia Senior Research Fellow, examines the past and present spectrum policy in Pakistan and India, respectively. Hayat writes: Pakistan introduced mobile cellular telephony early, in 1990. Although there was no clear spectrum management policy or roadmap available prior to 2004, the issuance of four mobile cellular licenses and the assignment of spectrum to those licensees were remarkably well thought out.
Myanmar’s telecommunication authorities are planning to expand GSM coverage to the border areas next to its Southeast neighbours, aimed at providing better GSM phone line services to link the region, Cellular News reported quoting the local Myanmar Newsweek. The pilot project to link Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore as well as China is underway. Meanwhile, the authorities has also planned to add 33 more GSM radio stations in the biggest city of Yangon to expand GSM coverage which will be launched by local private companies on competitive tender system, an earlier report said.
Two years back Frost & Sullivan predicted the abysmal future of WiMax. And it has been absolutely right all the way. China has never granted visa to WiMax while the Chinese vendors have been happily exporting the hardware. Deng Xiaoping’s disciples have also pioneered TD-LTE, a civilized alternative of WiMax. It has been consistently writing the epitaph of WiMax in the USA, Japan and Russia.
Was Sri Lanka’s reaction to tsunami alert today early morning effective enough? Did we observe the dos and don’ts? We do not jump to conclusions. The information is inadequate and contradictory at times. We will try reconstructing from what we heard, from mass media and other sources.
Much has been written about Kenya’s m-money system. Here the Economist highlights a Gates Foundation paper that highlights an aspect that has not been much written about, the need to balance e money and real money in the hands of the retailers. There are many elements to a successful mobile-money scheme: the right technology, simple marketing, partnerships with banks, support from regulators. But keeping it all going are people like Gaudencia, moving bundles of cash around, on buses and in vans, behind the scenes.
Fifteen Young Scholars from the Asia-Pacific region will be selected to participate in the tutorials taught by recognized scholars and practitioners scheduled to be held before CPRsouth5 (4-5 December 2010). Who qualifies? Entry level officers of government/regulatory agencies Entry/mid- level officers of private companies in the communication industries Masters/PhD students in Economics, Public policy, Communications and Journalism disciplines Entry/mid- level officers working in NGOs/INGOs. Researchers from think tanks and policy institutes Journalists interested in regulation and public policy. With am emphasis in communication.
LIRNEasia regularly surveys SEC group D and E (the bottom of the pyramid) teleuse in emerging Asian countries. In the study it was found that less than one percent of the Sri Lankan BOP phone users who are aware of mobile 2.0 services regularly use it. Highlighting this fact we ran an advertisement in the Daily Mirror today. The advertisement’s objective was to show what the policy makers and regulators can do and thereby what the service providers could do to boost up Mobile 2.
TeleGeography has revealed the transpacific bandwidth costs five times more than the transatlantic price. The prices of a 10Gbps wavelength between London-New York (transatlantic) costs only US$9,000 to $20,000 per month. The same product, however, varies from $65,000 to $80,000 per month in Tokyo and Los Angeles (transpacific) route although this price has fallen at a compounded annual rate of 21% during last two years. Worst part of the story is – the same 10Gbps wavelength between Tokyo and Hong Kong is marginally less than the Tokyo-LA price (See the chart). The transpacific bandwidth costs are expected to slide furthermore once the new cables get commissioned.