Hopes for Wireless Cities Fade as Internet Providers Pull Out – New York Times Part of the problem was in the business model established in Philadelphia and mimicked in so many other cities, Mr. Settles said. In Philadelphia, the agreement was that the city would provide free access to city utility poles for the mounting of routers; in return the Internet service provider would agree to build the infrastructure for 23 free hotspots and to provide inexpensive citywide residential service, including 25,000 special accounts that were even cheaper for lower-income households. But soon it became clear that dependable reception required more routers than initially predicted, which drastically raised the cost of building the networks. Marketing was also slow to begin, so paid subscribers did not sign up in the numbers that providers initially hoped, Mr.
There were no press invitations/news releases for our event on March 18, as we were only releasing preliminary data. LBO was perhaps the only media interested. Their report was not hundred percent correct saying the SLT (2M/512k) speeds were slower compared to comparable Dialog Broadband package always (They showed more or less on par performances in Dec 2007) but sans that see them presenting a fairly accurate picture . Extracts: Sri Lanka’s internet access quality through broadband within the local boundary is above regional thresholds but sparse local content drives users to access overseas sites at slower speeds, researchers said. The local speeds within Sri Lanka is comparatively higher to what users experience when accessing international web sites, web pages or servers that are located overseas.
Starting a business in Sri Lanka is not the easiest task in the world but how far that impedes Sri Lanka’s entry to global knowledge economy? This is one of the key questions posed by the World Bank publication The report identifies the business environment; information infrastructure; an innovation system; and human resources as four pillars of the knowledge economy. Challenges faced by Sri Lanka in becoming a knowledge economy are examined and the report proposes possible ways that Sri Lanka could move forward to build its knowledge economy under the country’s development strategy as outlined in the Mahinda Chinthana. ‘Building Sri Lanka’s Knowledge Economy’ to be launched Tuesday March 25, 2008 at 4th Floor, DFCC Bank Auditorium 73/5, Galle Road Colombo 3. LIRNEasia is happy to be a partner in publicizing this report perhaps for the first time seriously SWOTs Sri Lanka against similar countries and points out what it can learn from others.
Sir Arthur C. Clarke, resident of Sri Lanka, citizen of the United Kingdom, and man of the universe, passed away on the morning of the 19th of March. His was a life well lived. He will be remembered. Sir Arthur imagined what the world could be.
Arthur C. Clarke, 90, Science Fiction Writer, Dies – New York Times Mr. Clarke was well aware of the importance of his role as science spokesman to the general population: “Most technological achievements were preceded by people writing and imagining them,” he noted. “I’m sure we would not have had men on the Moon,” he added, if it had not been for H. G.
The State of “Broadband” in Sri Lanka – Take 1 « ICT for Peacebuilding (ICT4Peace) Lirneasia’s work (in particular their BOP research, on which I have still to write on in this blog) has helped me more than any other organisation to justify my on-going work with citizen journalism and new media as a means through which one can strengthen democratic governance, peace and fundamental rights. Years ago I began work on ICT4Peace with the hunch that mobile devices / phones would change the way in which citizens communicate with governance and governance mechanisms in the swabhasha, and that wireless internet access / cloud computing and diminishing costs of access would make them producers of content instead of passive recipients and consumers of content dished out to them by e-government initiatives with a downstream emphasis. It’s heartening to see research from Lirneasia supporting the validity of these early assumptions and my continuing work in ICT and peacebuilding. Powered by ScribeFire.
At last report, Hutch Sri Lanka had an ARPU of around USD 3. Sri Lanka Hutch subscribers double in 2007 – LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE Subscribers of the Sri Lanka mobile unit of Hutchison Telecom doubled to more than a million in 2007, while revenue growth topped 50 percent, the group said in a statement. Total subscribers had increased by 104 percent to 1,141,000 in 2007 while revenue measured in Hong Kong dollars grew 52.4 percent 189 million dollars (2.6 billion Sri Lanka rupees).
At a well attended public seminar yesterday (March 18) at Institution of Engineers (Sri Lanka), LIRNEasia released its Broadband QoSE testing methodology (named ‘AshokaTissa’, after the greatest collaboration between India and Sri Lanka, the movement of Buddhism across the Palk Strait) and the preliminary test results of three of the most widely used broadband packages in Sri Lanka, SLT Office (2 Mbps / 512 kbps), SLT Home (512 kbps / 128 kbps) and Dialog (2 Mbps / 512 kbps) This was followed by the responses from SLT and Dialog Broadband. The event was jointly organised by LIRNEasia and Institution of Engineers. (Sri Lanka) Speeches/Presentations available for downloading: Comments from the Chair – Rohan Samarajiva Introduction to broadband and Test Methodology – Timothy Gonsalves Preliminary QoSE test results – Chanuka Wattegama
It is with deep regret that LIRNEasia reports the demise of Sir Arthur C. Clarke. Some of us at LIRNEasia had the opportunity of closely working with him in our professional lives. In November 2005, LIRNEasia had its last official encounter with him when few representatives from WorldSpace (our partner in the Last-Mile Hazinfo project) including Dr. Rangarajan met him in Colombo.
Paper Is Out, Cellphones Are In – New York Times the next step is electronic boarding passes, which essentially turn the hand-held devices and mobile phones of travelers into their boarding passes. At least half a dozen airlines in the United States currently allow customers to check in using their mobile devices, including American, Continental, Delta, Northwest, Southwest and Alaska. But so far, Continental is the only carrier in the United States to begin testing the electronic passes, allowing those travelers to pass through security and board the plane without handling a piece of paper. Their boarding pass is an image of an encrypted bar code displayed on the phone’s screen, which can be scanned by gate agents and security personnel. Powered by ScribeFire.
Half of the UK’s broadband users are unhappy with the service from their internet providers even though high-speed connections are at their cheapest and fastest, according to a survey by price comparison service uSwitch. With 15 million customers – half the country – spending £3bn on broadband every year, the gap is widening between the companies perceived as best and worst providers, according to uSwitch, which makes money by encouraging consumers to hunt out new deals. Its survey of nearly 11,000 broadband customers suggests four million customers are not satisified with their provider and four out of nine companies have less satisfied customers this year than last. Read the full story in ‘The Guardian’ here.
The government promised a broad-ranging environmental levy in the last budget speech. Some sensible people inside government appear to have defanged what could have been a very nasty piece of legislation. The Bill that is scheduled to be debated in Parliament on the 19th of March makes provision for the levy to collected by telecom operators and paid to the Telecom Regulatory Commission and then to the Environmental Conservation Levy account of the Consolidated Fund. The other levy collector is the customs. The removal of the complex collection procedure mentioned in the Budget Speech is definitely an improvement.
LIRNEasia’s first book was launched at a ceremony at IIT Madras in December 2007. Three months later, the book is not yet available for sale in a Sri Lankan bookstore. Why? According to Sage India, a respected academic publisher, the book is held up at Sri Lanka Customs. The problem is that it came in the same shipment as a book by an English scholar teaching at the Colombo University which had the word militarization in the title.
Video Road Hogs Stir Fear of Internet Traffic Jam – New York Times For months there has been a rising chorus of alarm about the surging growth in the amount of data flying across the Internet. The threat, according to some industry groups, analysts and researchers, stems mainly from the increasing visual richness of online communications and entertainment — video clips and movies, social networks and multiplayer games. Moving images, far more than words or sounds, are hefty rivers of digital bits as they traverse the Internet’s pipes and gateways, requiring, in industry parlance, more bandwidth. Last year, by one estimate, the video site YouTube, owned by Google, consumed as much bandwidth as the entire Internet did in 2000. Powered by ScribeFire.
Quality of Service Experience (QoSE) of broadband was a topic that has been discussed in LIRNEasia blog for sometime and we find many readers share the view of the Australian cartoonist who portrayed information superhighway to a modern car with cart wheels – the infrastructure. LIRNEasia’s on-going QoSE benchmarking project aims to find the answer to the question, based on evidence not perceptions, whether the users actually get what has been advertised by the operators. A seminar presenting preliminary results of Broadband QoSE measures, with the participation of Professor Timothy Gonsalves of IIT Madras (who headed the team that developed the methodology) will be held in Colombo on the 18th of March. This is an open event, but prior registration is recommended. (Tel: 011 267 1160, 077 763 6821; e-mail: kapugama[at]lirne[dot]net) Here are more information about the event and broadband quality test plan for those who are interested.
Peter Anderson who spent part of his sabbatical in Sri Lanka assisting with the conduct of simulations for the Last-Mile HazInfo Project is to develop a mobile communications command vehicle for immediate post-disaster coordination for the government of Sri Lanka. He first came to Sri Lanka in January 2005 to participate in the first expert forum on disaster early warning at the invitation of LIRNEasia. SFU News Online – Emergency communications vehicle will help Sri Lanka – January 10, 2008 Anderson is laying the groundwork for an advanced mobile emergency-communications (AMECom) vehicle for Sri Lanka’s disaster management program. The versatile, mobile communications vehicle will be similar to one he and his team designed and produced for emergencies in B.C.