The UK’s first “fibre town” could go online in the autumn, delivering speeds of about 100Mbps (megabits per second) to consumers’ homes. Fibre firm H2O provides super-fast broadband via the sewers and either Bournemouth, Northampton or Dundee will be offered the service first. For consumers, super-fast net connections could create a range of new applications including on-demand high definition (HD) TV, DVD quality film downloads in minutes, online video messaging, CCTV home surveillance and HD gaming services. Read the full story in BBC here.
LIRNEasia recently unveiled a painting by S. H. Sarath, the renowned Sri Lankan artist at its premises. It is untitled leaving ample room for one’s imagination. Photo shows LIRNEasia guest speaker of the day Robin Mansell and Executive Director Rohan Samarajiva doing the honours.
China on Tuesday started a public hearing to discuss lowering domestic mobile roaming charges, state media said, to address complaints from users. Hosted by the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s top economic planner, the hearing discussed two proposed plans for roaming charges, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. Both proposals involve cancelling the existing roaming service fee of 0.2 yuan per minute, which users have criticized as being too high, according to local media reports. China’s mobile operators, China Mobile and China Unicom collect domestic roaming fees if the subscriber leaves the local service area.
NEW DELHI: The level of congestion among the networks of different cellular operators has come down considerably in the July-September period, according to telecom regulator TRAI. The performance of the Cellular Mobile Service Providers with respect to the congestion of Point of Interconnections has improved in September, 2007 with the number of POIs with congestion coming down significantly to 348 against 457 in June 2007, TRAI said in a statement. According to the benchmark notified by TRAI in the Quality of Service regulation, the POI should be less than 0.5 per cent of the the calls made from one network to another. Read the full story in ‘The Economic Times’ here.
TelecomTV – TelecomTV One – News Of course that’s not to say that everything is rosy and you can just lay it and the business will come. I was a little surprised at the hostile reaction I received in a panel session when I suggested that some of the builds on thinner routes were vanity projects based more on national prestige and political expediency than actual real business cases. A fair percentage of the industry is fanatically evangelistic about submarine cables and conveniently forgets the fact that you can’t fill those pipes if you don’t have favourable regulatory and investment reforms in the access network at the other end as well as basic preconditions such as mass PC literacy and affordable services. Powered by ScribeFire.
One of the most significant auctions of frequency spectrum in the world is about the start in the US. The process of moving spectrum-hogging broadcasters out of these valuable bands (a process known as spectrum refarming) began in the 1990s. How many Asia-Pacific spectrum managers have even got started on the job? How long will it be before the people of the region see the benefits of deploying 700 MHz spectrum for wireless broadband? Airwaves, Web Power at Auction – New York Times The radio spectrum licenses, which are to be returned from television broadcasters as they complete their conversion from analog to digital signals in February 2009, are as coveted as oil reserves are to energy companies.
Sri Lanka’s Tigo celco to sidestep price war – LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE Sri Lanka’s mobile service provider Tigo plans to rely on giving better value to increase market share and revenue and not wage a price war with rival local mobile operators, company officials said. “We do not believe that a price war will benefit anybody including the customer. There has to be a balance between price and the profitability of the company,” says Dumindra Ratnayaka, chief executive of Celltel Lanka which operates under the Tigo brand. “It is not a price war that we have in us, that is why we introduced per second billing rather than cutting headline prices,” Ratnayaka told reporters at the opening of Tigo’s new service centre called Tigo Zone. Powered by ScribeFire.
Economist.com – Cities Guide Singapore’s free Wi-Fi service, which since December 2006 has covered almost all public areas, has been extended to the place it was most notably lacking: the terminals at Changi Airport. Users of the airport, including those at the new Terminal 3 and Budget Terminal, can now log on to wireless@sg and access the internet free of charge. The download speed, 512 kilobits per second, is fast enough for most needs. Powered by ScribeFire.
Despite protests from broadcasters, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) next week will begin testing devices that will allow Internet service providers to utilize unused spectrum for wireless broadband service. The commission on January 24 will kick off a four-to-six week lab test of equipment that will allow ISPs to access this spectrum, known as “white spaces.” That will be followed by an additional six-week field test period, the FCC said. At issue is the transition from analog to digital TV signals. In an effort to free up spectrum for public safety use, Congress has ordered TV broadcasters to shift their signals from analog to digital by February 2009.
Robert Clark says: Apple and China Mobile recently broke off talks over selling the device in the mainland after the Chinese carrier rejected Apple’s insistence on a 30% commission. An executive at a non-mainland operator said the company was keen on selling the iPhone, but just couldn’t raise Apple’s interest. Apple doesn’t have a senior executive in Asia trying to push the device and is conducting negotiations from Cupertino at a leisurely pace. It’s worth remembering developing countries have never been happy hunting grounds for Apple’s high-end devices. The iPhone is a low-volume, high-margin device demanding a fat airtime commission.
In the process of trying to deflate inflation numbers (not inflation), the Government of Sri Lanka has removed alcohol and tobacco from the new price index because they are socially undesirable (not because government taxes are driving those prices through the roof) and included for the first time mobile phone charges. This is a positive move for a government that has imposed an additional 7.5 per cent levy on mobile charges (the government currently takes LKR 26.50 of every LKR 100 spent on mobiles through value-added and mobile-specific taxes). At least this should bury the misconception that mobiles are used only by the rich.
Thumbs Race as Japan’s Best Sellers Go Cellular – New York Times Until recently, cellphone novels — composed on phone keypads by young women wielding dexterous thumbs and read by fans on their tiny screens — had been dismissed in Japan as a subgenre unworthy of the country that gave the world its first novel, “The Tale of Genji,” a millennium ago. Then last month, the year-end best-seller tally showed that cellphone novels, republished in book form, have not only infiltrated the mainstream but have come to dominate it. Rin, 21, tapped out a novel on her cellphone that sold 400,000 copies in hardcover. Of last year’s 10 best-selling novels, five were originally cellphone novels, mostly love stories written in the short sentences characteristic of text messaging but containing little of the plotting or character development found in traditional novels. What is more, the top three spots were occupied by first-time cellphone novelists, touching off debates in the news media and blogosphere.
“Scientists have long believed tsunamis form from vertical deformation of seafloor during undersea earthquakes. However, seismograph and GPS data show such deformation from the 2004 Sumatra earthquake was too small to generate the powerful tsunami that ensued. Song’s team found horizontal forces were responsible for two-thirds of the tsunami’s height, as observed by three satellites (NASA’s Jason, the U.S. Navy’s Geosat Follow-on and the European Space Agency’s Environmental Satellite), and generated five times more energy than the earthquake’s vertical displacements.
Broadband | Open up those highways | Economist.com As Taylor Reynolds, an OECD analyst, puts it, innovation usually comes in steps: newcomers first rent space on an existing network, to build up customers and income. Then they create new and better infrastructure, as and when they need it. In France, for example, the regulator forced France Télécom to rent out its lines. One small start-up firm benefited from this opportunity and then installed technology that was much faster than any of its rivals’.
The North Delhi Power Limited (NDPL) and the Ministry of Information Technology are working towards an initiative that will make broadband connections through power lines possible. “We will send Internet signals through electricity transformer and channelise them through cables running overhead and underground,” said NDPL spokesperson Ajay Maharaj. “Residents would be given a device to plug into power points at home; they will have a broadband connection.” Commissioned by the Ministry of Science and Technology, the pilot project will be implemented in the Bawana campus of Delhi College of Engineering (DCE) within six months. A similar project will be implemented in Kolkata.
lirneasia_colloquium_jan_08.ppt A Colloquium will be conducted by Robin Mansell on the 19th of January 2008 at the LIRNEasia office in Colombo. Robin Mansell, Ph.D., joined the London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) in 2001 where she is Professor in the Department of Media and Communications.