When asked this was Intel’s response to the $ 100 (er…$ 176) laptop, pat came the reply: “Yeah, you could call that” It is meant for children, but classmate PC is not a toy. It is a tiny version of a fully pledged PC. (512 M memory 2 GB in a flash, though no hard drive) The screen size is smaller, but on the other hand it is not easy to break even if you dropped it from a height. (Yes, they demonstrated it!) This was seen at the GK3 exhibition at Kuala Lumpur Conventional Centre where the so-called $100 green coloured OLPC laptop was a notable absentee.
IDRC interviewed me at GK3. The voice cut is below. Rohan Samarajiva: International Development Research Centre Rohan Samarajiva, executive director of LIRNEasia, describes how its pioneering research work is helping make communities more resilient in the face of disasters like tsunamis and cyclones. Powered by ScribeFire.
A thoughtful contribution by someone who is developing a voice interface for the mobile internet. The Mobile Web is NOT helping the Developing World… and what we can do about it. By Nathan Eagle | MobileActive.org This is not to say that these billions of mobile phones do not have the potential to access content from the web – rather, the traditional browser-based paradigm of internet usage does not cater to them. The idea that the mobile web consists exclusively of mobile devices running web-browsers identical to the web experience we are used to with IE/Firefox is simply wrong.
LIRNEasia’s first book, ICT Infrastructure in Emerging Asia: Policy and Regulatory Roadblocks, edited by Rohan Samarajiva and Ayesha Zainudeen will be launched on December 16 2007. The Chief guests at the event will be Shri K.Sridhara, Member (Technology) & Ex-Officio Secretary to the Government of India, Department of Telecommunications, Ministry of Communications & IT, and Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala, Professor of the Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Madras. The book looks at the policy and regulatory barriers to the expansion of information and communication technology infrastructure in emerging markets, based on Asian experience and is co-published by SAGE Publications and the International Development Research Centre.
The Wireless Personal Multimedia Communications (WPMC2007) symposium was held in Jaipur, India, December 03 – 06, 2007. The paper by N. Waidyanatha, S. Rangarajan, G. Gow, and P.
India’s Bharti Airtel, China Mobile and PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia are UBS’s top three telecom investment picks in Asia for 2008, as their home markets enjoy strong growth rates. “Growth features such as rising consumption, elasticity of demand and economies of scale will continue to be the main themes for the growth markets, including China, India and Indonesia, which are still under-appreciated by investors, in our view,” UBS said in a report. India and China, the world’s fastest-growing mobile markets, added around 8 million mobile phone subscribers in October, taking their user base to approximately 217 million and 531 million, respectively. Read the full story in Forbes.com
LIRNEasia researchers will be among panelists at the 3rd Global Knowledge Conference organized by Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP). Two sessions will be based on the LIRNEasia‘s study on Teleuse at the Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP), which is to presented in the form of an interactive quiz show. The background paper is available here. A session titled ‘Making Communities Disaster Resilient’, hopes to highlight issues related to developing a robust solution for strengthening community resilience in the face of natural disasters. The background paper is available here.
A new documentary film, titled Teleuse@BOP, recently produced by TVE Asia Pacific (TVEAP) and based on LIRNEasia’s study on Teleuse at the Bottom of the Pyramid, highlights a communication revolution happening in Asia’s emerging telecommunication markets. When it comes to using phones, the film says, people at the bottom of the income pyramid are no different from anyone else; they value the enhanced personal security, including emergency communications, and social networking benefits. Increasingly, poor people are not content with just using public phones or shared access phones (belonging friends or family). They see a utility and social value of having their own phones.
LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE – LBO Sri Lanka’s top celco Dialog Telekom wants to collect a million old phones and recycle them in the next two years in an initiative that will keep dangerous heavy metals from contaminating the environment, officials said. Phone batteries for example have heavy metals such a lead, nickel and cadmium. Dialog is collecting old phones and accessories from today. “In Sri Lanka there are about 10 million mobile phones, and mobile phones become obsolete in two to three years,” says Michael de Soyza from Dialog who heads the project. “Though some are handed down to friends and siblings, eventually they are discarded and are disposed of through the garbage collection system.
by Harsha de Silva & Ayesha Zainudeen In Does inequality matter? Exploring the links between poverty and inequality (p. 135-167), Edited by Prashan Thalayasingam & Kannan Arunasalam. Published by CEPA, Colombo, 2007 Pre-publication version available for download. The paper was presented at the Centre for Poverty Analysis Annual Symposium on Poverty Research in Sri Lanka (6-7 December 2007, Colombo) Introduction: Much has been said of the benefits of access to telecommunication especially at the ‘Bottom of the Pyramid’.
BeePeeO Data Solutions: Translation, Transcription & Proofreading Services BeePeeO Data Solutions is a socially motivated BPO service provider promoting a pro-nature, pro-poor, pro-women and pro-sustainable livelihood paradigm of technology development and dissemination by leveraging cutting-edge technology and flexible business process knowledge to set up delivery centers in rural areas. We bridge the ‘Digital Divide’ by making local Sri Lankan talent accessible to international companies, offering highly competitive rates and fast turnaround. It is a ‘win-win’ proposition where companies obtain quick, cost-effective data and language services, while qualified talent in Sri Lanka finds employment without having to migrate to cities or overseas. BeePeeO Data Solutions is a joint venture of a network of rural Telecentres (Nanasalas) in Sri Lanka led by Koslanda Nanasala and Glenanore Nanasala sponsored by the Information & Communications Technology Agency (ICTA) and Sri Lanka Children’s Trust national voluntary service organization. Powered by ScribeFire.
The 2006-08 focus of LIRNEasia’s research was indicators of sector and regulatory performance. Indicators should not be collected for the sake of collecting them. They should be collected based on a common standards and reported at standard intervals in a timely manner, so that regulation and policy can be improved. For example, we believe that good price information can allow a simplification of the tariff regulation process in a way that will make all stakeholders, including incumbents, happy. We were thus gratified when the Chief Executive of the Telecom Authority of Maldives invited us to conduct a workhop on indicators and benchmarking.
Asian National Statistical Offices should consider inserting a question on telephones into their household surveys that will capture this. Telephony | Mobile homes | Economist.com NEARLY half of Lithuanian households now use just a mobile phone rather than having a fixed line at home too, according to the European Union’s statistical office. The Finns, fast adopters of technology, are close behind with 47% of households ditching the home phone. People from Central and Eastern Europe are more likely to have only a mobile phone, perhaps because fewer households had a fixed line in the first place.
Yunnan-based Chinese companies are offering cheap phones and illegal mobile service in the North of Burma, according to a research report, prompting the military authorities to seize all Chinese mobile phones. It says the Chinese providers are “taking advantage of the inability of the Myanmar military junta to provide satisfactory and affordable mobile phone services in the Shan State and the Kachin State areas of North Myanmar.” Read more.
Telecoms in India | Full-spectrum dominance | Economist.com The operators added more than 8m mobile-phone subscribers in October, bringing the total to over 217m. India has met its ambitious target, set two years ago, of 250m fixed and mobile-phone connections. But the government is sadly unprepared. It has not given India’s mobile operators enough space on the radio spectrum to carry calls crisply and reliably.
All over the world, governments are freeing up and assigning more frequencies for mobile services. Is it not time that spectrum managers in the Asia Pacific start work on this? These things take time. Refarming is a lot more work than making a copy of a license. Ottawa opens up wireless industry to more competition The Conservative government on Wednesday paved the way for new cellphone companies by announcing new rules for an auction of radio airwaves designed to spur competition in the wireless industry.