Anam Mobile, a premium SMS service provider, says that global mobile operators are losing out on as much as €3.6 (US$4.9) billion of revenue per year through lost opportunities to create value-added SMS messages. The €3.6 (US$4.
In the South Asian region, Pakistan has taken the lead in introducing mobile number portability. Who will be second? As the story below states, this takes some time and planning. LIRNEasia will shortly post a report on the MNP workshop conducted in Islamabad by the PTA last week. :: bdnews24.
I guess this is a lesson in the value of redundancy. :: bdnews24.com :: The Chittagong-Cox’s Bazar fibre optic transmission link with the country’s only submarine cable was back up after about 10 hours of disruptions through Monday, an official with the BTTB said. The breakdown of the link created “congestion” in the overseas phone and disrupted internet services. The transmission link came back up at 00:25am Tuesday after it snapped at 2:30pm Monday, according to Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board.
Japan planning world’s first nationwide earthquake warning system – International Herald Tribune It’s still beyond the reach of science to predict exactly when an earthquake will strike, but Japan will soon get the next-best thing — televised warnings that come before the shaking starts. In an ambitious attempt at protecting large populations from seismic disaster, Japan’s Meteorological Agency and national broadcaster are teaming up to alert the public of earthquakes as much as 30 seconds before they hit, or at least before they can bring their full force down on populated areas. The system — the first of its kind in the world — cannot actually predict quakes, but officials say it can give people enough time to get away from windows that could shatter, or turn off ovens and prevent fires from razing homes. Powered by ScribeFire.
ECPR 2008: Innovations in communications: The role of users, industry, and policy Seville 31 March – 1 April Abstracts for analytical papers are invited on the topic of ‘Innovations in communications: The role of users, industry and policy’.
The article below talks about micro payments in the context of almost everyone having computers, Internet access, credit cards, etc. What we are talking about is m-payments (m for mobile, not micro) in a world where those assumptions don’t hold. But there may be ideas we can pick up from this discussion. In Online World, Pocket Change Is Not Easily Spent – New York Times The idea of micropayments — charging Web users tiny amounts of money for single pieces of online content — was essentially put to sleep toward the end of the dot-com boom. In December 2000, Clay Shirky, an adjunct professor in New York University’s interactive telecommunications program, wrote a manifesto that people still cite whenever someone suggests resurrecting the idea.
We could still do better; But more taxes could kill the industry The Nation Economist, Sunday 26 August 2007 | See Print version I have to say that JHU does not know economics. What is the rationale behind taxing the only sector that is growing? The industry is giving government enormous amount of revenue. Twenty percent of every mobile rupee goes to the government. If you squeeze the goose for more eggs the goose will ultimately die.
Rohan Samarajiva will chair a session entitled, “Partnership Building: Beyond the traditional boundaries” and also present on “Mobile Phone Penetration at the Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP)” at Sri Lanka’s Telecentre National Alliance’s Partnership Building with NGOs & other networks, being held from 31 August – 2 September 2007. The event is being organised by Sarvodaya, at the Vishva Samadhi Conference Hall, Moratuwa, Sri Lanka Presentation slides
The Communication Initiative – Funding – IDRC Internship Awards The International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Internship programme is for candidates who have shown interest in the creation and utilisation of knowledge from an international perspective and provides hands-on learning experiences in research programme management. Candidates can be Canadians, permanent residents, or citizens of developing countries, who are either currently registered in a Master’s Programme or have completed a Master’s Degree. The 14 awards provide exposure to research for international development through a programme of training in research management and grant administration under the guidance of IDRC programme staff. Powered by ScribeFire.
When we started the indicators work in 2006, we thought we’d be able to crack the problem of defining the mobile customer. We did not. The end result is the we not longer report “mobile/100 people,” preferring instead the more accurate term, “Mobile SIMs/100.” The Arab Advisors Group has reached a similar conclusion. Their recommendations are fine in theory, but we are not sure very practical.
I was asked to write something for world environment day in Montage, a local news magazine, and I wrote about how mobile could reduce the need for travel (in the long run) and thus postpone the inundation of the Maldives. It appears I did not cover all aspects of the problem . . . Is your mobile network green?
It was only in 2005 that Bangladesh got connected to the world through an undersea cable. It is being claimed that this link has been sabotaged, at the same time as the government ordered the shut down of mobile networks, serving multiple millions of customers. :: bdnews24.com :: Dhaka, Aug 23 (bdnews24.com) – International telephony, internet and private international data circuits went down when the submarine cable link was “sabotaged” at 00:05am Thursday, a senior BTTB official confirmed.
Second Tsunami-Detection Station To Bolster Indian Ocean System As part of the U.S. effort, in December 2006, NOAA experts and Thai government officials put a deep-ocean assessment and reporting of tsunamis (DART) station in the Indian Ocean, halfway between Thailand and Sri Lanka. (See related article.)DART systems provide real-time tsunami detection as waves travel across open waters, and each station is linked to a satellite for real-time data transmission on global networks.
Iraq has sold three mobile phone licences for $3.75 billion to Kuwait’s Mobile Telecommunications Co (MTC), AsiaCell and Iraq’s Korek Telecom. The three firms, which already run networks in the war-torn country, made the highest bids in an auction in the Jordanian capital that began on Thursday. TurkCell and Egypt’s Orascom had also bid for licences but dropped out of the race for one of the few sectors to thrive amid Iraq’s instability and crumbling infrastructure. The fixed-line network was hit by sanctions after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and by bombing during the U.
The government will auction three international gateway (IGW) and two interconnection exchange (ICX) licences among private operators in October, a top official said Monday. But no foreign company or foreign joint venture will qualify to apply for IGW or ICX licence. Even the non-resident Bangladeshis’ business outfits are not eligible either. Only the companies fully owned by resident Bangladeshi citizens are qualified for these international telecoms licences. Private fixed or mobile phone operators also cannot contest in this race.
The comment about “the world is going to flip” refers to the launch of the Apple i Phone Hewlett Introduces a Web Feature to Make Document Printing Mobile – New York Times “The world is going to flip,” Mr. Scaglia said. “We want to ride the wave of the Web.” The underlying idea is to unhook physical documents from a user’s computer and printer and make it simple for travelers to take their documents with them and use them with no more than a cellphone and access to a local printer. Powered by ScribeFire.