LIRNEasia intended the Telecom Regulatory Environment scores to serve as a diagnostic instrument for regulators, policy makers and stakeholders, not exactly a “league table.” However, the news value seems to be in the inter-country comparisons. We are grateful for whatever coverage we get. Businessworld: Pak Betters India The sharp growth in the Indian telecom industry has been talked about for quite sometime. That growth happened after many contentious issues got straightened out over the years at the regulatory level.
With the current growth rate of mobile subscriptions, India is the clear global leader in mobile net additions, but its broadband sector still has not met market expectations. Due to poor fixed line coverage, low PC adoption, and service pricing, broadband service has not been embraced by Indians in the way mobile phones were. However, the ministry of communications and operators intend to change that by labeling 2007 the “Broadband Year,” hoping to reach a 20m broadband subscribers by 2010. With the help of telecom and PC manufacturers and operators’ deep pockets, the government believes their goal can be achieved. Pyramid Research argues that the country’s broadband aspirations will not be achieved for 2007, however it will exceed its 2011 target.
The Ugandan government gave full power to the country’s telecoms regulator, the Ugandan Communications Commission (UCC), to liberalize the infrastructure sector in October 2006. Earlier in the year, the Ministry published guidelines defining the opening up of services to full competition. This was a result of the end of the five-year exclusivity period of the National Telecom Operators (NTO)—MTN Uganda and Uganda Telecom, and Cellular Telecom Operator (CTO)—Celtel Uganda. With this new market structure, the Ugandan telecoms is set to become even more attractive as infrastructure rollout increases, new services and applications are deployed, and customers’ needs are meet in the greater context of convergence. In our view, despite current and upcoming challenges, Uganda is well positioned to become a very competitive and vibrant telecoms market and this can already be seen in the moves of South Africa’s giants MTN and Telkom SA which have either increased their stakes in the country or are seeking to make a push into Uganda.
With new acronyms (NGN) being introduced instead of better service (ADSL that actually gives the 2 mbps or 512 kbps we paid for), our thoughts had begun to wander to WiMax, but sadly, cold water is being poured on that hope too. On continuing discussion of municipal wireless there is a great quote in here: ‘Using municipal Wi-Fi for residential coverage, [Sanjit Biswas] said, was “the equivalent of expecting street lamps to light everyone’s homes.” ‘ Wireless Internet for All, Without the Towers – New York Times WiMax, which will be a high-power version of the tower approach, comes in two flavors: mobile, which has not yet been certified, and fixed, which is theoretically well suited for residential deployment. Unfortunately, it’s pricey. Peter Bell, a research analyst at TeleGeography Research in Washington, said fixed WiMax would not be able to compete against cable and DSL service: “It makes more economic sense in semirural areas that have no broadband coverage.
Now Motorola is said to be doing badly because the Razr ceased to be fashionable after I bought one! But seriously, if people are upgrading phones in less than 24 months on average, the second-hand market must be huge. Is this the answer to solving the affordability barrier at the Bottom of the Pyramid? Cellphone Envy Lays Motorola Low – New York Times Motorola’s fortunes have plunged along with the price of its Razr. Its profits have collapsed, and it announced plans last month to lay off 3,500 workers.
LIRNEasia has been moved to Denmark, but hey, we take whatever coverage we can get! Missed call virus bugs telecom firms A study by Learning Initiatives on Reforms for Network Economies (Lirne), a Denmark-based NGO that focusses on telecom issues, shows that over half of India’s 140 million mobile subscribers make missed calls to convey a pre-agreed message. As many as 95 per cent of the pre-paid customers used missed calls for this purpose, the study added. For operators, missed calls clog networks without earning them revenue, also frustrating genuine callers with “network busy” messages. “Missed calls use microwave links, the backhaul and the exchange and yet we make no money,” said a senior executive of Hutchison-Essar.
In the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the World Dialogue on Regulation carried a discussion on regulatory responses to disasters. It appears that this discussion has continued relevance to developed countries as well, as seen in this communication from the National Regulatory Research Institute in the US: “Severe January ice storms left over 450,000 customers from Texas and Oklahoma to Michigan, New York, and New Hampshire without power. In Oklahoma, sleet and freezing rain built up ice four inches thick, bringing down trees and power lines, leaving some customers without power for as much as a week. Commissions typically investigate a utility’s response to a long-term major outage, and these severe winter storms will cause regulators to refocus on outage management and restoration issues. An ongoing NRRI study on electricity outages recommends that regulators make their expectations of electric utilities more specific and investigates regulatory approaches that encourage adoption of efficient outage management and restoration systems.
Sri Lanka completed a major change in the numbering plan in 2003. That included provision for toll free numbers. However, from the report below, it appears that the necessary implementation actions have not been taken. LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE – LBO Though Sri Lanka does not have a toll free number system, HSBC has arranged with fixed and mobile operators to offer a toll free number. “We will expect lot more customers to use phone banking as it is easier and free of charge,” says Chandima Liyanage, who is in charge of HSBC’s distribution channels.
Free media Movement – Sri Lanka Press Release 30 January 2007 Internet facilities and 8,000 telephones cut off in Jaffna Peninsula The Free Media Movement (FMM) is deeply disturbed to learn that basic communications facilities to the Jaffna Peninsula have been blocked from 28th January 2007. Internet facilities and around 8,000 landline telephones of Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) are dysfunctional to date. SLT, jointly owned by the Sri Lankan Government and Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corporation (NTT) of Japan, is the sole Internet provider in Jaffna Peninsula with a population of around 600,000 according to official statistics. The FMM was told that there is no official decision by the Telecommunication Regulatory Authority to block communications in this manner in the Peninsula. However, a number of citizens in Jaffna and journalists confirm that there is no Internet access in Jaffna for the past 3 three days, when contacted through mobile phones.
How will John Gage’s proposal play out in the telecom eco-system of developing countries? Who will operate them? Will they suffer the same fate as ICTA’s VSAT based connectivity for telecenters, where you can do Internet but cannot call the next village? Can you just drop technology in, without addressing the overall institutional setting? At Davos, the Squabble Resumes on How to Wire the Third World – New York Times Separately at the meeting on Saturday, John Gage, the chief researcher at Sun Microsystems, proposed an industry plan to deploy advanced data networks in developing economies with contributions of engineering staff time of 1 percent.
Support for the HazInfo project’s position that radio, which allows for point-to-multipoint congestion-free transmission of warnings is the optimal technology. The LIRNEasia and WorldSpace developed solution, which allows for remote activation of radios is even superior to what is described in this article. However, the article points out that a lot of institutional factors need to be addressed for the warning to be effective, an issue we are grappling with in the Sri Lanka pilot. Air Support – New York Times Consider, for instance, the basic question of where you would turn for information if disaster struck your hometown. The Internet puts up-to-the-minute information at your fingertips, but not if you can’t turn on your computer or your local network is down.
Nokia, which had a few bad years, appears to be making a comeback on the shoulders of exploding markets in the Asia Pacific. LIRNEasia research shows that there is plenty of room for market expansion in the Asia Pacific, especially at the bottom of the pyramid. If Nokia and other equipment suppliers address this market proactively, they can have many more good years. Nokia Net Up 19%, Topping Estimates – New York Times Nokia, which is based in Espoo, Finland, shipped a record 106 million units in the quarter, up 26 percent from a year earlier and 19 percent from the third quarter. Nokia said its fourth-quarter market share was unchanged from 36 percent in the third quarter and up from 34 percent a year earlier, led by gains in all regions except North America.
LBO reports of the release of a low-budget handset for the Sri Lankan market by Motorola, the MotoFone F3. Some of the features include two week stand-by time, high quality speaker, voice prompts, etc. Motorola even hopes to bring localised phones with Sinhalese script into the market soon. It hopes that the MotoFone F3, available for as little as LKR5,000 (approx. USD46) will boost its share in the local handset market with the new low cost handset.
LIRNEasia’s Executive Director and Lead Economist participated at the 10th annual telecom conference and exhibition organized by Informa Telecoms and Media, GSM>3G, held in Mumbai, India on 22-23 January. LIRNEasia’s Lead Economist, Harsha de Silva presented the Indian findings of LIRNEasia’s five-country teleuse study, ‘Teleuse on a Shoestring:2,’ during the session entitled ‘Connecting the Next Billion.’ | View presentation slides Executive Director, Rohan Samarajiva was also invited as a panel discussant on ‘Widening Access for Rural Communities,’ along side top administrator of India’s universal service obligation fund as well as President of New Projects of Indian operator, Spice Telecom. The conference brought together key players in the GSM community from around the world as well as India to discuss key issues affecting the mobile industry, including 3G, regulation, international investment, Next Generation Networks, coverage, penetration, IMS and MMS. It was organized by Informa Telecoms and Media, as a part of a world series of annual conferences, located in regional hubs within fast growing markets.
As part of a special review of ICT policy in Indonesia, e-Indonesia, the Indonesian ICT monthly magazine, interviewed a number of key stakeholders including the Minister Sofyan Djalil, Commissioners from BRTI, the regulatory body, civil society group, industry reps and ICT experts. LIRNEasia researcher, Divakar Goswami, was also interviewed. The interview is featured in the online edition here. The interview is in bahasa. The English text of the interview is below: 1.
This is not rocket science and Bangladesh can easily achieve similar growth. All it needs is a “literate” leadership and “sane” regulator. Details of Indian and Pakistani markets is in http://www.telecomtv.com/news.