What I predicted would happen in 2005, has happened. Pakistan is now ahead of all South Asian countries in basic telecom access other than Maldives.LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE – LBO
Beyond the horizon, but worth keeping en eye on . . . BBC NEWS | Technology | Physics promises wireless power US researchers have outlined a relatively simple system that could deliver power to devices such as laptop computers or MP3 players wirelessly. The concept exploits century-old physics and could work over distances of many metres, the researchers said.
To get thinking started on a topic that we will be studying in more detail in 2007. Are there historical figures like this, for example in India, that we can refer to in our work? Looking Back on Louis Brandeis on His 150th Birthday – New York Times
Cost is USD 50 a month; is this higher or lower than what is paid by the Nanasalas in Sri Lanka? With a Dish, Broadband Goes Rural – New York Times Craig Clark, who works from home in Rindge, made do with a sluggish dial-up line until he signed up for broadband service from the satellite provider WildBlue Communications last autumn. With a 26-inch dish outside his home and a modem inside, Mr. Clark now connects to the Internet at speeds similar to those offered by the phone company. “It’s not a perfect technology, but it is one of the best options for those of us in rural areas,” he said.
Why BPOs insist on route and supplier redundancy. :: bdnews24.com :: Dhaka, Nov 13 (bdnews24.com) – A suspected act of sabotage derailed telecommunications transmission optical fibre cable links between Dhaka and Chittagong Monday night.Submarine cable subscribers in Dhaka got disconnected at 7:30pm.
Dhaka, Nov 13 (bdnews24.com) — Telecom Development Company Afghanistan reached the mark of one million mobile subscribers on October 30. With the brand name “Roshan” or light, the second mobile operator rolled out services in June 2003. “We are very excited and proud of reaching the million subscribers milestone,” said Karim Khoja, chief executive of Roshan. In more than three years, Roshan reached the mark, beating first mobile company in Afghanistan, the Afghan Wireless Communication Company (AWCC)— 20 percent owned by the government.
An executive course on telecom regulation, including World Dialogue on Regulation Expert Forum on Sector and Regulatory Performance Indicators Offered by LIRNEasia and CONNECTasia Forum Pte. Ltd. February 25th – March 3rd, 2007. Changi Village Hotel, Singapore The 2007 course is designed to enhance the strategic thinking of a select group of senior decision makers in the telecom and related sectors in the Asia Pacific and elsewhere. The focus will be on the most current strategic issues.
(Associated Press via NewsEdge) Cellular phone subscribers rose in India by a record 6.6 million in October, keeping the country’s place as the world’s fastest-growing mobile phone market, according to data released over the weekend. Subscribers for the GSM network grew by 4.7 million in September, while the number of mobile phone subscribers using CDMA technology increased by 1.9 million.
LIRNEasia HazInfo project partner Nalaka Gunawardene has written an excellent piece on ICTs and disasters, referring in some detail to the ongoing HazInfo project. Bridging the long ‘last mile’ in Sri Lanka / 2006/4 / Media Development / Publications / Home – World Association for Christian Communication While the countries of South and Southeast Asia were largely unprepared to act on the tsunami, it was not really a complete surprise. As the killer waves originating from the ocean near Indonesia’s Sumatra Island radiated across the Indian Ocean at the speed of a jetliner, the alert about the impending tsunami moved through the Internet at the speed of light. Scientists at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre (PTWC) in Hawaii, who had detected the extraordinary seismic activity, issued a local tsunami warning one hour and five minutes after the undersea quake. That was a bit too late for Indonesia – which, being closest to the quake’s epicentre, was already hit – but it could have made a difference in countries further away, such as India, Sri Lanka and Thailand.
CPRsouth Chair and LIRNEasia international advisory board member, Professor Ashok Jhunjhunwala was on a blue-ribbon panel discussing ICTs and rural access last night on NDTV. CIOL : .NET & Windows : Make bandwidth available to all, says Kalam NDTV’s Prannoy Roy moderated a discussion in which Ballmer, N R Narayana Murthy, Ashok Jhunjhunwala and Manvinder Singh of Ranbaxy participated. He started off by asking Ballmer about the contrasting personalities of the top two at Microsoft: small, shy and geeky versus flambuoyant and six feet six. Opposites make for the best partnerships was the reply.
Looks like we have a virtuous cycle of investment going on. Not only the mobiles, but the fixed operators too are engaging in significant investment. Possibly the unusual predilection of the Sri Lankan consumer for fixed phones, over mobile, keeps Suntel going. For those not from Sri Lanka, 1 USD = 106 LKR, just lopping off two zeros will you a good sense of what is being discussed. LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE – LBO Telecom operator Suntel, a unit of Sweden’s Overseas Telecom AB, plans to spend 3.
Dhaka, Nov 9 (www.bdnews24.com) – The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Report for 2006, launched globally Thursday, revealed that Bangladesh had shown impressive gains in water and sanitation sector although Asia’s emerging giants were lagging. “Income matters, but public policy shapes the conversion of income into human development,” said the report, entitled “Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty and the Global Water Crisis.” “India may outperform Bangladesh as a high growth globalisation success story, but the tables are turned when the benchmark for success shifts to sanitation: despite an average income some 60% higher, India has a lower rate of sanitation coverage.
As part of the Six Country Indicators Project, Divakar presents the interim findings from the Indonesia country study. The study assesses Indonesia’s telecom sector and regulatory performance. It employs the common methodology and list of indicators adopted for the Six Country study.
A Wi-Fi Express Lane – New York Times IT’S axiomatic in the computer world that nothing is ever fast enough. And so it goes with popular wireless Wi-Fi networks, which already seem overcrowded and slow. The growing interest in video sites like YouTube and streaming TV programs online has served to underscore the problem. Naturally, the wireless manufacturers are happy to step into the breach with a new, faster Wi-Fi standard. Well, almost.
Maldives is a country with a population of around 300,000, around 32,000 fixed phones and around 232,000 mobiles [this has to level off, because pretty much the entire population is now using mobiles]. It has a lot of high-end hotel rooms, but the USP of the tourist industry there is not business travel, it is utter and complete relaxation. And relaxed people are not known to generate lots of data and voice traffic. All this is relevant to the question of what will go through the two cables landing in Maldives by 2007. Reliance/FLAG is already live, I believe.
Massive mobile growth is reported from Bangladesh in 2006, with over two million being added in September alone, according to the BTRC. The question now is whether Pakistan still leads the pack. Mobiles Net addition/month Jan-06 10,275,869 Feb-06 10,543,898 268,029 Mar-06 10,954,285 410,387 Apr-06 11,781,560 827,275 May-06 13,440,836 1,659,276 Jun-06 14,190,606 749,770 Jul-06 14,798,440 607,834 Aug-06 15,510,000 711,560 Sep-06 17,647,537 2,137,537 Bangladesh’s GrameenPhone tops 10 mln subscribers | Reuters.com Bangladesh’s top mobile phone operator GrameenPhone Ltd. said on Sunday the number of its subscribers has passed 10 million, rising more than 80 percent since January.