Three articles on LIRNEasia and its research have appeared in Business Line, one of the leading business newspapers in India belonging to the Hindu group. The most recent one appeared today, focussing on LIRNEasia‘s research activities in the Asian region. The way to go The Hindu Businessline, October 23, 2006 By Ambar Singh Roy […]Founded in September 2004, LIRNEasia (Learning Initiatives on Reforms for Network Economies) was initially focused on India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and Indonesia. This year, LIRNEasia’s research footprint has been extended to the Philippines, Thailand and Pakistan. Says Prof Rohan Samarajiva, Executive Director of LIRNEasia: “The Asia-Pacific is a leading region in ICT, both in manufacture and use.
North Korea is part of Asia. LIRNEasia should at least think about this strange country as it goes about its work. The connectivity of North Korea is described below: The Internet Black Hole That Is North Korea – New York Times “This is an impoverished country where televisions and radios are hard-wired to receive only government-controlled frequencies. Cellphones were banned outright in 2004. In May, the Committee to Protect Journalists in New York ranked North Korea No.
Former Chair of the FCC, Bill Kennard, calls for a broad national debate on how get more broadband connections, especially in rural America. One of his two recommendations is for the adoption of “reverse auctions” or least-cost subsidy auctions for the disbursement of US universal service funds. Another case of policy innovations in the developing world seeping back into the developed. See LIRNEasia’s extensive work on this subject, based on the Indian universal service fund and the least-cost subsidy auction in Nepal. Spreading the Broadband Revolution – New York Times “Any serious discussion of the future of the Internet should start with a basic fact: broadband is transforming every facet of communications, from entertainment and telephone services to delivery of vital services like health care.
Applications for Young Scholar Awards are now closed. The deadline for the Call for Papers, however, has been extended to Friday, October 20, 2006.
According to a recent report, the total number of mobile subscribers in Asia Pacific has doubled in the course of two years and by the end of 2006 will account for 45% of mobile subscriber growth worldwide. China,India and Pakistan account for 70% of the growth in the region.
Zee News – South Asian countries lose 2-16 % GDP in natural disasters “Studies show two to 16 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) of South Asian countries is lost every year due to natural disasters. They also show a dollar spent on mitigating disasters saves five dollars to be spent subsequently on relief and rehabilitation.”The point of course being that there’s nothing natural about this horrendous loss of lives and growth. It is because we do not take the necessary human actions and engage in the required institutional reforms, that these losses are as high. The micro-level approach that is being proposed in India has significant similarities to the objectives of the HazInfo project and Sarvodaya’s overall approach to disaster preparedness.
Please continue discussion from the thread Dharmashala meeting on Wi-Fi here. This thread is dedicated to ICT infrastructure issues in Sri Lanka that include mesh networks in Mahavilachchiya, backbone infrastructure, Wi-Fi and Wimax licensing etc. Please keep discussion civil.
Please continue discussion from Standardizing Sinhala for IT Part 4, on this thread. The change in the title reflects the diverse software issues discussed in the context of Sri Lanka that have gone beyond the initial Unicode vs Donalcode debate. Please keep the discussion civil. Previous discussion is archived in the following threads: Standardizing Sinhala for IT Part 3 Standardizing Sinhala for IT Part 2 Questioning ICT Myths
The GSM Association (GSMA) has announced on Wednesday that it has teamed up with Ericsson and telecoms group MTN to establish bio-fuels as an alternative source of power for wireless networks in the developing world. Ecology and economy is equally critical for mobile phone coverage in the less lucrative emerging markets. Diesel generators energise the base stations at remote locations. Supplying fuel across the unfriendly terrain is also a logistical nightmare. Such expensive exercise, however, inhibits the operators to invest in the low-yield regions.
Assume a scenario where among the chief complaint strings of two unrelated patients in the same District on the same date there was a mention of bloody stools in pediatric cases. The multiple mentions of “bloody stools” or “pediatric” might not be surprising, but the tying together of these two factors, given matching geographic locations and timings of reporting, is sufficiently rare that seeing only two such cases is of interest. This was precisely the evidence that was the first noticeable signal of the tragic Walkerton, Canada, waterborne bacterial gastroenteritis outbreak caused by contamination of tap water in May 2000. That weak signal was spotted by an astute physician, not by a surveillance system. Reliable automated detection of such signals in multivariate data requires new analytic approaches.
According to an equity research firm, the limits of the addressable market in mobile in Sri Lanka will be reached when 2 million more phones are connected. This conclusion needs further interrogation, but on first glance it looks like they have the mobile/per 100 number understated by about 1.1, which does not bode well for the veracity of their claims. For 4.3 million phones to give a mobile teledensity of 21.
By Eric Sylvers International Herald Tribune Published: October 9, 2006 MILAN A battle is brewing that may well decide how Europeans connect to the Internet using cellphones, laptops and other portable devices in the coming decade. Mobile phone companies, chip makers and manufacturers of wireless networks are pushing their sometimes conflicting cases for how the limited amount of radio frequencies should be used to beam data from the Internet to mobile devices and back the other way, a decision that generally is left to national governments. Read the rest of the International Herald Tribune article HERE
Leased Line Tariffs to be Regulated Bisnis Indonesia, September 27, 2006 JAKARTA: The Indonesian Telecommunication Regulatory Body (BRTI) will regulate the tariffs for leased lines through a ministerial decree, which is expected to be signed end of this year. The regulator most likely will force network operators to lower leased line tariffs by more than 50 percent to push internet penetration in Indonesia. BRTI said this in a public meeting with Mastel, internet service providers, and network operators yesterday. Heru Sutadi, a member of BRTI, expected a decline of more than 50% in the tariffs will increase ICT usage, internet interconnection, telephone penetration and increase the number of internet users in Indonesia. “The regulator expects the decline in leased line tariffs will be followed by the acceleration of local internet content, so that bandwidth doesn’t get used outside the country and internet tariffs can drop significantly,” he said yesterday.
Findings from two surveys The Centre for Poverty Analysis (CEPA) held its twenty-seventh Open Forum, to discuss “Living Conditions of the North and the East” of Sri Lanka in relation to the rest of the country from the findings of the Consumer Finances and Socio Economic (CFS) survey 2003/2004 conducted by the Central Bank. This is the eighth of a series of CFS surveys conducted by the central bank that dates back to 1953. The survey yielded the first set of household data on the North and the East since 1983. The CFS survey was conducted immediately after the cease fire spanning over 2003/2004. “Living Conditions of the North and the East” was presented by Dr.
Living the Information Society: The Impact of Information and Communication Technologies on People, Work and Communities in Asia Renaissance Hotel, Makati City, Philippines April 23-24, 2007 Download Call for Papers The Philippine ICT Researchers Network through the National College of Public Administration and Governance of the University of the Philippines is hosting an international conference on “Living the Information Society: The Impact of Information and Communication Technologies on People, Work and Communities in Asia.” This conference will be held at the Renaissance Hotel, Makati City on April 23-24, 2007. The event is also co-sponsored by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC).
Several of the partners in the HazInfo project (Dialog, U of Moratuwa and MicroImage) have been shortlisted for an innovation award for the GSM based alerting device that is being used in the HazInfo project by the GSM Association. Final selection will be done on October 16th. GSM Association Press Release 2006 – GSMA announces shortlist for the first Asia Mobile Innovation Awards