LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE – LBO Sri Lanka’s biggest mobile-phone operator Dialog Telekom Thursday slashed outgoing call charges by as much as 50 percent as the firm stepped up its expansion drive in the country. Call charges within the network from 11.00 pm to 6.00 am will go down by 50 percent to 2.00 rupees, while rates for outgoing peak calls have been cut by an average 30 percent, officials said.
BBC News | Taipei to embrace net telephones The city of Taipei, in Taiwan, could have 200,000 people making phone calls using wi-fi by the end of 2006. Ten companies are pushing a “Taipei Easy Call” initiative which involves mobiles which can switch between calls using wi-fi and the phone network. “If this is successful, then the model could be copied in cities elsewhere in the world,” said Daniel Wongg, of the Taipei Computer Association. The wi-fi mobiles provide a cheaper alternative to mobile phone calls.
BBC NEWS | Business | EU plans crackdown on mobile fees “A plan to regulate mobile phone charges for calls made abroad will shortly be published by the European Commission, despite intense opposition. The industry is concerned that the proposals go too far, and even within the commission itself there are doubts. At present, most users pay far more to make mobile calls when they are abroad than they do in their home country. This is because service providers have to pay large fees for access to one another’s networks.” Not the highest priority for regulators in emerging Asia.
By Jonathan Fildes Science and technology reporter, BBC News In the aftermath of the 7 July bombings, people were understandably keen to talk on their mobile phones. Londoners wanted to assure friends, relatives and colleagues that they were OK; keep up to date with the latest news or find out whether anyone they knew had been caught up in any of the four explosions. Yet, while speaking on a mobile phone is a routine part of modern life, for a crucial eight hours on 7 July it became difficult, and for many, impossible. In some areas of London, the sheer number of people wanting to make phone calls was enough to bring the mobile networks to their knees.
Our colleagues from Latin America have drawn our attention to the following article, perhaps because they think that our TRE (telecom regulatory environment) work is premised on FDI being an unmitigated good. We welcome the opportunity for a debate. Kevin P. Gallagher and Lyuba Zarsky, “Rethinking Foreign Investment for Development”, Post-Autistic Economics Review, issue 37 Abstract “In the 1990s, foreign direct investment (FDI) came to be seen as a “miracle drug”—a jumpstart to economic growth and sustainable industrial development, especially in developing countries. Policies to attract FDI became the centerpiece of both national development strategies and supra-national investment agreements.
Internet Calling Pressures Bells to Lower Rates – New York Times “The Bells still control the bulk of the country’s 180 million landlines and are far from giving up on what has been a giant cash cow. When pushed, they are even offering their own Internet-based calling, but these services are rarely advertised. It is cheaper to cut prices to keep customers, they figure, than to try to win back customers later from a rival. During the first quarter of this year, the number of traditional telephone lines dropped by 150,000 a week, according to TeleGeography. At the same time, the number of subscribers to Internet telephone services has increased by 100,000 a week.
Title: Telecom Policy Research in Asia: A Framework for Assessing Knowledge Capacity Author: Dr. Sujata Gamage, Director of Knowledge Networks, LIRNEasia Date: July 3, 2006 Description: In this study we assess presence, quality and relevance of telecom policy researchers in Asia, and present the results in the form of a set of knowledge capacity score cards. These score cards will serve as the framework for assessing and building knowledge capacity in telecom reform in Asia in the IDRC funded project on the same. Link: Telecom Policy Research in Asia: A Framework for Assessing Knowledge Capacity [PDF download]
Qualcomm has come under some pressure recently when Reliance, with one of the fastest growing CDMA-based networks in the world based on Qualcomm’s patented technology, announced that it would provide mobile service using GSM technology and criticised Qualcomm’s high royalty and licensing fees. The inference was that Qualcomm’s fees were resulting in higher costs for handsets which is preventing Reliance from offering affordable service to low-income subscribers. Qualcomm claims that CDMA handset prices in India were already some of the lowest in the world and that royalty was only about $2 per handset. It further argues that Reliance’s move into GSM has to do with flawed spectrum policy of the Indian Telecom Ministry (DoT) that provides more than twice the spectrum to GSM operators compared to CDMA operators like Reliance. This is because according to Qualcomm, GSM technology allows only a finite number of subscribers in a cell whereas the CDMA technology on the other hand poses no such restrictions.
Full article available here New Delhi, July 2 (PTI): Even as the existing National Telecom Policy of 1999 lays down the roadmap of a review in every five years, the Department of Telecom has dropped the ill-fated draft of the proposed policy completely with no immediate plans to revive it. […] Permitting number portability, implementing carrier access code (CAC), setting up of ombudsman, and unbundling of last-mile access for broadband services were some of the draft recommendations of the core committee of DoT on NTP. DoT was never in favour of number portability, a facility which allows subscribers to retain their old number even if they change the service provider, carrier access code where the consumer could choose his/her long distance carrier and of course the unbundling of last mile of BSNL and MTNL for broadband. The draft had sought dilution in regulator’s role, saying a ‘Light Touch’ approach should be made at a later stage. The committee has also recommended M&A norms to be part of NTP.
LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE – LBO ‘Sri Lanka’s cabinet has agreed clear up frequency spectrum on few bands, as the government looks to attract new operators to offer telephony services at affordable rates. “The cabinet has agreed to clear spectrum in 450 megahertz, 800-900 megahertz, 1800 megahertz and 2-gigahertz radio frequencies, which will be re-allocated for public telecommunications networks,” Media Minister Anura Priyadharshana Yapa told reporters Thursday.’ Spectrum refarming is one of the most important and difficult tasks facing regulatory agencies today. The quasi-property rights enjoyed by users requires that they be compensated for the losses they incur when they are compelled to move in the course of refarming. One of the groups most resistant to moving are the military.
What if They Built an Urban Wireless Network and Hardly Anyone Used It? – New York Times “Despite WiFly’s ubiquity — with 4,100 hot spot access points reaching 90 percent of the population — just 40,000 of Taipei’s 2.6 million residents have agreed to pay for the service since January. Q-Ware, the local Internet provider that built and runs the network, once expected to have 250,000 subscribers by the end of the year, but it has lowered that target to 200,000. That such a vast and reasonably priced wireless network has attracted so few users in an otherwise tech-hungry metropolis should give pause to civic leaders in Chicago, Philadelphia and dozens of other American cities that are building wireless networks of their own.
allAfrica.com: East Africa: Countries Agree On EASSy Project Model It appears that considerable progress is being made on ensuring open access is the norm with the planned submarine cable for eastern Africa. One hopes that Asian regulators also start paying attention to access issues on the submarine cables that land in their countries. The change with the EASSy cable did not just happen; it took a lot of effort by regulators and stakeholders.
Using ICT for Effective Disaster Management A hotel that was hit by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in Ahungalle, Sri Lanka is the location of a conference that examines all aspects of the relationship between ICTs and disasters. One of the guests at this hotel on the 26th of December 2004, Dr Chris Chapman, a theoretical seismologist, wrote one of the best analytical accounts of the experience, which is on this PDF document. LIRNEasia’s Executive Director Rohan Samarajiva and HazInfo Project Manager Nuwan Waidyanatha are participating as are a number of our partners in disaster work.
According to this intriguing story, Sri Lanka may become the first country in the world to license WiMAX operators. Leaving aside the wisdom of licensing technologies (as opposed to services), any action to shake things up in the broadband market must be welcomed. Of course, our joy will be that much greater if the TRC ensures that the WiMAX operators are given non-discriminatory and cost-oriented access to the SLTL and Dialog backbones and that open access to the undersea cable is also assured. Without these regulatory actions, one may get connectivity to something, but not the Internet.
Foreign Affairs – The India Model – Gurcharan Das “But what is most remarkable is that rather than rising with the help of the state, India is in many ways rising despite the state. The entrepreneur is clearly at the center of India’s success story. India now boasts highly competitive private companies, a booming stock market, and a modern, well-disciplined financial sector. And since 1991 especially, the Indian state has been gradually moving out of the way — not graciously, but kicked and dragged into implementing economic reforms. It has lowered trade barriers and tax rates, broken state monopolies, unshackled industry, encouraged competition, and opened up to the rest of the world.
According to this report, SLTL is pressing ahead on offering more high speed data services within Colombo. I think the correct amount is USD 2 million. If only one could offer high-end data services for USD 20,000! This news item should be of significant interest to our readers who want these services offered in rural locations such as Mahavilachchiya. Lanka Business Online