The Bangladesh State Minister for ICT is among the many who have expressed their unhappiness about the release of stale data based on a large-sample representative survey by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, which shows impressive gains in mobile use and less than impressive Internet use. “All these data show that Bangladesh has developed as a country in the ICT and telecommunication sector,” said State Minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak. He, however, was not satisfied with the findings on internet connections at households. “Our calculation showed that internet penetration is now more than 34 percent, and it will be 100 percent by 2021.” Last year, 44 lakh smartphones were sold, and the number would double this year, he said.
One thing working on big data has done is to sensitize us to the power of visualization, especially using maps. Here is one that impresses, especially in view of our focus on urban development: Data viz extraordinaire Max Galka created this map using NASA’s gridded population data, which counts the global population within each nine-square-mile patch of Earth, instead of within each each district, state, or country border. Out of the 28 million total cells, the ones with a population over 8,000 are colored in yellow. That means each yellow cell has a population density of about 900 people per square mile—“roughly the same population density as the state of Massachusetts,” Galka writes in the accompanying blog post. The black regions, meanwhile, reflect sparser population clusters.
Effective communication is extraordinarily important for everything we do at LIRNEasia. But we do not talk about it in systematic way that often, hoping it will seep through in the course of the activities we undertake. I was invited to deliver the 66th Founder’s Day oration at my old school, Thurstan on the subject of communication. So I put together a talk. The slides tell only one part of the story.
We at LIRNEasia have always emphasized the significance of the physical infrastructure that makes the Internet possible. That is possibly because we work in parts of the world where the infrastructure is still being built up. Our long engagement with ESCAP on the Asia Pacific Information Superhighway (APIS) is testimony to this. It is in this context that this piece about the data centers that support much of the “cloud” caught my attention. This led to an outcropping of office parks that housed not only defense contractors, but also government IT and time-sharing services and, later, companies like MCI, AOL, and UUNet.
The Egyptian investment in North Korea surprised many. But Naguib Sawiris expressed confidence when I heard him talk about it in Barcelona a few years back. Apparently making good profits was possible, but what value are profits that cannot be repatriated? The Egyptian operator rolled out North Korea’s sole mobile network in 2008 as a joint venture with the state-owned Korea Post and Telecommunications Corporation (KPTC). Orascom owns 75% of Koryolink, which has 3 million subscribers.
I am giving a talk at the College of Communication and Information at the Florida State University in Tallahassee tomorrow. The slides are here. Preparing for the talk made me think more deeply about LIRNEasia’s theory of change. I will also include some discussion of our systematic review on impacts of mobile telephony in rural areas, given this is an ICTD audience.
I received this as a forwarded email with no comments from a person who is influential in the ICT space. The Indian smartphone market made a 0.7 percent increase from September to October, vaulting the nation over the 1 billion user threshold to 1.03 billion users. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India just released this information yesterday, making India the second country in the world to reach this milestone.
It appears that high data use by Myanmar consumers is the surprise of 2015. But Telenor expects it to go down as they start connecting rural consumers. Will they be wrong again? Telenor’s network today covers all states and regions but Chin State, for 60 per cent of population. The customer base is expected show a slower growth rate.
It will be a hard road for the fourth licensee, now that MPT, Telenor and Ooredoo have got a running start. The challenges of managing a large consortium will also be considerable. The newest tender winner will join an 11-company consortium comprising Myanmar Technologies and Investment Corporation, Myanmar ICT Development Corporation, Myanmar Agribusiness Public Corporation, Shwe Pyi Tagon Telecommunication Public Company, Golden Land East Asia Development, Myanmar Edible Oil Industrial Public Corporation, Myanmar Industries Alliance Public, Myanmar Agriculture and General Development Public, International Power Generation Public Company, Royal Yatanarpon Telecom Public Company and Mahar Yoma Public Company, the EOI document said. U Shane Thu Aung, director at Royal Yatanarpon Telecom (YTP), said the local consortium will be called Myanmar National Telecom Holding Public. The fourth licence will have an initial duration of 15 years, and will be renewable for at least 10 additional years, subject to compliance – the same terms as were granted to Telenor and Ooredoo Report.
Still waiting for a systematic account, but until then, here’s a journalistic account that quotes our friend Nay Phone Latt and has a picture of him in his constituency office. Facebook has been an obvious choice for most, and the National League for Democracy, or NLD, which won a landslide victory over the Union Solidarity and Development Party, or USDP, has been particularly successful at leveraging social media as a tool. “That was how I communicated with my people and my constituency, mostly through these accounts. People would send me questions, responses and opinions via my Facebook page and account,” said Nay Phone Latt, a newly elected Yangon Region lawmaker for the NLD. “One of my friends called it ‘the silent revolution.
Returning from an expert meeting on big data n Bangkok, I was in the passenger seat on the way back from the airport. Looked up Google maps for the traffic. This feature has been available in Sri Lanka only for a few weeks. On the main roads, it was pretty accurate. Once we turned off to a busy, but not-a-principal road, the traffic indicator went blank.
ESCAP is part of the UN. By design, it is better positioned to work across silos than specialized agencies such as the ITU and WHO. One of the key points made about the sustainable development goals that were recently adopted is that they require working across silos. Big data naturally cuts across disciplinary boundaries. It transcends organizational silos.
In a few hours I’ll be speaking at a panel on how big data is already being used for sustainable development. ESCAP has pulled together an interesting group of people together to talk about how big data can help with the daunting task of measuring progress on the 169 targets that the UN has set for itself. The slides I will be using are here. Sorry they do not tell the full story since I have been asked to keep them to a minimum.
Economic Times reports three problems, of which it says the spectrum issue is the hardest to address. One of the primary concerns with the proposal is that the spectrum band required for the transmission is unavailable. According to DoT, Google has sought a band of 700 to 900 MHz, which is occupied by telecom service providers. Union communications and IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad confirmed that there are technical glitches in Project Loon. “The proposed frequency band to be used in the Loon Project of Google is being used for cellular operations in India and it will lead to interference with cellular transmissions,” he said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.