Most people do not associate telecenters with the United States. That’s because they are called public libraries there. The Economist reports that more people are coming to the American telecenters because critical government and other services are increasingly available only through the web and because some people have dropped home connections in the hard times of the Great Recession. The best way for America to ease the new strain on its libraries is by closing the digital divide; companies and state agencies are unlikely ever to give up the efficiencies they won by moving online. Around $7 billion of 2009’s stimulus went to expand broadband access.
Regulators are allocating spectrum bands to deliver 4G high-speed mobile Internet service across a wide range of frequencies. But the quest for bandwidth is harming prospects for 4G device economies of scale, operator competitiveness and 4G global data roaming. Operators and regulators must address spectrum harmonization, not just carve out bandwidth. 4G’s demanding speed requirements—100 Mbps peak rates for high mobility and 1 Gbps for low mobility—necessarily translate into a need for more radio spectrum. National regulators are working to secure this needed spectrum, but their efforts are resulting in fragmentation instead of an ideal narrow set of spectrum ranges consistently available around the world.
Last week FCC started to investigate the thumping roaming bills. Yesterday Igor Artemyev, head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service, Russia said that there will be “significantly lower tariffs” for roaming in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States. Russia’s three biggest mobile operators, OAO Mobile TeleSystems (MBT), VimpelCom Ltd. (VIP) and Megafon, confirmed Wednesday that they have lowered mobile roaming tariffs in Russia and the CIS by up to 70%, ahead of the results of an inquiry into the high tariffs. The mobile operators will “significantly lower tariffs” for roaming in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States no later than Dec.
Somalia lacks an effective government for nearly twenty years. There is, however, no short supply of regulator. The rebel group “al-Shabab” has banned mobile money transfer service called ‘Zaad’, according to Reuters. This “decree” is effective from coming New Year’s eve, said TeleGeography. The al-Shabab management considers mobile money transfer a threat to the economy.
Information has been riding on technology. And now the technology is disrupting the business of information. Reuters’ Editor-in-Chief, David Schlesinger, has outlined the following battle-plan: Knowing the story is not enough. Telling the story is only the beginning. The conversation about the story is as important as the story itself.
The developed economies of Asia have taken the top spots in global broadband table, according to the Oxford University’s Said Business School. This study combines quality of service and penetration. South Korea, Hong Kong and Japan occupy the first three positions and Singapore is fifth. The survey has tested download and upload speeds along with latency in 72 countries. Korea, which topped the rankings last year, this year reported average download throughput of 33.
Internet brings people closer, gives more opportunities and it is a sea, with different kinds of fish. Indi Samarajiva wrote in The Sunday Leader, about few Sri Lankans making a living, without actually going to a conventional office. But simply login in to internet to use Twitter, Skype, Virtual Private Networks (VPN) and so on and make a living, as well as LIVE it. Indi introduces Fahim Farook, Navin Weeraratne and Monalee Suranimala, as tech savvy fishermen in this different kind of sea. All of these characters launch their metaphorical boats from the island of Sri Lanka, off the southern coast of India, recently emerged from years of war but blessed with many English speaking, IT literate people, functional Internet infrastructure and a low cost of living.
Federal Communications Commission decided to step in and investigate on “Shocking bills” received by mobile customers in USA. FCC is looking into whether the mobile operators must do a better job by alerting the customers when they are roaming in foreign networks. Kerfye Pierre’s thanks for helping out victims of Haiti’s earthquake? A $35,000 bill from T-Mobile. Pierre tells CNN that she racked up about $35,000 while texting family and friends from Haiti with the news that she had just survived the devastating earthquake.
It is needless to reiterate the evil of free money. Universal Service Fund (USF) has been the crucible of boutique corruption for its complexity. The US Government revived this medieval rent-seeking in the early 20th century to favor AT&T. Today AT&T and other heavyweights siphon in excess of US$4 billion annually from the exchequer. And it has been as legitimate as the Collateralize Debt Obligations (CDOs) in the Wall Street.
The most recent addition to the Teleuse@BOP3 working paper series is now available for download. Author Sangamitra Ramachander (University of Oxford) explores the factors influencing the responsiveness of mobile use to small declines in per minute charges among bottom of the pyramid (BOP) users in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand. The full paper can be downloaded here. Abstract: The private sector in developing countries is increasingly interested in extending mobile telephony services to low income and rural markets that were previously considered unprofitable. Determining the right price is a central challenge in this context.
The UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal has upheld Ofcom’s objection to O2 and Vodafone launching 3G services over 2G (900MHz) spectrum. The EU policy, however, permits 3G in 900MHz if the national regulator ensures fair competition. But the European policy gurus are silent on replacing copper wire with fiber. The EU regulators, precisely the ones in continental Europe, notoriously over-mystified 3G in early 2000. The Scandinavian regulators, however, carefully avoided the scandalous auction of 3G spectrum.
Singapore’s government is globally respected for outstanding governance. It is, however, not immune to making mistakes like other governments of its stature. Last year its investment arm got amputation of 66% value (US$4.4 billion) due to bad investments. The Lion City had paused to revisit its strategy.
The World Summit on the Information Society set several targets to be achieved by 2015 without specifying how they could be measured. The International Telecommunication Union has proposed four specific indicators that could measure progress made by countries toward the foundational Target 10, that of bringing ICTs within the reach of a majority of the world’s inhabitants. Two indicators are for mobile subscriptions and use, and two for Internet use by individuals and by households. Of the four, Indicators 1 and 3 currently exist, albeit with significant shortcomings. This paper proposes a modest improvement to the method of measuring Indicator 3, Internet users, which combines the existing supply-side data with available but incomplete demand-side data.
Asia may boast of being the largest landmass on earth. But it behaves like archipelago in terms of telecoms. Intra-Asian connectivity has been fully depended on submarine cable although the countries share common border. As a result the 60% population of the world has been punished with more than 300% internet bandwidth prices than their European counterparts. Political taboo and over-mystified national security issues have been keeping the Asian countries in isolation.
Pakistan has crossed the landmark point of 100 million mobile subscription, according to Pakistan Telecommunication Authority. The Chairman of PTA, Dr. Mohammed Yaseen, presented the SIMs of each five operators to Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani on September 30, 2010 and commemorated the historical activation of 100 millionth mobile subscription. It is the other profile of Pakistan the world is hardly aware of. PTA has been the symbol of regulatory excellence in many respect.
We expressed skepticism when the Labor Party first announced it. We are pleased it is being cancelled. The previous Labour government hummed and hawed about this rural-urban “digital divide”. Eventually, in 2009, it proposed levying a 50p tax on every fixed telephone line in the country: the proceeds were to be given to BT to allow it to connect even the remotest hamlets by 2012. The new coalition administration abandoned that plan, ditching the tax and pushing the target date back to 2015.