I was impressed when the ICT Agency made a presentation at a recent conference, that included a detailed response to concerns that Sri Lanka was dropping in international rankings in the ICT space. The presentation included action items that would address weak points and would thus result in improved rankings. e government was central to the design of e Sri Lanka and is perhaps the program area that has absorbed most of the USD 83 million funds. Therefore, the UN e gov rankings are very important. Sadly, the 2010 rankings indicate that Sri Lanka’s position has deteriorated in relative and absolute terms.
Don Sambandaraksa passionately speaks and writes about the state of telecoms in his country, Thailand. Recently he unveiled how the state-owned telecoms entities have been extorting from the industry and also from the USF. Such a Thailand is a stranger to the world. Its tourism, airlines and hospitality have set a unique benchmark across the service industries. Thai telecoms sector, however, seems to be the black ship.
ICT for Disaster Risk Reduction (ICTD Case Study) Published by: United Nations Asian and Pacific Training Centre for Information and Communication Technology for Development (UN-APCICT/ESCAP) Demonstrating the true impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in any other field has never been easy. Robert Solow’s cynical remark has certainly outlived its time. If not for ATMs, credit cards, online check-ins and unprecedented drop of snail mail we would still have been arguing whether computer age is seen in productivity statistics. Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) is one area where ICT’s role is more evident. ICTs are important tools for lessening the risks brought on by disasters through early warning, coordinating and tracking relief activities and resources, recording and disseminating knowledge and experiences, and raising awareness, says a joint preface by the publishers, Xuan Zengpei, Director, IDD-ESCAP and Hyeun-Suk Rhee, Director, UN-APCICT/ESCAP.
Trade in services came on the policy scene in the 1980s. It played an important role in reforming telecom sectors across the world, especially because of the Regulatory Reference Paper that was an integral part of the Basic Telecom Services agreement. Trade agreements are simply one more element used to lock in regulatory commitment, thus facilitating investment and thereby good performance. The famous story about how one can trade hair-cutting services across borders illustrates the connection with ICTs. How can one trade hair cuts, a service that is consumed at the moment of production?
The FDI has dropped by 36% in Bangladesh last year, according to UNCTAD’s World Investment Report 2010. It further said that foreign investment in telecoms sector has nosedived by 60% at the same time. Such abysmal consequence is the result of a sequential blunder at the policy front. Foreign investment was explicitly prohibited in the ILTDS policy in 2007. It has also banned the expatriate Bangladeshi citizens from investing in the international long distance businesses violating their constitutional rights.
India has come up with the world’s cheapest “laptop,” a touch-screen computing device that costs $35. The touchscreen gadget comes with Internet browsers, PDF reader and video conferencing facilities but its hardware was created with sufficient flexibility to incorporate new components according to user requirement. The Linux based computing device was expected to be introduced to higher education institutions from 2011 but the aim was to drop the price further to $20 and ultimately to $10. The Hindu reports.
A latest study of GSMA reveals that consumers in Bangladesh are punished with 55% sector-specific taxes while subscribing a new mobile connection. It is worst among the other five countries – Malaysia (6.1%), South Africa (15%), Mexico (16%), and Brazil (43.3%) – the GSMA has studied. Bangladesh is among the very few country worldwide and certainly the only country in this group that has brought nearly 100% of its population and landmass under 2G mobile coverage.
Now that telecom networks have a bigger footprint than electric power networks, the question of power sources is assuming increasing importance. Quite a lot of work is being done in our region on reducing the power requirements of base stations and of substituting for expensive diesel generators. In Pakistan, using renewable sources at base stations are mandatory for those obtaining subsidies. The power is also made available for the recharging of handsets. But would it not be wonderful if handsets require no external power and no batteries?
Apps are referred to applications. And applications are no different than appliances. Buy your fridge, TV, air cooler, music system, toaster, iron, microwave oven or whatever. Bring them home, plug and play. You don’t give a damn to the power utility company.
Ban Ki Moon will be surprised to learn how far Sri Lankan government goes to ensure the human rights of its people. It may not necessarily make him an activist, but the chief of Telecommunication Regulatory Commission makes it clear why Facebook should not be banned: Access to it is a human right. Mark, did you hear that? There is another reason too. As Anusha Pelpita says to Daily Mirror online blocking sites will reduce internet speed.
Regulators often forget the difference between “Dictation” and “Regulation” in Asia. As a result, competition becomes the fist victim of such hegemony and the consumers get punished. For example, the monthly rental and installation cost for 2Mbps circuit would cost an operator in Malaysia US$4,564 while it is only US$374 in Hong Kong. Indonesia is also equally bad. Comparing the regulatory environment of these two countries unveils the cause of such disparity.
The chicken and egg question when one asks about BOP use of the Internet has always been whether there is relevant content in languages those at the BOP understand. Help is on the way. Both the Wikimedia Foundation and Google are promoting local language content and translations. Rather than look to experts to get its mojo working, the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization that operates the Wikipedias in more than 250 languages, is aiming at the underserved populations of the globe to meet its ambitious goals for growth. In a speech on Friday at the start of Wikimania, in the restored home of the Polish Baltic Philharmonic, the foundation’s executive director, Sue Gardner, said the foundation planned to double in size in the next year by adding 44 employees and hoped to raise more than $20 million in donations.
CDMA has wider coverage and higher capacity. It is also more data-centric than GSM. Theoretically, the US-born technology is more profitable in every respect than its European rival. Yet the latter has become de facto global standard of mobile telephony. Because unlike CDMA the GSM users can change their service provider without changing the handsets.
The Economist has featured three below-the-radar companies that has established a major presence in the Internet space. This again shows that new industries offer the greatest opportunities for entrepreneurs from countries that do not have long histories of leading economic activity. THEY may not have the name recognition of a Google or a Yahoo!, but they can claim to belong in the same league. The websites of Digital Sky Technologies (DST) account for more than 70% of page-views on the Russian-language internet.
LIRNEasia’s preliminary round of mobile broadband quality testing in selected locations in Western Province unveils both hopes and issues. The good news is that the quality of both key pre-paid mobile broadband services is satisfactory, in majority of locations. However, unusual quality drops in several places indicates that this performance is not always a certainty. In general, a mobile broadband user in Western Province can expect a reasonable quality unless a rare issue like the distance from a tower or a higher number of simultaneous users hinders it. LIRNEasia tested the broadband quality of the popular pre-paid High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) broadband connections of the two key providers.
An assumption underlying our work is that ICTs are good, at least that the choice being available is good. We are therefore not inclined to side with Nicholas Carr in the Internet versus debate. But we like evidence and think the debate is a worthwhile one to have. A favorite columnist weighs in: Recently, Internet mavens got some bad news. Jacob Vigdor and Helen Ladd of Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy examined computer use among a half-million 5th through 8th graders in North Carolina.