The colloquium was conducted by Harsha de Silva, PhD. Harsha began by explaining that the paper focus both on trains and buses, but in this colloquium will focus on the Bus transport. 75% of passenger transport is via public transport and of that 93% by bus and 7% by train. Roughly 5500 SLCTB and 18000 private buses. The fare is regulated by National Transport Commission (NTC).
We have been following the emotionally loaded net neutrality debate for some time with some detachment. Our research clearly shows that low prices are critical if the BOP is to join the Internet economy and that low prices are not sustainable without the adaptation of the budget telecom network model to broadband supply. One of the most controversial of the recommendations that came out of this work is that which said one should go gentle on regulating quality. The main reason we said that was because we believed that the poor needed access in the form of different price-quality bundles; that if high quality standards were imposed by fiat, the only victims would be the price-sensitive consumers who would get priced out. While we did not take an explicit position on net neutrality those days, we now have to, based on what we have learned.
The colloquium was conducted by Nirmali Sivapragasam. The colloquium began by that the paper is based on the T@BOP data set. The Research questions are: How aware are low-income Asian migrant workers of m-remittance services ? What socio-economic characteristics determine a migrant worker’s level of awareness? What are possible demand-side and supply-side barriers to greater awareness and use?
This colloquium was presented by Sriganesh Lokanathan, LIRNEasia. Objective: to find out how Mobile 2.0 services are and can be used in the agricultural market. Mobile 2.0 services are defined as services for more-than-voice, can include both one-way and two-way information.
The cabinet has decided to seize the regulatory functions from BTRC and give it back to the telecoms ministry in Bangladesh. Therefore, the politicians and civil servants will again assign licenses and spectrum. Even worse – they will approve the tariff and services. Welcome to the Stone Age. BTRC was born with a reasonable degree of independence on January 31, 2002.
This colloquium was presented by Sangamitra Ramachander, PhD student, Oxford university. This is an early draft, and the paper may change significantly. This is based on findings from the Teleuse@BOP3 project. The context is that in a variety of sectors, private sector do not have prior experience in serving low income and rural markets; however, now the entering. They have to decide on an appropriate price such that it is still profitable.
The UK regulator, Ofcom, has proposed cuts in interconnection fees (also known as mobile termination rates), the wholesale charges that operators make to connect calls to each others’ networks. It has unveiled plans to cut the rate in stages from 4.3 pence ($0.065) per minute to 0.005 pence per minute by 2015.
The EU’s Internet penetration rate, at 28% per 100 inhabitants, is almost half that of Asia. The European Commission wants 50% of the EU to have speeds of 30 Mbps by 2013 and 100 Mbps by 2020. The EU and the US are both feeling the heat coming from Asia’s dominant connectivity to the Internet, and are investing heavily to catch up with their eastern competitors. But the EU’s strategy for connecting more people to the Internet is “a little detached from reality,” argues Aarti Holla from the European Satellite Operators Association. In an interview with EurActiv, the ESOA secretary-general said countries will lose money by focusing on Internet speeds.
For practical reasons, we mostly limit our dissemination to English. This is a workable strategy in South Asia as policy makers read English than local languages. Still local languages are vital in all countries we work. In Bangladesh we gave equal priority to Bangla and English. Research findings of two LIRNEasia’s mobile 2.
One of the key policy recommendations of LIRNEasia‘s recent study on the extension of mobile-based e-marketplace provider, CellBazaar to include the payment aspect (among others) of a transaction is the promotion of a secure mobile payments system in Bangladesh; the recommendation being that the government provide a clear policy framework / set of guidelines in order for private players (mobile operators/banks/other) to come in and essentially play. On the one hand, this interview with the head of financial services for Grameenphone on the experience with BillPay, a utility payment service offered by Grameenphone, as well as LIRNEasia‘s Teleuse@BOP findings from the Philippines seem to suggest that even once the system is in place, there is still a lot of work to be done in earning people’s trust to use the service and change their behavior. Through BillPay has been around since 2006, it has only pushed the over-the-counter service, rather than the e-wallet version of the service (currently used by a small number), due to this very issue. Once the service reaches a critical mass of users, they plan to push out the e-wallet service more aggressively. On the other hand, could already-popular services like CellBazaar (used by 3.
India’s DoT has set US$385 million floor price of its broadband wireless access (BWA) spectrum auction for 2.3 GHz band. The WiMax camp thinks this spectrum is their family jewel. But Qualcomm threw a spanner in the wheel and said it will bid. Indian WiMax aspirants have, predictably, cried wolf and sought divine intervention from Intel.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s show – The National “Lifelines” – did a news program on the Real-Time Biosurveillance Program carried out in India and Sri Lanka; watch the clip here.
Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission has detected four PSTN operators bypassing international traffic. Therefore, it has shutdown the networks of Ranks Telecom (300,782 customers), Dhaka Telephone (77,765), Peoples Telecom (161,630) and World Tel (14,261) for alleged bypass. Bypassing is illegal and a punishable offense, ideed. But the telecoms law doesn’t permit such extra-judicial execution that has muted more than 554,000 or 33% innocent PSTN users’ dial-tone. Bypass is a disease the government has been nurturing through its infamous international long distance or ILDTS policy.
The US universal service fund is among the oldest and most inefficient, spending more on administration than comparators and not targeting the subsidies well. Our research has been cited in debates about improving it. The FCC under the Obama appointed Chair does not appear to be engaging in fundamental reforms, but is instead seeking to use the Fund as the main vehicle for executing its broadband plans. Instead of repurposing the existing funds, it is raising additional money by taxing customers of the telcos. Chief among its goals, the F.
More people visited Facebook than Google in the USA. Research firm Hitwise said that the two sites accounted for 14 per cent of all US internet visits last week. Facebook’s home page recorded 7.07 per cent of traffic and Google’s 7.03 per cent.
Bharti AirTel has acquired 70% of Warid Telecom in Bangladesh. It immediately prompted the leading operators sharing each other’s infrastructure to keep the costs under control. Grameenphone’s CEO said his company “is the only operator in Bangladesh that is profitable so far. If tariffs fall further, it will have a big impact on the profitability of other operators.” Within less than a month the very Grameenphone has dropped its tariff to as low as Tk 0.