For some time we have been talking about the scarcity and cost of international bandwidth. Looks like it is going to cost people in our part of the world access to sites such as Facebook and YouTube (full article). It appears that distance does matter. And everyone is not actually as close to everyone else as we were told. Of course, distance can be overcome, with money, not the user’s money but the money of the advertiser who believes that particular audiences are worth paying for.
This photograph taken few weeks back at Talawakele, on the way to Nuwara Eliya, 180 km from Colombo, tells a long story. What you see are the lined residences of the estate workers, colloquially known as ‘lines’ or ‘layim’ in local language. Estate workers are among the least privileged and poorest communities in Sri Lanka. Note the five TV dishes. That means they are still connected to electronic networks, though it is largely one-way.
Colombo, Sri Lanka, April 21, 2009 – H.E. Ms Angela Bogdan, High Commissioner for Canada, will be officially launching the book on “Knowledge to Policy: Making the Most of Development Research, copublished by Sage and Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC). The book is authored by Fred Carden, Director of Evaluation at IDRC. The launch of the book will take place in Colombo on: Date: Monday, April 27, 2009 Time: 1130 – 1300 hrs Where: Dukes Court 2, Hotel Trans Asia, Colombo, Sri Lanka Does research influence public policy and decision-making and, if so, how?
A public seminar will be held at the Institute of Engineers, Sri Lanka auditorium on the 29th April 2009 from 5.30 to 8.00 PM. The seminar will be conducted by Prof. Timothy Gonsalves and R.
Nokia, the leading mobile handset maker, is experiencing the effects of the global economic crisis. But Asia is showing the lowest declines. In the three months through March, the company said its profit declined to 122 million euros ($162.3 million) from 1.2 billion euros a year earlier.
Ideas picked up at Euro CPR from our African colleagues, coming out in multiple fora/countries/forms. Without direct government action, other than enabling policies such as the abolition of international gateway monopolies, and the kind of fuss that has accompanied the regulation of roaming charges within Europe, roaming has been abolished in East Africa. Why not in South Asia? Why can this not be done in South Asia? Telenor has a presence in three of the major markets in the SAARC region: dominant in Bangladesh; significant in Pakistan and getting established in India.
Just five years ago, the Indian telecom industry’s massive momentum barely included the poor. The country had slightly over seven access paths (fixed and mobile connections) per 100 people, but in rural India 100 people were served by only 1.5 access paths. Even in urban India, the poor were unconnected. But now, the picture is different.
Interesting route chosen by Australia: taxpayers will fund most of the costs of building the broadband network and the operators, including the formerly government-owned Telstra, will have to buy capacity on it to provide services. Unlikely to be effective in most countries, but Australia along with the Scandinavian countries was among the most advanced in providing services to most citizens during the period of government ownership. Assuming that the backbone is relatively static technology, this might work as well as having a private entity operate the backbone under regulation. Given it will be an essential facility, there had to be regulation anyway. One does have to ask why none of private bidders met the requirements.
One of the things LIRNEasia tries to do is to evolve low-transaction-costs of making participatory and high-quality decisions. The Internet’s Requests for Comments (RFCs) are gold standard. This is a fascinating account of how they came about. The early R.F.
Prof. Rohan Samarajiva discuss about Reducing roaming rates in South Asian regional in his article Regional Roaming for the Choices column in Lanka Business Online. In 2006, Zain Africa took a step that led to the abolition of roaming charges and made a significant contribution to economic integration of the East African region. They did more for making the East African Community real than several meetings of government leaders and officials combined The Article can be found here
Bangladesh leased line prices have dropped 74%, according to LIRNEasia’s February 2009 benchmarking study. But this reduction has not been passed onto consumers, who are still paying roughly the same price as they did in October 2008. The consumer also receiving less for what he’s paying – our February 2009 broadband quality of service tests showed that speeds experienced by consumers were even worse than 6 months ago. One can only hope that the lowered wholesale prices are passed down to consumers soon. If this doesn’t happen, that at least operators buy enough bandwidth so that speeds experienced by consumers increase.
Sustainability is not an issue for this telecenter. It provides all its service, be it Internet surfing, computer training, library facilities or even typesetting and printing services free of charge, treating them as community services. Thondaman Foundation, a non-profit organization, with a ministerial backing, that intends “to make available to the plantation community the wide advantages of the internet and intranet communication technologies” has set up this centre in the middle of the picturesque Glenore estate at Haputale, to serve a population of 5,000 from the surrounding villages. This is one of the 45 such centres in different estates in the Central, Uva and Sabaragamuva provinces. The white dish, gives a sense of remoteness, but it need not be.
Nokia, the world’s largest mobile terminal maker as well as the WiMax Forum Board member, has put the last nail to the coffin of WiMax. “I don’t see that WiMax is taking hold anywhere in a big way,” said Anssi Vanjoki, Nokia’s head of sales and manufacturing, at a Nokia launch event yesterday in San Francisco, the Financial Times reports. “I don’t think the future is very promising [for WiMax]. This is a classic example of industry standards clashing, and somebody comes out as the winner and somebody has to lose. Betamax was there for a long time, but VHS dominated the market.
The remarkable uptake of mobile telephony in India is one of the great success stories of recent years and, despite the global economic downturn, the Indian cellphone sector continues to power ahead like there’s no tomorrow. However, according to the upper house of the Indian Parliament, all the mobile chattering is making Indians so impatient and rude that it is considering bringing in legislation that could lead to jail sentences for the most persistent offenders, writes Martyn Warwick.
Multiple dishes is a common sight at many Nenasalas – the ‘telecentres’ set up under the e-Sri Lanka program, funded by the World Bank. Some of them are huge – with diameters little less than 2m. Having not done a design recently, I cannot tell the prices offhand, but I do know they are expensive – one such dish (with equipment) costs few times more than the aggregate cost of the PCs and peripherals in the centre. Why a telecenter is equipped with multiple dishes? The reason is, sadly, poor planning.
Not many are familiar with ‘line rooms’ in Sri Lanka’s estates. Fewer have ever visited one. These are the dwellings of the labourers – descendants of the migrants brought here by British planters from in nearby Madras state in India staring from 1827 to work in estates for meager salaries under austere conditions. Human development conditions have significantly improved since then, but some of them still call a 4 m x 4 m room with a smaller kitchen ‘home’. Meet Parameshvari.