Sri Lanka: Cutting it Mobile phone use is taking off in Sri Lanka – though not, perhaps, in ways that service operators might have hoped. FROM THE ECONOMIST INTELLIGENCE UNIT In the world’s poorer countries, the purchase of a mobile phone has become increasingly affordable. Using it, however, can still be a struggle. Low-income mobile phone owners in Sri Lanka are getting around this problem with a novel method for keeping costs down. Known as ring cutting, mobile phone subscribers rely on ring tones to communicate with others, rather than actually staying on the line to talk.
Universities are wonderful places, in some respects. Every few years (originally 6, but now there are variations) they give the people who teach in them a few months or a year to think and write. They usually go to other universities (the idea being that the company of people who think well is a good thing for one who wishes to think and write). Within the first two years of our existence, we were honored to have someone come and spend his sabbatical with us. Below is a report in his own words, written for a different purpose, but informative about his time with us nevertheless.
Hutch’s entry into Indonesia’s mobile market as the 5th significant operator has started putting downward pressure on mobile calling prices, as I had predicted in my Oped piece Lower mobile prices: Through competition or profit regulation? in January of 2007. It is too early to call it a “price war” as the article below does, but the signs that prices are coming down is evident. Indonesia’s mobile retail prices are some of the highest in Asia and there is enough room for the prices to drop further. Currently, Hutch’s competitors are reacting by issuing promotions to match the new entrant’s offering, but this does not per se signify a permanent cut in prices.
A tsunami has swept ashore in the Solomon Islands after a strong undersea earthquake in the South Pacific. Initial reports from outlying, remote areas say at least eight people have been killed, but local officials fear the death toll could rise further. The National Disaster Council chairman told reporters that some villages had been “completely wiped out”. Tsunami warnings have also been issued for Papua New Guinea, north-east Australia, and other nearby islands. Full story
LIRNEasia‘s Teleuse at the Bottom of the Pyramid study has been widely cited in an excellent piece by Thomas K. Thomas of the Hindu Businessline on Indian telecom operators push to go to rural areas where they were reluctant to do so before. Currently, a village with as little as 1000 persons is considered commercially viable for connecting to the network. Call of the Village Thomas K. Thomas, Hindu Businessline, April 2, 2007 [.
A new study filed with the USA’s telecoms regulator, the FCC, reports that the regulator’s use of auctions for assigning spectrum licenses could be subject to anti-competitive behavior by incumbent carriers. The announcement about the new study came from M2Z, a company which is seeking to build its own wireless network. Read more.
Rohan Samarajiva and Sujata Gamage |The Information Society – An International Journal, Volume 23 Issue 2, 109 Download article Author Posting. (c) Taylor & Francis, 2007. This is the author’s version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Taylor & Francis for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in The Information Society, Volume 23 Issue 2, March 2007.
The Internet is marvel of decentralized human design. But this has its own problems. A group of researchers at Stanford are looking for insights that will be thrown up if they approach the problem of devising a system for communicating, retrieving information and publishing information electronically from scratch. Fascinating stuff. Wish them luck!
While development aid and political reform are essential components in poverty eradication, equally important are business models that would engage low-income communities as producers and consumers in their own robust economies. Successful business models–inherently versatile, innovative, and driven by the profit motive–can sometimes tackle development challenges more quickly and effectively than government and aid mechanisms, and are the focus of NextBillion.net. Go to nextbillion.net NextBillion.
Rohan Samarajiva | LankaBusinessOnline Fixed or Mobile March 28, 2007 (LBO) – It seems like a no-brainer: A mobile phone is better than a fixed phone, especially in Sri Lanka. The costs of getting a connection are lower: a new phone and SIM can cost as little as LKR 4,000, while SLTL charges around LKR 20,000 for a fixed connection and its competitors charge around LKR 10,000. Mobile phones are easy to use. They have built in directories and allow texting, though now these features are now available on the fixed CDMA phones as well. Calling people instead of places that people are associated with seems obviously better, unless you don’t want to be reached.
The Indian government held least cost subsidy auction (lowest bid for subsidy is the winner) in two parts to disburse the world’s second largest Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) for rolling out mobile services in rural areas across the country. For the purposes of the auction, India has been divided into 81 clusters. Part A of the auction disbursed funds for passive infrastructure like towers and Part B dealt with the actual deployment of mobile services. The bidding has been intense for deployment of mobile services (Part B) and most of the bids were for zero subsidy fund and in some cases negative bids were made! This strongly indicates that mobile operators in India perceive deploying mobile services in India’s rural areas to be commercially viable.
Supriya Shrinate | NDTVProfit.com, India Friday, March 23, 2007 (New Delhi): Sunil Mittal, Anil Ambani and now Arun Sarin may be the fiercest of rivals in the telecom battlefield but there’s one thing that all telecom bosses agree on that. It is the farmers in rural India and fishermen in distant shores, who will drive the next phase of growth for telecom. Little wonder then, networks are being rolled out to tap this bottom of the pyramid (BOP) as it is fashionably called. In fact according to a survey by LIRNEasia, the BOP segment makes about 35 calls on an average every month, which includes both incoming and outgoing calls.
Sonal Desai | CXOToday.com Mumbai, Mar 27, 2007: Mobile penetration will penetrate the homes of bottom or pyramid (BOP) families in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, a study instituted by LIRNEasia has found. Titled, “Teleuse on a Shoestring- A Study of the Financially Constrained in Asia,” it interviewed and maintained diaries of respondents from Thailand and Philippines besides the above mentioned countries. A C Nielsen conducted the fieldwork. International Development Research Center (IDRC), Canada funded the research.
LIRNEasia‘s community involvement project – 3R (reduce-reuse-recycle) will present a Bharata Natyam Recital by Rasika Khanna, on Friday, March 30, 2007, from 7:15-9:15pm at the British School of Colombo Auditorium, 63, Elvitigala Mawatha, Colombo 8. Garbage dumping and littering are serious problems for all of us. There are various efforts to apply 3R but there is no concerted effort to disseminate information, educate the public, and advocate reasonable policies. The 3R initiative will begin with a newsletter that gives practical tips on 3R for businesses and individuals and later go on to rate municipalities and businesses for their 3R. We also hope to work with municipalities and government agencies to come up with reasonable 3R policies.
telecomasia.net | Mar 05, 2007 A new report has revealed that monthly ARPU is declining globally, but the gap between operators with the world’s highest and lowest monthly ARPU remains huge. The research study from analyst firm TeleGeography showed that based on a data set of more than 130 mobile operators, ARPU fell by an average of 6.4% between September 2005 and September 2006. “Not surprisingly, providers with higher ARPU tended to be in countries with relatively high incomes — predominately in Western Europe and the US,” the report stated.
VRISHTI BENIWAL | The Financial Expresss, India NEW DELHI, MAR 25: Have you ever heard of Internet? As strange and shocking as this question is the fact that a sizeable chunk of India’s population doesn’t know what Internet is! About 72% people in the lower socio-economic strata of the country have never heard the word ‘Internet’, according to a study whose key findings were recently presented to the Cellular Operators Association of India and Universal Services Obligations Fund. The study will be released next year. [Note: This study, Teleuse@BOP was released in Singapore on 28 February 2007.