Telegeography June 13, 2006 The Telecoms Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has issued its highly anticipated consultation paper covering wireless broadband services, including UMTS and WiMAX. The paper is available for download here [PDF] The paper has identified two overriding issues concerning the introduction of high speed wireless services – namely, frequency allocation and licence fees. The issue of frequencies is already a hot topic in the market, with the nation’s GSM and CDMA operators clashing over their preferred spectrum for 3G services. The TRAI had previously proposed allocating spectrum in the IMT-2000 standard 2GHz frequency band, for both GSM and CDMA operators, designed to support both W-CDMA and CDMA2000 1xEV-DO 3G development. Whilst the country’s GSM operators supported the plan, the CDMA lobby is demanding that the 1900MHz band be made available, saying that there is a dearth of CDMA equipment and handsets available for use in the 2GHz spectrum.
Bhutan was perhaps the last remaining integrated government-owned monopoly in the world. It now looks like it’s ready to end that unique status by licensing a second mobile operator. One of the advantages of being late is that you can learn from the mistakes of others. Other SAARC countries introduced competition earlier but could not get the regulatory preconditions right. It seems that Bhutan has the right ideas.
http://www.telecomasia.net/telecomasia/article/articleDetail..jsp?
From LankaBusinessOnline Extended Family 05 June 2006 14:23:29 Sri Lanka opens the door for fifth mobile phone operator June 5, 2006 (LBO) – Sri Lanka plans to expand its mobile phone market to five players, in a bid to bring down costs of telephony, the telecom regulator said Monday. Sri Lanka’s mobile market had grown 53.5 percent to 3.34 million customers as at end 2005, according to TRC figures. The island’s cellular penetration is expected to increase to 20.
India Becoming a Crucial Cog in the Machine at I.B.M. Click here for full article [registration required] By Saritha Rai, New York Times, June 5, 2006 BANGALORE, India, June 4 — The world’s biggest computer services company could not have chosen a more appropriate setting to lay out its strategy for staying on top. On Tuesday, on the expansive grounds of the Bangalore Palace, a colonial-era mansion once inhabited by a maharajah, the chairman and chief executive of I.
By Nuwan Waidyanatha The Hazard Information Hub (HIH), operated by Sarvodaya as part of the Last-Mile Hazard Information Dissemination Project (HazInfo) to disseminate Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) risk information to the villages in Sri Lanka, monitored the recent tsunami drills conducted in the Pacific by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in the USA. The HazInfo project initiated by LIRNEasia, is a multipartner initiative aimed at tackling the “last-mile” challenges in developing an all-hazards approach to disaster management and mitigation.
by Patrick Neighly – 26/5/2006 04:40:00 Weblink to article The US Treasury has scrapped a 3 percent federal excise tax on long-distance calls and promised taxpayer refunds covering the past three years. The move follows a series of federal appeals court rulings against the government, which had tried repeatedly to preserve the US$6 billion generated annually by the tax.
by Patrick Neighly Weblink to article EU Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding has accused continental governments of lagging on telecom advancements that could be used to fuel European economies. “It is worrying that in ICT research, Europe continues to lag behind its competitors, investing about half as much as the US,” she said in a presentation, urging governments “not to shy away from cross-border competition in the telecom sector.” Reding said that the impact of ICT on European productivity growth has fallen over the past decade and lashed out at economic reform programs that “fail to give a new impetus to information society policies or to cover drivers of growth such as the convergence of digital networks, content and devices.” Said Reding, “Only through stronger investment in ICT research and effective cross-border competition will we ensure that the great potential of ICT is used to lift our competitive performance across the economy.”
PLEASE CONTINUE DISCUSSION ON STANDARDIZING SINHALA FOR IT APPLICATIONS IN THIS THREAD. CREATING ICT MYTHS THREAD HAS BEEN ARCHIVED. EXCERPT FROM PREVIOUS DISCUSSION BELOW:
In May 2006 Airtel launched a Tamil SMS solution developed by MicroImage, a Sri Lankan software firm, in the State of Tamilnadu. Tamil and Sinhala SMS are offered in Sri Lanka by Dialog Telekom and Celltel Lanka. The service is based on a key-entry system enabling a customer to type the SMS as fast as in English and “a one touch function guiding them using the key pad to type Tamil letters”, according to Airtel. “The subscriber needs to download the application free of charge from ‘Airtel Live’ on to their handsets. Those receiving the Tamil SMS also need to download the application in order to read it in Tamil.
The following news item talks about SLTL’s plans to give 100,000 ADSL connections (more than the total number of main lines in 1990!). This is good news indeed. But it would be even better news if the network were to be properly dimensioned so that customers could get the speeds they pay for. :: Daily Mirror – FINANCIAL TIMES :: SLT is also shifting its focus to non-voice data services and delivering broadband technologies.
The debate described below will have implications for all. Now that language standards have been talked about to the limit (with a lot of light, in addition to heat, being produced) we invite our active visitors to engage with the important issue of the architecture of the Internet. BBC NEWS | Technology | Web inventor warns of ‘dark’ net Excerpt: “But telecoms companies in the US do not agree. They would like to implement a two-tier system, where data from companies or institutions that can pay are given priority over those that cannot. This has particularly become an issue with the transmission of TV shows over the internet, with some broadband providers wanting to charge content providers to carry the data.
The Daily Star Web Edition Vol. 5 Num 704 Submarine Cable: BTTB given unlawful control over network Other ISPs will be discriminated against Abu Saeed Khan The government violated the law by allowing the state-run telecoms monopoly to own and operate the country’s only submarine cable network. Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB) built the SEA-ME-WE4 submarine cable and its associated infrastructure from the earnings of its other telecoms ventures and the law explicitly prohibits such practices of subsidisation. Subsection C of Section 49 of the telecoms law says, “If an operator provides more than one service, but there exists competition in the market in providing one of such services and no competition in case of another service provided by him, then subsidy from the earnings of the service which is subject to competition shall not be allowed for the other service which is not subject to competition.” BTTB built the cable’s landing station in Cox’s Bazar and from there it deployed an optical fibre link up to Chittagong from the earnings of its fixed telephony, Internet and data connectivity services.
A report on the Indicators Workshop held in New Delhi by LIRNEasia in collaboration with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is available here [PDF]. The report provides a review of international initiatives and best practices, examines some of the difficulties regarding standardising indicators across the region, the challenges of measurement and collection of indicator data and the process of developing an indicators manual for the South Asian region.
This article shows that government’s instinct to ban cellphones from conflict zones because of the belief that it will be used by militants/terrorists to further their cause, actually neutralizes one of the security agencies most potent weapons to track subversives. I doubt that the Sri Lankan government will allow cellular service to be available any time soon in the North. But at least it gives the security agencies some food for thought. The Indian government was similarly reluctant to have cellular service in Kashmir, but the Indian security agencies are their biggest proponents now. ———— Troops in Kashmir master new weapon: cell phones Reuters By Sheikh MushtaqSun May 21, 1:53 AM ET Minutes after a bomb exploded recently in Kashmir and wounded Indian soldiers, a senior member of an Islamist rebel group called local newspaper offices to claim responsibility for the blast.
The first phase of the Last-Mile Hazard Information Dissemination (HazInfo) project funded by IDRC, was completed recently with the training of trainer component. LIRNEasia is implementing this project along with its project partners Sarvodaya, the largest community organization in Sri Lanka and TVE Asia Pacific (TVEAP), a non-profit media organization working in the Asian region. LIRNEasia has undertaken a number of initiatives in the area of ICTs disasters and early warning post the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster of 2004. However, this is by far the largest project undertaken LIRNEasia in this area to evaluate the suitability of a number of ICTs (information and communication technologies) deployed in varied conditions for their effectiveness in the last-mile of a hazard warning system.