It is the same story everywhere. Broadband prices are falling, so the early adopters pay more than newbies – unless they switch fast. To make the matters worse, operators have started selling the same packages with new prices – in the same manner an Airline bringing ticket prices down at the eleventh hour to fill the seats. This is the tirade of one user. UK customers are paying 70% more than they need to for their broadband connections despite the credit crunch.
Chairman Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) Dr. Muhammad Yaseen has said that data usage is increasing in Pakistan and proliferation of broadband services will help establish Information Society. He was talking in a seminar on The Future of Mobile Communications in Pakistan. Chairman PTA said that for mobile phone industry future direction could be value addition and innovation in services including mobile commerce, video streaming, and high speed mobile internet. He said presently broadband costs are high in the country but broadband usage was showing growth in the recent quarter.
Leading Democrats on Tuesday attacked the Bush administration’s broadband policy and the technology track record of GOP presidential hopeful John McCain, while leading tech companies pushed for a more tech-savvy and innovative federal government. “The Obama campaign is the broadband campaign and the McCain campaign is the dial-up campaign,” said Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat and chairman of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on telecom and the Internet. Markey and other members of Congress were on hand at the Democratic National Convention in Denver for several technology panels hosted by the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) and the Silicon Flatirons Center at the University of Colorado. “On McCain’s watch, the U.S.
The U.S. needs a broadband policy targeting unserved areas that’s backed by action, not just words, said several speakers at a technology forum in Denver. The U.S.
The complete opening of Internet telephony, as recommended by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) a few days ago, will not only lead to steep fall in all type of call charges, be it local, national or international, but also help in increasing broadband penetration, an area where India lags behind. Industry analysts say person using Internet telephony to make calls would see his call charges falling by as much as 50-60 per cent compared to a normal telephone call today. This will benefit an ordinary home user as well as corporates and other industries alike. Internet telephony would help telecom penetration in rural India. Till now Internet telephony was allowed only between personal computers or to mobile or landlines abroad.
We all missed the obvious flaw, but not Malinda. The full credit for detecting that you are taxed differently for the same service should go to the eighteen year old from Kurunegala – the ever vigilant consumer. He pointed out in the latest post in his local language blog for a 512/128 kpbs Wi-Max connection you may have to pay about Rs. 675 as tax (30%) but for a 512/128 kpbs ADSL connection you pay only Rs. 337.
Indonesia is emerging as a hot broadband market, mainly as a result of the increasing availability of high-speed 3G and HSDPA mobile services. According to Arjun Trivedi, the head of business in Indonesia for Nokia Siemens Networks, high speed mobile services are now the dominant form of broadband access in the country. He says, “In Indonesia today, there are slightly more than a million broadband users. Quite a substantial number of these – we estimate some 60 per cent – are wireless broadband users, principally using HSDPA. We also estimate that there are about 400,000 fixed broadband users and a little over 600,000 mobile broadband users.
When he built Parakrama Samudraya a millennium ago, King Parakramabahu the great did not have to depend on the Internet. How lucky! Had it been so, he would have achieved few great feats. The pitiable Broadband services at Polonnaruva looked as if we have not made any advances since the days of the Great King. Both SLT and Dialog boast about their island wide networks.
LIRNEasia’s ‘Rapid Response Program’ is exactly what the name suggests. We react to immediate information needs of telecom regulators, at short notice. The response might not be lengthy and as comprehensive as we would like it to be, but nevertheless helpful, as Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) have realised. LIRNEasia saw BTRC’s move to issue three new Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) licenses a positive development, as Bangladesh is certainly not a country that can boast of quality and affordable broadband. This is what we learnt from our research: Exceptionally high cost of broadband remains a key barrier that prevents the development of the BPO industry in Bangladesh.
To an ordinary observer the image on left looks like some monkeys but to Nuwan Waidyanatha that is his complex Early Warning System. Monkeys act as sensors and detectors of hazards (aka a leopard) to deer – who would take immediate action for mass evacuation. Again the image on top right look likes a damper to any engineering student, but to Nuwan that is mass evacuation. The figure below might explain it better with the blue line representing a quick but rough evacuation and the red line a smoother one. What does this figure has to do with Broadband QoS?
There’s nothing like increasing fuel prices to generate telecom-transportation tradeoff stories. This is very promising stuff for people like us live 3.5 hours flying time from anyplace important. But none of these innovations can work here until we get decent quality on our broadband links. Has anyone tried skype videoconferencing other than in Singapore or Europe?
A new study suggests that attitude rather than availability may be the key reason why more Americans don’t have high-speed Internet access. The findings from the Pew Internet and American Life Project challenge the argument that broadband providers need to more aggressively roll out supply to meet demand. Only 14 percent of dial-up users say they’re stuck with the older, slower connection technology because they can’t get broadband in their neighborhoods, Pew reported Wednesday. Thirty-five percent say they’re still on dial-up because broadband prices are too high, while another 19 percent say nothing would persuade them to upgrade. The remainder have other reasons or do not know.
A complaint lodged by BT about the speeds of Virgin Media’s broadband service has been upheld by the Advertising Standards Authority. The challenge centred around its advertisement “Hate to Wait?”, which ran in the national media and featured download times for songs and TV shows. BT argued that Virgin’s usage caps meant that downloads during peak times would be slower than advertised. The ASA has agreed and ordered Virgin to make it clear that speeds will vary.
Where exactly the line that segregates ‘Broadband’ from ‘Narrowband’? Interestingly every country and every organization seems to have one’s own definition. 256 kbps is adequate ‘broadband’ for some countries to claim to be at the top of the broadband map. More ambitious have kept the level at 1 Mbps or even 2 Mbps. FCC too was happy with 200 kbps (on either direction) for some time, but apparently has apparently realized that outdated.
Mobile broadband could be bundled with standard contracts as early as 2009, a broadband comparison site has claimed. If the current rate of price-cutting continues, mobile broadband will soon be perceived as free of charge, according to Top 10 Broadband. “Competition is reaching its zenith in the mobile broadband market,” said Jessica McArdle, a spokeswoman at Top 10 Broadband. “It is only a matter of time before mobile broadband modems are offered for free in conjunction with mobile phone packages in the same way as ISPs such as TalkTalk currently offer ‘free’ home broadband with home phone deals.” Read the full story here.
BT has launched a new service that promises frustrated broadband customers that they can speed up their internet connection – or they can get their money back. The company has vouched that it can improve speeds of people’s broadband by at least 0.5Mbps (megabits per second), regardless of who provides their internet. As long as the householder has a BT land line they will send around engineer who can help the customer speed up their service, either by de-cluttering their computer or by rewiring some of their sockets.