BY VERONICA S. CUSI, Businessworld THE PHILIPPINES was the second fastest-growing market for broadband worldwide in 2006, according to a study by UK-based research and consultancy firm Ovum. This was primarily due, however, to the fact that broadband is just taking off in the country, and Ovum said growth could be significantly higher if regulators allow more competition that would lead to cheaper services. Greece took the top spot in the study, and the other countries in the top ten list were Indonesia, India, Ukraine, Ireland, Thailand, Vietnam, Russia and Turkey. Total broadband growth in the Philippines from 2005 to 2006 was at 157% while Greece’s was 168%, Datamonitor affiliate Ovum said.
Sign of the times? No longer are universal service subsidies offered for bare bones basic service; broadband is being considered for subsidy. With massive amounts piling up in the USF, they need to be innovative to get it out. Of course, there is another option: reduce or eliminate the US levies. TRAI issues draft recommendations for broadband growth Dismayed by the poor penetration of broadband services, telecom regulator TRAI today brought out a new draft that recommends subsidising the service in remote and hilly areas.
AFP (via Google) Home to some 1.5 billion people, South Asia is paying a high price to access the Internet as service providers have been slow to deliver cheaper broadband connections, analysts say. The region has embraced telephones, mobile phones and computers and India has a flourishing software and outsourcing industry, noted industry watchers at the first South Asia Broadband Congress here earlier this month. But South Asia has lagged behind in hopping onto the broadband bandwagon, observed Sanjay Gupta of India’s Midas Communication Technology. Powered by ScribeFire.
This past weekend I spoke at the second Knowledge Forum for journalists organized by Sri Lanka Telecom Limited, Sri Lanka’s largest fixed and broadband service provider in Habarana. Over 40 journalists from print and electronic media participated in this two and a half day event. A majority of speakers were from within the Company, but they had invited 3-4 speakers including me to speak on related subjects. I made a presentation on Teleuse@BOP and also participated in an interesting discussion about congestion around the time of some form of “disaster” event, such as the recent false warning on a tsunami. In LIRNEasia’s thinking, the media play an extremely important role in policy and regulation, because they constitute the symbolic environment within which stakeholders act.
World now has 4b phone lines, says UN | Sep 05, 2007 | telecomasia.net (Associated Press via NewsEdge) Largely because of the mobile phone boom in developing countries, telephone service has quadrupled in the past decade to 4 billion lines worldwide, according to a report from the UN telecommunications agency.
South Asia Broadband Congress and Expo – Panel: Broadband Communication Regulation and Policy in South Asia Powered by ScribeFire. Rohan Samarajiva made a presentation on ‘Performance indicators for effective policy and regulation.’ Presentation slides
Anjana SAMARASINGHE The Daily News, 3 September 2007 | See Print version Sri Lanka needs to focus special attention on broadband connectivity as it is becoming more important for the development of businesses in the country.
In the remote agricultural province of Lao Cai in Vietnam a few shared community phones are being replaced with high-speed WiMAX broadband connections and VoIP telephony for thousands of residents. In rural Cambodia, a new 3G/UMTS mobile network is being deployed for delivery of high-bandwidth wireless services, including live streaming of mobile TV channels. In rural India, farmers can monitor crop prices and place orders for goods electronically by visiting broadband “community centers” that are taking root around the country. All are examples of a “rural revolution” enveloping less-developed countries in Asia and around the world, made possible by advanced telecommunications technologies such as Wi-Fi, WiMAX and 3G. This revolution is bringing high-speed Internet access and next-generation telephony to millions of users who previously had little or no access to even the most basic telecoms services.
Interesting parallel to Sri Lanka’s Mahavilachchiya experiment. The only worrisome aspect is the fact that it is a fully subsidized project. I guess that they’ll spend more on evaluation only than the total spent on Mahavilachchiya including the hardware. The important thing is that all these projects need to be monitored, to see how they do after the subsidies end. Asia: Telecom’s Rural Revolution The project in Lao Cai illustrates the trends of joint cooperation between vendors, operators and governments to tap new opportunities for economic development.
There has been much speculation about the strategy that will be adopted by the Indian juggernaut Bharti when it enters the Sri Lankan mobile market as the fifth player. Bharti is offering food for thought, though of course, reality may not always match what is told at news conferences. LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE – LBO Bharti Airtel will offer value added services, especially music which has been a big hit in the Indian market. “We do more music in India than some of the music companies,” Kapoor said. With broadband and 3G services telecom firms can offer more applications for customers, Kapoor said, adding that they would be “aiming for share of wallet rather than share of telecom.
LIRNEasia is privileged to be associated with Professor Ashok Jhunjunwala, who is featured in this special interview by Rediff. Ashok serves as Chair of CPRsouth, LIRNEasia’s principal capacity building initiative, and on LIRNEasia’s International Advisory Board. He will visit Sri Lanka for the first time to deliver a keynote address at the South Asia Broadband Congess and Expo in Colombo, 4-6 September, 2007. He is truly an inspiring public intellectual. rediff.
Fibre-to-the-home that will provide broadband speeds of up to 100Mbps made possible in France. Read full story What has sparked investment in broadband is France is the low take-up of digital television, which makes it more attractive to offer TV over the internet. Many broadband providers now throw in a set-top box with a package which gives customers television, telephone and internet down a fast broadband line for around 30 Euros (about £20) a month. But something even faster is on its way. Beneath the streets of Paris two companies, France Telecom’s Orange and Free, are laying down fibre-optic cables to bring speeds of up to 100Mbps to homes in parts of the city.
According to a Maldives online news publication, always on Internet is now available in 27 more islands. News In Brief 5 August 2007 Dhiraagu has extended its internet service to twenty seven additional islands, meaning 70% of Maldivians can now access broadband internet. Dhiraagu, which was given permission to extend internet coverage to the atolls in August 2006, now provides a service to forty two islands. The company plans to extend its network to cover all islands with more than nine hundred residents. Is it possible for a knowledgeable person to tell us what “broadband internet” means in the Maldives?
Daily News – Friday, 3 August 2007 In a press conference held yesterday to announce South Asia’s first Broadband Communications Congress and Expo (SABCCE) General Manager/ Head of Consumer Market Development Division of Sri Lanka Telecom SLT M.Z Saleem said CDMA Broadband technology will be introduced to the local market by SLT soon. Most of the service providers in the local telecommunication industry are in the process of introducing this technology to the market. However the equipment needs higher investments for introducing this technology, he said. ‘Broadband communications are very cost effective.
There is a huge gap between advertised broadband speeds and the actual speeds users can achieve, research has shown. A survey by consumer group which found that broadband packages promising speeds of up to 8Mbps (megabits per second) actually achieved far less. Tests of 300 customers’ net connections revealed that the average download speed they were getting was 2.7Mbps. Which has called on regulator Ofcom and Trading Standards to launch a fresh investigation into UK broadband.
Pyramid Research has released a list of the Top Ten Trends that will influence the telecoms sector in the region (and elsewhere) throughout the coming year. It claims that subscriber growth will be the number one ‘critical development’ in the Asia Pacific region through 2008. The new research shows that subscriber growth is expected to be highest in Indonesia, which will see a 45 per cent increase in its broadband market ever year for the next five years. By 2012, 80 per cent of Asia’s mobile subscribers will be from China, India, Indonesia, and Pakistan, with regional subscriptions totaling 2.2 billion.