The Negroponte Switch sees all that was wireless becoming wired. That means no spectrum for broadcasters. Next best is less spectrum. The digital dividend. The 700 MHz Band.
European telecoms chiefs have backed plans to make it cheaper to access data while on a mobile phone abroad. The measures will slash the cost of sending a text while abroad and reform the way phone operators charge for data calls made when customers roam. The changes to charges are due to come in to force across the EU’s 27 member nations from July 2009. Some nations and industry groups said the changes could mean higher charges for other services. “We want to avoid so-called bill shock, when someone gets back from a holiday and gets a nasty surprise,” said Luc Chatel, French minister for industry and consumer affairs.
Broadband prices could rise by up to one-third if regulators in Europe insist on strict “net neutrality” rules that would block carriers from charging content providers premium prices to prioritise certain web traffic, a leading think-tank is set to warn. Net neutrality has become a big issue in the US as internet congestion has increased. In Europe, regulators and industry players have claimed that the situation is different because users have more choice of network providers, and the debate has been more muted. However, there have been growing concern among big telecoms companies that changes introduced in the European Parliament into the so-called telecoms package – the sweeping legislation which is designed to overhaul European Union telecoms laws – could open doors to net neutrality regulation in the future. Read the full story in ‘Financial Times’ here.
Proposals to slash the cost of using mobile phones abroad, for text, data and voice calls, could become law next July following a vote in Brussels. The European Parliament is to vote on whether roaming costs for text messages should be capped. The cost of sending a message is expected to eventually fall by 60% from an average of 23 pence to 9 pence. Voice calls would fall from 36 to 27 pence a minute and customers would be able to set limits on data downloads. A reluctant mobile phone industry first had limits on its roaming charges imposed by the EU in September 2007.
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.
Europe’s mobile phone industry will today mount a last-ditch effort to ward off strict price caps on text messages and data downloads within the EU by warning that heavy regulation is cutting capital spending and profit margins. With Viviane Reding, EU telecoms commissioner, poised to propose a new round of price caps this month, mobile operators claim their capital spending has already slipped from 13% of revenues in 2005 to 11% last year – and could fall further. The GSM Association – the global trade body representing more than 750 GSM mobile phone operators – citing data from a study by management consultants, says the industry’s return on capital employed was as low as 7% in 2007 or less than half that of other significant sectors such as steel and software. Sources said this gives the lie to Reding’s claim that it is making excessive profits from “roaming” services in the EU. Read the full stiry in the Guardian here.
EU Allows Mobile Phones on Airplanes, ABC News The European Union on Monday opened the way for air travelers to use mobile phones to talk, text or send e-mails on planes throughout Europe’s airspace. Under the plan approved Monday, cell phone users could make and receive calls through an onboard base station. They will be allowed to turn their phones on after the plane reaches 10,000 feet, when other electronic devices such as portable music players and laptops are permitted. But a host of issues remain, from the cost of mid-flight phone service, to backlash from those who dread the thought of being trapped for hours listening to one-sided conversations.
First the EU said: Network interconnection by means of the Internet Protocol (IP) has been a vital enabler of the Internet’s ubiquity and success. IP-based interconnection has usually been achieved without explicit regulatory obligations, and has for the most part been highly effective. Given the rapid evolution of the economic, technological and social environment this study of the European Union investigates whether IP interconnection is still better left unregulated. Martyn Warwick of telecomtv slammed: You have to wonder if some “analysts” live in the same world as the rest of us. Take for example a hefty new report, commissioned by the European Commission and written by a German research organisation, that goes so far as to recommend the abolition of termination fees – on the peculiar grounds that we might as well because, one day, everything will be the Internet anyway.
CORDIS : News Funded by the EU’s Sixth Framework Programme (FP6), the DEWS project will aim to strengthen early warning capacities in the region by building an open and interoperable tsunami early warning system for the Indian Ocean. The system to detect tsunamis will be based on an open sensor platform and integrated sensor systems for earthquake (seismic), sea level (tide gauge, buoys) and ground displacement (GPS land stations) monitoring. These sensor systems will be one of the most important innovations in the project as they will be responsible for sending reliable data from the seafloor to the warning centre. Powered by ScribeFire.
Asian National Statistical Offices should consider inserting a question on telephones into their household surveys that will capture this. Telephony | Mobile homes | Economist.com NEARLY half of Lithuanian households now use just a mobile phone rather than having a fixed line at home too, according to the European Union’s statistical office. The Finns, fast adopters of technology, are close behind with 47% of households ditching the home phone. People from Central and Eastern Europe are more likely to have only a mobile phone, perhaps because fewer households had a fixed line in the first place.
A single European Union-wide telecoms market could be in place from 2010 after the European Commission set out plans to increase competition. Under the new plans, a regional watchdog would be created and former monopolies could be forced to split up their network and services operations. The planned changes are designed to offer consumers cheaper broadband services and phone calls from fixed line and mobile handsets, the Commission also argues. It claims that consumers are currently losing out because in many member countries, including Poland, Italy and Germany, the former state telecoms monopolies still dominate, particularly in the broadband market. The proposals will now be debated in the European Parliament.
BBC News | Mobile phone use backed on planes Passengers could soon be using their mobile phones on planes flying through European airspace. Plans have been developed across EU countries to introduce technology which permits mobile calls without risk of interference with aircraft systems. Regulators around Europe are calling for consultation on the potential introduction of the technology. If given the go ahead, the service would allow calls to be made when a plane is more than 3,000 metres high. Individual airlines would need to decide if they wanted to introduce the technology, if the green light is given by national regulators.
THE distribution of computing skills across Europe shows a clear pattern according to a recent report from the European Union. The inhabitants of southern and eastern Europe are the least adept at using computers and the internet. Computer whizzes are more likely to be found in a wedge running from Germany up to the Nordic countries. Bulgarians seem a little baffled by the online revolution. But IT skills correlate closely with long-standing access to computers, broadband penetration and the like.
Gordon Gow, a lead researcher in the Last-Mile Hazard Warning System (LM-HWS) Pilot (HazInfo project), presented the paper titled – “Community-based Hazard Warnings in Sri Lanka: Performance of Alerting and Notification in a Last-Mile Message Relay” at the 1st Wireless Rural and Emergency Communications (WRECOM) Conference in Rome, Italy, Oct 01-02. One of Gordon Gow’s key contributions to the HazInfo project was the Common Alerting Protocol Profile for Sri Lanka, which was a hard case as far as integrating the multi-language scenario as it is the case in Sri Lanka. The CAP Profile for Sri Lanka was designed for disseminations in Sinhala, Tamil, and English languages. Such a complex profile of CAP was field tested in Sri Lanka’s HazInfo project. This was the first time a Multilanguage profile was field tested in the World.
Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) was the talk of the town in Harbin at the ISCRAM-CHINA workshop, which took place August 26-27, 2007. The event was jointly organized by the ISCRAM-Community and the School of Economics and Management – Harbin Engineering University. The workshop was a post-conference meeting to the International Disaster Reduction Conference (IDRC), which took place 21-25 August, 2007. LIRNEasia project manager, Nuwan Waidyanatha, was 1 of 2 Sri Lankan delegates invited to present a research paper and the other was Chamindra De Silva of Lanka Software Foundation – Sahana Project. LIRNEasia presentation titled “Common Alerting Protocol Message Broker for Last-Mile Hazard Warning System in Sri Lanka: An Essential Component” was 1 of 115 papers published in the workshop proceedings.
Rohan Samarajiva will present a paper on ‘Sri Lanka’s telecommunications commitments under GATS: Assessment and issues for the future’ in the “Trade in Services’ session at the International Trade Law Conference 2007, on 1 August, organised by the Sri Lanka Law College in collaboration with The Department of Commerce of Sri Lanka and The World Trade Organization. The topic of this year’s conference is “The Doha Development Agenda and the Future of the Multilateral Trading System.” The conference will seek to facilitate an extensive discussion on the critical issues that have arisen in the course of the Doha Development Agenda negotiations. The panel of speakers consisting of policy makers, academics and professionals of outstanding calibre have been drawn from the developed and developing world such as the US, EU, India and Sri Lanka, in order to stimulate debate and facilitate a holistic experience for the participants.The conference website is: http://www.