The deployment of 4G wireless as a complement to ADSL last mile by Sri Lanka Telecom suggests that the convergence process that was marked by having a single CEO for the fixed and mobile arms may be reaching its logical conclusion. Sri Lanka Telecom said it had expanded broadband service coverage by deploying fourth generation wireless technology to areas that are not served by its wired network. From January data volumes on all broadband packages had been increased. SLT provides broadband services through ADSL (assymetrical-digital-subscriber-lines), fibre to home and now through 4G LTE (fourth generation long term evolution) wireless technology. At Ruwanwella, in Sri Lanka’s Kegalle district the firm said it had given a gratis broadband connections to the public library and school which had demonstrated downlink speeds of 50 Megabits per second.
Germans have a reputation for technical prowess. You’d expect the operators there to be technically superior in delivering what they promised when they sold broadband service. But it appears that they have not been so, according to a New York Times report. A government study released Thursday supports what many German consumers have long suspected: Internet broadband service is much slower than advertised. The study by the German telecommunications regulator, the Bundesnetzagentur, measured the Internet connection speeds of 250,000 consumers from June through December last year, making it one of the largest reviews of broadband service anywhere.
Irene was far from our areas of interest, but not far from the newspapers we read. Looks like mobile networks performed well; while fixed had trouble. Wireless phone networks held up well against Hurricane Irene despite widespread losses of power. Many people who lost electricity were able to communicate using e-mail and social networks, thanks to battery-powered mobile devices. As cleanup crews and homeowners began to assess the scope of the damage on Sunday, wireless phone companies were reporting that the storm’s effect on their networks was minimal and that most customers did not experience cellular disruptions, despite the high winds and ferocious rains.
Cambodia was the first country to have more mobiles than fixed. Finland was where the trend to mobile-only households started. And now the US is on the path. Age, poverty, subsidies seems to be contributing to the shift. And of course the prices coming down.
According to the ITU ICTeye, which is now carrying 2008 data, Pakistan’s surge to overtake Sri Lanka has petered out, leaving the Maldives (143 active SIMs/100 people) as the undisputed leader in mobile connectivity (apparently all adult Maldivians carry two active SIMs; there are only two operators in the Maldives), and Sri Lanka second with 52 SIMs per 100 people. On the fixed side, assisted by CDMA phones that are counted as fixed, Sri Lanka is the leader (17 connection per 100 people), followed by Maldives (15 per 100). Like in cricket, the middle of the rankings are the most interesting. Both Pakistan (50/100) and Bhutan (37/100) are ahead of India (29/100) in mobile. This shows that India cannot afford to let up the pace of 10 million connections a month for some time.
To many people’s surprise, the UK has decided to tax every fixed line 6 pounds a year to build “next generation broadband” throughout the country. But Virgin’s network is limited and fibre-optic cables are expensive. The two firms can profitably reach only around two-thirds of the population, reckons Matt Yardley of Analysys Mason, a consultancy that helped to prepare the report. Connecting the rest at high speed will cost around £3 billion. So Lord Carter surprised the broadband industry by proposing a £6 annual tax on telephone lines, raising around £150m.
Just liked everything else in telecom, the signs were visible in Asia first, Indonesia and Sri Lanka in particular. The debate in the blogsphere is all about HSPA and HSDPA, no one cares about tired old ADSL. We do, of course, and will continue to work on fixed, nomadic and mobile broadband price and QOSe. But nice to know the Economist is not too behind the curve. AS HANDSETS turn into computers, laptops are becoming more like mobile phones.
Results for Indonesia in LIRNEasia’s Telecom Regulatory Environment survey show an interesting trend. Unlike their counterparts in other countries (Bangladesh, India, Maldives Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand) Indonesia telecom experts have given marks so low for different aspects of their regulatory environment that none of the categories, in any three sectors, meet the average of 3. (The options were from 1 to 5, 1=extremely unsatisfied, 5=excellent service) The one comes nearest is the score for Market Entry in the mobile sector (there are nine players in the market – eight national, one regional) but that too miss the average by 0.05 points. The results do not show a change from the previous (2006) scores.