CHAKULA is a newsletter produced by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC). Named after the Swahili word for ‘food’, it aims to mobilise African civil society around ICT policy for sustainable development and social justice issues. The latest issue features an e-interview with LIRNEasia’s CEO Rohan Samarajiva, but it is not the only reason why we thought of highlighting the issue. The content is interesting and very readable. We publish two e-interviews from July 2010 issue here fully, as they are not available on public domain.
Pakistan is ranked fourth in terms of broadband Internet growth in the world, as the subscriber base of broadband Internet has been increasing rapidly with the total base crossing 170,000 in the country. The rankings are released by Point Topic Global broadband analysis, a global research centre. According to the statistics, there are around 382. 4 million broadband subscribers worldwide by the end of August 2008 as compared with 317 million in August 2007, showing 17 percent growth. Regional Broadband trend revealed that Western Europe has the largest share of broadband users with 26 percent followed by North America at 22 percent.
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.