No one knows how they’re defining users of mobile Internet services, but leave that aside. They’re entitled to some latitude in this moment of reprieve. Hans Vestberg, the chief executive of Ericsson, said in an interview that the results indicated that the transition to mobile Internet and smartphones was bucking the general economic downturn. “Increased global smart phone penetration, new devices and the introduction of tiered pricing is driving continued mobile data traffic growth,” Mr. Vestberg said.
The ITU dataset is the mother lode, mined by all. But sometimes, it is good to interrogate the quality of what the ITU produces. The most recent instance of ITU data being subject to sophisticated analysis without any attention being paid to the quality of the data is by noted ICT4D scholar, Richard Heeks. In a previous essay, Heeks interrogated the numbers emanating from the ITU on “mobile subscriptions.” It is a pity the same was not done in the recent piece on Internet and broadband.
How best to name the key theme for the next research cycle? We discussed this at length three years back. Rohan’s original idea was ‘Mobile Multiple Play’. We would have agreed, if not for the reason it already meant something else. Then came ‘Mobile++’.
Rohan Samarajiva, will deliver one of two invited lead talks at ICTs and Development: An International Workshop for Theory, Practice and Policy, to be held in New Delhi, India, 11 – 12 March 2010. Titled, “How the developing world may participate in the global “Internet Economy”, his presentation examines the potential mobile telephony has in enabling low-income earners first-time access to the Internet. He argues that a teleco business model similar to the Budget Telecom Network Model arguably responsible for dramatic reductions in mobile tariffs, could be similarly applied to the case of mobile internet. View the full presentation here. Other notable speakers at the event include Dr.
The story is based on US data, but it is still grist for the mill as we think about how the mobile and Internet will change the mediasphere in emerging Asia. We are so smitten with screens that we often can’t bear to choose one over another: 31 percent of Internet use occurs while we’re in front of a TV set. We are also taking an interest in watching video on our phones: 100 million handsets are video-capable.
Preconference workshop at the 2009 conference of the International Communication Association (ICA) | 20-21 May 2009, Chicago, Illinois, USA The draft program for this one-and-a-half day preconference is now available. Twenty five papers were selected through a peer-reviewed process; papers based on research in 15 countries in five continents in on various aspects of mobile usage will be presented. Registration can be completed through the ICA conference website.
Mobile internet use is growing while the number of people going online via a PC is slowing, analyst firm Nielsen Online has found. Some 7.3m people accessed the net via their mobile phones, during the second and third quarters of 2008. This is an increase of 25% compared to a growth of just 3% for the PC-based net audience – now more than 35m. It also found that the mobile net audience was younger and searched for different things.
Sep 4th 2008 | From The Economist print edition Computing: In future, most new internet users will be in developing countries and will use mobile phones. Expect a wave of innovation THE World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the body that leads the development of technical standards for the web, usually concerns itself with nerdy matters such as extensible mark-up languages and cascading style sheets. So the new interest group it launched in May is rather unusual. It will focus on the use of the mobile web for social development—the sort of vague concept that techie types tend to avoid, because it is more than simply a technical matter of codes and protocols. Why is the W3C interested in it?
The New York Times documents a recent study conducted by Nielsen Mobile among 30, 000 wireless customers, that estimates over 3.6% of all mobile phone users in the United States have used their phones to pay for goods and services. This figure is expected to grow in the future, with nearly half of all users of text messages and mobile internet, stating that they hope to make a mobile phone purchase in the future. However, security concerns remain. 41 percent of the consumers who transmit data said security was the reason they didn’t buy things via their mobile phone.
Frost & Sullivan finds Africa’s demand for mobile internet access is growing quickly, with operators anticipating growth of between 40 per cent and 50 per cent between 2006 and 2009. “The poor state of fixed line infrastructure is creating the potential for the African mobile internet market to boom,” states Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Spiwe Chireka. “Mobile internet has emerged as the solution to the continent’s last mile connectivity problem.” Mobile internet is significantly more cost-effective to deploy than fixed line services, is much cheaper and easier for users to acquire, covers a larger area and allows users access while they on the move. However, the high cost of mobile internet-compatible handsets coupled with the pricing structure remains a significant challenge.
A thoughtful contribution by someone who is developing a voice interface for the mobile internet. The Mobile Web is NOT helping the Developing World… and what we can do about it. By Nathan Eagle | MobileActive.org This is not to say that these billions of mobile phones do not have the potential to access content from the web – rather, the traditional browser-based paradigm of internet usage does not cater to them. The idea that the mobile web consists exclusively of mobile devices running web-browsers identical to the web experience we are used to with IE/Firefox is simply wrong.
Miguel Helft October 11, 2007, New York Times For more than two years, a large group of engineers at Google have been working in secret on a mobile-phone project. As word of their efforts has trickled out, expectations in the tech world for what has been called the Google phone, or GPhone, have risen, the way they do for Apple loyalists before a speech by Steve Jobs. But the GPhone is not likely to be the second coming of the iPhone and Google’s goals are very different from Apple’s. Google wants to extend its dominance of online advertising to the mobile internet, a small market today but one that is expected to grow rapidly. It hopes to persuade wireless carriers and mobile-phone makers to offer phones based on its software, according to people briefed on the project.
For Google, Advertising and Phones Go Together – New York Times Google wants to extend its dominance of online advertising to the mobile Internet, a small market today, but one that is expected to grow rapidly. It hopes to persuade wireless carriers and mobile phone makers to offer phones based on its software, according to people briefed on the project. The cost of those phones may be partly subsidized by advertising that appears on their screens. Google is expected to unveil the fruit of its mobile efforts later this year, and phones based on its technology could be available next year. Some analysts say that the Google project’s affect on the wireless industry is not likely to be as profound, at least initially, as that of Apple’s iPhone, whose revolutionary look and features have redefined consumer expectations for mobile phones.
Pasted below is a communication from Harsha Purasinghe of MicroImage that may be of interest to readers of this website. “We are pleased to inform you all that Dialog Telekom launched the Sinhala & Tamil Mobile Browser and their Content Portal “SINHALANTHAYA” during New Year week. The browser can be downloaded by visiting http://www.dialogwap.com using your mobile and going into Application Download Area.
As part of the Six Country Indicators Project, Divakar presents the interim findings from the Indonesia country study. The study assesses Indonesia’s telecom sector and regulatory performance. It employs the common methodology and list of indicators adopted for the Six Country study.