Mobile Archives — Page 15 of 28 — LIRNEasia


Bob Pepper of Cisco is speaking on LTE, with specific reference to the 700 MHz Band. If the FCC had the knowledge it now has about how to make the digital transition work, they would have taken back 160 MHz, not 108 MHz. Auction for the digital dividend spectrum in US was in 2007, but actual switch-over was in 2009. It was important to create the stakeholders to ensure pressure was maintained on the regulator to keep to the schedule and not backtrack. Pepper is talking about White Space.
Julie Welch of Qualcomm is speaking on LTE at the GSMA Public Policy Forum in Shanghai. She sees LTE as a complement to HSPA, not one replacing the other. She states that LTE is showing the fastest growth rate they have seen. Qualcomm is working very closely with equipment manufacturers on devices. Only Band 28 core requirements have been finalized by 3GPP in June 2012.
I would have tweeted this, but this is China. I am at the Public Policy Forum of the GSMA Mobile Asia Expo in Shanghai. Listening to Mike Wright of Telstra on the 700 MHz Band. He just said that they are done with 3G. Investments cancelled.
The government of Sri Lanka has adopted a policy of “Mobile First” for delivery of e government services. This makes us at LIRNEasia very happy because the evidence from our research since 2005 supports the giving of primacy to wireless platforms. We have been pushing for voice-based delivery of e gov services through widely disseminated papers and talks since 2007. So keeping to the theme of more than voice and emphasis on m apps, the talk this year seeks to put some flesh on the commendable Mobile First policy.
These are impressive numbers, but they should be made available on TRC or ICTA website as a regular monthly/quarterly report. TRC reports much lower numbers. Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) CEO Reshan Dewapura noted that today, there are close to four million Sri Lankan citizens on the internet, which is a 20% penetration of the population. Over half of them access the internet through either mobile phones or wireless broadband dongles, which has grown eight times more than what it was in 2010. He also estimated that the total data consumption in Sri Lanka via mobile sims both on wireless broadband dongles or mobile phones is currently estimated at 2,000 terabytes per month.
We have reiterated the need for spectrum refarming. But the most difficult part has been extracting inefficiently used spectrum from government agencies. Looks like the US government is focusing on this problem, not only focusing but applying novel thinking to it. Perhaps the most interesting and highly charged recommendation in the president’s directive is one ordering recommendations for incentives that could be used to persuade government departments to share or give up spectrum. A study released last year by a presidential advisory council on science and technology recommended that the government create a “synthetic” currency that could be used to entice federal agencies.
I am uncertain about the credibility of this source, but this Myanmar online news source states that the shortlisted 12 have shrunk to four groups. The shortlisted companies have formed into four final groups that include Digicel; the KDDI Corporation together with Sumitomo, Myanmar Information and Communication Technology Development Corp. (MICTDC) and A1 Construction; the MTN Consortium, and finally; Singtel, Kanbawza (KBZ) and Myanmar Telephone Co. Where is Axiata? Telenor?
We were not quite ready to start talking about the privacy issues surrounding the massive amounts of data generated by telcos in the course of making it possible for people to communicate, but recent news events are accelerating the schedule. I thought it might be useful to start with this quote from someone I used to work with in the 1990s: “American laws and American policy view the content of communications as the most private and the most valuable, but that is backwards today,” said Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington group. “The information associated with communications today is often more significant than the communications itself, and the people who do the data mining know that.” Full report.
According a newspaper report, the design of the recent 3G auction is being investigated by the Anti Corruption Commission and the four members of the NBTC who approved the design may face suspension until the investigation is completed. Four members of the committee organising the third-generation (3G) auction last October may face an investigation after a panel found irregularities in the auction’s design. The subcommittee of the National… Full report.
It appears that India’s Department of Telecom is rethinking auctions as the mechanism for assigning spectrum: After failure of two rounds of airwave auction, the Department of Telecom (DoT) is now exploring pricing methods for fixed priced allotment of spectrum, said an internal note. An ‘expanded committee’ will ascertain ‘concept, operational parameters and conditions’ for a market-related process for giving away spectrum, said the note reviewed by ET. My first reaction was that this would be contrary to the sweeping ruling given on the 2G auction by the courts, but it appears there is wiggle room: However, in September last year, the Supreme Court had said in its opinion on queries raised by the government through a Presidential Reference that auction was not the only way to allocate natural resources like spectrum. Further, maximising of revenues were secondary to serving the public good with regard to awarding allocating natural resources. Full report.
Vodafone and China Mobile were an odd couple. Now the story has become curiouser. Lack of regulatory certainty has caused them to withdraw from Myanmar. Vodafone said it had withdrawn after seeing the final licence conditions, which were published on 20 May, because “the opportunity does not meet the strict internal investment criteria to which both Vodafone and China Mobile adhere”. A spokeswoman for Vodafone added that among the British company’s concerns were that a promised telecommunications bill overhauling regulation of the sector is now not due to be enacted before Burma finalises its choice of foreign mobile operator on 27 June.
In my recent visit to Colombia to assess the ICT sector for the OECD, I found that the Office of the Controlaria (Auditor General) was playing an increasingly central role in telecom policy, second-guessing decisions by policy makers and regulators years after the fact, for example requiring a Mayor responsible for the decision by a municipally owned telco to introduce ISDN many years back to compensate the municipality out of his personal funds for the resulting losses. The broader issues of government ownership raised by this story are discussed in detail in my LBO.LK Choices column. The Indian Comptroller and Auditor General was involved in telecom regulation from the 1990s, for example claiming that TRAI under the leadership of Justice Sodhi was negligent in not optimizing government revenues through BSNL. It played a decisive role in the 2G scandal that has been dragging down the Indian telecom industry for the past 2-3 years by making an inflated assessment of the losses caused.
Last year, I wrote about how the ubiquity of mobiles had helped a Bangladeshi doctor improve vaccination rates and win a Gates Foundation Prize. Here is another story about how the ubiquity of mobiles is helping improve government service delivery in Lahore, Pakistan. Even among the poorest fifth of households, 80% now use phones, so the technology can reach almost everyone. Illiteracy is a problem, but the chief minister’s call alerts a recipient to get help, if needed, with reading the text message when it arrives. It contains a specific question: did the police respond, as required, within 15 minutes of your emergency call?
Several Sinhala newspapers and webpapers have reported that the government will henceforth give priority to delivering e gov services over mobile interfaces. I assume the English media will pick up this story in due course. This is good news for a country where mobiles are ubiquitous, but conventional desktop computer use is not. We at LIRNEasia have been hammering home the message that mobile must be given priority based on our Teleuse@BOP survey research since 2005. Specifically, this was a key message in the 2011 and 2012 Future Gov conferences in Colombo.
The Orascom owned mobile operator in North Korea has issued its two millionth SIM. Naguib Sawiris, Executive Chairman of OTMT, commented saying: “When we first acquired the license in North Korea, people thought the service will only be provided to a few privileged individuals. We are very proud today to witness our subscriber base in North Korea increasing at a growing rate, emphasizing the right of the North Korean citizens in DPRK to communicate.” It is worth noting that through recent decisions of the North Korean government restrictions on availing internet connections through mobile phones for foreign visitors have been reduced, allowing Koryolink to also offer some data services through its network.
With long experience in neighboring Bangladesh, where they may have well discovered the Budget Telecom Network model, Telenor appears to be pulling out all the stops in its Myanmar campaign. Telenor plans to sell SIM cards for free—or with a minimal charge of about 20 kyat (US$0.02)—and offer its phone service by a pay-per-minute plan. The company also plans to make communications accessible by establishing a high volume of points of sales throughout the country. “We never want a customer to be living more than a few hundred meters from a retailer,” Brekke said.