We have always been interested in how mobile technology can reduce the frictions of time and space and thereby improve the functioning of markets. If the market being improved is that for agri produce, there is no disagreement. Eliminating the middle (wo)man would call forth a wave of approbation. But in the case being reported, the demise of the middle (wo)man is being mourned. May be we will be not looked at as crazy when we talk about a continuing role for the middle (wo)man in agri markets.
For too long, the Internet of Things was something that was talked about in hyperbole at conferences and then forgotten. Now, finally, it is being operationalized. This particular account is of developments at GE. At Mount Sinai, patients get a black plastic wristband with a location sensor and other information. Similar sensors are on beds and medical equipment.
Internews is a US based organization that engages in hard work of helping the producers of news and information do their jobs better. Not in the space that LIRNEasia occupies, so our interactions have not been many, but my impression has been of people who are trying to make a difference by working at ground level, quietly. Therefore, I took seriously the op-ed written by its CEO on Myanmar. Here is an excerpt. For now, the reforms and the apparent end of censorship have unleashed a veritable media gold rush in Myanmar.
In light of growing talk of a new divide that is emerging, this time a broadband divide, two indicators are beginning to assume greater importance: Internet users/100 and broadband subscriptions/100. Not all Internet users have Facebook accounts, but all Facebook users are, by definition, Internet users. Some people may have multiple Facebook accounts, but not as many as those who have multiple SIMs. Therefore, it is safe to assume that the number of a country’s Internet Users exceeds the number of Facebook accounts from that country. In October 2012, there were 1,448,160 Facebook accounts from Sri Lanka.
China is a mobile powerhouse. Chinese made Smartphones are spreading fast across Asia and Africa. Yet, where are Chinese developed apps? “The Chinese Internet market is so set apart from other countries that we inside the industry refer to it as the Galápagos Island syndrome,” said Kai Lukoff, the editor of TechRice, a China-focused technology blog based in Beijing. “Domestic Internet products are extremely well adapted to the Chinese market, but they are way out of place for global users.
Right now disaster awareness is high. A cyclone was heading toward Sri Lanka’s Northeast Coast but has apparently veered off toward the Indian East Coast. Flooding has started in different parts of the country, trees are falling, transport has been affected. Of course, people are very aware of Hurricane Sandy and the US East Coast because of the power of international media. I found myself also monitoring Hawai’i a few days ago, because they were expecting a tsunami there (it came, but at insignificant wave heights).
We have wondered aloud about how Facebook will make money, especially from the majority of its users who are outside the US and who access it over mobile platforms. Apparently it made USD 150 million last quarter, the first in which broke out the numbers. The earnings report was the first time the company had broken out from its overall advertising revenue how much money it collects from mobile ads. The information helped to address a critical question that investors have had about how Facebook will respond to the world’s shift to mobile computing; 60 percent of all Facebook users log in from their phones. Although it is not a direct comparison, Google is poised to make far more money from mobile devices.
LIRNEasia was early in seeing mobile as the future. We had the benefit of the Teleuse@BOP surveys. We were seen as the main voice for the mobile future in ICT4D circles. We carried comments from people like Steve Jobs who saw it coming. Now the wave that we saw developing in our part of the world has reached the centers of ICT power.
One more qualified bidder than number of slots is a prescription for a bidding frenzy. But then, something like this has been done before. In the UK they had one more slot than there were existing operators. The consequences of being the only 2G operator who failed to get a 3G license drove up the prices. That should do it in Bangladesh too, unless someone comes up with a clever solution.
Earlier this month I was asked by a panel moderator what the most critical factor was in accelerating broadband use. My answer was mobile apps. If people have interesting things to do with their devices, they will upgrade to smartphones, they will pay the usage charges, etc. This is also why I decided to put some effort into beating back ETNO’s misguided effort to squeeze the Internet into a dysfunctional accounting-rate regime. So where are these apps coming from?
Sitting at a session in TPRC40 listening to LIRNEasia Research Fellow Faheem Hussain presenting his paper. Impressed that this kind of study, analyzing an issue that is not of great relevance to US telecom policy scholars, is accommodated at TPRC. The challenge, of course, is to pull back from the temptation to give too much detail on the exotica of a particular developing country and to present the abstract high level findings that may be of interest to a broader audience.
Having a customer-centric sector seems a good idea. The Ministry seeing its primary function as that of taxing operators a tad problematic. What is a public switchboard telephone network? But this is what is trickling out of Myanmar. “The Department of Posts and Telecommunications will be coordinated by the Ministry of Communications, Posts and Telegraphs, which will tax operators,” U Kyaw Soe said.
The Tokyo Olympics marked the inflection point in the adoption of color television. Will the London Olympics of 2012 be remembered as the inflection point for hybrid wireless networks? The service, which was used by a half million people during the Olympics, was initially free to all consumers. Starting this month, it has been available for a fee to other mobile users. Virgin plans to lease its Wi-Fi underground network to competitors.
Apparently a gap that cannot be bridged has opened up in smartphone sales thanks to sub USD200 smartphones from Huawei and others. let us be thankful the gap is only in smartphones. Smartphones are so popular here that it’s difficult to avoid seeing one, and in China, these devices are poised to become even more widespread. This year, China will account for 26.5 percent of all smartphone shipments, compared to 17.
Ministers making statements outside their areas of competence without consulting appropriate authorities is no way to govern. But that apparently is what the Pakistan Interior Minister has done by announcing the end of prepaid mobile in his country, according to Dawn: In a meeting on Friday the operators took strong exception to Rehman Malik’s statement and declared it uncalled for. “The statement has created panic in the industry and it appears that it might have been given purposely to target the telecom industry,” an official of a leading operator told this correspondent. He said in the meeting the operators had also decided to see the PTA chairman in this regard.
The Economist carries a good piece on the innovation/entrepreneurial boom in Kenya centered around the mobile. There should be such a place in developing Asia. Where? In 2002 Kenya’s exports of technology-related services were a piffling $16m. By 2010 that had exploded to $360m.