The colloquium was conducted by Nalaka Gunawardena. The colloquium began by Nalaka explaining the big picture; Climate change and energy use. Global warming is not new but the rate of global warming is. There is a multiplicity of gases causing global warming and their sources. Looking at the Green House Gas (GHG) mix, Carbon Dioxide is dominant.
Anybody could have guessed this. It is unimaginable that entire world will go through a recession simultaneously. Not everyone can be losers for too long. There should be winners somewhere. For example, what would the US firms that find their human resources costs, logically do?
Several years back, Korea topped the OECD’s broadband rankings and the ITU’s Digital Opportunity Index. That caused a lot of countries to reexamine their broadband policies. It caused others to develop new indices. The NYT carries a report on one: After the United States, the ranking found that Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway rounded out the five most productive users of connectivity. Japan ranked 10, and Korea, 18.
An article entitled, ‘Teleuse at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Beyond Universal Access’, co-authored by Harsha de Silva and Ayesha Zainudeen, has been published in Telektronikk, a leading telecommunications journal, published by Telenor, Norway. Appearing in the journal’s second issue for 2008, aptly titled, ‘Emerging Markets in Telecommunications’, the article explores the extent to which “universal access” to telecommunications has been achieved in Asia, based on findings from LIRNEasia’s five-country study of the use of telecommunication services at the ‘Bottom of the Pyramid’, namely in India, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Very high levels of access, but low levels of ownership are found. The paper then looks at the potential benefits that these non-owner users are missing out on, and then goes on to look at the key barriers to ownership that are faced by them. The paper estimates that there could be close to 150 million new subscribers at the BOP in these five countries by mid-2008.
A United Nations survey of global e-government readiness has found that many Asian countries are sliding down the rankings. Just one Asian country—South Korea—made the top ten coming in at sixth, with Japan next on 11th. The next highest was Singapore at a surprisingly low 23rd, and Malaysia at 34th. The top 35 countries are otherwise dominated by Europe, Australasia and North America. The biggest revelation was that most Asian countries are sliding down the rankings.
YANGON (Reuters) – Without warning, Myanmar’s military government has ordered a massive 166-fold rise in the annual satellite television levy in an apparent attempt to stop people watching dissident and international news broadcasts. With no word in state media of any license fee increases, the first satellite dish owners knew of the hike was when they went to pay the 6,000 kyat levy, only to be told it was now 1 million kyat ($780), three times the average citizen’s yearly income. An official at Myanmar Post and Telecom confirmed the increase on Wednesday, but was at a loss to explain it. “It’s not our decision,” the official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters. “We were just ordered by the higher authorities.
Massive mobile growth is reported from Bangladesh in 2006, with over two million being added in September alone, according to the BTRC. The question now is whether Pakistan still leads the pack. Mobiles Net addition/month Jan-06 10,275,869 Feb-06 10,543,898 268,029 Mar-06 10,954,285 410,387 Apr-06 11,781,560 827,275 May-06 13,440,836 1,659,276 Jun-06 14,190,606 749,770 Jul-06 14,798,440 607,834 Aug-06 15,510,000 711,560 Sep-06 17,647,537 2,137,537 Bangladesh’s GrameenPhone tops 10 mln subscribers | Reuters.com Bangladesh’s top mobile phone operator GrameenPhone Ltd. said on Sunday the number of its subscribers has passed 10 million, rising more than 80 percent since January.