Rob Conway Archives — LIRNEasia


GSMA honours Indian government

Posted on February 14, 2007  /  1 Comments

Barcelona, Feb 13 (bdnews24.com) – The GSM Association (GSMA) has presented its Government Leadership Award 2007 to India for exceptional achievement in mobile communications policy. India has been selected because of its success in establishing a framework of policies and regulations, which have stimulated the growth of mobile telecommunications over the past three years. The latest data from the Indian government shows that India’s mobile operators are now collectively adding six to seven million new subscribers each month. GSMA’s CEO Rob Conway presented the award to Thiru Dayanidhi Maran, India’s minister for communications and information technology.

Mobile as a payment mechanism

Posted on February 13, 2007  /  1 Comments

Inside the LIRNE.NET community, we have for some time been discussing a program of research centered on what we all mobile multiple play, a convergence of services around the transactional capabilities of the mobile phone and its unparallelled connectivity.   Our friend and colleague Abu Saeed Khan is reporting on a major development on these lines from the GSM Congress in Barcelona: :: bdnews24.com :: Spearheaded by a special group of 19 mobile operators with networks in over 100 countries and representing over 600 million customers, GSMA believes the programme could double the number of recipients of international remittances to more than 1.5 billion, while helping to quadruple the size of the international remittances market to more than one trillion dollars by 2012.
The GSM Association (GSMA) has announced on Wednesday that it has teamed up with Ericsson and telecoms group MTN to establish bio-fuels as an alternative source of power for wireless networks in the developing world. Ecology and economy is equally critical for mobile phone coverage in the less lucrative emerging markets. Diesel generators energise the base stations at remote locations. Supplying fuel across the unfriendly terrain is also a logistical nightmare. Such expensive exercise, however, inhibits the operators to invest in the low-yield regions.
Link to full story Motorola selected to supply affordable and robust handsets for second phase of programme to ‘connect the unconnected’ Singapore 27th September 2005: The mobile industry has driven the wholesale cost of mobile phones to below US$30 as part of the GSM Association (GSMA) programme to make mobile telephony affordable for people in developing countries. “To get below US$30 per handset is a milestone achievement,” said Craig Ehrlich, Chairman of the GSMA, the global trade association for the world’s GSM mobile operators. “Today’s news cements the formation of a whole new market segment for the mobile industry and will bring the benefits of mobile communications to a huge swathe of people in developing countries.” At the 3GSM World Congress in Singapore, Rob Conway, Chief Executive and board member of the GSMA, announced today that Motorola has been selected to supply the phase-two handset. “Motorola won thanks to a combination of a portfolio starting from sub-US$30, together with other key factors such as after-sales support, local service, brand presence and a choice of low-cost handset models including an exclusive product, the C113a for this programme,” said Conway.