Agriculture or services for Sri Lanka’s future? – LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE The aspirations of young people constitute good evidence of cultural attachment. A recent study done by Chanuka Wattegama and Nandasiri Wanninayake in Mahavilachchiya, a village on the borders of Wilpattu, 40 km west of Anuradhapura, provides evidence. (Link to document) Fifty four per cent of those in Mahavilachchiya wanted IT related jobs, compared to the 38 per cent who wanted jobs in the army in the control group. But the real news was the no one, absolutely no one, in either village wanted to continue in agriculture like their parents.
Sustainability First: Tapping the Bottom of the Pyramid According to Lirneasia research, 41% of the BoP in Sri Lanka, owns their own phones and 21% of them are mobile phones. Another 31% is planning to buy a phone. But 28% is not planning to buy, mostly because they cannot afford to buy. This can be a primary market for telecentres in Sri Lanka, according to Prof Rohan Samarajiva of Lireneasia. Powered by ScribeFire.
Sri Lanka celco urges regulations to lower cost s – LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE “End-user taxation is very important in our market segment because it has been assessed that a one percent change in taxation generates up to 2-5 percent growth in usage and revenue,” Wijayasuriya said. “So we must bring down the minimum cost of ownership and even a single piece of legislation should not stand in the way of bringing down the cost of ownership. “When our penetration is still 35 percent, we should be driving the minimum cost of ownership down at every single opportunity with our economic policy.” Powered by ScribeFire.
Sri Lanka’s Tigo celco to sidestep price war – LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE Sri Lanka’s mobile service provider Tigo plans to rely on giving better value to increase market share and revenue and not wage a price war with rival local mobile operators, company officials said. “We do not believe that a price war will benefit anybody including the customer. There has to be a balance between price and the profitability of the company,” says Dumindra Ratnayaka, chief executive of Celltel Lanka which operates under the Tigo brand. “It is not a price war that we have in us, that is why we introduced per second billing rather than cutting headline prices,” Ratnayaka told reporters at the opening of Tigo’s new service centre called Tigo Zone. Powered by ScribeFire.
In the process of trying to deflate inflation numbers (not inflation), the Government of Sri Lanka has removed alcohol and tobacco from the new price index because they are socially undesirable (not because government taxes are driving those prices through the roof) and included for the first time mobile phone charges. This is a positive move for a government that has imposed an additional 7.5 per cent levy on mobile charges (the government currently takes LKR 26.50 of every LKR 100 spent on mobiles through value-added and mobile-specific taxes). At least this should bury the misconception that mobiles are used only by the rich.
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.
Click on the links to see the full articles covering LIRNEasia’s book, ICT Infrastructure in Emerging Asia: Policy and Regulatory Roadblocks. ‘BSNL’s monopoly over infrastructure a hindrance to growth’ – Financial Express (India) Rural connectivity is now the focus of every telecommunication player in the country. Almost all stakeholders, from handset manufacturers to service providers, believe that the next wave of growth is in the rural areas.”However, India’s roll out (of telecom services) in rural areas has been slow. BSNL has the backbone infrastructure but is not yet ready to share it with private players,” he added.
LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE – LBO A digital satellite radio disaster alert system that can be remotely activated which was field tested in Sri Lanka is now ready for use in the region to give early warning of tsunamis, officials said.The Addressable Radio for Emergency Alert (AREA) system can send disaster alerts within seconds of its transmission by government authorities and also has the advantage of activating a siren. The system is also expected to be adopted in India, which along with Sri Lanka, was among several countries that suffered from the 2004 tsunami. The system, which has early-warning emergency messages, audio and visual alarms, was tested in a study conducted by LIRNEasia, a regional policy think tank, and Sarvodaya, a charity, in 32 Sri Lankan coastal villages. Powered by ScribeFire.
New disaster warning technology on anvil-India-The Times of India AREA is expected to deliver the ‘disaster alert’ within seconds of its transmission from the authorised authority and also has the provision to get connected to a siren.Further, the device can be powered by small solar panels and the antennas are compact in size. In normal times, the system can be used for infotainment purposes. “The receiver automatically turns on even when it is not in use at the time of the alert,” Rangarajan added. In terms of cost, each system would be costing a few thousand rupees depending on AREA configuration — whether it is attached to a computer or a fixed location, with public address for the community, among others.
On the insignificance of Sri Lanka in the perception of the people who write for the New York Times OR in the preception of the readers of NYT, in the minds of the people who write for the NYT. Universe – Laws of Nature – Physics – New York Times Against all the odds, we can send e-mail to Sri Lanka, thread spacecraft through the rings of Saturn, take a pill to chase the inky tendrils of depression, bake a turkey or a soufflé and bury a jump shot from the corner. Powered by ScribeFire.
Among the five countries LIRNEasia has conducted its survey on teleuse at the Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP), which country do you think we found people who are least willing to share their mobile phone with a another? (a) India (b) Pakistan (c) Philippines (d) Sri Lanka (e) Thailand This was one of the interesting questions asked during the interactive quiz show at the LIRNEasia organized session at GK3, ‘Teleuse at the Bottom of the Pyramid’. The session addressed issues like the misconceptions about the teleuse (including Internet) at the BoP; exact nature of the demand at the BoP (in terms of using common facilities, getting connected, staying connected); strategic behaviours do users at the BoP engage in and policy and regulatory barriers stand in the way of the BoP being served. Team Blue emerged as clear winners scoring 105 marks against 35 scored by Team Red. Part 2 of the quiz show will be there today (Dec 13) from 14:00 – 15:30 hrs @ Room 302, Level 3, KLCC.
LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE – LBO Although seen as India’s greatest challenger in terms of its potential scale, China fared poorly for language skills, Gartner said. China, India and Singapore all had strong government support for the promotion of their country as an offshore services location. The political and economic environment remains a concern for many companies when moving work to offshore locations and so Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Vietnam rated poorly, Gartner said. Powered by ScribeFire.
Buzzcity got the top award for mobile networking applications at the GSMA Mobile Asia Congress held in November 2007. This blog describes how they are changing their charging structure, partially based on LIRNEasia research. gammalife: BUILDING MOBILE COMMUNITIES We organised a session of BuzzCity-NUS Digital Media Forum a few weeks ago with presentation by Dr. Rohan Samarajiva, who leads a regional ICT policy group called LIRNEasia. His group had a done a study across five Asian nations – India, Pakistan, The Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand – and asked people the main reason why they use a mobile phone.
The Wireless Personal Multimedia Communications (WPMC2007) symposium was held in Jaipur, India, December 03 – 06, 2007. The paper by N. Waidyanatha, S. Rangarajan, G. Gow, and P.
A new documentary film, titled Teleuse@BOP, recently produced by TVE Asia Pacific (TVEAP) and based on LIRNEasia’s study on Teleuse at the Bottom of the Pyramid, highlights a communication revolution happening in Asia’s emerging telecommunication markets. When it comes to using phones, the film says, people at the bottom of the income pyramid are no different from anyone else; they value the enhanced personal security, including emergency communications, and social networking benefits. Increasingly, poor people are not content with just using public phones or shared access phones (belonging friends or family). They see a utility and social value of having their own phones.
LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE – LBO Sri Lanka’s top celco Dialog Telekom wants to collect a million old phones and recycle them in the next two years in an initiative that will keep dangerous heavy metals from contaminating the environment, officials said. Phone batteries for example have heavy metals such a lead, nickel and cadmium. Dialog is collecting old phones and accessories from today. “In Sri Lanka there are about 10 million mobile phones, and mobile phones become obsolete in two to three years,” says Michael de Soyza from Dialog who heads the project. “Though some are handed down to friends and siblings, eventually they are discarded and are disposed of through the garbage collection system.