Gyanendra’s Law states that a government that shuts down its entire national telecom network does not survive. The resignation of Hosni Mubarak affirms the law. Named for the last King of Nepal. Could have been called Jaruselzki’s Law, but Nepal could do with some visibility one thinks. And it is a toss-up which tyrant’s name is harder to pronounce.
LIRNEasia’s preliminary round of mobile broadband quality testing in selected locations in Western Province unveils both hopes and issues. The good news is that the quality of both key pre-paid mobile broadband services is satisfactory, in majority of locations. However, unusual quality drops in several places indicates that this performance is not always a certainty. In general, a mobile broadband user in Western Province can expect a reasonable quality unless a rare issue like the distance from a tower or a higher number of simultaneous users hinders it. LIRNEasia tested the broadband quality of the popular pre-paid High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) broadband connections of the two key providers.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is set to review interconnect usage charges (IUC) after they were fixed back in 2002-03 and not revised since then. TRAI has set the ball rolling to revise IUC, particularly termination charge from Rs0.3/minute to Rs0.1/minute and carriage charge from Rs0.65/minute to as low as Rs0.
“I think in many areas today if we don’t bypass some of the generational changes would be very difficult to implement because of the mindset. So C-Dot was setup as a group of young people dedicated to designing through indigenous development of the telecom switching systems and related products with focused on rural communication, digitisation of the telecom network and with a focus on building human capacity for telecom, software, computers all of that. We had some total of about 500 young engineers with average age of 23. I would say almost all of those people are now very important, in key positions in global ICT revolution everywhere all over the world. There were some very interesting activities we launched then and those were the seeds we planted.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Wednesday (Jan 23) recommended guidelines for rolling out mobile television services to the Information and Broadcasting Ministry on various issues related to licensing and technology. TRAI has suggested that the choice of broadcasting technology should be left to the service providers but should be recognised by an authorised body. There are broadly two routes for providing mobile television services. One is operated by using the telecom network with spectrum already allotted to Unified Access Service License (UASL) and Cellular Mobile Telephone Service (CMTS) licensees, and the other using broadcasting method using separate spectrum. According to TRAI, telecom operators with CMTS or UASL licenses will not require any further licence or permission for offering mobile television services on their own network using the frequency or spectrum already allotted to them.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Thursday (Jan 3) recommended open bidding process for granting licences for mobile television service in the country. Allocation of spectrum to mobile TV licensees should be automatic for successful bidders and should not require any further selection process. The FDI limit for mobile television service providers should be 74 per cent, it said.Releasing its recommendations on issues relating of mobile TV service here, TRAI said there were two routes for providing the services — one by using the telecom network with spectrum already allotted, and the other using the broadcasting method — and both can be used for launching the service. Telecom operators, having the Unified Access Services License (UASL) or the Cellular Mobile Telephony Service (CMTS) License, will not require any further licence or permission for offering mobile TV services on their own network using spectrum already allotted to them.
Diversifying Participation in Network Development The 2005 WDR research theme, Diversifying Participation in Network Development explores the evolving strategies used to extend the telecom network primarily to rural, high-cost areas. The objective of this cutting edge research is to identify successful strategies that can be replicated in other countries and to avoid unsuccessful ones. Light will be shed on these innovative approaches, looking at key experience to capture the range of possible sources, types and methods of investment funding for network development. The research is currently being developed by the WDR research community in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America. Who should attend?