Here is the answer to all those longed for a day when energy could be delivered without costly messy wires
Op-Ed Contributor - Satellites With Solar Panels Can Beam the Sun’s Energy to Earth. - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com
Science fiction? Actually, no — the technology already exists. A space solar power system would involve building large solar energy collectors in orbit around the Earth. These panels would collect far more energy than land-based units, which are hampered by weather, low angles of the sun in northern climes and, of course, the darkness of night.
Once collected, the solar energy would be safely beamed to Earth via wireless radio transmission, where it would be received by antennas near cities and other places where large amounts of power are used.…
Orascom Telecom - which is currently building a GSM/3G network in the secretive North Korea has apparently secured access to the mighty, if unfinished Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang. The company has been reported by the few foreign residents permitted into the country to be working on the very top of the 105 story building and installing equipment for its mobile network.
The Ryugyong Hotel dominates the Pyongyang landscape being by far the largest building in a city already full of monumental structures. Construction was started in 1987, and while the main structure is complete, the government cannot afford to finish off the structure. Construction work stopped in 1992 and the empty shell has been left since then.
Read more.
There’s nothing like increasing fuel prices to generate telecom-transportation tradeoff stories. This is very promising stuff for people like us live 3.5 hours flying time from anyplace important. But none of these innovations can work here until we get decent quality on our broadband links. Has anyone tried skype videoconferencing other than in Singapore or Europe?
As Travel Costs Rise, More Meetings Go Virtual - NYTimes.com
As travel costs rise and airlines cut service, companies large and small are rethinking the face-to-face meeting — and business travel as well. At the same time, the technology has matured to the point where it is often practical, affordable and more productive to move digital bits instead of bodies.
The emerging trend, analysts say, goes well beyond a reaction to rising…
Maldives is the South Asian country that has reached market saturation in mobiles. Now the game is services. According to the report below, they have introduced a new service to move money from bank machines into prepaid accounts. One wonders how many of Maldives citizens have bank accounts. If a great majority do, this can be a very useful service, in places like Male and Hulhumale where most Maldivians live and work. Not the greatest in remote atolls though.
Miadhu Online
Dhiraagu, the national telecom service provider, in collaboration with Bank of Maldives, has introduced ATM pre paid recharge service.
Speaking at the launching ceremony of the service, Dhiraagu’s Chief Executive Officer Ismail Rasheed said that the service is a 24 hours service and will prove extremely useful…
It is literally a child’s play getting a false UK passport, Frederick Forsyth said in 1972. In his bestselling thriller, The Day of the Jackal the protagonist used the birth certificate of a dead child to obtain a fake passport. Thirty two years later, BBC was not sure the loophole was plugged or not. Not sure how many mercenaries still benefit.
The UK passport cannot be the only document an interested party can manipulate. This issue is particularly interesting to Sri Lankan mobile owners, as the regulator now wants users to prove mobile ownership at omnipresent checkpoints to ensure ‘National Security’
While Tigo will be issuing a loyalty card bundled with an ownership certificate, Dialog GSM today announced a more tech-savvy approach. As claimed by a full…
Lin Sun is a Beijing-based consultant with more than 20 years’ experience with the Chinese telecom industry. Recently he has analysed the future of WiMAX in the backdrop of 3G in an atricle. Excerpts are stated bellow:
If speed is compromised, cost will become a serious concern. According to estimates, operator capex for WiMAX will be 20 percent to 50 percent higher than for HSDPA, a software-enabled overlay for sending data over 3G networks. At higher frequency, say 3.5 GHz, the number of WiMAX base stations must increase, as many as 50 percent more than for HSDPA, to cover the same area without signal degradation. This is the last thing Chinese operators want after already plunking down billions on 3G networks.
This is an old debate. Back in 1999, Larry Ellison and Bill Gates were debating this. Thin client computing, the one-laptop per child, etc are all variations on the theme. Our interest is in what differentiates a netbook from an advanced mobile phone?
Smaller PCs Cause Worry for Industry - NYTimes.com
The new computers, often called netbooks, have scant onboard memory. They use energy-sipping computer chips. They are intended largely for surfing Web sites and checking e-mail. The price is small too, with some selling for as little as $300.
The companies that pioneered the category were small too, like Asus and Everex, both of Taiwan.
Despite their wariness of these slim machines, Dell and Acer, two of the biggest PC manufacturers, are not about to let the upstarts have…
Dialog Telekom, Sri Lanka’s leading mobile communications service provider announced the launch of its 3G/HSPA service in Manipay Jaffna following the setting up of the 530th 3G Base Station in Manipay, Jaffna. Dialog Telekom earns the distinction of being the first mobile service provider to provide 3G services in Jaffna.
Dialog 3G will deliver the unique communication channel of video calling to customers in Jaffna who will now be able to have face to face conversations with their loved ones locally and internationally.
Read the full story in Daily Mirror here.
There is always a standards battle going on in telecom. The current fight is about LTE and WiMAX. Even though the main battlegrounds are the ITU, GSMA and various locations in the developed world, skirmishes will take place in places like India and Sri Lanka where WiMAX deployment has already started. This will be something to keep an eye on.
Wireless telecoms | Culture clash | Economist.com
Both 4G technologies promise wireless nirvana: fast, ubiquitous broadband. Once radio chips are cheap enough, they will crop up not just in handsets and laptops, but in devices such as digital cameras and electricity meters, which are unconnected today. But the telecoms and computer industries have very different ideas about how this should be done, and this explains the split…
In a previous post, I discussed the importance of making more services available online in order to exploit the telecom-transport tradeoff. My argument was based on the delays and waste caused by the poor transport system in Sri Lanka, exacerbated by the government’s eagerness to close roads at the drop of a security hat. According to the story below, e- commerce is rapidly gaining ground in the US, where roads are rarely closed but the price of fuel has increased (though still much cheaper in in purchasing-power terms than Sri Lanka).
To Save Gas, Shoppers Stay Home and Click - NYTimes.com
Online shopping is gaining at a time when simply filling up a gas tank to head to the mall can seem like a spending spree.
A…
A recent LIRNEasia media outreach effort timed to coincide with the upcoming SAARC Summit in Colombo has been picked up by AFP.
Leaving aside the question of the operators in the SAARC countries collectively lowering their termination rates to make possible more reasonable intra-SAARC call charges, the data also show that Pakistan has the overall lowest international telecom prices and Nepal has the highest. Hopefully, some of these prices will come down, now that the comparisons have been made!
South Asian leaders urged to slash telco tariffs - LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE
Calls were cheapest in Pakistan, where fixed and mobile phone users pay three US cents a minute to call many non-SAARC destinations, including the United States and Hong Kong.
But users pay 12 US cents to call Bangladesh and…
Dialog Telekom and Sri Lanka Telecom won the first and second places respectively among the Business Today’s Sri Lanka Top Ten business firms. President Mahinda Rajapaksa presented the awards at a function organized by the Business Today Magazine.
The recipients were Dr. Hans Wijesooriya of Dialog Telekom, Leisha De Silva of Sri Lanka Telecom, Harry Jayewardene of Distilleries and Aitken Spence, Sumithra Gunasekara of John Keells, Rajendra Thyagaraja of Hatton National Bank, Ravi Dias of Commercial Bank, Eran Wickremerathne of NDB Bank, Nustanfer Ali Khan of Ceylon Tobacco and Thila De Soysa of Bukit Darah.
Source: Colombopage
Tags: Ali Khan, Business Today Magazine, Commercial Bank, Dialog Telekom, Eran Wickremerathne, Hans Wijesooriya, Harry Jayewardene, Hatton National Bank, John Keells, Mahinda Rajapaksa, NDB Bank, Rajendra Thyagaraja, Ravi Dias, Sri Lanka Telecom.
Perhaps to the shock of those who wholeheartedly justified the new regulations on mobile and CDMA phones, it looks as if Telecommunication Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL) has decided ‘National Security’ can be compromised for another eight months. You still can afford not having a piece of paper (aka a license) to carry your phone through a check point.
We do not know how many terrorists will take advantage of TRCSL’s ‘flexibility’ or why TRCSL wanted to back off if that move were so essential for security reasons. All we know is this (temporary?) backing off will help at least one third of the population – those who don’t own the phones they use – at the bottom of the pyramid. Now a poor woman in…
The summary results of the Household Income and Expenditure Survey 2006/07 conducted by the Sri Lanka Department of Census and Statistics make interesting reading.
According to the latest HIES, an average household spends LKR 539 per month on communication (2.35 per cent of the total). We know that there are no subsidies here. In contrast, the monthly spend on education, which is free from kindergarten to undergraduate degree and beyond costs an average household LKR 632 per month (2.75 per cent of the total). How come?
For us at LIRNEasia, obviously the 2.35% is the more interesting number, especially because we have seen that people seem to be spending quite a bit more than that on communication. But I am sure most thinking Sri Lankans will have to…
Recent Comments