Building on a long standing commitment of offering low cost mobile handsets, Nokia has announced initiatives to expand “that vision by introducing a number of devices and services that aim to bring the power of the Internet to these markets as well. The mobile device and the Internet are a powerful combination in connecting people with each other, accessing information, news, entertainment and sharing. By introducing products and services that are affordable, relevant and easy-to-use, we believe Nokia can fuel the growth of the Internet in emerging markets through mobility.”
See NOKIA press release.
See Ken Banks‘ (kiwanja.net) PCWorld article, Nokia: From Technical Development to Human Development?
Also see mobile use at the bottom of the pyramid research findings:
From DIRSI:
Mobile Opportunities: Poverty and Telephony Access in Latin America and the Caribbean
Click here for country reports.
From LIRNEasia:
ICT Infrastructure in Emerging Asia: Policy and Regulatory Roadblocks (edited by Rohan Samarajiva and Ayesha Zainudeen) Sage India/IDRC 2008
Rohan Samarajiva, Executive Director of LIRNEasia has been elected to the Board of the International Communication Association (ICA) for a three-year term. This duty will commence at the close of the 2009 ICA Conference, to be held in Chicago, from 21-25 May 09.
Click here for the current ICA Board & Executive Committee members.
Click here for information about the 59th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association.
Click here for information about the LIRNEasia pre-ICA conference event, Mobile 2.0: Beyond voice?
Read the rest of this entry »
Debra Aron from LECG and Northwestern University and Dr. Robert Crandall of the Brookings Institution and Criterion Economics have co-authored a white paper with entitled “Investment in Next Generation Networks and Wholesale Telecommunications Regulation.” Focussed on the Canadian experience, the White Paper discusses economic evidence and international experiences regarding the effect of unbundling obligations applied to next generation networks on broadband outcome measures such as investment and penetration. “Canada’s policy makers can encourage efficient investment, innovation, and competition, and thereby promote economic welfare and prosperity in Canada, by establishing a clear policy against expanding the ILECs’ unbundling obligations to new broadband networks.”
Download the full text (PDF format)
Read the rest of this entry »
Alison Gillwald, director of the Research ICT Africa (RIA!) network, in her article published in Business Day observes “the significance of the communications ministry’s decision to appeal against a recent high court ruling setting aside certain prohibitions in the telecommunications sector and the upholding of the automatic conversion of rights into the new licensing regime may have been lost.”
With the bottom three quintiles of South Africans paying close to 20% of their income on communications, according to a recent national survey by Research ICT Africa!, against 5% in peer economies, consumers and businesses may well ask what drives the continued defence of the policy of “managed liberalisation”, of which high prices and poor access are the outcome.
Click here to read the full Business Day article by Gillwald.
Click here to download the RIA policy brief: South Africa – Policy vs. Performance, ICT Access & Usage in South Africa (in .pdf)
Read the rest of this entry »
The organizers of the 3rd IEEE/ ACM International Conference on ICT and Development, ICTD2009 Conference (17-19 April 2009 at the Carnegie-Mellon campus in Doha, Qatar), would like to spur reflective dialogue among researchers and between researchers and development practitioners. Therefore a small number of panels will be chosen to be added to the program.
Panel proposals are invited that will add to the emerging ICTD discipline by having multiple points-of-view reflect on issues that affect the practice of ICTD research and its relationship to development practice. Therefore key assessment criteria we will use to evaluate the panel proposals are:
1. Does it reflect on a novel or unresolved issue in the practice of ICTD research?
2. Does it reflect on a novel or unresolved issue in disseminating or scaling the results of ICTD research into general practice?
3. Does it introduce challenges in the practice of development that ICTD research has yet to address adequately?
Deadline for proposals: 2 November 2009.
Click here to go to the ICTD2009 conference website.
Click here for author instructions.
See also post on Richard Heek’s IEEE Computer article on ICT4D 2.0.
Read the rest of this entry »
