ictDATA.org

Going Digital in Bangladesh

2011-10-10T18:27:00.001+01:00

“Our vision is to make Bangladesh digital in 2021.”

The quote is from the Election Manifesto of the Awami League, elected to office in 2008 with Sheikh Hasina, daughter of Bangladesh's first president, becoming prime minister. The pledge sounds appealing but how do you make it happen especially in this South Asian nation of 167 million (IMF 2011) where bureaucracy, lines and hassles for citizens are ingrained. Change is starting to come through the Access to Information Programme or as it is widely known, A2I. This United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) supported project is led by the national director, the energetic M. Nazrul Islam Khan, Secretary to the Prime Minister. Mr. Khan is zealous in his desire to reduce hassles for ordinary citizens through the application of ICT to government services.

UISC services

Since its start in 2007, A2I has launched dozens of Quick Wins—citizen oriented e-services where pilots can be quickly implemented and successful ones scaled up. One example is the Union Information Service Center (UISC) which have been installed in all 4,498 of Bangladesh's Unions, the country's lowest administrative division. They were inaugurated with great fanfare in November 2010 by the Prime Minister and Helen Clark, former Prime Minister of New Zealand and head of the UNDP.

UISC entrepreneurs

Operated by a team of two entrepreneurs including at least one woman, the UISC offers services such as Internet access, e-mail, video calls, downloading forms, scanning, printing and digital photography. In addition the UISCs provide a growing number of value-added services such as mobile recharges and for the first time money transfers via mobile phones. There is also growing access to Bangla content. The entrepreneurs are responsible for operating costs and charge a fee for services to ensure sustainability. The initial equipment and a room were provided by local governments. The average revenue for a UISC was US$40 in July 2011, a little less than the average per capita income. Considering that the UISCs are less than a year old and the number of services is growing, the future looks positive for sustainability for most. Some three million people were making use of the UISCs with a target of 20 million people by 2016. The UISCs are essentially the main source of information services for Bangladesh's rural population who constitute about three quarters of the population.

Multimedia Classroom

The Multimedia Classroom uses a laptop with a projector and screen to assist teaching different subjects in secondary schools. It is an ideal tool for illustrating topics such as the respiratory system or the rotation of planets given the shortage of science laboratories and illustrated textbooks. Conceived as a Quick Win by the A2I staff and the Ministry of Education, the Asian Development Bank has been brought on board as partner to provide resources for teacher training. So far around 1,000 teachers have been trained with some 50,000 targeted over the next few years. The equipment is purchased by the schools. The Multimedia Classroom is the first step in Bangladesh's plans to eventually provide computer labs in all schools. According to a preliminary impact study of the Multimedia Classroom, the amount of Bangla content used in schools has increased significantly and students are more attentive.

e-Purjee

e-Purjee is a Quick Win aimed at the agricultural sector. It refers to the pink sheet of onionskin paper—the purjee—used for the last 200 years to inform sugar cane farmers of when to bring their product to the mill. The paper purjee often got lost or found its way to rent seeking middlemen. As a result some sugar cane farmers never received their purjee or had to pay for it. The mills suffered with a mismatch between supply and capacity. e-Purjee is an SMS-based system informing farmers to bring in their cane. Farmers can either register their mobile phone number—increasingly widespread in rural areas—or that of a relative or friend. After a successful trial, e-Purjee was extended to some 200,000 farmers and all 15 of the country's sugar cane mills. Sugar production rose 62% percent following the introduction of e-Purjee and farmers are benefitting from a more transparent system.

Another innovative application is the District E-Service Center (DESC). Bangladesh is divided into 64 districts. Citizens must apply at District Headquarters for various licenses and certificates. This had been burdensome with middlemen benefitting from a lack of transparency and district offices overwhelmed with the paper-based system. The DESC allows citizens to file requests online or directly at the District Center where the paperwork is scanned and entered into the system. Citizens are given a receipt or sent a tracking number by SMS.

District E-Service Center (DESC), Jessore

The DESC was piloted in the Jessore District and the results were impressive with the office able to handle a greater number of requests and turn them around much quicker than before. One reason is the new "dashboard" tool developed for the project used by district officers to monitor requests and investigate backlogs. The DESC has been implemented in ten districts with all 64 slated to receive the system by the end of 2011.

Results before and after introduction of DESC

As part of the DESC implementation, land records dating back many years are being digitized. That alone makes the project worthwhile just to avoid having to go retrieve old records from dusty archives. Stacked on shelves in multiple rooms the dark, brittle paper files look like they are slowly disappearing. A fire would be a disaster and few people know the filing system; if they are not around it can take hours to retrieve a file.

E-services are leveraging on growing mobile access—80 million subscriptions at August 2011 according to the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission and according to the Bureau of Statistics, a household penetration rate of 64% in 2010 (up from just 11% in 2005). For example there is a mobile application for university admissions. Instead of having to travel to a university to provide application forms and other supporting documents and take needed tests, students can now just send an SMS. This allows them to apply to more than one university--which was almost impossible before because of the need to physically visit one school. The SMS-based admissions results is popular where around 1/2 million students a year take the Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) examination. They no longer have to face large travel and accommodation costs and the hassle of traveling hundreds of kilometers. Instead they just send their HSC results via a mobile phone and get a reservation for the university exam. Application fees are deducted from the applicant's mobile phone account. Following the successful piloting of the SMS registration, 28 post secondary educational institutions implemented the system in 2010. Another application allows people to pay their utility bills using their mobile phone.

A2I has pursued an innovative bottom up, people-centered strategy, a more pragmatic approach within the realities of Bangladesh than a traditional top-down process reengineering solution. If A2I had tried a top down model, it would have taken years to implement and would have met opposition from bureaucratic apathy, lack of incentives to change and resistance from those benefitting from the rent-seeking opportunities caused by deficiencies in transparency. A2I has dealt with ingrained resistance through an inclusive approach, creating a network of champions by assigning focal points in ministries and asking each to propose one Quick Win. The idea caught on and ministries are even competing for the best e-services in annual digital fairs. The influence of being in the Prime Minister's Office helps, particularly in getting the government to increase the share of the budget for ICT, up 200% since the 2006-07 fiscal year.

One impediment to Digital Bangladesh is a lack of broadband access in rural areas. Although mobile networks have nationwide coverage, W-CDMA based mobile broadband has yet to be launched. So most UISC connections are via low speed GPRS or at best EDGE. This inhibits the kind of e-services that can be provided. For example, the British Council had to retrofit its web-based English language training module to run on a scaled down PC version due to a lack of rural connectivity. An auction for 3G spectrum is planned but it may be years for mobile broadband to reach rural areas. Mobile operators will look to recuperate what they spent on the auction by focussing on high value urban locations instead of rural areas which they perceive as not being profitable. One approach would be to allow operators to use their existing spectrum for mobile broadband. This technologically neutral approach would likely get mobile broadband to rural areas faster but will reduce the value of the upcoming spectrum-dependent 3G auction.

The DOEL-Bangladesh's 1st laptop

The country is progressing to Digital Bangladesh on other fronts. It has a growing software sector with some 400 members of the Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS) generating US$35 million of exports in 2009-10. It has also launched its first home made laptop. Called the DOEL after the national bird, it is priced in the range of Tk. 10,000 to Tk. 20,000 (US$131-262) depending on configuration.

Other developing nations could benefit from the grass roots A2I approach, particularly where there is ingrained resistance to top-down e-government implementation. The Digital Bangladesh vision is encapsulated in the video below (in Bangla) which shows the future through the eyes of a schoolboy who uses a tablet to communicate with school and his grandmother's doctor and a jute farmer who uses a smartphone to manage his business.

Suggested citation: "Going Digital in Bangladesh." ictDATA.org. October 2011.

From the author's observations during a field visit in August 2011 and background documents provided by A2I.

A2I website: http://www.a2i.pmo.gov.bd
UNDP Bangaldesh website: http://www.undp.org.bd/projects/proj_detail.php?pid=31
Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission website: http://www.btrc.gov.bd
Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics website: http://www.bbs.gov.bd

Africa’s ICT Infrastructure: Building on the Mobile Revolution

2011-07-01T17:47:00.000+01:00

One of most comprehensive reports ever on Africa's ICT infrastructure. It covers the recent history of the telecommunications market in Africa reviewing such issues as prices, access, the performance of the networks, and the regulatory reforms that have triggered much of the investment. It compares network performance across the region explaining why some countries have moved so much more quickly than others in providing affordable telecommunications services. Africa's ICT Infrastructure explores the financial side of the telecommunications revolution detailing how the massive investments have been
financed and which companies have most influenced the sector. The report also looks at the future of Africa's ICT sector, addressing some of the main policy questions that it faces: How far will the expansion of mobile voice networks go under the current policy regime? How much of the population is likely to be living outside the region’s commercially viable zones? Is it commercially viable to provide broadband Internet to broad segments of the population, in addition to large businesses and high-income individuals? Is there any way in which broadband Internet will develop into a mass-market service in Africa?

Click more information.

Cable Broadband Brief

2011-06-24T19:28:00.001+01:00

North America has half the world’s cable modem subscriptions

Cable modem technology has the biggest impact in Singapore

Broadband access over cable television networks (“cable broadband”) occupies a unique niche in high-speed Internet access markets. While not as popular as DSL or as glamorous as fiber optic, cable broadband nevertheless is a significant high-speed Internet technology in certain countries and regions. It is also an important source of intermodal competition.

Cable broadband has a number of attractions. Advertized speeds are generally faster than the Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) technology used over wired telephone networks. In the high-income members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), advertized cable broadband speeds are twice as fast as DSL (see chart). Version 3.0 of the Data over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) supports download speeds of 160 Megabits per second (Mbit/s). A speed test of a cable broadband connection in Washington DC indicates download bandwidth of 25 Mbit/s, faster than 96% of Internet connections in the US (see chart).

There is a significant base of cable television subscriptions in some countries. China and India have a quarter of a billion cable television households between them. But the ability to provide cable broadband requires upgraded cable plant. In many developing countries, there are hundreds of small analog cable television networks without the scope to make the necessary investment to provide broadband services. In some countries, regulatory barriers inhibit cable operators from providing broadband. What would have been attractive Greenfield sites in Africa and the Middle East have instead largely opted for satellite delivered multichannel television. In other countries new operators deploying wired networks are going straight to fiber broadband and offering Internet Protocol TV (IPTV).

Despite these challenges cable broadband remains significant. It is the second largest fixed broadband technology after DSL accounting for around one in every five fixed broadband subscriptions. At the beginning of 2011, there were 98 million cable modem subscriptions around the world. Just over half are in North America and almost one quarter in Europe. There are hardly any in Africa or the Middle East. Although the proportion of cable modem subscriptions has shrank due to growing fiber optic connections, nevertheless it continues to grow in absolute terms—12% a year between 2005-2010.

Three metrics are useful to analyzing cable modem subscriptions :

As a % of total fixed broadband subscriptions—measure of impact
As a % of households—measure of penetration
As a % of cable television subscriptions—measure of take-up (in some markets there are more cable modem subscriptions than cable television households due to business subscriptions)

A few countries are in the top ten in all of these metrics (see infographic). Singapore stands out, ranking first or second in all three indicators. The island state provides ideal conditions for cable broadband. Wireline competition is essentially limited to the DSL service of the incumbent Singapore Telecom. Second, cable television has been the only multichannel viewing option since direct to home satellite dishes are forbidden except under certain conditions. The island’s cable provider StarHub has responded to these opportunities by upgrading its network to the latest technologies. It was the first in the world to offer 100 Mbit/s download speeds using cable modem technology when it implemented DOCSIS 3.0 in 2006.

Several other countries—Chile, Israel, Malta and the USA—are also among the top-ranked nations in cable broadband metrics. All have dynamic cable operators that have been aggressive in upgrading their networks and competing for broadband consumers with incumbent telephone operators. Operators in all these countries offer 100 Mbit/s cable broadband services, though prices and value differ widely (see chart).

It seems unlikely that cable broadband will make fresh inroads in new markets where it does not exist. But for countries that do have the cable broadband option, it helps to diversify the high-speed market and provide consumers with additional options.

“Average advertised download speeds, by technology” on the OECD Broadband Portal

Cable Labs. “DOCSIS 3.0 CMTSs and Cable Modems Achieve 'Firsts'.” Press Release, May 9, 2008.

“TV Receive-Only” on the Singapore Media Development Authority website

StarHub. “Singapore Becomes First Country in the World to Commercially Launch 100Mbps Residential Broadband Service Nation-wide Using DOCSIS 3.0 Technology.” Press Release, 27 December 2006.

Suggested citation: ictDATA.org. "Cable Broadband Brief." June 2011.

Click here to download a PDF of this article.

OECD: Tomorrow's Internet about Things

2011-06-24T05:52:00.002+01:00

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has issued its bi-annual Communications Outlook. As usual the Outlook is packed with a wealth of information and analysis about mobile and broadband developments in its member countries. It notes the growth in mobile broadband, fuelled by inexpensive, flat-rate mobile data plans and proliferation of smartphones and tablets. A related press release cites the Republic of Korea as being the top-ranked mobile broadband country followed by Nordic nations.

Analyst Taylor Reynolds discusses the impact of the Internet in the clip below and predicts that the Internet of tomorrow will be the Internet of "things" with devices like electricity meters increasingly communicating information over broadband networks.

Half the developing world's social networkers do not use Facebook

2011-06-07T23:43:00.002+01:00

Facebook will welcome the admission of South Africa to the grouping of the world's key emerging markets (Brazil, Russia, India and China). Not only does South Africa add an "S" to the end of the club's name, but the group now has one country where Facebook is the dominant online social network. Although Facebook has recently overtaken ortkut in India, other social network applications have a significant lead over Facebook in Brazil (orkut), Russia (VK) and China (Qzone). There are some 408 million users of social networking in the BRICS out which 364 million use Qzone, VK or orkut and only 44 million use Facebook. Total social networking users in the developing world number 661 million. This means that over half the developing world's social networkers do not use Facebook.

The infographic below shows the number of Internet and social network users in the BRICS drawing on a range of primary sources:

The Brazilian national statistical agency IBGE reported 68 million Internet users aged 10 and over in 2009. This is equivalent to 42% of the 10+ population or 35% when divided by the entire population. orkut reported 24 million active users while there are 13 million Facebook users; these two social networks are used by 55% of Brazilian Internet surfers.
The Public Opinion Foundation (POF) reported that 47 million adult Russians used the Internet in the third quarter of 2010 (40% of adult population and 33% of total population). Vkontakte (VK) is the top social network site with 28 million users in August 2010 according to ComScore. Facebook has four million users in Russia.
The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) reported 71 million "claimed" Internet users in urban India (aged 8+) at September 2009. Some 40 million Indians access the Facebook and orkut social networking sites.
According to the latest report from the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) there were 420 million net citizens age six and over in June 2010. Tencent, the parent of the largest Chinese social networking site Qzone, reported 459 million active accounts in June 2010. This figure exceeds the number of Internet users (due to duplicate and overseas accounts). A market research report by a Swiss bank found that Qzone was used by 70% of Chinese Internet users or 294 million people. Facebook is virtually non-existent in China with less than 700,000 users. It should be noted that CNNIC reported that only half of Chinese surfers used social exchange web sites; the inconsistency with the Credit Suisse figure could be due to usage overlap. For example 72% of Chinese Internet citizens use instant messaging which is likely carried out within the Qzone QQ IM service.
There were 6.1 million adult Internet users in South Africa in December 2010 according to the South African Advertizing Research Foundation (SAARF). Around four million use Facebook for a reach of 8% of the population which is the exact same proportion reported by SAARF for users of social networking.

Suggested citation: "Half the developing world's social networkers do not use Facebook." ictDATA.org. 7 June, 2011.

References (all links active at June 2011)

China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC). 2010. Statistical Report on Internet Development in China. July.

comScore, Inc. 2010. “Russia Has Most Engaged Social Networking Audience Worldwide.” Press Release, October 20. .

Credit Suisse. 2011. Tencent Holdings. May 17.

Facebook Ads.

Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI). 2010. I-Cube 2009-2010: Internet in India. April 5.

International Monetary Fund (IMF). 2011. World Economic Outlook Database. April.

Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE). 2010. “Tecnologia da informação e comunicação.” In Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios - 2009.

orkut. “Advertise on orkut: Reach the precise audience you want on one of India’s most visited websites.”

———. “Anuncie no orkut: Alcance o seu público-alvo em um dos sites mais visitados do Brasil.”

Public Opinion Foundation (POF). 2010. “The Internet in Russia. Fall 2010.” Press Release, December 15.

South African Advertising Research Foundation (SAARF). “Internet Trends.”

Monaco Tops in Facebook Penetration

2011-03-15T04:39:00.005Z

When I think of Monaco, casinos, Princess Grace (Kelly) and a famous aquarium come to mind. Now I have to start thinking social networking since the the world's highest Facebook penetration is found in this tiny, French-speaking Mediterranean principality. Some seven out of ten Monegasques use the popular social networking application. It's so popular that Monaco Telecom even offers a mobile phone plan with unlimited Facebook access.

One notable aspect of countries with high Facebook penetration is that they tend to be small and islands. Facebook opens up a huge virtual world to these places where having a small population or being surrounded by water can create a sense of isolation. While opportunities for relationships may be limited in the real world, with Facebook there are potentially millions of cyber friends.

There were some 645 million people around the world using Facebook in March 2011 or almost one in ten people. The US has the most Facebook users and accounts for almost a quarter of the world total. What is surprising is that Indonesia is second with 35 million. Some nine out of ten Indonesian Internet users use Facebook and most do so through mobile phones. Other developing countries rounding out the top ten include Turkey, the Philippines, India and Mexico.

Suggested citation: "Monaco Tops in Facebook Penetration." ictData.org. 15 March 2011.

Contact us if you would like to purchase the full data set (data for 209 countries).

Egypt ICT

2011-02-07T05:15:00.003Z

[Click to enlarge]

Top SMS 2009

2010-10-19T23:45:00.007+01:00

The Philippines is still on top in the latest ranking of leading SMS countries. There have been some interesting changes since the last benchmark (see 2003 ranking). Text messaging has tripled in the Philippines with a whopping 609 SMS per subscriber per month in 2009. The USA enters the ranking at second with skyrocketing use of text messaging from just 8 per user per month in 2003 to 408 in 2009. This can be attributed to add-on packages for SMS where users get unlimited text messaging for a flat monthly fee. Singapore, Malta, Croatia and Norway have dropped out of the top ten replaced by Venezuela, Lithuania and Portugal. Another drop out is Japan where text messaging has been eclipsed by mobile e-mail. Care must be taken in interpreting these statistics since they may not reflect a relatively high intensity of non-voice use because users are more "tech-savvy". In many instances, SMS is used because it is a cheaper alternative than a voice call. When the price of voice calls decline, the use of text messaging often goes down.

Top 10 countries by SMS per user per month, 2009

Note: Philippines and Indonesia based on largest mobile operators. USA refers to H2 2009. Ireland refers to Q4 2009. Korea refers to South Korea's KTF at February. SMS per user per month calculated as: Number of SMS for 2009 / Average mobile subscriptions in 2009 / 12.
Suggested citation: "Top SMS 2009." www.ictDATA.org. IBSN: 000-1-05-2010. http://www.ictdata.org/2010/10/top-sms-2009.html. [Extracted dd-mm-yyyy].
Contact for additional information about this table or purchasing data set covering additional countries and years.

ICTs, enterprise and the poor

2010-10-15T05:10:00.000+01:00

The 2010 Information Economy Report from UNCTAD focuses on ICTs, enterprises and the poor. It examines the ways ICTs are being used to assist those with low incomes. The report includes a conceptual framework classifying different types of ICT use and their impact on poverty (figure below). This includes non-economic and economic uses. The report features several examples of economic uses of ICTs among lower income populations:

• In Kenya, farmers are using Kilimo Salama (Swahili for “safe farming”) to insure against the weather. Already home to the popular M-Pesa mobile money system, Kilimo Salama introduces a new financial application for mobile phone users in Kenya—an example of “direct economic use of ICTs by the poor” in the UNCTAD framework. Whenever a farmer buys agricultural inputs such as seeds or fertilizer, they can choose to also purchase insurance (5% of what they paid for the inputs). Confirmation of the insurance contract is sent by SMS and the mobile is also used to check coverage details and receive compensation.
• In Bangladesh, managers of Internet cafes supported by Grameen—the country's largest mobile operator—are generating incomes of $3-4 per day where over half of the population lives on less than $1.25 per day. The Community Information Centres use Grameen's high-speed wireless network for their Internet connectivity. This is an example of “direct use of ICTs by poor in ICT sector enterprises” in the UNCTAD framework.
• In southern India, "Fisher Friend" provides a variety of information to those who fish for a livelihood. It uses mobile phones to send weather information, prices and information about where schools of fish have been located. Signals can be reached up to 12 km out to sea. This example illustrates UNCTAD's "Direct use of ICTs by poor in enterprises."

“An important lesson emerging from available research is the need for policies to reflect the diversity of ICTs, enterprises and the poor. ICTs vary in terms of their accessibility to the poor, their functionality and requirements of users. Many people who run micro-enterprises in low-income economies cannot read or write. Therefore, programmes need to make innovative use of voice-based telecommunications interfaces and of proxies such as infomediaries. Moreover, the need for information and other inputs varies depending on the size, industry and market orientation of enterprises. As a result, so does the extent to which different enterprises may benefit from improved access to certain ICTs. The poor similarly differ in the degree and nature of their poverty, whether they live in urban or rural areas, with regard to literacy and other capabilities, by gender and in terms of the natural and political environment surrounding them. All these factors mean that policy interventions – to be effective and reach intended beneficiaries – must be demand-driven and context-specific.”

UNCTAD. 2010. Information Economy Report: ICTs, Enterprises and Poverty Alleviation.

SaMobilized

2010-09-24T05:32:00.011+01:00

[click to enlarge]

Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) recently published a survey on the Pacific Independent State of Samoa. [1] The survey includes data showing that penetration of mobile phones in Samoan households reached 94% in 2009, higher than many developed countries. In fact, mobile phones are the most prevalent consumer item in a Samoan home, with a greater penetration than even radios and TVs.

Samoa reached this milestone some 12 years after launching its first mobile network. Telecom Samoa Cellular Limited (TSCL), a joint venture between the government and Telecom New Zealand deployed an analog AMPS network in July 1997. Household penetration grew slowly, rising only around one percent a year through 2001. Penetration grew a little faster after that due to conversion to a digital AMPS network and price cuts in anticipation of a second mobile operator. Since TSCL had an exclusive ten-year license, the government had to negotiate a "Deed of Settlement" in 2005 where TSCL surrendered its exclusivity in exchange for the right to provide GSM and to have its own international gateway. [2] Two GSM licenses were awarded in the first half of 2006 to TSCL and Digicel, a pan-Caribbean operator owned by Irish investors making its first foray into the Pacific. However Digicel ended up purchasing Telecom New Zealand's stake in TSCL. This made sense since it kept the company private allowing state-owned fixed line operator SamoaTel to enter the mobile market in 2007. The rest is history, with Samoa's mobile penetration skyrocketing following the introduction of competition. In 2010, the government announced its intention to privatize 75% of SamoaTel.

The benefits of mobile competition for small island developing states was analyzed in a presentation made in 2004 at the Pacific Telecommunications Council. [3] Samoa, with some 24,000 households, is a shining example that a small market can sustain competition.

[1] Ministry of Health, Samoa Bureau of Statistics, Apia, Samoa and ICF Macro, Calverton, Maryland, USA. 2010. Samoa Demographic and Health Survey 2009.

[2] The "Deed of Settlement" is discussed in: Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. Annual Report 2005/2006.

[3] Markets, Monopoly and Mobile. For another recent article about ICTs in small island states, see: Sutherland, Ewan, Ubiquity Broadband Service in Small Island Developing States (April 13, 2010). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1588626

Sir Donald Maitland

2010-08-22T18:56:00.008+01:00

Sir Donald Maitland, the Scottish diplomat, has passed away. He is best known in the ICT world as the Chairman of the Independent Commission for World-Wide Telecommunications Development. The Commission was responsible for producing The Missing Link in 1984. The report was seminal in highlighting the huge gap in telecommunications around the world:
“...we concluded unanimously that the gross and growing imbalance in the distribution of telecommunications throughout the world was not tolerable...neither in the name of common humanity nor on grounds of common interest is such a disparity acceptable.”

During that pre-Internet time, telecommunications referred to the fixed line telephone and broadcasting which were seen as key factors “... in economic, commercial and social activity and as a prime source of cultural enrichment.” At the time of the report, ¾'s of the some 600 million telephones were in nine developed nations. The link has been found in mobile: a quarter century after the report was published there were 4.6 billion mobile subscriptions with China and India alone accounting for over ¼. More importantly The Missing Link will be remembered for its ground breaking impact of raising awareness among policy-makers about the importance of telecommunications for “enjoying the full benefits of the so-called ‘information society’.”

Independent Commission for World-Wide Telecommunications Development. 1984. The Missing Link. Geneva: ITU.
"Sir Donald Maitland." The Telegraph. 25 August 2010.
"Remembering Donald Maitland." ITU News. September 2010.

More Mobiles than People

2010-07-24T17:12:00.009+01:00

At the end of 2009, mobile phone subscriptions exceeded the population in 76 economies; in two economies—the UAE and Montenegro—there were more than two mobile phone subscriptions per inhabitant.

How can the number of mobile phone subscriptions exceed the population?

Having more than one subscription. Some users opt to have more than one subscription perhaps because they want one personal number and one business number, or they have one voice and one broadband subscription or they want to avail themselves of cheaper calling rates for on-net calls.
Double counting. Some users may have stopped using one mobile network and switched to another but the original operator continues to report them as active.
Machine subscriptions. A growing number of devices ranging from Automatic Teller Machines to beverage dispensers use mobile networks to transmit payment information.

Using mobile subscription data to compare countries can be misleading. Take Europe, where a special survey was conducted in 2008 to determine the number of people between the ages of 16-74 who use mobile phones. [1] Iceland and Norway occupied the top two positions yet they only rank 26th and 24th respectively in mobile subscription penetration (out of 31 countries). On the other hand, Greece and Italy, which rank 1st and 2nd in mobile subscription penetration, only rank 26th and 15th in mobile user penetration.

It is undoubtedly better to compare mobile performance using the percentage of people who use a mobile phone but most countries do not compile this data. Another alternative is to use the percentage of households with a mobile phone where the availability is better but still not as complete as mobile subscription data.

EUROSTAT. "Special module 2008: Individuals - Use of advanced services: Use of mobile phone" in Information society statistics at http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/information_society/data/database.

Speedy Moldova

2010-07-22T19:49:00.017+01:00

The landlocked central European Republic of Moldova, once part of the Soviet Union, ranks high in several broadband infrastructure metrics. It is 17th in the percentage of homes with fiber access and according to Speedtest.net, Moldova has the 5th fastest Internet download speed in the world. Dial-up access is close to being eliminated, falling from almost three quarters of fixed Internet subscriptions in 2006 to less than ten percent by the end of 2009. Moldova's success should provide encouragement to other countries since it shows that a newcomer can crack into the top of ICT infrastructure rankings.

Nonetheless, overall broadband accessibility in Moldova remains relatively low compared to other European nations and there is a big gap between the capital and other parts of the country. Some 43% of homes in the capital Chisinau had broadband access at the end of 2009 compared to 17% for the country as a whole.

Reference: ANRCETI. 2010. Report On Activity of the National Regulatory Agency for Electronic Communications and Information Technology and Evolution of Electronic Communications Markets in 2009.

Broadband in the BRICs

2010-07-21T05:22:00.004+01:00

Brazil, Russia, India & China are among the largest and most influential developing countries and as a group they are important for understanding emerging market trends. The table below shows how they compare in broadband household penetration. Russia, China and Brazil are fairly close together whereas India is significantly behind. Despite the importance of broadband, national statistics agencies in the BRIC countries do not compile regular figures. Data for Russia are from an ICT consultancy, China's statistic comes from the largest incumbent broadband operator, the figures for Brazil are produced by its Internet Steering Committee and the number for India was forecast by the sector regulator.

Redefining broadband

2010-07-21T04:15:00.010+01:00

The United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has redefined its definition of broadband. [1] The FCC had used 200 kilo bits per second (kbps) as the threshold and has now increased this by a factor of 20 to 4 Mega bits per second (Mbps). India has proposed that 3-4 Mbps be used as the broadband threshold in a consultation paper arguing "that many bandwidth hungry applications are not getting developed as they see no business model due to restrictive capacity of the Internet in India". [2]

This trend towards higher thresholds for the definition of broadband suggests that the speed used by international organizations—256 kbps—is becoming out of touch with national goalposts and should be reexamined. [3] Nevertheless, most countries do not provide an explicit speed for broadband in their statistics and instead use general criteria such as "always-on" Internet connections or service categories (ADSL, cable modem).

This post will be updated to add the broadband definitions used by different countries as they become available.

See earlier post about this subject.

[1] "In determining whether broadband is being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion, this Sixth Report takes the overdue step of raising the minimum speed threshold for broadband from services in “excess of 200 kilobits per second (kbps) in both directions”—a standard adopted over a decade ago in the 1999 First Broadband Deployment Report ... As an alternative benchmark for this year’s report, and given that this year’s inquiry was conducted in conjunction with the National Broadband Plan proceeding, we find it appropriate and reasonable to adopt instead the minimum speed threshold of the national broadband availability target proposed in the National Broadband Plan. The National Broadband Plan recommends as a national broadband availability target that every household in America have access to affordable broadband service offering actual download (i.e., to the customer) speeds of at least 4 Mbps and actual upload (i.e., from the customer) speeds of at least 1 Mbps. This target was derived from analysis of user behavior, demands this usage places on the network, and recent experience in network evolution." See: FCC. July 20, 2010. SIXTH BROADBAND DEPLOYMENT REPORT. http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-10-129A1.doc

[2] "Extrapolating this trend and considering that a household connection is generally used by 3 to 4 persons, the bandwidth requirement per connection is expected to be minimum of 3 to 4 Mbps per household in very near future to support emerging applications." See: TRAI. June 10, 2010. Consultation Paper on National Broadband Plan.

http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/trai/upload/ConsultationPapers/202/consultationon10june10.pdf

[3] The ITU and OECD define broadband as 256 kbps. See: ITU. March 2010. Definitions of World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators. http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/handbook.html and "OECD Broadband Portal" at: http://www.oecd.org/sti/ict/broadband

Broadband homes, 2009

2010-07-11T19:26:00.013+01:00

Apologists for the position of the United States in broadband subscriptions per 100 people rankings fault per capita penetration as misleading. The Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies writes:

"... the fallacy of relying on the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) broadband ranks as a meaningful indicator of U.S. broadband performance ... any argument ... the U.S. is somehow "falling behind" must be met with great skepticism ... one reason per-capita connections are an invalid measure of broadband penetration is that each country has its own unique maximum value for the measure (all share zero as the minimum). " [1]

An indicator such as the percentage of households with broadband access overcomes limitations of per capita measurements since there is a clear minimum (zero) and maximum (100). Based on that indicator, the United States ranks 15th.

Iceland ranks first with 87% of its homes having broadband access in 2009. [2] Korea ranks second. According to official government data, 81.2% of Korean households had Internet access of which practically all used broadband.[3] This is in contrast to figures that have been floating around putting Korean household broadband penetration as high as 95%—curious how that originated!

[1] Phoenix Center. "OECD DATA CONTINUES TO MISLEAD ABOUT U.S. BROADBAND STANDING." Press Release, July 7, 2010. http://www.phoenix-center.org/perspectives/Perspective10-05PressReleaseFinal.pdf.

[2] 90% of Icelandic homes have Internet access of which 97% use broadband. See: Statistics Iceland. 2009. Use of computers and the Internet by households and individuals 2009. https://statice.is/lisalib/getfile.aspx?ItemID=10022

[3] Korea Internet and Security Agency. 2009. Survey on the Internet Usage. http://isis.nida.or.kr/eng/board/?pageId=040100&bbsId=10&itemId=310

EIU 2010 Digital economy rankings

2010-06-30T04:23:00.001+01:00

EIU. 2010. Digital Economy Rankings 2010: Beyond e-readiness.
http://www.eiu.com/site_info.asp?info_name=digitaleconomy_2010&page=noads&rf=0

Iceland tops 2009 Internet user ranking

2010-06-29T14:21:00.013+01:00

Little Iceland ranks first for 2009 in the percentage of population that uses the Internet. Some 93% of Icelanders between the ages of 16-74 used the Internet at least once within the last three months. Other Nordic countries, namely Norway and Sweden, follow Iceland in the rankings, also with Internet penetration rates over 90%. Somewhat surprisingly, the United States only ranks 25th in Internet penetration. According to the US Census Bureau, 68.4% of Americans aged 3 and over used the Internet in 2009. This is the lowest of any developed Anglophone country except for Ireland.

Click on chart to enlarge

Note: Canada: 16+ used in last year. New Zealand: 15+ used in last year. Korea (Rep.): 6+ used once a month. Japan: 6+. Israel: 13+, ever used, Jewish community. Australia: 15+. Switzerland: 14+ used in last 6 months. Taiwan: 15+ ever used. Hong Kong: 10+ used in last year. Singapore: 7+, used in the last year. United States: 3+. ALL OTHERS, AGES 16-74 USED IN LAST 3 MONTHS.

Source: ictDATA.org adapted from national statistical offices or ICT agencies (except Israel: TNS/Teleseker).

Countries with Mobile Number Portability

2010-06-02T02:48:00.008+01:00

Economies with mobile number portability (MNP), status March 2010

Mobile broadband conundrum

2010-05-17T15:34:00.015+01:00

Taking the statistics at face value, the number of mobile broadband subscriptions around the world exceeded fixed broadband subscriptions in mid-2009. According to the GSM Association, there were 521 million mobile broadband subscriptions in the second quarter of 2009. [1] According to Point-Topic there were 444 million fixed broadband subscriptions during the same period. [2]

However most fixed broadband subscriptions tend to be active. That is users pay a fixed monthly fee and are likely then to be using the service. On the other hand, many mobile broadband operators report the theoretical number of subscriptions--that is users with a broadband enabled handset that could use the service, whether they are using it or not. The difference between reported and active mobile broadband subscriptions is significant. According to European Union data, only 42 per cent of the 173 million mobile broadband subscriptions reported on 1 July 2009 were active. [3] In the United States, the official number of mobile broadband subscriptions dropped by 58 per cent between June and December 2008 after the definition was changed to count only active subscribers. [4]

Applying the EU ratio of total to actual mobile broadband subscriptions to the world total results in a guesstimate of 217 million mobile broadband subscriptions in mid-2009, just less than half of total fixed subscriptions.

The OECD has recently issued a methodological document with recommendations for the definitions of mobile broadband. It defines active mobile broadband subscriptions as “…voice subscriptions which also provide access to the larger Internet via HTTP at advertised speeds of at least 256 kbit/s and which have been used to make an Internet data connection using Internet Protocol (IP) in the previous three months” or “…dedicated data subscriptions on mobile networks advertising speeds of at least 256 kbit/s which are purchased separately from voice services either as a stand-alone service (modem/dongle) or as an add-on data package to a voice service requiring an additional subscription.”[5]

[1] GSMA Association. October 19, 2009. "Market Data Summary [Q2 2009]." GSM World. http://www.gsmworld.com/newsroom/market-data/market_data_summary.htm. [Accessed 1 April 2010]

[2] Fiona Vanier. September 2009. World Broadband Statistics: Q2 2009. Point Topic: London.

[3] European Commission. 18 November 2009. Broadband access in the EU: situation at 1 July 2009.

[4] Federal Communications Commission. 2010. High-Speed Services for Internet Access: Status as of December 31, 2008.

[5] Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. March 18, 2010. Wireless Broadband Indicator Methodology.

Wireless homes in the USA and health

2010-05-13T06:00:00.017+01:00

A recent Center for Disease Control (CDC) survey found that 25.6 percent of all US households had only a wireless telephone in the last half of 2009, up from 8.6 at the beginning of 2006. [1] The percentage of US households with a mobile phone was 82.7 in the second half of 2009, up from 56.1 in the second half of 2006.

The share of US households with a mobile phone is higher than Canada or Mexico. However a number of countries in the Western Hemisphere have a higher penetration than the US including Colombia and Paraguay. In South Africa, site of the 2010 football World Cup, there are slightly more homes with a mobile phone than the US.

Neither the US Census Bureau nor the Federal Communications Commission compile this data. It may seem strange that the CDC collects these statistics but they need to track what kind of phone respondents have in order to follow-up health surveys. As the CDC notes, telephone based surveys that only query those with a fixed telephone line can produce misleading results:

"The potential for bias due to undercoverage remains a real and growing threat to surveys conducted only on landline telephones...for health-related behaviors, health care service use indicators, and health care access measures, caution is warranted when using landline surveys to draw inferences about subpopulations more likely to be wireless-only (such as young or low-income adults)."

While the CDC carries out surveys on US home telephone ownership, Measure DHS carries out demographic and health surveys on a global basis in many developing nations. As part of the section on household characteristics, there is data on the percentage of homes with a mobile phones.

The CDC and Measure DHS surveys are valuable sources of information for data on household mobile phone penetration. This medical connection for mobile phone statistics is in turn linked to the potential for mobile phones to help health. One m-health application is sending a text message reminding people about their doctor appointment. A study from Imperial College in the UK found that sending an SMS reminder resulted in a 38% reduction in no shows. If more people went to the doctor when they are scheduled to, it could save the UK health system millions: unfulfilled appointments are estimated to waste almost £800 million a year! [2]

While there is significant potential for mobile phones to help health, there is also a fear that they may be harming health. A major study involving some 200,000 mobile phone users over a number of years is being conducted by the same Imperial College mentioned above to see if mobile phones are "...linked to long-term health effects such as brain cancer and neurodegenerative diseases." [3]

[1] Blumberg SJ, Luke JV. "Wireless substitution: Early release of estimates from the National Health Interview Survey, July–December 2009." National Center for Health Statistics. May 2010. Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhis.htm

[2] Koshy, Elizabeth, Josip Car, and Azeem Majeed. 2008. "Effectiveness of mobile-phone short message service (SMS) reminders for ophthalmology outpatient appointments: Observational study." BMC Ophthalmology 8, no. 1: 9. doi:10.1186/1471-2415-8-9. http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2415/8/9

[3] Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research Programme. "New Mobile Phone Research Announced." Press Release. June 6, 2008. http://www.mthr.org.uk

WEF 2010 Network Readiness Index (NRI)

2010-03-26T03:32:00.004Z

WEF/INSEAD. 2010. Global Information Technology Report 2009-2010.
http://www.networkedreadiness.com/gitr

2010 ITU ICT Development Index (IDI)

2010-02-24T04:14:00.004Z

ITU. 2010. Measuring the Information Society 2010.
http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/publications/idi/2010/index.html

Reinventing the Classroom

2009-09-15T18:58:00.012+01:00

In 2005, Nicholas Negroponte of MIT Labs demonstrated a prototype of a low-cost computer aimed at poor children in developing countries at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). This initiative evolved into the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) programme with the vision of providing every school child in a developing country with their own computer. The “XO" laptop developed by OLPC is specifically made for primary school students in developing nations including local language support and a rugged design with no movable parts and designed for the extreme environmental conditions in many rural regions such as high heat and humidity.[1]

XO laptops have been deployed in over two dozen developing nations. Around 400,000 of these are in Uruguay, the first country in the world to supply all primary school children with their own laptop in 2009, a feat it accomplished in three years. [2] The Government of Uruguay has been strongly supportive of the OLPC program as a way to democratize ICTs, to spread them from privileged urban elites by to less advantaged areas by providing rural children—and hence indirectly their parents as well—with a computer. It notes that: “What was a privilege in 2006 is a right in 2009.” [3] An egalitarian laptop distribution policy was adopted, starting with rural schools before eventually providing them to students in the capital Montevideo. [4] One of the goals of the Uruguayan plan was to boost overall household computer ownership by leveraging the students taking the laptops home after school. This has resulted in 220,000 new homes with computers including 110,000 in the lowest income families.

The Inter-American Development Bank organized a seminar to discuss the Uruguayan program as well as other initiatives in the region. "Reinventing the Classroom: Social and Educational Impact of Information and Communications Technologies in Education" had around one hundred participants from governments, academia, inter-governmental organizations, NGOs and the private sector including the president of Uruguay, Tabaré Vázquez and Nicholas Negroponte (who graciously autographed my old copy of Being Digital).

[1] http://laptop.org/en/laptop/hardware/index.shtml

[2] Technically, the Pacific Island nation of Niue, with a population of around 1,500, claims to be the first to have provided laptops to all school children. See: “Niue becomes first country with one laptop computer per child.” Xinhua. 21 August 2008. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-08/22/content_9605171.htm

[3] Miguel Brechner. “Plan Ceibal: One Laptop per Child and per Teacher.” Presented at Reinventing the Classroom, Inter-American Development Bank, Washington D.C. September 15, 2009. http://events.iadb.org/calendar/eventDetail.aspx?lang=en&id=1444&

[4] “Education in Uruguay: Laptops for All.” The Economist. 1 October 2009.

Submarine Cable

2008-12-22T16:56:00.002Z

BBC reports on a cable break in the Mediterranean and that it "could have serious repercussions on regional economies."

The subject of submarine cables is fascinating. Connection to a cable is crucial for participating in today's information economy.

Interesting a rticle about the laying of cable written by Neal Stephenson that appeared in Wired several years ago. Unfortunately the link just has the text; I remember that the printed version had some interesting photos.

Will blog on this more including submarine cable initiatives in Africa, access to cable and bits per capita measurements.