Here’s How Brazil Is Giving Every Citizen Free Mobile Data - Bloomberg Business: "Besides creating an incentive to attract new customers, it’s cheaper than hiring additional bank and call center staff. Each visit to a teller costs the bank more than $4, whereas an online transaction costs pennies, according to a study commissioned by Qualcomm. “This solution easily pays for itself,” says Minas.
Qualcomm, which sponsored a report about the program in Brazil that is expected to be published on Aug. 18, is developing similar free-data software that the government will roll out to citizens. Qualcomm is banking on emerging markets to drive future demand for smartphones, most of which rely on the company’s chips. While Brazil, at 282 million mobile subscribers, has more phone lines than people, some 75 percent are on prepaid plans with little to no data." 'via Blog this'
Thursday, August 20, 2015
Saturday, August 15, 2015
Net Neutrality: Israel Regulated Mobile in 2011, Fixed in 2014
Net Neutrality | Israel Technology Law Blog: "Except … Israel already has a net neutrality law!
In 2011, the Knesset passed a bill that imposed net neutrality obligations on mobile cellular providers as well as on distributors and support providers for mobile cellular telephones.
The law prohibited the “limitation or blocking” of (a) any “service or application available through the internet”, (b) features available on any mobile phone or (c) the ability to use any public cellular network. The law made an exception for reasonable network management, and made some other interesting exceptions that seem to be geared towards particular markets in Israel. That law was part of a general multi-pronged effort to increase competition in the Israeli cellular market." 'via Blog this'
In 2011, the Knesset passed a bill that imposed net neutrality obligations on mobile cellular providers as well as on distributors and support providers for mobile cellular telephones.
The law prohibited the “limitation or blocking” of (a) any “service or application available through the internet”, (b) features available on any mobile phone or (c) the ability to use any public cellular network. The law made an exception for reasonable network management, and made some other interesting exceptions that seem to be geared towards particular markets in Israel. That law was part of a general multi-pronged effort to increase competition in the Israeli cellular market." 'via Blog this'
Friday, August 14, 2015
Ofcom publishes detection report on net neutrality - concludes more research needed!
Ofcom publishes scientific report on net neutrality | Martin Geddes | LinkedIn:
"my (highly biased) view is that this report is a masterpiece. It gives a rigorous and scientifically defensible analysis rooted in a profound understanding of the mathematics of statistical resource sharing. It reframes the regulatory performance measurement issue in a way that makes it possible to escape the quagmire.
Speaking of the mucky quagmire, it’s time to wake up and smell the technical manure of the net neutrality debate. It’s all around us, and the clear-up job is a big and dirty one. These findings obsolete several papers and books on the subject by legal scholars. Their understanding of network performance is unsound, and they have been unintentionally fuelling the conflict as a result.
Furthermore, that we can’t yet properly measure the services we are offering in a customer-centric way is an industry embarrassment. The technical weakness of these tools is a cause of industry shame. This should be chastening for all of us in the broadband business to do much better.
On a more positive note, Ofcom looks heroic, at least compared to other regulators whom we won’t name." 'via Blog this'
"my (highly biased) view is that this report is a masterpiece. It gives a rigorous and scientifically defensible analysis rooted in a profound understanding of the mathematics of statistical resource sharing. It reframes the regulatory performance measurement issue in a way that makes it possible to escape the quagmire.
Speaking of the mucky quagmire, it’s time to wake up and smell the technical manure of the net neutrality debate. It’s all around us, and the clear-up job is a big and dirty one. These findings obsolete several papers and books on the subject by legal scholars. Their understanding of network performance is unsound, and they have been unintentionally fuelling the conflict as a result.
Furthermore, that we can’t yet properly measure the services we are offering in a customer-centric way is an industry embarrassment. The technical weakness of these tools is a cause of industry shame. This should be chastening for all of us in the broadband business to do much better.
On a more positive note, Ofcom looks heroic, at least compared to other regulators whom we won’t name." 'via Blog this'
Tuesday, August 11, 2015
Net Neutrality: India is a Keybattle Ground - Interview with Sunil Abraham
Net Neutrality: India is a Keybattle Ground | Hard News: Interview with Sunil Abraham:
"Network neutrality policies need to consider free speech, privacy, competition, diversity and innovation goals of the markets they seek to regulate. If we are not being doctrinaire about network neutrality we could adopt what Chris Marsden calls forward-looking “positive net neutrality” wherein “higher QoS (Quality of Service) for higher prices should be offered on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory [FRAND] terms to all comers”. FRAND, according to Prof. Marsden, is well understood by the telcos and ISPs (Internet Service Providers) as it is the basis of common carriage. This understanding of network neutrality allows for technical and business model innovation by ISPs and telcos without the associated harms. There are zero-rating services being launched by Mozilla, Jaana, Mavin and others that are attempting to do this. I do not believe that they violate network neutrality principles, unlike Airtel Zero or Internet.org.
Q: While this report attempts to arrive at a middle ground between the TSPs and the OTTs, how is this going to reflect in the government’s ‘Digital India’ programme?
We know we have a policy solution when all stakeholders are equally unhappy. But we also need an elegant solution that is easy to implement. Scholars like Vishal Mishra have a theoretical solution based on the Shapley Value, that assumes a multi-sided market model, but this may not work in real life. Professor V. Sridhar has a very elegant idea of setting a ceiling and floor for price and speed and also for insisting on a minimum QoS of the whole of the Internet. These ideas I have not heard in the American and European debate around network neutrality. I remain hopeful that the Indian middle ground will be qualitatively different, given that the structure and constraints of the Indian telecom sector are very different from that in developed countries." 'via Blog this'
"Network neutrality policies need to consider free speech, privacy, competition, diversity and innovation goals of the markets they seek to regulate. If we are not being doctrinaire about network neutrality we could adopt what Chris Marsden calls forward-looking “positive net neutrality” wherein “higher QoS (Quality of Service) for higher prices should be offered on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory [FRAND] terms to all comers”. FRAND, according to Prof. Marsden, is well understood by the telcos and ISPs (Internet Service Providers) as it is the basis of common carriage. This understanding of network neutrality allows for technical and business model innovation by ISPs and telcos without the associated harms. There are zero-rating services being launched by Mozilla, Jaana, Mavin and others that are attempting to do this. I do not believe that they violate network neutrality principles, unlike Airtel Zero or Internet.org.
Q: While this report attempts to arrive at a middle ground between the TSPs and the OTTs, how is this going to reflect in the government’s ‘Digital India’ programme?
We know we have a policy solution when all stakeholders are equally unhappy. But we also need an elegant solution that is easy to implement. Scholars like Vishal Mishra have a theoretical solution based on the Shapley Value, that assumes a multi-sided market model, but this may not work in real life. Professor V. Sridhar has a very elegant idea of setting a ceiling and floor for price and speed and also for insisting on a minimum QoS of the whole of the Internet. These ideas I have not heard in the American and European debate around network neutrality. I remain hopeful that the Indian middle ground will be qualitatively different, given that the structure and constraints of the Indian telecom sector are very different from that in developed countries." 'via Blog this'
Monday, August 03, 2015
Vodafone chief suggests joint investment with rivals in ultrafast broadband
Vodafone chief suggests joint investment with rivals in ultrafast broadband - Telegraph:
"Vittorio Colao said his company would be willing to invest with rivals in laying fibre optics into homes and businesses. It came as he continues to hold talks with Liberty Global that could see Vodafone’s UK mobile network combined with the Virgin Media cable network.
He backed calls for BT to be forced to sell off its network division Openreach, dismissing its plans for a multi-billion pound upgrade to broadband technology, called G.fast, as “yesterday’s vision and the vision of a monopolist”.
G.fast aims to squeeze higher speeds from the copper wires that currently make the final connection into premises, saving billions compared with replacing the wires with fibre optics." 'via Blog this'
"Vittorio Colao said his company would be willing to invest with rivals in laying fibre optics into homes and businesses. It came as he continues to hold talks with Liberty Global that could see Vodafone’s UK mobile network combined with the Virgin Media cable network.
He backed calls for BT to be forced to sell off its network division Openreach, dismissing its plans for a multi-billion pound upgrade to broadband technology, called G.fast, as “yesterday’s vision and the vision of a monopolist”.
G.fast aims to squeeze higher speeds from the copper wires that currently make the final connection into premises, saving billions compared with replacing the wires with fibre optics." 'via Blog this'
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