No Great Leap Forward for 3G in China

Much of the buzz in the mobile industry in China surrounds the arrival of the long-delayed local standard TD-SCDMA, and how it will affect the development of 3G phones in what’s emerging as the world’s biggest handset market. The latest talk from Ericsson (courtesy of the China Alpha site) suggests that 3G licenses are unlikely to be handed out before the end of the year, as some major TD-SCDMA pilot projects need to run their course. This would put the government on a tight - but not unachievable - deadline to have 3G up and running by the 2008 Olympics as it has promised. 

This may be missing the wider point, however.
China’s regulators are still in a hopeless mess over the advance of telecommunications and convergence between phones and other broadcast media. Industry insiders in Beijing recently argued that co-operation between the Ministry of Information Industries (currently regulator-in-chief of the telecoms sector, but with a focus on hardware) and the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (in charge of broadcast material) really needs to pick up if people are to stand any chance of being able to stream content onto their phones. As of yet there’s no sign of that. 

Indeed, one recent report in a paper run by the state-owned Xinhua news agency (translated at Danwei ) noted that at least 14 important government agencies had responsibility for varying aspects of online media, even before we start talking about putting that content onto phones. A good number of those agencies are responsible for maintaining the Great Firewall and keeping an eye on suspect internet publishing. The Chinese government’s paranoia is likely to ensure that the country’s mobile industry enters its third generation still hobbled by red tape.

E-ready or not

The Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2007 e-readiness ranking is released today and it makes very interesting reading. Scandanavia’s e-powerhouse, Denmark, tops the list for the second year running while the US and Sweden tie for second place. No big surprises there.

What grabs my attention are the huge gains made by countries with governments that are leading the digitial intiative. Singapore, for example, has jumped 7 places from 13th to 6th place in this year’s ranking. Hong Kong has leapt from 10th to 4th. Taiwan puts in a similar show - vaulting from 23rd to 17th place. All of these countries are pushing e-initiatives  - from cheap broadband to e-government services and anti-cybercrime legislation.

Meanwhile the old world is showing its age. Germany has sunk 7 places to 19th on the rankings, Belgium has slipped from 17th to 20th place, Switzerland is down from 3rd to 5th place and the Netherlands at 8th place from 6th. Australia, Finland, Norway and Canada have also slipped.

 Tiny Bermuda, meanwhile, up five places to 15th, shows what a determined government can achieve when it sets its mind to something. The holiday island now outranks South Korea in terms of its e-business environment and how amenable it is to internet-based opportunities -largely to do with its ability to keep cyber-crime at bay and provide a safe, secure place for e-commerce activities.

The widening digital divide

An article in the current print issue of BBC Focus on Africa puts the cost of broadband access in Africa in stark perspective. At a wholesale level, broadband access in Kenya is about $5,000/megabit/second for a month. Between the UK and the US, the same amount of broadband is about 500 times cheaper, at about $10, due to the glut of cables laid between Europe and the US during the dot com boom.

Some work is underway to improve the situation, which requires more and bigger cables connecting countries across the continent. One project is called Eassy, which will roll out a big new cable off the eastern coast of the continent. However, the project is dogged by delays, mostly due to disagreements between partners (often monopoly telecom firms trying to dominate access).

Meanwhile, as competition drives down prices in Europe, the cost of access is rapidly becoming zero in some markets. Take mobile phones. A new start-up firm, called Blyk, plans to launch a new mobile phone service that will be free for “young people” in the UK (with other European markets to follow) and paid for by advertisers. How will the digital divide widen next?

 

How do you say that in Sinhala?

Our thread on e-villages in rural Asia has attracted two more comments from Sri Lanka . One of them points out that all the computers in the world won’t make Sri Lankan farmers literate in English. The answer, his web site argues, is not to bring English lessons to more Sri Lankans. This will  threaten local languages, history and culture. Instead, he says, Sinhala and Tamil need to be updated through the implementation of “character allocation tables.” 

Or perhaps IT aid programmes could include a budget for language translation software? This appears to be widely available.

We’ve also had an update from the Sri Lankan government’s side of the debate. It’s clear that English lessons are key to its push to bring IT literacy to the country. Does that need to be so? It’s certainly not the case in China.

Web NG

Many music historians have grappled over Beethoven’s role in the evolution of western music - last of the classics, pioneer of the romantics? And so it is with Web 2.0. Did Amazon.com believe themselves two-point-oh when asking consumers to review their products online? Did the folks at imdb think they were futuristic when they first asked readers to vent spleen on the latest stinker at the box office? Were they being “Web 2.0″?

This is not a new debate on GTF. Amazon and imdb (along with countless MSN groups and yahoo chat rooms) surely started the Web 2.0 revolution before Mr. O’Reilly and co gave it a name. Web 2.0 coined, YouTube, Flickr and del.icio.us and other the 2.0-ers capitalised on the revolution, making a killing when Google and Yahoo! bought them. So, while businesses around the world are busily retro-fitting their online offerings with Web 2.0 gizmos, the smart money must be with the enterprising few who are already thinking about what comes next - Web 2.5, Web 3.0?

Web 3.0 has already been grabbed to mean something quite specific - take a look at Web 3.0 on Wikipedia.

Here at GTF, I’d like to coin Web NG for the next revolution. Web NG will arrive when web consumers can directly access the source data they need, manipulate it in the application of their choice, on the device they have to hand. What do you think the Next Generation will look like?

Theft keeps Africa mobile

We’ve written before about the enormous growth of mobile phones in Africa. Two different stories this week highlight rather different explanations for this boom.

One, the introduction of a mobile phone-based money transfer service in Kenya has been met with an enthusiastic response. The M-Pesa service lets subscribers instantly send money to friends, family or others via text message. The money arrives as a virtual cash voucher, which can be spent or cashed in at a number of appointed agents. One early adopter of the system explains that he used to transfer money to his family via postal order previously, but this usually took a long time.

In emergencies, he would simply stuff cash into an envelope and give it to a truck driver heading in the right direction, who often simply pocketed it. Rather more reliable alternatives are clearly welcome for users like him. Unsurprisingly, other developing countries, including Afghanistan, plan to roll out similar systems soon.

Meanwhile, further south, soaring global commodity prices has resulted in a surge of copper cable thefts, disrupting land line phone services. Telkom, South Africa’s major telco, says its telephone cables have become a major target, causing the firm to spend about R100m (nearly US$14m) on security alone. Its executives say the issue is a problem in India and China too. It believes more than half the line fault reports it gets are due to copper cable theft.

Meanwhile, unsurprisingly, South African mobile phone operator MTN last week reported record growth, including a 73% increase in subscribers.

Technology or photo-ops - Take 2

 A Sri Lankan reader has added to our thread on bringing the web to third world villages.

He writes that he’s also seen farmers being “forcefully dragged” into computer labs, photos taken while they reluctantly tapped on PCs and these photos then put on websites to make donors happy. In Mahavilachchiya, however, he says, things are different.  Farmers read local language newspapers before going to ricefields, with their children’s support in many cases. He gives two examples - you can check them out here and here.

He admits that the programme still has a long way to go and has asked for more comments from GTF readers, both positive and negative. If you’ve wanted to connect to a project like this - here’s your chance. In the meantime, I look forward to hearing more about how these ambitious goals are being met, particularly how the pricing of broadband access is going and the latest on World Bank funding.

MergerTube

The corporate world’s adoption of web 2.0 initiatives is starting to roll. Check out the latest, Arcelor Mittal TV, a glitzy YouTube style web site which aims to give an upclose and personal view of the integration of this Euro 26.5bn mega merger.

Full marks for the look and feel of the site, which has been described as more Star Wars than corporate PR.

The site also boosts the cool quotient of the steel group as almost all the video clips have been posted on YouTube, not something most industrial giants can boast of. Still, there are risks to this kind of PR - a comment on one of the recent videos told viewers to check out a news clip from a local TV station on the health risks of living near one of the firm’s steel plants.