Labuan gets connected

TM Net Sdn Bhd has wired up Labuan with broadband Internet access as part of its effort to help Labuan Offshore Financial Services Authority (LOFSA) and the 4,000 offshore companies registered there to remain competitive by conducting businesses online.

NasionCom expands wireless broadband coverage

Telecommunications service provider NasionCom Holdings Bhd plans to set up 10 more base stations in the Klang Valley by year-end as it expands its wireless broadband coverage.

The move will enable NasionCom to increase the base stations from the current five to 15 in the Klang Valley. Apart from the Klang Valley, the company has a base station each in Penang, Ipoh and Johor. For a speed of three megabits per second, the cost is about RM20,000 to RM30,000 per annum.

802.11g MPEG-4 Network Camera

Singapore-based company Fullbond claims to have delivered the world's 1st 802.11g wireless MPEG-4 network camera with the pan/tilt capability- the XS-312PTW.

Network Computers

Via Mesh Sandbox: The more I think about the idea of combining a mesh with network computing, the cooler it sounds, but there is a caveat: the technological challenges would be massive. A lot of the commenters from Slashdot on Mike’s post above are well informed from a technical point of view, and pointed out several of these challenges, including latency and privacy. It seems though that for the most part, they are surprisingly ignorant to the absolute lack of bandwidth and computing in most third world countries - especially in rapidly emerging Asian economies where the demand is far out-stripping the supply.

I think Rajesh Jain puts it best:

“To understand the future of centralised computing, we need to think not of the first 700 million users of computers, but the next billion users.”

Bridging the Digital Divide

Excerpts from David Kirkpatrick's report from Davos:

Wiring developing countries—and its poorer citizens—has two virtues. First, since information is power, finding ways to get better information systems—think cellphones, PCs, PDAs, and yet-to-be-invented hybrids—to the world’s disenfranchised will give them greater political clout and financial opportunities. It’s the way to bring them into that global economic system that already so benefits those of us who can read this column via e-mail or on the web. This is a moral imperative.

Second, as a business writer who focuses on the technology industry, it’s easy for me to get excited about what this might mean for innovative companies. As C.K. Prahalad, a management professor at the University of Michigan and author of the recently published The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, and others have pointed out, the world’s 4 billion or so poor are the largest market that has ever existed. This is true not only in terms of their raw human numbers, but in their aggregate buying power. Their vast numbers make this true despite average earnings of the equivalent of no more than two dollars a day.

Business model for municipal broadband

Muniwireless reports on an example of a business model for delivering municipal broadband in Sweden.

The Västerås model - Mälarenergi Stadsnät - connects properties and service providers to the urban network. The users in companies, organisations and private households are, in turn, linked to the urban network via their landlord's property net. Tenants' associations and housing associations can also build property nets and hook themselves up.

Once the property is connected, the companies, organisations and households are free to link up. This usually takes place with the user paying a fixed monthly fee for the use of the network via the service provider(s) chosen. The Västerås model is an organisational concept that helps provide structure and facilitates sales, contract-signing, start ups and contact with the service supplier.

Digital Communities Prizes -- real money

Via Smartmobs: "For the second time in 2005, Prix Ars Electronica will honor important achievements by digital communities. This category focuses attention on the wide-ranging social impact of the Internet as well as on the latest developments in the fields of social software, mobile communications and wireless networks.

The 'Digital Communities' category is open to political, social, and cultural projects, initiatives, groups, and scenes from all over the world utilizing digital technology to better society and assume social responsibility. It is meant to recognize the initiators and propagators of these communities as well as the developers of the relevant technologies, and to honor those whose work contributes to the establishment and proliferation of Digital Communities as well as provide understanding and research into them."