Loud Thinking

Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

Pakistan passed the 100 million subscriber milestone in Oct 2010, with five operators fighting for the market share day in & day out, but  still waiting for the introduction of 3G WCDMA technology (High Internet Speed Mobile Access with International Roaming),  to take the telecoms market to the much needed next level.

The 3G Licenses auctioned last year in our neighboring country fetched multi billion dollars, in license fee in addition to a similar amount of foreign direct investments, creating a spree of jobs for not only the highly educated, but also for the less educated  skilled hands, working on things like tower construction.

The question remains why we are shying away from this golden opportunity, to give the much needed life saving shot to our economy?

May be the reason lies in the situation, where the current operators are shying away from the investments that they would have to make, when the licenses are made available and are just keeping a few individuals at the right places “happy”, so that it is deferred, as long as they wish.

With the 3G services available in most of the countries of South Asia and even Africa, why  we are being deprived of the technological and economical benefits and playing the catch up game?

The 3G License or Spectrum auction, which is just like selling “air” is the easiest way to slightly mitigate the ever increasing unemployment rate in the country. Our peoples representatives in the both the houses should take this up seriously, to expedite the ever delayed process.

                                                                                        By A. Muiz Khan

                                         An update by the writer

Although, 100 Million subscribers may seem a big figure in absolute terms yet, in the backdrop of Pakistan, this amounts to only about 60% Mobile penetration; which is far from saturation, with some developed countries having around about the 100% mark. These figures are obtained after the implementation of the standard active subscriber definition in the industry, which has forced the operators to adopt data cleaning process, so the data comes mostly from the active subscribers, hence, a fairly accurate estimate.

Now, the point of adopting 3G is not necessarily to add new subscribers. But if 60 people out of 100 have mobile connections, then to make lets say initially, 15 people out of the active 60, to switch to using the new technology. This will generate new high profit margin revenue streams from data intensive applications, like video calling & HD Video streaming etc.

Now, we as a country can benefit from this situation, by putting the technology on the table for Sale. Surely the existing operators cannot shy away from spending on the candy bar, which will ensure a greater revenue stream for them. However, their aim is to delay it as much as possible, so that they do not have to take out cash at this moment of the financial crunch.

Once we put the technology or as stated in the article “AIR” on sale, we will get instant payments from the operators on acoount of license fee and as the race to launch the first 3G network kicks off to obtain the First-Mover advantage, huge FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) will take place in modernizing and building the network infrastructure, resulting in effective billions of dollars in earnings and creating thousands of jobs in the process.

In the recent auction of the 3G licenses in our neighboring country, only the licenses fee fetched close to USD 15 Billion, which is a huge amount in itself, excluding all the FDI and other positive impacts on the economy, like reduction in unemployment rate.

                                                                                       By A. Muiz Khan

A ferocious tsunami unleashed by Japan’s biggest recorded earthquake slammed into its eastern coast Friday, killing hundreds of people as it carried away ships, cars and homes, and triggered widespread fires that burned out of control.

An 8.9 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Northeast Japan spawned a ferocious tsunami that’s caused massive destruction; flattening whole cities, starting raging fires, and killing hundreds.

Nearly 88,000 people are reported missing, according to the official Kyodo news agency. Nuclear experts said the solutions being proposed to quell radiation leaks at the Daiichi nuclear plant in Fukushima were last-ditch efforts to stem what could well be remembered as one of the world’s worst industrial disasters.

Situation has turned so grave that workers were ordered to withdraw briefly from a stricken Japanese nuclear power plant on Wednesday after radiation levels surged, Kyodo news reported, a development that suggested the crisis was spiraling out of control.

Now it is high time that world must wake up for launching a campaign of getting rid of ALL nuclear reactors from the face of the Earth, before another major catastrophe hits in some other country after Japan.

Now this issue has become a matter of life and death for the humanity. UN Secretary General must immediately summon a meeting of the Security Council to chalk out a unified strategy to combat the menace of nuclear radiation from destroying the life from the face of the Earth.

In this regard, as a first step towards making planet earth safe and free from accidents at nuclear reactors, which produce electricity using uranium/plutonium as a fuel, the world leadership must also look into the possibility of using ONLY thorium, as a fuel for producing electricity from nuclear reactors.

Unlike current nuclear power stations, that use uranium, the thorium plant won’t use a material that can be weaponised. It would also mean there is much less danger from a meltdown. Thorium is also more abundant than uranium, so it will be cheaper and easier to supply.

The safer material means it can be supplied at a lower cost with far fewer security needs. Security measures are actually the most expensive part about building current nuclear power stations. Thorium reactors, on the other hand, don’t require special containment buildings and can even be set up in normal structures.

The proposed thorium reactor is made to run by itself without any need for intervention. It will only need to be checked by a person once every four months.

Since thorium reactors are far safer than current nuclear reactors there has been talk of miniaturising them so a $1000 unit could power a ten house street for a lifetime.