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External Gateway Operators issue finally settled By Akhry
Ameer The structure
proposed by the government ensures that the interests of the local
operators are taken into consideration while realizing the government's
vision of a low call charge environment. Accordingly,
the network contribution by EGO's, and the incoming local access
charge to domestic operators will be reduced to 1 US cents per minute
while the outgoing local access charge to domestic operators would
be reduced to Rs. 1.90 per minute at the end of the five year period. To effectively
implement the international telecommunications market liberalization,
the operators also gave assurances to the government on "bypass
control mechanisms". The mechanisms
will be in the form detailed quarterly reporting procedures, stipulated
formats, annual information systems audits of EGOs. A Task Force
under the Ministry of Mass Communication is to be established to
implement these mechanisms and also to pursue illegal operators. A Viswa Grama
Fund has also been proposed through which the network contributions
and local access charges will be processed. The retainer from these
contributions will be disbursed to local operators extending rural
connectivity and will be spent on smart subsidies for multi-service
platforms for the eSri Lanka initiative. As the contributions decrease
over the five year period the fund that will be managed by a publicly
quoted development bank will be phased out. The operators agreed to extend their fullest cooperation towards the government's liberalization policy and agreed upon interconnection charges. The interconnection charge for an international incoming minute will Rs. 1.50 between the operators while there will be no interconnection charge on outgoing international calls. Earlier during
the day Head of Suntel, Mr Hugo Cederschiold when contacted said
that discussions were still ongoing and many practical and administrative
issues needed to be ironed out besides the rates. However the news
release of the ministry gave no indication of technical issues.
Many of the other local operators were not available for comment. A final version
of the EGO license and Interconnection Rules is to be published
by the Telecom Regulatory Commission (TRC) after February 25. EGO applications that have already been made will be issued by the minister after the payment of US$50,000 license fee and other formalities are completed. Software Industry Road Show in March The Software Exporters' Association (SEA), a top group in the local software industry, will hold an Industry Road Show next month to increase local and international awareness of the country's software development capability. The road show
will coincide with a major international trade fair where over 25
countries are expected to participate. The show will
take the form of an evening social gathering where local and international
business people will be given a presentation of achievement of local
companies and software development expertise. Other guests
are expected to include dignitaries of foreign missions, trade organizations,
etc. The event is
to be held between March 30, 2003 and April 1, 2003 when the Ceylon
Chamber of Commerce hosts IMPEXPRO 2003, an International Trade
Fair being organized in association with the Indian Ocean Rim Association
for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC). The IOR-ARC will also be having
its annual conference in the same week and would be attended by
delegates from its 19 member countries. To further
capitalize on the opportunity the SEA will also host a software
country pavilion at the trade fair. The association hopes that both
initiatives would expose the local software industry as a country
offering. The initiatives
are also part of SEA's commitment to aligning itself and the industry
to the eSri Lanka initiative of the government. The SEA's country
pavilion will be open to all organizations that are members of SEA
or the Sri Lanka Association of Software Industry. Fifteen companies have already confirmed participation for the country pavilion including companies such as Informatics, John Keells Computer Services, Millennium Information Technologies, hSenid and Ubizport. Convergys eyes local market after SLT Global integrated billing, employee care and customer care services giants, Convergys Corporation has set its eyes on the rest of the Sri Lankan market after securing a contract with Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) for a new billing system. Early in November last year Convergys was awarded a contract from SLT to replace the carrier's legacy billing system with Convergys' integrated billing solution. Convergys Geneva
is expected to address all of SLT's wireline voice, data, Internet
offerings through a single bill. The new single-system will also
support convergent services and retail and wholesale pricing, interconnect
and multiparty billing, discounting options and tax computations. "SLT is a very important customer for us. We are here for the long run," said Francois Lancon, President - Asia Pacific, Convergys Singapore Pte Ltd during a recent visit aimed at strengthening relationships and meeting potential customers. The visit of the company's regional head is also part of establishing its presence in the country, looking at the next stage of the project and to ensure flawless delivery. While no indication
was given of potential customers, Lancon said that a local office
is definitely on the roadmap within the next three to six months.
The company is also said to have started its drive into India recently.
Approximately more than 30 employees of Convergys and its implementation
partners are currently said to be at SLT working on the implementation
of the new system, which according to them is on schedule. SLT's deal
is one of five billing contracts in the Asia Pacific of a total
of 30 that have been secured by the company until November in the
last year. Another area of Convergys's presence could be in the business of call centres as India, Sri Lanka and Philippines are some of the countries in the region with the right resources, according to company officials. e-Learning through Adaptive Content Technology Stepping back
a few years to the time of the 'tech boom' everybody thought books
would give way to electronic books or 'ebooks'. Its 2003, and some
habits are hard to change; people still prefer their traditional
books. The reason? Portable devices don't quite deliver the comfort
of the traditional book, cost of ownership still relatively high,
etc. In the market
many ebook reader software emerged, some survived, others perished. ACT uses an
advanced book reader that can guide students in their learning by
bringing together with the relevant text book additional material
such as web links, other digital documents, voice, video and data.
In addition, a learning profile from the lecturer guides the student
as to what needs to be learnt, when to be learnt, and tracks the
student's progress. Thus, there is a total value addition centered
on an ebook. Further the
adaptive book is different from other ebook readers as the adaptive
content is not saved inside the ebook but as a layer. This means
that the same adaptive book can be used by a student undisturbed
by what another has been learning. It also makes learning interactive
and extremely portable as the lecturer has to send only a learning
profile via email specifying what pages need to be read and other
additional material that has to be referred for the next lecture.
The same book can be used for a different lecture with a different
profile from student to student. Meanwhile,
the student can download the lecturer's learning profile and merge
it with his or her profile. Together with his/her Annotations, bookmarks,
notes, indexes, and other integrated resources the adaptive book
becomes the focal point for the student's learning. The concept
of exchanging profiles is part of yet another product offering of
Textcentric. The company's eLearning platform comprises several
modules designed for teaching institutions to manage courses and
content. Under license or having paid royalty to the publisher the
institute hands out CD's to students with or without printed books
according to their offering. The student then logs into the elearning
portal with a special login and begins interactive learning with
the respective lecturer. The entire
concept has been proved to be effective through pilot studies at
the University of Ohio and Carnegie Mellon University in USA, and
is pending patent rights. Textcentric has also been successful in
partnering with Brooks/Cole and Keypress, two major publishers in
the world for textbooks. Partnering with publishers ensures the
success of the technology as it does not pose a threat to the publishers
and harnesses their expertise in publishing. The brain behind
ACT is Dr. Ananda Gunawardena, Co-Founder, Chairman and Chief Scientist
of Textcentric. Dr. Gunawardena is a senior lecturer and research
faculty member in the Computer Science Department of the Carnegie
Mellon University, a textbook author and software developer. He
also has the distinction of having published the first ever e-textbook
in 1997. Together with two other Sri Lankans Anjana Ratnasara and U.G.R. Jagath Kumara, Gunawardena, sensing the value of having software architecture in the US and development and production facilities in a more affordable labor market, set up Textcentric Technologies (Pvt) Ltd in Sri Lanka. The local company does most of the development of ACT. Sri Lanka's
first computer By Hiran
Senewiratne Robo-Tech (Pvt)
Ltd, which had been operating for more than a decade, is the only
maintenance company that undertakes repairs for computer Note Book
and other computers from leading computer companies, its Director/
CEO, Rohan Abhayaratne told The Sunday Times FT. He said that, most of the PC users choose the same vendor for maintenance, repair and remove various viruses while there are so many better places in town. The new support
wing called the RT computer clinic will begin work with a few ambulances
including well-experienced qualified support staff to visit vendors
and houses on call. "In the same way a human being needs treatment
and medical attention, the computer also needs specialised attention
to attend to problems," Abhayaratne emphasised. The clinic
is equipped with trained personnel for service during the day as
computers have many problems due to various viruses and Trojans
coming off the World Wide Web and E-mail, he added. Abhayaratne
also said the company will undertake any problem in a computer for
repair and clients would also be given a temporary computer in the
event of a major repair, until the repair is completed. Moreover,
the company is available to give advise in all three languages for
the convenience of customers. The clinic will open 10 hours a day from 8 am to 5 pm with 24-hour telephone supporting system (0777-272331) to advice the public on the phone on any emergency issues. News in Brief Informatics
"AvaBill" suite of software has been selected by the Federated
States of Micronesia Telecommunications Coporation (FSM Telecom)
in the Pacific Islands as its new Customer Care and Billing Solution. The multi-million
dollar contract will replace FSM Telecom's existing legacy system
and would provide real time convergent billing addressing ares such
as online provisioning, mediation, credit control, telecom inventory,
international settlements, calling cards, directory listing, etc.
The system will cater to a comprehensive range of fixed line, GSM
mobile, Internet services, cable TV and data services in a converged
operation. Information
AvaBill suite is already in operation with some of the world's leading
telecom operators such as Cable & Wirless (UK), NTT (Japan),
Telia (Sweden), and Millicom (Luxembourg). Informatics
is an ISO 9001:2000 certified software producer with experience
in developing solutions for banking, insurance, healthcare, government
sectors. The company has joint ventures with IFS of Sweden, Markus
Data of Norway and Parcelhouse of Australia for joint software development
and R&D employing a staff of over 500 people. Futuristic
solutions at Netvision 2003 Debug Computer
Peripherals (Pvt) Ltd and D-Link India Ltd held Netvision 2003 to
present to the launch new products and technology for the enterprise
segment in Sri Lanka recently. The exhibition
focused on enlightening the audience on the role of emerging technologies
in businesses and aspects such as cutting costs, improving efficiencies
and sharing data to provide secure anywhere anytime access for mobile
workforces. The networking event also covered specific areas such
as Layer 3 switching, firewalls, and network anchored storage. Over
125 endusers were also given live demonstrations of the various
technologies. Debug is the authorized distributor for D-Link which now has products for newer segments like firewalls, Voice over Internet Protocol, and digital home products. Debug is a total Information Communication Technology provider with a wide market presence of six showrooms and three service centres in various parts of the island. |
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